My North Star, my North Star.
It was the first day I believed in you.
FOURTEEN
ASTER
The barest raysof morning light illuminated the bedroom window as I pressed my ear to the door and listened. My heart was a riot in my chest.
Memories of last night lingered like a bad, blissful dream. That sticky, heavy sense that everything was off, that my world no longer rotated the same way, the truth that nothing was going to be the same.
Before dawn, I’d woken drenched in sweat from a nightmare.
In fear.
In those old chains that wanted to drag me back to conformity.
As the day had broken on the snow-covered Earth, I’d come to the quick realization I couldn’t remain that girl. Not anymore. The hardest part was I didn’t want to hurt anyone on the road to finding my destination.
I didn’t want to hurt Logan, and I didn’t want him to hurt me in return.
I’d only secured that as an impossible feat by letting him touch me last night, proven by the last words he’d spoken before he’d strode out the door.
Now, I had no clue what to do. Every step I took seemed to lead me to a greater mistake.
Closer and closer to the man I should be running the opposite direction from.
Silence echoed back from within the apartment, and I carefully turned the knob, cracked the door, and peered out into the hall.
You know, all courageous like.
All was clear.
Inhaling a steeling breath, I tiptoed out, my footsteps quieted as I edged down the hall toward the main room.
I paused at the end of it. There was no sound other than the whooshing of the flames in the fireplace.
But I didn’t need him making a sound to know he was there.
Awareness hummed in the air. A dense aura that held a life-beat. A pulse of possession.
I peeked around the corner.
Every cell in my body was drawn that way when I found him sitting at the small, round table in the nook on the right side of the kitchen.
He sat facing out, thumbing through his phone with a cup of coffee sitting in front of him.
The man was angled back in the chair, and he had an ankle hooked over the opposite knee, wearing another one of those fitted suits that made him look like a king.
My stomach stirred in hunger. My eyes raced to take in every inch.
His black hair was effortlessly styled, his scruff trimmed, that decadent scent coming off him in waves. Though this morning there was a small scab on his bottom lip and newfound violence in his posture.
It looked so damn good on him that it sent a tremor sailing down my spine and shivering out to my fingertips.
I wanted to touch.
He looked up when he felt me there.