“I don’t either, and tonight, when the time is right, we won’t. Ever again.”
7
Layla
“You keep looking at me that way, little girl, and you’re going to find yourself over Daddy’s knee again,” Logan warns, his voice low and grating like sandpaper.
“Maybe I want that,” I counter, my whole body covering in goosebumps at the thought, and knowing that he wants this just as much as I do.
“Before this goes any further we need to talk,” he says, taking a drink from his water glass, which the waiter we have specifically for our table quickly refills.
The entire drive over to the restaurant I thought Logan was going to rip the steering wheel clean off his Range Rover. He was gripping it that tight. I just sat in the passenger seat, watching him operate his SUV effortlessly, weaving in and out of traffic and making almost all the lights, but always doing it safely. Most of the time other cars just deferred to him, just as people do in real life. As a small person, and a young woman, power is something I’m not used to feeling. When I’m next to Logan it just rolls off him and I feel it by osmosis.
He’s so masculine and so raw, and people respond to that, giving him a wide berth. I respond to that, wanting to open up for him but in a different way.
“What do you want to talk about?” I question, unknowingly mirroring his movements and taking a drink of my own water. I’d asked for something alcoholic but Logan insisted neither of us drink. He wanted our minds clear, fresh, and fully in the moment promising me that there would be decisions to be made tonight which would change our lives forever.
And he pulled no punches
when he told me that if those decisions lead to where he wants them to lead, that he wants to be completely sober to experience me fully, his senses not dulled one bit.
“The most important thing in the world. You.”
“Me?”
“I want to know what you want in life. I want to know your dreams, desires, and fantasies.”
“Why?”
“So I can fulfill them. All of them.”
I reach for my water glass again and polish it off. My mouth still feels dry and my body temperature soars. “There are things I want and probably a lot of things I don’t even know I want. That’s where exploring together comes in, and also your experience,” I say, admitting I know what I don’t know.
“The experienced side of me says you deserve sweet and gentle your first time, and I’m trying to do everything I can to give it to you. The animal in me says otherwise, and right now it’s a tug of war with no clear winner.”
“I want you just how you want me. I want to feel your power, your rawness. I want to see you lose control, because of me,” I confess.
“I lost control at your birthday party, haven’t been in control since.” A dark look of possessiveness covers his face as he stares right back at me. He slides a hand across the table and takes mine in his. “But I want to know what you want from your life. You still haven’t answered me and it’s important.”
“I love books, so maybe an author. But I need more time to think about it because no one’s ever asked me that,” I ponder.
“It’s time someone did. And it’s time for something else.” He pauses. “An apology.”
“An apology?” my head shoots back in surprise. “For what?”
“For limiting your choices. For not letting you move away for college. For not letting other men talk to you. For everything.”
“My dad wouldn’t let me go away to college, and I was never limited in the boys who talked to me. I mean, most didn’t, but that’s not your fault.”
“Yes it is,” he confesses. “I put out the word to stay clear of you. First, because you were a child. Second because of what your dad and I are involved in and I didn’t want anyone snooping around and finding out and destroying the life we had built. Third, it wasn’t your dad that kept you from studying out of state. He actually recommended you do, figured it would be better for business and your safety. That was my decision, and I didn’t budge when he asked a second time. Matter of fact I told him never to bring it up again because you weren’t going anywhere.”
I pull my hand from his and cross my arms. “You…you were trying to control every part of my life.”
“There was no trying to it. When I want something done I do it, and that’s exactly what I did when it comes to all parts of your existence.”
“I’m my own person.”
“You are now. You’re eighteen. And that’s why we’re not drinking tonight and why I didn’t let things go farther this morning. We needed to have this talk first, so the decision for this to continue can be your own, made with a sound mind.”