Текст книги "Moonlight on Nightingale Way"

Автор книги: Samantha Young

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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

She grinned sheepishly. “Can you blame me for helping a guy out?”

“Yes. Yes, I can.”

Rolling her eyes at me, Maia disregarded my glare and swept past me into my flat. “Do you have any cereal? Dad and I have run out.”

“I’m making scrambled eggs if you want some,” I grumbled, shutting the door and following in her wake.

She glanced up from the now-open fridge door as I wandered into the kitchen. “Did you say something about eggs?”

“I’m making them. Do you want any?”

“See, you can’t stay mad at me for long.”

“Oh, I’m still mad – just not mad enough to see you go without breakfast.”

“Then that’s not really that mad.” She shuffled up onto one of my kitchen stools. “You look kind of tired.”

I looked a fright. I’d barely gotten any sleep. Again! I’d managed to fall asleep at around five o’clock in the morning out of sheer exhaustion, and then Maia had banged on my door four hours later. “It’s Saturday. Shouldn’t you be sleeping in, like every other teenager in the country?”

She bit her lip, the cockiness she was picking up from dear old Dad suddenly disappearing. “I couldn’t sleep. I was worried about you.”

I immediately stopped pretending to be annoyed at her. “Maia, you don’t need to worry about me, sweetheart. I can take care of myself.”

“But can you?”

I slid onto the stool beside her. “What does that mean?”

As she stared at me with those violet eyes of hers, I realized that they were so similar to her father ’s and yet so different. There was a tinge of darkness in her eyes, but they hadn’t yet grown the hardness that Logan’s had. It was a hardness that melted whenever someone made him laugh, and I shook off the disturbing realization that although his laughter was rare, it was less so with me.

Maia sighed wearily, the gesture so much older than her years. “I know you care about Dad. I just don’t know why you’re making this so hard for him.”

“There are things you don’t know, Maia.” I didn’t want to tell her that Logan had hurt me. I didn’t want her to ever think badly of him.

“I’m not stupid. I know he’s not perfect,” she insisted. “If he hurt your feelings, then I know he’s sorry.”

“Maia, please…” I buried my head in my hands, suddenly feeling the urge to cry. “I can’t talk about this with you.”

There was silence, and for an awful moment I feared I’d hurt her feelings.

“Grace…”

At the tightness in her voice, I lifted my head to look at her. The tinge of darkness in her eyes had spread until there was a whole lot of black in among the violet. An unwelcome shiver rippled over me in reaction.

“Do you remember when I first got here and you asked me what I’d been through?”

Mostly Logan and I got Maia the same way every day – funny, sarcastic, and warm. But there were days when she’d brood alone in her room or cry for no good reason at all. I chalked it up to being a teenager and the drastic change of direction her life had taken. I chalked it up to the fact that her mother had abandoned her.

I’d been waiting for Maia to open up about it.

Now I wasn’t so sure I could handle the truth.

“I know you’re worried about what happened to me when I lived with my mum.”

I nodded again, a choking sensation developing in my throat.

Maia stared me straight in the eyes, her own glistening. “It wasn’t good, Grace. But it wasn’t as bad as you think. Mostly she just wasn’t there for me. For ages it didn’t matter because she was my mum, and when you’re wee, you love your mum no matter what.”

I nodded, remembering that unconditional love I felt for my mother when I was a child. Day by day as the years passed my mother had chipped away at that love until I was only clinging to the idea of it.

“She would lock me in my room for hours when she had a guy over.” Maia’s haunted eyes made me reach for her hand and hold on tight. “I’d have to sit in there listening to them having sex, and then he’d leave and Maryanne would get high or drunk and forget about me. I’d need the toilet or I was hungry and I’d bang on my door, but she was out of it and I’d be stuck in there.” Tears slipped down her cheeks, and my own eyes stung in answer to them. “Afterward I wouldn’t talk to her because I was hurt, and she’d feel really bad and she’d take me out for lunch and buy me something. She’d sit with me the whole day making me laugh, and I’d start loving her all over again.” Maia brushed impatiently at her tears. “But she’d just repeat it.”

“Oh, Maia.” I squeezed her hand, not knowing what to say because I knew there were no words to soothe this kind of wound.

“She messed around with these really dodgy guys, Grace. They treated her badly. They spoke to her like she was nothing, and sometimes they hit her. For years she protected me from that. That’s why she’d lock me in my room, so they either didn’t know about me or they couldn’t get to me. But I heard it all. Heard her crying out in pain sometimes…” She grew silent in reflection.

I stared at her, willing the rising anger inside of me down.

I wanted to punish her mother for doing this to her.

I closed my eyes, more tears falling as I realized Maia would carry this pain for the rest of her life.

She would always, always feel like an unloved, abandoned child whenever she thought of her mother.

“Grace.” Maia’s grip on my hand tightened, and I opened my eyes. More tears sprang to her eyes when she saw how upset I was, and this little sob burst out between her lips. “Grace.”

In answer I got up and pulled her off the stool and into my arms, and I held her while she cried, her tears soaking my bathrobe.

Eventually she pulled away from me and wiped at her cheeks. She looked at the floor, her dark eyelashes glistening. Heaving a shaky sigh, she shook her head. “I didn’t tell you to upset you. I was trying to tell you why you should be with Dad.”

I touched her chin, gently lifting it so I could see her eyes. “Tell me.”

The sudden determination in her gaze reminded me so much of Logan. “I didn’t just decide to leave Maryanne. She stopped protecting me. She stopped pretending to love me. That guy… the junkie that was in the flat with her.”

Fear knotted my stomach. “Yes?”

“That’s her boyfriend Dom. He’s been her boyfriend for a while now. He… He tried to touch me when Maryanne was out of it.”

I jerked away, my rage hot in my blood, my skin, my nerves —

“He didn’t,” Maia hurried to assure me. “I didn’t let him. But Maryanne didn’t believe me when I told her. That was it for me. I was done pretending that we loved each other. I was done pretending I didn’t hate her for what she was doing. I was done pretending I wasn’t ashamed of her.” Her eyes blazed with her anger and guilt.

We were mirror images.

Still learning to deal with the tangle of emotions and damage created by our parents.

I knew then I would die before this girl ever thought I didn’t love her.

“When Maryanne mentioned Logan was my dad, I took the newspaper article. I kept it. The day after she slapped me for telling her Dom tried to touch me, I started looking for Dad. I got on the computer at school and Googled him. There was an article about him and the nightclub. I went there and told some janitor guy I was a family member and someone had passed away and I needed to find Dad. He gave me Dad’s address.”

I raised an eyebrow at that information. “Did you tell your dad?”

She smirked. “Yeah. I mean, he’s glad I found him, but the guy shouldn’t be randomly handing his address out. Dad had words with him.”

“I imagine he did.”

“I didn’t know what to expect with Dad. I just hoped it would be better than what I had with my mum. I was scared there, Grace. I was really scared.”

“I know,” I whispered, hating that she’d gone through that.

“I’m not anymore.” She stepped toward me, light suddenly melting away the dark in her eyes.

“Dad makes me feel safe. I feel like we’ve been with each other since the beginning, and I never thought that would happen. It’s like a miracle.” She gave an embarrassed laugh. “It’s sounds really cheesy.”

I shook my head. “No, it doesn’t.”

“You’re a huge part of that. You’ve given me a home too.”

I started to cry again.

Big giant watering pot.

“And yeah, I want you and Dad to be together because I want us to be a family. I’ve never had that.

But I really just want you to be happy too. I’ve seen what’s out there, and Dad is one of the good ones and he really cares about you. I don’t understand why you won’t give him a chance.”

I stared at her, feeling her hope pressing heavily upon me. “I would do anything for you, Maia MacLeod, but I can’t do that. If things work out between your dad and me, it would have to be because I trusted him. It would fall apart if I did this because on paper it makes sense for us all.”

She gave me this smile, this small smile that made me pause. “Grace, how can you learn to trust Dad if you won’t give him the chance to win that trust?”

And just like that, with that one sentence, I felt a strange mix of defeat and relief.

Maia packed a small bag that afternoon and Shannon came to collect her. It was embarrassing that they were both in on my decision, and as much as I tried to convince Maia that there was no need for her to give Logan and me privacy because nothing was going to happen, she wouldn’t listen. And neither would a very giddy Shannon.

Thus I was left to pace the sitting room in Logan’s flat while I waited for him to return from work.

The nervous butterflies in my stomach would not stop flapping their wings at one another, and more than a few times I changed direction toward the exit, ready to give up before even trying.

As I paced the room, I took it in and how different it was since the first time I walked in there.

There had been unpacked boxes lying around and not a stick of furniture except for the L-shaped leather sofa. And, of course, the television was mounted on the wall opposite it.

Now he’d added the armchair Maia had gushed about to the room. It was this huge black velvet snug chair with a matching footstool. Both Maia and I could fit on it at the same time. Along with the television on the wall there was a silver-framed mirror above the sofa that I’d picked out when helping Logan with Maia’s room. On the wall by the door were photographs that Maia had put up.

There were two of Logan and Shannon when they were younger, a photo of Shannon with Cole, a selfie of Logan and Maia that Maia had taken on her phone, and another photograph that caused the ache in my chest to throb.

It was a photograph of me with Logan and Maia at the dinner with Jo, Cam, Shannon, and Cole.

Shannon had told the three of us to scoot together and she’d taken the photo on her phone.

Now it was hanging up on Logan’s wall.

I knew it was Maia’s doing, but still…

In addition to the photograph, luxurious curtains framing the window gave the room more warmth. They were cream trimmed in navy, and I’d bought matching scatter cushions for the sofa to tie it together. A coffee table sat in the middle of the room, a rug underneath it.

Altogether it was a very different room.

It was a room in a home.

And he’d done it for Maia.

Like always, the thought made me melt more than just a little.

The front door opened and slammed mid-melting.

I tensed.

“Maia?” Logan’s deep voice boomed through the flat without him having to even raise it. “You fancy Chinese tonight?”

His footsteps padded toward the sitting room. “Maia?”

He appeared in the doorway and drew to a stop at the sight of me.

I shrugged, giving him a nervous smile and feeling very close to passing out. “She’s staying at Shannon’s.”

Logan raised an inquiring eyebrow as he took a step into the room. “For any reason?”

“To give us some privacy so we can talk.”

The corners of his mouth turned up just a fraction. “Is my night looking up, Grace?”

I rolled my eyes at the wicked rumble in his words. “Not in that way. I said talk, Logan.”

He gestured to the armchair as he sat down on the sofa. “Then let’s talk.”

“You’re sure you’re not too tired from work?” I said, hoping to stall.

Logan knew exactly what I was up to and he shook his head, mirth in his expression. “I’m perfectly energized.”

I narrowed my eyes at the innuendo. “I’m so glad I’m getting to see this side of you.”

“Oh, you haven’t seen anything yet, babe.”

“You’re filthy.”

He leaned forward, practically stripping me naked with his gaze. “You haven’t seen anything yet, babe,” he repeated slowly.

I shivered and squeezed my legs together. “Can we be serious?”

“I am being serious.”

“Logan.”

“Grace.”

I huffed and stood up. “I’m trying to tell you something here.”

“Then tell me.”

Crossing my arms over my chest, I glowered down at him. “Now I’m not so sure.”

He stared up at me, all flirtation and teasing out of his expression now. “Tell me.”

I sucked in a huge breath and shakily released it. Locking eyes with him, I hoped I could say what I had to say without any misunderstanding between us. “I talked to Maia today.”

“Is she okay?”

I smiled at his immediate concern. “She’s fine. She’s very persuasive.”

Hope brightened his eyes. “Do I need to increase her allowance?”

I laughed lightly and looked at my feet. “Maybe.”

“Grace?”

When I looked into his face again, I shivered at the utter longing I found there. I knew if I wasn’t careful I could find that kind of attention addictive. “I still don’t trust you completely.”

He nodded carefully, tentatively, as though he didn’t want to scare me away.

“But Maia pointed out I’d never learn to trust you fully if I don’t give you a chance to earn it.”

“That is one smart kid.”

I smiled. “Yeah. She is. And I don’t want her to get hurt in this, so I need you to really think about this, Logan. Put aside the fact that I happened to be the person who was here for you when this huge change happened in your life, and put aside my closeness with Maia. I need you to really think about me, just me, and if I’m really the woman that you want.” I felt naked saying those words, so naked and vulnerable. “Will you do that?”

“I haven’t confused the situation,” he said. “Why would you think that I had?”

“Look at me.” I huffed in frustration. “I was there, Logan. I saw all the women who came and went from your flat. They were my opposite in every way.”

He shot to his feet, and I stumbled back at the sudden movement. “Aye, do you know why? I didn’t want serious, Grace, so I slept with women I knew I couldn’t see myself getting serious with. I didn’t want the complication.” He took a step toward me, and I forced myself to remain still. “You want the truth? There have been a few women over the last eighteen months who I sparked with… that spark of potential. I walked away. I didn’t take their number and I certainly didn’t sleep with them. Because I didn’t want serious. I didn’t want reality. I just wanted oblivion.”

Seeing the pain in his eyes made me move toward him. “Logan…”

“But you” – he shook his head – “I can’t walk away from you even if I wanted to. And I don’t want to. You are reality and sweet oblivion wrapped up in one annoyingly argumentative, always-bloody-right, classy, gorgeous-as-fuck package.”

I held my breath at his beautiful words.

“Does that answer your question, your doubts?”

I nodded slowly.

“So are we doing this?” He started to prowl toward me.

I panicked a little and backed up. “I’m going to try, but we’re taking it slow and we need to – ahh!”

I cried out as I suddenly found myself hefted up over Logan’s shoulder. “What are you doing?” I yelled at his back as my hair swung against his delicious bottom.

“That was reality. It’s time for oblivion, babe.”

“No sex! We have to talk!”

He stroked his hand over my bottom. “I want inside you.”

Suddenly I found myself falling through air. I landed with a soft thump on Logan’s mattress and stared up at him in a panting, disheveled, and very aroused state.

“And you want me inside you.” He unbuckled his belt slowly, the blaze in his eyes turning me into a hot, flustered puddle on his bed.

“You are so very cocky,” I whispered.

“Take your top off,” he demanded, cockily.

I crossed my arms over my chest and glared up at him. “No.”

He grinned. “Take your top off, babe.”

“I don’t take orders.”

“In bed you will.”

My eyes widened, my heart thumping hard in my chest. “Are you into that kind of thing? Whips and dominance kind of thing?”

“Whips? No. Tying you to a bed and knowing you trust me enough to be tied up while I do whatever I want to your body? Yes. Canes? No. Spanking you? Yes. St. Andrew’s crosses? No, a little too dramatic for my taste. Playing out sexual fantasies? Yes. Fucking you in every sexual position known to man, yes, yes, and yes.”

I gaped up at him. “You may want to ease me into this very sexual frankness you have going on.

I’m not used to it.”

“You like it, or you would have walked out of my flat ages ago.” He unbuttoned his shirt and threw it aside, revealing his sculpted chest and strong arms. “Now take off your top before I rip it off.”

I didn’t even dare to question that his threat was real. Logan MacLeod was Mr. Alpha in the bedroom, apparently. Although I’d enjoyed a good alpha in the fantasy of romantic books, I’d always thought I’d hate it in real life. But I was finding there was a balance. Logan wasn’t nearly so alpha outside his bedroom, but inside… Turned out that an alpha in the bedroom wasn’t nearly so scary as I’d thought. In fact, I found it really rather hot.

I grabbed the hem of my sweater and pulled it up over my head, throwing it behind me as I lay back down on the bed. In answer, Logan put his knees on the bed at either side of my hips, straddling me so he could skim his hands up my waist to cup my breasts over my bra.

I arched my back, pushing them into his hands. Logan kissed me, deep and hard, as he deftly unclipped my bra at the back. My hands traced every inch of his chest while we kissed, reluctantly letting go when he gently pushed me back on the bed and slipped my bra straps down my arms. His gaze drifted from my face to my naked breasts and the heat in them made my breasts swell, my nipples tightening. I wasn’t big chested like the women who had come before me, but under his heated gaze I no longer felt insecure about it.

I could see it written all over his face: Logan liked me just the way I was.

I felt that flutter in my lower belly and knew that if he slipped his hand between my legs he’d find me wet and ready for him.

He touched me, cupping my breasts again, squeezing them gently, thumbs rubbing over my nipples as he deliberately stirred my arousal instead of shaking it. He was intent on teasing me and I was intent on letting him. His breathing grew heavier and I could feel the hard press of him through his jeans. Amusement sparkled within me as I realized he might break before me.

Logan saw the look and his gaze darkened with tenderness and determination. I sighed at the gentle brush of his lips against first my right breast and then my left. He tormented me with whispered touches, trying to force me to beg, but despite my nails digging harder into the muscle in his shoulders, I held strong until my whimpers of need broke his will. He finally closed his mouth around my nipple, flicking his tongue over it, before sucking hard.

A larger ripple moved through my belly, and I cried out softly, throwing my head back against the bed.

Logan lavished attention on both nipples until they were swollen, until I was desperate for him. I cried out now, begging him, and he pulled back, easing off the bed to stand over me like some pagan sex god. The dark hunger in his eyes was my undoing.

“Are you wet for me yet?”

My lips parted at the shockingly stripped sexual question, and I felt my cheeks flush.

Logan’s eyes narrowed. “Tell me you’re wet for me, Grace.”

The demand only made me more so. “I’m wet for you,” I whispered.

The muscle in his jaw clenched with determination as Logan leaned over to unzip my trousers. He hooked his fingers into the waistband of them and my underwear and he tugged. I lifted my lower body, and he removed them with quick ease. Once he’d divested me of them, gently caressing my calves and outer thighs, he lowered my legs and opened them as he glided his hands up my inner thighs. He put a knee to the bed and moved up my body so he could slip two thick fingers slowly inside my channel. My knees fell open and I gasped at the sensation. He pulled them almost all the way out, and I tilted my hips to meet them as he slid them back into me.

“Logan,” I groaned, undulating against his touch. “Oh God, I need you.”

His fingers disappeared, and I snapped my eyes open to watch him. He got off the bed, his jaw taut with dwindling control, and pulled a condom out of his jeans pocket before removing them and his boxers. I watched, every inch of me on fire, my inner thighs trembling, my breathing harried, as he rolled the condom up his huge straining cock.

My legs fell open automatically as Logan lowered himself over my body, nudging against my center as his hard torso brushed against my breasts. He kissed me gently, trailing his fingertips up my outer thigh in a way that caused me more shivers and hot impatience.

My hips jerked at the touch of his thumb on my clit, and he growled possessively from the back of his throat. And then he was kissing me, a series of wet and drugging kisses as he played with my clit. I touched him, too, caressing his shoulders, his back, his abs, strumming at his nipples in a way that made him shudder and press harder on my clit.

When he slipped two fingers inside me again, I broke the kiss, moaning as my back arched into his caress.

“You are so fucking sexy.” He peppered kisses along my jaw as he thrust his fingers in and out.

“The things I’m going to do to you, babe. I’m going to make you mine, every single piece of you.”

Our eyes locked, his filled with sexual promise. “No holds barred, Grace. Not with me. I’m going to fuck you like there’s no tomorrow, and you’re going to let me.”

My belly squeezed and my inner muscles clamped around his fingers. Logan’s eyes darkened and he pressed them deeper inside me. His voice lowered and he leaned down to brush his mouth softly over mine. “But right now I’m going to make love to you.”

Tears sprang to my eyes at the vow in his voice. A vow for so much more than great sex. I wrapped my arms around his back, sliding my hands over his smooth, hot skin. “Come inside me, Logan.” I whispered the invitation, and there was so much more in it that I meant to give. Logan heard it, and triumph gleamed in his eyes.

His fingers slipped out of me, and his hands circled my wrists. He raised my arms above my head and tightened his hold on me. Looking deeply into my eyes, he moved. I felt him hot and hard against my center, and then suddenly there was pressure as he pushed inside, eased by my slickness. He surged deep in me, his hands moving up from my wrists so his fingers could tangle through mine.

Like this, he held me as he gently rocked inside me, taunting me toward climax and then yanking me back.

“Faster,” I pleaded.

A smile tugged at Logan’s lips. “We’re making love, Grace.”

“We can make love” – I panted – “a little faster.”

I raised my hips to punctuate my point, and Logan slammed back into me. I cried out at the deliciously growing pressure building inside of me. His teeth gritted, his muscles straining as his thrusts came harder, but he maintained an excruciatingly slow pace. He let go of my wrists to cup my arse, tilting me higher so he could slide in deeper. My hands gripped tight to his hips in response.

Our eyes stayed connected the whole time, the power of the intimacy between us overwhelming in its intensity.

The feeling inside me was building upward in a spiral, coiling tighter and tighter until my whole body tensed over a cliff edge. His fingers dug into my arse, his hips jerking harder and faster against mine as we neared what we were desperately reaching for.

One more push. “Logan,” I pleaded.

Another.

“Ohhh —” The tension inside of me exploded, an orgasm unlike any I’d ever had before flowing through me.

My lower body shuddered against Logan’s, and I watched as he stiffened, his neck arched, his teeth gritted, and his eyes flared with fierce pleasure as his own climax moved through him. He jerked against me, his hold on me almost painful as he came.

Logan’s chest heaved as he tried to catch his breath. Those extraordinary eyes of his washing over my face as I lay there, my muscles warm and languid from the most amazing orgasm of my life.

“Trust me yet?” he said between pants.

I smiled at his sneakiness. “Don’t ask me serious questions when I’m on a post-orgasm high, Logan MacLeod.”

He grinned and settled over me, cupping my face with his hands. His lips brushed over mine softly, my mouth tingling at the gentle touch. “How many orgasms do you think it will take to get you to trust me?”

I giggled. “Hmm… I don’t know if orgasms are the way to go regarding trust. Addiction… yes.”

“Addiction?” He raised an eyebrow, looking far too pleased with himself. “First addiction, then trust?”

I opened my mouth to argue the complete lack of sense in that and then I frowned. “Why am I arguing about this?” I threw my arms out wide and let my legs fall farther open. “Ply me with orgasms if you think it will do the trick.”

His whole body shook against mine with his laughter.

CHAP TER 21

T wo orgasms later I lay on Logan’s sofa, freshly showered (the location of the last orgasm) and eating the Chinese food he’d ordered.

He was sprawled out on the other end of the sofa, our legs tangling in the middle.

Logan was looking more than a little satisfied, I thought rather smugly, as he ate a huge mouthful of fried rice.

“Food good?” I said, a teasing smile on my lips.

Amusement sparked in his gaze. “Someone worked me hard. I’m starving.”

“I don’t recall being the demanding one.”

He raised an eyebrow. “‘Faster, Logan, faster.’”

I blushed and kicked at him, causing him to laugh, unrepentant.

“You’re a swine.” I huffed, my cheeks still on fire.

“I’m not complaining, babe,” he said, still chuckling.

I eyed him, unable to deny the warmth spreading across my chest. I’d never seen him like this, so relaxed and content. Is it me? I really wanted to believe I had the power to affect his moods as much as he did mine.

His smile disappeared. “What are you thinking about so hard?”

I covered my real thoughts with a lie. “How I gave in way too easily.”

Laughter danced in his gaze again. “It was pretty fast. Your heart really wasn’t in the fight.”

I rolled my eyes. “You know I avoid drama, and battling you was just drama I couldn’t be bothered with. It was easier to give in and try it out than it was to fight you off.”

“You make me sound so appealing.”

It was my turn to grin. “You’re all right.”

“Just all right?” He lowered his plate to give me the full blast of his sensual focus. “Do I have to remind you already about the three orgasms?”

“You’re counting my orgasms? Really, Logan.” I snorted.

“Pretend all you want. We both know I blew your fucking mind.”

I giggled. “You have quite the ego, sweetheart. It wouldn’t be good for me to stroke it too often.”

He flicked me a wary look. “I hope we’re just talking about my ego and not other parts of me.”

I frowned, teasing him. “I didn’t know there were any other parts worth stroking.”

“One huge fucking part that was inside you not too long ago.”

He made my cheeks flare hot again, but I was getting used to his frankness. “Oh, that part,” I murmured, my voice a little husky with the memory. “Hmm, I do rather enjoying stroking that part.”

Logan’s eyes warmed with delight at my flirting, and I couldn’t stem my own pleased smile.

Oh, this was not good – that overwhelming feeling of contentment I felt whenever I made him happy.

I felt a momentary stir of panic.

As if he sensed it, Logan wrapped a hand around my ankle and squeezed. “This is going to be great, Grace. It’s going to be better than great.”

I nodded slowly, letting his touch soothe the tension that had crept so quickly over me.

We were silent a moment as his thumb brushed over my skin. When he finally felt like I’d come back from my fear, he let go to continue eating.

“So Maia is at Shannon’s?” he said.

I thought about the two little matchmakers. “Yes. You did a wonderful job inviting all the women in your life to play matchmaker.”

He grunted. “Believe me, it didn’t take much. Apparently, they’ve had their eye on you for me since Shannon told them that was what she wanted.” He cut me a dry look.

I laughed. “I bet it just sticks in your craw that you’re giving her exactly what she wants.”

Logan shook his head. “Honestly, not really. I couldn’t be happier that Shannon likes you so much.

She’s my only real family now. I want you two to get on well.”

At the mention of his family, I felt a burn in my blood. “Your parents still haven’t come around to the idea of Maia?”

“It’s worse than that.” His eyes flew over to the wall with the photographs on them. “My parents take their good old time coming around about things. It took them ages to come around to the fact that Shannon wasn’t making a mistake by getting engaged to Cole. It took them ages to come around to even forgiving her for my prison time when it wasn’t even her damn fault. And it has taken them all this time to come around to the fact that it isn’t my fault or Maia’s that she wasn’t a part of my life until now.” Anger tightened his expression. “They want to meet her.”

“What do you want?”

“I want to tell them to fuck off.” His plate clattered onto the coffee table, appetite clearly destroyed by the topic. “They’ve never been the best parents, and they’ve pissed me off a million times with their treatment of Shannon… and they’ve done it again. To my kid. A kid who has been through a fucking war… a kid whose feelings you can’t play with because her feelings have already been crushed to hell by her own mother. They knew this. I told them this and still they held out on her as grandparents. Now because they’re ready they think they can just waltz into her life?”

I sat up, putting my own plate down so I could scoot closer to him. I rested my hand on his thigh, drawing his gaze. Our eyes locked, and like always, my whole body zinged pleasantly in reaction to our connection. “I understand you’re pissed off at them, and honestly, I am too. I don’t want them in Maia’s life. But that’s not my decision, and it may be yours… However, you have a very smart girl on your hands, and she’s already lost out on so much. Perhaps you should give her the choice. Be honest with her about them, about their attitude and about the possibility that they could hurt her… and then let her decide for herself.”