Golden eyes flashed to me. “What do you mean?”
“You have every right to struggle. You haveeveryright to be angry at the world, to want to take from it and get yours.” I hesitated before I said my next words, wanting to get them right. “I know you’ve never had things easily handed to you. So much pain is wrapped up in your childhood. You were dealt a fucking shitty hand. I just . . . I’m so proud of the man that you’ve become. I would never have held it against you if you let it all win, but you didn’t. And you still found this incredible way to not only thrive in what you’ve created for yourself—completely on your own—but to help others beat the odds as well. The world just doesn’t deserve you.” I shook my head. “You’re too good.”
Logan stopped walking and faced me, an expression that I didn’t quite recognize marring his features. “I’m not good, Mills.” The conviction in his lowered voice surprised me.
“Like hell you aren’t,” I retorted.
“No, Amelia. Listen. I’ve done plenty of bad things. Things you don’t even know about. I’ve hurt a lot of people. I let my pain and heartache get the best of me for a long time, and I’m only now finally starting to make up for it. Don’t let what things look like in my life today confuse you, sweetheart. I’m plenty bad, too.”
“Logan, you would never intentionally hurt anyone.” I shook my head defiantly. “I don’t believe it.”
“Oh.” Logan chuckled darkly. “I wish that were true, Millie.” He took a deep breath, focusing his gaze somewhere above my head. “Only three things in my life have ever truly scared me. The first one has long been dead and buried. The second is becoming the first. And the third is that, in doing so, I’d lose the one thing I’ve ever actually loved.
“Those second two fears . . . they consumed me for a very long time. They still do, although I have a little more control over how I respond to the pressure of it all. But I know my place in the world. I was born into a home built from darkness and hate. I don’t even remember my mother, and my father—well, you know enough.
“There isn’t exactly a whole lot of good for me to carry on. I’m the only living Davis man from a long line of mean, ruthless Davis men. It’s in my blood, and I canfeelit. I can feel the anger and rage inside of my bones, and some days it takes everything I have to quiet the noise.
“You’ve been one of the only things in my life that can actually help with that.” His gaze met mine as he flashed a small smile, though it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Since we were kids, you’ve had this way of . . . I don’t even know, Amelia. Seeing me. Feeling me. You were like this bright light, casting away all of my dark corners. I found myself needing to be near you more, chasing after that light for warmth. Without you around me, everything was always so damn bleak. And as we got older, I realized it wasn’t just your light that gave me hope. It was your strong mind. Your selfless heart. God, you were such a fucking spitfire. Still are.”
He looked to the ground, seemingly lost inside of his mind, swirling in the memories of our past. Flashes of those memories reared inside of my own mind, where I could still vividly see a younger version of the man in front of me, looking like he carried the entire world on his boyish shoulders.
To hear him say that he’d felt it too, this pull between us, and that he’d needed it to overcome his hard, dark days—it left me feeling a sudden overwhelm of guilt for not seeing it for what it was. I was so damn worried about whether Logan felt something for me simply to lessen the sharp edges of my young vulnerability, and I missed the demons playing out inside of the very boy that I was pining for.
“Sometimes I’d daydream about what it would be like to have you.” His voice ripped like a current through my heart. “Quiet mornings making toast. Afternoons making you laugh. Nights under the stars making love. But then the dreams would turn on me . . . because I knew I’d never let myself have what I so desperately wanted. I was way too damn scared to fuck it up.
“So I kept you at a distance—turning on myself in a vicious cycle that became almost muscle memory. Get angry. Need to release it. Sit at a bar and drink until I could muster up enough of an attitude to start shit with someone, just so I could fight. I was reckless. Night after night after night, I hurt so many people in my attempt to numb you out of my head.”
Just like that, I was a puddle at his feet. And then a different memory came to the surface. “The night you kissed me,” I said, my voice just above a whisper.
Logan’s eyes flashed in recognition before he dipped his head. “I found out that my dad was dead, and the first thing I wanted to do was call you. But I didn’t know how . . . I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how to articulate my feelings and I was soangry. I was worried about what you would think of me and I didn’t want to be a burden or make you nervous. So I went to that club instead. I probably drank a whole bottle of whiskey over the course of that night. Got in a fight with a random group of guys who were just trying to enjoy themselves. And then I ended up calling you anyway.”
My mind sputtered as I tried to wrap my head around everything Logan was sharing with me. I knew he struggled back then, but not to this extent. The guilt deepened. “You could never be a burden, Logan. And you’ve never made me nervous. All I’ve ever wanted was for you to be happy . . . for you to feel like youdeserveto be happy.”
Logan let out a long breath. His eyes held so much remorse. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes, Amelia. I don’t honestly know what I deserve, but I’m doing what I can now to right a lot of wrongs. To be a better man.”
It surprised me how differently Logan viewed himself compared to the way I saw him, but I understood how the pain of his past could tilt his reality. Stepping into him, I reached out to touch his face, running my fingers lightly down his cheek and across his jaw. “You deserve to be happy, Logan. Don’t complicate it. It’s not something you have to earn.
“I’m in awe of you. I’m proud of you. And this,” I said, dragging my hand down to his chest, “this heart of yours . . . It's big. You may have had a reckless streak—hell, you may have more—but it doesn’t change the composition of the man that you are. You are fundamentally good, and you deserve to be happy.”
We stood there locked in each other’s eyes for what felt like endless seconds, the entire world around us having completely faded away. It was only Logan and I and our beating hearts and this undeniable need for each other.
I pressed myself up onto my tip toes and lightly pressed my lips to the corner of his mouth. And then I pressed them against the other side as I felt his arms wrap around my waist.
“You make it hard to breathe, Mills.” I pulled my face away from his and looked up into those honey eyes that felt like home. Logan’s mouth found mine in a kiss that was slow and soft, unhurried in the way that it just might last forever. I sighed into his mouth, feeling my body melt against his.
And then his arms were urgent as they pulled me closer so that I was flush against him. His hand moved up to my head, tugging my hair back so that he had better access to my mouth. Flames ignited inside of me as his tongue plunged past my lips and pressed against my own. It was a kiss that almost knocked the wind out of me.
I felt my toes curl within my boots as he pulled away. His hands raked down my back as he let out a breath. “I’m having a really hard time controlling myself right now.” His voice was downright guttural.
Then don’t, I thought to myself. “Well”—my breaths were quick and shallow—“I’m pretty sure that kind, old woman over there would rather not see you ravage me in the middle of the street.”
Logan huffed out a laugh. “You never know, she might have a kink for this.” He pressed his mouth to my neck, sending shockwaves of heat through me. I giggled as I peered over at the woman across the street who had stopped walking and was undoubtedly watching us with a scowl on her face.
I threw her an apologetic smile as Logan continued his delicious assault along my jawline. “Mm, Amelia.” He sounded a bit breathless. “I lose my damn mind when it comes to you.”
His words hit me square in my chest. Pressing one last kiss to the sensitive spot behind my ear, he straightened and looked down at me through his dark lashes. Now I was the one who was breathless as my eyes caught on a small freckle on his cheek. The words I suddenly needed to say rose up inside of my throat. “I love you, Logan.” I watched his face change in response, his eyes locked on mine, his lips parted in surprise. “You don’t have to do anything to earn it. You don’t have to erase the mistakes of your past to be worthy of good things today.”
“Amelia . . .” he started, but I quickly pressed my finger to his mouth.
