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)
“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?”