Never Look Back, page 11
He quelled it, remembered Trent had warned him to keep his head down.
The man he followed led him through a set of doors on the far side of the rambling building. It was an area that appeared to be separated from the main living quarters.
He walked down the long corridor, his footsteps echoing on the marble floors.
There was a room on the right that made him slow as they passed by. The double doors opened to a massive room with grand ceilings and books lining each wall that were stacked to the sky.
Leather furniture filled the middle, and he wasn’t sure if his heart stopped or sped so fast that he could no longer feel it when someone peeked at him from over the back of a couch.
The girl tried to keep herself hidden as she peered at him.
Her hair the darkest chocolate and her eyes the color of the molten sun.
Logan realized the promise he’d made his brother had been made in vain.
Because there would be no keeping to himself.
TEN
ASTER
I pulled the night slip over my head. The soft, white material unfurled over my body and landed mid-thigh. I looked at myself in the mirror, blew back the dark brown bangs that had fallen in my face, and said a silent prayer for strength. That I could find my way through the turmoil.
That I could persevere.
That I could fly.
Tomorrow, I would form a plan.
Figure out how to prove to my father why I could never go back to Jarek Urso.
Dread scattered through me like the whisper of death.
I’d never caused it before. Been the precursor. But I knew what this might mean for Jarek.
Guilt threatened to claw. To rip open and infect.
A disease that turned my blood cold and my stomach sour.
I hated the violence. Hated it to my soul. But I had to remember Jarek was one of the greatest perpetrators of it.
Pulse fluttering, I blew out a heavy sigh, and I flipped the light off to the bathroom and stepped out into the bedroom.
The second I did, I froze, snared by the dark presence that whipped like a blizzard from the doorway.
My eyes narrowed as I stared at the man who might as well be a mirage.
Sanctuary.
Refuge.
Perdition.
The man who’d been little more than a boy when he’d captured me in that first, stolen glance.
I’d been obsessed, willing to break every rule to even catch a glimpse.
Now, I felt myself falling into the abyss of who he was all over again.
For good or bad.
Right or wrong.
None of it had ever mattered except for wanting him to be mine.
Still in his suit, Logan watched me as if he were bored, though I could feel the pinpricks of intensity that bristled beneath his skin. The white-hot energy that radiated from his being.
I fidgeted, wearing the slip, feeling so much more exposed than I had in the tee.
It was thin straps and thin material and a neckline that dipped low between my breasts.
Heat blossomed as I imagined him picking it out for me.
Tension stretched across the room. A dense, veiled pull that felt like a vacant ache, the heat of his eyes a beacon that shouted to me from the bowels of an obliterating storm.
“What are you doing in here?” I finally managed to press the words from my mouth while I took a fortifying step back.
As if I could protect myself from the lure.
The muted hum of a television droned through the walls from Gretchen’s room, and the sound of the night howled through the mountain slopes and softly battered at the panes.
Everything else seemed magnified.
The shallow gasps of my breaths and the erratic hammer of my heart and the questions that raged through my mind.
Logan angled his head. A wicked smirk lit at the edge of his mouth as he leaned against the doorway with his hands stuffed in his pants pockets.
As if he held a secret that I wasn’t privy to.
Attraction throbbed in my belly.
“Now, don’t tell me you’ve already forgotten who you belong to?”
“This is a bad idea, Logan.” It was my only defense.
“What’s that?”
“You and me.”
A roll of low laughter rippled from his mouth. “We were always a bad idea, but we did it, anyway.”
I fidgeted. “And look where we ended up.”
His head cocked.
The man so beautiful.
So gorgeous it was obscene.
“And why’s that?” he pressed.
“I think it would be better for the both of us if we didn’t go there.”
He stepped forward.
Severity flashed.
A shockwave.
I couldn’t breathe.
“I thought we were playing by my rules, Aster?”
I hugged my arms over my chest, and I gulped around the burn that crawled up my throat. “We are.”
His prowl was slow and measured as he edged my way, as if the longer it took him to reach me, the harder my pulse would pound with want.
His breaths were jagged, his stare intense.
He gripped me by one side of the waist, hard enough to make me gasp, though his thumb caressed my hip bone in a soothing way.
Dangerous, dangerous seduction.
An edge had taken him over. As if he’d sensed my intention to leave, to save him from the same fate he’d been headed toward before. The softness from earlier this evening had constricted in possession.
“You’re mine, Aster.” It was a growl. I swore, his touch sank all the way down to my bones. Warming me from the inside out.
I shivered, and I tried to look away, but the only thing I could do was tip up my head to stare at him in the shadows.
His jaw was hard, his brow furrowed, his eyes intense. Every line carved in pained devotion.
“Please…don’t play games with me.”
He stepped into me, pressing me up against the wall, no amusement in his tone when he warned, “But the games are so much fun to play.”
“Not when your heart is on the line.” I forced the haggard words from my tongue.
The bare, cold truth.
He was going to hurt me, and I was going to hurt him, and I didn’t think either of us could go through that again.
Still, lightheadedness swept through me when he touched my cheek. He dragged it down my trembling neck and over my collarbone, down, down along my side, all the way until he tickled my bare thigh, fingertips playing with the hem of the night slip.
I could barely see, could barely think.
Touch me.
They were the only words that made any sense. I bit down on my tongue to keep them subdued.
Shivers tumbled in a slow-slide, and he chuckled low, and his hand was coming up to press between my breasts on the exposed skin of my chest. Right over that organ that raged. “Whose heart is that, Aster?”
It was venom, it was a plea. He ran his knuckles between my cleavage.
Our gazes tangled.
Wild.
Needy.
Both desperate and disturbed.
“I think we both know it’s mine.” The confession was recklessly dangerous. I wished for a way to reach out and squash it before it hit his ears.
Darkness glowered from his frown, and the hand on my waist curled tighter. “Why are you here, Aster?” Logan’s voice was gravel. “Why did you come back to me?”
“I don’t know if I could have ended up anywhere else.”
Tiny whimpers bled free when he let his palm travel down my quivering stomach before he was riding it back up.
His thumb lightly teased over my nipple, and my stupid hands clutched at the material of his jacket, holding onto his arms that I’d once thought a safety net.
“You’re mine. I don’t give a fuck who you’re married to. You’ve always been mine.” It cracked like a low, guttural threat.
Lust burst to life, rushing back to reclaim our sacred place.
Old, scarred passions ripping open, emerging anew.
I grappled to get closer.
Need welled up so fast that I had to bite down on my bottom lip to keep from begging for more.
“We can’t, Logan.”
He pressed his face into my jaw, let his lips travel the length until he was murmuring in my ear, “Oh, make no mistake, Aster. We will.”
He stepped back and readjusted his jacket.
I sagged against the wall, heaving for the air that no longer existed.
His jaw ticked, and his stare was a flood of potency. “I have to attend to something. Do not leave this apartment. Do you understand me?”
“Where would I go?”
He was back in front of me, his thumb on my lips and his words in my ear. “Good girl.”
Then he was gone.
ELEVEN
LOGAN
It was half past ten when I weaved my way through the throbbing crowd toward the private booth tucked at the far back corner of Absolution. Absolution was the club Trent ran and owned, though a piece of that pie went to both Jud and me.
Our businesses were all tied. Bound together since the three of us were bound in blood and loyalty.
They earned the money.
I invested it.
Multiplied it and turned it over.
It was my calling. What I’d been bred to do.
What fed my addiction and destroyed the last vestiges of goodness inside me.
Lights strobed over the crowd, and lust stroked the air with an undercurrent of greed.
Tonight, a cover band was on the stage, the place packed and wild and hedged with a vibe of decadence.
I inhaled it like it might help me regain my footing.
Because I was tripping in a direction I couldn’t allow myself to go.
I should’ve always known Aster Rose would be a dead-end, and I was pretty sure if I didn’t get smart, that dead-end was going to land me six feet underground.
Things were already turning south in my brain. Leaving her there tonight? After walking in on her wearing that nightie? That shit had been one second from being impossible. How easy it would’ve been to slide my hands under the slip to get to all that sweetness.
To set my dick free and take her against the wall.
It’d been so fucking long since I’d been in that body, in that perfection, that I’d nearly walked right over that line.
Felt what she might give.
Topping it off was the memory of the way it’d felt sitting next to her at my niece and nephew’s performance. Like she’d been there all along. Where she’d belonged. My mind raced with the possibilities that my brain knew better than to go to.
It’d left me shaken.
Hungry for things that really should sour on my palate.
I’d only intended to push her a bit. Tease her. Tempt her the way she was tempting me. Then I’d touched her, and all bets were off. I couldn’t handle the way she’d looked at me with those fire-agate eyes.
The way she had to stop herself from letting the pleas drop from her tongue. I had nearly lost it right then, and I knew I had to get the fuck out of there before I did something stupid.
Like putting a wall between us was going to cure the need.
My cock still raged, and my fingers were itching with the desire to sink right in.
Mouth watering for any taste of poison she might give.
Funny since there was a huge piece of me that still wanted to tell her to fuck off.
This was the girl who’d destroyed me. One who’d left a hole so deep and wide it didn’t stand a chance of callousing over.
It was just this gaping, festering mess that would forever hate what she’d done.
I didn’t trust her.
Not at all.
And the really sick part of me didn’t give a fuck. That part didn’t care what she’d done or where she’d been. Her place was with me.
It certainly wasn’t wise.
I’d known it in the hard panic that’d taken hold of my brothers when they’d seen me walk up with her like rolling in with a Costa was perfectly normal.
It was a line in the sand.
A beckoning of trouble.
A middle finger to the type of people who were not to be trifled with.
The kind of people we used to be, but it was a life that we’d left behind.
Permanently.
And now a Costa princess was in my penthouse apartment.
I shouldered through the crush to find my brothers were already waiting for me in our regular booth reserved for us at the very back of the club.
Trent sat on the right and Jud on the left, Trent sipping from the expensive scotch he preferred and Jud sipping from a foaming mug of his favorite beer.
It wasn’t all that rare of a sight.
I slipped into the booth on Trent’s side and cut them both an overzealous smile. “I’m here, boys. Let the party begin.”
Trent grunted. “Think you know full well we didn’t call you here for a party.”
Right.
It was an inquisition. I’d figured Trent wasn’t looking to chill when he’d leaned in like he was going to tell me goodbye after the recital and told me to be here at ten.
I rocked back against the booth like I hadn’t dropped a nuclear bomb on them earlier tonight without giving them a reason for war.
“Why so glum? Tell me the honeymoons haven’t already worn off?” I said it like it was a sad, sorry state of affairs. “Are your poor, tiny dicks shriveling up from disuse? It’s an injustice, you know.”
I cracked it the way I always did, rubbing it in like they were the ones going to be missing out for the rest of their lives when they’d tapped into what really mattered. “I warned you guys…but did anyone listen to their baby brother? Nooo. When are you all going to realize I’m the smartest of the bunch?”
Jud pointed at me from across the table. “Cut the crap, Logan. Don’t think you’re going to bullshit your way out of this one because I’m not buying that smile on your face for anything.”
Trent went right for the throat. “Care to tell me why the fuck a Costa showed up at my kid’s performance tonight?” he demanded.
I shrugged like it was no big deal. “Like I said, I ran into her last night and thought we should catch up.”
Trent’s brow lifted and his voice lowered, “You ran into her? Where?”
I knew I was going to get the rain of fury from my brothers. I respected the hell out of them, but in this instance, I was having a really hard time finding any fucks to give. Still, I tried to play it off like I wasn’t in deeper than I’d ever been. “A friend’s house.”
“What friend?” he pressed.
I sighed. “A client of mine. No one you would know.”
“Why was she there?”
“Not really sure.” At least it was some version of the truth because really, what the hell was that prick Jarek doing there? “A few acquaintances and I were having a friendly game of poker, and lo and behold, there she was.”
Nothing but a perfect dream wrapped in black silk.
My dick stirred again.
“Friendly?” Trent pushed.
“Just wagering on a little good fun.”
Jud groaned.
They didn’t exactly approve of my playing. I did my best to keep it on the sly most of the time, but there’d been instances when I couldn’t turn over a car as quickly as I’d like, and they’d get a whiff of what was going down.
“Shit,” Jud rumbled, scrubbing a meaty palm over his face. “Want to tell us what was on the table?”
“Things might have gotten a little dicey.” I eased in the confession.
“How so?” Jud asked, eyes narrowing as he lifted his beer to his mouth.
I paused, hesitated, then let the truth bleed out. “I might have won her.”
“The fuck?” Trent spat.
They stared me down like I’d lost my mind. Why I bothered pretending I hadn’t, I didn’t know because I knew I’d stepped into a world I’d do better to pretend I never knew existed.
We all three eased back when the server showed with my regular drink.
The second she was gone, Jud sat forward, his elbows propped on the table and his face in his hands. “This is a joke, right? Tell me it’s a fucking joke, Logan.”
His giant arms were bound in muscle that flexed and bunched. Like he was coming up on a battle that would require him to fight to the death.
I prayed to God it wouldn’t come to that.
Because it didn’t matter if I knew agreeing to her staying with me was the right thing to do, didn’t matter that I knew she needed help, her being here was going to come at a cost.
Problem was, I still didn’t know how steep that might prove to be.
Blowing out a sigh, I scratched at the back of my neck in discomfort. “Not a joke.”
Anxiety gusted around the table, quiet taking hold for a moment.
My throat worked, and I forced myself to lay it out because there was no use in trying to keep any of it from them.
We had each other’s back, whatever messes we found ourselves in. And when it came to us Lawson Brothers, we always seemed to find plenty of it.
I let myself feel it. The weight of what I’d done. The decision I’d made. How it might impact us all.
Aster’s face flashed through my mind. The way she’d begged me to let her stay. The way the pain in her eyes was greater than the fear of what standing up for herself might be.
The way it had me itching to go on a murder spree.
I doubted much weighing any of the risks now would make me change my mind.
None of it would make me take it back.
Still, I was letting the disquiet come out with the explanation. “There was a big game at one of my most affluent client’s places. He likes to play big. High stakes. All-in kind of shit. Played a couple times at his table over the last few months. I didn’t know what I was walking in on last night, but I found myself sitting across from Jarek Urso.”
“Fuck.” It heaved from Trent in a bout of horrified shock. He scrubbed a tatted palm over his face, like it might flush out the mistake he’d undoubtedly believed I’d made.
