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

by Jackson, A. L.

  My heart skipped and sped in a million wayward beats when I saw who followed behind her.

  Foolish, foolish heart.

  But there was no stopping the reaction to the man, so tall and powerful and commanding that he made the ground tremble beneath my feet.

  “It seems someone’s hair grows really fast.” The words falling from Melissa’s mouth were perfectly wry, delivered with a silent, Plan on dishing the details later.

  No doubt, she would pin me down and pry it out of me.

  “Okay,” I managed to mumble, looking back to the older woman sitting in my chair. “Let me finish up with Mrs. Galvez, and I’ll be right with you.”

  Ian nodded, those hands in his pockets, the energy speeding between us like it was fuel for an out-of-control train.

  I finished styling Mrs. Galvez, quickly dusted off the hair from her robe, and unsnapped it. She pushed from the chair. “Thank you, dear. I’ll see you in six weeks.”

  She reached out and stuffed a five-dollar tip into my hand before she scurried around Ian, who looked as if he was half inclined to chase everyone out of the salon.

  As if he needed me alone.

  As if he just . . . needed me.

  There was something unhinged about him, so raw and abraded and sensitive beneath all that hardness.

  Those eyes flashed, and I gulped as I quickly swept up the mess under the chair and tossed the bill onto my station. I angled my head. “Let’s get you washed up, Mr. Jacobs.”

  His nostrils flared the second I said it, and he strode across the salon, his legs taking long, purposed strides as he moved toward me.

  I could feel it.

  The shift in the air.

  A hot intensity that spun and shivered and shook with every step that he took. He passed by, brushing my arm, sending shivers skating across my flesh.

  This was so bad. So, so bad, because I couldn’t stop my reaction to him. The way my body ignited with the simple touch.

  I wanted this man in a way I shouldn’t.

  In a way that was wholly profound and wholly impossible.

  He sat at the same basin as the one he’d occupied just a week before. I did the same thing I did then, turned on the water and tested its temperature before taking the nozzle and slowly wetting his hair.

  It turned dark beneath my hands, as dark as his eyes that watched me carefully.

  “What are you doing here?” I finally whispered.

  Anger stormed across his face, the emotion just as distinctly marked in his voice. “I want to submit for an emergency injunction. I don’t want your children anywhere near Reed.”

  A gust of surprised air left my lungs. “That . . . seems impossible. That would mean having him declared as unfit, and the only thing Reed cares about is his reputation. He’s not going to take lightly to us trying to make him look bad.”

  We were both whispering, held in our little bubble as I gently washed his hair, and he issued words that filled me with too much hope and too much fear.

  The two collided.

  Turmoil that clashed in the center of my chest.

  I wanted it . . . so badly . . . to permanently remove my children from Reed’s control. And I realized I was conceding to that fate, believing that would be the only way for me to maintain custody of my children.

  To share them.

  But that meant Reed having influence on them, too.

  That meant telling them goodbye each week and seeing the fear and questions and sadness in their expressions.

  Ian sat completely still, all except for those eyes that were flickering across my face, as if he were watching all of those exact fears play through my mind.

  My own questions, and my own sadness.

  And I realized my children and I were just passing that back and forth to each other. Each time they left and returned, it only grew.

  “He’s dangerous.” Ian’s jaw clenched, and I froze, watching the way the chiseled stone of his face hardened more.

  “How do you know that?” Of course, I knew that. He was a man capable of doing wicked, horrible things. It was the reason I’d left. It was the sudden urgency coming from Ian that had me shaken. “Did . . . did you find something out? Do you have proof?”

  “I don’t have solid proof yet. But I will find something. The only thing I’m going on right now is my gut, plus what Thomas confided in me. That’s big.”

  Something flashed through Ian’s eyes.

  A vulnerability unlike anything I’d ever witnessed in him before. I searched the depths, silently begging him to let me in, when the best thing for both of us would be for him to keep me out.

  But I wanted to know him. To hold him a little in the way he was holding me.

  “I . . .” His voice cracked as he struggled to find the words, and he pinched his eyes as if he couldn’t look at me when he admitted them. “I lived in fear my entire childhood, Grace. I never knew when I’d be hugged or when I’d be hit. I never knew who would protect me and who would hurt me. I don’t want that. Not for them.”

  Horror locked in my throat. I slowly rinsed his hair, my fingers threading through the soft, soft locks, my own words wobbling as I released them from my throat. “I’m so sorry, Ian. I’m so sorry you went through that.”

  His teeth ground, and I could feel his breaths turn ragged.

  All I could picture were the scars littering his skin, covered with shadows and ink.

  Gaze opening to me, he reached up and grabbed me by the wrist. “I told you not to pity me.”

  My voice turned so shallow I could barely speak. “I don’t pity you, Ian. I’m in awe of you. Of who you are and who you became.”

  His eyes squeezed closed again. “I’m not a good man. I’ve done horrible things.”

  I turned off the faucet and grabbed a towel, tenderly rubbing it over his head, my face so close to his that our noses were touching when I quietly said, “You were only trying to survive, doing the best you could. I don’t know your whole story, Ian, but I know you are good underneath it all. I see it.”

  My mouth fell to the shell of his ear. “I’ve felt it.”

  A shudder rolled through him, and I could feel the pain emanating from his spirit. Something old and hidden ripping free. But it was anger that came tearing from his mouth like a curse. “My mother . . . she was a junkie and prostitute. I have no idea who my father even was.”

  Grief.

  It streaked through me.

  A thunderbolt.

  Rending me in two.

  Instantly, my mind was back on the confession I’d made to him in his office. He was the first person I’d ever told that I suspected Reed was involved with illicit things. Taking women because he could afford to buy them.

  It left something sour on my tongue.

  I could almost sense Ian as a child, a sweet, sweet boy who’d been shaped and molded and formed into a hardened man.

  A deep-seated realization crashed over me.

  This was why he thought of children has a burden. As too great a risk.

  “I would never neglect my children.” I was almost begging him to believe me when I said it.

  Emotion twisted through his expression, anger and hurt and fear. Gruff words breezed across my face. “Sometimes, it’s already happening before someone realizes it’s too late.”

  “It’s okay to love her and be angry with her for the way you were raised.” I knew I was going a direction I shouldn’t go.

  Tumbling.

  Tumbling.

  But I couldn’t stop, wanting to hold the grief that thundered through his veins and thrashed in his spirit.

  He barely shook his head, fighting opening up. “I did love her. So much, Grace. So much. And I failed her.”

  Confusion pulsed, and my hand went to his face. With the contact, those eyes flashed open for a beat, giving me a view to what was buried deep inside.

  Torture.

  Torment.

  “No, Ian. There’s no chance,” I murmured,
the two of us still caught up, taken away, elevated to another plane where it was just him and me.

  His pain was so palpable, I was finding it difficult to breathe. “You’re wrong, Grace. You’re wrong. And I’m fucking terrified I’m going to fail you. I fuck everything up. Ruin it when it matters most.”

  “You won’t fail us. I know it,” I was close to begging.

  Those strange-colored eyes flashed, cinnamon and orange and the setting sun. “I won’t. I promise you, I won’t. We have to take that bastard out so your kids don’t ever have to experience the agony of losing their mother.”

  It flooded me.

  Love. Love. Love.

  My spirit screamed it.

  My tongue wanted to confess it.

  But I knew it would be refused. Ian was in no position to accept it. Instead, I took his hand and guided him to standing, the man towering over me from behind. I started to lead him into the private waxing room.

  I was overcome with the need to touch him. To hold a little of his pain. To show him he was worthy of so much more than the self-loathing that he held onto so tightly.

  The soles of our shoes echoed over the floors, and there was no doubt in my mind that every head in the salon turned to watch us go.

  I didn’t care.

  The only thing I cared about was him. The frenzy that worked up inside me. A need greater than any other.

  I nudged him into the dimly-lit room, and he was still stumbling back as I clicked the lock on the door.

  Typically, the atmosphere in the small space of this room was quiet and subdued so the clients could relax.

  Ian looked anything but relaxed.

  Every molecule between us charged.

  Getting ready to blow.

  That jaw twitched, and I watched as he grew hard, the outline of his massive cock pressing at the thin fabric of his pants.

  I flew for him, undoing his belt buckle and unzipping his pants before I could control the impulse.

  A surprised whoosh gushed from Ian’s mouth. “Angel Girl, what do you think you’re doing?” His voice was grit and need, and it only spurred me on.

  I dropped to my knees, needing this man to feel half of what he made me feel. The way he’d commanded my pleasure back in his office. The way he kept me up at night, tossing and turning as I dreamed of what it might be like to be loved by a man like him.

  I wanted to return some of it.

  Show him what it would be like to truly be adored.

  Loved.

  Give it and offer it.

  Lust sped, mixed with the frenzy of emotion that gripped my heart, the realization of what he’d become to me. I jerked his pants down around his thighs, taking his underwear at the same time. His cock sprang free, thick and full and long, bouncing in my face as it pointed for the sky, the tip already glistening with his need.

  “Fuck, Grace, you don’t have to—”

  I wrapped my hand around him, stroking once, looking up into his eyes. “I know I don’t have to, Ian. I know you don’t expect anything from me. And I know we can’t do this. But I need you to feel this. To feel me. Let me. Please.”

  I licked across his engorged head, tasting the saltiness of the man.

  On a groan of surrender, his fingers threaded into my hair.

  And the timid, vulnerable boy he’d shown me out at the sink was gone.

  In his place was that dominant man.

  He surged his cock forward in a possessive stroke.

  I welcomed him, swallowing him down into the back of my throat as far as I could take him.

  For a moment he just stared down at me.

  His gaze doing something different.

  Something soft and adoring and my heart was whispering stupid, foolish things.

  I’m falling in love with you, Ian Jacobs.

  Then he fully let go, grabbing me by the sides of my head as he began to fuck my mouth.

  Every thrust deep, dominating, and measured.

  Desire spiraled inside me, a hot vortex that sucked me in, making my mind spin and my spirit sore.

  Desperate to get closer to him.

  “Grace, God . . . you feel . . . fuck . . . your mouth is perfect. So sweet. God, you’re sweet.”

  I sucked him and stroked him and palmed his balls.

  Ian growled.

  Low and menacing.

  Tingles sped, fire across my skin. With the stark expression that took hold of his gorgeous features, I knew I was in trouble.

  This man was going to devour me.

  There was no missing it, the way he was watching me with all that lust he’d been watching me with that first night.

  With something akin to anger.

  Possession in the muscles that bowed and flexed and pulled taut.

  Tension stretched the air thin, severity bounding through the enclosed space.

  He suddenly pulled out of my mouth and jerked me off my knees. His hands went under my skirt, and he ripped down my panties, winding them off my heeled boots in the same second as he was spinning me around and bending me over the waxing table.

  “You don’t have the first clue what you’re doing to me, do you, Angel Girl? Ruining me. Little by little. I want to mark you, Grace. Get so deep inside of you that you’ll never forget my name.”

  Oh, there was no worry of that.

  Surprise left me on a gasp, unprepared for the pleasure that sheared through me when he bunched up my skirt and thrust himself deep.

  Hard and fast.

  I jolted forward, hands darting out to the opposite side of the table, hanging on as he began to pound into me.

  Relentlessly.

  So deep and desperate, I could feel him capturing all of me.

  Taking it all.

  He rocked and jutted and fucked.

  Driving me to the brink, pulling back, slowing and teasing, before he was driving me out of my mind again.

  I was whimpering, hands clinging, heart a thunder where it beat through the confines of the tiny room.

  “Do you feel that, Grace? What it’s like to feel like you’re losing your mind? This is what you do to me. Every second. Every day. You make me crazy. Make me forget myself. Make me think I might want things that I can’t have. You make me believe in the impossible.”

  “You have me. You have all of me.” They were pleas falling from my lips, panted into the thick, dense air, and Ian was inhaling a rasping sound.

  “Don’t say things you don’t mean,” he warned, driving his dick deep, spreading my bottom wider, angling in a direction that had me losing all control.

  Bliss so bright I was seeing spots.

  The man holding me.

  Controlling me.

  Liquid. Fluid. A river that washed through the middle of me.

  “I’m yours.”

  Surprise heaved from his lungs, and his hands tightened their hold, and he drove deeper, harder, as deep and hard as his voice. “Say it again.”

  “I’m yours,” I rasped.

  “All of you?” he demanded.

  “All of me.”

  He spread me wider, the feel of him almost more than I could bear.

  So perfect and wrong.

  The man my heaven.

  The man my hell.

  Everything I wanted, a tease of what I could never keep.

  “You make me forget everything that’s important to me,” he grated. Confusion and anger spiraled out like a complaint, and he was running his fingers through the crease of my bottom, fingers touching me in places I’d never been touched.

  I groaned out a surprised sound, half mortified, the other half pushing back. Begging for more. For everything this man could give me.

  “Ian,” I whispered through my own confusion.

  Delirium.

  The man the fever that raced through my veins.

  “Do you like that, Grace? I’ve had that mouth and that sweet pussy. Would you give me this, too? If you belonged to me, would you let me take it?”

  Raw
ness bled from him. Sheer, masculine dominance. Power and strength. Anger and ire.

  But I wasn’t afraid. Not even close. The only thing I was afraid of was him letting go.

  “I already do. I belong to you in a way I’ve never belonged to anyone else.”

  He instantly slowed, yanking a mournful cry from my mouth as his strokes became long and measured. As measured as when he swirled a fingertip around my ass before he was slowly pressing in two.

  “Like that?” he murmured. A caress. A promise. A threat.

  I wanted to moan. To beg. To weep. All I could say was, “Please.”

  He pushed his fingers deeper and deeper.

  More and more.

  Taking and filling and ruining every inch of me.

  Because just like I knew when I’d first met him, I was never going to be the same. Ian Jacobs was going to scar me in the best of ways. In the most profound of ways.

  “Yes,” he hissed. “Fuck, you are perfect.”

  It felt so full and so wrong and so perfect, and I swore, I could feel every cell in my body come alive.

  As if every single nerve ending was riding the sharp, bitter edge of ecstasy.

  Everything alight.

  Fire and flames and need that glowed white hot.

  Pleasure as he began to rock and fuck, fingers moving in sync.

  His breaths shallow and his pleasure palpable, the man barely hanging on by a thread.

  “Nothing . . . nothing has ever felt better than you, Grace. Nothing. Not once. Not ever. Everything is better than the last. Every look. Every touch. Every time I take you. You. Are. Everything.”

  That’s what I wanted to be.

  His everything.

  But I knew it was impossible, and still I wanted it all.

  So, we rode on our blissful torment, my hands planted on the bed as I began to meet his thrusts. As he touched me in a way that made my sight blur at the edges and my heart speed out of control.

  Energy ricocheted through the tiny room.

  Bounding.

  Gaining momentum with each rock of his hips and every tremble of my body.

  His other hand slipped around to find that sweet spot that instantly lit.

  Fireworks.

  Rockets.

  I was burning alive.

  Unsure I could take it. Needing more. My head swished back and forth, and I gripped tighter as the man possessed me.