All of Me: A Confessions of the Heart Stand-Alone Novel

by Jackson, A. L.

  A big hand gripped me by the chin, his fingertips sinking into either side of my cheeks.

  There was some kind of war on his face, eyes flashing dark as they darted between my eyes and my lips.

  “Fuck . . . Grace . . . what are you doing to me? You’re making me crazy. Making me want things I don’t fucking want.”

  Pain.

  It reverberated through the space.

  The man giving me another glimpse.

  My hand was trembling when I reached out and let my fingertips trace against his bottom lip in a silent question.

  Why won’t you kiss me?

  His mouth parted on a sigh, and his eyes closed, throat vibrating with a low, urgent sound.

  In another flash, he had me spun away from him.

  Whiplash.

  My hands flew out to the wall, and I gasped out in shock when he tumbled his mouth down the length of my spine.

  Desperate, needy kisses.

  Flicks of tongue and soft, adoring lips.

  Oh, God, he was undoing me.

  Wholly and completely and permanently.

  I had no idea how I was going to recover from this. How I would ever be the same when he gripped me by both hips, his rigid, hard cock sliding through the crease of my bottom.

  “Ian.” It was a plea of confusion and need. His hands kneaded into my thighs, and my head turned to the side so I could watch him through the mirror.

  He rocked his cock through the cheeks of my bottom like some kind of illicit threat.

  Want gripped me everywhere.

  Everywhere.

  Everywhere.

  A tight fist that squeezed my heart, so tight I thought it might shatter under the pressure.

  “I want you everywhere, Grace. I want to fuck you until the only thing you know is my name. That sweet cunt and your mouth and this perfect ass.”

  I was pretty sure what the man was fucking with was my heart.

  He was taking over. Invading the places where I never should have let him go.

  I should have known better.

  I should have known better.

  But none of that seemed to matter when he kept sliding along my bottom, grunts coming from his mouth. He dragged me by the hips farther from the wall and bent me over.

  He shoved himself into my pussy.

  So deep I swore the man destroyed me right then and there.

  “I want to keep you,” he muttered in some kind of frenzy, so low and garbled I wasn’t sure I’d heard it right.

  But that didn’t matter. It didn’t matter because I felt it. Felt that ferocity. The energy that wound and climbed and claimed.

  He started to pound into me.

  I couldn’t stop from watching him through the mirror, his cock drawing almost all the way out before he pounded into me again.

  Over and over.

  His body so strong and massive and in control. Big hands clenched down possessively on my hips, fingers sinking in.

  He dragged me back to meet him with each trust.

  All those scars lining his back flexed and curled, hidden in the ink, haunted memories that couldn’t be found. Demons howled as they dragged me into his darkness, the words written on his side gnarled and disfigured.

  Never had I seen such a beautifully broken man.

  And I wondered if he saw mine, the silvered stretch marks that were close to invisible on my bottom and hips. My marks treasures. My pain. My perfection.

  Those arms came around to my front, and with one hand he gripped me by the chin as he tugged me up against his chest.

  Fingers went to work on my clit.

  Playing me.

  Coaxing me.

  He continued to drive into me from behind, this position leaving me a hostage to the power of his hands. No longer was I on solid ground.

  “What are you doing to me, Grace?”

  This time, he sounded almost angry. As if I was weaving my way into him, the way he was weaving into me, and he hated me a little bit for doing it.

  I reached back and clung to the back of his neck while he held me up with the force of his body.

  Pleasure gathered so fast.

  A flashflood from out of nowhere.

  I screamed his name when another orgasm ripped through my body.

  Potent and wild and unending. Surging and possessing the same way as the man possessed me.

  Before I could make sense of it, he had my hands planted back on the wall, and his hand was on his dick.

  He stroked himself as he came all over my bottom, grunts tumbling from his mouth.

  I guessed it was the first time that night that reality caught up to me. Still, I watched it play out like a horror story. Through a screen of steam that fogged up the mirror. Me losing absolute control. Forgetting myself. Letting this man who was little more than a stranger take me with no barrier between us.

  He grunted and shook, then burrowed his fingers even deeper, freezing, those crazy-colored eyes blinking frantically as if he too had to break himself from the fog of passion that made us do stupid things.

  He seemed almost horrified himself as he reached out a trembling hand and let his fingers swim through the mess he’d left on my body.

  “Shit,” he cursed, a low, guttural wheeze, his throat bobbing. “What the fuck?”

  Then he was cleaning me off, hurrying like he could erase the evidence, before he cut the showerhead and stepped out. He took my hand, helped me out, and wrapped me in a fluffy white towel. Without saying anything, he picked me back up and carried me to his bed.

  Gently, he laid me in the middle of it, his brow knitted up when he did.

  As if maybe he weren’t in control of his actions any more than I seemed to be.

  Both of us lost.

  Wanderers who’d forgotten their way.

  “I’m so sorry,” he muttered, voice urgent. “I’m clean. I swear to you, I’m clean.”

  I gulped, having no idea what kind of promises to make him.

  Slowly, he set a knee on the bed, hesitation taking over his movements as he climbed to hover over me.

  Caging me in.

  As if I were the wild one that needed to be tamed.

  Those eyes searched my face.

  Almost painfully.

  “What’s wrong?” The question felt raw in my throat. And I realized I was already in too deep when a ripple of terror washed over me at the thought of what the answer might be.

  His throat bobbed, and he was watching me as if he was in shock, the words choked as he forced them out. “I’ve never had a woman in my bed before. In my personal space.”

  My fingertips fluttered across his strong chest. “Do you want me to leave?”

  There was no shame in my question. No rejection. Because I saw no hardness in his eyes. I only saw stark vulnerability vibrating with the power of the man.

  He grabbed me by the hand and pressed my knuckles to his plush, soft lips. Mouth open as he kissed each one. “No . . . what scares me most is that I want you to stay. That I want things with you that I’ve never wanted before.”

  “Is it wrong that I want to stay?” My gaze roamed his striking face, his expression so different than I’d ever seen it before.

  Open and raw. A room with the most magnificent view.

  “Is it wrong that every time I’m with you,” I continued, “I feel different? Beautiful and strong?”

  “That’s because you are.” He threaded his fingers through my soaking wet hair. “Angel Girl.”

  My teeth tugged at my bottom lip. “Why do you keep calling me that?”

  “Because the night I chased you out and saw you fall, that’s what I saw on the ground . . . an angel. I don’t want to be the one to taint that goodness.”

  A frown marred his brow. “It’s crazy that I even want to be in your light. I usually run from it. As far as I can. You’re exactly the type of girl I stay away from. And when it comes to you, the only thing I want is more. Again and again. What scares me most is I’
m not sure I could ever get enough.”

  A burst of heat blazed across my flesh. Unable to stop myself, I arched toward him. “Take all you want.”

  Possession rumbled in his chest. “You shouldn’t offer things like that. You have no idea what I’m capable of.”

  God, he was rough. So raw and brittle and, still, he was melting something inside me. Goodness shining out from beneath all that brash.

  “I think I’m willing to take the chance.”

  Something hard flashed in his eyes. “Awful brave of you, considering you don’t know me. Believe me, when you do, you’ll go running.”

  “Isn’t that what taking a chance is all about?” I gave him a small nudge, and he rolled onto his back. I started to move over him, stalling out when I caught sight of him laid on his back in his bed looking like a drawing.

  A masterpiece.

  Impossible.

  My mouth was back to watering, and I slowly straddled him, loving the feel of those hands when they slipped around my sides.

  I dipped down, wanting to kiss him, wanting to respect him. I let my lips tumble along the scruff on his jaw. I ran them all the way up to his ear. “Doing this again and again. Day after day. Getting to know each other. Figuring out if we fit. That’s what taking a chance means.”

  I forced an edge of playfulness into my tone. “Just be careful not to go falling in love with me, Ian Jacobs.”

  He tightened his hold on my hips, so much sincerity in his voice that I broke a little more. “Don’t much have the capacity for that. But if I did? If I were capable of it? I think I’d already be in love with you.”

  “I think it’s you who needs not to be saying those things to me,” I whispered.

  Fingertips traced the curve of my cheek, his expression something close to awe. “Think I’m a goner, baby.”

  My chest stretched tight. Break. Break. Break. I was the goner.

  Humorless laughter rolled from him as he studied me through the shadows. “I don’t even know you. Did you always want to cut hair?”

  There it was. My opening. An open door. I shifted so I could lay down at his side, preparing myself to find the right place in this conversation to tell him.

  It wouldn’t be a confession. No shame.

  It was the claim of my life.

  I let my fingertips play across the deep grooves and flat planes of his abdomen. “No, I didn’t.”

  Shyness weaved into my tone. “I’ve always wanted to write children’s books.”

  He brushed his fingers down my arm, and I could feel his tender smile, and my spirit shivered with the realization that I was right about him.

  I cuddled closer, letting my mind and my voice wander. “These outrageous stories have always come out of me. As a little girl, I’d imagined them novels, that I was writing the next epic fantasy, but really, they were fantastical stories that at the heart were nothing but simple. Simple stories about growing up. The fears and hopes and dreams that come along with it.”

  I dared to look up at him again. Ian was watching me so tenderly, something melted in the middle of me. “And of course, they have a dash of adventure to get you there.”

  “You’re a dreamer,” he mused, as if he’d just caught on. As if I all of a sudden completely made sense.

  “Aren’t we all?” I asked quietly.

  He huffed out a strained sigh that billowed toward the ceiling, his attention cast there, as if he were getting drawn back to a simpler time, too. “I used to be. Until the day all my dreams dried up.”

  He glanced down at me, a bold flash in that intense stare. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not driven. That I’m not chasing after a goal. That I won’t do everything it takes to achieve it.”

  My brow pinched, and I shifted a little so I could look at him better. “Isn’t that the same thing?”

  “No.” There was no hesitation, just the grim set of his mouth. “Dreaming only ever gets you hurt. A goal is acting on a calculated risk.”

  Confusion wound through me, and I shifted more so I was almost completely facing him. I had the overwhelming urge to dig deeper, push through, feeling myself butting up against a wall.

  Taking a chance, I reached out and played with a lock of that soft, soft hair.

  “I don’t even know what you do,” I told him, inviting him to let me in. To ask me to meet him there. I let my attention traipse around the luxury of his bedroom. “Although whatever it is, it looks like you’re doing just fine for yourself.”

  He’d been there at that fundraiser, no doubt an investor or bigwig at some corporation, doing exactly what he’d assumed about me that night.

  Putting on a show.

  Making himself and whatever company he owned look good.

  What had struck me most was how bitter he’d seemed about it. As if he were angry anyone would show up there at all.

  His fingers roamed down my side, his voice casual. “I’m an attorney.”

  That was the thing about shock.

  It was instant.

  And that was the very second my heart froze in the middle of my chest before it took off at a sprint. Running wild. It dragged the thoughts in my mind right along with it.

  He is an attorney.

  Oh, God, he is an attorney.

  Ian must have caught onto the way my world had started to spin because his tone twisted into what was close to a question. “I’m one step away from being partner at Millstrom, Garcia & Grant. But I won’t be stopping there. Soon, I’ll be in control of everything. The firm, the biggest clients, making sure I’m getting a cut of the biggest cases. Everyone in this city will come to me.”

  It was strange that I’d never even considered it. He just seemed so . . . different than what I’d anticipated of one of the stuffy attorneys I’d been hunting down.

  And I definitely hadn’t come across his name, considering I’d only looked up the names of partners at firms when I’d gone on my search. Seeking out powerful names that might be willing to take down an even more powerful empire.

  When I’d been crawling around on my knees begging for anyone to listen.

  To hear.

  To understand.

  It felt like my throat was a landslide of jagged rocks. “And that’s your goal you were talking about? Becoming partner. Becoming the head of your firm?”

  He gave a tight nod. “Since I was seventeen, I wanted to be an attorney.”

  “And you chased it?” I asked.

  Something fiercely sad wove through the sharp lines of his stunning face. “I guess I did, didn’t I?”

  He smiled softly, and I was pretty sure that was gonna be the end of me.

  Because when he tucked me into his side, his big body wrapped around me from behind, I knew I’d come to a crossroads.

  Too late for a detour, Grace.

  I was already there.

  Falling.

  And I knew this was going to hurt. But there were some things in our lives that were so much more important than anything else.

  It wasn’t even a question.

  The admission I was initially going to make fell silent on my tongue as my heart and mind processed who Ian was. Somehow, Ian found comfort in it, and I could feel the rigid lines of his body slowly relax.

  His breaths evened out, even though he didn’t lessen his hold, and when I carefully extracted myself from the cradle of his arm, he groaned and rolled fully onto his stomach.

  I sat up at the edge of his bed, looking down at him, eyes memorizing every line of his muscular back, all of it again covered in ink.

  My stomach pitched.

  Tossing me into a freefall.

  No parachute.

  Nothing under my feet.

  Praying he might be there to catch me when the man was completely unprepared for what I was going to ask of him.

  All of it felt so wrong and so right.

  But I guessed he’d been spot on when he’d sat in my chair at the salon and teased that it was fate.

 
I hadn’t believed him. Hadn’t even given the idea a smidgeon of credit.

  After all, I’d taken a chance on a stupid party and then had Kenneth Millstrom laugh in my face.

  I’d run because of him, my things scattered on the ground. And this mysterious, dangerous man had been the one to help me back onto my feet.

  My heart expanded, overflowing with hope.

  A chance.

  One my gut told me had always been worth taking. I just hadn’t fully been prepared for what kind of chance that it would actually be.

  I slipped off his bed and quietly sneaked out of his room, nothing but longing in my gaze as I paused at the doorway to peer back at him sleeping.

  Yes. Yes. That’s what it had to be.

  Fate.

  Because I didn’t think I’d ever felt so safe in a man’s arms before his. Had never felt so sure of the goodness that radiated from inside.

  Trusting someone was nothing but a chance thrown into the wind, and I didn’t think I’d ever wanted to put my trust in someone so fiercely.

  I just had to figure out how to convince him to take a chance on me.

  Fourteen

  Ian

  “This is bullshit. I told you I was finished with all of this,” I hissed below my breath where I sat in my office at my desk, mashing my teeth together so hard I didn’t know how they hadn’t ground to dust.

  Anger had become a raging vortex in that hole carved out in the middle of my chest.

  I hadn’t thought it could get deeper.

  I was wrong.

  Wasn’t surprised, either. I mean, fuck, what did I think?

  Invite a girl into my bed and think she was gonna stay? I knew better than that.

  Thing that bothered me the most was that I’d even wanted her to.

  Still, I was the pathetic fucker who’d panicked when I’d woken and found the spot next to me empty. Jumping out of bed and running around my house like she was playing a twisted game of hide and seek.

  I’d been just as prepared for the scenario that I was going to have to throw down some blows to protect her.

  Fight for her.

  The fact I was itching to showed just how fucking stupid I was.

  Taking a chance.

  What bullshit.

  But the problem was, I hadn’t lied to her. Being with her that way? Closer to a woman than I’d ever been?