Never Look Back, page 18
So, I held her the way I used to do. Under the cover of night. In a place where no one knew.
She let me as our souls shifted.
As we sank deeper.
Against my chest and under my skin.
As a promise changed.
Time passed, minutes, hours, I didn’t know. But Aster sagged, and she let me hold her weight.
Her burden.
She drifted, like for the first time in years, her trouble had gone light.
So, I took it.
I swept her from her feet and into my arms. She sighed as she curled hers around my neck, and I carried her out into the sleeping house and into her room where I laid her in the center of her bed.
Agate eyes fluttered open. A murmuring of affection. A haunting of old hope. It was dimmed by the years of cruelty that had separated us.
She stretched out her hand. “Stay.”
I hesitated, then I kicked off my shoes and undressed down to my briefs and undershirt.
She lay on her side, her head on her pillow, and she stared at me through the shadows.
She sighed when I climbed in and laid beside her.
Reaching out, I brushed the hair from her face. I leaned in and pressed my lips to her forehead, her temple, her chin.
Then I spread my hand across the side of her face as I pressed my wandering lips over the soft curve of her mouth. They barely moved.
It was the softest caress.
A promise.
An oath.
The truth.
“You’re mine.”
EIGHTEEN
LOGAN
LOS ANGELES, EIGHTEEN YEARS OLD
“Why are you hiding?”
Logan felt the smile pull to the edge of his mouth when he murmured it to the wind. His eyes remained upturned toward the starless, Los Angeles sky, though every fiber of his being was tuned into the presence that hovered behind the wall of an outbuilding.
He sat on a bench in the rambling gardens, lost in a maze of foliage and trails that stretched out far beyond the pool behind the mansion.
In the place that had become his sanctuary. In the place where they met.
“I have to,” she whispered back, the way she always did.
He fought it, but his smile grew. “Are you going to get into trouble?”
Aster Rose giggled, a slight flush rushing her soft cheeks as she stole a glance around to make sure they were in the clear.
With the way the sight of her punched him in the gut, you’d think it was the first time he’d ever seen her. How his stomach flipped and his chest tightened.
“No. I’m going to get you into trouble.” She gave him the same warning she gave him every time. Like she was waiting for the day he would turn her away.
Logan smirked. “Do I look like the kind of guy who cares? Besides, I’m pretty sure it would be worth it.”
Her cheeks were red as she nibbled at her bottom lip, this shy, bold girl who had twisted up his mind and become his best friend.
She felt like more than that, though.
Like she might be everything.
Like there was a reason he’d been consigned to this place of depravity and greed.
Where nothing cost too much and where one misstep could cost you everything.
Where he worked his magic into corruption.
For the last six months, Logan had spent his evenings and well into the night forging false documents, making dirty money look clean, and investing in places where it would grow.
He’d made himself valuable. He knew it. Andres Costa had said it himself. The man had filled Logan’s pockets with portions of what he’d earned. Promised him more if he kept performing the way he had.
Logan had tried to keep his nose to the paper and his fingers out of the wickedness, just like Trent had warned him to do, but that was hard when you’d become an integral piece of it.
But he knew what he was doing with Aster Rose was more dangerous than any of that.
He’d never even touched her, but his mind was all over her.
He pushed to standing when she gave him the go, and he took a furtive glance around, too, before he slipped behind the building hidden by high shrubs and bushes, out of sight of the guards and cameras.
Not that there was a whole lot of attention on this area.
Andres Costa’s concern was keeping threats out. Well, that and his daughters in.
Aster slipped down onto a patch of grass. Logan sat beside her, and he fought the urge to reach out and touch her sweet face when he did, tried to ignore the way his heart raced and his blood pounded.
Sure, he’d been with girls before, but this one…this one had him losing sleep and acting rash.
Dangerous ideas and reckless acts.
He wasn’t even supposed to look at her, and there they were, sneaking out to meet each other whenever they got a chance.
When he’d found the piece of paper folded into a star where it’d been tucked under the logbook he often worked in, his heart had sped, the way it did every time she left him a secret message.
Nine, was all that it said.
Prime time for his dinner break.
“How are you?” Aster murmured, peeking at him like maybe she felt the way he did, too.
“Good, now that you’re here.”
Her lips pursed. “That bad?”
Logan shrugged. “It’s fine.”
“You hate what my father is making you do.” It wasn’t a question, just soft understanding.
Really, it was his father wielding the command. Two men who were radically different and basically the same.
At least Aster’s father seemed to maintain some semblance of humanity.
He blew out a sigh and returned his gaze to the hazy glow of the city sky.
“I think the problem is that it doesn’t bother me as much as it should.” He’d grown to like the feeling he got when he saw the numbers double. The pride he felt when Aster’s father rewarded him. The fact he’d lost any twinges of guilt over what he was doing somewhere along the way. “It’s better than the alternative, that’s for sure.”
Aster frowned. “The alternative?”
Logan plucked at a blade of grass, warred with the confliction he felt over Trent and Jud’s role in the family. “Way better than what my brothers do,” he admitted.
He glanced down to catch the sorrow carved in her expression. Her wide, knowing eyes and the pained sweep of her plush, full lips. “They don’t have another choice?”
“Sometimes we’re bred from the beginning to become something we don’t want to be.” He mused it quietly toward the heavens.
He knew neither of his brothers had ever wanted to follow in their father’s shoes.
He’d formed them into the shape and then shackled them to his truth.
Trent and Jud might try to shield him from every sordid detail, but he listened close enough that he knew—he saw—he recognized the upper hand.
The callous manipulation.
He startled when she set her hand over his, and he suddenly found it difficult to breathe.
“And sometimes we have to stand up and fight for what we know is right in spite of it.”
“And how do we do that?”
Logan’s gaze swept her way when he asked it, his eyes tracing the pretty curve of her jaw as she turned her focus upward. He got the sense neither of them knew how to admit their innermost fears while looking at the other.
“We take the chance when it’s presented to us. Refuse the heartache when it’s demanded of us. And we make sure to never surrender to the greed. It’s what drives these men and what has ruined them.”
His spirit fluttered at her words, and Logan shifted his hand so their fingers were threaded together.
Energy crackled.
This feeling that rushed up his arm and settled in his chest.
“Are you going to refuse it, Aster?”
He’d heard the rumors. The rumblings that Aster had newly been pledged to Jarek Urso, to be married on her nineteenth birthday which was less than a year away.
Jarek’s father was one of Andres’ closest allies.
The marriage would make them family.
“I’m going to figure a way out of it, Logan. One way or another, I will find a way. I won’t be forced into marrying a man I don’t love. I don’t care who my father is.” Her voice was pure determination.
The pad of his thumb ran circles on the back of her hand.
“You’re so brave.”
She choked a tiny sound. “No, I’m terrified. So terrified of the alternative that I’m willing to fight to keep it from happening.”
Her smile was soggy when she looked at him.
His chest tightened in a fist.
He had to tear his attention away and return it to the sky before he did something more reckless than he was already doing.
A soft giggle left her. “Why are you always staring at the sky when you can’t see anything?”
Her curiosity burned on the side of his face.
His lips twitched at her question. He realized then why her covert messages came in the shape they did.
“Even if we can’t see them, the stars are there, waiting for us to find them. To look beyond the smoke and distortion to the beauty obscured just on the other side of it. And if you look hard enough…”
He took their woven hands and lifted them, pointed with his index finger at the tiny shimmer that broke through the dingy sky. “See right there? That little star? It always shines through the haze.”
“Can you find it every night?” Her voice was the rasp of a whisper.
He tightened his hold on her hand. This girl who shined the brightest of them all.
Through the ugliness of her world.
Through the atrocity of their calling.
Maybe he really could rise above, be better than it all.
“I think I’d find her anywhere,” he murmured, turning his gaze on her.
Redness flashed on her cheeks, and she peeked his way.
The air shifted.
Flames raced over his skin.
Because Aster crawled to her knees and eased over to straddle his legs.
He sucked for a breath.
Inhaled too deep.
Hyacinth and magnolia leaves.
She touched his chest over his shirt, where it pounded out of time.
Her expression turned to awe.
He took her precious face in both his hands.
Agate eyes flashed and danced.
Sparked and begged.
Their connection fierce and unseen.
“Little Star,” he whispered.
Then he kissed her.
Kissed her soft and slow.
And he knew she was worth any amount of trouble she might bring.
NINETEEN
ASTER
“What did Dominic say?” I whispered as I glanced out into the hall to make sure it was clear before I clicked my bedroom door shut.
Taylor’s voice was held, too. “He scoped out your house. Jarek is definitely not there.”
I blew out a heavy sigh. I could certainly attest to that.
He was here.
Lurking.
Watching.
Waiting.
“But of course, the prick has someone posted there. Sketchy much?” She scoffed it.
I almost laughed. “Taylor, Jarek is the definition of sketchy.”
“Um, he’s the definition of a lot of things. Skeezeball. Douchemonger. Fuckface. Shall I go on? Shudder.”
I could practically see her convulsing with revulsion when she said it.
“I think I got you.”
She giggled.
It’d been three days since I’d heard from my sister. Three days since Logan had curled up beside me and held me all night. Three days since he’d whispered that I was his, and he would do anything to protect me.
He’d murmured it would be fine, the way he used to do, though there had been an undercurrent to it that hadn’t existed in the man before.
He promised he was already digging. That he would find a way to free me of my chains.
One way or another.
I’d awoken to his side of the bed cold.
We’d tiptoed since, unsure of our standing.
His caresses were real but restrained, his gaze sure but his steps faltering, as if he were waiting for me to decide because both of us had so much riding on this fine, undelineated line.
I forced myself to focus on Taylor. “Does Dominic know who it is? Family or hired?”
“Definitely hired. Tatted dude on a bike who looks like he slits throats on the daily and gets a kick out of stomping on kittens with his boots.”
MC.
Nerves rattled through my being.
Those connections went deep.
My father tended to hire them to do the family’s dirty work—all depravities accepted as long as you were willing to pay the price.
It was also what brought me Logan.
A boy I never should have noticed but whose spirit had called out to me.
I paced as anxiety clamored beneath my skin. “Crap. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
“Um, dude? Do you think so little of me? Your baby sister has this handled.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m getting whatever is in that safe.”
“No—”
“Yes, absolutely, yes. I will find a way to get in there. Dom is trying to figure out a plan in exchange for a little dom play.”
“Ew, Tay.”
She cracked up. “Don’t knock it until you try it. Unless you have?”
She sounded way too excited by the prospect.
My entire life was submission. I’d pass.
Logan’s rough voice skated through my mind. The rasping scrape of a command.
It became clear in a flash, if he demanded it, I would gladly get onto my knees.
“Let’s just stick to the subject.”
“You’re no fun.”
“I’m a blast, remember? A total blast.”
“You will be when you’re happy. When your heart gets set free. I promise it.” Her entire voice changed, my careless sister so intuitive beneath her crass.
“Give us a couple days to figure something out, okay? We’ll get it. Somehow, we will get it.”
“Just be careful. I couldn’t stand it if something happened to you.”
“Pssh, do you think I’m scared of a little biker?”
Exasperation heaved from me on a sigh. “I’m scared that you’re not.”
Tinkling laughter rolled from her, then she sobered. “I have one question for you, Aster. Are you afraid, right now? Are you safe?”
Emotion tightened my throat. “I’m afraid I’ve never felt safer in my life.”
Silence held for a beat before she whispered, “There’s our answer. Leave it to your baby sister to get the rest of this shit taken care of.”
Two days later, I was sitting at the round table in the kitchen, hand sweeping over the little sheets of paper I’d ripped from the journal, trying to process these feelings I wasn’t sure how to deal with. It had always been what I’d done, escaped into my thoughts and tried to process them on a page. Left messages from my heart and prayed the right soul would receive them.
That I could be heard.
Found.
The door buzzer rang.
So lost to the memories of this very day from years ago, I jolted back to the present. I didn’t know if it was a problem or a simple variant of self-preservation.
Gretchen was at the kitchen sink, and she dried her hands on a towel and started in that direction. “Oh, there they are. It’s about danged time.”
She sent an excited glance my way.
“Are we expecting company?”
Worried, I looked down at myself.
I was wearing sweats and another of Logan’s tees.
I loved the feeling of him surrounding me.
Holding me.
Even when he wasn’t there.
Clearly, I was getting too comfortable in this new, temporary skin.
“That we are, sweet thing.”
“Who?” I wondered if I should make a beeline for the seclusion of my room.
“Well, it’s a special day, and they want to make sure Logan knows it,” she answered without really answering at all.
It was a special day.
One I’d held like a treasured secret.
A small thrill rose from the depths, and I stood as she opened the door.
Gage and Juniper darted straight into her arms.
“Nonie G…where have you been my wholes life? I’ve been missing you.” Juni wrapped herself around the old lady’s leg, both arms and legs.
“Right here waitin’ on you to come visit me.”
“Well, I’m here now and that’s what counts. We got the busies because we got a new baby comin’ and there’s the most work to do.” The little girl almost huffed.
Gage squeezed Gretchen around the waist. “Did you miss me, too?”
She touched his chubby cheek. “Now tell me how it would be possible not to miss the likes of you?”
Gage shrugged. “Uncle Jud said I’m nothin’ but a handful, always makin’ messes, and I know you don’t like the messes, nope, not one little bit, so I wasn’t so sure.”
Affection rang from her deep laughter. “Oh, sugar pie, you can make all the messes you want.”
My spirit sang while I hovered across the room like a voyeur.
Gretchen opened the door wider and gestured with both hands to whoever was still in the hall. “Well, get in here with that.”
She stretched out her arms, and a second later, she was cradling Trent’s tiny baby girl and cooing down at her.
I did my best to avert my gaze.
Not to get too close.
But there I stood, vibrating with the joy that bloomed in the room.
Eden shuffled in, pushing a stroller stuffed full of bags. “I think I need about six more arms if I’m going to juggle all of this.”
The woman looked a little frazzled.
Her gaze swept around Logan’s apartment. It froze in surprise when it landed on me.
I didn’t mean to itch, to fidget and act like I’d been caught doing something illicit, but crap, here I still was in Logan’s space like it was where I belonged. A friend he was only supposed to be catching up with.
