He turned his head to stare at me, his eyes on mine before moving across my face, caressing my mouth and traveling back up to my eyes again. There was such tenderness in his expression it made me a little breathless. “Sometimes it’s hard to believe you’re real.”

Suddenly feeling like we were venturing into dangerous territory, I loosened my grip on his hand and pulled away a little.

Tightness appeared around his eyes at my withdrawal. “I’m a selfish bastard.”

I shook my head.

“I’m a selfish bastard,” he insisted gruffly. “I want to bury myself inside you, and I’m not sure I can keep holding myself back from doing it.”

My breath caught at his confession, and I couldn’t ignore the burst of aroused tingles between my legs. But I could run from them. I sat up, prepared to do just that. “I told you I don’t do casual sex.”

He sat up, too, now. “Grace, there is nothing fucking casual about how I feel about you.”

Suddenly all my sympathy was crushed beneath my anger. “You have a funny way of showing it.”

“It didn’t seem fair.”

“What?” I asked, completely confused.

His brows dipped together in consternation. “I got out of prison and I had these great people willing to help me. And if that wasn’t enough, I got Maia. My kid could have been anyone, Grace… But it wasn’t anyone. It was Maia. Funny, smart, sweet, beautiful. My kid. A kid with so much will and determination she adjusted to life with me in weeks. There is so much to be proud of there.”

“And you think you don’t deserve her?”

“I know I don’t. But I could handle it because there was one thing I couldn’t have and it made me feel like there was a balance.”

My heart rate increased. “What are you talking about?”

“You.”

I felt the world tilt around me. I wasn’t sure I’d heard right. “Me?”

“The day you told me and Shannon that you didn’t care about my time in prison. You didn’t judge me for it.” He stared at me soulfully. “I wanted you then. But you didn’t look at me the way a woman wants a man. I’m pretty sure all you felt toward me was annoyance. And that worked for me because I didn’t deserve someone like you. Later, when I started to realize you were as attracted to me as I was to you, I buried it. And after we had sex, it wasn’t just about Maia. If I got to have you and have Maia… It was too much – much more than I deserved.”

“I was a form of self-flagellation.” I looked away. “You hurt me to hurt yourself. Is that what you’re saying?”

“It sounds fucked-up when you say it.”

“That’s because it is fucked-up.” I swung my legs off the bed and stared hard at the wall. “You should see someone, Logan. Talk to them.”

“You mean a therapist?” He sounded incredulous.

“Yes. I used to see one. It helped.”

“I’m not the talking-it-out kind of guy.”

“You’re talking to me.” I glanced over my shoulder at him.

He gave me a sad smile. “Because you’re Grace. You’re the only one I talk to like this.”

Tears pricked my eyes and I looked away.

The bed shifted, and I felt the heat of him at my back. I shivered at the feel of his breath on my neck as he brushed my hair out of the way with one hand and wrapped his other arm around my waist, bringing me back against his chest. “I don’t want to fight this anymore. I’m so fucking tired of fighting.” He pressed a kiss to my neck, and I squeezed my eyes shut. He might have been tired of fighting, but I wasn’t.

He’d hurt me so badly.

Just like my family.

Until now I didn’t even realize how bloody angry I was with him.

“I’ll talk to Maia,” he said softly in my ear. “I can make this work and still focus on her.”

“Maia wants us to be together,” I told him flatly. “She’s been trying to push us together from the start.”

Logan tensed. “You’re joking?”

“Nope. I guessed as much after the night we dragged her home from the club. She’s admitted it to me.”

He pressed his forehead against my shoulder. “Are you telling me all the huffy shit she pulled wasn’t about other women – it was about the fact that the other women weren’t you?” I could hear the rumble of amusement in his voice, and I willed my body to stop reacting to it.

“Yes.”

He chuckled and pulled me against him, his fingers slipping under the hem of my T-shirt. “My girl has got good taste.”

I jerked out of his arms, pushing myself off the bed. I turned to stare down at him incredulously. “Do you think that’s it? All you have to do is say you want me and I’ll come running?”

Logan frowned. “That’s not… I’m just trying to be honest.”

“You rejected me, Logan,” I whispered, feeling the pain of it all over again. “When I was at my most vulnerable. I know right now you’re feeling a shitload of guilt over things that you couldn’t control, and I’m sorry for that because I don’t believe that you deserve to feel guilt over that. But this” – I gestured between us – “it’s not happening. You humiliated me.”

He pushed the duvet away to get out of the bed, and I backed up as he came toward me. I slammed up against the wall as he pressed his hands to either side of my head, caging me in. His chest moved up and down with his rapid breaths. “I never meant to hurt you, babe,” he promised, his voice deep with sincerity. “I thought I was protecting you.”