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.