To give rather than to take.
To love rather than to hurt.
I just didn’t know how the fuck that was possible when it was the only thing I’d ever known. But there was something about this girl, something overpowering, overwhelming, too perfect and sweet and enthralling, that made me want to try.
* * *
I wove my way through the crowd on the packed sidewalk. Hands shoved into my pockets, the evening air gathering around me, heart manic where it knocked against my ribs.
Hard and fast and desperate.
I was a fool.
I was a fool.
But I didn’t care.
Didn’t care about anything but the girl whose back was to me as she fumbled to lock the door to the salon, shutting down for the night.
Blonde waves tumbled down her back. The girl wore white jeans, a black sweater that draped over one delicious shoulder, and the sexiest pair of boots I’d ever seen.
Everything soared.
This surge of energy and light and need.
Standing there, ten feet away, I had the sinking feeling that I didn’t recognize myself.
Most disturbing was the thought that maybe it was my soul recognizing hers.
Without looking my way, she froze, like she felt it, too, a tremor rolling the length of her spine.
Slowly, slowly, she turned to look at me.
A battered Cinderella.
A broken angel.
And there I stood, the devil in sheep’s clothes.
Got the sense that she’d felt the demon all along. From the moment she’d first seen me. Because she breathed out in surprise, eyes a charge of lust and fear.
I welcomed it when it slammed into me.
Held it.
Just like I wanted to hold on to her.
Ten
Grace
“Ian.” His name was a whisper that fell from my tongue, my mouth parting on fear and need and a breathy sigh.
Everything trembled.
My heart and the air and the ground beneath my feet.
“What are you doing here?”
But I already knew, didn’t I? I already knew what I’d set into motion when I’d texted him in the middle of the night. Unable to sleep. Only able to think of him. Wanting something I shouldn’t take.
But some things were unstoppable. Impossible to resist when the temptation was too great. Right there, begging for me to dip my fingers in so I could take a taste.
He edged forward, that severity a bluster from his perfect body.
Today, he wore a full three-piece suit, dark gray and sleek and fitted. It showed off every inch of the strength that rippled below the expensive fabric.
Shoulders wide.
Waist narrow.
Tie around his neck and desire on his lips.
I could feel it.
Passion.
Lust.
Need.
It radiated from him with the force of a thousand suns.
The man edged closer. Each step that he took robbed me of a little more of my sanity.
Because this was truly crazy.
He stopped when there was only the fraction of a breath between us, his heat wrapping me whole, his words warmth where he dipped down to utter them close to my cheek.
“You told me in that text that you’ve never been a girl who was afraid to live her life. To step out and take a chance. And fuck, Grace, I’m standing here, right now, asking you to take a chance on me.”
Oh God.
Crack. Crack. Crack.
I could feel every reservation crumbling out from under me.
There was no missing the way his mouth tweaked into one of those arrogant smiles where it barely brushed my skin, the words so soft but laden with a demand. “Have dinner with me.”
Need spiraled. I inhaled, drawing him into the well of my lungs. Power and influence and dominance. Cinnamon and orange and sex boiling on a stove.
Fingertips fluttered along the side of my neck, trailing my pulse that throbbed out of control. “What could one dinner hurt?”
There was a tease to his tone, a tease to his question.
The man was so damned good at winding me up. Hooking me in all those places where I’d never be released.
I almost laughed.
“Oh, I think you could hurt, all right.” I edged back so I could look up at him. “Men like you should come with a warning.”
Cinnamon eyes flashed. Red and gold and black. He was cupping the side of my face in one of those big hands, his thumb running across the hollow beneath my eye. “I think it’s a woman like you who bears all the threat.”
“How’s that?”
“You’re so sweet that you don’t have the first clue just how dangerous you really are.”
The man managed to pull a giggle free. “I’m not all sweet.”
He quirked a sexy grin. “I don’t believe you.”
“I just might surprise you.”
He was back to whispering in my ear, his aura all around me. “Oh, you surprised me. You knocked me off my feet.”
I peeked up at him. “I think it was the other way around.”
Literally.
The man had knocked me on my ass. I hadn’t fully been able to stand on my feet ever since.
He took me by the chin, eyes searching, so close I was terrified he was going to dip down and kiss me right there. I was most definitely not ready for that. Especially out in the open.
Exposed.
Hell, this was as reckless as could be. Just standing there with him that way.
My gaze flicked around, searching the packed street for eyes that might be watching. But Reed had the kids today. Their days at his place tended to keep him preoccupied with keeping up that charade. The parody of a caring parent.
Ian must have sensed the shiver of unease that rustled through me because he put an inch between us. “Just dinner . . . then you can decide where we go from there.”
His voice shifted, dripping pure sex. “I hope you let me take you where I’m dying to go. Follow me, Angel Girl.”
I guessed he thought I was getting ready to say no because he pushed me back against the door to the salon, his big body pinning mine.
Heat ran wild.
“Please, Grace. Just dinner.”
I hesitated for only a second before I gave a nod. I was going to regret this, I knew I would. But the last thing I wanted right then was to go to my grandmother’s house and face the reminder of an unthinkable possibility.
The vacancy and emptiness echoing back.
“Just dinner.”
I think we both knew it was more than that when he wrapped an arm around my waist and tugged me close to his side.
Once again, my attention jumped around. I hated that Reed still held a thumb over me, but I had to be careful. Remember what was riding on the line. A line I needed to toe.
Ian Jacobs had me sliding off.
I turned my face into his neck to hide it.
The only thing I managed to do was breathe his aura in.
He began to lead me through the mob of people that hurried this way and that as they rushed home at the end of their day.
I think we both knew it then.
That this was different.
That this moment mattered.
We knew it because it felt like a start. As if we were standing at the beginning of something great. Which was impossible because this man didn’t know what I was up against.
Who I was or what meant the most to me.
Their little faces flashed through my mind. It stabbed me with guilt. Because I shouldn’t be seeking any pleasure until I knew their happiness was secure. Until I’d finished this fight.
Until I’d won.
With the thought, I peeked out again, darts of anxiety impaling my senses. A warning to be careful. To take heed.
Push.
Pull.
Push.
Pull.
I felt as if I was being yanked in every directio
n.
My heart propelling me forward, and my rational side attempting to reel me back in.
Being reckless wasn’t going to win me any points. But it wasn’t like going to dinner with a man was wrong. I was committing no crime, and I certainly wasn’t partaking in some kind of disloyalty.
All the betrayals had been perpetrated on me.
I guessed the real test would be if Ian wanted to fight alongside me when he knew.
If he’d be the one willing to take the chance on me.
The problem was, I had no idea when I should tell him or how he would react.
“Just dinner,” he whispered at the side of my head. As if he’d felt every single one of my insecurities crawl across my flesh.
“Just dinner,” I agreed.
I wondered if that was the moment Ian and I told our first lies.
Eleven
Ian
She leaned into me, and I pulled her closer.
I couldn’t help but wonder why it felt so right.
Why I wasn’t repulsed.
Why I didn’t want to push her away.
Why I wanted more.
Why I loved it when she snuggled deeper into my hold.
I didn’t do this.
Not ever.
Didn’t want it.
But right then, the only thing I could think was that I did. That this was a chance worth taking.
Just dinner.
What bullshit.
She and I both knew it. Because she was trembling in my arms, nerves wracking through her, like she was holding back a secret she wanted me to keep.
To hold.
It fucking terrified me that I might want to.
I knew something was up. No doubt there was shit going on with her that I couldn’t see.
I held her close as I led her through the droves of people who were flocking from their workplaces as evening began to settle on the city, the sky hewn in a dusky gray, streaked with pink.
Finally seeming to settle, she exhaled in some kind of relief and peered up at me. She was tall, but she still felt small where she was tucked against my side.
“So, where are you taking me for just dinner?”
A light chuckle rumbled out. “I figured since I need to make a good impression, I’ll have to take you to my favorite restaurant.”
At the intersection, cars stopped at the red light, and I quickly guided her across the street toward the glitzy building that housed Eve’s on the top floor.
She almost rolled her eyes, but there was still something playful about it. “Of course, this is where you would take me. Only a boy born with a silver spoon in his mouth would have a taste for a place like this.”
It was instant. The way turbulence rippled through my senses. The air I was breathing suddenly choppy and rough. “Hardly.”
If she only knew. If she only knew the way I’d lived. The things I’d overcome. The things I’d done to survive.
The only delicacy I’d known as a child were the ones I’d scraped out of a trash can. I wondered what she’d think then?
“That’s good then . . . because you should know, I’m not going to be impressed by the location. The only thing that can impress me is the man.”
God, this girl. So damned different.
“I guess I already have everything going against me then, don’t I?” I tried to inject some humor into it, but I realized I was sending her a warning. If she looked too deep, she wasn’t going to like what she’d find.
She turned that teal gaze on me as we entered through the revolving door, my hand at the small of her back as I ushered her inside.
With a glance over her delicate shoulder, her stare scattered over my body. Or maybe it was just breaking me into pieces. “Is that what you think? That you aren’t worth it? That you aren’t worth the chance you’re asking me for?”
Apparently, when it came to this girl, I had no impulse control. Because I had her pushed against the interior wall in a flash.
A gasp of air shot from her lungs, and I was immediately sucking it down. Wanting to breathe in every element.
Earth and water and sky.
I gripped her by both sides of her gorgeous face. “Make no mistake. I’m not worth it. I’m not ever going to be. I’m an asshole, Grace. The greediest bastard you’ll ever meet. But with you . . .”
My words trailed off, my eyes moving over her face, wondering what the fuck it was she was making me feel. “With you . . . for once in my life . . . I wish that I could be someone else. Someone better. That I could be worth it.”
She blinked up at me, guilt and hope and belief blazing through the depths of those eyes. A dark, mesmerizing sea.
There I was giving her an out, and she was looking at me like I’d just given her a gift.
“I guess we both want to be. To be worth it,” she murmured, her words wrapping me like a caress.
An extension of grace.
And I didn’t deserve it. Not after all the things I’d done.
“Isn’t that what everyone wants? To be worth taking that chance on? To matter?” she continued, voice so soft.
So sweet.
So real.
I thought she might be the most honest thing I’d ever held.
Taking her by the hand, I threaded our fingers together, relishing in the flash of heat that skidded up my arm.
A jolt that threatened to shock my heart back to life. I pressed my mouth to her temple and whispered as I guided her toward the elevators, “What are you doing to me, Angel?”
She didn’t have time to answer before the elevator doors swept open and a drove of bodies came flooding out. I stepped back in not-so-pleased surprise when I saw the huge body in the middle of it.
Shit.
Just what I needed. Hell, this was probably exactly what I deserved.
Instant karma, baby.
The second Mack saw me, he angled his head as if he were trying to make sense of the scene in front of him.
I kind of wanted to grab Grace. Wrap her up. Take cover and hide.
Instead, I shuffled my feet like a pansy bitch.
I roughed an uneasy hand through my hair.
“Ian,” Mack said, amusement in his voice as he looked between Grace and me, clearly making the calculation between the text I’d up and ditched him for last night and what had led me to be standing in that spot right then.
His voice twisted with knowing emphasis, a razz fraying from the seam. “What are you up to, man? Long time no talk.”
Right.
I tried not to grind my teeth, but they were instantly getting mashed to shit.
His gaze darted between me and the girl tacked to my side, his blue eyes riding high as silent questions fired from him like arrows.
Are you on an actual date?
Seriously?
Where is my best friend and the bullshit he was feeding me last night?
This was something he’d never once witnessed before. He knew full well an exchange of names and numbers and dinner as a prelude had never been my style.
Discomfort and a shot of something unexpected rushed me.
This protectiveness that whipped and gusted and blew.
Gale force.
Like I wanted to make a statement.
Tell him she was different.
That this was different.
That it mattered.
But I didn’t have time to evaluate any of those things before her sweet voice was filling the space—a soft giggle and a glance of those eyes as she raked her teeth over her bottom lip. “We’re just having dinner.”
I couldn’t stop the bolt of surprised laughter that came rumbling from my chest, this girl a confusing mix of hard and bitter and soft and sweet. Then she went and was throwing out a tease to my big-ass, burly best friend as if he didn’t intimidate her at all.
I liked her.
That was exactly what was wrong with me.
Exactly what had gotten into me.
I like her.
Liked being in her space and standing at her side.
Shaking my head, I cleared the roughness from my throat. “Grace, this is my best friend, Mack.”
He shoved a big hand her direction. She released mine and reached out to shake the one he had extended.
“Mack, this is Grace.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Mack,” she said, offering him one of those genuine, mind-bending smiles.
I was suddenly fisting my hand where hers had been, wondering why she made me feel that way. Possessive and needy as I watched him looking her over.
He continued to shake her hand, not releasing it as his attention bounced between the two of us.
“Grace . . . who you’re having dinner with tonight?”
It was a prod and tease and a challenge, the last fully aimed at me.
“Yes. We’re having dinner.” I tried to keep my response even. To keep my cool.
And you know, not go and do something stupid like rip her hand from his.
He definitely didn’t need any more ammo than he had.
He had plenty.
He was clearly in the mood to use it.
“Is that so?”
I angled my head at him, the flare of a threat in my eyes.
Don’t say a word, asshole.
He chuckled, looking back at Grace. All that amusement drained from his face and something tender took to his expression. “It’s really, really great to meet you, Grace.”
“It’s really nice to meet you, too.”
She glanced over at me as if she were asking for help. Unsure of what was passing between Mack and me, their hands dropping just as I wrapped my arm back around her waist and tucked her close to me.
Right where I wanted her.
Didn’t give a fuck if Mack watched it with speculation or not.
“I’ll talk to you later,” I told him, a little harder than necessary.
A cue to drop it.
He could give me all the shit he wanted to later.
A deep chuckle rolled from him, and he started toward the main entrance, walking backward. “Yeah, we will.”
He gave me a salute before letting it fall into a grin that he cast at Grace.
She gave him a timid smile.
Without saying anything else, I reached out and pushed the button for the elevator that had given up waiting for us to enter. Immediately, the doors slid open, and I led Grace inside.
All of Me: A Confessions of the Heart Stand-Alone Novel Page 11