Chapter Nineteen
Mac
You're everything that I want, but I didn't think I'd find
Someone who is worth the wait of all the years of my heartbreak
But I know now I found the one I love
And I love the way
You can never find the right things to say
‘I Guess I’m In Love’ - Clinton Kane
The moment I see that old, beat-up Chevy parked outside the clubhouse, I know Logan is up to something.
He never drives it anymore, says it’s “too soft” for a man who runs a motorcycle club.
Normally, he prefers the loud rumble of his bike, the sound that turns heads before he even rounds a corner.
But tonight, the truck sits there like some secret he’s dusted off, and he’s leaning against the hood like he doesn’t have a reputation to protect.
His arms are crossed, a toothpick between his teeth, that cocky smirk playing on his mouth.
There’s a gleam in his eyes that makes my stomach twist in a way I’m not ready to admit out loud.
“Get in, babe,” he says, flicking the toothpick away with a flick of his fingers. “We’ve got somewhere to be.”
I lift a brow, unable to hide my curiosity. “I didn’t even know you still had this. Where’s the bike?”
“Not tonight.” He pulls the door open for me like he’s auditioning for gentleman of the year, though the smirk stays firmly in place. “And don’t ask questions. You’ll ruin it.”
The interior smells faintly like leather and gasoline, with an undertone of something warm and familiar, him.
The seat creaks under me as I climb in, the old truck giving a little shudder when he turns the key.
We drive in silence, the kind that isn’t uncomfortable but full of unspoken possibilities, my mind turning over what exactly he’s up to.
It’s not until he turns down the winding dirt road to Miller’s Pond that it clicks, and my jaw drops. The headlights wash over the crooked pine tree we used to sit under, casting long shadows across the grass.
“You did not…” My voice comes out slow, cautious, almost reverent.
“I did.” Logan rounds the hood to stand behind me once I’m out of the truck, his voice dipping lower, rougher, threading into me in a way that makes my chest feel tight. “Figured it was time to remind you what it felt like before the club, before the brothers, before all the noise.”
The air smells of damp earth and water, the pond shimmering under the moon like a secret. My throat feels thick, and I turn, ready to make a smart remark, but his eyes are already on me. They burn the same way they did when I was sixteen—only now, that heat has grown into something heavier, deeper.
He takes my hand, warm and sure, leading me down the narrow path until it opens to the clearing.
A blanket is spread across the grass, weighed down at the corners with small rocks to keep it from shifting in the breeze.
On it sits two gas station sandwiches, a warm Coke, and a brownie wrapped in cellophane.
A laugh escapes me, soft but full of something that feels suspiciously like nostalgia. “You even got the brownie.”
His arms slide around my waist from behind, pulling me back into the solid heat of him. His lips find that spot just under my ear, brushing there with the faintest touch. “You said it was the only thing sweet about our first date. Besides me, of course.”
I shake my head, smiling. “You were a cocky little bastard then, too.”
“Still am,” he murmurs against my skin, his hands slipping just under the hem of my shirt, fingertips ghosting along the waistband of my jeans. “Except for the little part. But you know that.”
I turn in his arms and kiss him, slow and deep, tasting a mix of memory and right now. His grip tightens on my hips, pulling me flush against him until the world narrows to the sound of our breathing and the heat pooling low in my stomach.
The kiss sharpens, possession threading through it, raw and unfiltered. When he finally pulls back, his breathing is uneven, his gaze locked with mine like he’s telling me something without words.
“I remember every second of that night,” he says, his voice gone hoarse.
“You had on that black hoodie with the frayed sleeves. Your lip gloss tasted like cherry. And I couldn’t stop thinking about getting you on that blanket.
But I knew if I pushed, if I made the wrong move, I’d scare you off. Couldn’t risk losing my shot with you.”
“And now?” I ask, my fingertips tracing slow lines down his chest. “Still thinking about it?”
“Every damn day.” His tone is low, certain, and he walks me backward until the blanket catches my heels.
I sink down, tugging him with me, the forgotten sandwiches and Coke sitting off to the side. The years between then and now dissolve under the weight of his mouth on my skin, his hands reacquainting themselves with me like he’s mapping sacred ground.
The air hums with the sound of cicadas, the faint splash of water at the pond’s edge, the whisper of leaves shifting overhead. But all I hear is the way he says my name, rough and almost reverent, like it’s still the only one he wants to know.
I lay back, my fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt, holding him close but leaving that sliver of space between us that makes every brush of contact electric. His heat seeps into me, his weight grounding me against the cool earth.
He looks down at me like I’m the only thing in the world that makes sense and maybe I am, for him. God knows he is for me.
His lips find my collarbone, moving slowly, deliberately, like he’s committing every inch of me to memory all over again. Then he stops, his weight shifting just enough to balance on one forearm while his free hand brushes the hair back from my face.
“I know I screw up a lot,” he says, voice low but steady, though there’s something in his eyes that feels heavier than the words alone. “With the club. With time. With us.”
The confession catches me off guard, not because it isn’t true, but because Logan rarely lays his heart bare like this unless something’s weighing him down.
My mind flickers briefly to the box of chocolates outside my apartment, the way his jaw tightened when he found them.
I force myself to push that thought aside. Tonight is about us.
His thumb traces the curve of my cheekbone, his gaze steady. “I’ve been thinkin’ about that first date. How simple it was. Just you and me and a Coke we had to share ‘cause I was broke as hell.”
“You spilled it all over your jeans,” I remind him with a grin. “Tried to blame it on me.”
His laugh rumbles low in his chest. “Because I was trying to impress you. Couldn’t let the hottest girl in school know I was nervous as hell.”
I shake my head, still smiling. “I was definitely not the hottest girl in school.”
His hand curls around the back of my neck, his eyes serious. “You were. You just didn’t see it. Which made you even hotter.”
He kisses me then, a slow press of lips that carries more emotion than heat, though there’s plenty of that too.
This is the side of Logan no one else gets. The one I missed every single day we spent apart.
I pull back just enough to meet his eyes. “You still tryin’ to impress me?”
“Every damn day,” he whispers.
He leans down, kissing me again, slower this time, like he’s trying to memorize the exact way I taste beneath the moonlight.
His lips linger, and when he finally pulls back, the tip of his nose grazes mine before his forehead settles against me.
His breath is warm and uneven, fanning across my skin.
“I want more for us, Mac. I want…” His words stall, caught in his throat.
I feel the subtle tightening of his jaw beneath my fingertips as if he’s holding back more than just words.
Then he swallows hard, forcing them out.
“I want to build something real. You and me. A home. A family. A life that’s ours. ”
The sincerity in his tone lands heavy in my chest, pressing against something that’s been guarded for too long.
My heart squeezes painfully, not from doubt, but from the raw weight of wanting to believe him.
“You mean that?” My voice sounds smaller than I intend, like I’m afraid of what happens if he says yes.
He nods, his voice husky with conviction. “I’m not just the kid you met by the pond anymore. I’ve seen things. Done things. But the one thing I’ve never fucked up, was choosing to love you.”
Something shifts then. The ache between us changes. It’s no longer just about heat or hunger. It’s heavier, more dangerous. It’s hope, sharp, and almost terrifying in its intensity.
I slide my hand behind his neck, my fingers tangling in the short hair there, pulling him down until our foreheads touch again. “Then start showing me, Logan. Not just tonight. Not just with a picnic and sweet words. I don’t need perfect. I just need you, all in.”
“I’m all in,” he says without hesitation, the words fierce and raw. “You want me to show up different, I will. Just don’t walk away before I get the chance to be better than I’ve been.”
There’s a beat, silent but loaded, filled with all the things we couldn’t bring ourselves to say when we were younger, too proud, too scared, too convinced the other would run if we peeled back the layers.
Now, the air between us hums with the unspoken truth that we’ve both been carrying pieces of each other for years.
“I never walked away. Never gave up on what I thought we had,” I say, my voice barely above a whisper. “I waited.”
He kisses me like a man sealing something sacred. His mouth moves over mine with an urgency that isn’t just desire but a vow, unspoken but burning all the same. His body presses into mine, and the urgency comes roaring back, but this time it’s threaded with something deeper than want.
It’s promise.
Logan kisses me like he’s trying to rewrite every bruise the years have left on us, replacing them with something that’s only ours.
His hands move slowly at first, reverently, as if I’m breakable.
But beneath the care, there’s that hunger, that unrelenting pull that’s always been between us the wildfire we never learned to put out.
It’s in the way his fingers glide along my ribs beneath my shirt, in the way his lips linger at the base of my throat, tasting me like a man starving.
“You’re still the only thing that ever made me feel whole,” he murmurs against my skin, the words vibrating through me.
A shaky breath escapes me, my chest tightening with something that feels dangerously close to surrender. “Then don’t stop.”
He doesn’t.
The blanket rustles under us as he shifts, settling between my thighs.
The worn fabric cradles us like it remembers exactly who we were the last time we were here.
Above us, the stars blur into the canopy of leaves, a fractured patchwork of silver light, but I can’t focus on anything except the solid weight of him, the warmth radiating from his body, and the way every touch sends heat spiraling through me.
Clothes slip away between kisses, each piece discarded with the quiet finality of something we no longer need to carry. His mouth worships me, slow, deliberate, like every freckle, scar, and curve is a page in a story he’s determined to read all over again.
When he finally pushes into me, it isn’t frantic. It’s deliberate, controlled, like a man who’s waited too damn long to come home and refuses to rush the moment he finally crosses the threshold.
“Look at me,” he murmurs, his fingers brushing along my jaw in a feather-light caress.
I do.
His eyes hold me with the same unyielding grip his body has, like he needs to watch me unravel to believe he’s the one putting me back together.
We move together in a rhythm that feels older than us, one that’s been building quietly through every year apart. It’s not just sex—it’s confession. It’s forgiveness. It’s the truth we were too young and too stubborn to speak before.
When I finally come undone, it’s not with a scream but with his name spilling from my lips like a prayer, whispered into his mouth.
He follows, his body tightening, his breath breaking, burying himself so deep it feels like he’s stitching us back into the same skin.
For a long time, neither of us moves. His chest is pressed to mine, our hearts beating in a syncopated rhythm that feels like it could carry us through anything.
He kisses my forehead, then my cheek, then the corner of my mouth as if each one is a silent I love you he’s too overcome to say out loud.
“Still think I’m sweet?” he asks, his voice rough with emotion and the faintest trace of teasing.
I smile, my fingers threading through the back of his hair, tugging lightly. “Only when you’re naked and confessing your feelings.”
He laughs then, low and genuine, the sound wrapping around me like the warmest thing I’ve ever known. I feel it everywhere—in my chest, in my bones, in the pulse between my thighs that still remembers his touch.
And just like that, lying there on that old blanket under the stars, I realize something with sharp clarity.
This isn’t a memory.
It’s the start of the rest of us.
Not the end of a chapter. The beginning of one we’ll write together.