He responds by reducing his pressure even further. “And what does Layla do about Majnun’s broken heart?” he asks. “Does she even care?”
“Yes, she cares,” I whisper. “She loves him. Secretly.” I’m so quiet he has to be almost still to hear me, his only movement now the rise and fall of his chest and the probing of his fingers. “So she lives ‘between the water of her tears and the fire of her love.’ She hears the songs and poems that he’s written for her because they’re everywhere now.”
His eyes lock on mine. He’s enrapt and I can tell that he’s as tortured as I am.
“One day,” my voice is low and shaky like my legs, but it still commands his attention, “she meets an old man who, uh, mm,” (Jesus, I’m going to come!) “wants to help them. Help them exchange letters. Then, for one night only, he helps them meet. But they have to stay ten paces from each other.”
“He can’t even touch her from ten paces away.” Logan’s voice is as quiet as mine is, as threadbare.
“No, he can’t.” My palms are sweaty against the hood of the car, and my control is slipping. I’m so worked up that I know my release is going to be tumultuous.
“So sad.” With palms braced on my inner thighs, Logan bends down and draws my clit into his mouth.
This—this is definitely not sad.
“Oh God, oh God, oh God.”
He licks and sucks, and I fall apart, coming in a sudden rush that is both unexpected and a relief. With a moan, I curl upward in a crunch and clutch onto his hair for support.
I thought I remembered what this felt like—how his mouth on my most erogenous zone turns me into pudding and short-circuits my senses.
I was wrong. This is so much more than I remember. So much more incredible/arousing/overwhelming/perfect than I remember. It’s a feeling that’s too intense to be able to commit to memory, I realize, and the fragments that I can preserve are feeble souvenirs. No wonder Majnun was so prolific where Layla was concerned—he wanted to remember everything, every bit of their time together just like I want to remember every bit of this time with Logan.
When my stomach muscles relax, when I can finally fit air in my lungs again, I lay back on the hood, sated and spent.
But Logan’s not done.
He blows a warm stream of air over my damp *. “What happens next, Devi?” He traces a line around my hole with his finger. “Tell me what happens with Majnun and Layla when they meet but can’t touch. What does he do instead?” He blows again, this time plunging two long digits inside me.
And, fuck, I’m already winding up again.
I start to writhe, but Logan holds me in place. “What does he do, Devi?”
“He tells her the things he wants to do to her,” I gasp. That’s not exactly how the story goes. In traditional versions, Majnun spills his heart out in poetry, and I’d never assumed it was sexual language.
But now I’m certain that was what he spoke to her—how could he finally be so close to her and not let her know all the ways he wanted her?
“What things?” Logan crooks his fingers, rubbing the area I like to call the Control Panel because once I’m touched there, I lose all control.
In a rush of words, I say, “He tells it all—how he wants to put his hands on her, how he wants to lick her and kiss her and be inside her and twist her up and break her down. He tells her with such vivid description that she comes just from his words.”
“Yes,” Logan says before circling his tongue around my clit.
“He tells her everything, in every word, in every way. Then, at dawn, they go their separate ways.”
“And then?” He continues to tease with his finger and his mouth.
“And then Layla dies, and Majnun dies of grief beside her tomb. The legend says that they meet each other in paradise and spend eternity together.”
“That’s not where you say it ends.” Logan’s lips tickle against me as he talks, and I shudder.
“No. It’s not. My father says that’s a foolish ending, told only as a moral lesson for those who fear worldly lust. He insists instead that the lovers remained star-crossed, even in death, and that they exist now as Venus and Jupiter, far, far apart in the night skies. But every now and then, they meet and spend a night of love and passion together before parting again at dawn. Like tonight.”
Logan stands up, but only long enough to fold my legs in toward my stomach. His eyes scan hungrily over my cunt. “Keep going.” His words are marinated in heavy desire. “You stop, I stop.”
“The story is over.” I sound desperate because I am. I don’t think I can take any more of his torture, but I’m certain I can’t stand it if he stops.
“Then tell me another,” he says, and so I do. I tell him another and another and another, dredging up every myth I’ve ever been told about the constellations and the planets and the balls of fire that flicker and flame above us until I release again. And then again. And I can’t talk anymore, drunk on coming. Drunk on Logan and this night and the poetry he’s written in my most private parts.