Redemption Hills: The Complete Collection

10. Aster

TEN

ASTER

I pulled the night slip over my head. The soft, white material unfurled over my body and landed mid-thigh. I looked at myself in the mirror, blew back the dark brown bangs that had fallen in my face, and said a silent prayer for strength. That I could find my way through the turmoil.

That I could persevere.

That I could fly.

Tomorrow, I would form a plan.

Figure out how to prove to my father why I could never go back to Jarek Urso.

Dread scattered through me like the whisper of death.

I’d never caused it before. Been the precursor. But I knew what this might mean for Jarek.

Guilt threatened to claw. To rip open and infect.

A disease that turned my blood cold and my stomach sour.

I hated the violence. Hated it to my soul. But I had to remember Jarek was one of the greatest perpetrators of it.

Pulse fluttering, I blew out a heavy sigh, and I flipped the light off to the bathroom and stepped out into the bedroom.

The second I did, I froze, snared by the dark presence that whipped like a blizzard from the doorway.

My eyes narrowed as I stared at the man who might as well be a mirage.

Sanctuary.

Refuge.

Perdition.

The man who’d been little more than a boy when he’d captured me in that first, stolen glance.

I’d been obsessed, willing to break every rule to even catch a glimpse.

Now, I felt myself falling into the abyss of who he was all over again.

For good or bad.

Right or wrong.

None of it had ever mattered except for wanting him to be mine.

Still in his suit, Logan watched me as if he were bored, though I could feel the pinpricks of intensity that bristled beneath his skin. The white-hot energy that radiated from his being.

I fidgeted, wearing the slip, feeling so much more exposed than I had in the tee.

It was thin straps and thin material and a neckline that dipped low between my breasts.

Heat blossomed as I imagined him picking it out for me.

Tension stretched across the room. A dense, veiled pull that felt like a vacant ache, the heat of his eyes a beacon that shouted to me from the bowels of an obliterating storm.

“What are you doing in here?” I finally managed to press the words from my mouth while I took a fortifying step back.

As if I could protect myself from the lure.

The muted hum of a television droned through the walls from Gretchen’s room, and the sound of the night howled through the mountain slopes and softly battered at the panes.

Everything else seemed magnified.

The shallow gasps of my breaths and the erratic hammer of my heart and the questions that raged through my mind.

Logan angled his head. A wicked smirk lit at the edge of his mouth as he leaned against the doorway with his hands stuffed in his pants pockets.

As if he held a secret that I wasn’t privy to.

Attraction throbbed in my belly.

“Now, don’t tell me you’ve already forgotten who you belong to?”

“This is a bad idea, Logan.” It was my only defense.

“What’s that?”

“You and me.”

A roll of low laughter rippled from his mouth. “We were always a bad idea, but we did it, anyway.”

I fidgeted. “And look where we ended up.”

His head cocked.

The man so beautiful.

So gorgeous it was obscene.

“And why’s that?” he pressed.

“I think it would be better for the both of us if we didn’t go there.”

He stepped forward.

Severity flashed.

A shockwave.

I couldn’t breathe.

“I thought we were playing by my rules, Aster?”

I hugged my arms over my chest, and I gulped around the burn that crawled up my throat. “We are.”

His prowl was slow and measured as he edged my way, as if the longer it took him to reach me, the harder my pulse would pound with want.

His breaths were jagged, his stare intense.

He gripped me by one side of the waist, hard enough to make me gasp, though his thumb caressed my hip bone in a soothing way.

Dangerous, dangerous seduction.

An edge had taken him over. As if he’d sensed my intention to leave, to save him from the same fate he’d been headed toward before. The softness from earlier this evening had constricted in possession.

“You’re mine, Aster.” It was a growl. I swore, his touch sank all the way down to my bones. Warming me from the inside out.

I shivered, and I tried to look away, but the only thing I could do was tip up my head to stare at him in the shadows.

His jaw was hard, his brow furrowed, his eyes intense. Every line carved in pained devotion.

“Please…don’t play games with me.”

He stepped into me, pressing me up against the wall, no amusement in his tone when he warned, “But the games are so much fun to play.”

“Not when your heart is on the line.” I forced the haggard words from my tongue.

The bare, cold truth.

He was going to hurt me, and I was going to hurt him, and I didn’t think either of us could go through that again.

Still, lightheadedness swept through me when he touched my cheek. He dragged it down my trembling neck and over my collarbone, down, down along my side, all the way until he tickled my bare thigh, fingertips playing with the hem of the night slip.

I could barely see, could barely think.

Touch me.

They were the only words that made any sense. I bit down on my tongue to keep them subdued.

Shivers tumbled in a slow-slide, and he chuckled low, and his hand was coming up to press between my breasts on the exposed skin of my chest. Right over that organ that raged. “Whose heart is that, Aster?”

It was venom, it was a plea. He ran his knuckles between my cleavage.

Our gazes tangled.

Wild.

Needy.

Both desperate and disturbed.

“I think we both know it’s mine.” The confession was recklessly dangerous. I wished for a way to reach out and squash it before it hit his ears.

Darkness glowered from his frown, and the hand on my waist curled tighter. “Why are you here, Aster?” Logan’s voice was gravel. “Why did you come back to me?”

“I don’t know if I could have ended up anywhere else.”

Tiny whimpers bled free when he let his palm travel down my quivering stomach before he was riding it back up.

His thumb lightly teased over my nipple, and my stupid hands clutched at the material of his jacket, holding onto his arms that I’d once thought a safety net.

“You’re mine. I don’t give a fuck who you’re married to. You’ve always been mine.” It cracked like a low, guttural threat.

Lust burst to life, rushing back to reclaim our sacred place.

Old, scarred passions ripping open, emerging anew.

I grappled to get closer.

Need welled up so fast that I had to bite down on my bottom lip to keep from begging for more.

“We can’t, Logan.”

He pressed his face into my jaw, let his lips travel the length until he was murmuring in my ear, “Oh, make no mistake, Aster. We will.”

He stepped back and readjusted his jacket.

I sagged against the wall, heaving for the air that no longer existed.

His jaw ticked, and his stare was a flood of potency. “I have to attend to something. Do not leave this apartment. Do you understand me?”

“Where would I go?”

He was back in front of me, his thumb on my lips and his words in my ear. “Good girl.”

Then he was gone.