Chaos series by Kristen Ashley

I’d clearly said the wrong thing because the storm that threatened his expression earlier in the conversation clouded his features and this time it did not clear.

Again with his voice chafing, he declared, “You’re not goin’ to Arizona.”

“It’s all sorted,” I returned.

“Babe, have you been listening at all?”

I shut up.

He didn’t.

“You’re leavin’ town to get away from me and shit has changed in a big fuckin’ way.”

Oh God.

It appeared that it had.

“Oh, right,” I muttered.

“Right,” he ground out.

“I’m seriously jet-lagged,” I explained.

“You’re lucky you got that excuse or about now you’d seriously be gettin’ a tanned ass.”

I felt my eyes get big.

“Are you joking?” I demanded to know.

“Babe,” he clipped. “Twenty years apart, haunted by you, walkin’ around with a hole in my soul, we’re back and we’re talkin’ about cats and you goin’ to Arizona? No, I’m not fuckin’ jokin’.”

Walkin’ around with a hole in my soul.

I stared up at him.

I stared up at Logan lying on top of me.

He was back.

Lying on me.

He knew it all.

He got it.

He wasn’t angry with me.

I’d laid it out and had a drama and woke up the next day to Logan making bacon and telling me we were back.

We’re back.

“I don’t know, but I think I’m either gonna be sick, start crying, or lapse into catatonia,” I whispered, way, way too out of it to be able to process all I was experiencing.

I felt his body relax on mine.

“It’s the first one, do me a favor and give me a heads-up so I can get you to the toilet. Bacon grease on sheets I can live with. Puke, not so much.”

I felt the weird sensation of hysterical laughter fizzing inside me and it didn’t feel bad in the slightest.

Tentatively, I put my hands to his sides, feeling his thermal, the heat and hardness of Logan under it.

We’re back.

“Millie.”

I focused on him and not the irrefutable evidence of all Logan was saying weighing down on me, heating me through his thermal, and saw his eyes searching mine, like he looked standing outside the bathroom earlier.

Warmth and concern.

Logan.

My Logan.

He was back.

My fingers fisted in his shirt.

“I missed you.”

It wasn’t a whisper.

It was a breath.

Barely audible, each word weighed down by heartache and history.

But he heard it and then I heard his groan, felt it tearing through him, tearing through me.

Pain.

A sound filled with pain.

A sound made releasing pain.

Then his face was in my neck, we were on our sides, and his arms were locked around me.

I slid my hands up his back and fisted them again in the material there, latching on like I should have twenty years ago.

Like I’d never let go.

I turned my head, my lips seeking his ear.

“Please kiss me.”

No hesitation, Logan obliged. His hand sliding up to curve around the base of my head where it met my neck, he held tight, took my mouth, and kissed me, deep and hard and wet.

It hurt, God, it hurt. The pain was unbearable.

And it felt utterly, impossibly, magnificently beautiful.

He ended it, shifting his head so his temple was pressed tight to mine.

“Missed you, too, beautiful.”

I closed my eyes and clutched harder at him, pushing into his body, holding him to me and attempting to meld myself to him.

The hiccup I involuntary gave to hold back the tears was an unpleasant one.

“Oh shit,” I whispered, and his head came up.

“You gonna get sick?” he asked.

“I…” I swallowed, the wave passing so I went on, “Don’t think so.”

“Fuck, Millie,” he clipped.

I slid a hand to his chest. “I’m so sorry, Logan. I… this… it’s…” I shook my head. No words had been created to communicate it, how significant this was, how happy it made me. So I finished, “I’m ruining our reunion.”

“Don’t give a shit about that. You’re not feelin’ you, whatever. You’ll get past it and I’ll give you a reunion you won’t forget. But you not feelin’ you reminds me I’m pissed at you.”

My chin jerked back and my body locked.

“I thought—” I began.

“You went to Paris without me.”

My mouth dropped open.

“That shit ain’t right,” he growled.

I stared into his annoyed eyes, thinking about all that had transpired, twenty years of it, the intensity of the last weeks, the conversation we just had (well, mostly he had because he did all the talking but I was there), and I could just not believe in all that he was pissed about Paris.

“It’s still there, Logan,” I pointed out.

“I know that, Millie, doesn’t make it any better.”

“It’s been there hundreds of years, Logan,” I kept going.

“I know that, too, Millie,” he bit out. “Doesn’t make it any better.”

“What I’m saying is we can still go.”

“You seen the Eiffel Tower all lit up at night?”

I shifted my eyeballs to the ceiling.

“Right,” he stated irritably. “First time you got that it was without me and it was supposed to be with me.”

I had to admit, seeing the Eiffel Tower blinking into the night was absolutely magnificent but would have been much better shared with Logan.