Music in the Night (Logan 4)

"Would you like something cold to drink?" I offered, after finishing a section of notes.

"Sure."

"Cranberry juice okay?"

"Fine," he said.

"I'll be right back."

I hurried out and down the stairs, put ice cubes in the glasses, and brought them back up filled with our homemade cranberry juice. Robert was lying on my bed, his hands behind his head, gazing up at the canopy when I returned. I paused, smiling.

"Sorry," he said, sitting up guiltily. "It just looked so inviting."

"No, it's all right." I handed him his juice.

"It's good," he said.

I sat beside him and drank my own.

"Why do they make us take final exams just when it gets so beautiful outside? It's cruel," he said and I laughed.

"It's the end of the school year, Robert. What do you expect?"

"A little more consideration," he kidded.

We gazed at each other. I felt my heart begin to pound as he leaned closer and closer until our lips met.

"I've been wanting to do that for the last hour," he said.

"Me, too."

He took the glass from my hand and put it along with his own on the nightstand. Then he turned to me and we kissed again, this time embracing. I let myself fall back slowly, gently, and he lay down beside me, stroking my hair, kissing my cheeks.

"You're on my mind day and night," he said. "You're the first thing I think about when I wake up and the last before I close my eyes to sleep. On the days we don't see each other I hate the hours until we do."

He kissed me again, this time his hands moving over my shoulders. He brought his lips to my neck, and it was like electricity had exploded from inside my heart, speeding through every vein, to the tips of my toes and back up to my heart again. I took his head in my hands and kissed his hair while he moved his lips down, over my collarbone, unbuttoning the first and second buttons on my blouse, and then kissing the tops of my breasts, unbuttoning another button and another until he could peel away my blouse.

I let him unfasten my bra and lift it away so he could bring his lips to my tingling nipples. I should stop him, I thought, but I didn't. He moaned my name and his hands moved over my thighs and lifted my skirt so he could press his palms to my thighs. I put my own hands over them and held his there.

"Laura, Laura," he whispered, "I love you so much."

"I love you, too, Robert."

I let his hands go and they moved to my panties. My heart felt like a clenched fist, pounding at the inside of my chest as if it wanted to get out. When his hands moved over my hipbone and down, I uttered a small cry.

When I was younger and read novels in which girls were seduced or went too far, I swore I would never be like them, no matter how handsome the boy or how much I thought I loved him. How, I wondered, could your body make you do things you didn't want to do? How could any pleasure be so great that you would disregard all your warnings to yourself and surrender? Yet that was what was happening to me. I was moving faster and faster toward the point of no return, that moment when I would be like a swimmer who had gone out too far and was now at the mercy of the waves.

It was like one wave after another, one overwhelming, undulating sensation after another, sweeping me away from the shore of caution.

"Robert," I pleaded, "if we don't stop, we won't stop."

"I can't help wanting you, Laura."

"We're not ready yet, Robert. Let's be ready. Please," I pleaded, knowing if he refused, if he kissed me one more time or touched me one more time, I would simply fall back and throw caution to the wind.

He held his breath and then pulled back. I lay there, breathless. Robert stepped off the bed and closed his pants. I hadn't even realized he had unzipped them.