Chapter 18 #3
He was no longer smiling. His jaw flexed, and his focus on her mouth was so intense it felt like he was already touching her.
Suddenly, the world went still. Then he stepped closer, narrowing the space until she could feel him everywhere without his touching her.
“Inside,” he said, his voice dropping into a low rasp that vibrated straight through her skin.
He led her back into the study and shut the doors behind him. The room was warmer, dimmer, the fire lower, throwing amber light across the walls. Rose turned toward him, her pulse hammering.
Logan crossed the space between them.
His hand came to her waist, and this time there was nothing hidden in the touch. He drew her toward him, with a certainty that made her knees weaken. Rose’s hands lifted to his chest, resting there as they had in the garden, and beneath her palms she felt the hard beat of his heart.
He bent his head.
His mouth met hers, firm and warm and devastatingly careful for one breath. She rose into him, fingers curling into his tunic, and the kiss changed at once.
Logan made a low sound in his throat.
His arm slid around her waist, gathering her closer until the length of her body met his. Rose gasped against his mouth, and he used the sound to kiss her deeper, his strong hand moving up her back, pressing her into the heat of him.
Everything in her seemed to loosen at once.
The fear, the blood, the blade at her throat, all of it fell away beneath the heavy warmth of his mouth.
There was only Logan. His hands holding her, his lips moving against hers with a hunger he had kept buried too long.
The rough brush of his jaw against her skin when he tilted his head and kissed her again, slower, deeper, until her thoughts scattered completely.
Rose’s hands slid up to his shoulders. He was solid beneath her palms, powerful and shaking faintly.
She pulled back only enough to breathe.
His forehead nearly touched hers. His eyes were dark, his mouth parted, his breath unsteady.
“Rose,” he said, and there was anguish in it now, roughened by want and something far deeper. “I cannae keep pretending.”
Her fingers tightened in his tunic. “Pretending what?”
“That ye’re only me guest.” His jaw worked once. “That I brought ye here out o’ duty alone. That every time ye walk intae a room, I dinnae feel it before I see ye.”
Rose’s chest tightened until it hurt.
Logan lifted one hand to her face, his thumb brushing along her cheek with a tenderness that made her eyes sting.
“I tried,” he said quietly. “God kens I tried. Ye’re English. Ye came here hunted, and frightened, and under me protection. I told meself I had nay right tae want more from ye.”
Her breath trembled.
His eyes held hers. “And yet I canne seem tae stay away from ye.”
The words struck her so deeply that for a moment she could not speak at all.
She had imagined many things since leaving Briar Hall. Capture. Death. Shame. A life stolen by Barnaby Henshaw’s hands. She had imagined loneliness so often it had begun to feel like the only future waiting for her.
But she had not imagined this.
Logan standing before her in firelight, his hand bandaged by her, telling her he needed to be with her.
Rose’s lips parted, but the first sound that escaped was a small, unsteady breath.
Logan’s expression changed at once. “Rose?—”
“I feel it too,” she said.
He went utterly still.
The words trembled now that they were free, but she did not take them back. They had been living beneath every glance, every touch, every fear. It had struck her harder when it was his life at risk instead of her own.
“I feel it too,” she said again, softer this time, because once was not enough. “Whatever this is. Whatever has been happening between us. I think I have been trying not to surrender to it for a while now. And yet, I cannot bear being away from you.”
His eyes searched her face, almost disbelieving.
Rose lifted her hand to his cheek. “When I left England, I thought I had lost everything. My home, my family, myself. I thought safety meant finding somewhere to hide.” Her throat tightened, but she forced the words through. “But here, with you, I feel as though I have found something else.”
His hand covered hers against his face.
“What did ye find?” he asked, voice rough.
She looked at him through the heat gathering in her eyes. “Where I belong.”
Logan closed his eyes, absorbing the words.
Then he pulled her to him again, and his kiss was no longer careful.
He kissed her with a heat that made her cling to him, and Rose answered with everything she had been too afraid to feel. His hand spread across her back, another threading into her loosened hair, and the pins gave way beneath his fingers, sending pale strands tumbling over his hand.
He broke the kiss only to look at her, breath uneven, eyes fierce and soft at once.
“Stay,” he whispered.
Rose’s heart turned over. “I’m right here.”
His mouth found hers before the final word had fully left her lips.
And this time, when he held her, Rose knew she had finally been found.