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)
She looked like a fucking seductress standing in my room. Like temptation. Like every-fucking-thing that had been missing in my life for the last seven years.
She fidgeted.
Twitched.
Unsure.
Oh, but we could be certain of one thing.
She wanted me. She fucking wanted me.
Even knowing what felt like insurmountable obstacles separating us, she wanted me.
The problem was, my head didn’t know how to keep up with my heart that was already pounding out ahead of us.
My mind full of questions while the rest of me just didn’t give a fuck.
The only thing that mattered was the feeling that coursed through my veins.
This steely determination that I was going to take back what was mine.
I wound myself out of my suit jacket and tossed it to the couch.
Aster throbbed.
I saw it. Felt it. The way her entire being flared. I could taste her sweet breath that ensnared me like an echo. I could feel the filaments that curled between us like silky bonds around our wrists.
I toed off my shoes, unbuttoned the cuffs of my shirt, and rolled them up my forearms. She watched the action like she was committing it to memory. Or maybe like she was going back. Back to where we belonged.
Lust battled with the anger that stroked inside me.
With the war the sight of her incited.
The truth that she was mine, but she didn’t quite know it yet.
“Come here.” It cracked through the quiet, dense air.
Air wheezed from her lungs.
“I don’t think this is a good idea,” she forced out.
“Tell me you’re not aching, Aster.”
She whimpered out a frustrated laugh. “That’s the whole problem, Logan. I’ve been aching since the moment you burst back into my life, and I don’t know how to handle that.”
I saw the dread written on her face.
Her fear.
Her belief that after this, she would have to leave.
“Come here, Aster.” I said it softer that time.
I didn’t know which of us was the gravity. Which one of us compelled the other because I knew right that fucking second I would follow her anywhere.
She approached like she was walking on a sea of black ice littered with cracks, and she was afraid she might fall through.
One misstep and it would be over.
While I was going to teach her how to disappear into the moment.
Then I was going to keep her there forever.
Rich locks of brown hair flowed around her precious face. Her eyes were alight, flames dancing in the depths. She tiptoed across the floor. She came up within a foot of me when she paused, and her chest shuddered, and the tiniest, neediest breath escaped her full, pink lips.
Then she slowly climbed down onto her knees on the rug. As something locked inside her broke. “Logan. I’m not sure I know how to stand any longer. I’ve been doing it alone for so long.”
“Fuck me.” It slipped from my tongue as sure as I was slipping into a dream.
Her throat worked as she looked up at me, as she sucked every last drop of self-restraint from the air.
Hers.
Mine.
I wasn’t sure.
The only thing I knew was I heaved a breath as heavy as stones when she whispered again, “Logan.”
She leaned up and pressed her cheek to the inside of my thigh, rubbed herself there, eliciting an inferno that scorched through my insides.
A whirlwind of heat.
I reached out and traced her lips with the pad of my thumb, urging her to look up at me.
Flames leapt.
Danced and played.
Ready to consume.
“Aster.”
It was praise.
Affection.
A threat.
“Was I always destined to end up right here?” Her voice was a wisp. Short rasps of uncertainty. “No matter where you went, would I find you there? Or is it all a horrible coincidence? A stroke of bad luck? Or maybe…maybe it’s a punishment?”
“Little Star. One tiny star hidden in a vast cosmos. The only one I can see.”
She choked out a pained sound. “Even if I can’t see you, I’ll know you’re there, and I’ll find my way to you.”
She repeated the promise I’d made her that night.
A promise that whipped in tattered shreds around us.
Taking her by the chin, I lifted her face farther. She looked up at me with this expression that slayed me through. “Did you believe it, Aster? Did you believe what I told you then?”
Her throat bobbed heavily when she swallowed, and her eyes filled with the mist of old-broken dreams. “I believed you.”
“But you didn’t wait for me.” The words cracked.
Blinking, she forced out the confession. “My heart did.”
The air thinned, and my blood thundered. This manic crash that wanted to tear its way through.
“Did you feel it?” she asked. So quiet. So unsure. “Did you feel my heart through the space, even when you couldn’t see me?”
My hand splayed over the side of her face. “Every day, I thought I was losing my mind, Aster, the way every road wanted to end with you. Every fucking minute I wanted to come to you. Find you. To listen to the call of your voice that forever echoed in my ear.”