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)
Then…then he would make Jarek Urso pay for what he had stolen.
Resolved, Logan turned and slipped into the darkened night as that single, little star burned out.
FORTY-TWO
ASTER
With my hand solidly held in his, Logan darted back through Absolution’s main doors, dragging me through the raving crowd that had only gotten rowdier as it approached midnight.
He ducked down the hall where we’d entered, then he was hauling me into a private room and locking the door behind us. He moved across the room and fumbled around at the wall and pushed open a hidden door.
What the hell?
Confusion whirled through my being while my heart soared.
I still couldn’t believe what had just happened with my father.
I didn’t think I’d ever felt more exhilarated.
More hopeful.
More alive.
Logan slammed it shut and locked the hidden door, too.
It closed us off to the smoky, opaque shadows that swam through the secret room. My attention raced to take it in. It held a game table and a couch and a small bar at the back. The décor oozed of 1920’s decadence.
Logan strode out in front of me, as if he couldn’t sit still. He roughed an agitated hand through his black hair as he paced.
His spirit was held in a lethal storm.
“What is this place?” I wheezed, chaos whipping through my being.
My breath hitched when he finally whirled around, the sight of his face clipping off my question.
The man was so obscenely gorgeous in the tailored suit he wore.
So magnetic my heart jolted toward him.
Those eyes flashed as they raved over my body.
Copper and green.
Stony.
Malachite.
Yet, still the farthest from opaque.
They were feral.
Angered and awed and everything in between.
“You did it for me.” Agony hurtled out with the hardened words.
“You did it for me.” Reverent torment. It underscored his disbelief and this vibrant anger that pounded through the room. “You promised your father you would never see me again if he spared my life? That’s why you married Jarek?”
My soul shook, and I pressed my hands to my chest. “I had no other choice.”
I knew until right then he never had really understood what I’d meant.
Every muscle in his body rippled with severity, edged in strength and rage.
“No, Aster, you could have chosen you.”
“And exist in a world where I knew you didn’t? Know that your love for me had been your end? Never, Logan. Never.” The confession wept through the room.
“What did he do to you?” Rage sprang from his spirit and burned from his tongue.
My eyes squeezed closed. “I don’t want him here right now, Logan. I don’t want him anywhere near us.”
Because for the first time…for the first time…Logan and I had a future. A chance. A possibility. The hope of life and a…family.
My heart pounded, and my eyes fluttered open when he murmured my name.
“Aster.”
It was acclaim.
Energy crackled, and he slowly moved my way.
“It was to protect me.” Coarse adoration filled the sharp edge of his voice. “That night, everything you said was to protect me.”
I could barely nod around the sorrow in my throat. “It killed me, Logan, standing in our special spot and telling you the greatest lie. It destroyed me all over again to cause you that pain. But it was so much better than the alternative.”
Emotion bottled in my throat. The truth and the secrets and the pain.
Reaching out, he tipped up my chin. Logan’s jaw was set, and his heat flamed in the space between us. “For years, I hated you, thinking you’d taken the easy way out. That you’d married a man with a name and power. That you realized I wasn’t worth the trouble.”
“I was the one who brought you trouble.” Soggy affection blew out with the wheeze.
He inhaled a shaky sound, then he leaned in and pressed his mouth to the spot where my shoulder met my neck.
“Little Star,” he whispered at the sensitive flesh. “I should have known. I should have known. But somewhere deep inside, my soul knew.”
Logan’s gaze deepened, locked on mine. “I should have fought for you.”
“And what would have happened then? It would have brought more tragedy.”
“You were worth the fight, Aster. Whatever it would have cost.”
“I didn’t believe it then,” I admitted.
“Tell me you do now. Tell me you understand the treasure that you are,” he demanded. His fingers gripped me by the chin, harsh and tender. “Tell me you understand you are worth the fight.”
“I know it now, Logan. I see it in your eyes.”
He edged back and slowly turned me around until I was facing an ornate, full-length mirror.
I met his reflection, the stony ferocity that rippled through his gorgeous features. “Beauty. My heart. My poetry,” he murmured as his fingertips fluttered down the slope of my neck.
“You are every word I’ve ever written.”
I could almost see the scattering of stars strewn around us. As if each call of my heart had been hung in the sky.