Page 60 of Wicked Minds
“I see you, too.” My voice is thick and raspy. “I don’t know what happened to you, and I don’t need you to tell me until you’re ready. But I do see you too, and I’m not going anywhere. I don’t know how long this thing between us will last.Ifit will last. However, I’m in it for as long as you are.”
His chuckle is dark and seductive as he wraps his arms around me, lifting so I straddle his thighs. Bending his neck, he nips along my throat. “Foolish girl. You’ve just handed yourheart over to the devil. There’s no getting it back now. It’s mine, and I plan to keep it for the rest of eternity.”
“Even if Logan ultimately ends up owning a piece of it too?” Not that I’ve decided to forgive him, but a girl should know if the two men causing her to wake up horny every morning are opposed to the idea of sharing.
“I have no doubt Logan will. He’s persistent like that. And I can certainly get behind the two of us working together to bring you to orgasm multiple times.” My thighs clench around his. Yes, I could definitely get behind that, too. Or underneath it. Any position, really.
“Let’s go check he hasn’t gotten into a fight with my truck.” Royce helps me out of the booth before pulling out his wallet and dropping a handful of bills on the table. Taking my hand in his, it’s with anxious steps that I follow him out of the diner.
The cold night air hits me in the face as soon as I step outside, and I huddle deeper into Royce’s leather jacket as I search the parking lot for Logan. I find him pacing back and forth behind our truck, so absorbed in his thoughts that he doesn’t even look up at the crunching of gravel beneath our shoes as we approach.
“Logan,” Royce barks when we’re a couple of feet away.
His harsh tone snaps Logan out of his spiral, and he stops in his tracks as he stares at me. Eyes shining, his face is deathly pale in the glow from the diner’s lights.
“Fuck, Shortcake.” Swiping a hand through his hair, he continues, “I’m sorry. I just…fuck.” He roars his curse into the night. “This just makes it so much more… real.” He’s back to his pacing, although at least this time he’s talking. “I mean, I believed you. I did, but it was like this event that happened in the past. I was aware that it had happened and how horrible it was that it had, yet I guess I hadn’t ever really sat down and processed it. But this…”
He stops pacing, staring at me in utter devastation. “You have a daughter.”
Silent tears scorch a path down my cheeks as I nod.
His expression is tortured, riddled with pain and anger, and his next words are a hate-filled rasp. “He raped you and got you pregnant, and he got. Away. With. It.”
A wretched, broken sob rips from my soul as my knees give out. Before I hit the ground, a crisp winter breeze washes over me as Logan pulls me into his arms. “I am so fucking sorry, baby.” His voice breaks, tears lining his words. “I’m so fucking sorry you had to go through any of that.”
I cling to him like he’s a lifeline, except there’s nolikeabout it. Loganismy lifeline. He’s my light in the dark. My hope in the bleakness. My safe place when I’m lost in the cold.
And at my back, I feel Royce’s reassuring warmth. My steady shadow. Always there, always watching, always looking out for me.
My daylight and my night, and encased between them, I’ve never felt more protected.
20
RILEY
The three of us somehow end up crammed into the back of Royce’s truck, Logan on one side of me and Royce on the other.
“I’m sorry, Shortcake,” Logan repeats for what must be the dozenth time.
“You don’t need to be sorry, Logan.”
“I shouldn’t have walked out like that.” His sigh is heavy and forlorn as he lifts a hand to scrub at the back of his head. “There’s… a lot I shouldn’t have done.”
I shake my head. “You needed to process. I understand.”
“I still shouldn’t have left you alone.”
“What am I, chopped liver?” Royce grumbles, but I see his remark for what it is—an attempt at levity. I give him a weak, appreciative smile, and his eyes bounce over my face before he sighs, lifting his gaze to Logan. “If it helps, it’s taken me the better part of a week to wrap my head around it.” Looking sheepishly away, he confesses, “If I hadn’t seen her with my own eyes, it probably still wouldn’t feel real.”
“Wait, you saw her?” Logan asks, gaping at Royce before directing his question at me, “What the hell happened on Christmas Day?”
“My mom was bringing Aurora up to see me?—”
“Aurora—that’s her name?” Logan interjects softly.
I smile, nodding. “It is.”
“Like Sleeping Beauty.”
