Redemption Hills: The Complete Collection

28. Logan

TWENTY-EIGHT

LOGAN

Aster threaded her fingers through mine.

At her touch, warmth spread over my flesh and sank all the way to the marrow, thawing the freezing cold that had hardened my heart to stone.

All it’d taken was coming around the corner and finding Jarek’s hands on her for my spirit to slip into depravity.

To sink into a hollow darkness where there was no conscience or remorse.

No mercy.

No grace.

But it was far from detached.

It’d felt like the loss and the hope and every regret I possessed had boiled down to that single point.

I wanted revenge.

I wanted retribution.

I wanted to set her free.

Her limbs shook harder and harder as I led her out of the alleyway and back onto the sidewalk. I could physically feel the adrenaline draining from her body and shock sweeping in to take its place.

My teeth ground with restraint as I pulled her away from that piece of shit.

I had to focus on holding onto her so I wouldn’t turn around and finish a job that should have been finished years ago.

Aggression seethed just below the surface of my skin, ripping and clawing for a way out, while this girl soothed it with only her touch.

Her breaths were shallow and hard, though her tongue seemed to be tied with a thousand things she wanted to say.

Once we got to O’Malley’s door, I frantically turned her around, tipped up her chin, and searched her gorgeous face.

The panic I’d managed to contain in the alley spilled out. “Are you okay? He hit you. That bastard hit you.”

Her head shook with the shock. “I’m not hurt. I’m fine. I’m fine.”

I inhaled a desperate breath and pressed my forehead to hers. “I want to?—”

Aster curled her hands in my jacket. “Just take me home, Logan. Just take me home.”

Home.

I reached up and touched her face. “Okay, baby, I’ll take you home.”

I pulled Aster out of the way when the door suddenly flung open, and Salem and Eden stepped out. Confusion brought them to a quick stop when they saw me.

Tessa pushed out into the front of them, the girl all spastic with her arms flailing. “Aster, are you okay? It’s been forever, and we were getting worried, and now…you’re…here.”

That time, she flung an arm at me. Tessa looked at me like I might be a hallucination.

I ran the pad of my thumb over the back of Aster’s hand. “Seems I can’t stay away from her.”

Salem’s brow was twisted, clearly calling bullshit.

She knew something was up.

“You all should head home.” I issued it low.

Salem slipped her arms through Eden and Tessa’s like she got it. “Tab is settled. We’re out of here. Are you all good?”

I glanced at Aster and she looked back at me.

“I am now,” Aster told her.

“Okay. Let us know if you need anything. Let’s go, guys.”

“Ahh, but mimosas…” Tessa slurred the whine and reached back for the pub’s door while Salem held onto her other arm.

“Come on, miss drunky drunk. It’s time to go.”

“Thank you,” I told Salem.

Eden stalled, clearly wanting to find out what was happening. I gave her a slight smile that promised I’d fill them in later.

I watched until the three of them climbed into their car and drove away, and I helped Aster into the front seat of mine and ran around to get into the driver’s side. The urge to shift my car into gear and run the motherfucker down when Jarek staggered out from the alleyway was almost irresistible.

He glared at us.

I saw it there—he wasn’t going down without a fight.

Aster’s breath stalled out, her spirit whipping through the air, her chest beginning to jut as she suppressed the sobs that wracked from deep within her.

I took her hand. “He won’t touch you.”

Except he already had. I could have been too late.

Tears fell down her face. “Take me home.”

I warred, watching out the windshield where Jarek climbed into a car and tore away.

“I want to end him, Aster.”

“Please, take me home.”

My gaze swept to her, to the fiery depths of those agate eyes.

Sparks and life.

There was something there. Something that hadn’t been there before.

I pulled from the curb in a squeal of tires and torn intentions, flying toward my apartment before I did something that couldn’t be undone.

The air in the cab thinned. Dense and dark and desperate.

Heart in my throat, I peeked at Aster. She itched on the leather seat. Her face was flushed from the cold, and her skin was hot from what had gone down in the alley.

She was so goddamn perfect in my eyes.

A dream.

My purpose.

My reason.

The only destination I’d ever wanted to seek.

“I’ll do anything for you, Aster.” It left me as a low threat.

The lengths I would go.

Fuck any consequence.

Tension bound. Built and shuddered and blew.

She writhed where she sat, angling to the side as her heart thundered in the space. “And I’ll give you everything I have.”

I wanted to possess it.

Take it.

My car skidded around the sharp turn I took, and I gunned it, flying down the road.

I glanced at her, and Aster stared back at me with giant, awestruck eyes.

Molten.

Lava that rushed, consuming every part of me in its path.

Energy pulsed.

A shockwave between us.

A coming storm that neither of us could avoid.

“Do you want it, Logan?” she asked, her voice a rough scrape that blistered over my skin as she reached out with her shaking hand and ran her fingertips down the edge of my face. “Do you want it?”

I gripped her hand and frantically pressed the back of it to my mouth. “I want it all, Aster. I never stopped.”

I whipped into the drive of my building, quick to push the button to lift the gate.

The afternoon light dimmed to shadows when I drove into the basement and swung into my spot.

Killing the engine, I turned to face her. I did my best to keep my cool when possession burned a hole through the center of my chest. I framed her face with my hands and tugged her so close our lips nearly touched.

“I’m not ever fucking letting you go. Do you understand, Aster? Do you understand what that means?”

It came out low and thin, close to a warning.

Because I knew we were at a crossroads.

That once we got out of this car, nothing was going to be the same.

“I understand,” she whispered.

The second she said it, I crushed my mouth to hers.

I kissed her like kissing her was a necessity.

Because it was.

My love for her a requisite.

Our tongues clashed, and our lips plucked and pulled in a bid of possession.

I kissed her until I was in pain.

Mind.

Body.

Soul.

Because loving someone this much?

It always fucking hurt.