Logan (Wild Boys After Dark, #1)(48)

“I trust your word. But what you think of me right now might change, no matter how good your intentions are.” He touched her cheek, and the side of his mouth quirked up in a pained smile.

He proceeded to tell her about his time with the SEALs, the number of people he’d killed, and what it had felt like when he’d looked into the enemies’ eyes and taken them down. He spoke with vehemence and passion, stopping several times to gather his thoughts or his courage—she wasn’t sure which. And then he sat quietly for a long while, gazing at their linked hands.

“Are you still with me?” he asked tentatively.

She moved closer to him, their thighs pressed against each other, hips touching. “More so than ever.”

He nodded, as if that pleased him, though his facial expression remained serious.

“What my mother told you was true. The police stopped searching for the man who blinded my mother and killed my father.” He pressed his finger and thumb to his eyes.

“You don’t have to continue.”

He nodded. “Yes. Yes, I do. If you think you want to make a life with me, you need to know.”

The torment in his voice nearly slayed her. “Okay,” she whispered.

“I was on a mission when my parents were attacked. I’ll never forgive myself for not being here. I know I might not have been around to save them, but that guilt will never leave—you need to understand that. It will always be a part of me, driving me in everything I do.”

“Okay.”

He nodded again, furrowing his brow. “I ran my own investigation and I found clues the police missed, but they dismissed me. I don’t blame them. I was off the wall, Stella. I wasn’t the man I am now. I lost my mind when my father died and my mom...” His eyes welled with tears and he turned away. “When Mom was…”

“Logan.”

His hands fisted. “I stormed into the precinct, demanding I don’t even know what. Justice, I guess. They saw me as a crazed son, distraught, out of my mind.” He stared straight ahead.

“I took it into my own hands. Talked to everyone I could, lived in the pawn shops until my dad’s family ring showed up. It was an antique, worth only a few hundred bucks. Waste of a life. I tracked the guy down who did it and went to the police, but they said there wasn’t enough evidence. My mom couldn’t identify him.”

“Oh, Logan.”

“I followed him. Guys like that, they have an MO and they don’t change much. I caught him casing a house, went back to the police again, but they ignored me, so…” He shook his head. “One night when I was tailing him, he broke into a house. Single mother, two-year-old son.” He gritted his teeth. “I called the police, and I waited. I waited, Stella. I wait—” He looked away again with pain-filled eyes.

An ache of foreboding clung to her. “Logan, you don’t have to fill me in on the rest.”

“I do. By the time I got inside, he had a knife to the woman’s throat. She looked right at me. Crying, begging me to help her. Her kid was screaming in the other room, and I didn’t think. I just reacted.”

Stella held her breath, struggling to remain focused around the obvious pain and guilt pulling Logan under.

“When I dragged him away from her, he slit her neck.” Logan’s voice cracked. “He had a gun in his waistband.”

She remembered the white trail that led down his body to a scar on his stomach. “Your scars.”

“Knife, bullet. I didn’t feel either. I heard that baby crying, saw the woman bleeding, and I attacked. I turned off all senses and just...” Logan clenched his eyes and mouth shut. He pressed both hands to the sides of his head, as if he could squeeze the memory from it, and bowed his head.

“I killed the motherf*cker. I don’t know if the police came because of my phone call or if neighbors heard the attack. But they dragged me from his limp body.”

“The woman?”

He nodded. “She needed thirty stitches, but she survived. She moved away shortly after that. I killed him, Stella.”

“You were stabbed and shot.” He’d saved them both even with life-threatening wounds. Thoughts filtered through her mind, but she was too stunned to speak. Committed. Strong. Logan.

“I killed the bastard, and they found this in his wallet.” He pulled out his wallet and showed her his father’s ID card from the factory where he’d worked.

“But your mother?”

“She doesn’t know I killed him. She just knows that she’s safe.” Logan scrubbed his hand down his face. When he lifted his eyes to hers, a tear slipped down her cheek. Logan reached up and wiped it away with his thumb. “I’m sorry, darlin’. It’s too much. That’s why I wanted to tell you before we ended up in bed together.”

She pressed his hand to her cheek. “No, Logan. It’s not too much. I think I love you more than I did before you told me.”

That night when their bodies joined together, their love felt new and different. She saw heartrending tenderness in Logan’s gaze as he studied her, loved her, his hands playing over her body as if he were memorizing all of her. His touch made her senses spin and her body ache for more. She was extremely conscious of his virility and his sensuality. Roughness was replaced with soothing passion, and words like f*ck were obliterated from her mind by warmer, more loving thoughts.