Redemption Hills: The Complete Collection

30. Logan

THIRTY

LOGAN

I brushed the hair from her face as she lay on her side staring at me.

Fire-agate eyes glowed in a slow simmer. Coals that glinted. This girl who’d thawed my frozen heart from the inside out.

I didn’t think I’d felt more content, so at peace, than right then.

It might have been a bit illogical considering this girl was a boatload of trouble.

She’d always been.

And she’d always been worth it.

We floated in that peace, like we were back out under the stars in Los Angeles, held by their secret cover. By the sounds of the night and the whisper of the darkness.

I thought maybe our minds needed a minute to catch up to the place our spirits and bodies had gone, except I was sure my mind had known it all along.

There was a part of me that had to wonder if I’d always known we’d catch up to this day.

That it was always going to be her and me.

“There is no better place in this world than being in you,” I finally murmured as I let my fingertips brush along the ridge of her mouth.

A breathy giggle rippled from between her swollen, plump lips, Aster’s breath kissing my skin as she gazed at me like she’d found her way home. “And how do you know that, Logan Lawson? I’m pretty sure you haven’t visited every place .”

She drew out the last, pure suggestion.

A tease and a play.

Joy rumbled in my spirit, and a grin split my face. Her mood was so light she might as well have been high. The girl was still soaring somewhere in the heavens where only this kind of pleasure could exist.

“Oh, I’m well-traveled.” Playfulness weaved into my response.

“Is that so?”

“Yep. Been searching high and low for anything that could make me feel as good as you.” My voice softened as I caressed my fingers down the edge of her face. “It was all made in vain because every road led back to you.”

Those knowing eyes flashed. “Do you think it was inevitable, us ending up here? Together?”

My fingers slipped through hers, and I drew them to my mouth and murmured, “I think we should have been here all along.”

“Why did you do it, Logan? Why did you go when I begged you not to?”

Sickness clawed at my insides at the thought of that night. That horrible night that had desolated and destroyed. The choice I’d made had been the domino that had begun to topple it all.

A cataclysmic fall.

Aster ruined.

Me ruined.

Our hope ruined.

Nathan ruined.

I struggled to breathe, and the blood thickened in my veins, slogging with regret. My thumb traced the apple of her cheek and ran beneath the hollow of her eye. “I thought it was my only chance to win your father over. A way to provide for us. For our family. I thought it was my only chance to prove to him that I could be good enough.”

Her voice grew hoarse. “You were always good enough for me.”

“But not for him. I never would have been.”

She touched my bottom lip with all four fingertips. A tinge of sadness laced with the softness in her tone. “You still won’t be.”

“I know. But this time, I don’t give a fuck.”

Dread slipped into her expression. An ice-cold slick that made her shiver. I ran my hand over the chills.

“What matters is what you want, Aster, and whatever that is, that is what I’m going to fight for. We do it together.”

Then I let a grin fill my face. “Unless what you want is to leave me, and well, I think we already established that’s not going to happen.”

I yanked her toward me. Aster squealed, and a thrill filled up my smile as I got that sweet, naked body tucked against mine. I pressed my lips to the top of her head. “I’m keeping you.”

Aster laughed and sank deeper into my hold. Then she sighed as she curled into my chest, her voice twisting into a wisp. “I used to dream of it, Logan, of you coming back, storming the castle and whisking me away. And I never wanted to be weak, to need a hero, but I never could find my way out of those caged walls. I remained a prisoner, without escape, until you.”

Affection tightened my chest. “You’re the one who chose to take a stand, Aster. The one who decided it was time to fight. I was the fool who dropped you at that airport, thinking you’d leave me again. You’re the one who was brave. The one who looked for a different solution.”

“And I found it in you.”

I edged back to meet her gaze. “Because we were supposed to do this together.”

She pressed her lips against my raging heart. “You are the end of every road.”

Her words resonated. All the way back to the nights when I’d held her like a secret. “I will always find my way back to you,” I finished.

“We just took the twisted route.” I felt her smile against my skin when she said it.

I rubbed my hand down her back. “A very twisted, fucked up route.”

She burrowed in closer. “I wish I would have been stronger.”

Pain squeezed my spirit in a gutting fist because I heard in her voice what she was referring to.

It was a loss that tasted sour on my tongue.

One I doubted would ever stop hurting.

One that a part of me would forever hate her for.

“It kills me that you made that choice. That you felt like you had to.” I could barely grind out the words. I had to hold back the bitterness that still coiled inside.

Hot tears seeped onto my chest, and a sob suddenly hitched in her throat.

Regret slammed me. The truth was, I didn’t have a clue what she’d been through. The desperation she’d felt. Right then, I knew her regrets might be as great as mine.

I rushed to shift her, tipped up her chin, and forced her to look at me. My thumb gathered as much moisture as I could. “Please don’t cry, Aster.”

Her eyes were wide. So wide that I could see all the way down to a void that radiated from within, where ghosts haunted, and wraiths foraged for the weak. “If I could go back, Logan, if I could go back and change it all. Stop you from leaving that night?—”

She choked on the agony that poured from her mouth.

I grappled to get her closer, and my hold tightened on her face. My voice dipped with emphasis. “I thought we just said we were never looking back?”

Fat droplets escaped the edges of her eyes and slipped down her cheeks. An edge of hysteria screamed through her body.

Sorrow a stampede that stormed her spirit.

Her fingers dragged over my shoulder and down my arm, like she was trying to get me to understand. To see. “There’s a piece of my heart that will always remain there, Logan. Broken and lost.” Another sob ripped from her, and she pressed a hand to her hemorrhaging chest. “And I don’t want to leave it behind or forget it. I won’t ever forget it. I won’t.”

Misery clutched and bound and tied us tighter than we’d ever been.

Wrapped our spirits and traipsed through our minds.

So much loss.

I dove for her, my arms fierce around her, pulling her as close to my chest as I could. My nose pressed into her hair and the words fumbled in a litany of our sins. “I’m sorry, Aster. I’m so fucking sorry.”

My heart heaved with the velocity of our mistakes.

With the circumstances that I’d tried to control but had failed.

Her head shook, and she climbed up to straddle me, and I shifted all the way onto my back. My hands shot to her waist.

She was so damned gorgeous as she looked down on me.

Dark brown hair wild around her face. Her throat still trembled with the silent cries that twisted her mouth.

But I thought maybe—maybe a piece of her heart had been freed.

“I love you, Aster. Through it all, I’ve loved you.”

Her tongue swept over her soggy lips. “And I’m terrified that my love for you is going to ruin us both in the end. That my being here…”

I flew up to sitting. I had one hand wound in her hair and the other linked around her waist. The words rushed out with a curl of severity. “This time, we’re not giving up anything, Aster. We’re not sacrificing or yielding or surrendering. We’re taking what’s ours.”

This was the greed I was giving into.

And I wanted it all.

The sheet was twisted around her legs, and every inch of her exposed skin was bare.

Her heart beat at a ragged sprint.

Wrapping me whole.

Her head tilted to the side when she touched my face. “No surrendering.”

My guts clenched.

Clenched with want.

With need.

With this devotion that made me weak in the knees.

She pushed me onto my back, and she stared down at me like she was searing this moment into her mind.

Her eyelids dropped closed as she savored it.

Then she dove forward, the oath frenzied when she whispered, “We’re taking what’s ours.”

She kissed me hard, with a devotion that singed across my skin and embedded into my bones.

It was dizzying, being with her like this. Fully freed. Just her and me. Lost to each other. To the truth that we were where we were always supposed to be.

All it took was a brush from her and I was hard again.

She felt it, and a needy gasp raked from her lungs.

Desire filled her being and glimmered from her skin.

Aster pushed up onto her knees, fisted my dick, and aligned me with her pussy.

She plunged down.

Took all of me in.

Body and fucking soul.

My hands shot to her hips. “Shit. Aster. Yes. Do you have any idea how you feel?”

A wispy, dazed laugh ripped through the air. “I hope half as good as you feel to me.”

She began to move, and I held her by the waist while the girl worked me over.

She glided up and down on my shaft. Her walls clutching my cock in a fist, and her tits bouncing with each pitch of her body.

Bliss.

Bliss.

Bliss.

I shot upright so I could get to that mouth, kissing her hard and wild while she rode me in her own form of possession. Writing herself on my being.

But she was already there.

Greed.

She just hadn’t fucking known it.

I rubbed my thumb on her clit as I kissed down her throat.

I felt her wind, the sensation grow, her body burning up as the pleasure gathered quick. Two strokes later, an orgasm tore through her, head to toe.

Her pussy throbbed and squeezed as she moaned my name.

“I told you that you would be mine, Aster Rose. I told you I was going to own this body. That I was going to fill you up and take you over. This body belongs to me.”

I went back to stroking her clit while her nails scratched and clawed at my shoulders.

She was feral.

Wild.

“Oh…Logan…please…I don’t think…”

“Don’t think, Aster. Let go. Give it to me. Everything you have.”

That time, when the second orgasm hit her, she cried out, and the sound of her pleasure banged against the walls.

I came with a rush, holding her by the inside of the thighs to press her down onto me while my cock throbbed and pulsed.

A bomb of pleasure detonated.

Blinding as it blazed through my being.

Paradise.

My arms tightened around her as we both came down.

As we gasped and panted.

I edged back, and the girl smiled at me in this way that pierced me all the way through. I leaned forward and gave her the sloppiest kiss. She laughed and wound her arms around my neck.

“I love you,” she murmured at the thrumming point of my pulse.

I held her as close as I could. “You are the meaning of it, Little Star.”

I jolted when my phone rang from the pocket of my jacket. I didn’t let her go as I scooted to the edge of the bed. I banded my arm around her waist to keep her against me as I leaned over so I could dig for it.

She giggled and held on tighter. “You can let me go, you know.”

“Nope, I can’t. You’re stuck with me now.”

My smile was too big.

She touched it like she felt the impact of it, too.

I glanced at the screen.

Dean.

My heart climbed into my throat, and anticipation beat a frenzied path through my veins.

Accepting the call, I pressed my phone to my ear. “Dean, what do you have?”

I didn’t waste any time with pleasantries.

“It might be nothing, but you said you wanted everything and anything.”

I could feel the worry travel through Aster’s body. I wound my arm tighter in a silent show of support.

My brave girl who’d only needed someone to remind her of who she was.

Of what she deserved.

“I do. Anything that could possibly be of use.”

“Jarek Urso has a pseudo…found the connection a few days ago. Jack Werner. It didn’t look like there was much associated with it. A checking account and a couple rental properties.”

I didn’t realize my teeth were grinding in restraint until Aster started running her fingers down my spine to soothe me.

“And?” I pressed.

“I dug deeper into it and found some flight records from this last summer. At least four trips to Russia. It might be nothing, but it seemed worth mentioning.”

Blood thickened and stormed.

“It’s definitely worth mentioning. Do you know who he visited while there?”

“That I haven’t been able to uncover.”

“Keep digging,” I told him.

Ending the call, I tossed my phone to the mattress.

I edged back so I could look at Aster, my hands vises that curled around her waist like I could keep her from floating away. “Does your father have business in Russia?”

I only knew what I’d known then—there were no alliances.

Only enemies.

Worry crept across her face. She blinked as she processed.

“No. I don’t think so.”

“Would he send Jarek there for any reason?”

Disconcerted, she swallowed. “I can’t believe that he would. I think I would at least know that. This last summer, Jarek was supposed to be traveling to New York. As far as I knew, he was in charge of facilitating a new shipment route.”

But her father hadn’t exactly been forthright with her over the years, either.

Acting like he was protecting her from his bullshit when she’d merely been a bartering chip.

Hope blazed like a beacon in her eyes. “I need to tell my father.”

“I know you’re anxious, Aster. I am, too. The thing I want most in this world is to set you free of his power. But we need to wait until we have more. Until we have something solid and substantial to prove Jarek’s disloyalty. If we do it too soon, it’s only going to give Jarek time to cover his tracks.”

Aster deflated, resignation thick. Then she nodded and blew out a strained breath. “I know…I just want this to be over.”

“Soon, Aster.”

“What happened earlier today when you called? Did you know he was coming for me? I can’t believe he went against a direct order from my father.”

“I left my office for about an hour. When I got back, it’d been ransacked. Place destroyed. They took my laptop.”

That was what unsettled me most.

It’d felt…purposed.

Like they were searching.

The piece of shit would have to search for the rest of his life.

Aster choked. Fear echoed from her depths. From the dark places I wondered if she’d ever fully allow me to go. “He’s coming to his end, Logan. He thinks we’re playing him a fool, and there is nothing that he cares about more than his pride.”

“That’s exactly what we’re doing, Aster. We’re playing him the fool because that is what he is.”

And if the fucker came anywhere near her again? He would meet his end.

My palm splayed over the side of her head, and my fingers weaved into her hair. “We almost have him, Aster. I can feel it. We just need a little time. And during then, I don’t want you out anywhere without me. Do you understand?”

“Logan—”

I cut her off with an anguished kiss.

Praying she would get it. What she meant to me. The terror I possessed at the thought of her being harmed.

Slowing it, I dropped my forehead to hers. “Please, Aster, I couldn’t bear it if something happened to you.”

Desperation fueled her voice. “I can’t remain a prisoner to him any longer, Logan. I won’t.”

My thumb stroked her chin. “No, Little Star, you are no prisoner. You are free in me.”