“Me,” I murmur quietly.

“You, Gemima,” he nods surely. “You answered that question the moment I saw you at that party. Everything made sense, and it didn’t matter about Jerry and it didn’t matter how many years I had to wait, because I knew that being with you was my reason—”

“Logan,” I stop him, “you can’t give me the credit for the amazing way you started your life over.”

He smiles through his tears, looking breathtakingly beautiful. I am entirely enthralled by him. “I know I worked hard back then, long before I ever knew your name…but I’m giving you a bit of credit, even if that makes me mad,” he grins.

“Completely crazy,” I say against his lips. And yet I understand it, even if it awes me. Is it possible that I’m so happy I’m now bordering on insanity? Madness, passion, and love all infused together, coursing through my bloodstream. Logan’s eyes mirror my own internal state of awe, as does his next sentence.

“You are everything I want in the world, and that I am everything you want too defies belief,” he half laughs, half cries. Then, unable to hold himself back, he kisses me once more. Forget about cloud nine, I’m on cloud nine-hundred. “Is this what everyone feels like when they’re really in love?” I whisper to him. “This wild euphoria?” I’m not used to feeling like this; my life before Logan was numb.

His lips brush softly against mine. “I don’t know,” he whispers. “I tried to explain it to Buddy. We spent our entire business meeting last Monday talking about you,” he smiles.

“So, he knows?”

Logan nods. “He’s my best man, though I realise how backwards it is to ask him before asking you.”

I laugh, and more tears fall. “You’ve known him longer,” I allow. “A lot, lot, lot longer.”

Logan looks at me adoringly. “It’s fast,” he concedes. “But I don’t want to wait,” he says, his voice suddenly quiet as his emotions overpower him once more.

“I don’t want to wait either, Logan,” I tell him wholeheartedly. “Besides, you’ve waited long enough.”

“I thought you’d say that,” he whispers as new tears roll down his face. “And I knew you’d happy-cry, I just didn’t think that I would. This is new for me.”

“I like it when you happy-cry,” I steal his line.

“Good, because I’m over the fucking moon, and it’s all because of you, Gemima,” he says, slipping his hand behind my head and kissing me headily.

I was asleep a few minutes ago, I muse. Now I’m engaged and feel like I’ll never be able to sleep again. My body and mind feels so awake, so enlivened, and I know it’s not just me who feels like that. Logan keeps kissing me with more passion and eagerness, and his hands glide down my back and under the hem on my nightie. He holds me like he did a moment ago, but now we’re skin on skin. Much better, I think.

Minutes pass like seconds as we make out, but I want to be entirely naked with him, as naked physically as I am emotionally. I want to commemorate this moment the way it deserves to be.

“Logan, make love to me,” I breathe, no longer crying. I want to let our bodies do the celebrating and use up the sudden influx of energy and adrenalin that’s flooded us both.

He’s as fervent as I am to honour this moment. He opens his robe, revealing his naked body and waiting erection, I stand quickly to pull my nightie off and step out of my underwear before settling on his lap once more. Then he does exactly as I ask, taking himself in hand and placing himself at my entrance. My body shakes as he enters me with only his tip, just breaching me, like earlier today. However, unlike earlier, he stays here, his widest part against my tightest.

Ah!

We’re still for a moment, Logan leaning back against the headboard, me leaning back, resting on my hands. It’s an entirely new sensation to spend an elongated amount of time united like this. My eyes, like Logan’s, are glued to my opening, where the sight of my sex wetting his and willing him to enter further, has me suddenly panting, even without any big movements from either of us. It’s the natural, involuntary twitches of our bodies that create such heightened arousal and excitement. It feels amazing, and the more I look at the erotic sight, the more my body responds.

“Fuck,” Logan mewls in pleasure, “I can feel you gripping me.”

He’s right, I am, though it feels entirely out of my control. Down below I’m so ready, so zealous to take him all the way into me. After one more delicious minute spent as we are, I slide onto him fully with a long, satisfied moan, and a frisson of pleasure moving through my body. He feels phenomenal and every infinitesimal pulse of him turns me on even more.

He stays permanently buried deep inside of me, and I start to grind my hips in small circles around him, creating a friction that we’ve never played with before. Logan’s hands run up and down my legs as I work against him. We gaze at each other across the open space, our mouths open, both mesmerised. Forever, I think, moving my hips faster and faster. We’ll have forever to play and explore and make love like this, and that notion is enough to make me wild with desire.

Pushing myself forward, I flatten my body against Logan’s, needing to be close to those delectable lips. I kiss him fiercely, moaning into his mouth, while down below I start to pulse up and down on him. Holy shit! I’m close, incredibly, gratifyingly close.

“Logan,” I whimper. Oh! Ah!

Reading me perfectly and knowing exactly what I want, Logan sits forward as well, he puts his arms around me, his forearms lying from my waist to the middle of back, allowing me to arch backwards, feeling entirely supported as I call out, on the verge. He holds me like this, in total service to me, until I come around him a few glorious moments later. The sensation of me gripping him inside, pushes him over the edge too. He buries his face into my chest, his body shaking as he orgasms, his voice muffled and sexy as hell.

“I would love to record the sound of you coming and use it as my ringtone,” I muse breathlessly.

Logan chuckles and I can feel his heart beating overtime. He starts kissing my breasts, and murmurs against them, “Then you’d never pick up.”

“That’s true,” I laugh, tangling my hands in his hair and letting out a long sigh. That was incredible.

“I’m never going to tire of doing this with you,” he says, his breathing laboured as he looks up at me. “From the first time I felt and watched you orgasm to right now…it always seems too good to be true. The way you let go, receive me, feel me, respond to me, it’s the best feeling in the world.”

“I agree, Funny Valentine,” I say, referencing the Friday night in a dimly lit gymnasium when I first felt his sensual touch. I lean forward to smile against his lips. Jeez, I wanted him so badly that night.

He smiles back and when I rest my head on his shoulder, his lips shower my exposed neck with kisses, and his hands caress my naked back. “Before seeing you that night I’d been swimming for two hours straight to try and get you off my mind. It didn’t work at all,” he laughs. “And I went to the gymnasium because slack-lining was the only thing that I could think of that would make me focus on something else.”

I laugh too as I think, that certainly didn’t happen!

Logan says into my shoulder, “Low and behold, there you were, sitting outside, and it felt as though I wasn’t meant to get you off my mind. And now I never will.”

I relish his words, and try my best to snuggle even closer to him, a hard feat given that he’s still buried inside of me and he couldn’t be holding me with more ardour if he tried. It’s astounding how quickly things can develop and change and grow. I marvel at the memory of that night. I marvel that that drunken girl in that little black dress, who was quietly but passionately infatuated with the man in the gymnasium, is now engaged to him.