Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 142783 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 714(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 142783 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 714(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
Careful with me?
Careful with us?
Careful with this whole situation?
His mouth tipped into a wicked smirk. “You asked your father to stay with me, Aster. You didn’t just throw caution into the wind, you kicked it out the fucking door. And if he gave you thirty days?”
He spread his hand out over my cheek. “Then we’re going to use it.”
My insides trembled.
A landslide.
A toppling of stones.
Then he stepped back and stretched out his hand. “Do you trust me?”
Reservations clashed with the faith I’d once had in him. Faith that he would always stand up for me. That above the money, the greed, the desires, he would always hold me highest.
I wanted to believe he would hold me there again.
I accepted his hand without giving him an answer.
A thunderbolt raced my flesh.
Every touch.
Every time.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Dinner.” He said it simply, but there was an undercurrent in his tone that lifted chills on the nape of my neck.
Nerves that warned I was slipping into the unknown. When Logan told me he had a plan, it meant there would be action.
He wasn’t going to stand idle.
He was all in.
I worried that might be the greatest risk of all.
I whispered, “Okay.”
“Good girl.” He leaned in and pressed his lips to my forehead when he said it.
A soft sigh.
A humming of need.
The faintest smirk when he stepped back.
“We should go before we’re late.”
He led me out into the main room, helped me into my coat, and pressed his nose to the back of my ear. Inhaling, he murmured, “I think you have me hypnotized, Aster Rose.”
Without question, that was reversed because I walked along beside him to the elevator, leaned into his side as we rode it down, and relished in the feel of his arm linked around my waist like a leash.
Tension bound and built and blinded in the confined space.
A silence that screamed a million things.
Need and regret and far from pure intentions.
When the doors swept open, he guided me to his car and helped me into the passenger seat. He leaned in and reached over to buckle me.
It stole my breath all over again.
He slowly eased back, and his gaze tangled with mine as he went.
If he kept this up, I was going to succumb right then.
He rounded the front and slipped into the driver’s side, and he pulled out of the lot and onto the road. It took all of three minutes for him to be pulling into the valet in front of an upscale steakhouse attached to a hotel.
He was out and to my side in a flash. Opening the door, he extended his hand. I took it, felt the flames that licked up my arm and set fire to my insides.
I sucked in a stealing breath.
I was in trouble. So much trouble.
Leaning closer as he led me inside, his voice was a rough scrape at my ear, “Trust me, Aster.”
I wanted to. God, I wanted to.
But how did we make it past all that had been tainted? Past the ugliness?
Would there be anything left beyond it?
“Lawson,” he told the hostess.
“Right this way.”
She led us to a small table in the middle of the restaurant. It was covered in a black, draping tablecloth and adorned with a large white bouquet of fresh flowers with candles in the middle.
“Aster.” He said my name like a secret as he pulled out my chair, and his hands caressed my bare shoulders as he slipped off my coat.
“Thank you.” It barely made it to a whisper when he helped tuck me into the table.
He situated himself across from me. Severity played in his green, hypnotic gaze.
The dangerous kind. The kind that promised I wasn’t going to make it out of this unscathed.
He was up to something.
“Wine?” he asked.
“Please.”
A bottle or three.
When the server showed and introduced himself, Logan ordered us a bottle of Malbec.
“You look nervous.”
“And you look suspicious.” I said it with a bough of anxious curiosity.
That smirk danced around his delicious mouth. “Is that so? Suspicious? Surely not me?”
It would be a whole lot easier if he didn’t affect me this way.
“Nothing but a common criminal.” I didn’t know if it was a tease or a plea.
A deep roll of laughter punted from his mouth before his eyes narrowed. “I should hope you could recognize one.”
It was almost a taunt.
Almost pain.
All except for the truth of it.
“I suppose I should be able to.”
I sat back when the server presented our wine, and I managed a weak, “Thank you,” when he poured me a glass.
“I’ll be right back to take your orders.”
I took a shaky sip, and I let the dark, fruity flavor coat my tongue and throat as I swallowed and contemplated what to say.
“How deep does it go?” I finally hedged.
Logan was angled back in his chair, so casual the way he was, though there was no missing the ferocity that rolled through his body. “What are you implying, Aster? I’m as straightlaced as they come.”