Logan didn’t know what to say. No one had ever thought something that good about him. “I’m no angel,” he said needlessly. “But I’m—shit, I’m really sorry, for ruining your fantasy about me. For goin’ and tryin’ to . . . use you the way the men at the club would’ve used you.” He closed his eyes in pain. “Shit, that's so messed up. I shouldn’t have done that.”
He really, really wished he hadn’t done that now. It was nothing like he thought it would be, watching her dance not because she wanted him to watch, but because she was hungry and cold and desperate.
She shrugged. “I let myself be used. No one’s holdin’ a gun to my head. It’s my fault, not yours. You were really nice, and you were gonna pay way more than I’m worth. Don’t feel bad.”
He didn’t think any of that was true. There may not be a gun at her head, but she’d said it herself: she didn’t have a lot of options.
“Logan, I mean it,” she went on. “You—you saved my life. You gave me some kind of hope. I just gotta get through this. I just gotta make it through. It’s gonna be better someday. I feel like I can go back to the club now. I just gotta make a little money, get my room back and get through this.” She said the words like a mantra, and nodded to herself, setting her resolve.
Trapped, Logan realized. Marie was trapped. He knew that feeling, and loathed it with every fiber of his being. Logan knew those words, Just gotta make it through. He had told himself the same thing many times before.
He knew all too well how hopeless it could feel to be stuck in a life not worth living, to have a choice only between something bad and something worse. That had been his life, before Charles Xavier stepped in and freed him, then gave him a leg up, an opportunity he could never have gotten by himself.
Logan found that he wanted to give that to Marie. An option, another choice . . . a choice to be with him. But he didn’t know how to go about offering such a thing, much less getting her to accept it. “I said you wouldn’t have to go into that place tonight,” he reminded her.
She pulled away a little more. “It’s okay. I, um, really need the money. Dunno when my boss is gonna pay me. And before you say anything, I’m not takin’ any charity from you. You’ve helped me enough.”
“Let me provide for you,” Logan said on a whim. He could do that. Even if she didn't want to be with him. Even if it just meant sending money from New York. She had to at least let him do that. “I said I’d take care of you, darlin’. I promised.”
She didn’t look persuaded in the least.
He tried a different route. “You wanna make a liar out of me? Let me take care of you. I never want you to sell your body again. Never again. Let me keep my promise.”
“You’re pretty drunk, aren’t ya?” she asked, not unkindly.
No. He was dead sober, and he meant what he said. Never again. “I’m not drunk. And I don’t make promises unless I intend to keep them. Stay here tonight. Get some sleep. And in the morning, I’m takin’ you out for breakfast and we’re gonna figure all this shit out. I’m no guardian angel, Marie. A guard dog, if anything.” He smirked, knowing she wouldn’t get the joke. “But I’m . . . really attracted to you, darlin’. Want you so bad. Wanna take care of you, whatever you need.”
He really wanted to make her feel cared for, wanted to do what he could for her. This nice little southern girl, this waitress, this stripper who lived out of her car—whoever she was, he felt like she was his somehow. Like she belonged to him. Mine. Just for me. That’s what his instincts said. And his instincts had never lied before.
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