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Sex and the City: Xavier’s Edition – Chapter 11

Auld Lang Syne – Part 7

Disclaimer: All characters mentioned in this story are the property of Marvel Comics. This fan fiction is a noncommercial work intended for entertainment purposes only. The story aims to entertain fellow RoLo fans and is not intended to infringe upon any copyrights.

I used to think falling in love was the ending. The finish line. The moment where everything finally fell into place and stayed there. I believed that once you found your person, your soulmate, the hard part was over. That life would soften, and you and your true love would blissfully walk off hand in hand down the yellow brick road surrounded by rainbows and sunshine.  And if you happened to encounter any bumps along the way, they would always resolve themselves. Neatly. Politely. Easily.

But standing there outside Logan’s penthouse door, my hand hovering in midair, my heart pounding like it already knew something I didn’t, I now understood just how wrong I’d been.

Love, I’ve come to learn, isn’t a destination. It isn’t the absence of pain, conflict, or tears. It doesn’t erase past hurts or rewrite history. Love is the choice to stay. The choice to fight. The choice to come back, even when it hurts, even when you’re scared, even when walking away would be easier than risking everything again.

Because love, I was starting to understand, is not about finding someone and being done. It is about choosing and trusting each other after life has taken its toll. After the damage. After the arguments. After the baggage and the moments that change you.

Love is not about happily ever after. It’s about who comes back, and whether you’re brave enough to choose them again, scars and all.

Logan wasn’t here. I knew that. He was halfway across the world, tied to a past neither of us could undo. But coming back didn’t always mean finding the other person waiting for you. Sometimes it meant showing him you were still willing to stand and wait for him.

My fingers curled against the doorknob before I could overthink it, before doubt could talk me out of it, before fear could convince me to turn around with my tail tucked between my legs. With barely any pressure at all, the door to Logan’s penthouse opened.

For half a second, I stood there, waiting. Wishing I could hear a hockey game drifting from somewhere deeper inside the penthouse, or the low murmur of Logan’s voice on the phone. Something. Anything. Instead, there was nothing at all. Just silence.

A perfectly regulated warmth settled over my skin as I stepped inside and closed the door behind me with a soft, final click. Beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, the city glowed in steel and light and distance, shadows stretching across dark hardwood floors and solid furniture chosen for comfort and permanence rather than fashion or display. Rich wood. Burnished leather. Weathered stone. A space shaped by a man who believed in things that lasted.

Logan’s scent was everywhere. Clean cedar, warm and grounding, like fresh-cut wood and open air, layered with something smoky beneath it, subtle and understated. The kind of scent that lingered instead of announcing itself. It clung to the space like a memory that refused to fade.

A single glass sat on the counter, the ice melted down into a cloudy puddle. It hadn’t been abandoned carelessly, just left, as if he’d stepped away for a moment and planned to come right back. His leather jacket was draped over the back of a chair, heavy and worn, sleeves hanging loose like he’d shrugged it off without a second thought, and the sight of it made my chest tighten painfully.

I walked farther in, slow and careful, the soft click of my heels against the marble sounding too loud in the silence. My fingertips skimmed along cool stone and brushed steel, grounding myself in the familiarity of the space as I moved through it. Each step felt deliberate, measured, as if moving too quickly might shatter the fragile illusion holding everything together.

The penthouse felt frozen despite the warmth. No life. No movement. And yet, impossibly, it still felt like home. It still felt… safe.

The realization hit me all at once.

We had spent so much of our lives together here. We always circled back to this place without thinking. His kitchen. His couch. His bed. His windows framing the city like it belonged to us. Not because it was easier or more convenient, but because this was where we fit. Where we folded into each other at the end of long days. Where arguments softened. Where nights stretched into mornings. Where we could be just Ororo and Logan, without any masks, or the weight of the world’s expectations.

This had been our haven from everything else.

Standing there now, alone in the quiet, I understood just how much of us had lived within these walls.

And how unbearably empty it all felt without him.

I swallowed hard.

I hadn’t come here to linger, and I hadn’t come here to search every room hoping to be wrong. I’d come to leave something behind.

I found a pen in the drawer by the counter, my hand trembling slightly as I pulled a notepad toward me. The words came quickly, without polish or protection, exactly as they needed to.

When you come back and find this, just know… I came back too.
— Ro

I set the note down carefully and smoothed the edge once with my thumb, as if that small gesture might somehow reach him, and steady me enough to walk away.

There. Written. Done.

I turned toward the door, already bracing myself for the hollow ache that would come with leaving. And then I saw the blanket, and the moment tilted, my breath slipping from my lungs as it seemed to reach for me across the room.

I knew that blanket.

It was folded neatly over the arm of the couch. Utterly unremarkable at first glance. No dramatic color. Made with care and patience. Just thick fabric and quiet weight, the kind of thing that blended into a space unless you already understood its place there.

It didn’t stand out, because it was never meant to. It simply belonged… to him.

Standing there alone in his penthouse, that quiet, ordinary truth settled into my chest with unexpected weight. My feet carried me toward it before I even realized I was moving.

And just like that, the past rushed in.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My cramps had hit sometime just after two.

Not the polite, warning-tap kind. Not even the you-might-want-to-seek-shelter kind. These were the your-uterus-feels-like-it’s-being-ripped-out-of-you kind of cramps. The kind that had me curled in on myself like a Victorian woman with “delicate sensibilities,” seriously considering bitch-slapping Eve for starting this whole mess.

By five, I was in bed in an old Oxford T-shirt I’d pilfered from my father years ago, soft and worn thin with age, my hair twisted into a lopsided bun. Late-afternoon sunlight slanted through the blinds when my phone buzzed on the nightstand.

This meeting is running longer than expected. I’ll be there at seven.

My uterus, apparently unaware of my plans to join Logan for a business dinner, had decided to stage a full-scale coup.

You’ll have to go without me.

Five seconds passed.

You okay?

I considered lying.

I considered toughing it out.

I considered mascara, muscle memory, and sheer female pride.

Then another level-ten cramp tore through me, sharp and merciless, like my body was personally offended by the idea of me even thinking about standing upright.

I’m curled up in terrible pain. Like the “I might need a new uterus or a priest” kind.

A pause.

Stay put.

I frowned, partly from pain and partly from the creeping realization that he might actually come here.

Logan, I’m fine. I just need sleep. Please go. They’re expecting you. Don’t not go because of me and my rebelling uterus.

He didn’t respond, which I chose to believe meant he’d been dragged back into whatever Very Important Meeting he was in.

However, an hour later, there was a knock at my door.

I ignored it.

Because that’s what you do when you look like hell, feel worse, and desperately hope the man you’ve been dating for three months isn’t standing outside looking like he stepped out of a magazine shoot.

The knock came again. Firmer.

I groaned, rolled onto my side, and immediately regretted it as a cramp seized me hard enough to make me hiss.

“Dammit.”

The knocking didn’t stop.

With a defeated sigh, I dragged myself out of bed, one hand pressed to my abdomen, the other bracing against the wall, shuffling toward the door like a woman twice my age and deeply betrayed by her own biology.

When I opened it, Logan stood there, still in his suit, two large bags hanging from one hand. His eyes swept over me in one quick, assessing glance.

“Fuck.”

I blinked. “Wow. Romance is alive.”

His mouth curved. “Missed you too.”

Another cramp hit, sharp and unforgiving, and whatever comeback I’d been planning dissolved into a sharp inhale as my knees buckled.

He was inside instantly, dropping the bags, one solid arm wrapping around my waist.

“Easy,” he said. “I’ve got you.”

“I’m fine,” I lied.

His mouth twitched. “You’re a terrible liar, sweetheart. And the fact that you can barely stand isn’t exactly helping your case. Nice try, though.”

Despite my protests, he lifted me and carried me back to the bed, easing me down like I was made of glass instead of pride and sarcasm. I curled onto my side, mortified by the state of my apartment. Clothes and shoes everywhere. Mail piled on the counter. A throw pillow that absolutely did not match anything. And that obnoxious dog-shit-chic painting still leaning against the wall.

“I told you not to come,” I muttered, pulling the pillow over my head.

“I know,” he said, tugging it away. “But I liked my plan better.”

He slipped out of his jacket, opened the bag, and pulled out a blanket. Without ceremony, he draped it over me and tucked it around my shoulders until the weight settled just right.

No explanation.

No fuss.

Just a quiet mutter about the blanket being warm.

At the time, I didn’t think twice. It was just a blanket. Comfort. Practical. Very Logan.

“This is the first time I’ve been inside your apartment,” he said. “I was starting to think you had bodies buried in here.”

I hesitated. “We always go back to your place,” I admitted, a little defensively. “And I just didn’t think you’d like it. It’s tiny… and I’m a terrible housekeeper.”

He glanced around, taking in the clutter, the chaos, and all its imperfect edges. “It’s warm,” he said at last. “It feels lived in.” His gaze settled back on me. “Feels like you.”

I searched his face. “You don’t hate it?”

"Relax, Ro," he said, a slow smirk settling in, "I'm not here to critique your decor."

Emotion rose fast and unexpected, tightening my throat. “How can I relax when you’re seeing me like this?” I asked quietly. “I look horrible.”

“You’re the most beautiful woman I know,” he said. “Even with… whatever this is you’ve got going on with your hair.”

I huffed a weak laugh. “I look like something the cat dragged in and reconsidered.”

“You don’t,” he said, settling onto the edge of the bed. “You’re still you. Just grumpier than usual.”

“Logan, you’re supposed to be at that dinner,” I said, grasping for practicality. “Those people flew in from San Francisco just to meet with you.”

“And they’ll survive,” he said. “I pushed it to tomorrow.”

Another wave of pain rippled through me and I squeezed my eyes shut.

He was already moving.

“Okay,” he said. “On a scale of one to ‘I might commit murder.’”

“I’m dangerously close to being featured on Snapped.”

“Got it.”

He returned minutes later with my favorite hot tea, Aleve, and a heating pad.

I stared at it. “Did you rob a CVS?”

“You mentioned you sometimes get bad cramps,” he said with a shrug. “I remembered.”

Something in my chest melted.

He settled the heating pad against my abdomen and tucked the blanket around me again, slower this time. Careful. Protective. Then he climbed onto the bed beside me, warm and solid, and pulled me into his arms.

“The legend can take the night off, Ro,” he said, a faint smile tugging at his mouth. “I’m a fan of this version too.”

“And for the record,” he added, lips twitching, “your apartment’s fine. Your taste in art, however, is questionable.”

I laughed despite myself.

He kissed my forehead, already reaching for the remote. “Get some rest. I’m not going anywhere.”

And he didn’t.

He stayed with me the entire night. Rubbed slow circles into my back. Told terrible jokes. Let me rant about cramps, hormones, and the inherent injustice of white pants. At some point food showed up at the door, the unmistakable scent of something greasy and gloriously unhealthy drifting into the room before I even realized what was happening. Apparently, he’d ordered dinner without mentioning it.

“You ordered?” I asked, blinking at the takeout bags like they’d materialized out of thin air.

“I figured you hadn’t eaten,” he said simply, already unpacking burgers and fries like this was the most obvious thing in the world.

Later, curled in my mismatched bed, cramps easing under steady heat, James Logan Howlett lying beside me like this was exactly where he belonged, I realized something terrifying.

I wasn’t embarrassed anymore.

I didn’t feel exposed or vulnerable.

I just felt safe.

I didn’t learn the truth about that blanket until much later. His maternal grandmother had made it for him before he left home to join the military. Something warm. Something steady. Something he carried through every place and version of himself; a small piece of home he took with him.

The kind of thing you reached for on cold nights.

The kind of thing you only shared when you trusted someone completely.

As the memory faded, I swallowed hard and placed the blanket back on the couch. Then I walked out of Logan’s penthouse before the tears could come.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sal stood just outside the entrance despite the falling snow, collar turned up against the cold, his breath faint in the air as he opened the door for me. When I stepped onto the sidewalk, the city hummed around us in that restless, electric way it always did. He tipped his head politely, that familiar, steady presence grounding me in a moment where everything else felt unmoored.

“Happy New Year, Miss Munroe,” he said warmly.

“Happy New Year, Sal,” I replied, offering a smile that came more from habit than ease.

The driver had already opened the back door. I slid inside, the leather warm beneath my palms, and for a moment I simply sat there, watching reflections shift in the glass as people passed by outside. The door closed softly behind me, sealing me into the quiet.

“Where to, Ms. Munroe?” the driver asked.

The answer should have been automatic. It almost was.

“Home.”

I surprised myself with how final it sounded. Then, more quietly, I added, “I’m ready.”

The car pulled away from the curb, smooth and unhurried, carrying me forward while my heart lagged stubbornly behind. The city slipped past in streaks of gold and white, alive with celebration. Couples spilled out of bars and taxis, counting down to a future that felt certain.

I leaned my head back against the seat and exhaled slowly, the kind of breath you take when you are bracing yourself for something you do not want to face.

I did not want to go back to my apartment.

Not because I had anywhere else to go. Not because I wasn’t exhausted. But because going back alone felt like admitting defeat. Like acknowledging a truth I wasn’t ready to sit with yet. That Logan and I would not be spending New Year’s Eve together. That we wouldn’t welcome the new year wrapped in each other’s arms.

Instead, I would be ushering it in alone. In my silent apartment.

And the quiet waiting for me wouldn’t be the gentle kind. It would be the merciless kind. The kind that didn’t allow distraction. The kind that demanded honesty.

At Logan’s place, the silence had felt temporary, as if he might walk back in at any moment. At mine, the silence would settle in and stay, stretching across rooms and memories and unanswered questions.

I reached automatically for my phone, needing the comfort of distraction more than anything else, only for the black screen to stare back at me.

Dead.

Because of course it was. I bit my bottom lip in frustration.

Somewhere between the gala, the tears, the emotional spiral, and whatever fresh level of psychological warfare James Logan Howlett had unknowingly unleashed on my nervous system tonight, I had completely forgotten to charge it.

Part of me wanted the night to just be over, wanted the countdown to finish so I could finally release the fragile hope I was clinging to. But another part of me wanted to pause it, to hold the moment in place before the clock crept closer to midnight and all of this became real. Time, it seemed, was not interested in compromise.

And for the first time in a long while, Logan was not there to help.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I lay stretched out along the couch, my back against the cushions, my bare feet resting in Logan’s lap. By then, we’d been seeing each other just over six months, long enough that this had quietly become normal. The television glowed across the room, the Toronto Raptors battling the San Antonio Spurs in a tight fourth quarter while Logan sat at the other end of the couch, shoulders relaxed, eyes fixed on the screen, one hand absently working slow, steady pressure into the arch of my foot.

I barely noticed the game. Or the score. Or the excited chatter of the announcers drifting through the room. My attention floated somewhere between the warmth of his hands and the glow of my laptop resting against my thighs, the cursor blinking patiently at the end of the last paragraph of my column.

One more sentence, I thought. Maybe two.

Then the screen flickered.

Just once.

I frowned.

Before I could react, the image froze. The cursor vanished. The screen went completely black.

“No,” I whispered.

My heart slammed hard against my ribs as I stared at the dark, unresponsive screen. I tapped the trackpad. Nothing. Pressed the power button. Still nothing.

“No, no, no,” I murmured, dread pooling low in my stomach.

I tried again. Still nothing.

Panic set in fast, sharp, and breath-stealing. My pulse spiked as my heart began to race, wild and unchecked, like it was trying to break free of my chest.

I flipped the laptop closed, then open again. Turned it off. Turned it back on. Shook it gently, then not so gently, muttering a string of increasingly unladylike curses under my breath.

Everything was on that computer.

Years of columns. Notes scribbled at three in the morning. Half-finished ideas I swore I would come back to. The rough draft of what might someday become my great American novel. All the things I hadn’t backed up because I’d been busy. Or tired. Or stupidly optimistic.

Without thinking, I swung my legs out of Logan’s lap and sat upright, clutching the laptop like I might revive it out of sheer willpower.

The sudden movement caught his attention.

He glanced away from the game, brow furrowing as he took in my posture, the tight set of my shoulders, the way I was glaring at the dead screen like it had personally betrayed me.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

The game continued to play in the background, the crowd roaring faintly, but I barely heard it. My world had narrowed to the black rectangle in my hands and the growing certainty that I was about to start sobbing like a child.

“My laptop died,” I said, already spiraling. “Like dead dead. And I haven’t backed anything up. Not to the cloud. Not to a drive. Not to anything. Oh my God, Logan. I’ve lost everything.”

His eyes narrowed as he glanced from my face to my laptop.

“Are you sure it’s dead?”

“Yes. I’m sure,” I snapped, immediately regretting it. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to take it out on you. I just…” I took a steadying breath, blinking hard to hold back my tears.
“The screen just went black. It won’t turn on. Years of work is just… gone. Columns. Notes. Drafts. I have deadlines. Editors. A reputation. I’m going to have to fake my own death and start over under a pen name.”

He reached for the laptop without comment, fingers moving through the familiar motions of checking power, connections, settings.

“That seems extreme,” he replied as he glanced up at me.

“You don’t understand,” I said, my voice breaking despite my best effort to keep it together. “This is my livelihood. This is my brain. This is every idea I’ve ever had.” I gestured helplessly at the lifeless machine. “This is everything.”

“Okay,” he said evenly, setting the laptop on the coffee table. “Hey. Look at me, ‘Ro.”

I did.

“Breathe,” he added.

“Do not tell me to breathe,” I warned.

He nodded. “Fair.” Then, in that patient, unshakable tone of his, he said, “We’re going to fix this.”

I let out a sharp, humorless laugh. “Unless you’ve been hiding magical tech powers from me, I don’t see how.”

He reached for his phone.

“Who are you calling?” I asked, my voice trembling despite my best efforts.

“My CIO.”

I stared at him. “Your what?”

“My Chief Information Officer.”

“Logan,” I said flatly, “this is a personal laptop. Not a corporate cyber-attack.”

“We’ll get someone from the tech team to look at it,” he replied, already dialing. “They’re good at their jobs.”

“But—”

“Hey,” he said when the call connected. “I need a favor.”

I crossed my arms, incredulous. “I can’t believe you’re calling one of your executives because I fried my computer.”

“Ororo’s laptop is dead,” he replied ignoring my muttering, addressing the person on the phone instead. “And she needs it repaired tonight.”

There was a pause on the line.

“Yeah,” he confirmed. “The screen’s completely black.”

Another pause.

“Just send someone from the help desk.” He listened, then gave a slight shake of his head. “No. You don’t need to come over yourself. Katherine Pryde will be fine.”

As I watched him, something in my chest tightened in a way that had nothing to do with panic anymore. For once, someone else was taking care of the crisis and taking care of me.

He ended the call and looked at me. “Jeff’s sending someone over.”

“Someone?” I echoed.

“Two people,” he corrected. “Katherine Pryde and Doug Ramsey. Doug’s solid, but Katherine’s the best we have. I’ve been trying to get her to take a VP role at our headquarters back in Toronto, but her fiancé, Piotr, is an artist here in New York, so they don’t want to leave the art scene. Nice kids.”

I sank back into the couch, exhaustion washing over me. “You didn’t have to do that.”

He shrugged, shifting closer, his knee brushing mine. “You looked like you were about to cry.”

“They’re just files,” I muttered weakly.

He leaned back on the couch, pulling me with him as he wrapped an arm around my shoulders, his presence steady and solid beside me. “They’re not,” he said quietly. “They’re you. Your work. Your voice.” Then, nodding toward the television, “Now let’s watch the game until help arrives.”

I looked at him then. Really looked at him.

“And next time,” he added, tone casual but firm, eyes glued back to the screen, “we back things up. In multiple places.”

I released a weak laugh. “You really are my hero.”

“Hardly,” he said, teasingly. “That was self-preservation. You were two seconds away from channeling your inner Kill Bill.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Careful. I could always make it Kill Logan.”

I tackled him back onto the couch, panic dissolving into laughter as he went willingly. He caught me easily, strong hands at my waist. One hand trapped my wrists while the other tickled mercilessly at my sides just enough to make me squeal, laughter spilling out of me as I tried and failed to wriggle free.

“Unfair,” I accused breathlessly.

“You started it,” he said, voice warm and amused, eyes bright as they held mine.

Then he kissed me.

It wasn’t rushed. It wasn’t hungry. It was warm and familiar and devastatingly sure. My laughter faded into a soft sound I didn’t recognize as my own as I melted into him, one hand sliding up to curl into the collar of his shirt, the other resting against his chest where his heart beat steady and strong beneath my palm.

He tasted like beer and something unmistakably him. Clean. Grounding. His hand slid from my waist to my back, his thumb tracing the same slow, steady circle there that he’d been working into my foot minutes earlier, holding me in place.

I shifted closer, fitting against him easily, like my body had been made for the shape of his. His thumb brushed along my jaw, slow and reverent, before he kissed me again, softer this time, deeper. The world narrowed to the warmth of his mouth, the press of his body beneath mine, the way his breathing changed when I kissed him back just as intently.

For a moment, nothing else existed. Not the laptop. Not the panic. Not deadlines or expectations or the weight of everything I carried.

Just us. On his couch. Laughing. Kissing. Safe.

When we finally pulled apart, foreheads resting together, his hands still warm on my back and my pulse trying to mimic an Irish jig, he searched my face.

“You good?” he asked quietly.

I smiled, unable to help it, and nodded. “Yeah.” I leaned back in, stealing another kiss just because I could.

The doorbell rang forty-five minutes later.

And just like he promised, Katherine Pryde, or Kitty as I quickly came to know her, and Doug were amazing. Understanding. Brilliant. Efficient. They saved every file.

Crisis officially averted.

But the part that stayed with me wasn’t the recovered work or the near disaster.

It was the way Logan never once made me feel foolish for caring so much about my writing.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The memory loosened its hold on me slowly, like something reluctant to let go. Logan’s warmth faded first. Then the sound of the game. The weight of his arm. The certainty of being held.

I blinked, and the present rushed back in.

When I arrived home, my apartment was dark. Empty. Cold.

Not the temporary quiet of a place waiting for someone to return, but the settled kind. The kind that didn’t expect footsteps. Or voices. Or the familiar shift of another body moving through the space. The kind of silence that had already made peace with being alone.

I closed the door behind me, and the click echoed too loudly in the stillness. Final. Like a decision being made without my consent.

I didn’t make it farther than the entryway.

My legs gave out, and I slid down the door until my back hit the wood, the breath punched from my lungs as a sob tore free before I could stop it. Ugly. Broken. The kind of cry you don’t recognize as your own until it’s already happening. The kind that lives somewhere below language, where dignity and composure don’t stand a chance.

I pressed my forehead to my knees and let it come.

The grief. The fear. The bone-deep exhaustion of holding myself together all night when what I’d wanted, more than anything, was to fall apart in Logan’s arms.

The sobs came in waves, each one stealing something from me until there was nothing left but shaking breaths and the dull ache in my chest. When it finally passed, I stayed there a moment longer, listening to the quiet, letting it settle around me like a weight I couldn’t shrug off.

Eventually, I pushed myself up on unsteady legs.

I moved through my bedroom like a ghost, touching nothing, seeing everything. The empty side of the bed. The lamp I didn’t bother turning on. That damn throw pillow that still didn’t match anything. Clothes fell away without ceremony, landing wherever they pleased. I didn’t care enough to stop them.

In the bathroom, I stepped into the shower and let the water beat down on my shoulders, hot and relentless, as if it might scour the night from my skin. As if it could wash away the questions I didn’t want to answer. The ones I’d been circling for the past few days.

The tears came again, quieter this time. Heavier.

They slipped down my face and disappeared into the spray, leaving me alone with my thoughts and the truth I’d been avoiding. That my jealousy of Logan’s past had pushed him away. That I should have trusted him. Or listened more. Or believed in us more.

And that was when the memory came.

Not gently. Not politely. It arrived the way memories always do when your defenses are gone, sharp and vivid and impossible to ignore.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The Howlett family was not what most people would expect.

On paper, they were basically Canadian royalty, Canada’s version of the Kennedys in tailored suits and boardrooms, a family empire born during the nineteenth-century natural resources boom of Alberta and built across generations of industry and expansion.

Edmonton had given them their start. Toronto had taught them how to rule.

And Logan? He was the heir apparent who had crossed the border south and claimed America as his own.

From the outside, the Howletts looked formidable. Corporate. Untouchable.

And yet, the moment I stepped into the Howlett family home, that impression quietly unraveled.

Yes, their estate, stretched for miles, thousands of acres rolling outward until the horizon blurred, but the house itself was deliberate in scale, as though excess had never interested the family. An Edwardian country estate. Solid. Grounded. Built to endure, not parade its wealth.

The house spoke to me right away. The people took longer to read.

Logan and I had arrived in Alberta travel-worn and exhausted after leaving New York far later than planned. We were supposed to arrive before dinner. Instead, after taking one of the family’s private planes into Edmonton and a helicopter north to the estate near Cold Lake, we hadn’t arrived until nearly midnight.

To make matters worse, Logan had been gone nearly two full weeks beforehand. Tokyo first. Then Austin, Texas. By the time we landed in Alberta, he was already running on borrowed patience. We had barely crossed through the front doors before finding ourselves in an unexpectedly awkward standoff in the entry hall.

Logan had assumed we would be sharing his room.

And under almost any other circumstance, I would have wholeheartedly agreed. After all, we had been together nearly a year by then, and sleeping beside him had long since become the norm.

But this was his family’s estate. The place where his grandmother still lived. Where his parents were currently staying while visiting from Toronto. Where generations of Howlett ghosts seemed to hum quietly through the walls, attentive and prepared to judge.

Which was precisely why I was adamant we would not be sharing a room, let alone a bed.

Not under his grandmother’s roof.

Having that debate with his parents standing six feet away, pretending very politely not to listen, was mortifying on an entirely new level. Sure, they'd met me during their Manhattan visit a couple of months ago, and they obviously weren't naive about our usual sleeping arrangements.

But that had been New York, where sex was practically a civic responsibility.

This was not New York.

And more importantly, I knew Logan. Sharing a bed with him would never consist of just sleeping. It would start with his lips grazing my neck, his breath hot against my skin. The weight of him pressing me into the mattress as he tried to remove my underwear.

One look from those gray eyes and I would be lost. My body would remember exactly how to arch into his touch, how to surrender to that delicious, reckless heat neither of us had ever learned to resist.

So no.

Not “maybe.”

Not “we’ll see.”

But a firm, I-would-rather-be-struck-by-lightning-than-have-an-orgasm-under-his-grandmother’s-roof no.

In the end, I won. Barely. Mostly because his father intervened with calm, faint amusement and suggested we revisit sleeping arrangements in the morning.

Which we did.

Every day.

Logan refused to let the argument drop.

Still, we went to bed separately that night. As I followed Logan’s mother toward a guest room that might as well have been in another zip code entirely, I was more embarrassed than I had been when my father attempted “the talk” when I was thirteen.
Logan, for his part, was clearly irritated by the very real prospect of two more weeks without sex layered on top of the two weeks he had already spent away from me.
Even worse: I was now with him. Within arm’s reach. And officially off-limits.

I spent most of that night ping-ponging between fantasizing about Logan appearing at my door looking dangerously irresistible… and praying that, if he actually did, I’d remember I was trying to impress his family, not behave like my hormones had staged a hostile takeover. Needless to say, sleep was not invited, did not RSVP, and certainly did not attend. I finally drifted into something that technically qualified as rest a little after three, only to wake up feeling like I’d been wide awake the entire time.

It was, in hindsight, a fitting introduction to the week ahead.

By the time I finally dragged my exhausted body downstairs for breakfast, the men were already gone, Logan included.

The house had carried the quiet that followed purposeful departure. Not hurried. Not chaotic. Just efficient. Coffee brewed and finished. Plates cleared. Conversations already had and concluded somewhere between dawn and daylight. It felt a little like Yellowstone, only set in Alberta instead of Montana, and thankfully with fewer gunshots.

I spent the day with the women of the Howlett clan. Elizabeth Howlett, Logan’s mother, or Lizzy as everyone called her, and Margaret Howlett, his paternal grandmother, as we prepared for John Sr.’s surprise sixtieth birthday party. Menus. Flowers. Guest lists. Margaret oversaw everything from the house while Lizzy had the family helicopter take us into Edmonton, a whirlwind outing that felt less like errands and more like a carefully disguised audition.

We didn’t make it back to the estate until well after dusk, which meant the men were already home.

They’d beaten us back, washed the day away, and were already changing for dinner. And suddenly, instead of feeling like a helpful guest who had spent the day earning quiet approval, I became acutely aware of one simple, frightening fact.

I was about to sit down to my first Howlett family dinner.

Thankfully, this wasn’t one of those stiff affairs in a cavernous dining room. We gathered instead in the large kitchen at the back of the house, where a long harvest table bore the marks of daily use and wide windows looked out over land that seemed to stretch forever. It was a room built for family, not ceremony.

By the time Lizzy and I arrived, everyone else was already seated.

Several of the ranch hands had joined us, men who had clearly been part of this household for decades. Comfortable. Loyal. They spoke easily with John and Logan while still deferring instinctively to Margaret’s quiet authority.

John sat at one end of the table, sleeves rolled neatly, posture relaxed, his presence warm rather than imposing. Margaret sat opposite him, composed and observant in that elegant, unnerving way only certain women seemed to perfect with age, money, and impeccable posture. The kind who could definitely break your soul faster than you could say “Bergdorf’s.” Logan sat to his father’s left, already mid-conversation.

As we stepped into the room, the men rose.

John pulled out Lizzy’s chair without thinking. At the same moment, Logan reached for mine.

It wasn’t showy. It was instinct. Intimacy without effort.

As I sat, his hand skimmed lightly along the back of my chair, then settled for the briefest second at the base of my back before he took his seat beside me. It was barely a touch. The kind of gesture no one could possibly call improper.

And yet somehow, it sent a ridiculous little shiver through me anyway, enough to make me briefly reconsider my entire separate-bedroom policy.

But then I looked at Margaret.

And just like that, it felt like the universe hit pause and zoomed in on her face like a reality-show close-up.

If ever there was a libido assassin in pearls, Margaret Ann Howlett was the patron saint.

She held my gaze for a brief moment, then tilted her head, unreadable. No smile. No frown. Just observation. The jury was still very much out.

And a not-so-subtle reminder that I wasn’t just having dinner with the Howlett family. I was interviewing for a position I wasn’t entirely sure Margaret wanted filled.

Before I could spiral any further, Lizzy reached for the crisply folded linen beside her plate. “Well, I was going to ask how your day was, John, but judging by that smile, I think I already know.”

John chuckled and squeezed her hand. “It felt good to be home again. Fresh air, honest work, the land doing what it’s always done. It’s a hell of a lot better than sitting behind a desk in Toronto listening to another quarterly report.”

John’s warm gray eyes settled on me. “And how was your day, Ororo? I thought you and Lizzy were headed into town to shop, but I didn’t see any bags when you got back.”

“Lizzy and I decided we needed a break from department store warfare,” I said with a smile, smoothing my linen napkin across my lap. It was the story we’d settled on, just in case John asked too many questions.

Lizzy nodded. “I took her sightseeing instead. I felt it was important that Ororo experience at least a few of Edmonton’s cultural landmarks besides Louis Vuitton.”

Logan smirked. “Thank God. If Mom had taken Ororo shopping, we’d be organizing a search party by now. I’ve seen both of them in action. When they shop, they treat bathroom breaks like a tactical delay.”

I narrowed my eyes at him playfully. “Well, since your mother and I fully intend to go shopping before we head back to New York, it sounds like you’ve just volunteered to come with us and spare everyone the trouble of organizing a search party.”

John laughed as Logan let out a playful growl in my direction. “Oh, now you’ve done it, son. That’s how a man ends up carrying bags for half the day.”

At the opposite end of the table, Margaret’s sharp gray gaze turned to John. “And how are you feeling after a full day back in the saddle?”

John chuckled. “Like I’m about to be a 60-year-old man.”

Lizzy giggled as she leaned over and gave John a quick peck on the lips. “But you’re my 60-year-old man and I’m rather fond of you.”

Roy Henderson leaned back in his chair. “Don’t let him fool you. I could barely keep up.”

John snorted. “Roy likes to exaggerate.”

“Not by much,” Roy shot back. “You still ride like a man half your age.”

One of the other hands nodded. “He ain’t wrong. We had the east pasture cleared before noon.”

Roy looked toward Logan. “You see that fence by the creek’s sagging again? North side?”

Logan looked up. “Yeah. We saw tracks along the tree line this morning.”

John lifted a brow. “A wolverine?”

Logan took a sip of his drink. “Maybe. But the stride seemed heavier. Could be a black bear. Could be a wolf. Either way, something’s leaning on the fence.”

John nodded. “Let’s tighten the wire before the cattle get curious.”

“And the west line?” Roy asked.

Logan set down his glass. “Still holding. But I did see some fresh digging near the rocks.”

They talked about fencing and animal tracks in a language I almost understood. The kind of conversation centered on work you could touch with your hands and measure by the end of the day. There was something grounding about it. In Manhattan, accomplishments often feels abstract. Here, it looked like callused hands, muddy boots, and conversations about fence lines over dinner.

Part of me envied it. Another part wondered if being part of Logan’s world meant learning an entirely different vocabulary.

Across the table, Lizzy set down her fork. “I don’t want you overdoing it, John. J.R. will be here soon. He can help.”

Margaret’s mouth tightened. “If J.R. had ever shown the slightest interest in this land and this family, perhaps that would actually mean something. Instead, he’d rather vanish into the woods with a camera and call it a profession.”

The smile faded from Lizzy’s face as her gaze fell to her plate.

Logan froze beside me. Not dramatic. Just enough that I felt it.

“J.R. is one of the most respected wildlife photographers in the world, Gran,” he said, deceptively calm and measured.

Margaret gave a soft, dismissive hum. “And yet somehow that still hasn’t been particularly useful to this family.”

“Mother,” John said gently, in the tone of a man stepping into a conversation he’d clearly refereed before, “J.R. chose the life that suited him. It would’ve been wrong to force him to stay here.”

Margaret dabbed delicately at the corner of her mouth with her napkin. “Some people are born knowing where they belong. Others spend a lifetime avoiding it.”

Then she turned those sharp gray eyes on Logan.

“Thankfully, at least one of my grandsons hasn’t made a habit of disappointing me.” The words landed softly. Which somehow made them worse.

Logan didn’t react right away. Just took a slow sip of his drink, set the glass down, and for one brief second, I saw it. The tension in his jaw.

Beneath the table, I slid my hand onto his knee.

His fingers closed over mine once, brief and warm.

“We all make our choices, Gran,” he said evenly. “I’m pretty sure J.R.’s doing fine without the Howlett seal of approval.”

And in that quiet exchange, something clicked.

For Logan, responsibility wasn’t something he chose so much as something he carried. Duty over desire. Obligation over dreams. Suddenly, a great many things about him made a little more sense... including why he could make me feel adored one minute and be frustratingly closed off the next.

Before the silence could turn into a full-blown family-sponsored hostage situation, I turned to Roy.

“Logan tells me the Howletts raise the most beautiful horses here in Canada.”

Roy lit up instantly. “We sure do. In fact, one of our prized mares just foaled a new colt. He’s only a few days old, but you can already tell he’s gonna be a champion. I’d be happy to show you tomorrow.”

“I’d love that,” I said, leaning gratefully into the safer subject as I asked Roy more about the livestock and life on the estate.

Conversation softened after that.

As Roy launched into something about fence lines and winter feed, Logan reached over without a word, plucked the roasted potatoes from my plate, and replaced them with the mushrooms from his own.

“Thank you,” I murmured automatically, already sliding the asparagus from my plate onto his a second later because he always ate it and I never did.

He didn’t so much as pause, continuing his conversation with his father as if rearranging our dinner in the middle of a family meal was the most natural thing in the world.

Across the table, Lizzy caught it. Her expression softened into a quiet, knowing smile, and suddenly that tiny exchange felt far more intimate than it had any right to in front of his entire family.

Because there was something almost alarmingly personal about a man knowing exactly what you’d never touch on your plate... and you knowing the same about him.

Somewhere between passing potatoes and listening to a surprisingly passionate Stanley Cup debate, one that even Margaret eventually joined with suspiciously strong opinions about the Maple Leafs, I felt the tension I’d carried into that house begin, at long last, to loosen.

Yes, Logan’s grandmother was still watching me. Measuring. Deciding.

But I wasn’t intimidated by the scrutiny.

I was in love with Logan. End of story.

And if loving him meant earning my place in his world and winning the approval of his family, then I intended to do exactly that. After all, I had survived four years at an all-girls high school that had felt like a live-action Mean Girls reenactment.

So compared to that, impressing a sharp-eyed Canadian matriarch should be nothing more than a walk in the park… in a pair of Louboutin So Kates.

Challenge accepted.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The next few days flew by. I kept busy with party preparations and occasionally slipping away to some quiet stretch of the estate to write. As much as I loved Manhattan, I had always preferred open spaces, and there was something about the endless Alberta sky that made breathing feel easier somehow. By the time Logan came back each evening after spending the day working the property with his father, the house was always full. And because I was still refusing to share a room with him, our alone time had been reduced to quick kisses stolen in empty hallways before one of us had to dash off to whatever urgent errand demanded our attention.

Naturally, this had become the highlight of my nightly calls with the girls, which I now delivered like a war correspondent covering my own increasingly fragile commitment to celibacy under the Howlett roof. And, like the good friends they were, Jean, Anna Marie, and Betsy all had very strong but very different opinions about my increasingly dramatic insistence that I was absolutely, under no circumstances, going to sleep with Logan under his family’s roof.

Jean, of course, had praised my resolve and called it “a wise and mature boundary.” Trust her to hear “sexual frustration in rural Alberta” and immediately pivot to long-term relationship optics. “Ororo, gaining his family’s respect is paramount to building something healthy and lasting.”

Anna Marie had agreed, though in a far less romantic tone. “Make him wait till you get back to Manhattan. Trust me, he'll appreciate you even more after this little getaway. By the time you get him home, it'll probably be the best sex of your life.”

Betsy, naturally, had responded with the sort of advice that belonged in what I had privately titled The Betsy Braddock Guide to Very Poor Decisions and Exceptional Orgasms. “’Ro, you’re in rural Alberta with Logan in a cowboy hat. Fuck the family optics. You should be riding that man from sunup to sundown, and on all fours in between.”

Poor Jean had inhaled so sharply I was briefly concerned she might require medical attention. Anna Marie had simply muttered, “Jesus, Bets.” And I had promptly changed the subject before Betsy could offer even more tempting advice.

Despite knowing all of this, I still felt confident Logan had finally accepted there would be no “private recreation of the orgasmic variety” until we touched back down in New York. So when, three days later, he suggested checking on the horses before supper, I really should have known better.

The walk to the stables had started innocently enough. Or at least as innocently as anything involving Logan ever did. However, somewhere between the main house and the stables, one kiss had turned into three, then four, and by the time we finally stepped inside, my lipstick was smudged, my pulse was racing, and I had the distinct sense I had just wandered straight into a carefully laid “Logan trap.” The odds, unsurprisingly, were no longer in my favor.

Needing a little distance before I enthusiastically broke my own rule, I did the only sensible thing available to me. I put several feet of space between us and pretended I was there strictly for the horses.

The stables smelled of fresh hay, rain-darkened wood, and clean leather. Late-afternoon light filtered through the high windows, turning the dust in the air soft and golden. The stalls were wide and generous, built for animals bred for legacy rather than speed. Horses shifted lazily in their stalls, tails flicking, hooves thudding in slow rhythm.

And until that afternoon, I had never imagined I could be turned on by the sharp tang of leather, the creak of old beams overhead, or the low, wistful nickering of horses settling in for the evening.

But then again, I had never been in any stables with Logan.

He leaned against one of the aisle posts like he already knew my resistance was crumbling faster than a disgraced celebrity’s follower count. His dark eyes were shadowed beneath the brim of his cowboy hat as he watched my every move. I drifted from stall to stall, running my fingers along warm noses and silky manes, pretending very hard not to feel his gaze burning straight through me.

His sleeves were rolled up, exposing broad, heavily muscled forearms dusted with dirt and sun. The kind of strength that came from actual labor rather than a personal trainer and a protein shake. His dark jeans clung low on his hips, worn soft with time. Boots caked in Alberta earth.

For a man who spent most of his life in tailored suits and glass towers, he wore this version of himself with deeply unfair ease.

And even worse, he knew it.

“You know,” he observed mildly, the corner of his mouth tipping into a knowing curve, “pretending not to look is still looking.”

“Oh, I’m looking, all right. Because I know exactly what you’re doing,” I said, turning to face him while folding my arms across my chest. I was dressed in a simple white peasant blouse, a soft floral skirt that brushed my calves, and tan espadrille wedges, which had seemed perfectly innocent inside the house and now felt less like weekend at a country estate and more like an open invitation to be pinned against the stable wall. “And it’s not working,” I lied. “So no funny business, Mr. Howlett. We’re only here to check on the horses. I’m not letting you turn this into an X-rated cowboy fantasy.”

Lantern-style sconces cast a warm honey glow along the aisle as he pushed off the post and stepped closer, leaving the corners of the stable in shadow and carving his face in half-light.

“Funny,” he said, voice low and amused. “That’s not what your body was saying five minutes ago.”

“That’s because you’ve been pouting ever since we arrived,” I shot back, even as my pulse betrayed me. “I said you could kiss me. I never said you could try to seduce me in the stables.”

“I’ve been ‘pouting’, Ms. Munroe,” he said, backing me slowly into an empty stall, “because you won’t stay with me in my room.”

“You know why I’m not sharing a room with you,” I said firmly. “Especially since we both know you can’t keep your hands to yourself.”

His smile deepened. Dangerous.

“Darling,” he murmured, stepping closer, “my hands are the least of your problems.”

I groaned. “See? This is exactly why we’re in separate rooms. I don’t need your grandmother thinking we’re having sex.”

“My grandmother,” he said calmly, closing the remaining distance between us, “is well aware that we’re two adults who crossed that line a long time ago.”

I lifted a hand to stop him and found his chest instead, warm and solid beneath my palm.

“Regardless,” I said, holding my ground, “I am not sleeping with you in your family’s home.”

He leaned in, his mouth brushing the shell of my ear, his breath hot enough to scatter every coherent thought in my head.

“Take a look around, sweetheart,” he whispered. “We’re not in my family’s home.”

His voice dropped lower. Rougher.

“We’re in the stables.”

I swallowed. Hard.

“…Which means,” he murmured, lips ghosting along my jaw, “all bets are off.”

My knees nearly gave out on principle.

“Nice try, Howlett,” I managed, even as his hands slid around my waist. “We can kiss. We can cuddle. But that's it. I'm serious, Logan. No sex.”

He didn’t argue.

Instead, he kissed me.

Not rushed. Not desperate. Just slow and inevitable, like he had all the time in the world and knew I would fold long before he ever had to push.

His mouth moved against mine, a warm and deliberate caress, coaxing rather than claiming. He teased the seam of my lips until I opened for him, and the moment I did, he made a low sound in his throat that was pure male satisfaction. Then he kissed me deeper, his tongue stroking mine in long, lazy sweeps before he caught my tongue in a slow, wicked suck that made my knees feel suddenly theoretical. My fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt, my body betraying every ounce of stubborn resolve I had walked into those stables with as the world dissolved into a haze of sensation.

When I finally pulled back, my chest was heaving, my lips tingling, my thoughts already dissolving into dangerous, reckless want.

“Logan,” I breathed.

Half warning.
Half surrender.

He pressed me back against the rough timber of the stall wall. His voice dropped low, rough with restraint. “That mouth of yours,” he murmured, thumb brushing the corner of my lips, “keeps saying no.”

His gaze dropped to my mouth, then lower, slow and deliberate, lingering over the swell of my breasts and the curve of my hips before finally lifting to mine again. “Everything else about you,” he teased, “is having a very different conversation.”

My breath caught. “Logan, I…we…”

“Tell me to stop.”

Not a challenge. Not quite. But he clearly knew my willpower to resist him was quickly dissipating.

His large hands slid down my body until they gripped my hips and hauled me flush against him. I could feel the hard, throbbing length of him against my thigh, rigid and impatient, his body boxing me in while the rough timber pressed at my back and the scent of leather, cedar, and Logan closed around me from every side.

“You’re impossible,” I said, though it came out breathier than I would have liked.

His mouth curved. “And yet,” he murmured, “here you are.”

Then he kissed me again.

Slower this time. Deeper.

The kind of kiss that made a woman forget her own name, her own rules, and possibly her deeply held moral objections to having an orgasm anywhere within a hundred-yard radius of her boyfriend’s grandmother.

My fingers slid into his hair beneath his hat, dislodging it just enough that it tipped back as I dragged my mouth along his jaw. He made a low sound, almost a growl, and the effect it had on me was immediate and frankly humiliating. Desire struck low and hard, and with it went any illusion that I still had the upper hand. And I swear my panties surrendered on contact, because apparently even Van Dyne lingerie was no match for the flash flood he’d unleashed.

“’Ro, baby,” he murmured against my throat. “You’re not exactly making a strong case that you want me to stop.”

“That’s because you’re not playing fair,” I whispered, gasping when his mouth found the sensitive spot just below my ear.

A dark, pleased sound rumbled out of him. “Sweetheart… you should know by now. I always play to win.”

“What you are…” I breathed, fighting to gather my traitorous thoughts. “…is a terrible cheat and an even worse influence. I’m trying to be good.”

He laughed softly before he caught the slope between my neck and shoulder with his teeth, just enough to make me gasp, then soothed the sting with a slow drag of his tongue. “Come on, baby… be bad with me,” he murmured.

The words sent a sharp, traitorous shiver through me.

Whatever was left of my self-control simply… evaporated. One of my hands caught his belt buckle while the other curled around the back of his neck, tugging him back down to me before I could remember I was supposed to be the one with boundaries in this situation. This time his kiss turned hungrier, messier. His hands slid lower, cupping my ass before he ground me hard against the thick length straining beneath his jeans.

His hat tumbled to the floor. My hair slipped free from its band, spilling wild down my back as Logan’s mouth left mine only to trail scorching kisses down my throat, to the swell of my breasts. His stubble scraped my skin in the most devastating way imaginable, just rough enough to make every nerve ending wake up and beg for more.

My back pressed harder into the timber behind me until I could feel the grain of the wood through my blouse. I welcomed the pressure. The ache. The delicious little sting of it. Proof that this was real. Proof that after days of denying both of us, I was finally losing this battle in the most spectacular fashion possible.

Somewhere nearby, a horse shifted followed by a soft snort that sounded alarmingly judgmental.

“Last chance, sweetheart,” he murmured, voice low and rough and somehow still dangerously steady for a man currently unraveling me molecule by molecule. “Tell me to stop.”

I looked at him. At stormy gray eyes gone dark with desire. The mussed hair. The mouth that had been tormenting me for the better part of a week. And then I made what was, objectively, a terrible decision.

I kissed him again.

There was no more pretending after that. No more teasing arguments about separate rooms or grandmother-approved sleeping arrangements. No more flimsy rules I had clung to out of pride and self-preservation.

It was just me, Logan, and the increasingly obvious fact that after several days of trying to be virtuous, I was absolutely about to get laid.

Logan groaned low in his throat, the sound tearing free like something primal finally breaking loose. His hands slid down my hips, shoving my skirt higher as they went, until his fingertips pushed my soaking panties aside and slipped into the slick heat between my thighs. With devastating ease, he found the sensitive bundle of nerves nestled between my folds and began stroking it in slow, deliberate circles.

I gasped.

Before I could even catch my breath, he lifted me in one swift, powerful motion, and my legs wrapped around his waist as if they’d been waiting all week for the invitation. The sudden shift dragged me hard against the thick, rigid length of him, too hard and heavy to stay confined beneath his jeans, and the way he only seemed to grow harder from the contact sent a white-hot streak of pleasure straight through me.

“God, ’Ro...” he rasped.

The next few moments blurred into heat and motion and the kind of reckless desperation that only came after days of wanting each other and not being able to do a damn thing about it. His mouth was on mine, then my throat, then lower, every kiss more devastating than the last. My hands were everywhere at once, fumbling with the buttons of his shirt before dragging it open and shoving it off his shoulders, desperate for the hot, bare feel of him beneath my hands. He pushed my blouse higher with impatient hands, then tugged the cups of my bra down, baring my breasts to the cool Alberta air.

His eyes dropped to my breasts as his hands closed over them, big and possessive. His thumbs brushed over my nipples, and when they hardened beneath his touch, the look on his face nearly undid me all by itself. His palms moved over me like he couldn’t decide whether he wanted to worship or devour.

Personally, I was fine with either option. Fortunately for me, Logan was always good at multitasking.

I cried out when his mouth closed over one breast, taking me in with a hungry pull that made my entire body jolt. He drew back just enough to lave his tongue over my aching nipple, teasing me instead of giving me what he knew I needed.

“Please,” I gasped, my fingers tightening helplessly on his shoulders.

“Please what?” he asked, voice rough against my skin, his mouth still warm and devastating where it hovered over my breast. One hand stayed on my breast, kneading and tormenting, while the other slipped between my thighs again, teasing the slick heat of my core just enough to make my breath catch. “What do you need, baby?”

I could barely remember my own name, much less form a coherent sentence. All I knew was that I was one teasing stroke and one slow lap of his tongue away from spontaneous combustion.

“Harder,” I gasped. “Please... suck harder.”

A wicked smile touched his mouth. Then, because apparently James Logan Howlett believed foreplay should also qualify as psychological warfare, he deliberately gave me less, not more, his fingers tracing maddeningly light strokes between my slick folds before pulling back just enough to make me want to scream.

“Harder where?” he murmured, dragging his mouth across my lower lip before trailing kisses along my jaw, my throat, my ear. “Here?”

I gasped and shook my head, clinging to him.

“Here?” he asked again, his mouth moving to my neck, then lower, his tongue tracing a slow, scorching path along my collarbone as his fingers continued to tease me.

“Unh... my... nipples... please,” I managed, in the broken, desperate dialect of a woman having a truly exceptional sexual experience.

“That’s my girl,” he rasped, satisfaction rough in his voice.

He took one aching nipple into his mouth again, sucking hard enough to make me cry out the way I’d been trying not to. Then he gave the other breast the same lavish, merciless attention, like he fully intended to make me come apart from his mouth alone.

“Please, Logan...” I whispered, and this time his name came out thin and trembling.

My whispered plea had barely left my lips before he was guiding me down onto the fresh hay at the back of the stall, his urgency barely contained, one powerful hand braced beside my head, the other cupping my face as if I were something precious instead of a half-dressed woman making wildly irresponsible choices in rural Alberta.

I tangled my fingers in his hair and dragged him down to me, kissing him like Christmas had come early in Cold Lake, and Logan kissed me back like I was the only gift he’d ever wanted and he intended to unwrap every inch of me.

His mouth moved over mine, hungry and punishing, his hips settling between my thighs as the hay shifted beneath us with a soft crackle. My blouse, already shoved up and bunched beneath his hands, became an immediate casualty. He tore his mouth from mine to drag it over my head in one rough, impatient pull and toss it aside. Then his gaze dropped to my bra, the cups still shoved down from where he’d been tormenting me. He yanked the cups back up just enough to unhook it, then stripped it off me completely and threw it somewhere behind him without looking.

My skirt followed in a far less patient motion. He shoved it down my legs, dragging my panties with it, and when the fabric caught around my ankles, he tore it free along with my shoes and flung the whole mess into the corner of the stall, leaving me bare beneath him.

“Jesus, ’Ro...” he muttered, his voice rough as gravel. Then he sat back just long enough to finish what little remained between us. He kicked off his boots, shoved his jeans and boxer briefs down in one impatient drag, and left them tangled in the hay before coming back over me, broad and bare and hard enough to make my breath catch.

I touched him greedily.

Broad shoulders. Hard muscle. Warm skin stretched over strength I knew too well and still never seemed prepared for. Dark hair covered his chest and narrowed into a wicked trail down his stomach that made me wetter just looking at him.

My palms skimmed over him reverently, down the hard planes of his chest, through the dark hair at the center of him, then lower. His erection was long, thick, and glistening with pre-come.

I traced him with trembling fingers, marveling at the heat and hardness of him. His breath caught, and the way he shuddered beneath my hands sent a fresh wave of desire straight through me.

However, before I could do more, his hand began a slow climb up the inside of my thigh, deliberate now. Maddeningly slow. His gaze never left mine as his fingers traced higher.

Not touching where I needed him most.

Just close enough to make me ache for it.

“Logan...”

It came out desperate. Shameless.

His mouth curved, wicked and devastating. “That’s right, sweetheart,” he murmured, kissing the corner of my mouth, then the line of my jaw. “Tell me how much you want me.”

“You’re enjoying this entirely too much.”

“Abso-fucking-lutely..”

Then his fingers finally slipped inside me.

I nearly wept on the first touch.

A sharp sound tore out of me as he slowly stroked in and out, his expression changing the instant he felt how ready I already was for him. Something hot and possessive flashed across his face, and a low growl rumbled out of him.

“Christ.” His forehead dropped briefly to mine. “You’re so wet. So fucking hot.”

“This is your fault,” I breathed, though my body arched helplessly as he worked me with slow, deliberate strokes. I rocked against him, riding his fingers, chasing every slow curl and thrust with rising desperation. My walls fluttered around his fingers, and I wanted more. No, not wanted. Needed. Needed that sweet, shattering release that only Logan could give me.

“Good.”

The word was pure male pride. Dark. Rough. He was far too pleased with himself.

He kissed me again as his hand shifted, the rhythm turning more deliberate. More devastating. Not rushed. Not hurried. He knew exactly how to touch me when he wanted to make me lose every coherent thought in my head. One slow stroke. Then another. Then the firm circle of his thumb against my clit that had my whole body going taut beneath him as if I’d been struck by lightning.

“Logan...” I gasped, clutching at his shoulders. “Please.”

He went still for half a second, his eyes locking on mine.

And then his voice dropped lower. “That what you want, sweetheart?”

His fingers pressed deeper… circling slightly, making me arch off the hay with a broken moan.

“You want me to take care of you right here?”

I could barely think. Barely breathe. “Yes.” The word came out as a desperate whisper. Immediate and shameless.

That did something to him.

I saw it happen. The last thin thread of restraint snapping clean behind his eyes.

He kissed me with bruising intensity, his tongue claiming my mouth as he settled between my thighs, the weight of his muscled body pinning me deliciously to the hay. I instinctively wrapped my legs around him, my wet sex sliding against his rock-hard length as my clit throbbed with each deliberate thrust of him against it.

“Fuck, ’Ro,” he growled, his fingers digging into my flesh as he pulled one of my thighs higher around his hip, opening me completely. His hand slipped between us, and I felt him position himself before pushing inside of me with agonizing slowness. The swollen, veined head of his cock stretched me open, the overwhelming fullness tearing a cry from my throat, my back arching off the hay as he captured my mouth again, drinking in my pleasure.

“Easy,” he rasped, though he sounded half out of his mind himself. “I got you.”

For one endless second, the world narrowed to sensation.

The hay prickling against my back. The coolness of the climate-controlled stable skating over flushed skin. The heavy, solid weight of him poised over me.

Then he slid further inside me.

Slowly.
Deliberately.

Like he wanted me to feel every inch. Every stretch. Every unbearable second of being opened for him.

The breath tore out of me. My hands flew to his shoulders, nails digging in as my body arched beneath him, my thighs tightening around his hips while he kept going, inch by exquisite inch, until I was completely full of him and shaking with desire.

“Goddess,” I whispered.

His answer was a groan dragged from somewhere deep. He buried his face against my throat, kissed the place below my ear, and stayed there for one ragged heartbeat, as if the feeling of me wrapped around him was almost too much.

“You feel so fucking good,” he muttered, voice shredded. “So good.”

Then he moved.

Slow at first.

Deep.

Measured in a way that was somehow crueler than roughness.

Every thrust dragged against the places that ached for him, building the pressure low in my body until I could barely think around it. I met him instinctively, lifting my hips from the hay to chase the friction, the fullness, the devastating pleasure of him driving into me while his mouth moved over my throat, collarbone, and breasts.

“That’s it,” he murmured, his voice strained. “Just like that.”

My fingers dragged over his shoulders and down his back, nails biting just enough to make him curse softly against my skin. His rhythm deepened. Slowed. Like he knew exactly how close I already was and meant to keep me there until I was shaking apart beneath him.

“Logan...”

“I know, baby”

One of his hands slid between us.

The first precise stroke of his thumb nearly undid me on the spot.

My whole body jerked. A broken cry spilled from my mouth, and he caught it with a kiss, swallowing every desperate sound while he kept moving inside me, relentless now in that controlled, devastating way of his, like he was determined to wring every last ounce of pleasure from my body.

“Come for me,” he said, voice low and rough and utterly certain. “Let me feel it. Let me feel you cum.”

And because Logan had apparently decided I was leaving every last shred of dignity in that hay, I did.

Pleasure broke through me in a hot, merciless rush. My back arched, my legs tightened around him, and his name tore out of me loud enough to scandalize at least three generations of Howletts. My body clenched helplessly around him as the orgasm hit in wave after wave, so intense it almost hurt.

That absolutely did him in.

He made a rough, broken sound against my neck, as if my release had snapped whatever control he had left. His pace turned rougher, harder, faster, each thrust driving me deeper into the hay as he hurtled toward his own release, his face buried against my neck, his breath hot and ragged against my skin.

“Fuck, ’Ro...” he groaned, the sound dragged out of him like pain and prayer all at once. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”

Then he buried himself deep and went taut over me, his whole body shuddering hard as release tore through him, and the force of it ripped another shattered orgasm out of me. For one blinding second, I swear I had an out of body experience. Pleasure crashed through me all over again, sharp and helpless and overwhelming, my fingers digging into his shoulders as Logan trembled above me, still caught in the grip of his own release. Every pulse of him inside me seemed to wring one more broken sound from both of us. I shivered weakly beneath him while the last of his thrusts and the aftershocks of his release rolled through me in hot, trembling waves.

When the last violent tremor finally tore through him, he collapsed over me with a low, exhausted groan, catching most of his weight on his forearms even then, still careful with me, still protective. His face pressed into the curve of my neck as he dragged in deep breaths, fighting to steady himself.

For a long moment, neither of us moved. The scent of hay and leather and sex, thick and dizzying in the air. And the slow, overwhelming realization that I had just had the best orgasm of my life in the Howlett family stables. Like some wildly inappropriate fairy tale.

Or the sort of scene that should have ended with Whitney Houston singing over the credits.

But unlike the movies, no one yelled cut. Instead, we just stayed there in the hay, tangled together, breathing like we’d both barely survived some kind of beautiful natural disaster.

When he finally eased back, I felt the slow, intimate sensation of him pulling free from within me, and every nerve in my body was still so sensitized that even that sent a shiver skating through me. He groaned softly at the sound I made, then shifted with careful tenderness, rolling partly onto his side and tugging me with him until I ended up half sprawled across his chest, our legs tangled together in the hay. One of his arms curved around my waist, holding me close like he had no intention of letting me go anytime soon.

His hand slid into my hair, smoothing it back from my face with impossible tenderness. “Well,” he said finally, his voice slightly hoarse. “I think we can definitely say we both won.”

I burst out laughing. I couldn’t help it, still breathless and probably a little drunk on Logan and whatever dark magic he seemed to wield over my body. “You,” I informed him when I could finally catch my breath, “really are a bad influence on me.”

His mouth curved lazily. “Sweetheart,” he said, brushing his lips over mine, “I seem to recall that you stopped arguing somewhere around our second kiss.”

“That may be true, but…” I narrowed my eyes, doing my best to look disapproving despite the fact that I was still very naked and my body was already shamelessly gearing up for a second round. “… this was a catastrophic lapse in judgment, and I absolutely refuse to do anything like this again until we’re back in the good ole U.S. of A.”

“Liar.” He kissed me again. Slow this time. Soft. A kiss that felt less like seduction and more like aftermath. Then his gaze drifted upward, and his brows lifted.

I frowned. “What?”

He reached into my hair and pulled out a piece of straw.

Then another.

Then another.

My eyes widened in horror. “Oh my God.”

He lost it.

Not a chuckle. Not a smirk. But full-on laughter, warm and helpless and far too handsome for a man currently holding physical evidence that I had just had sex in a horse stall like the heroine of an exceptionally unhinged romance novel.

“This is not funny,” I said, sitting up too quickly and immediately regretting every decision that had led me to having sex in a horse stall. “Logan, I can’t go back into that house looking like this. Everyone is going to know exactly what we did in here.”

Despite my escalating crisis, Logan only laughed harder, lounging back on one elbow, one leg stretched out while the other bent lazily at the knee like he didn’t have a care in the world. “Come on, baby. You’ve got to admit, it’s funny as hell.”

“I have hay in my hair.”

“You have hay everywhere. I’d bet money you’ve even got some in your…”

I slapped a hand over his mouth before he could continue. Not to be outdone, his tongue traced a slow line across my palm. And of course, my libido immediately started tap dancing like Fred Astaire because apparently, literally everything this man did was incredibly sexy. Then, as if the universe had decided Logan shouldn’t be the only one having fun at my expense, the evening bell rang faintly from the house.

We both froze.

Damn.
Dinner.

Logan looked at me as I slowly lowered my hand, and I narrowed my eyes before he could say a word. “Absolutely not,” I said.

He blinked, entirely too calm for a man currently lying naked in a horse stall. “You wanna narrow that down for me, sweetheart?”

“Narrow it down?” I stared at him in disbelief. “For God’s sake. Fine! How about this?” I paused, just long enough to make sure he understood I meant business. “There is no universe in which I’m walking into that dining room looking like…” I gestured wildly at the hay, our complete lack of clothing, and the entire morally compromised situation. “This.”

His grin was instant. “Relax, sweetheart. I’ve got this.”

“We’ve just had sex in your family’s stables. I’ve got hay in my hair and your grandmother almost certainly has the instincts of a bloodhound,” I hissed.

His grin widened. “First of all,” he said, kissing the tip of my nose, “I love you.”

I just stared at him as he reached up and plucked another wayward piece of hay from my hair with maddening calm.

“Second,” he added, “I’ve been sneaking in and out of this house since I was a kid. Don’t worry. I’ll get you back inside unseen, and my grandmother will remain convinced your virtue is entirely intact.”

Despite myself, a laugh escaped me. He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and looked at me with that sexy, devastating look that always stole my breath.

He brushed his knuckles along my cheek. “Do you trust me?” he asked quietly.

The question landed somewhere deep and unguarded. Do you trust me?

And because he was Logan, because he was infuriating and arrogant and foul-mouthed and unexpectedly tender in all the places that mattered, my heart betrayed me all over again.

“I’m covered in hay, my legs may never recover, and if your grandmother so much as sniffs me I may spontaneously combust,” I said. “But yes. I trust you. I always will.” I cupped his face. “And I love you too.”

Logan’s smile turned slow and intimate. Then he kissed me again. Slow. Deep. Pure temptation. The kind of kiss that made every nerve in my body remember exactly what had just happened in the hay and immediately vote in favor of a repeat performance. I melted into it before I could stop myself, and somewhere between his hand sliding into my hair and his body pressing me gently back into the hay, it became painfully obvious we were seconds away from making our second spectacularly irresponsible decision of the evening when we both heard the heavy stable doors open at the front of the stable.

“Mr. Logan?” a voice called from somewhere just inside of the main doors.

Every muscle in my body locked.

It was one of the ranch hands. Craig, I was fairly sure. Nice enough man. Very polite. And under different circumstances, I might even have found it charming that the Howletts treated dinner like a sacred family ritual straight out of Ready or Not, minus the crossbows and homicidal in-laws.

At that exact moment, however, the only thing my brain could process was that Logan and I were about to be caught buck naked in the family stables like two wildly irresponsible teenagers.

My eyes flew to Logan’s.

What are we going to do? I mouthed, pretty sure my heart was beating loudly enough to alert the entire ranch.

Logan, because he was apparently a man who had clearly never experienced shame a single day in his natural life, pressed a finger to his lips and shifted instantly, angling his body over mine to shield me from view.

The gesture was protective, practical, and considering I was still trying to convince the Howlett family I possessed at least a shred of dignity, deeply appreciated. Unfortunately, while I was busy dying of embarrassment, my body and traitorous heart still found the entire thing offensively sexy.

“Mr. Logan?” Craig called again, his boots thudding softly along the center aisle. “Mrs. Howlett said dinner’s about ready.”

I closed my eyes.

Wonderful.

Not only were we about to be discovered, but apparently, we had already been officially upgraded from private indiscretion to active search party. Logan remained silent, clearly hoping that if he ignored him, Craig would simply assume we had vanished into thin air and go look somewhere else.

A solid plan.

Except Craig, bless his deeply unfortunate work ethic, kept walking.

I could hear him moving farther into the stables, pausing every few steps to murmur to the horses in that easy ranch-hand way that suggested he was either:
a) checking on them
or
b) giving me extra time to die.

“Easy there, girl,” Craig said to one of the mares. “It’s just me.”

I stared at Logan in horror.

Logan stared back at me, clearly far more annoyed about the interruption than the possibility of being caught.

Craig took another few steps.

Closer.

Then closer still.

The sound of boots echoing against the polished stable floor grew louder with every passing second, and with each one, I could feel my soul inching closer to leaving my body permanently. Above me, Logan shifted.

I grabbed his wrist. “What are you doing?” I mouthed.

He glanced down at me.

I widened my eyes in what I hoped was a very clear, very dignified silent plea. Don’t do anything insane.

His expression changed.

And I recognized that look immediately. It was the exact same look he got right before doing something reckless, arrogant, and infuriatingly effective.

Craig stopped a couple of stalls down from us. “Mr. Logan,” Craig called again. “You and Ms. Munroe in here?

Logan exhaled once through his nose.

Then, in a low mutter, he said, “Fuck it.”

Before I could stop him, Logan snatched up his discarded shirt from the hay and tossed it over me. I barely had time to clutch it to my chest before he rose to his full height in one smooth motion, all six feet plus of broad shoulders, bare chest, powerful thighs, and utterly shameless masculine audacity.

Completely naked.

I slapped both hands over my face.

Not because I hadn’t seen him naked. Because of course I had seen him naked. Repeatedly. Enthusiastically.

But because there is a very specific kind of horror that comes from watching the man you love stand up buck naked in front of another human being as though he’s about to host a board meeting. All in the name of preserving your dignity while sacrificing his own like some deranged, excessively well-built gentleman warrior.

“Craig.”

Poor Craig gave a strangled yelp that I would, under different circumstances, have found hilarious.

“Mr. Logan!”

I lowered one hand just enough to peer through my fingers.

Craig stood frozen in the aisle, hat in hand, eyes so wide I was genuinely concerned they might never close again.

And Logan?

Logan acted as though he were fully dressed, standing in the middle of Fifth Avenue and not gloriously nude in a horse stall while I hid behind him clutching his shirt around myself like a fallen socialite.

“Hey, man,” Logan said casually, like this was a perfectly normal conversation to be having. “Can you do me a favor?”

Craig blinked.

Once.

Twice.

A third time in the year of our Lord.

“Sir?”

“Tell my family I’m taking Ororo into town for dinner tonight.”

I stared at the broad, unapologetically naked back of the man I loved and realized two things simultaneously.

One: This was, without question, the most ridiculous moment of my adult life.

And two: I was absolutely head over heels in love with James Logan Howlett.

Craig, to his eternal credit, made a heroic attempt to remain professional.

It was not going well.

His gaze shot toward the ceiling. Then the floor. Then one very alarmed horse. Anywhere, apparently, but directly at Logan’s extremely visible… ranch equipment.

“Y-yes, sir,” he stammered.

A beat.

Then, because humiliation is a renewable resource where I’m concerned, Craig added. “Is there… uh… anything else I should tell Mrs. Howlett and your parents?”

I made a sound that was somewhere between a gasp and the death rattle of my remaining dignity.

Logan, the traitor, didn’t even flinch.

“Yeah,” he said easily. “Tell them after dinner, I plan on taking Ororo for a nice long ride.”

I closed my eyes.

Bright Lady. Take me now.

Craig made a strangled noise that might have been a cough, might have been a laugh, and might have been the exact moment he mentally quit this job forever.

“Yes, sir. Okay. Alright then.” He jammed his cowboy hat back onto his head.

Then he turned so fast he nearly tripped over his own boots, the hat flying right back off his head. He muttered something that sounded suspiciously like a prayer, snatched it up again, corrected course, and all but sprinted down the aisle like the stable was on fire.

I waited until his footsteps disappeared completely before dropping my hands from my face and slowly looking up at Logan. He turned back toward me, utterly unbothered. Still naked. Still unfairly devastating. Still, somehow, looking pleased with himself.

“You,” I said with deadly calm, “are completely insane.”

He crouched down in front of me, a wicked grin spreading across his face. “It worked, didn’t it?”

I stared at him. Then I grabbed the nearest handful of hay and threw it directly at his chest.

He laughed. Actually laughed. Deep and warm and entirely too delighted with himself.

“Logan!”

“What?” he said, catching my wrists when I tried to throw more hay at him. “I told you I’d get you out unseen.”

I gaped at him. “Unseen?” I shrieked. “Poor Craig just saw enough to require therapy for a lifetime.”

That made him grin wider. “Craig’ll be fine.”

“Craig will never be fine again…”

He leaned in and kissed me before I could continue, smiling against my mouth. And the truly humiliating part? It worked.

Because we somehow ended up spending another two hours in that stall.

Logan did, in fact, take me to dinner at his favorite restaurant in Cold Lake, where I had the best wild mushroom risotto I'd ever tasted. Afterwards, he drove me to a secluded stretch of the estate tucked alongside a winding creek, a place he'd spent countless summers exploring as a boy. And there, in the bed of his pick-up truck beneath the Alberta sky that seemed to stretch on forever, he spent the rest of the night giving me that nice, long ride he'd promised.

True to his word, Logan somehow managed to sneak us both back into the house before sunrise without being spotted. And since I refused to ever again risk being caught naked and thoroughly satisfied in the family stables, I offered Logan a compromise. For the remainder of our visit, my separate-bedroom policy remained technically intact. In practice, however, Logan climbed through my bedroom window every night around midnight wearing a wicked grin and absolutely no shame whatsoever.

And somehow, against all logic and basic survival instinct, we managed not to get caught again.  By the time we were leaving Alberta two mornings after John’s surprise birthday party, I had completely convinced myself we’d gotten away with it.

Then Margaret hugged me goodbye in the main foyer.

“Ororo,” she said gracefully, one perfectly manicured hand still resting lightly against my arm, “the next time you visit, you must do me one small favor.”

“Of course,” I replied, absurdly pleased that Margaret was apparently inviting me back. I could practically feel the Howletts’ stamp of approval blazing on my chest.

“Please share a bedroom with Logan, dear.”

I blinked as the smile froze on my face.

Beside me, Logan went suspiciously quiet.

Margaret’s sharp gray eyes slid toward her grandson. “God knows,” she continued dryly, “he’s far too old to still be climbing in and out of windows like a teenager. At this point, it’s like having a hormonal wolverine scaling the exterior architecture.”

There was a long, terrible silence.

John suddenly developed an obsessive interest in our luggage being carried out to the waiting helicopter. Meanwhile, Lizzy pressed her lips together so tightly I could physically see her trying not to laugh.

And Logan?

Logan had the audacity to look mildly offended that his grandmother had apparently been monitoring his nightly movements like a highly judgmental Canadian intelligence agency. Meanwhile, I stood there seriously considering whether death by embarrassment was a medically recognized condition.

The memory dissolved with the last of the hot water, leaving me standing there beneath lukewarm water and silence, stripped bare in every way that mattered. My tears had finally stopped, but only because I no longer had the strength to keep crying. By the time I shut off the shower, I felt hollowed out. Exhausted. Raw. Like grief had wrung me dry and left nothing behind but a woman with no mascara, no armor, and no idea how to survive losing the man she loved.

I reached for the towel with shaking hands and wrapped it around myself automatically, more out of habit than conscious thought. My hair hung limp and wet down my back, all the careful glamour from earlier now completely washed away. No makeup. No composure. No illusion of control. Just me. Alone. Facing the consequences of letting my jealousy and insecurities consume me.

At that moment, all I wanted to do was crawl into bed, pull the covers over my head, and disappear. I switched off the bathroom light and stepped into the dark hush of my bedroom, where the only illumination came from the city glittering beyond the windows. With one hand clutching the towel against my chest, I took one step before I stopped cold.

For one terrible second, my mind refused to make sense of the shape sitting there in the dark. I blinked once, then again, but it didn’t disappear. A violent rush of cold, instinctive terror slammed through me.

There was someone sitting on my bed.

Now, like most women who live in a big city, I’ve taken more than a few self-defense classes. I know how to break a hold, gouge an eye, and, if absolutely necessary, knee a man into involuntary celibacy. But when you step out of the bathroom wearing nothing but a towel and find a shadowy figure in your bedroom, all of that training evaporates.

So I did what any sane woman would do.

I screamed.

Logan shot up from the edge of my bed so fast I nearly screamed again. Then he reached for the lamp and switched it on.

“Shit, baby. I’m sorry,” he said immediately, both hands lifting in surrender. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

He was dressed simply, in dark jeans, hiking boots, and a charcoal cashmere quarter-zip worn open just enough at the throat to reveal the white henley beneath. On Logan, of course, simple still somehow looked devastatingly sexy. The damp had darkened the sweater across his shoulders, chest, and sleeves, as if he’d spent the better part of the evening out in the snow. Even his jeans looked slightly darker in places where the snow had melted through. His hair was still wet and he looked like he had come straight from the cold and into my bedroom.

For one impossible second, I could only stare.

Because there he was. Logan. The love of my life. In my bedroom. Not in a memory. Not in a fantasy. Not in the cruel, masochistic replay my heart had been torturing me with for the past few days. Real. He was real.

And just like that, everything inside me collapsed.

The fear. The grief. The terrible, hollow certainty that I had lost him for good. It all broke apart at once.

My body moved before my pride could stop it. Before dignity. Before reason. Before I could remember I was wearing nothing but a towel, with wet hair plastered to my back and mascara-less heartbreak written all over my face.

I crossed the room in six stumbling steps and hurled myself into him.

He caught me with a sound that was half curse, half broken breath, his arms locking around me so fast and so tight it nearly hurt. And God help me, I wanted it to. I wanted the proof. I wanted the crushing, desperate certainty that he was here. That he had come back. That I hadn’t lost him after all.

We started talking at the exact same time, words tripping over each other in a stream of apologies and love and sheer emotional collapse.

“I’m sorry,” I choked out, clutching at him like if I let go he might disappear. “Logan, I’m so sorry. I love you. I love you so much.”

“Fuck, ‘Ro…” The raw edge in his voice nearly destroyed me. He buried his face against my wet hair and held me even tighter. “Baby, no. I’m the one who’s sorry. I’ve been such a fucking idiot. I never should’ve walked out that door.”

His arms stayed locked around me for a long, desperate moment, like neither of us trusted the other not to disappear. I could feel the cold in him now. Not just the damp chill of melted snow clinging to his clothes, but the deeper kind too. The kind that came from being out in the storm too long. From losing your way and only just finding it again. From being separated from the other half of your soul.

Slowly, almost reluctantly, Logan eased back just enough to look at me.

And whatever he saw on my face seemed to hit him like a physical blow.

His hands came up immediately, framing my face with a tenderness so careful it nearly broke me all over again. His thumbs brushed beneath my eyes, catching the last damp traces of tears I hadn’t even realized were still there. His gaze searched mine, frantic and reverent all at once, like he was trying to take inventory of every hurt, every sleepless hour, every terrible thought I’d had since the night I told him to leave.

“’Ro…” he whispered.

I knew what he saw.

No makeup. No armor. No carefully chosen words. No polished, impossible version of myself held together by pride and mascara and sheer female pride.

Just me.

Bare-faced. Wet-haired. Wrapped in a towel. Looking exactly like a woman who had cried herself hollow over the possibility of losing the love of her life.

And God help me, he looked just as hurt.

Not in the obvious ways. Logan never did anything in obvious ways. But now that the panic had passed and the lamp was on, I could see it. The dark hair that looked like he’d been dragging his fingers through it all night. The exhaustion carved into the lines around his eyes. The tightness in his jaw like he’d been clenching it against too many thoughts for too many days. He looked like a man who had spent the entire night chasing something he was terrified he’d already lost.

Seeing that kind of pain on Logan hurt me in ways I wasn’t prepared for.

“You’re freezing,” I whispered, because apparently even when confronted with the return of the man I love, my first instinct was to skip emotional collapse and go straight to domestic concern.

That did it.

A broken laugh escaped him. Ragged. Disbelieving. The kind of laugh a man makes when his heart is hanging by a thread and the woman he loves still finds a way to take care of him anyway.

His forehead dropped to mine.

“’Baby,” he said, voice rough and low and ragged with relief, “I thought I lost you.”

Whatever was left of my composure gave out.

“I thought I lost you too,” I whispered, and the words came out so broken they barely sounded like mine.

“This was all my fault. I…” Logan started.

His hands tightened gently on my face, thumbs still resting just beneath my eyes, but I shook my head before he could say anything else.

“No,” I said, and my voice cracked. “No, Logan… I need to say this. I need to say it before I lose my nerve.”

His eyes searched mine for a long moment before he nodded.

So I took one shaky breath. Then another. And finally, because there was no dignity left to protect and no strength left to lie, I let the truth split me open.

“I was jealous,” I said, and even now the admission burned. “God, I was so jealous I could barely think straight. Not because I don’t trust you. I do. I always have.”

My fingers tightened against his wrists.

“But she came before me, Logan. She knows parts of your life that I don’t. She was there for moments I’ll never be a part of. She shared experiences with you that I never can.”

Now that I'd finally started, I found myself saying everything I'd been holding back.

“You loved her once. You asked her to marry you. You were going to build a life with her. And even though that ended before you ever met me…” My voice trembled. “That history haunted me more than I ever wanted to admit.”

His expression shifted, anguish flickering across it so quickly it made my heart twist.

“Then she came back,” I whispered, “and suddenly she was asking things from you that no woman should ever have the right to ask once a man is in love with someone else. Dinner at the restaurant where you proposed to her. A night in your home. A trip to spread her father’s ashes. And every time you said yes, all I could think about was how much of your past still belonged to her in ways I could never touch.”

My throat tightened.

“I hated how much it got under my skin. I hated that she could still make you hurt. I hated that she could still make you feel guilty. And I hated…” My breath caught again. “God, I hated that some part of me was terrified that when it really mattered…”

I swallowed.

“You would choose her.”

The silence that followed was unbearable.

I could hear the city outside. The heat humming through the apartment. My own pulse, frantic and humiliating in my ears. And because apparently I had decided tonight was the night to set fire to every last scrap of pride I had left, I kept going.

“I know how irrational that sounds,” I said, tears spilling again despite my best efforts. “I know what you said. I know what you were trying to tell me.” I paused to steady my voice. “But all I could see was the life you almost had with her and the grief the two of you share over the loss of your baby.”

A thin, self-conscious laugh slipped out as I lowered my eyes.

“And I know I’m supposed to be above all that. I know I’m supposed to be more ‘evolved and emotionally secure’ and all the other aspirational nonsense women like me tell ourselves in the mirror, but I wasn’t.”

My voice dropped to almost nothing.

“I was scared.”

I met his eyes again, tears still sliding down my face and no pride left to hide behind.

“I was so scared of losing you that I did the very thing most likely to make it happen.”
My voice broke. “I pushed you away.”

For one fragile heartbeat, Logan just stared at me.

Then his entire face changed.

Not anger. Not frustration.  Just a raw, shattered openness I had only seen a handful of times in our entire relationship.

“Baby, I’m so damn sorry. This is all my fault. I thought I was protecting you from my past, and instead I just fucked things up worse.”

He guided me toward the bed, keeping one hand lightly at my waist until we sat down beside each other. For a moment, he leaned forward, forearms braced against his thighs, staring at the floor like he was trying to gather words he had spent years avoiding.

“I got so buried in my own guilt that I stopped seeing what all of this was doing to you.” His jaw tightened hard. “I should’ve told you everything about me and Fox a long time ago.”

I wrapped my arms around myself automatically, already missing the warmth of him.

“You did, Logan. You told me about the engagement and the miscarriage.”

“No, sweetheart.” His voice dropped lower. “I told you the fairy tale version.”

He dragged a hand slowly across his face before finally looking back at me.

“Truth is…” He exhaled harshly. “I’m ashamed of a lot of it. Ashamed I stayed as long as I did. Ashamed of the kind of man I became by the end.”

His eyes finally lifted fully to mine.

Steady. Raw.

“But I’m done letting the past control my life, ‘Ro. I can’t let something like this come between us again… so I need to tell you the truth. Fuck, you deserve the whole truth. Even the ugly parts.”

Silence settled softly between us before he continued.

“You already know most of this,” he said quietly. “The spare-son shit I grew up with. J.R. being groomed to eventually take over the company while I got to do whatever the hell I wanted.”

I nodded slowly, letting him continue.

“Growing up, I had the best childhood.” A faint, almost nostalgic smile touched his mouth. “I spent my days riding horses, disappearing into the woods with my friends, staying out fishing until sunset, then coming home covered in mud.” His expression softened briefly. “Nobody panicked because I was never the one being raised to carry the Howlett empire on my back.”

The smile faded slightly.

“That was always J.R.”

Logan leaned back slightly now, his gaze drifting toward the windows as though he could still see those memories unfolding somewhere beyond the snow.

“My parents tried to protect him from a lot of it, but my grandparents started preparing him for that life the day he was born.” A quiet breath left him. “Meanwhile, I had all the freedom in the world and absolutely no idea what to do with it.”

His attention stayed fixed somewhere far away.

“By the time I started college, everybody around me seemed to be moving toward something. Careers. Futures. Plans.” His mouth tightened faintly. “And I just felt... restless. Like I was standing still, watching the rest of the world pass me by.”

“So I dropped out and joined the military.”

A faint smirk flickered briefly across his mouth.

“That caused a small international incident for my family.”

Despite everything, a tiny laugh escaped me.

Logan’s expression softened at the sound before turning serious again.

“But for the first time in my life, I felt like I actually knew what I was supposed to be doing.” His hands clasped loosely between his knees. “And the fucked up part was… I was good at it. Really good at it.”

The room fell quiet except for the soft hush of snow against the windows.

“That’s where I met Fox.”

He flexed his fingers once, then clasped his hands together again.

“I’d already been stationed at Dwyer Hill for a couple years when Fox started working there as a civilian contractor.” A tired smile flickered briefly across Logan’s face. “She was beautiful. Had a mouth like a sailor. And she was a lot like me back then. Just trying to figure out who the hell she was.”

A small silence followed.

“And for a while, we were happy.”

“What went wrong?” I asked softly.

Logan sat quietly for a second before answering.

“Honestly?” His mouth tightened faintly. “I started changing… and she wanted me to stay the same.”

He shifted slightly, resting his forearms against his thighs again.

“You have to understand, when Fox and I met, we were practically kids. Raising hell just to raise hell. Too young and too stupid to think about consequences.” His mouth twitched bitterly. “I had a chip on my shoulder back then and I needed to prove I wasn’t just some rich kid playing soldier. So I volunteered for every dangerous assignment they’d let me near just to prove I was a badass. I took a lot of unnecessary risks.” His expression darkened slightly. “Back then, moderation wasn’t exactly my strong suit. And Fox loved every minute of it.”

“"But eventually, that shit got old.” His voice lowered slightly. “I started thinking beyond just myself. Started realizing there were people depending on me to make the right calls.” A quiet breath left him. “And somewhere along the way, I stopped feeling like I had something to prove.”

He leaned back again, a faint trace of pride softening his features.

“I got smarter. More disciplined. Learned when to push and when not to. Turns out the guy constantly volunteering for dangerous assignments actually made a pretty good leader once he stopped trying to get himself killed.”

A real smile touched his mouth then.

“Eventually, my Colonel trusted me enough to put me in command of my own unit.” His voice roughened slightly with the memory. “And it felt good. Like all that restless shit I’d carried around for years finally had somewhere to go.”

“But Fox still loved the version of me that burned through everything at full speed.” His mouth tightened faintly. “By then, though… I didn’t wanna be that guy anymore.”

Silence settled briefly between us.

“That’s when I realized that no matter how much I still cared about her…” His voice roughened slightly. “I wasn’t in love with her anymore.”

Without really thinking about it, I reached for his hand where it rested between us. His fingers closed around mine instantly.

I now understood the difference between the younger Logan and my Logan.

The man Fox had fallen in love with had lived his life at a hundred miles an hour, welcoming the chaos and volatility of youth with both hands. He hadn’t known what to do with all that intensity back then, so it turned reckless. Self-destructive. Directionless.

But my Logan was different.

He was still intense. Still passionate. Still capable of loving with a depth that sometimes left me breathless. Goddess, if anything, it burned hotter now. But it was no longer about chasing the next rush or the thrill of pushing everything too far. The way Logan loved me, the way he touched me, came from something deeper. Something steady. Certain.

It wasn’t chaos anymore.

It was the difference between a boy trying to prove himself to the world and a man who finally knew exactly who he was.

Logan stayed quiet for a moment beside me, his hand still wrapped around mine, his gaze fixed somewhere beyond the bedroom walls like part of him was still trapped inside those memories.

“But instead of admitting things had changed…” His grip tightened slightly around mine. “I stayed. I just felt so fucking guilty because Fox was still the exact same woman she’d always been… and I was the one who had grown into somebody else. I wasn’t the same man she fell in love with.”

His eyes lowered briefly to our joined hands.

“So I kept trying to force it to work instead.”

A humorless laugh escaped him.

“Reality was, we were both unhappy. We fought constantly, but we used sex like a band-aid. We’d fight. Have sex. Then pretend everything was okay. But the problems were still there in the morning.” He shook his head once. “I kept telling myself we were just going through a rough patch. That if we could just survive this phase, this one bad stretch, we'd somehow get back to the way things used to be.”

He fell silent again.

“But deep down…” He swallowed once. “We both knew.”

Snow drifted softly against the windows behind him.

“Then my grandfather died,” he continued quietly. “And suddenly everything changed.”

His shoulders tightened visibly beneath the charcoal sweater.

“Dad inherited the company. J.R. became second-in-command, and I could see it destroying him piece by piece.” His voice lowered slightly. “J.R. had already been drowning quietly for years, but after my grandfather died…” He shook his head once. “The pressure finally became too much. He started drinking more. Staying out all night. Missing meetings and pulling away from everyone. His wife finally gave up and filed for divorce. Then one night he nearly killed himself driving home drunk.”

Logan’s hand tightened hard around mine.

“And I realized if I didn’t do something, I was gonna lose my brother.”

There was something fierce and protective in Logan’s voice when he talked about J.R. Something achingly vulnerable.

“So I resigned my command and left the military,” he said quietly. “Told J.R. to go figure out who the hell he was, and who he wanted to be.” A faint, bitter smile touched his mouth. “He’d spent his whole life sacrificing pieces of himself for our family. Seemed fair somebody finally did the same for him.”

“How did Fox take the news?” I asked softly.

“She was angry as fuck.” A humorless laugh slipped out. “She hated everything about the structured life I was moving toward.”

His thumb traced absently against the side of my hand as he spoke.

“She hated Toronto almost immediately. Not necessarily the city itself. Just… the life that came with it. Most of my time was split between finishing my degree at U of T and working alongside my father learning the business.”

A faint, almost disbelieving smile touched his mouth.

“And fuck me sideways… I fucking loved it. Turns out I was a hell of a lot better at corporate life than anybody expected. Including me.”

He leaned back slightly, eyes drifting upward for a brief moment before continuing.

“I thought corporate life was gonna feel like a prison sentence.” A quiet breath left him. “Instead, I realized the military hadn’t just changed me… it had prepared me for this.” His mouth twitched faintly. “Turns out running military operations and running a company aren’t as different as people think. Leadership. Pressure. Strategy. Learning how to make hard calls when people are counting on you.”

Something softer moved through his expression now.

“And for the first time in my life, I got to see my father as something other than just my dad.” His expression softened slightly. “I saw the pressure he carried every day. The decisions. The responsibility. And watching the way he handled all of it…” A faint smile touched his mouth. “Made me respect him even more than I already did.”

The look faded almost as quickly as it appeared.

“But the more settled I became there, the more miserable Fox became.” A muscle ticked in his cheek before he exhaled slowly. “We fought more. Drifted further apart.” A quiet breath left him. “Eventually, I told her we needed to end things. That whatever we’d been trying to hold onto…” His voice roughened slightly. “It hadn’t really been working for a long time. And she agreed. Hell, she was excited to be moving back to Ottawa.”

A heavy silence stretched between us.

“She started making plans to move out.” His gaze lowered briefly. “Then we found out she was pregnant.”

My breath caught.

Logan stayed quiet for a moment before speaking again.

“We were both shocked as fuck.” A faint, bittersweet smile touched his mouth before fading again. “Fox had always been pretty clear she never wanted kids.” His jaw shifted slightly. “And truthfully? That hurt more than I ever admitted out loud because I did.” A rough breath left him. “I always wanted a family someday. Kids. A dog. A home. All of it.”

Without thinking, my fingers curled tighter around his.

“So when we found out about the baby… our son…” His eyes stayed fixed on our joined hands. “We convinced ourselves maybe this was our chance to finally fix what had already fallen apart.” Sadness shadowed his expression. “But the truth was…” A rough breath left him. “I think we were both just going through the motions by then. Trying real hard to believe we could still make it as a couple.”

His gaze lowered again.

“I proposed. Fox seemed happy for a while. Or maybe she was just trying as hard as I was to make all of it feel real.”

The quiet ache in his voice nearly broke me.

“But as the pregnancy progressed…” He ran a hand through his hair and let out a tired breath. “Things started getting bad again. Fox was miserable. She hated feeling trapped inside her own body. Hated feeling like her life suddenly wasn’t hers anymore.”

Pain pressed hard against my chest listening to him.

“And I kept telling myself things would get better once the baby came.” A rough breath left him. “But by then, every fight between us was really about something bigger. The demands of my job. The fact that even sex wasn't doing much for either of us anymore. How miserable she was being pregnant. All of it.”

For the first time since taking my hand, Logan finally let go, dragging both hands slowly down his face like the memories themselves exhausted him.

“And instead of dealing with any of it…” His laugh held no humor at all. “I buried myself in work. Took every international trip I could. Volunteered to open the Tokyo offices.”

“But the truth was…” His voice turned quieter. “I was just tired.”

“Tired of fighting. Tired of walking around on eggshells wondering what was gonna set off another argument. Tired of pretending we still knew how to fix something that had already fallen apart.”

The brutal honesty of it was devastating.

“Then she miscarried while I was in Japan.”

Pain crossed his face so quickly it stole the breath from my lungs.

“By the time I got to the hospital, our baby… our son was gone.” His voice roughened. “Fox was devastated. Angry. Grieving.” He swallowed hard. “She blamed herself. She blamed me.” His eyes lowered briefly. “And all I could think was that if I’d been there… maybe things would’ve been different.”

The second his hands lowered again, I reached for him instinctively.

His grip closed around mine tightly.

“For a long time, I blamed myself,” he admitted quietly. “Hell… part of me always will.”

The weight of his pain broke my heart.

“So after the miscarriage, we tried harder than ever. Counseling. Less travel. More time together.” A hollow laugh escaped him. “I kept trying to convince myself that maybe our shared grief was enough to hold everything together.”

His stare drifted toward the falling snow beyond the windows. “Fox threw herself into planning the biggest society wedding Toronto had probably ever seen.”

“Then the night before the wedding…” His voice dropped lower. “She finally said out loud what we’d both been avoiding.”

His eyes lifted back to mine.

“That no matter how badly we wanted it to work…” A rough breath left him. “There was nothing left to fight for.”

The weight of his words lingered between us.

“She said she couldn’t do it anymore.” His eyes drifted shut for just a moment. “That we were both miserable, and pretending otherwise wasn’t changing anything.”

“The fucked up part was…” A tired breath left him. "She was only saying out loud what we'd both known for a long time."

I bit my bottom lip, fighting the sting of tears.

“The next day, she packed up her things and moved back to Ottawa.” He swallowed once. “And instead of feeling heartbroken… I just felt relieved,” he admitted quietly.

“I hated myself for feeling that way. Because she was hurting. And I was hurting.” His eyes lowered briefly. “But for the first time in nearly two years…” His voice cracked slightly. “I could finally breathe again.”

The guilt was still there. I could see it written all over his face. Without thinking, I shifted closer beside him until our shoulders nearly touched.

“So I buried all of it.” He shrugged. “The guilt. The shame. The loss… I threw myself into work and convinced myself I was done with love.” He paused before adding, "And I pretty much became the fucking poster boy for bachelors everywhere."

He stared down at our joined hands.

“I've never tried to hide who I was back then, 'Ro.” He shifted his weight against the mattress and sighed quietly. “I'd tell a woman exactly what she was getting. We'd date for a while. Have sex. Enjoy each other's company. Then we'd go our separate ways.” His mouth twitched without humor. “Nobody expected forever, and I sure as hell wasn't offering it.”

Then his eyes locked onto mine.

“And then you walked into my life.”

For a moment, neither of us moved.

“And before I knew it…” A faint, almost disbelieving laugh escaped him. “You knocked me flat on my ass.”

Tears blurred my vision instantly.

“You have to believe me, ‘Ro,” he whispered. “What I feel for you has never had a damn thing to do with guilt or obligation or responsibility.”

Only then did his free hand finally lift from his lap, his knuckles brushing lightly along my cheek.

“I love you because what we have is real. The friendship. The passion. The honesty.” His voice roughened slightly. “Loving you is like breathing to me, baby. I don’t even have to think about it.”

Slowly, carefully, he leaned forward until his forehead rested gently against mine.

“It just is.”

For a moment, all I could do was close my eyes and let the certainty of it settle over me. There was no doubt in him. No hesitation. No confusion about where his heart belonged.

It belonged with me.

"For the past few days, I know I've let my guilt over everything that happened between me and Fox drive a wedge between us." His expression tightened as he pulled back just enough to look at me. " Fox reached out because her father had just died, and she told me she felt completely alone." A rough breath left him. "She asked me to take her to dinner at the restaurant where I'd proposed because she said it was one of the last times she remembered being happy."

His shoulders sagged. “I should’ve said no.”

“But you didn’t,” I whispered.

“No.” His voice lowered. “Because some part of me still felt responsible for her pain. For the loss of our son.”

His hand remained lightly against my face now, his thumb resting near my cheekbone.

“I went to dinner with her because I felt guilty. That’s the truth. I kept telling myself I owed her something. Closure. Kindness. Fuck, maybe even penance.” His mouth twisted bitterly. “And I knew I should’ve dropped her off at her hotel, but she started crying and I couldn’t bring myself to leave her alone. So I told her she could stay in my guest room.”

His hand finally fell away as his gaze dropped toward the rumpled duvet between us.

"The next morning, she asked me to go with her to spread her father's ashes on her family's ancestral land." A humorless laugh escaped him. “And once again, I told myself it was the right thing to do. That I was just helping her one last time.”

He shook his head.

“I knew how you'd feel about it. I knew I was askin' too much of you. But I kept tellin' myself that if I could just help her through this one last thing… maybe I'd finally stop feeling like I still owed her."

His eyes lifted back to mine.

“But when I got to that airport this evening…” His voice roughened. “All I could think about was you. And how I was so focused on trying to make peace with the past that I was hurting you.”

“So I made a choice.” His eyes held mine steadily. “I told her she could take the jet because I wasn’t getting on it.”

Logan went still for a moment before continuing.

“I told her I was sorry for everything.” His voice lowered. “Sorry I wasn’t honest with her in the past. Sorry I wasn’t there when she lost our son.” His jaw tightened. “But I told her we couldn’t keep living in the past anymore. All we were doing was bleeding ourselves dry over shit neither of us could change.”

His hand lifted again, this time lightly cradling the side of my face.

“And then I told her I loved you.”

His words hit me so hard I forgot how to breathe.

“She cried… to be honest, she cried a lot,” he admitted. “Then she said she knew I’d been carrying guilt over what happened between us for years.”

Pain flickered briefly across his face.

“She said every time something in her life fell apart, she knew I’d come running to try to fix it.” A muscle flickered in his cheek. “And after a while… she got used to me always showing up.”

He let out a quiet breath through his nose and shook his head at himself.

“She admitted seeing me happy with you made her realize something she'd been avoiding for a long time.” He paused briefly before continuing. “That I'd finally moved on… and she didn’t know how to do the same.”

My chest tightened painfully.

“But she also said something else.” His eyes held mine steadily. “She said she'd never seen me look as happy as I am with you. Or at peace.” A faint smile touched his mouth. “She said even the way I talked about you sounded different. Like I'd finally found what I'd been searching for.”

I looked away for a moment, fighting a losing battle with my tears.

“And then she said...” His voice roughened slightly. "That's how a man sounds when he's found the woman he's supposed to spend the rest of his life with."

Tears burned instantly behind my eyes.

“Baby, I know I've been a damn fool.” His thumb brushed softly beneath my eye, catching a tear before it could fall. “It took me way too damn long to realize I don’t owe my past the rest of my future.”

His eyes held mine. “And I hate that it took almost losing you to finally understand something I should've known all along.” His hand cradled my face gently. “I should've put you first, baby.”

A rough breath left him. “I got so caught up in trying to make things right from my past that I damn near lost the best thing that's ever happened to me. You're the love of my life.” His voice softened. “And I should've been protecting us.”

His forehead lowered against mine once more. “But, ’Ro…” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Baby, you've got to know... even though I let my fucking guilt cloud my judgment, there was never any doubt that my future was with you.”

The words settled somewhere deep inside me, reaching the places fear and doubt had been living for days. And for the first time since he'd walked out of my apartment, I finally let myself believe what he'd been trying to tell me all night. He wasn't leaving…

He was home.

Then Logan let out a quiet breath and leaned back slightly, reaching into the pocket of his jeans.

“As I was leaving the airport, I dropped my goddamn phone in a fucking snowbank.” Mild annoyance flickered briefly across his face. “The damn thing died, so I had to stop and buy this piece of shit.” He pulled a cheap burner phone from his pocket like he was personally offended by its existence. “But every time I tried calling you, your phone kept going straight to voicemail.”

My eyes flicked automatically toward the nightstand beside the bed where my own phone now sat plugged into the charger.

“It died after I left Warren’s party and went to your place,” I sheepishly admitted.

Thankfully, instead of reminding me for the thousandth time that I needed to keep my phone charged, he just arched an eyebrow like he was deciding whether or not to let me suffer a little longer over it.

“Baby,” he finally said dryly, “remind me to buy you three portable chargers and physically attach them to your purse.”

A much-needed laugh burst out of me.

It was sweet, really. Adorable, even. Because Logan apparently believed three portable chargers could accomplish what years of good intentions and repeated lectures from both him and my father had failed to do.

The truth was, I treated a fully charged phone the same way I treated leftovers and sensible shoes: with the best of intentions and absolutely no follow-through.

Logan laughed with me, like he already knew it was a lost cause, and for a moment it felt wonderfully normal. Like we were just us again.

Then his expression softened.

“Oh, hell.” He reached back into the pocket of his jeans. “I almost forgot.”

He pulled out the folded note I'd left at his penthouse earlier that night. The edges looked worn now, like he'd opened it more than once.

“So I left the airport and went straight to Warren’s party looking for you, but you were already gone. Then I went home hoping to hell you’d be there, but the apartment was empty.”

His eyes lifted back to mine.

“So I came here. And when you weren’t here either…” His fingers tightened slightly around the note. “I went back to my place and found this.”

My breath caught.

His gaze never left mine. “Sweetheart, I came back too.” His voice softened. “And I always will.”

A smile spread across his face. The very same smile that always made my heart race. “Hell, I’m pretty sure I broke every fucking speed limit in New York getting here to you.”

I leaned in and kissed him simply because I could.

“I hope you know you’re absolutely stuck with me now,” I whispered, trying my best not to start crying again.

Logan grinned. “Damn straight, because you’re stuck with me too.”

For a moment, neither of us said anything. We simply smiled at each other, the kind of quiet smile that only exists after surviving something together. Then that familiar look crossed his face. The one that usually meant he was about to say something wildly inappropriate at the worst possible moment.

“Although,” he continued casually, “I do think it’s worth pointing out that us having that fight somehow led to us having the hottest sex ever.”

It took every ounce of self-control I possessed not to laugh. “James Logan Howlett…” I playfully warned.

“I’m just saying.” He lifted a shoulder. “Not that we need it. But maybe every now and then we have a completely ridiculous fight about something harmless and fuck like rabbits against whatever wall we're closest to.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “So, you're actually suggesting we start scheduling arguments?”

“I'm only suggesting we keep an open mind.”

A laugh escaped me despite my best efforts. “You are completely impossible.”

His grin grew positively insufferable. “I'm not hearing a no.”

I shook my head. Unfortunately, the smile spreading across my face ruined any attempt at looking offended. So instead of explaining why scheduled argument sex was possibly the worst relationship idea in human history, I launched myself at him. His startled grunt barely had time to leave his mouth before my arms wrapped around his neck and I began raining kisses across his face.

“You’re unbelievable,” I informed him between kisses.

A smug chuckle escaped him. “I know.”

“No, really.” I kissed his jaw. “Most men survive a relationship crisis and learn something profound about emotional intimacy.” I kissed the corner of his mouth. “You somehow turned ours into a pitch for scheduled rage-sex.”

That earned a full laugh.

“Baby, I just spent the last hour apologizing and confessing every dark, painful thing I've spent years trying not to think about. I think I've earned the right to advocate for the occasional rage-fuck.”

“Logan.”

“Ororo.”

I tried very hard to look firm. Unfortunately, I was head over heels in love with him, which weakened my position considerably.

His arms tightened around my waist.

“I love you,” he said.

And just like that, he won the argument.

Which was deeply unfortunate, because I was beginning to suspect planned rage-sex might actually be a viable relationship strategy.

“You scared me,” I whispered, my voice softer now.

The humor vanished from his expression immediately.

“I know, sweetheart.” His voice was quiet. “And I'm so sorry.”

I touched his face. “I really thought I'd lost you.”

His hand covered mine, holding it there.

“You never lost me.” His voice roughened. “Christ, ’Ro... you will never lose me.”

Emotion swelled so quickly inside my chest that I couldn't trust myself to answer.

So I kissed him instead.

This time, neither of us laughed. The room seemed to grow quieter around us. No more jokes. No more misunderstandings. No more jealousy or guilt about the past.

Just the two of us.

When I finally pulled back, his forehead rested gently against mine. I could feel his breath. His heartbeat. The steady strength of his arms wrapped around me.

I was home.

“I love you so fucking much, baby,” I said in my best Logan impression.

His eyes drifted closed, as though hearing those words finally settled the last of the fear he'd been carrying. When he opened them again, the look in them nearly stole my breath.

Not because it was hungry. Because it was relieved. Like he'd spent three days carrying the possibility of losing me and was only now allowing himself to know he hadn't.

I kissed him again. Slowly. Lovingly. As though I were trying to pour everything he meant to me into a single kiss. And Logan kissed me back with the same quiet devotion. No desperation. No fear. No rush.

The ridiculous thing was that it wasn't even a particularly sexual kiss. No wandering hands. No desperate urgency. No attempt to lay me back against the pillows.

No.

It was sweet. Tender. And dare I say it... almost chaste.

Which somehow made it worse. Because there was something profoundly unfair about this man being able to turn me on simply by existing.

Goddess! I had missed this. Missed him. The rough scrape of stubble against my skin. The warmth of his hands. The quiet sounds he made when he forgot the rest of the world existed.

But more than any of that, I had missed us. The way we fit together. The way loving him felt less like falling and more like finding the missing piece of myself.

For three days, I'd convinced myself I was losing him. Convinced myself that maybe I'd imagined the future I saw whenever I looked at him.

And now here he was.

Holding me like he never intended to let go. Kissing me like coming back had never been a question. Only the destination.

I pulled back just enough to look at him.

A few droplets still clung to the shoulders of his dark sweater. His hair was still damp. His jaw rough with stubble. He looked exhausted. Beautiful. Rugged. Entirely too handsome for a man who'd spent half the evening chasing me across Manhattan.

Then suddenly I remembered that I was sitting in his lap wearing nothing but a towel. Logan appeared to reach the exact same realization at the exact same moment. His eyes dipped briefly. Then slowly lifted back to mine. The air between us immediately shifted.

“Fuck,” he murmured.

The single word sent a shiver racing through me. And I smiled. Because there are many things a woman dreams of hearing after reconciling with the love of her life. Poetry. Declarations. Grand romantic speeches.

Mine, apparently, involved hearing my boyfriend drop the F-bomb.

But let's be honest. I was so completely sprung on Logan that hearing him whisper, “Fuck,” somehow qualified as the most romantic thing I'd ever heard. Unfortunately...

My boyfriend, meanwhile, appeared to be having an entirely different spiritual experience.

Logan blew out a slow breath, his hand still resting lightly against my waist.

“Alright.” He nodded once, as though he was trying to negotiate with every red-blooded male instinct he possessed. “I appreciate the fact that we just had a pretty goddamn important relationship moment here.” He paused, looking very much like a man trying to reassure himself. “I'm even more fucking grateful that we survived it and we're stronger because of it. And I know after everything we've been through we're probably supposed to just cuddle, watch the ball drop, and act like two emotionally healthy adults.”

His eyes drifted downward.

“Having said that...” A helpless laugh escaped him. “Fuck, ’Ro.”

His hands tightened gently around my hips.

“I'm still a man… a suddenly very aroused man. And my incredibly beautiful girlfriend is sitting on my lap wearing nothing but a towel.” He shook his head slowly. “So if you want me to be a good boy, I strongly recommend you go put on the least sexy pajamas you own.”

His mouth twitched.

“I'm talking full grandma mode, darling. Flannel. Penguins. Whatever old-lady pajamas you've got.”

He looked me dead in the eye.

“Because if you keep sitting here on my lap with nothing between us but that towel, I can promise you we're not making it to breakfast until President's Day.”

I considered that for all of three seconds.

“Well,” I said lightly, my fingers absently toying with the edge of the towel, “I've always thought breakfast was overrated.”

Then, channeling my inner Eartha Kitt, I tugged at the knot holding the towel in place and let the white cotton flutter softly to the floor.

The poor man actually stopped breathing.

And let me tell you... there are very few things better for a woman's ego than bringing a six-foot-two Canadian hunk to the brink of a religious experience simply by baring it all. Because apparently, even soul-baring apologies and major emotional breakthroughs are no match for a great pair of breasts.

Logan's gaze wandered shamelessly over every inch of me before finally returning to my face.

“Jesus Christ, ’Ro...” A helpless laugh escaped him. “That was just mean.”

I grinned.

“That's funny,” I murmured, slipping my arms around his shoulders. “Coming from the man who once seduced me in his family's stables.”

Another helpless laugh escaped him.

“Sweetheart...” He shook his head. “You are not making this fucking easy. I'm trying real hard to be a gentleman.”

I shrugged innocently.

“Well, far be it from me to lead you down the road to damnation.” I made a show of slipping off his lap. “If you're not interested in the best make-up sex of your life, we can just spend the rest of the evening lying in each other's arms, watching the ball drop, and protecting your reputation as a gentleman.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.”

His hands immediately tightened around my waist, keeping me exactly where I was.

“Who the hell said I wasn't interested in make-up sex?” He blinked. “I just kinda figured we'd spend the rest of the night... well, you know... cuddling. Then, if I got real lucky, maybe I'd talk you into some wake-up sex tomorrow morning.”

He searched my face for another moment, still looking at me as though he expected me to change my mind. Instead, I simply bit my lip and, with all the innocence I could possibly muster, adjusted my position against his growing erection.

He groaned in response. “...So you're serious?”

I nodded.

His eyebrows climbed.

“Hang on.”

He blinked again, looking like his brain was trying very hard to catch up with what his ears had just heard.

“So... just so we're perfectly clear here...”

A disbelieving laugh escaped him.

“You wanna skip all the hand-holding, cuddling, talking, and emotional afterglow stuff... and get straight to the make-up sex part?”

I smiled and nodded as seductively as I could.

Then I took his face in my hands and leaned forward until our foreheads touched.

“Baby,” I whispered, “what I'm trying to tell you is that one of us is already naked...”

My fingers found the button of his jeans. Never breaking eye contact, I eased it open before slowly lowering the zipper.

“...and the other one is way overdressed for the way I want to ring in the New Year.”

For a long moment, Logan simply stared at me.

Then he closed his eyes and tipped his head back toward the ceiling.

“Fuuuuuck,” he muttered reverently.

When his eyes found mine again, the most helpless grin spread slowly across his face.

“Sweetheart...” A low laugh rumbled in his chest. “Just so you know, I was perfectly happy to do all of that mushy shit.”

His hands settled more firmly around my waist.

“But...”

Another quiet chuckle escaped him.

“I'd be the dumbest son of a bitch in North America if I argued with your plan.”

"Excellent. Now that we're on the same page, shut up and kiss me." I murmured, smiling with quiet satisfaction as I slid my hand behind his neck and pulled him down into another kiss.

But unlike our earlier kisses, this one was insatiable, fevered, and wonderfully messy.

His fingers tangled in my hair, tilting my head just so. Our mouths moved in a slow, unhurried slide. Tongues teasing. Lips catching. Breaths mingling in the narrow space between us. Every kiss was thorough, each one lingering just long enough to leave me wanting the next. His tongue brushed against mine in a slow, teasing caress. Hot, wet, and insistent. Before pulling back just enough to make me chase it. When I did, his tongue plunged deep, claiming me with slow, deliberate strokes.

The soft growl in his throat vibrated through me like a melody I'd spent the last three days missing, only now realizing how impossibly quiet my world had become without him. My palms slipped beneath his henley, savoring the warmth of his skin and the familiar planes of his back. No matter how many times I'd touched this man somehow my hands still moved over him with reverence.

The truth was, Logan's greatest appeal had never been the broad shoulders that caused most women to mentally misplace their panties before he even said hello, the six-pack abs that could launch a thousand dirty thoughts, or the face that could make perfectly sensible women forget their own names. It was the heart that lived beneath all of it. The fierce loyalty. The impossible tenderness. The way the toughest man I'd ever known loved with his entire heart.

Perhaps that's why every kiss with Logan felt less like giving in to temptation and more like coming home. Familiar. Comforting. And somehow, every single time, completely new.

It's also why I've always been a savor-the-moment kind of woman with Logan. Yes, every now and then I'll happily let him tempt me into a quick, intense romp between the sheets. But I've always believed the slow, delicious anticipation was half the fun. I love taking my time, lingering over every kiss and every teasing caress, letting the tension build until we're both trembling with desire. Because in my experience, the best things in life, and in bed, are worth the wait.

But after spending the past three days without my man, ugly crying myself to sleep, and wondering if I'd just made the biggest mistake of my life, I had neither the patience nor the inclination for a slow burn.

I wanted Logan.

Period.

Point blank.

Pronto.

Thankfully, Logan appeared to have reached exactly the same conclusion.

He broke the kiss for only a heartbeat, just long enough to shrug out of the cashmere quarter-zip and henley in one impatient motion before pulling me back against him.

His arms wrapped around me in what could only be described as a full-fledged Logan hug. One part comfort, one part possessiveness. There was nothing tentative about it. He held me as though he'd finally recovered something precious after being convinced he'd lost it forever.

Then his mouth found mine again.

This time he caught my bottom lip between his teeth, just enough to steal a gasp from me, and in that instant my body reached a unanimous decision.

I'd never needed Logan more.

I don't remember exactly how my back found the bed. One moment I was perched in his lap, practically purring beneath his kisses. The next I was lying beneath him, and somehow, despite the change in our positions, his mouth had never left mine.

Not that I was complaining because his mouth was a sin I could never resist. Commanding and teasing, his tongue brushed against mine like a promise of everything that was still to come. Every kiss was a reminder of how effortlessly he could unravel me, how his touch could drag me into oblivion. I wondered, fleetingly, if I could come just from this. Just from the way his lips owned mine. The way his groan vibrated against my tongue, raw and unfiltered. That sound was my undoing, the thing that had sent me spiraling into this moment. I chased it, licked it from the roof of his mouth as though it were something I could savor, something I could keep.

My hips moved without thought, pressing harder against him as my tongue tangled with his in a rhythm that mirrored the way our bodies moved together. My fingers twisted into the thick hair at the nape of his neck, tugging just enough to draw another rough groan from him.

"Fuck, baby," Logan rasped, his voice rough as gravel as he pulled back just enough to look down at me. His eyes burned with something wild. Something hungry. "Show me how ready you are for me."

His finger traced my mouth before slipping inside to part my lips. I tasted salt and skin as he slid it farther in, slow and deliberate, until my tongue curled around it. His breath hitched when I sucked hard, my teeth grazing the pad of his finger, while his other hand slipped between us to tease my slick folds. I moaned softly, my hips instinctively chasing his touch.

"I want to watch your fingers stroking in and out of you," Logan said, his voice rough with need. "I want to watch your thighs shake when you come, knowing I'm watching you."

He slowly withdrew his finger from my mouth before leaning down, his lips brushing the shell of my ear.

"I want to watch you masturbate for me."

The heat that flared through me was immediate, bright enough to scatter every coherent thought I had. The idea of Logan watching me masturbate left me equal parts exhilarated and, I'm almost embarrassed to admit it, a little self-conscious.

Now, like most healthy adult women, I've obviously taken matters into my own hands from time to time. And while I certainly didn't maintain the sort of battery-powered armory Betsy considered an essential part of every woman's wardrobe, I did own one faithful little companion: The Duke of Delight.

And by the name alone, you can probably guess exactly who'd given it to me for one of my birthdays: none other than Lady Elizabeth Braddock. She'd handed me the beautifully wrapped gift while proudly declaring that "although The Duke couldn't match the perfection of a nice, big cock, he did have one distinct advantage: he always did exactly what he was told."

Granted, The Duke had spent the better part of the last two years buried somewhere in the back of my closet thanks to the fact that Logan and I enjoyed a wonderfully active and deeply satisfying sex life. That being said, despite everything we'd shared together, he'd never once asked me to "perform" for him.

Of course, it wasn't the act of masturbating that made me nervous. There wasn't a single inch of me Logan hadn't already seen or touched. It was the vulnerability of letting him watch something I'd always done in private.

Part of me wanted to hide beneath the comforter and insist there was no way I could possibly masturbate in front of him. Then I remembered something Betsy was forever lecturing Jean, Anna Marie, and me about: confidence is the sexiest thing a woman can wear. Well... that and a killer pair of black So Kate pumps. And since my favorite pair was tucked safely away in the closet alongside The Duke, confidence would simply have to do.

If James Logan Howlett wanted a show, then I was damn well going to give him one.

I watched as he eased himself off me, one hand lingering against my hip for the briefest moment before he rolled onto his side. The mattress shifted beneath us as he settled onto the edge of the bed.

I inched farther back onto the mattress, biting my bottom lip and silently praying I was pulling off my best come-hither look.

"Usually I'd have The Duke of Delight to help me," I said, praying I sounded far more confident than I felt. "So I might need a little assistance from you."

Logan paused halfway through pulling off his boots and socks, one eyebrow climbing toward his hairline as he turned to look at me. "The Duke of Delight?"

For one hilarious second, he looked genuinely unsure whether he should be jealous.

"My vibrator," I admitted trying not to laugh at the expression on his face. "Although he's been retired for a while now. I haven't called him into active duty in nearly two years."

Logan blinked once as though he wasn't entirely sure he'd heard me correctly. "Wait..." He frowned before asking. "You named your vibrator The Duke of Delight?"

He burst out laughing.

"Hey, no judgment," I shot back. "I don't make fun of the fact that you name your motorcycles."

A slow grin spread across his face. "Yeah, but baby, they're…”

His voice trailed off as he watched my fingertips drift down, grazing my own skin. The path was so familiar that it was only Logan's unwavering gaze that made it feel electric.

"We can argue the merits of you naming your motorcycles versus me naming my vibrator..." I paused letting one hand slide lower until my palm cradled the swell of my left breast. I dragged my tongue over my other thumb, slow and deliberate, before circling it around my nipple. The wet heat made it tighten instantly, aching for more. I imagined it was his mouth, hot, hungry, teasing me just like this. A shiver ran through me as I pinched the stiff peak between my fingers, rolling it until my back arched off the bed.

His gaze darkened, locked onto the way my body responded.

"...or..."

I let the word linger as I continued teasing my nipple with my thumb and forefinger, rolling it gently between them before letting my hand drift to my other breast, giving it the same unhurried attention.

My nipples were hard, aching, begging for his mouth. I could feel the heat pooling between my thighs, the slickness there a testament to how badly I wanted him. His gaze raked over me, slow and deliberate, like he was caressing every inch of me with his eyes.

Logan chuckled as he crawled toward me across the bed. “Damn.  You win, baby.”

"Ah, ah, ah..." I lifted my leg, planting my foot against his shoulder before he could reach me. "You said you wanted to watch. That means no touching until I tell you."

His eyes narrowed as a teasing growl rumbled in his chest. "Okay. But just know The Duke of Double D's isn't invited. You're all mine and I don’t share."

However, instead of backing away, he caught my foot in both hands and sat back on his heels. Before I could protest, he lifted it to his mouth and slowly traced his tongue along the arch of my foot.

A startled gasp escaped me before I could stop it. Every muscle in my body tightened, and a delicious shiver raced all the way up my spine. I was instantly wet. No... wet didn't even begin to cover it. I suddenly felt like I had the entire Atlantic Ocean between my thighs. And judging by the look on his face, Logan knew exactly what he'd done to me.

I slipped my foot from his grasp before pressing it lightly against his chest once more, easing him back while trying to slow my racing heart. This may have started as Logan's fantasy, but I was the one in control now.

"No touching," I reminded him, my voice low and breathless.

Trying to refocus and remember what I was supposed to be doing, I continued pinching and teasing my nipples while my other hand trailed across the smooth plane of my stomach. Each nail scraped lightly over the dip of my navel before gliding down into the slick heat pooling between my thighs. Logan's dark gaze followed every movement, his pupils dilated and hungry, his breathing growing heavier, his lips parting as though he wanted to taste the air between us.

But despite the fact he clearly wanted to touch me himself, he remained kneeling on the thick, rumpled sheets, fists clenched at his sides, jeans straining against the curve of his arousal. The way he watched me, like he wanted to devour me whole but was forcing himself to wait, sent a jolt of heat straight to my core. I bit my lip, teasing him as I slowly parted my legs, giving him an unobstructed view while my fingers circled and stroked, the wet sounds of my arousal filling the room.

His nostrils flared, and I knew he could smell me, the unmistakable scent of my desire clinging to the air. My back arched off the bed as I slipped one finger inside, then a second, the heel of my hand ground against my clit in slow, deliberate circles, each stroke sending a fresh surge of heat twisting through me. I was so wet, so ready, and the way his eyes darkened, the way his tongue darted out to moisten his lips, made me want to drag this out just a little longer.

I met his gaze, refusing to look away, my own pupils blown wide with wicked intent. The challenge in my eyes was unmistakable: If you want me, you're going to have to watch first.

My fingers moved faster, then slowed again, deliberately dragging out every tremor, every gasp.

"Mmmhhhmmm... Goddess, it feels so good," I whimpered as another soft moan escaped me. "I feel so naughty. So bad. But, Logan...” I moaned again in pleasure. “I'd much rather feel you inside me. Deep... and nice and hard."

"Fuck, ‘Ro," he rasped.

I could see the cords in his neck standing out, his jaw clenched so tightly it had to hurt. The muscles in his arms bunched as every line of his body silently pleaded with me to let him have me.

But I wasn't ready to answer that plea.

Not yet.

Instead, I slid my fingers free, impossibly slick, and slowly brought them to my mouth, tasting myself as I watched him unravel.

"Would you like a taste, Mr. Howlett?"

"Fuck yeah," he growled.

I watched him watching me and saw the exact moment his self-control began to fracture. His jaw flexed. His chest rose and fell in shallow, almost pained breaths as he waited for me to give him permission to touch me.

But I didn't.

Not yet.

Instead, I let my hand drift back down between my legs, tracing slow, taunting circles as I closed my eyes. I shivered at the overload of sensation and the exquisite tension of knowing he was watching every twitch, every needy little gasp.

“I wish you could feel how wet I am for you right now,” I gasped, rolling my hips over my fingers as they penetrated my wet core again with slow, sensual strokes. I was only half teasing now, wanting so badly for him to touch me, to kiss away the fire blazing between my legs.  

"Then let me touch you, baby." Logan's voice was a husky command. He shifted forward, his fingertips brushing lightly against my thigh. "Let me drink from my goddess."

A surge of electricity shot through me at his words. My breath caught, every muscle trembling.

"Come here," I whispered, my eyes never leaving his. Slowly, I crooked my finger, beckoning him closer. A teasing smile curved my lips. "Show me who I belong to."

I needed to feel him every bit as badly as he needed to touch me. He lifted my hand and pressed a tender kiss to my knuckles, then trailed his tongue in slow, wet circles over my fingertips. The taste of me, the sweet tangy taste of my arousal, made him growl softly. I gasped as he captured my index and middle fingers between his lips, sucking them with a deliberate slowness that had my heart pounding as I watched him.

"You were right," he said with a slow grin. "You taste so damn good, baby." His eyes held mine. "You always do."

His words were velvet on my skin. He guided my hand back between my thighs, wrapping my wrist in his hand and pressing my slick fingers to my glistening folds. His smirk was pure temptation. “And I’m going to taste every drop.”

Slowly, he slid my legs wider, his strong hands caressing the inner curves of my thighs before lifting them effortlessly over his shoulders. I squealed as a rivulet of my arousal dripped down, pooling beneath me on the sheets. The contact, the weight of his stare, made me quake with need.

"I thought you wanted to watch," I breathed, struggling to string the words together.

"I do," he murmured, his voice deep and promising as he lowered his head between my legs. "But you looked like you could use a little help."

His tongue darted between my fingers, parting them to expose my throbbing bud. My back arched as he lavished attention on my clit with his tongue, teasing with broad, insistent strokes that drove waves of tremulous pleasure through me.

He drew back, guiding my own fingertips back to the slick heat of my clit. His gaze burned into me as I circled, slow at first, then faster, my breath hitching as pleasure coiled tight. Then his touch again, deliberate, unhurried. Two of his fingers pressed inside me, stretching just enough to make me gasp. He curled them, searching, until they brushed that perfect spot, sending a jolt through my hips.

“That’s it, Sweetheart. Ride my fingers,” he growled, his breath warm as he exhaled over my heated flesh. His fingers curled inside me in a slow, hypnotic rhythm, every movement stoking the fire in my core. His mouth hovered at the juncture of thigh and hip, the promise of more lurking behind his dark eyes.

I lost myself in the swirl of sensation - his tongue, his fingers, the slick heat of my own touch. My hips began to roll, riding the curve of his knuckles, every nerve ending alight. When he crooked his fingers inside me and whispered, “Do you want to come?” his voice rough as gravel, I could barely catch my breath.

“Yes,” I choked out, my back arching. “Yes, yes, yes…. Logan!" I screamed arching into his mouth as I came.

The waves of my climax crashed over me like a storm-tossed sea, my body shuddering violently as I rode out the pleasure, my fingers working furiously against my slick, throbbing flesh while Logan swallowed every drop of my sweet cream down, licking it off my slick folds as it pulsed with the aftershocks.  My moans echoed off the walls, a symphony of raw desire filling the room, thick and heavy in the air. I was barely aware of him withdrawing his fingers, the slick sound fading into the haze of my own ecstasy. My eyes fluttered open just in time to see him rise, his movements fluid and predatory as he stripped off his jeans and boxers in one seamless motion. His cock sprang free, thick and heavy, the swollen head glistening with a pearl of precum that made my mouth water instinctively.

I pushed myself up and reached for him, my hands settling on his waist as I drew him back onto the bed. He came without resistance, allowing me to press him flat onto his back beneath me. A hunger gnawed at me, primal and insatiable, and I flicked my tongue out, tasting the salt of his skin before dragging it along the rigid length of him, from base to tip. My eyes locked onto his, dark and burning with need, as I took him into my mouth, my lips sealing around the velvety head with a slow, deliberate suction. His taste exploded on my tongue. Musky, Intoxicating, utterly him.

"Fuck!" His voice was a rough growl, his head falling back to the bed as his fingers tangled in my hair, gripping tight. I hollowed my cheeks, taking him deeper, my throat relaxing to accommodate his girth. His hips rocked forward, his breath hitching as I worked him with both my mouth and hand, his impressive length demanding both. My tongue swirled along the sensitive underside of his cock. I moaned around him, the vibrations sending a shudder through his body, his grip on my hair tightening almost painfully.

I traced the swollen head with my tongue, dipping into the weeping slit before flicking it back and forth, teasing the most sensitive part of him. His breath came in ragged gasps, his body trembling as I took him deeper, my lips stretched wide around his thickness. Logan’s eyes squeezed shut, his face a mask of tortured pleasure as I engulfed him in the wet heat of my mouth, my moans vibrating around his cock until he was groaning, his fingers twisting in my hair like he was holding on for dear life.

I could feel the battle raging inside him. Whether to let me have my way or take control. Fortunately for both of us, I took the decision out of his hands. Literally. My hand stroked his saliva-slicked length, my fingers curling around the base as I sucked hard on the sensitive head, my other hand cupping and rolling his heavy balls, feeling them tighten under my touch. His breath hitched, his body tensing as I worked him relentlessly, my tongue swirling, my lips sealing around him in a rhythm that drove him wild.

"Shit, ‘Ro... yeah, baby, suck it just like that..." His voice was a broken growl. His words dissolving into grunts and groans, his curses sounding like prayers in my ears. His grip on my hair tightened, his hips jerking forward as he pumped into my mouth in short, desperate thrusts, his cock sliding over my tongue, hitting the back of my throat with each thrust. "I’m close," he warned, his voice strained, his body coiled tight like a spring.

I felt the telltale tightening of his balls in my hand, his thighs flexing as his hips pumped faster, his cock swelling even thicker in my mouth. I took him deeper, my throat relaxing to swallow around him, my tongue pressing against the underside of his shaft. His groan was a guttural sound, ripped from deep in his chest as his release hit him, hot and thick, spilling down my throat in salty waves. I didn’t let up, my hand stroking him in time with my mouth, my tongue swirling around the head, lapping up every drop as his body shuddered above me.

It felt like an eternity before the last of his release spilled into my mouth, his cock twitching as I swallowed every drop, my tongue cleaning him with slow, deliberate strokes. His body trembled, his breath coming in ragged gasps as I finally let him slip from my lips, my tongue darting out to catch the last traces of his essence from the dripping tip. Logan's hands shook as he pulled me up into his arms, his mouth crashing against mine in a kiss that tasted of him, me, and the raw, intoxicating mix of us. His hands gripped my hips, his cock already hardening again against my stomach, the heat of him searing through me. I moaned into his mouth, my body aching with need, my skin hypersensitive to every touch, every brush of his fingers against my skin.

Logan finally pulled back, breaking our kiss.

"Goddamn, 'Ro. That was fucking hot," he murmured, his voice a lazy rasp. A slow, satisfied grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. "I bet your Lord of Self-Love can't do that."

“He’s a Duke,” I corrected with exaggerated primness, arching an eyebrow as a teasing smile tugged at my lips. "And I do seem to recall..." I tilted my head, pretending to consider it while pointedly ignoring the way Logan's eyes narrowed at me. "...one early morning when he delivered a rather unforgettable performance that had me..."

Before I could finish, Logan let out a playful growl and with one effortless roll had me flat on my back beneath him.

"Logan!" I shrieked.

A surprised laugh escaped me as he caught both my wrists above my head in one large hand and stretched out over me, settling between my thighs.

"Sweetheart..." He brushed his lips along my jaw before lingering at my neck, his voice dropping to a low, amused rumble. "That may be the greatest challenge to my manhood I've ever heard."

The corner of his mouth lifted into a slow, wicked grin. "Looks like I've got to remind you who the apex alpha is in this bedroom."

"You mean the Duke?" I smiled up at him, fully aware I was poking a very large, very territorial bear. " Yes... the Duke is quite impressive."

I gave him my sweetest, most innocent smile and watched his face fall.

"Not much of a personality, admittedly..." I continued sweetly. "But he more than compensates with remarkable stamina."

"I'll show you remarkable stamina," Logan growled before leaning down and capturing my mouth in a kiss that silenced me before I could say another word.

His tongue swept into my mouth, staking claim to territory he already knew was his. This wasn't a tender kiss. It was possessive. Searing. Insistent.

I moaned, the sound shivering out of me, and he swallowed it whole.

I felt myself opening, not just my mouth, but everywhere. My hips lifted instinctively. My thighs fell farther apart.  He kissed me with shameless hunger, exploring every corner of my mouth as his tongue curled around mine, coaxing, demanding, refusing to let me retreat. There was only the primal rhythm between us, his mouth claiming mine again and again until I could no longer tell where his breath ended and mine began.

One of his hands continued to pin my wrists above my head as his other hand slid between us, fingers wrapping around his thick shaft. The engorged head, still slick from our earlier activities dragged through my dripping folds, teasing my entrance before he smacked it against my clit with a wet, obscene sound. Again. And again. Each impact sent a jolt of white-hot pleasure searing through me, my back arching off the bed as if struck by lightning. My thighs quivered, muscles straining, my breath coming in ragged, broken gasps that bordered on sobs. He didn’t relent, teasing the thick ridge of his crown against my swollen, aching bud until my moans turned desperate, my hips bucking wildly against the merciless rhythm of his touch.

His eyes burned into mine, heavy-lidded and dark with hunger, his lips parted as a low growl rumbled in his chest.

"That's it, baby," he growled, his voice rough with desire. "Fuck... I love watching you come apart for me."

Each word was punctuated by another stoke against my clit, and I felt myself unraveling, suspended in a haze of heat and need, the coil inside me wound so tight I thought it would snap.

His body pressed me into the mattress, his weight pinning me in place, while he moved his cock to my soaking entrance. My teeth sank into my lower lip, not to stifle a cry but to anchor myself as my body arched toward him, every inch of me thrumming with anticipation and the need to be filled. The ache between my thighs had become a pulse, a demand, a hunger that coiled tighter with every ragged breath. I could feel the heat of him against me, the promise of that first thrust… how it would split me open, stretch me wide, and finally, finally let me shatter around him.

But then... He stopped. Completely. No warning. No explanation. No mercy.

The absence of friction was a cruel, aching void, and I whimpered, my body clenching around nothing, greedy and unfulfilled.

And for one wildly irrational moment, I seriously considered filing a formal complaint with the Canadian government. Because surely, somewhere, there had to be some law against this.

"Logan..." I demanded, thoroughly exasperated. "What are you doing? Don't you dare stop." I glared up at him, lifting my hips in a futile attempt to initiate contact.

But Logan, apparently, had declared himself the Grand Marshal of Delayed Gratification. He simply lifted his hips, denying me the contact I so desperately wanted. Instead, he lowered his head, his beard rasping against my cheek as his voice dropped to a low, dangerous rumble beside my ear.

"Who's the King now, 'Ro?"

Yes, I know. Apparently, I'd awakened the beast. Otherwise known as James Logan Howlett's masculine pride. To be fair, I'd probably earned this. There are only so many times a woman can compare her boyfriend to a vibrator before his competitive instincts revolt.

The truly tragic part?

Even though I was obviously well past ready to stop talking altogether... I could be just as stubborn as Logan. Which, of course, was precisely why I opened my mouth to deliver one more wildly exaggerated endorsement of the Duke.

Unfortunately, the trouble with dating a man who knows you by heart? He always sees your next move coming.

The moment he realized I was about to double down, he simply upped the ante. He teased the head of his penis against my already overstimulated opening and something inside me fractured.

Every smart-aleck comeback. Every ounce of pride. Every last shred of resistance.

Apparently, they all just packed their bags, boarded the first flight out of New York, and abandoned me without so much as a forwarding address.

"You are..." I breathed, the words catching in my throat. "Damn it... you are. Just... don't stop."

A guttural curse tore from his throat.

"Good," he rasped. "Because fuck... I need to be inside you."

I nodded frantically because, at that point, I was prepared to concede the throne, knight the Duke into early retirement, and personally crown Logan King of the Bedroom if it meant he'd finally stop teasing me and put me out of my misery.

Pride. Dignity. Negotiating leverage. They could all appeal the decision tomorrow. This girl was ready to get laid.

Logan’s mouth crashed onto mine, swallowing the helpless, needy sound I made as he pressed inside, inch by agonizing inch. The stretch was exquisite, borderline painful, the heat of him spreading through my belly as he finally bottomed out, his hips flush against mine, our bodies trembling in unison.

He stilled, buried to the hilt, forehead pressed to mine, his breath ragged as he waited while the involuntary tremors rippled through me.

“Ororo,” he breathed, and it was a prayer, a curse, and a benediction all at once.

He rocked his hips just once, a slow, deliberate roll that sent fireworks exploding behind my eyelids, then stilled again, his restraint a fragile, trembling thing. I wrapped my legs around his waist, ankles locking behind him, pulling him in deeper.

He filled me so completely, so impossibly deep, that I wondered if I’d ever get used to the sheer size of him. My walls clenched around every ridge, every vein, every pulsing inch of his cock, as if my body was welcoming him back home. His kiss turned slow, almost reverent, mirroring the languid drag of his cock as he pulled out and slid back in with excruciating slowness. I could feel every inch of him gliding through my slick heat, my body swallowing him whole, pulling him deeper with each thrust.

One of his hands still held my wrists above my head, but his other hand came up, two fingers pressing against my parted lips. I took them eagerly, my tongue swirling around them, my eyes locked onto his as I sucked them deep, tasting the both of us. And when he pulled them free, slick with my saliva, I knew exactly where they’d go next. I melted into the mattress as the wet pads of his fingers found my clit, circling it with maddening precision.

“Yes,” I moaned, my hips rocking in time with his touch, the pressure building, coiling tighter and tighter inside me. He took his time, each stroke growing harder, faster, until my voice was raw, my throat hoarse from screaming in pleasure. For a moment, I couldn’t hear anything, only the wet, obscene sounds of our bodies, the relentless tap of his fingers against my clit, the way my walls clenched around him with every thrust.

He released my wrists and I clung to him with my hands, desperate for him to anchor me to reality, even as his teeth grazed the hollow of my throat and his voice rumbled a stream of delicious obscenities into my ear. I felt his hand slide beneath my thigh, hitching it higher, opening me wider so every stroke landed deeper, harder, sending sparks ricocheting up my spine. The headboard banged a steady, frantic rhythm against the wall. I met every thrust with a helpless, shuddering need, the friction of his body against mine and the perfect, merciless pressure of his fingers on my clit driving me toward the edge.

Our skin glistened with sweat. The scent of us hung heavy in the air, primal and intoxicating. I was nothing but sensation: the burn of his stubble against my neck, the heat of his mouth, the delicious fullness of him as every thrust drove me deeper into the mattress. His ragged breathing, the bass growl rumbling in his chest, the relentless hunger in every touch wrapped around me like an incantation, drawing me deeper beneath his spell.

I felt the pleasure build in looping, dizzying arpeggios, that high-wire tightrope walk of so close, so close, so close, my body trembling with the violence of it, pleasure and need screeching through every nerve ending. I was half-sobbing, half-worshipping, an unhinged synaptic glitch, every part of me on fire. My hands shook as I clutched his shoulders, fingers digging furrows into his skin, the world telescoping to the sweet, punishing friction at my core.

He drove into me with exquisite precision, like he knew every secret of my body. And when he curved his hips and hit that perfect, glorious spot... my soul left my body, and my release hit me like a freight train, barreling through me with the force of a hurricane. My fingers dug into his skin, my nails leaving crescent moons in his flesh, my leg hooked over his thigh, his coarse hair rubbing against my calf as he pistoned into me. Then I was screaming, my voice breaking as pleasure tore through me, his groans and ragged pants loud in my ear, mingling with the wet, slapping sounds of our bodies colliding.

Logan's thrusts turned erratic, his hips snapping forward with brutal force as he chased his own release. His mouth found my jaw, his teeth grazing my skin as he growled my name, his voice cracking under the weight of his pleasure. I could feel his cock swelling inside me, and then he was roaring as he followed me over the cliff. He continued to pump frantically, spilling hot, thick wave after wave after wave, filling me to the brim. His breath was scorching against my cheek, his body trembling as he fought to keep from completely collapsing on top of me.

I licked my lips, my body still shuddering with aftershocks, my walls still throbbing around him as they milked every drop from him. My fingers trailed down my stomach, dipping between our joined bodies to where his cock was still buried inside me. I cupped his heavy, cum-slick balls, and he groaned, his hips jerking involuntarily, his cock twitching inside me.

Logan lifted his head, his gaze heavy with satisfaction, before claiming my mouth in a slow, deep, possessive kiss. When he finally drew back, he lingered only inches away, searching my face as we both struggled to catch our breath. A slow, boyish smile spread across his face, the kind that always made him look years younger.

"I love you, Ororo."

Leave it to Logan. The man could happily spend an afternoon rebuilding the carburetor on a '69 Dodge Charger R/T, grumble his way through a black-tie gala... and then make my heart race with three simple words.

I smiled, brushing a damp lock of hair away from his forehead.

"I love you too, Logan."

His smile deepened, and he leaned in to kiss me again. Almost immediately, I felt him beginning to harden inside me, his hips settling into that familiar, teasing rhythm. I pulled back with a soft, helpless laugh.

"Logan...," I murmured, arching into him despite every noble intention I'd had thirty seconds earlier. Apparently, my body had already stood up, saluted, and enthusiastically volunteered for another tour of duty.

The smug grin that spread across Logan's face told me he'd felt every bit of my body's enthusiastic surrender. It was the same grin that had gotten me into trouble more times than I cared to admit.

"What?" he said, one dark eyebrow arching. "I told you, darlin'. I plan on spending the rest of the night proving I'm the best there is at loving you."

I laughed, warm and utterly disarmed. "You have more than proven that, Mr. Howlett. The Duke never stood a chance."

"Is that so?" he asked, maintaining that deliciously slow roll of his hips.

"Mm-hmm." I cupped his jaw. "The Duke of Delight is ..." My breath hitched as he found that perfect spot.

"Officially retired?" he offered, not breaking rhythm.

"Officially fired," I breathlessly corrected.

He chuckled low in his throat before leaning in to kiss me again, slow and unhurried, as though the rest of New York no longer existed.

Somewhere beyond my bedroom windows, the ball dropped, and the city erupted into cheers. Horns, sirens, and the muffled percussion of millions of people deciding, for one perfect moment, to celebrate together. Champagne glasses clinked. Lovers kissed. Friends embraced as fireworks bloomed above the skyline, painting the snow-dusted city in brilliant gold and crimson beneath the deep blue of a winter night.

And just like that... I finally had the perfect plan.

Not to demand certainty.

Not to fear the past.

Because the greatest love stories aren't the ones where two people never lose their way.

They're the ones where they keep choosing each other, even after they do.

In the end, love isn't about who arrives first.

It's about who comes back.

And who stays.

Because happily ever after isn't a destination.

It's a choice.

A choice Logan and I had finally made together.