Everything amplified.
Multiplied.
His scent that mixed with a tinge of something sweet.
Attraction flashed.
Skimmed my flesh.
Something so alive it couldn’t be killed no matter how badly it needed to be.
Logan glanced my way. In that bare beat, I swore I saw a million things.
Regret.
Sadness.
Pain.
But it hardened so fast I had to have been imagining it. Searching for something that just wasn’t there.
He put the car into drive, and the tires squealed as he hit the street.
Everything was bated, stilled and slowed and coiled as he blew down the road toward the airport on the outskirts of the small city.
I did my best to take it in. To remember this place where Logan had found sanctuary. At least, I hoped he had because the venom that poured from his body as he took sharp turns and gunned the accelerator made me think he’d found no peace.
That maybe he’d spent the entire night tossing, too.
Redemption Hills was quaint, quiet, and beautiful. A million miles away from what I knew.
It was strange how Los Angeles always shouted so loud, how it never slept, how the night cried out and day was a constant crush of people and sounds.
It should be impossible to feel alone in the thick of it, but it’s what I’d found.
My reality a lifetime of loneliness.
Of faked smiles and forged pleasantries.
They were my only weapons. Weapons that had kept me alive.
I wondered if I’d ever recognized it as distinctly as I did right then.
The stark opposition.
How when I was with Logan, I felt consumed.
I felt like I was being burned alive as I sat in the seat next to him.
Each breath.
Each movement.
Each stolen glance.
Well, the thieving was all on me.
As hard as I tried not to look at him, I kept peering that way. At the chiseled cut of his cheekbone, the rugged set of his jaw, and the strong profile of his brow. His sharp nose and his full, plush lips.