Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 142783 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 714(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 142783 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 714(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
My smile was sad.
Because that’s where he was wrong. Because my heart, it would always, always belong to a man I couldn’t keep.
“Aster.” His breath turned needy.
Hypnotic.
He dropped his forehead to mine.
My lips parted, held by those eyes that looked at me with distrust and devotion.
I was sure it was the exact same way I looked at him.
I jolted when I heard the rustling come padding into the room.
Gretchen came up short when she saw me pinned beneath Logan. I squirmed to get free. Logan didn’t budge.
“Oh.”
She was wearing a bunch of pink curlers in her hair and a matching muumuu and slippers. She’d even taken the time to smear thick, pink lipstick onto her lips.
“Well, it seems I’m interrupting.”
Logan exhaled a heavy breath before he tore himself away.
I didn’t mean to whimper.
Impossible.
Not when I felt the vacancy like a blade cutting through flesh.
He pasted on a grin and straightened his suit jacket. “You’re not interrupting anything, Gretchen. It’s fine. Coffee is ready.”
I ran my hands up the sleeves of my shirt like it could chase away the chills that rushed in to take the place of his heated presence.
Gretchen’s gaze narrowed. “Sure looked like I was interrupting something to me.”
She shuffled into the kitchen. “But hey, what does an old, senile lady know? Not worth much but cleaning up the messes made during the things I was not interrupting.”
She went to wiping up the counter that didn’t need to be cleaned.
Logan grunted. “We were only having a discussion.”
“Huh, that’s weird, I wasn’t aware you could get pregnant from having a discussion.”
I nearly choked.
Disbelief filled Logan’s laugh. “Clearly, you are either senile or blind, Gretchen. Tell me you haven’t forgotten the act, or are you actually having trouble seeing that we are fully clothed?”
He gestured at himself.
“Don’t think I couldn’t tell you were about to take that thing out of your pants.” She waved at his tented crotch. That time there was no stopping it.
A bolt of laughter busted free of my mouth.
It wasn’t funny.
Not funny at all.
But I couldn’t help it.
Logan rolled his eyes in affectionate annoyance. “Only in your dreams, Gretchen.”
She huffed. “Hardly, young man.”
He chuckled, then he straightened out his jacket. “I need to go.”
Then he moved back toward me, like it was his right, his duty.
His fingers found my chin. “Are you okay?”
The words clotted in my throat because I wasn’t sure I ever really would be.
Still, I nodded.
“Okay. I’ll see you later.”
Then he strode out without looking back, leaving me there gaping behind his retreating form. I didn’t realize I was staring at where he’d disappeared until Gretchen’s voice broke through the disorder. “Lord a’mercy, he really was about to take it out.”
I whirled back around, tried to tamp all the emotions back into place. “He was joking.”
Laughing, she poured herself a cup of coffee. “Um, that boy is joking about every minute of his life. Right up until the minute you walked into it.”
At that, she eyed me suspiciously.
I wrung my fingers. “I guess I bring out the worst in him.”
“The worst?” She hummed like it was absurd. “The harsh? The truth? The real? All that pain he’s got buried so deep he has the whole world charmed into thinking it doesn’t exist? Sure. You might bring all those things out in him. But what I’m sure it’s not is the worst.”
FIFTEEN
LOGAN
The door rattled shut behind me, and I stormed to the elevator like there was no air left in the building, and I had two minutes to escape.
Sounded about right.
Because if I stayed in that apartment with her for one second longer, my lungs were going to fail.
Thirty fucking days.
Bullshit.
I knew as I rode the elevator down, with the way everything twitched and my spirit screamed, there would be no letting her go.
Whatever it took.
I’d been a fool last time, but I’d been a kid.
A fucking kid who didn’t have a clue.
She might have betrayed me, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t read what was written underneath, that I couldn’t see all the secrets that writhed in the depths of those fire-agate eyes.
A fire she kept raging like a fortress.
The girl shrouded in old pain.
I wanted to reach into her soul and rip them out.
It only made it ten-thousand-times worse after what I’d walked in on last night.
After what I’d given in to.
I wasn’t sure what the hell else I would have been expected to do, though.
After what had gone down outside Absolution, I’d been compelled to check.
It’d made me sick to think that bastard might have weaseled his way back to her and manipulated her into leaving.
Or worse.
The piece of shit was lurking in this city, that was for sure. Scum hiding in the shadows. Waiting for the opportune time to steal back what had never been his to take.
My car rumbled to life when I pushed the ignition button. The leather was cold, and the air was icy. I blasted the heater to compensate, and I pulled out of the garage and headed toward the mountains.