She could tell in the way he’d held her in the bathtub and how he’d stuck up for Emma today when the A-Team was popping off. She could tell because he’d invited the D-Team to ride horses just for a better shot at the crew. And in the way he hadn’t hesitated to put himself between Beast and Dustin.
She could tell he wasn’t ruined because of his apology.
Winter readied for bed in a daze of spinning thoughts. Logan was push and pull, and she didn’t know how she felt about being constantly dragged up and down emotionally. But Brody had been solid from day one, and look what had happened. He’d been a secret monster all along. At least Logan owned his struggle.
It was cold in the motel, and the thermostat was one stubborn sonofabitch, so she pulled on an oversized, threadbare sweater and some knee-high socks and made down the sheets. But just as she moved to turn off the muted television, a knock sounded on the door.
Shifter she may be, but idiot she was not, so she peeked through the window before she opened the door. Logan stood there, looking at her, eyes glowing silver, arms locked against the doorframe. He looked terrifying. And delicious.
Slowly, she opened the door, then leaned her cheek on the edge of it. “More apologies?”
Logan shoved off the frame and retreated a couple steps, eyes never leaving hers. “Do you need more?”
“No.”
He swallowed hard and ran his hand down his dark whiskers. “Can I come in?”
“Is this a booty call? Because last time we did the deed, I got some unfortunate body modifications.”
His glance flitted to her arm covered with the sweater sleeve, then back to her eyes. “I won’t push that, but…” He shrugged one shoulder up.
“I’m tired,” she murmured.
He nodded. “Of course. Sorry.”
He turned to leave, but she said softly, “You want to lay beside me?”
Logan halted, his back to her. His shoulders lifted in a painful looking inhale, as if he was having trouble breathing. “Yeah,” he said low. “I want that.”
“You ever done that before—just slept beside someone?”
He shook his head. He still wore his gray sweats and no shirt, so she could see how tense his back was. He looked like a stone, standing there in the halo of lamplight. Slowly, he turned, neck exposed as he passed her and stepped into her room.
“Smells good in here,” he rumbled. “Smells like you.”
She smiled and slipped her hand in his. He flinched but didn’t pull away. After a split second of hesitation, he squeezed gently and looked down at her, the bright gray in his eyes cooling to a stormy color. He led her to the bed and waited for her to crawl in, then hit the power button on the television remote, casting them into complete darkness.
Winter held open the covers for him, grinning like a lunatic because Logan wanted touch. He wanted connection. With her. The butterflies turned to hummingbirds in her stomach as his warm leg rubbed hers.
“I like what you’re wearing,” he murmured. “Just the socks and shirt, no pants. You ever feel like sending a dirty pic, you take a selfie in that get-up for me, will ya?”
She giggled and snuggled closer, slid her hand over the flexed abs on his stomach. He stayed stiff under her, as if he didn’t know what to do, but that was okay. Affection wasn’t natural for a man like Logan. At least he was trying.
After a few minutes of his heartbeat pounding under her palm, Logan rolled toward her and slipped his arms around her, cradled her against his chest. He was shaking. “Am I doing this right?”
When a deep, rumbling purr vibrated her throat, Logan chuckled at her answer. “Winter?”
“Yeah,” she whispered in an effort not to break the magic of this moment.
“What happened to you? I mean before Red Havoc. Why did your alpha have to save you?”
Now it was Winter who flinched. Logan plucked her clawed fingers from his ribcage and kissed the tripping pulse in her wrist gently.
She didn’t want to talk about it, or revisit memories. She’d told Brody part of it, but he hadn’t wanted to hear more. He’d told her he just wanted to look forward to the future, not get stuck in the past, so she’d pushed it all to the back of her head, locked it up tight so she wouldn’t be a disappointment to Brody, who was normal and good and wouldn’t understand baggage.
She’d been so desperate to be normal, too, it had seemed like a fair trade-off to pretend her life had begun the day she’d stumbled into Red Havoc.
But here was Logan, asking her to allow him into the shadows and let him have time to adjust his eyes to her darkness, and there was something so terrifying about that, but so liberating at the same time.
“My parent was human.”
“Both of them?”
“No, just the one that counted. My mom was a panther, a drug addict, and she couldn’t keep up with raising a kid, so she gave me to my dad. Signed away her rights, left him, left me. I only saw her a few times after that. She was…disappointing. My dad wasn’t super well-off or anything, and we lived in New York, right in the middle of the city in this tiny one-bedroom apartment.”
“You lived in the city?”
She huffed a breath. “Yeah. City shifter here, so you already know I’m fucked up. My animal was hard to control, and when I was a kid, I shifted as little as possible because I didn’t trust my animal. My dad didn’t like when I had to shift. He would drive me hours outside of the city and sleep in the car while I went on a little rampage through the woods once a month. He thought it was full-moon stuff, so that’s when we went.”