Stark Surrender (26 page)

“Hmm.” She really didn’t want to go there either, not now. “Tell me more, Logan. What did you do once you arrived here?”

“I was searching for who’d drugged me, essentially destroyed me,” he told her. He grimaced, as if ashamed of his own ineptitude. “I was so ... so quarking angry, kitten. I was consumed with rage. And I acted on it. I couldn’t find whoever did this to me, so I ... became a vigilante of sorts. Taking my fury out on those who preyed on others weaker than me. And I don’t regret a single death.”

“Why should you?” she asked. “I wish I could kill those who did this to you. Slowly and painfully.”

She could feel some of the tension leave his body. He smiled slowly. “Sometimes I forget you’re half-Tyger, Kiri te Nawa.”

She flushed. “Well, you’d better keep it in mind. And stop smiling at me like that, Logan Stark. We are not having sex tonight. You’re going to rest.”

“Oh, am I?” His voice softened to deep velvet, and the hand stroking her back slowed, and pressed harder, pulling her down on his chest. “And what’s my incentive?”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Logan smiled to himself as Kiri frowned at him, her winged brows drawing together as her eyes flashed suspicion. “What’s your incentive? Why to be healthy and—”

He shook his head and pulled her a little closer, reveling in the feel of her in his arms, so lithe and slim and soft against his hardness. “Oh, no. I want more than that.” He wanted everything, but for now he’d take what he could have. And think later about how to deserve more, to deserve it all with her.

She gave him a look. “Well, you’re richer than anyone else I know, so I can’t offer you credit.”

“You have something else I want,” he assured her.

She glared, her cheeks flushing again. “I said we’re not having sex, Logan, so just get that out of your head.”

“Well, hells,” he muttered. “There goes that idea.” He chuckled at her huff of outrage even as he let go her hand to put his hand around the back of her neck, feeling the fragile warmth, silky skin and hair, and utter aliveness of her in his grasp.

“No, Kiri. I want something else from you. Your time.”

She regarded him with such a mixture of surprise, suspicion and unwilling pleasure that he had to suppress the urge to kiss her parted lips.

“You told me once that I expected you to open up to me,” he said. “But that I wouldn’t do the same with you. And you were right. So I’d like to change that.”

God knows he’d already begun last night, sunk in despair after surgery.

And he’d continued tonight. Hells, he’d just admitted more to her about his ordeal than he’d told anyone else. Except Daron Navos of course—impossible to hide from someone delving into his very consciousness. But he trusted Navos, and he trusted her. Kiri might run from him, but she’d never use his confidences against him.

And wonder of wonders, she wasn’t running from him now. He knew he wasn’t good enough for her, but apparently she didn’t get that. And he was no longer sure he wanted to go on belaboring the point. He’d given her all of him, given her the chance to step back, to keep her distance.

And what had she done in return? Told him she loved him. Told him she was carrying a miracle in her womb—his child. A child he wanted to hold, to protect with everything in him, and all his material resources as well.

Maybe she was right, maybe it wasn’t about deserving what one had, but instead taking it and then figuring out how to live the best life one could. He’d decided long ago that he wasn’t cut out to be a father, but now he was going to be one like it or not. And somehow he would find a way to be at least a decent one, not a blight on his child’s life.

“You’d like to change? How, Logan?” she asked, her eyes wide.

“I don’t know,” he said, uncertainty roiling in his middle. This was not an emotion he cared for or would tolerate for any other woman, and feeling it now filled him with the fierce urge to quell it by rolling her into his big, supremely comfortable bed and showing her she was his in the most basic way possible, with his body.

But instead, he’d give her the one thing she’d wanted before, that he’d refused to give her. He would let her into his past, and his psyche as far as she dared to venture. “How about ... you can ask me questions—anything you wish. And I’ll answer them—fully and honestly.”

She took a long time to reply, and his arms quivered with the need to enact the physical solution. But he managed to lie still, and finally she nodded, her lovely eyes grave and almost shy.

“All right. There are questions I’d like to ask. But they may not be comfortable for you to answer, Logan.”

Her gaze held a challenge, and he grasped it with relish. “No, I’m sure they won’t be. Important questions usually aren’t. But I think I’ll reserve the right to ask you a question for every one I answer. Because there are things I’d like to know about you too, kitten.”

“What? Maybe I won’t want to answer if it’s too personal.”

He raised his brows, and she glowered at him. “Logan, you’re the one who wants time with me.”

He smiled slowly. “You want time with me, too. I’d say that makes us even.”

“Manipulative magnate,” she muttered.

He chuckled. “See? You know me so well already, kitten.”

She pushed at his chest, then winced, stroking him gently. “Sorry. And I’m sure I shouldn’t be lying on you like this. You can’t be healed that well yet.”

He looked at the shadows under her beautiful eyes, and the downward tilt of her lips.

“Lie down beside me then. Stay with me, Kiri.”

She eyed the pillow beside him, and her gaze darkened. “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.”

It was the best idea he’d had in months. “Please. I promise I won’t try to turn this into anything else. Just ... rest. For our little star voyager.”

Her eyes widened. “Star voyager?”

He shrugged. “She’s traversed half the galaxy already, and she’ll travel back again soon. And I like the sound of it better than ‘peabean’.”

She yawned, and then sighed. “You’re right. Sounds much better.

He watched with deep satisfaction as she sat up, toed off her slippers, unfastened her robe and laid it on the foot of the bed, and then crawled up on the bed in her long but very clinging lii silk nightgown, settling down under the covers he held for her, with what he considered far too much space between them. Rolling on her side toward him, she slipped one hand under her cheek. He pulled the covers up over her bare shoulder, letting his fingers graze her soft cheek.

“I should go,” she murmured, a crease between her brows. “This is too soon.”

But she gazed at him instead of moving away, and he dared to hope that she kept her lovely gaze fastened on him for the same reasons he kept his on her—he was afraid if he closed his eye, she’d be gone again.

“You asked me once about the worst place I’d ever seen,” he said, to keep her there.

And if he was honest with himself, because he was on a roll here, and it was easier to keep a body in motion than to set it in motion. Pouring out his heart seemed to work on the same principle.

He’d give up his new eye before doing this with any other living being, but with Kiri … it wasn’t so bad. Which should have sent this planet rocking off of its very axis, he thought wryly. God, he was an idiot—thinking he was such a proud citadel, when all the time he was just a cocky boy, frightened of showing too much of himself to the girl he wanted.

She nodded, her lips parted, hanging on his words. His heart pounded, and he realized with shock that this was going to be difficult after all. His early history was as sordid as his time as Lode.

But if this was what he had to do to keep her, then he’d do it. Hells, he’d done worse ... he just wasn’t sure right now what it was. Facing that Gorglon hadn’t been any worse, because by then he hadn’t cared if he lived or died. Now he did, because he had her to live for, and their daughter.

He took a slow breath, and let it out, letting the memories jam his mind in all their vicious glory.

“It was right here, kitten. A filthy alley near the docks. Cold, wet, stinking of garbage and human waste ... with nowhere to get myself, or the boys food and a warm place to sleep unless I earned it or ... took it from someone else.”

“Tell me,” she urged, her warm, capable little hand reaching out to hold onto his. He curled his hand around hers, soaking in her warmth, her fierce spirit.

His jaw tightened, and he closed his eye, then opened it again, holding nothing back.

“I taught Joran to roll druggers for whatever they had. We’d pick some fool who’d come down there after an illicit thrill and was too intoxicated to defend himself. We’d go through his pockets and take anything we could sell or barter—even access his com if we could.”

He finished speaking and gazed at her, as if waiting for her to pass judgment.

“Well,” she said, her husky voice cracking. “What good was their credit to them, if they were only going to waste it? You were using it to take care of your brothers.”

She frowned, and he braced himself for more. “But ... what were you doing on the streets? I thought you lived with your mother.”

“Yes, in a tiny apartment about like the one I brought you to last week. Joran lived with us, too,” he said. “Until my mother walked in front of an airbus.”

Kiri gasped and reached for his hand, hers soft and slim, yet strong. “Oh, Logan. How horrible.”

He smiled crookedly at her, and squeezed her hand. “It may have been for us, but for her it was a release from pain. She’d spent years half-alive, tranqing herself to dull her grief for my father. Only the bastard wasn’t dead, just off with a string of other females. He only came home when he was out of credit. Then finally he just … disappeared, and we never saw him again.”

He watched her struggle to take this in. Predictably, her cheeks reddened with temper, and her golden eyes narrowed as she went straight to the heart of it all. “Oh. I’m sorry, Logan, but your parents sound like the most selfish pair of fools imaginable. Who raised you, then? Who took care of you?”

“I took care of myself, kitten. A harsh lesson, but one I needed to learn, because after she died, we lost the apartment, and Joran and I were on the streets until I found a job that paid enough for room and food.”

“Oh my God,” she murmured. “And I thought I had it rough. But Joran’s not your full brother, is he?”

“No. He showed up on our doorstep one day, in the custody of a female from one of the crèches. She said his name was Stark, and he was too much trouble for them, so his family had to take him.”

He smiled. “I took one look at him and knew he had to be at least my half-brother. So I lied—told her my parents were at work, and that she could leave him with me until they got home.”

“And she believed you,” she marveled. “A teenage boy.”

He shrugged. “I was big for my age. And she wanted him off her hands.”

He heard a sound he’d been longing to hear for months ... Kiri’s husky, ribald laughter. Her eyes twinkled with mirth. “Oh, Logan. Even then you were getting your way. And I can imagine she wanted Joran off her hands—the poor woman. He must have been a terror. I mean, he did grow up to be a pirate.”

Logan chuckled. “Yes, he did, didn’t he? Il Zhazid, scourge of the Frontieran plains—to other pirates, at least.”

He lay there, soaking in all that was her, his thumb stroking the back of her hand. He could feel the slight roughness of old burn scars, and a ridge where she’d cut herself. Someday he’d send her to an exclusive clinic to have all these scars removed, if she wished.

Not that he minded them. They made her part of who she was. She was beautiful physically, yes, but her spirit and sensuality shone from her big, topaz eyes, making her the perfect woman for him.

Maybe, he dared to hope, that was how she looked at him—not just his scars, both outer and inner, but the part of him that yearned to be better. She certainly didn’t seem put off by what he told her of his past. And she’d damn sure never wanted him for his wealth, the way so many other women had. Oh, he knew he was—or had been—attractive to females. He also took the time to study a female’s responses, learn what pleased her, while pleasing himself.

And Kiri enjoyed the very things that excited him most sexually. She’d opened up to him completely, let him play with her, dominate her, dictate when she could come and how many times. She’d even let him have her in an alcove at a formal ball.

He’d spent the months since she’d left him using his own gel-soaped hand to satisfy himself, but all that had done was take the edge off. He’d never stopped craving her, and it still rode him, even with all his injuries. And now, here she was in his bed again.

“You’ll be a good father, Logan,” she murmured, startling him out of his reverie. “You’ve already raised two brothers under impossible circumstances. And just look at the men they’ve become.”

He stared at her, jerked from his reverie. He’d been lying here, wrapped in sexual cravings for her, and she stopped him on takeoff with an incredible, awe-inspiring statement like that? He was right, she was light-years too good for him.

Hells, he’d turn himself inside out emotionally every day and night, if that was what it took to keep her. He smiled to himself. Life with her would never be boring, that was for sure.

The sole casualty would be his complete control over his life, and everything around him. His ability to do it all himself. Strange how he now realized it wasn’t quite as important as he’d believed before.

“Tomorrow, will you tell me how you got Creed?” she asked, and then yawned again, her lashes fluttering down.

He touched her petal soft cheek with one fingertip. “Rest, kitten. I’ll tell you about Creed tomorrow, I promise.”

He watched as she fell asleep, and then moved toward her. Sliding his arm under her, he pulled her against him, rolling onto his back so she was draped over his side. She started, then relaxed into him, her arm sliding over his belly, her head nestling into his shoulder. She was soft, slim and so very warm. Perfect.

And he hadn’t lied to her. He wasn’t trying to turn this into sex, he simply needed to hold her as much as he needed to breathe.

For the first time in a very long time, he was smiling as he slid into sleep.