Exiled (A Madame X Novel) Read online

  He grins at me expectantly. “So? What d’you think?”

  I can’t help but laugh at his eager expression. “It looks great.”

  “I’m glad you like it.” He glances at me. “I didn’t want anything boring, but I was worried it’d be too much.”

  “You make it look . . . cool.”

  He scrapes his hand through his hair, tosses it dramatically. “That’s me. King of cool.”

  I snort. “Not anymore. Dork.”

  “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were teasing me.” He quirks an eyebrow at me. With the eyepatch, the effect is even more dramatic.

  We’re at his SUV now; yes, he drove, carefully and with prior approval. Just leave extra stopping distance, he was told, until you get used to the change in depth perception. He climbs up and in, starts the engine while I buckle. Out into traffic, music on low.

  “You act as if I’m a stick-in-the-mud, Logan. I do have a sense of humor.”

  “Not a stick-in-the-mud, babe. Just . . . serious. As if it doesn’t always occur to you to laugh or crack jokes.”

  I turn my gaze out the window, away from him. “Well, my life up until recently hasn’t precisely lent itself to frequent jocularity.”

  “‘Frequent jocularity.’” He laughs. “See? That’s what I mean. Who says things like that?”

  “Me?”

  He reaches out and squeezes my knee, takes my hand. “Yes, you. And I love it. You speak with concision, with eloquence and elegance. It’s amazing. It’s almost like you have a script writer feeding you lines, but it’s just the way you talk.”

  “My reeducation came from classic literature. I had to relearn how to speak, and for a long time, after I finished speech and physical therapy, the only person I spoke to was Caleb. And he is . . . formal. Always. And that is something I really never even truly understood until I met you. You’re the opposite. Not in a bad way, just . . . different. You are the polar opposite to Caleb’s upright, formal, precise manner. It’s . . . refreshing. As if I can let loose. Let my hair down, metaphorically speaking.”

  “I get it. As much as I can, at least.”

  Home, then.

  Home?

  Home.

  Yes, Logan is home. Logan is freedom. Logan is where I am learning to be me. Learning who I am. What I like, what I don’t like. I exercise when I want to. And when I don’t want to, I don’t. I eat what I like, when I like. I have a taste for unhealthy food, I discover. Pizza, nachos, potato chips. Logan has to step in, remind me that I can’t eat all that stuff all the time. So I find a balance, gradually. Revert to healthy food. Organic, locally produced. Lean meats, vegetables, very little bread, very little processed food. But I splurge once in a while on yummy unhealthy food, just because I can. I exercise, but my way, at my pace, my routines. I like to run, I discover. I could never do that, before. But now I run. With Cocoa and Logan, I run. Logan got me an iPod and earbuds, and we run miles and miles and miles, not talking to each other, just running, breathing, pounding pavement endlessly. I can tune out the world when I run, focus on the music and the rhythm of my soles on the concrete, and not think about you or Logan or my addiction to you or the fact that I should have gotten my period two days ago.

  It’s only two days late. I’ve been stressed out. Life has been chaotic and painful and impossible, and such things can throw off a woman’s cycle.

  It’s only two days.

  Nothing to worry about.

  * * *

  A week and a half late.

  I’m refusing to panic. Refusing to worry. Burying my head in the sand. Not even thinking about it. Any of it.

  If I let myself start thinking about it, I will lose all control over everything. I’m unbalanced. Tripping along the edge of a cliff, arms windmilling wildly.

  But I know, deep down, that I am going to fall.

  * * *

  With my period now two weeks late, I find myself ill in the morning. Nauseous. Stomach roiling. Sometimes I barely make it to the toilet. Fortunately, Logan is an early riser and follows a regular routine: up at five, eat a quick breakfast and drink a cup of coffee, then upstairs to work out. In the shower by seven, out the door to work by eight, in the office by eight thirty, usually.

  My illness—I know the term, but refuse to think it—usually happens around six thirty. While Logan is in the gym upstairs. Sometimes later, while he’s in the shower. Or after he’s gone. It hasn’t happened while he’s been around to see it. He’d know what it means—what it might mean. Could mean.

  He has me stay at his house, working from home. Writing out lesson ideas for my business, creating materials, my own version of the informational pamphlet Indigo clients received.

  The sickness usually passes once I’ve vomited, but I have to eat directly after. Light food. Fruit, an egg-white omelette, tea. No cheese; I tried, and my stomach rebelled, which is odd because I usually love cheese. I tried a sandwich for lunch one day and couldn’t keep the lunch meat down. Or, no red meat. White meat was fine. But not red. No red meat, no cheese, nothing too salty or too sweet. Bland food, then. Unusual, once again, because I typically prefer rich, flavorful food.

  My moods are unpredictable, too.

  Weepy and sad one moment, for no reason. Irritable the next. Giddy and manic another.

  I steadfastly refuse to consider what it all might mean.

  * * *

  Logan comes home early from work one day, when I’m nearing three weeks late. Lays a garment bag across the back of the couch and just grins at me.

  I put on the dress. It’s sexy, alluring, a little risqué for my usual taste, but I decide I like it. Black, low cut, edgy lines, a slit up the left thigh nearly to my hip, fabric gathered tight across my torso into a bunch over my left hip.

  When I emerge wearing the gown, Logan’s eyes go wide and rake over me. And, for the first time in nearly a month, there’s lust in his gaze. Not that it’s been absent all this while, but he hides it. Tamps it down, refuses to act on it.

  This time, he slides close to me, wraps a palm around my back, low, just above my buttocks, and tugs me against his front. “Gorgeous, Isabel.”

  “Thank you,” I say. Breathe a moment, feel his heart thumping, feel his fingers dimpling against my spine, edging lower to the swell of my bottom. “What’s the occasion?”

  “A business associate of mine had extra tickets to an opera performance at Lincoln Center tonight. I managed to wangle a table at a fancy dinner place near it, so we’ve got a fun night out.”

  “Opera sounds delightful. I’ve always wanted to attend a performance.”

  Logan shrugs, makes a face. “I dunno. Opera isn’t really my thing, I don’t think, but you don’t turn down free seats to Lincoln Center, especially not when they’re prime seats. So we’ll go and be fancy.”

  I notice now that he’s changed into a tuxedo, and has replaced his eyepatch with a black one that somehow adheres to his face without a strap. The tux is bespoke, with glinting sapphire and titanium cuff links, an expertly tied bow tie. Hair slicked back, bound low at his nape. He looks sleek, elegant, and powerful. Virile. Indigo eye matching the jewels in his cuff links. Indeed, his eye is brighter, more arresting and iridescent than the sapphire.

  He reaches into the inside pocket of his tuxedo, pulls out a long thin box: a necklace, sapphire and titanium to match his cuff links, and his eye. He glides behind me, and I can suddenly feel him everywhere. His heat, his hard body looming behind me. His hands tickling across my breastbone, laying the gleaming blue pendant just above my cleavage, clasping it at my neck. Setting the box aside, reaching into his trouser pocket for another box, this one smaller, and square. Earrings, to complete the set. Gentle, sure, nimble fingers sliding the post through my earlobe, attaching the back.

  And then his palms are carving down my hips. Pulling me back against him. Lips
to my ear. Not whispering or speaking or kissing, just a momentary resting of his lips against my ear, a pause on their downward journey. Back of my ear, the knob of bone just there. And then to my neck. The curve where neck becomes shoulder. Feather-light kisses. Drifting touches of his lips.

  Goose bumps pebble my skin.

  My nipples ache.

  Thoughts leave me.

  He continues to press soft slow careful kisses onto my skin, neck, shoulder, my back where the cut of the dress leaves my flesh bare. And his fingers, at my hips, gathering the fabric of the dress. The hem rises. Rises. I gasp and focus on his kisses, and on the cool air on my bare flesh as the hem of the dress glides upward.

  Breathing becomes difficult, then.

  He hooks his thumbs into the waistband of my panties. They are simple, and new. Plain cotton briefs. Comfortable, and not at all attractive; I hadn’t gotten around to changing into anything more fancy yet. This thought too is blasted away as he lowers the undergarment. I step out. And now I’m bare for him, the dress hiked up around my waist.

  “Nothing underneath, tonight.” His voice in my ear is low, a murmur, a growl.

  “What?” I gasp.

  “No panties tonight.”

  “Logan—”

  He nips at my earlobe. “Hush.”

  I go silent on a breath, an outrush of surprise. His fingers are dancing over my hip bone. Over my belly, to my opposite hip. Teasing. Lower, lower. Tickling my thighs, outside to inside. Tracing across my pudendum.

  I whimper.

  I want his touch.

  It’s been so long. A month of celibacy, for us both.

  I feel wild with need. Frantic. I’ve buried it under worry, brushed it aside in favor of ignoring everything, pretending this is life, running, exercising, eating with Logan, sleeping with Logan, working on material for Comportment.

  But now, with his fingers easing closer to my core, feathering over my labia—I need him. Need.

  “God, Logan.”

  “What, baby?”

  I can’t help gyrating my hips. “Please.”

  “Please what, Isabel?”

  “Touch me.”

  He doesn’t answer with words. His middle finger slides into me, slides deep into my wet, hot core. Curls, moves, withdraws. I ache now. Ache all over. I’m shaking. Lay my head back against his shoulder and widen my knees. He touches me again, this time applying a gentle pressure to my clitoris. I whimper, gasp, and my knees buckle as lightning sears through me.

  It feels like an eternity since I’ve felt Logan thus, felt this touch, this bliss, this connection I feel only with him.

  A rising, expanding violence within me. A detonation, impending. A susurrus in my ears, a roaring of blood in my veins. Heat in my belly. A rush of sensation.

  He slides that one finger into me again, withdraws it. Smears my wetness over my clit. One hand is holding up my dress, keeping it out of the way, the other at my core, his thighs hard against the backs of mine. I’m leaning back against him, limp. Capable of nothing but the motion of my hips as he slides his finger in, and out. In, and out. Against my clit. In, and out. Two fingers, then, suddenly.

  Climax burgeons.

  I’m gasping, arching my spine, fully giving in to the bursting wildness.

  And then he stops.

  Lets my dress fall down around my ankles, and crouches behind me. He’s fetched a pair of my shoes to match the dress, black Blahniks with a three-inch stiletto heel. He circles my ankle with his strong fingers, lifts my foot, slides the shoe on. I transfer my weight, let him ease the other shoe on, next. I’m out of breath, aching, a little angry that he stopped.

  “Logan . . .” I start.

  He stands up in front of me, brushes the pad of his thumb over my cheekbone. “Isabel?”

  “You stopped.”

  There’s a knock at the door. Logan leans in, kisses me. A brief, scorching scouring of his lips against mine. Too short, but intense. “Time to go.”

  “I haven’t done my makeup.”

  “Don’t need any. You’re fucking sexy just like that. And I guarantee you’ll be the most beautiful woman there, makeup or no.”

  “I can’t go to the Met without makeup on, Logan. It isn’t done.”

  “Dinner is in forty, and we’ll be pushing it with traffic like it is.”

  “I can be quick.”

  Another knock.

  “Grab some stuff and bring it with. Do it in the car.”

  “I’m not ready, Logan. I—a quiet dinner, maybe. But the opera? The Met? People will be watching. You can’t just—just spring this on me.”

  He moves past me, into the bathroom. I hear makeup cases and tubes clattering, a zipper closing. And then he’s hustling me out the door, a black leather case in his hands. I glance behind me as he’s closing the door. The last thing I see are my panties on the floor of his living room, a pile of gray cotton, abandoned.

  My core aches. I don’t want to go. I don’t want to sit through a dinner and an opera. I want Logan. I want him to finish what he started.

  There’s a long black limousine waiting, a driver at the open passenger door.

  Logan waits while I lower myself in, and then he’s beside me.

  I lean close, whisper in his ear. “Logan. I’m not wearing any panties.”

  He nips at my earlobe. “I know.”

  “I don’t like it.”

  “You will.”

  “I haven’t done my hair.”

  “Don’t need to.”

  “I don’t have any makeup.”

  He hands me the case, unzips it. My makeup, all of it, including my compact mirror. “Gotcha covered. Anything else?”

  I take a moment. Breathe. Focus on applying makeup, just a little. Lipstick, blush, mascara. Check it in the mirror, and then close the leather case, set it aside. Breathe in silence for—I don’t know how long, trying to gather myself.

  “You stopped,” I say, at last.

  He checks that the privacy glass is in place, and then turns to me. Faces me. Leans against me. Presses his face into my cleavage and inhales. Tugs the straps of the dress off my shoulder, pulls the bodice down to bare my breasts.

  “Logan!”

  “Keep quiet, Isabel.”

  His fingers slide into the slit of the dress at my thigh, steal inward.

  God, here?

  Oh God.

  I slide lower in the seat, spread my legs. I want it. I don’t care. I can’t think of anything but the orgasm I almost had, of getting there.

  There’s no toying, no hesitation. He slides his finger into me, and I gasp.

  “Hush, baby.” His breath is warm on my nipple. “No sounds.”

  I bite down on my lip until it hurts.

  He nibbles at my nipple with sharp teeth. Slides his lips over it. Tugs. Licks. It’s already hard and standing tall, but every lick and touch of his teeth and tongue make my nipple harder, more erect. Until it aches. And then he moves to the other, and works it the same way. And all the while, his fingers are busy. Sliding in and out, pressing against my clit, circling, pinching, sliding in.

  Lips, fingers, breath.

  They are my world, Logan’s lips, Logan’s fingers, Logan’s breath.

  When I come, I bite down on my lip so hard I taste blood, and Logan kisses me, swallows my whimper and licks at my lip, soothing the hurt. But his fingers continue to circle my clit as I come, working me harder, faster, bringing my climax higher, pushing me to heights of wildness that leave me breathless, that leave me aching and limp.

  And then he withdraws his fingers from my core, lifts them, dripping my essence, to his mouth. Licks them clean.

  “Better?” he asks.

  I can only gasp against his tuxedo coat, smelling his cologne and the faint acridity of cigar
ettes, the tang of cinnamon gum.

  Logan scent.

  But I am still afraid of this night. Being out, with Logan, in public. Not just to a movie or a little diner. Something . . . public.

  On his arm. There will be pictures, probably.

  I’m not wearing any underwear.

  I’ve just had an orgasm, so I’m flushed and breathless and feeling on edge, wild, rife with lust.

  I’m scared witless.

  But I feel beautiful, because Logan’s touch always does that. Makes me feel needed. Wanted. Beautiful. Even when he doesn’t say a word.

  He adjusts my dress so I’m covered.

  There is silence, then, in which I attempt to quiet my nerves.

  The limo pulls to a stop, and there is a moment of waiting as the driver exits and circles, opens the door. Logan rises up out of the limousine elegantly, easily. Extends a hand to me, lifts me out. A black awning, doormen in uniforms with brass buttons on their coats stand to either side of the doorway. I adjust the drape of my dress, feeling the soft swish of the fabric against my backside, against my bare, still-tingling core. I feel as if everyone who sees me will know I’m not wearing anything under the dress. I even glance down at myself, but . . . it isn’t as obvious as it feels to me.

  Logan threads his fingers through mine, pulls me closer to his body, so I’m flush against him. Held up by him. His arm goes around my waist, almost inappropriately low. Claiming me as his.

  “You are exquisite, Isabel,” he murmurs in my ear. “The loveliest woman in any room. And you’re on my arm. Makes me the luckiest man in any room.”

  “Thank you, Logan.”

  “I love that you can take a compliment with grace,” he remarks.

  I’m unsure how I should respond, so I don’t.

  A maître d’ greets Logan by name, guides us to a booth in a shadowed corner of the back of the restaurant. A single candle provides some illumination, but not much. All the other tables are similarly cloaked in shadow, providing privacy for each booth.

  I am uneasy. Off balance. This feels right, but . . . something is off. Within me.