by Sara Summers
“I would.” Logan admitted. He didn’t say anything for a few minutes. “Do either of you have any idea how I get Emma not to hate me?”
One of the boys laughed.
“Emma doesn’t hate you. You’re her soulmate, man, the only person on the planet who can make her whole.”
“How do I get her to give me another chance, then?” he asked.
I rolled my eyes. My soulmate was asking my brothers how to make me fall in love with him? How romantic.
“How should we know?” Tanner asked. “You’re her soulmate. Stop fighting your wolf and let him take care of her, he’s the one who knows what she wants.”
“Thanks.” I heard footsteps on the stairs and knew that I was going to have yet another difficult conversation with my soulmate.
So, I sat up against the wall and folded my arms, waiting for him to reach my room.
Twenty-Five
“Asking my brothers for relationship advice? You do realize that they’ve both been single their whole lives?” I raised an eyebrow.
Logan leaned against the doorway to my bedroom.
“You have too, so they’re the perfect people to ask.” He shrugged.
His hair was perfect, as always, and those green eyes… I was a sucker for those green eyes. Not that I’d let him know it.
When he turned and rubbed his hand over his face, I noticed the marking on his neck that matched mine.
“You didn’t cover your cotie.” I watched his expression.
“You don’t like it when I cover it.” He met my gaze. “Look, I know that I’ve been unfair to you. I ignored everything you wanted and asked you to change who you were. I heard everything you said and acted like I didn’t, and I chose my career and my family over you.
“I didn’t come here until your brother lied to me because I had no idea what to say to you. There’s nothing I can say to make up for the way I treated you. I feel like I cheated you out of something you wanted since you were a little girl, and I’m sorry.”
“You’re right, there’s nothing you can say to make up for how you treated me. Go home, Logan.”
Even as I told him to leave, everything inside me begged him to stay. I wanted him to prove to me that he wanted to be my soulmate, I wanted him to love me for who I was.
I wanted Logan, despite everything that had happened. I wanted him, and it made my heart ache to know that he wanted me too. But I couldn’t just let him go back to walking all over me and my feelings.
“That’s the thing, Emma.” He didn’t budge from the doorway, and it was probably a good thing because a large part of me wanted to grab him and kiss him until I forgot why I’d left him in the first place. “You’re my home.”
“You didn’t chase me.” I looked up at the ceiling. “I ran, and you didn’t chase me. If I was that important to you, you would’ve been to the airport before my plane even took off.”
“I should’ve been.” He agreed, looking out the window.
“Go to Atlanta.” I said softly.
“For what? I dropped the movie as soon as your plane took off.”
I sat up straight.
“You did what?”
“You’ve been wanting me to drop that movie since I told you about it. When you left, I finally did it.” He met my eyes.
“Call them back and tell them you made a mistake. They wrote that entire movie around you!” I glared at him.
“I’m not going to do that.” He said, ignoring my frustration.
“I pretended to be your elegant, rich wife and went to the hair salon and let them wax every freaking part of me so you could be in that movie. Send them your stupid apology chocolates and flowers and go to Atlanta.” I ordered, standing up and putting my hands on my hips.
“I’m not going to do that.” Logan repeated.
“You did everything your mom thought you should so you could be in that movie. You treated me like dirt when she told you to, you left me alone when she told you to, you even told the world that I lied about being a shifter when she told you to.” I marched up to him and poked my finger into his chest. “You tell them that you’re going to be in Atlanta tomorrow, and you go to the airport.”
“Are you going to come with me?” He asked.
“No way! I left you, remember?” I stepped back and folded my arms.
“I’ll never forget that.” Logan folded his arms and met my eyes again. “I bought a house.”
“You what?”
He continued, knowing very well that I’d heard him.
“It’s in the nearest city to here. I can’t live in the middle of nowhere like your family because I can’t cook, but it’s only twenty minutes away.”
“You bought a house by my parents? Why?” I asked, though I was pretty sure I already knew the answer.
“Because I want you, Emma, and you want to live by your family.” He said it like it was simple, but it wasn’t simple for me.
“So if I kick you out you’ll just be sitting in your house twenty minutes from here waiting for me to change my mind?” I glared at him again.
“If you kick me out I’ll come back the next day, and the next day, and the next.” Logan wasn’t playing around any longer. “I listened to everything you said, even if I didn’t do any of it. I know what you want from me, and I’m going to do it all. I’m going to be your dream guy.” He said, like it was already set in stone.
“I don’t want to be with you anymore.” I said, like that was set in stone.
He didn’t know that it was the biggest lie on the planet.
“You will.” Logan tucked a loose strand of wavy hair behind my ear. “I don’t care how long it takes, I’ll make you want me again.”
“Is that a threat or a promise?” I asked, though I could hear my voice shaking a little.
“Whichever you want it to be.” He tilted my head up and leaned his head down toward my mouth. My lips parted automatically; I was desperate to feel his mouth on mine, even after everything. I wanted him so badly I could barely breathe.
Instead of kissing my mouth, his lips landed on my neck.
“I won’t kiss you until you ask me to.” He whispered.
Goosebumps erupted on my arms and I shoved him away. He’d noticed though, and there was a new light in his eyes. He’d realized that I, in fact, wanted him to kiss me.
“Get out of my room.” I ordered, pushing him back to the door and then out of the room.
“Emma, we’re going back to work.” Tanner yelled from the bottom of the stairs. “Are you coming?”
“Yes.” I said, brushing past Logan on the way to the stairs.
“I’m coming too.” Logan called out.
I stopped, and both my brother and I looked at my apparently-crazy soulmate.
“You’ve never wanted to work construction, and you have enough money that you don’t need to.” I challenged.
“That’s where you’re going to be, isn’t it?” he checked.
“I just said it was.”
“Then I’m going with you.”
The look on his face told me he wasn’t taking no for an answer. That wasn’t a look I’d seen many times—if ever—in the month we’d been together, so it was easy to recognize.
“Fine. We’re not waiting for you to get in your car though.” I walked down the rest of the stairs, meeting Cody on the porch. He was already in wolf form and, moments later, I was too.
“Do you know how to shift?” Tanner looked at Logan.
“Yeah, I remember how.” He looked at me, and my mind went back to that evening in the hotel. While the memory was mostly unpleasant, there were parts that I never wanted to forget. Mainly the parts where we were kissing.
Actually, only the parts where we were kissing.
I knew he was thinking about the same thing, so I took off into the trees before he said anything else to remind me what it had been like to kiss him.
He never caught up to me, but I could hear him behind me.
I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
Twenty-Six
When we shifted at the job site, Logan put on a pair of clothes from the plastic box of spares.
I pretended not to notice the way some of the younger shifters were staring at him.
No one had said anything to me that morning about my soulmate being a famous human celebrity, but I’d felt their stares. The only reason they would be staying silent was probably that they knew from experience what my brothers would do if they brought it up.
“What’s he doing here, Ty?” one of the younger, burlier guys demanded. He looked to my dad, who was the foreman of our crew and therefore the man in charge.
“Easy, Smith. He’s with Emma.” Ty slapped him on the back. “Get to work.”
“He’s been on the TV telling the world that he’s not a shifter. Why would your daughter be okay with that?” Smith protested. “How are you okay with him being here with her?”
“Logan’s one of us now.”
“Yeah, when there aren’t any cameras looking.” Smith growled. “The humans hate us even more because of the two of them.” He gestured to both me and Logan.
My eyes widened.
“If you think that, you haven’t been on the internet lately.” Logan stepped up beside me and folded his arms, making himself look bigger. He wasn’t burly the way Smith was or large the way Cody, Tanner, and my dad were, but he was tall and strong and his confidence somehow made him look larger than the rest of the men.
“Oh shut up, Lush.”
“When you google the word ‘shifter’, dozens of pictures of Emma are the first thing that comes up. She’s smiling and hugging strangers in just about all of them. People love Emma more than they ever loved me or the rest of my family. You don’t have to like it, but her becoming a Lush is the best thing that could’ve possibly happened to make humans see shifters as their equals.”
Smith stepped toward my soulmate, practically radiating dominance. Logan stepped up to meet him, and dominance pouring from him too.
My eyebrows lifted when I felt the power coming from him on purpose this time.
“That’s enough.” My dad put a hand on both guys’ chests, pushing them apart. “Back to work, Smith. Emma, show Logan what to do.” He instructed.
“I’m not working with him.” I picked up my tool belt, heading toward the portion of the house I’d been framing.
“Cody, teach Logan. Everyone else get back to work too.” Ty revised his orders.
Cody led Logan to the other side of the house so he wasn’t near me.
While I worked, I thought about what Logan had said. Was I really the first picture that popped up if someone searched “shifters”? There was no way I could already be that famous, was there?
I couldn’t deny that the longer I’d been in New York, the more people had recognized me when I went somewhere. I’d figured that was because more people learned about Logan Lush’s “wife”.
I’d seen the unfortunately-viral video of me on the stage at our elopement party proclaiming to the world that I was a shifter before Logan threw me over his shoulder and told everyone I was super drunk. It was horrific in a can’t-stop-watching-it kind of way, and I had watched it a dozen times myself despite living through it.
I’d seen that the number of views was in the billions, but I had just assumed that was because it was so cringe-worthy.
What if all of those people had looked me up afterward and learned that I was actually a shifter?
Had my embarrassment somehow made shifters more relatable to them?
I didn’t know, but I knew that it didn’t matter. With my soulmate a few hundred yards away from me, the last thing I needed to worry about was my level of fame.
A few minutes later I was hammering nails in when a thought crossed my mind.
If I was suddenly so famous, wouldn’t it benefit Logan’s mom for me to go back to Logan? Him messing things up with his soulmate couldn’t possibly look good to anyone.
The idea distracted me and for a second, I didn’t watch what I was doing.
I swore loudly when the hammer slammed into my nail—my long, acrylic nails that somehow still looked nearly-perfect after a morning of construction work.
Everyone looked at me, and I felt my face redden.
“Are you okay?” Tanner checked.
In the corner of my eye, I saw Logan drop his own hammer and begin walking toward me.
“I just need a break.” I lied, climbing down the ladder.
I ditched my tools, shoes, and pants in a pile on the dirt and ran away from the house and into the trees. My shirt flew over my head as I shifted to wolf form, running from the job site as fast as I could.
As I was leaving, I heard Cody tell Logan,
“Let her go. You gave her plenty to think about earlier, she needs time to process it.”
And he was right, in a way. I didn’t need time to process what he’d said to me in my room, that part was clear. He had decided he was going to do whatever it took to win me over.
What wasn’t clear was why.
I had a feeling that the answer to that question was the same answer behind why he had done everything else he’d done since we’d been soulmates:
Laren Lush.
The idea made me tired, and I honestly wasn’t ready to face it yet.
So, I ran. I ran through the forest, stopping only for water and short naps. I ran until the sun went down, and I ran long past when the nearly-full moon rose in the sky.
When I finally made it back home, I knew my family had been asleep for hours.
They’d left the back door open both for me and to cool off the house, so sneaking in was a breeze.
I noticed the empty couch and stopped for a second. If the couch was empty, Logan was gone. I wasn’t sure if I was sad or relieved about that. I mean, I was the one who left him, but I’d always wanted him to decide he was going to be my soulmate no matter what it costed him.
A few seconds later I smelled his familiar scent tinged with sweat and dirt coming from upstairs, in my room.
I bit back a groan and decided that what I’d been feeling was most definitely relief.
I walked up the stairs as quietly as I could before peeking into my room. Yep, there he was. My large, smelly soulmate.
Grimacing, I headed for the shower, hoping the noise would wake him up and he would move to the couch. Besides that, after my month in NYC, there was no way I’d be able to fall asleep feeling so dirty and gross.
So I showered, ignoring the way the cheap old towels felt scratchy compared to the nice ones at Logan’s. I shouldn’t have even noticed, I knew.
When I got out of the shower, he was still snoring away on my bed. I noticed the dirt on the blanket and had to force myself not to moan.
The bed was uncomfortable enough after living with Logan, I wouldn’t get any sleep if it was covered in dirt and sweat
I rolled the towel at my chest so it would stay up and leaned over my soulmate.
“Logan.” I whispered so I wouldn’t wake up anyone else in the house. Everyone had good ears, so it wouldn’t take much to get them up.
He didn’t budge.
I weighed my options. I could shake him harder or talk louder, both of which could definitely wake up my family.
There was another option, though, a less pleasant one.
I stuck my hand against the cotie on his neck, letting him feel my emotions.
“Emma?” Logan whispered. He didn’t open his eyes, but reached out and grabbed me instead. That surprised me so much that I didn’t stop him when he pulled me into my bed and on top of him.
“What the heck?” I whispered back, angrily pushing against his chest. He only pulled me closer.
“You want me.” He said drowsily.
“I want you to let go of me.” I snapped, fighting against his grip.
“Shh, you’ll wake everyone up.” He finally peeked his eyes open and I stopped fighting. Thos
e gorgeous green eyes were as stunning as always.
“You stink.” I glared at him.
“You left me with a bunch of sweaty men.” He challenged.
Both of our voices were barely a whisper. I knew there was a good chance we would wake up at least Tanner, with his room underneath mine, but the conversation had to happen.
“You deserved it.” My glare didn’t let up.
“I know.” Logan closed his eyes again and held me close.
“Get out of my bed.” I tried to escape again, but he held me tight.
“No thanks.” He twirled a strand of my hair around his finger and then dropped it to run his hand down the curve of my back.
“Stop touching me.” I hissed, wriggling away.
“I’ll pass on that too.” He said, his hand pushing the towel upward as it moved to the back of my thigh. I gasped as his soft hand touched my bare skin.
“That’s enough.” I growled a little, and he let me get off of him. “You had your chance to touch me like that and it’s gone now. You didn’t want it.”
“Whoa.” Logan stood up, the sleep in his eyes gone. Though the rest of him looked tired, his eyes were clear and focused.
I held the towel tightly to my chest.
“You think I didn’t want you?”
“If you wanted me you would’ve done something about it.” I folded my arms over the towel, ignoring the water that dripped from my hair to the carpet.
“I was a mess, Emma. I felt like I was in a game of tug-of-war between you and the rest of my life and all I could do was watch. I was stupid, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t want you.”
“We could’ve had a real physical relationship even with the mess going on around us, but you never tried to do anything more than kiss me. It’s too late now.” I walked to the closet and looked through the clothes. None of them looked appealing.
My suitcases full of clothes I already liked were still packed and zipped up, though.
I chided myself for caring about what I was going to wear and grabbed a t-shirt out of the closet.
