by Kait Gamble
Jesus.
“Where did she go?” His phone rang, but after a negligent glance at the screen, he dismissed the call.
She narrowed her eyes, glancing at him suspiciously to his phone then back to him. “I’m not tell you anything, Logan.”
He raked his hands through his hair. “Caroline. Trust me when I say you have things so very wrong. I need to talk to Jackie.”
She stared at him for a long moment. While she did his phone went off again. “Something you need to get?”
He swiped the screen angrily. “No.”
In that time, Charles found them and closed his arm around his new wife’s shoulders. “Everything okay?”
Not at all.
Head reeling Logan had to concentrate to stay standing up. “Please. I have to talk to Jackie. Just tell me where she is.”
Caroline’s expression had changed from condemnation to confusion to pale realization. “You had no idea, did you?”
He shook his head as he still tried to process the information. Jackie had turned her back on her life for him? And everyone thought he had walked out on her as well? She had been alone all this time? Struggling? He should have been there with her. He could have been there with her if he hadn’t have been so stupid. Each thought was a bomb exploding in his head.
“Then what the hell happened, Logan?” Caroline put a hesitant hand on his shoulder but quickly took it away again when he glared at her.
He didn’t want to talk to anyone but Jackie. “Just tell me where she is. This is between me and her.”
“I helped her pack and got her in a cab.” Caroline held up her hands helplessly. “Jackie didn’t want to give you the chance to hurt her again. She’s on her way to the airport. She’s headed home.”
Swearing under his breath, he turned and ran for the lobby. Logan called ahead and demanded that a cab be waiting for him. As he dashed outside, a cab pulled up. Without hesitation, he jumped into the back. “Airport. There’s an extra two hundred dollars in it for you if you get me there in twenty minutes.”
* * * *
Jackie walked into the air-conditioned airport and felt suffocated. She knew she was freaking out. It was her instinct to run. To protect herself before he could hurt her again. But was hurting herself first the answer?
Probably not.
She just needed time to think. The trip to the airport was long enough to figure out that what she felt for Logan wasn’t going to go away. Jackie felt betrayed and angry and confused. But the underlying love was there. And that’s what hurt. She loved him. Again? Still? She loved him and he had used that for what? As a game? Did he think she was just a toy to play with and discard when he was done with her?
Jackie didn’t want to believe it. She couldn’t. The way he had been—they had been—over the past few days… It had been bliss. It felt so real.
Could she have imagined it all? Maybe the romance of the location had been at fault? Could she have been so starved for someone that made her feel the way Logan had in the past that she had fooled herself in believing a mirage?
Jackie sighed. She could go around in circles in her mind all day long.
She stared at the counters and approached them slowly. Running now…it would make her a coward. She’d prided herself on being strong and building her life up from nothing. Wouldn’t this just prove she hadn’t changed at all from the girl who relied her parents for everything?
She turned away and started walking.
What she needed was time to think.
Wandering around an airport probably wasn’t the smartest place to do it, but she was there now.
She pulled the handle out of the suitcase and dragged it long behind her.
* * * *
The ride to the airport was the longest trip he’d ever had to endure. Of all the things he thought might have happened to Jackie after they had parted ways, he’d never imagined she had gone off on her own.
Anger boiled over at himself for being so bullheaded that he never tried to look for her. At her parents for lying to him and for letting her leave. And at Jackie herself for not telling him.
He spent the entire trip seething that it wasn’t until he arrived at the airport that he realized that he had no idea where Jackie had gone. He knew nothing about her life now.
That didn’t stop him from running into the terminal and searching up and down to find her. He received some strange looks and some inviting smiles before he realized he was chasing Jackie down in a tuxedo.
Logan didn’t care how ridiculous he came across. He pulled out his phone again and called Charles, hoping that he’d brought his phone with him to the reception.
He only had to wait a few seconds before when he was rewarded with Charles’ voice.
“Have you found her?”
“No. I have no idea where to even start.”
Logan could hear Charles asking Caroline before he answered. “You want the British Airways flight to London Gatwick.”
“Thanks.”
“Good luck.”
Logan hung up and looked for any display that would help him as he ran.
Eventually, he identified the gate and hoped he wasn’t too late to catch her before she got past security.
Logan was sure he caught a glimpse of her not too far ahead of him and he turned his jog into a sprint to catch up with her. “Jackie!”
She stiffened, but continued to walk.
Knowing that he’d found her, the ache in his chest loosened a little. At least she hadn’t gotten on a plane.
When he dodged all the people between him and Jackie he stepped into her path. “Jackie.”
She stepped around him. “I don’t want to hear it, Logan.”
He spun and kept up with her. “Jackie, please. You have to hear me out. We need to talk. About everything.”
She doggedly kept her pace. “What is there to say? You were just using me. Just like I was using you.”
“That might have been what you were doing. Maybe even how it started for me in the beginning, but not anymore.”
“How could anything have possibly changed in that short a time? You and I both know that kind of thing only exists in fairy tales.”
Logan stepped in front of her again. “Because I never stopped loving you.”
She paused for a moment. “Liar.”
“I swear. You’re the only woman I’ve ever loved.”
Jackie began to tremble then. “Then why did you do it? Why did you leave me?”
Fat tears rolled down her cheeks, and Logan’s heart cracked a little. He pried the luggage from her hand before grasping it firmly in his own then pulled her aside.
An airport was hardly the place for this conversation, but it was where it was going to happen. He found a spot that was somewhat secluded and sat her on top of her suitcase.
“I didn’t know that was what I did.” Logan got down on his knees in front of her so he was level with her eyes. “Your dad came out and told me you didn’t want me. That I could wait out there for the rest of my life but you would never want someone like me. That I would never be good enough for you and you had finally realized it.”
She stared at him. “What? How could you believe that?”
“While I waited for you, he found me and gave me a message he said was from you.” He sighed. “I was hidden where I usually waited for you and figured the only way he found me was because you had told him.”
Jackie took a hiccupping breath. “All I told him and my mother was that I was leaving to be with you. I had a terrible fight with them and gathered what I could carry to meet you. Only you weren’t there.”
His stomach clutched as he remembered the pain he’d gone through as he’d stood in the darkness, trying to comprehend that the woman he loved hadn’t wanted him. “I had waited a while, hoping that you would magically appear to at least tell me to my face that you didn’t want me.”
“How could I not want you? I had given up everything to be with you.�
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“And you couldn’t just walk back in after what had been said.” He closed his hands around hers. “I’m so sorry, Jackie. I should have had more faith in you.”
“Yeah, you should have.”
“Please come back to the resort. We have a lot to talk about.” He had so much to make up for.
It was surreal, what Logan was saying, and yet she could absolutely believe that her parents had been so meddlesome. At the time Logan was unsure of himself. It would have taken a master manipulator like her father no time to find his weakness and exploit it. In his case, Logan’s feelings of inadequacy had been his Achilles’ heel.
But he was right, he should have had more faith in her. In their love.
One more day couldn’t hurt. She hadn’t planned to leave until the next day anyway. She wanted things to finally be out in the open between them too.
Jackie nodded.
Logan wasted no time in getting her on her feet and whisking her back through the airport. He fired off a series of texts then called for a cab. While they waited, he refused to let her or her suitcase go.
So when a limo pulled up, Jackie was mildly surprised.
“I wanted us to get back there in style.”
Jackie watched as he handed the suitcase over to the driver. He opened the door for and held his hand out to her. “Princess.”
She laughed a little, as she took his hand and climbed in.
Logan followed close behind and slid in to sit next to her. He stared her in the eyes and she could see he had so much to say.
“I don’t know where to begin.” He brushed a stray strand of hair from her face. “But if you give me the chance, I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you.”
It was a sweet sentiment. “I don’t want that.”
Logan dropped his hand and shifted backward. “I see.”
Jackie shook her head. “I don’t think that you do.” She took his hands and pulled him close. “I don’t want you to feel as if you owe me. If we’re going to do this, I want us going ahead as equals.”
A smile slowly spread over his mouth. “Does this mean you want to try to make things work?”
“We have a lot to discuss, but I think we could.” This time around they were wiser, stronger. They could be happy.
His phone buzzed, but he swiped the screen and dropped it onto the seat next to them. “How about we start with where you went afterward?”
Jackie took a deep breath. “Needless to say I was completely freaked out. I tried to find you, but you had all but disappeared.” She had gone to his dorm room hoping to find him, but he hadn’t come back.
He tightened his arms around her. “Hurting from your rejection, I took off for a while.”
She could still feel the pain in her chest that she felt when she realized he wasn’t coming back. She’d lain on the bed they had shared on so many occasions contemplating her future. “When you never came back, I took stock of my situation. Moved to a smaller school and sold what I had taken with me to afford tuition when I went into education.”
Logan smiled wonderingly at her. “You teach?”
“I’m a primary school teacher.” A fact she was proud of.
“That’s amazing. I bet you’re great at that.”
“I enjoy it very much. And the kids seem to like me and appear to learn, so I guess I’m a success.”
“I knew you’d be great at whatever you ended up doing. But working with kids sounds like it’s a perfect fit.”
Nodding, she smiled. “I love what I do.”
“I’m glad.” Logan stared at her a long while. “You’re incredible. Not many people could do what you did.”
“It was hard, I’m not going to lie. But I think I became stronger for it.” She laughed softly. “I couldn’t have done it—wouldn’t have—if things hadn’t turned out the way they did.”
“I’m still responsible,” he grumbled. “I hate that you had to suffer so much on your own when I could have easily been there to help. If not with money than at least emotionally.”
She shrugged. “We can’t change that now.”
“But we can change where things are going.” He cupped her cheeks. “I know what Caroline told you I said to Charles, but they both had it completely wrong.” Touching his nose to hers, he continued, “I had gone down to breakfast thinking I could get information from Charles about why people always seemed to be talking about you. It was pissing me off, and you wouldn’t talk about it. All I knew was that I had to do something about it. But he assumed that we’d hooked up and that it was getting messy and gave me advice. Which turned out to be what you were telling me, that you didn’t want to take things further. I came out of that conversation wanting to convince you that I was worth taking a chance on.”
She sighed. “But, of course, you never told him any of that and just let him continue thinking what he wanted.”
He shrugged. “Since when do I ever feel the need to explain myself to others?”
Typical Logan.
“So when did you decide things had changed between us?”
He smiled and without a beat he replied, “At the pool. The first night.”
Jackie flushed at the memory of him bringing her to an embarrassingly easy orgasm with just his fingers in the pool.
“So pretty much right away.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, though I did my best to try and twist it around in my head to ignore the fact that seeing you again knocked me for a loop. I didn’t want to admit it, but everything came rushing back. Everything.”
The exact same thing had happened to her once she’d gotten over the shock of seeing him again.
“So where did you go…after?”
“I actually went to work. I was going to tell you that night that I had been accepted at a tech firm. They had a few openings internationally. Originally, I had taken a position in London, but after what I thought had happened, I took the one in Copenhagen.”
She gazed at him in awe. He had come so far from the guy she had once known.
“While I was there I started developing my own software on my down time and the rest is history.”
“I’m proud of you. I knew you would make it.”
“Thanks.” He seemed to think for a little bit. “I guess you’re right that things worked out the way they did because of what happened.”
Jackie leaned against him. It felt so good to be with him and to speak so openly about everything.
His phone went off again, and they both looked.
Logan scowled and impatiently swiped the screen, rejecting the call.
“Someone seems pretty determined to get you. Maybe you should answer.”
“It’s nothing…” He sighed when she stared at him waiting for an explanation. “It’s the owner of another hotel chain that’s interested in using my software. I was supposed to be meeting with him this evening.”
Jackie could believe what she was hearing. “You gave up work commitments to come for me?”
“In a heartbeat.” He kissed her. “You’re the most important thing in my life.”
Tears welled in her eyes as her heart swelled at his declaration.
Logan ran his finger down her cheek. “Do you think you can ever forgive me?”
“If you can forgive me hating you all these years.”
Logan swept in close, cradling her head for a soft kiss full of hope and promise. It slowly grew deeper. He pressed closer, dragging her under him she he could look her in the eyes.
Smiling up at him, Jackie inched her hand up his chest. “We’ve never had sex in a limo, you know.”
“Another place to cross off the list?” He helped her unbutton his shirt.
Jackie loved the feel of his solid chest under her fingers. He was so hard and warm. She wanted to feel his skin against hers—needed to reassert her claim over him, to reaffirm their connection.
She ran her hands over the muscles of his abdomen to slide along the waistband of his trouse
rs. Winding her legs around his, she pressed herself against him. It wasn’t long before his arousal made itself known.
She ran her fingers lightly over him, grazing the head of his erection with teasing strokes. When he groaned impatiently and tugged her in for a biting kiss, she went to work on the fastening of his trousers, shoving them and his boxers down over his hips, freeing his erection.
Closing her hand around him, she reveled in the feel of him, hard and smooth, in her hand. She had that power over him. As much as he turned her on, she did the same to him. That she could bring Logan to his knees was both humbling and potent.
He skimmed his hand up her leg to slip between them, seeking her core. She was already wet and ready for him as he teased her with sure fingers. Jackie let out a little squeal when Logan went straight for her clit. He drove two fingers into her, rubbing the swollen bundle of nerves with broad strokes of his thumb.
“As happy as I would be to feel you come around my fingers, I would rather be inside you when it hits you. I want to feel every pulse and flutter and know I did that. That I made you climax.”
“Anything.” And Jackie meant it. She would do anything for him and let him do anything to her. The knowledge that he would never do a thing to hurt her made the word easy to say.
He groaned when she punctuated her words with a squeeze. “I can’t wait.”
With a flip, he twisted her over, spreading her under him. He quickly took care of protection. Pushing her skirt up and tearing aside her panties, Logan thrust into Jackie all the way to the hilt.
The pleasure from that one move rocketed through her, radiating through her body and down her limbs to tingle in her fingers and toes.
She raked his shoulders. “More.”
Logan immediately increased the speed and power. It was going to be hard and fast, and Jackie wouldn’t have it any other way. His thrusts were deep, satisfying, amazing. Jackie arched to meet each one, building the pleasure, the pressure.
Logan gripped one leg under her knee and pushed it upward, changing the angle and allowing him to thrust even deeper.
Jackie held his gaze as he strained over her. The feel of him so deep inside her was awe-inspiring.
