Never Look Back (Redemption Hills, #3)

by A.L. Jackson

“No. I’m going to get you into trouble.”

“Do I look like the kind of guy who minds? I think I can handle it.”

I should have warned you that you would. But I’d wanted a different story. A better story. And I knew I wanted it with you. My North Star, my North Star. It was the first day I believed in you.

I’d come to the quick realization I couldn’t remain that girl. Not anymore. The hardest part was I didn’t want to hurt anyone on the road to finding my destination.

“Are you afraid of me?”

“Am I afraid of how much it hurts to be around you? Am I afraid that this is a terrible idea? Am I afraid of what’s to come? Yes. But am I afraid of you, Logan?” My head barely shook. “No.”

Maybe I should be. Maybe I should be terrified of it all. But it was with him wher...

“I would never hurt you.”

“Because there is only so much one person can take.”

“The only thing I want is my freedom.”

“Yet you gave yourself to me.”

He’d always been my heart’s direction. I wasn’t sure there was anywhere e...

for the first time in seven years, I felt it. Hope. Beauty beneath the betrayal. And I found it in the man staring back at me.

I’ll find it and set you free.”

My smile was sad. Because that’s where he was wrong. Because my heart, it would always, always belong to a man I couldn’t keep.

“He was joking.”

“Um, that boy is joking about every minute of his life. Right up until the minute you walked into it.”

“I guess I bring out the worst in him.”

“The worst?”

“The harsh? The truth? The real? All that pain he’s got buried so deep he has the whole world charmed into thinking it doesn’t exist? Sure. You might bring all those things out...

“I think the more intriguing question is what happened with you and the girl after you left?”

“I took her home. Where she belongs.”

I felt beautiful. Sexy.

“Come, sit on my lap, let me feed you.”

“Are you insane? What do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m simply reminding him of what he can n...

“You are trying to sta...

“What I’m doing is trying to set you free. And if a war is what it t...

“Come here, Aster. My rules, remember?”

Logan looked at me like I was the treasure. The reason. The destination.

“Men are motivated by three things, Aster. Money, women, and power. He’ll have none of them left when I’m finished with him, and you, Little Star, will be mine.”

“Eat, Little Star,”

“Please, don’t call me that.”

“I wish I could stop.”

This girl was going to wreck me. She’d done it before so I wasn’t quite sure why I’d convinced myself she wouldn’t do it again.

Aster Rose was driving me to the point of insanity.

The whole goddamn problem was I didn’t know how to stop myself when it came to her.

Aster Rose was my poetry.

“I want to hate you,”

“I want to hate you, Aster. But I remember it…it didn’t matter what you said, I read what was in your eyes.”

“Was it real?”

“It was the only real thing I’ve ever known.”

“You’re mine.”

“See right there? That little star? It always shines through the haze.”

“Can you find it every night?”

“I think I’d find her anywhere,”

“Little Star,”

Then he kissed her. Kissed her soft and slow. And he knew she was worth any amount of trouble she might bring.

I tried not to laugh. Tried not to cry. Tried not to get crushed by the care of this family. Everyone had taken me under their wing. They’d shown me their love and protection as if I were one of them. The problem was they had no idea even if I wanted to stay,

“Never in a million years would I have thought two weeks ago that on my birthday I’d be given a gift such as this. Never thought I’d get to hold you again. Never thought I’d get to touch you again.”