Waiting For Us (Beautiful Surrender #3)(3)
Author: Ava Claire

His eyes flickered to me and he flashed a pained smile. “I’m not telling you this to make you feel guilty or to garner your sympathy. I want you to understand where I came from, and who I’m not. I want you to know me, Melissa.”

My heart hopped in my chest, my face on fire as I stole away from his intense gaze.

“I never said this out loud, but I fought because I was afraid,” he pressed on. “I didn’t have much besides my dignity, so I held on to it the only way I knew how. With my fists.”

I nodded slowly, understanding. “You snapped because you thought she was disrespecting you.”

“Delilah has been disrespecting me since the day I ended things with her. That’s nothing new,” he said bitterly. “The thing that hit me like a cinderblock to the chest, was fear.”

Of course.

He was afraid of being a father.

He walked to the landing, bracing himself on the wooden bannister. He looked down at the first floor, but I knew he wasn’t seeing the travertine tile and high end furnishings. He was pulled back to the past. A time when the life he now lived probably seemed as likely as pigs flying.

“I didn’t know my father. But from the things my mother said about him—” His grip tightened, his whole body taut and ready to fight.

“Logan,” I said softly. Just a single word. Trying to bring him out of the darkness and back to me.

He relaxed, casting his eyes over his shoulder at me, then tearing them away again. He was trying to unload the weight of his past and what drove him to his actions—and he wasn’t done.

“The role models I had for fatherhood weren’t the best. Men who hit my mother. A couple who raised their hand to me. I learned early on that you’re either the one being hit, or you could do the hitting. Feel pain, or dish it out.”

I nibbled on my bottom lip, doing my own walk down Memory Lane, but I just breezed back to a few days ago. Hearing him talk about submission and dominance. I thought it was just sexual, but now I wasn’t so sure. Was his need to dominate born out of childhood trauma?

“Before you even ask, I didn’t become a Dom because I was smacked around as a kid,” he said, reading my mind. “I wondered the same thing, but I made peace with those demons long ago.” He turned back to me, his face shadowed. “I just have my moments.”

I wrapped my arms around his waist, leaning into his warmth. I felt as close to him as I had when he was deep inside me. Like he was giving me a piece of himself. How many times had I tried to pull something out of Jason, wanting more than the surface? I talked about my mother, my father, my worries about a future that wasn’t my own. And he listened, but he never talked. He never really let me in. But this man, this enigma, was allowing me to see his scars. To see the good and the bad. It felt good. Right. As close to home as I’d ever felt with anyone.

He whispered a kiss on my forehead, inhaling my scent like it was the sweetest thing.

“You know,” I began, deciding to take another stab at a joke. “When I have moments, it usually involves drunken texts and voicemails or eating everything in my fridge.”

A smile dashed across his face. “Something to look forward to.”

Before I could tell him that Crazy Melissa was absolutely, positively nothing to look forward to, he pressed his lips to mine. The kiss we shared was filled with the things that songs were written about. Tenderness, excitement, hope for what was to come. I felt his lips all over my body, seared into me in the most delicious way. When we came up for air, both breathless, I thought about something that was completely insane. Maybe we could make this work after all. I felt like nothing was tethering me to the ground, so filled with happiness that I could fly. Anything else was easy, as conquerable as the clouds that were so close that I could touch them.

“I think I’m in love with you.”

The words slipped out in the haze. A haze that cleared almost instantly when Logan’s eyes filled with horror.

If my ascent was magical, a high that nothing else compared to, crashing back to earth was the thing that nightmares were made of.

I covered my mouth, but it was too late. The words were out, and he was still looking at me like cockroaches, snakes, and spiders were crawling all over me.

I squeezed my eyes shut, knee buckling nausea hitting me in waves. Before I could attempt to take it back, he cleared his face of emotion and spoke.

“Melissa, let me—”

“Explain?” I finished hoarsely. The nausea was fading and burning, lava hot anger was bubbling to the surface and spewing out of my mouth. “Don’t worry about it. I’m the dumb one that fell for some guy I’ve barely known for a week. A guy who told me he doesn’t do relationships.” I hit below the belt. “A guy who punches mirrors when life gets tough.”

His jaw tightened. Razor sharp. “If you could let me finish—”

“Don’t.” I turned on my heels, fleeing down the stairs. It was almost a Cinderella moment, except the thing I left behind was my underwear—and a broken heart.

CHAPTER THREE

I stepped into Mika’s Brew and Pastry, and barely got two feet in the door before I came to a hard stop. Just like always, Mika’s had a line clear out the door. Men in two piece suits, women in blouses and razor sharp black pants; men in hard hats, students and women with little ones in tow—we all lined up for our hit of caffeine. The baristas shouted out names at the pick up station. The air was heavy with the aroma of warm croissants and meaty biscuits. The same artsy fartsy pictures hung on the walls, surrounded by the small cafe tables you had to fight it out Hunger Games style to score. Everything was just as I remembered it when I left for Pleasure Point.

Everything but me.

When I got back home and stepped into my apartment, I remembered how Logan’s lab, Maddie, would rush to meet me, nearly knocking me over she was so excited. I remembered seeing him in some manner of undress, his muscled chest glittering beneath the skylight. The devilish wink that made me weak in the knees. The eyes filled with dark promises that made my body ache for his touch. And sleeping? It was more lack thereof. After I finally tossed and turned myself to unconsciousness, I’d wake up and throw my arm to his side of the bed and jerk myself awake when it dropped to the mattress.

But I soldiered on. I lied to myself as I went through my routine. Said it was all a dream. All in my head. Had to be—because I must have been living a fantasy if I ever thought Logan Mason wanted me for anything except for sex. Anger put fire in my belly and when I walked into work and nailed my pitches and secured two new high profile clients for Kaleidoscope Marketing, even my dad seemed impressed. Somehow I held it together. I avoided the internet and gossip websites. Even if Access Hollywood’s commercial popped up, I changed the channel. Hearing about Delilah or seeing his face was the storm cloud that hung above my head and I lived in constant fear that the sky would open up at any moment.