Chapter 108
I exhale. “Holy crap.”
“Yeah. But if you hadn’t taken the deal with Skip like you did…who knows what would have happened? So by protecting me, you protected yourself and your family, too.”
I clutch at Logan’s shirt with both fists. I don’t even know what to say.
“Mace, I wish I could turn back time. I’m sorry about all the drama, and I’m afraid it’s too late to make it up to you.
This summer was so hard, and I hate how badly I fucked all this up.
” Logan inhales sharply. “I don’t want either of us to say anything at all if it’s too damn late because it will just hurt too much. ”
I lean my head back until we make eye contact. “It’s never too late. Not for us. And you didn’t fuck anything up, Logan. Don’t ever say that again. I can’t tell you what it means to me that you did all of that. For me and my family. Thank you.”
Logan pulls me closer, so close I can see his eyes shining by the firelight. They look more at peace than I’ve seen them since he came back from West Texas. They look like Logan’s eyes again. Except different, somehow.
Yes, the dullness is gone. But the urge to run—that thing we had in common—isn’t lurking in the shadows.
It’s like he’s not afraid of anything. Like he wants me and he won’t hide his feelings behind spin the bottle or drunken nights or desperate moments of pain that always end in a goodbye the next day.
I see it all in his eyes in this moment.
And I do the cowardly thing. The typical Austen Macey Henwood thing.
I panic.
I back up, jump off of him, and take off for the truck like I’m a deer being hunted.
“Macey!” Logan runs after me and stops me as I’m reaching for the front door. “Hey.”
His arms go around me from behind. I exhale and rest the back of my head on his chest. He turns me around and looks directly into my eyes. “It’s okay.”
“No, it’s different.” I look at him closely. “You’re different. So am I. We’re different together. I know we are. But I’m still a coward.”
“Why?” His voice rumbles in my ear, and I shiver.
“Because the way we used to be was so easy. When we knew it would only be for one night, and then…”
“And then everything went back to normal,” he finishes for me. “I know. You think I didn’t get the meaning of our pact? But pacts like that can’t always last forever.”
“I just…I love being independent,” I say in a shaky voice, still trying to keep the steel bars around my heart. “I love feeling like I can’t get hurt.”
“Independence doesn’t have to mean being alone.” Logan tucks a stray hair from my braid behind my ear. “Does it?”
I take two fistfuls of his t-shirt and bring him even closer to me, so close I can smell the hint of whiskey again on his breath.
“Were you drinking?”
“One glass on the plane. Tried to calm my nerves. Turns out I don’t love to fly.”
Logan puts his mouth to my neck.
His lips are like a drug I never want to be without again. He runs his mouth across my neck and down to my collarbone, and he plants a kiss there before lifting his head.
His eyes are smoldering, and I hold my breath.
“Macey, I just want you to know…”
Logan puts his hands on my face and pulls me toward him gently. And I go to him before he can say more.
His kiss is soft, so soft, and somehow that makes it even more erotic. A cry escapes my throat when his tongue gently works its way into my mouth, and I stop fighting.
We stay that way for a long time, our mouths intertwined with nothing to stop us for the first time all summer.
My legs are trembling as Logan unties my braid until my hair is loose and he’s got one handful of it tight against my neck.
His breath is ragged when he pulls off my top and unhooks my bra.
Then he kisses my breast. And I nearly come undone.
He painstakingly unbuttons my jean shorts until they slip off me. When he moves his hand over my underwear, touching me like only he can, I lean back against the truck and wrap my arms around his neck.
“You know you’re still the only man who’s gotten me off with his hand.”
His hand stills over the lace fabric. “Seriously?”
I put my hand over his. “I guess I never really trusted anyone else.”
His fingers move slowly, so slowly beneath the elastic of my underwear that I shake in anticipation. When they finally reach the wetness waiting for him, we make eye contact.
“The first time I touched you here, I thought I’d pass out from how much I wanted you and how scared I was that I’d screw up.” Logan’s eyes are flames of desire surging into mine. “The way you moved when you came—it was my go-to jerk-off movie for months.”
“Just months?” I tease him.
“Well, then I got to make love to you. And that took first place. Until the next time we made love, and then that became the best. Each time was better than the last.”
He slips one finger inside me and moves it just where I need it, then uses his thumb to stroke up higher.
“That’s it, baby.” Logan’s eyes glaze over as he watches me throw my head back against the truck. “Let go.”
My orgasm doesn’t happen like I expect it to, with a slow build-up followed by coiling tension and then a release, sometimes big, sometimes huge, sometimes quick.
This orgasm is like an atomic bomb going off. It’s hard and it’s long and it’s…momentous. Like the concept of losing Logan forever did something to my body, made it lonely and needy and…a little crazy.
I cry out Logan’s name over and over and clutch at his back as I continue to clench around his finger.
“You’ve never come like that.” Logan’s lips brush mine. “Not with me.”
“Not ever. The biggest orgasms of my life have all been with you.”
When the rest of our clothes are in a pile on the ground, he lifts me up, and I wrap my legs around his waist. My hips grind into his, desperately seeking contact.
Holding me tightly with one arm, Logan traces a line with his finger from my neck down to my heart. I stretch my arm out, grab my purse off the front of the truck, and pull a condom out of it.
My whole body is shaking from how much I want him.
“I’ve missed you,” he says into my ear, and the honesty in his voice cracks my last bit of armor wide open. “Nothing in my entire existence will ever come close to you, Mace. Ever.”
Chills run through my body. I open my eyes, and his are fixed on mine.
I exhale as my heart fully unlocks. I lean forward to kiss him as I hand him the condom. My short gasps blend with his deep groans as I finally open up and pull him tight, letting him inside me.
He’s so hard that when he first enters me, I don’t think I’ll have room for him.
“You’ve never been this hard before.” I gasp and try to relax.
“I’ve never missed you this much before.” He grips my hip so tightly as he tries to slow his movements that I’m sure he’ll leave a mark. “I thought I lost you, Macey. I was so scared I’d lost you.”
I shudder against the truck as he inches in further.
“Okay?” He checks in with me.
“Yes.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure. You feel amazing.”
I lock my ankles together behind his back, and his next surge forward brings him all the way inside me.
And then neither of us lasts long. I buck against him like a bronco, but he holds me safely in place as we reach that high together. His eyes stay on mine the entire time, and he mutters my name as he comes.
I kiss him for a long time afterward then bury my face in his neck, my bare breasts pressed against his solid chest while our hearts beat to the same rhythm.
While I’ve always opened up to Logan when we make love, I’ve also held a little of myself back. I made sure to keep an exit door in plain view so I could turn around and walk away whenever I got scared. I guess just like my daddy taught me.
Tonight, I slammed that exit door shut.
I keep my arms around Logan as he plants kisses all over my face, my hair, and my mouth. He carries me over to the picnic blanket and grabs a sleeping bag from the truck. He lays it flat on top of the blanket, and we snuggle underneath it together.
I prop my head up on one elbow and look at him by the firelight. The dark shadows under his eyes are gone. His scar even looks less angry.
“You were right.” He traces a line over my bare hip slowly. “Marrying you like that in Vegas wasn’t the right thing for us at all.”
“I don’t like the way I freaked out. I was scared. But you knew that.”
“I get it. I had things to deal with, too. With myself and the fact that all my father wanted was for me to be something I’m not. We worked some of that out in Florida.”
“I’m glad.”
Logan sighs, and the flash of pain in his eyes reveals how much it’s worn on him through the years.
“And after he and I talked everything over, I went up to my room and checked my email.”
Oh, no.
His lips curve up. “Your novel was sitting there. And I started reading. I read the whole damn thing from start to finish without stopping once.”
I take a deep breath.
“I didn’t know. I didn’t know what it would be about. I was so…” he pauses. “Emotional. That you would feel so much from our memories to put any of them into a book was just really cool. I know it’s fiction, of course, but I loved it.”
“You inspired me. Our…” I stop, not sure what to call it. “Our friendship inspired me. And I wanted you to know—I needed you to know—that I finally stopped denying what it means to me. What you mean to me.”
Logan takes my chin in his hand. “You’ve got it, baby. The story, the talent, the writing, all of it. It’s all there.”
I swallow. “I guess that’s good because I sent out some queries already. And one agent asked to read the manuscript.”
“I’m so proud of you.” Then, he grins at me. “So you made us ghosts?”
I smile. “Four-hundred-year-old ghosts. Pretty awesome, right?”
“Pretty awesome. I especially appreciated the red raindrop tattoo each ghost was, as you wrote, branded with so neither one could ever forget what they promised.” He snuggles closer to me. “Looks like we’ll be stuck here till morning when the sun will dry out the mud around the truck.”
“Oh, really?” I laugh. “Just like that, we’re stuck?”
“Pretty much. I mean, there’s also the other reason.”
“What’s that?” I say as his hand curves over my ass.
“I want to touch you all night long.”
I roll onto my back and pull him on top of me. Then, I slip my hand between us so I can take him hard in my hand. He moans into my mouth, his lips passionate and hungry on mine.
“I want to kiss you everywhere.” His eyes darken. “Every forbidden place I’ve ever been lucky enough to taste. I’ve missed all of it.”
He moves his head down my neck and across my breasts, his mouth eagerly tracing a path to my belly button and then stopping between my thighs. His lips are soft and perfect, and I clutch at his hair with my hands.
“God, Logan.”
His tongue is relentless as it teases and strokes and brings me over the edge again. I pull so hard at his hair I’m certain I must hurt him.
But he smiles up at me. “Go wild, baby. You know how I love you wild and undone.”