A book, a bunch of flowers, a necklace, a box of chocolates. Normal, cliché gifts, but the way he did it made it seem like every gift was unique.
After he delivered the gift he would take a walk with the man who arrived. They would disappear into the woods to talk business and sometimes they would stay away for hours. Every time he came back he seemed anxious and nervous but I noticed how hard he tried to keep it all away from me. He was never removed, he was never distant and he always made sure I was taken care of first and foremost. Even when he had to spend a lot of time on the phone.
I was starting to learn that Logan, as badass and arrogant as he seemed, was the kind of person who put everyone else before himself. It was a good quality. It was completely unexpected from a biker.
Chapter 20
Logan
It was a good thing I kept Selena away. Since May had slashed my tires Saul had set men on watch around Selena's place, too, just to be sure she wasn't in any kind of danger once we returned. There was movement around Selena's apartment every now and then and it was never any of her friends. When approached the person would say they were feeding the cat or watering the plants. Selena had neither.
There was movement around the clubhouse, too. I was glad the men had moved their meetings, but this much movement worried me. Something was going to happen soon. I could feel it building in the air, in the tension the men brought alone when they came out to speak to me, in the undercurrents over the phone. I didn't like war. I didn't like it when there was a chance we could lose someone. I'd been through a lot in my life and I knew how to handle it but that didn't mean I wanted to go through it again.
The men thought it best for me to stay away. I felt like I had to be there but I was torn between them and Selena. I didn't want her back there but I didn't want to leave her here alone. The men were a little unsure about how Elijah died and they didn't want me going the same way. I wasn't sure it would go down like that, either way I wanted to be there for them.
When Saul came through I was relieved to see him. He was the one person who could tell me to stay put and I would do it.
"I want to be there and help out. I feel like I'm neglecting the boys."
Saul shook his head. "I know where you're at, but they're right. You need to be here to watch her." He gestured toward the cabin where Selena was writing. "They can't find May at all. The last she was seen was almost three days ago."
I frowned. "That's not good."
"We've been asking around but no one knows anything. There are a few of the members at the other clubs that are hiding something - I got some of them to speak a bit - but they're acting dumb. Someone knows where she is but I don't know who and I don't know how to get that information."
I looked over the lake. It was so peaceful out here; it seemed wrong to pollute it with talk of gang wars. But sometimes these were things that couldn't be helped and May was asking for trouble. If I wanted things to go anywhere with Selena, which I really did, I needed this to end once and for all. I wasn't interested in her interfering with the first real relationship in my life.
"Are you serious about her?" Saul asked, turning the conversation to Selena.
We both looked at the cabin in silence for a while. I pictured her at the desk, typing on her laptop, her fingers floating over the keys. She was in a different world when she typed and I could watch her concentration, her distant thoughts, her expression, forever.
"I am. She's different, Saul. She makes me think that there's a future to be had."
"It's been a long time since you felt that way."
I nodded. I kept fighting after I lost Elijah because there were people to take care of and a club to fight for, but I had given up on anything real for myself ever again. I'd started living solely for others, and for the first time since then, I was living for myself again.
"What do you think of her?" Saul had driven her back to her home and he was a good judge of character.
"I think she's a lot stronger and more stable than she thinks. She's deceptively naïve but she knows what's going on. She knows what she's doing. She's the complete opposite of you."
I nodded. This was true. "Maybe that's why I like her so much."
Chapter 21
Logan
When Saul left it was almost sunset and I'd left Selena alone for most of the day. Selena understood I had business to tend to and she knew something wasn't right. She never made me feel like I was neglecting her. I still did.
I wanted to spend as much time as possible with her, and the times my men weren't here and I wasn't making phone calls or texting them, I tried to escape it all with Selena. She was the one thing - the only thing - that could distract me from the life I'd built for myself and the drama that came with it. That was something special. I didn't often find something, in this case someone, that could take me away from everything that had happened and stop me from being terrified it would all happen again.
"Is everything okay?" she asked when I stepped into the cabin. She was in the little kitchen making food - pasta of some kind - and it smelled great. My stomach rumbled.
"Is there anything you can't do?" I asked her, watching her cook for a moment.
She grinned. "You're being overly sweet right now. Stick around long enough and you'll get to know all my shortcomings."
I walked to her, put my arms around her waist, kissed her neck. "Everything's okay for now," I answered her earlier question. "A bit of drama but nothing serious has happened yet."
"You still think it will." A statement, not a question.
I nodded on her shoulder. "If I know May, which unfortunately I do all too well, things won't end here. She's not the type to leave something half done. She will push it past the point of completion but she will never leave something before at least seeing it through to the end."
Selena was silent for a moment before she spoke again. "I'm sorry."
"For what?"
She turned in my arms so she was facing me and our bodies were pressed against each other. It wasn't always about sex between us. Right now, her body this close, made me feel safe and warm and oddly removed from all the responsibility on my shoulders, all the lives in my care. "I'm sorry you're going through this and there's so little I can do to help."
I kissed her. "Don't be. You're doing more than you know."
She smiled and turned back to the pasta she was making. I let go of her and poured us each a glass of wine. I was starting to think that this - the quiet life with the woman I was with - was the way to go. I was getting really serious about her. I didn't want this just to be a fling. We were way past the one-night stand point, but I didn't want this to end here. Hell, if I thought about it properly I didn't want it to end, period. It was something that got me thinking.
My life had been about survival since my parents died, but Elijah had taken the brunt. When Elijah died everything changed for me and the only person who was going to care for me was me. I'd managed for over ten years now, but the truth was this: slowing down and having time to breathe again was the kind of peace I'd never thought I would know. Selena made that happen for me. She didn't judge me, she didn't expect me to be someone else, and she gave me a purpose that was positive. I was building something with her, not just repairing damage as I went along. It felt like, for the first time, I was creating something new instead of fighting over and over again for a life that already broken.
Maybe it was time to settle down, to stop all this nonsense and do something with my life that was worth living. Worth living with her. I could let someone else take over and use the money that came in to start a family with her. I could be a dad who wasn't caught up in dangerous crimes so I would always be there for my children.
The thought of wanting to create a future with someone shocked through my system. I had never thought about settling down with a woman, let alone having children. I'd always thought this world was too disgusting to subject another human life. Selena was starting to show me there was
a lot of beauty in it, too.
She dished up for us and we each walked to the couch with a plate of pasta with sauce that smelled fantastic, and a glass of wine. We sat down. The sun had started to set and it cast an orange glow into the room. Her hair looked like it was on fire where the sun touched it. We ate together. Dusk fell and we sipped our wine, not making a move to switch on the lights. We were huddled together in the dim light, shrouded in darkness and companionship, and I knew I wanted this forever.
"Selena," I said and she looked up, "I think I need to head back in the morning and see what I can do to end this."
She frowned but nodded and in that moment it was impossible to tell how grateful I was for her. She didn't fight me on what my men needed. Ever. "Just be careful, okay?"
I nodded. "I want to come home to you after it's all over," I said. "I've fallen for you and you've made me realize life is worth so much more than just surviving one day to the next."
When I looked at Selena she smiled. "You know I'll wait for you."
"I know, but I don't just want to date you. I want to marry you."
She froze and her eyes searched my face like any moment I was going to tell her I was joking. I was dead serious, though, and after a moment she realized it, too. "What?"
"I'm asking you to marry me."
She shook her head. "Logan..."
Chapter 22
Selena
He'd asked me to marry him. Marriage. This wasn't the same as asking someone out for a date. This was the rest of our lives we were talking about. I was really serious about him already, despite the short amount of time we'd known each other, but marriage was so much more serious. Was he willing to spend the rest of his life with one woman - a woman whose life was about as interesting as the library itself? Was I willing to live with someone who was constantly in danger and had a past that kept coming back to haunt him, literally?
His face was full of expectancy when he said it. He hadn't actually asked me to marry him; they were both statements, but this was the Logan I knew and the Logan I'd come to love. He did nothing the conventional way.
"We hardly know each other," I said.
He nodded. "I know. But I know enough about you that I know I want to do this for the rest of my life. You're different than anyone else I've ever been with and I don't want this to end."
I shook my head. It was too fast. This was all moving so quickly. It had only been just over two weeks. Who got engaged just after two weeks? What if something was wrong? What if there was a side to him I was yet to find out about, a side I didn't like?
"I need some time to think about it," I said. He looked disappointed when I said so, but he nodded. I didn't want him to feel like I was rejecting him but, the truth was, I needed to know this was the right thing for me. This was one thing I couldn't do for him. I needed to do it for myself. I needed to make sure I was doing the right thing for me and my future happiness.
We sat in silence in the increasing darkness and it felt like home, even though we were far away from anything I knew. I was sure with Logan, everything would feel that way. We were really good together. That was when I realized it. That was when I understood that if it felt like home with him now, what were the chances it would stop feeling like this down the line? He was already doing everything people did for each other in important, long-term relationships. He was caring, gentile, he made space for me in his life without sacrificing the other things that were important to him, and he respected me and my life and my future goals. He respected who I was as a person without trying to change me.
Wasn't that what everyone wanted in a relationship? Wasn't that what marriage counselors advised and people pointed out when it was lacking? Sure, it had only been two weeks, but it felt like the foundations were already in place. We had what it took to make it last.
"Okay," I said. It was so dark now I could only make out his form on the other end of the couch.
"Okay, what?"
"Okay, I'll marry you."
Stunned silence hung between us for a moment and then he laughed. "When you said you needed time to think I thought you meant like a week or two or something like that. I didn't think we were talking about fifteen minutes."
I smiled and shrugged even though he couldn't see me at all. "There wasn't too much to think about. I covered everything I needed to. I'd be happy to marry you."
He crawled over the couch toward me and kissed me. The kiss was long and tender and sensual and every other quality that had come to define our relationship.
"I do have a few conditions, though."
"What?" He sounded suspicious. Was I going to ask him to give up something he loved?
"I want all this business with May and the club over with before we get married. I don't want her to interfere with our marriage. Once it’s me and you, it's just me and you and no one else."
"Done. I'll sort it out and we'll be May-free forever."
I nodded. "I also want you to be safe. I don't want to have to sit and wonder if you're coming home to me at the end of every night." I was thinking about his parents dying, his brother, everyone in his life being ripped away. I loved him and I was strong but I wasn't strong enough for that. I wouldn't make it if I had to sit on the edge of my seat waiting for him to walk through the door and one day he just never did.
"I understand. I've been thinking about it, too."
I kissed him again. "Good. Thank you."
"What else?"
I shook my head. "No, that's it."
"You don't want me to stop riding my bike or something like that?"
I laughed. "I met you on that bike, practically. I'm not asking you to change who you are, Logan. I just want us to make it through."
He laughed, too, and it sounded like he was relieved. He kissed me again, and this time he pushed his body up against mine. He was ready for sex, I could feel it in his muscles, in the hardness in his pants, the way he was kissing me. I was ready to celebrate our engagement.
It turned from happy and gentle and loving to urgent and heated and sexy. His hands were all over my body, over my clothes and then under it. He massaged my breasts, tweaked my nipples, grinded his hips against mine until I was wet and hungry, a hot mess. I wanted him. I wanted all of him and I wanted it right now.
I was still reeling with the decision I’d made, with the choice to spend the rest of my life with him. He was the perfect man – a bad boy who could be nice just for me, someone who could treat me like a princess and still make my life feel like it was a dangerous adventure. I had taken a bit of time – admittedly, not a lot – to think about the prospect of marrying him, and I had found there was absolutely no reason to say no.
Nothing at all.
Logan lifted himself off me and I felt his absence acutely. I moaned in protest. He took my hand and pulled me up. We were going to the bedroom. He led me to the front door, instead. On the little porch he grabbed the two beach towels we’d been using whenever we swam in the lake and walked toward the water, leading me. I followed him, letting me take me. I trusted him no matter what.
On the deck that reached into the water, he started undressing me. The night was dark, with a half-moon hanging silver in the sky, reflection on the water that was almost completely quiet, a sea of glass. He pulled my shirt over my head, undid my bra and let it fall onto the wooden deck. He bent down and took each nipple into his mouth, one after the other, sucking me until I was writhing with sexual anticipation.
He pulled my pants down, rubbing his hands down my legs in the process and he kissed my ankles one by one when I lifted them.
When he straightened up he pulled his shirt over his head and dropped it. He pulled his pants down and his erection was clear in the moonlight. He was as eager as I was. He looked at me and flashed a devilish smile. Then he dove into the water.
I watched him go under for a moment and then reappear, hair slick against his head, his head only a profile against the dark water. I dove in, too, unwilling to
be naked on the deck without him.
The cold water was a shock on my system and I squirmed before I reached the surface. When I came up for air I was gasping. “This is freezing.”
He swam to me, laughing, and wrapped his arms around me. His body was hot, the contrast great in the cold water. He moved the both of us toward the deck so one of the beams was behind my back and pressed his body against mine. His body heat flooded me, bringing back the urge for sex. The cold water had done nothing to his raging erection. He was as hard and eager as he had been before jumping in.
He kissed me. His tongue was warm even though his lips were cold and he tasted like lake water and Logan – a taste that belonged only to him. His hand was on my face, sliding down to my neck, my chest, and he massaged my breast under the water. My nipples were tight from the cold and the idea of sex and he pulled and tugged on them, driving me crazy.
Hard Ride: A Motorcycle Club Romance (The Fallen Thorns MC) (Whiskey Bad Boys Book 2) Page 16