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

by Jackson, A. L.

  And I knew I was lost.

  Gone.

  Completely gone to this girl.

  I dropped my forehead to hers, breathing in her sweet heat, her aura.

  Memories flashed.

  So bright.

  All the reasons I’d sworn to myself that I’d never allow my heart to love.

  That it was never worth the risk.

  And still, with her there, so close to me, her sweet spirit whispering to mine, my mouth was moving a breath from hers.

  “Kisses are forever, and only for the ones you love most.”

  I swore, she fell into the words.

  Became one with them.

  The surprised breath coming from her both hard and soft and covering me whole.

  Did she get what she’d done to me?

  She’d become the air in my lungs.

  The blood in my veins.

  The beat of my heart.

  Every part of me would be shattered when she was ripped away.

  But none of that mattered right then.

  The only thing that mattered was I was overcome with it. With what I’d been fighting since I first met her. Since she’d seeped in and taken over.

  The only thing that mattered was her.

  I swept my mouth over hers.

  Softly at first.

  Relishing in this slow kiss.

  This kiss that meant everything.

  Kisses are only for the ones you love most.

  It was a shout from the heavens.

  A claim of my soul.

  Delicate brushes of lips. The gentlest tangle of tongues. Giving and taking.

  Emotion swelled from the depths, boiling up.

  “Kisses are only for the ones you love most,” I murmured in the middle of our kiss.

  Lost to it—her passion and her surrender.

  Her mouth was a whisper against mine. “I want to kiss you for the rest of my life.”

  It was her own confession.

  I gripped her by the sides of the face so I could stare down at her, my eyes moving over her gorgeous face, my words so raw as they scraped from the bottom of my soul. “I love you, Grace. I fucking love you, and I love your kids, and it’s going to destroy me. I know it. I know it. It will, and I don’t care. The only thing that matters right now is loving you. If I get to feel this for even one day, it will be enough.”

  “Oh, Ian.” It was a wisp from her mouth, her hands spreading over my chest, riding up to grasp my face. “There will never be a day when I don’t feel this. When you won’t matter. You’ve become everything.”

  We were spinning.

  Crashing.

  Kissing.

  Kissing, kissing, kissing.

  Nothing had ever felt so good. So right.

  Hands everywhere.

  Frantic and needy and unhinged.

  I gulped her presence down, kissing her hard and possessively as I backed her toward the bed.

  That crazy energy thrummed between us. But tonight—tonight I swore that it glowed. Brighter than ever before.

  Those hands found my shoulders, and she pressed her tight body against mine, whimpering as she tried to get closer. “Ian . . . my sweet broken man. How am I supposed to live without you now? How . . . when you’ve changed everything? What I want and who I am?”

  “I love you.” It was the only answer I had.

  “I love you,” she rasped, the words winding through me like the most passionate caress. Delirium on my ears. Perfection on my soul.

  All I wanted was more.

  And she was giving it to me. Like she knew how desperately I needed it.

  “I love you so much it hurts, Ian. So much that I can feel you etched on my skin. Written on my heart. Marked on me forever. You are my gift. The hero I never expected.”

  I knew that was the moment Grace finally shattered me.

  Pieces spilled out and poured into her hands.

  Part of me wanted to deny it, to tell her again that we couldn’t do this.

  But I was swamped by the truth that oozed from her body. Overcome by the devotion that poured from mine.

  The crazy realization that I would do anything, give up anything, if it meant she found the joy she deserved.

  Freedom with her children.

  Her sweet, sweet kids.

  Barely even knew them. Didn’t matter. It was all-consuming. The instinct to wrap them up and protect them the way I wanted to protect her.

  To love them.

  To love them.

  Derangement clouded my mind, distorted my judgment.

  I kissed her harder, and she gasped out a throaty sound, and I didn’t stop, didn’t slow as I devoured her delicious mouth.

  I wanted all of her. Every inch. To possess and claim and mark.

  I growled and hoisted her into my arms.

  Mine.

  She wrapped those lust-inducing legs around my waist.

  Blood pounded south, and my dick grew so hard, it was close to painful.

  Pained, perfect bliss.

  That was this girl.

  Flawless desolation.

  “I won’t let him hurt you,” I promised as I carried her to the massive bed set against the far wall, the bedding plush and thick and soft.

  As soft as this girl.

  While every inch of me was hard and rippling with possession.

  “I won’t let him take them from you. I promise you. He has nothing. Nothing. I’ll die before he gets the chance. Do you understand?”

  Teal eyes found mine. So real. This girl life. “I trust you, Ian. I trust you.”

  “I need you. Now.” It was all a mumble between my impatient kisses. My lips tugging and nipping and moving in a frenzied dance with hers.

  I shoved down the misery when my thoughts traveled to the truth that I couldn’t keep her. That I was still her attorney. If the courts even caught a whiff of what we were doing, anything I could do for her would be null.

  Void.

  “I’m yours,” she whimpered. “I think I have been since the moment you chased me down on that dancefloor.”

  “Mine,” I mumbled back. “You’ve been mine since the second I looked up and saw you. God, Grace . . . it’s you . . . you who changed everything inside me.”

  Kisses are for the ones you love most.

  Standing at the foot of the bed, I laid her down in the middle of it. Her blonde hair spread out across the pillow, her lush body rocking with her own need.

  Her hand fluttered toward me, that charm bracelet on her wrist tinkling as it slipped up her arm, the connection binding us pulling taut, her voice comfort and seduction. “That man’s been there all along. You just needed someone to believe in him. I believe in him. I believe in you.”

  I stood staring down at the girl of my dreams.

  A fantasy.

  Everything I’d never believed I deserved or even wanted.

  And there she was, spread out like my idea of eternity.

  A partner to this place that screamed of purity and safety and love.

  Faith told us last night that magic happened in this room.

  Miracles.

  I’d become a believer.

  Because standing there, I knew I’d never be the same.

  Grace. Grace. Grace.

  I needed it in my life.

  I needed her in my life.

  How had I been so blind to what I was missing?

  I climbed over her, and those long legs parted, making me room.

  Hands planted on either side of her head, I stared down at her in the moonlight.

  My chest expanded, so wide I was sure it was going to burst.

  Those fingers trailed down my face.

  She angled up to brush her mouth across my bottom lip. “I love you, Ian Jacobs.”

  Hands diving into her hair, I captured her mouth.

  Kissed her wild.

  With the type of passion I’d never allowed myself to experience.

  Unbridled.

  Raw
.

  Real.

  Emotion pitched and rocked and drove us higher.

  Her heart was drumming an erratic thud, thud, thud, and I spread my hand out over it, feeling it pound for me.

  “I love you,” I said again.

  Because I couldn’t stop.

  She moaned through a small laugh and whispered, “I love you so much.”

  I drank down her words like they were the water of life.

  God.

  She was exquisite.

  Her tongue temptation.

  A sweet, juicy plum.

  Every flick of it sent shockwaves of lust racing through my body.

  “You are delicious, Grace.” I couldn’t help but tell her.

  Another giggle slipped up her throat and landed on my tongue.

  Like she was offering me her joy.

  Joy.

  That might have been the first time I felt the fullness of it. The wholeness of what it meant.

  I edged back so I could peel her shirt over her head, leaving her in her bra and jeans. Her hair mussed and her lips swollen from my kisses.

  Her spirit danced and lapped, at one with the shadows, glowing in the darkness.

  Wrapping me up in ribbons and bows.

  Sitting back on my knees, my eyes rode up and down her perfect body.

  “Grace,” I murmured, reaching out to stroke her cheek with my thumb, running it under the hollow of her eye, down to that mouth.

  Back and forth.

  Back and forth.

  “Look what you’ve done to me.”

  I pressed my hand behind her back to rid her of her bra before I edged up a fraction so I could reach down to flick the button of her jeans.

  I left her only long enough to rip them and her underwear down those legs.

  Those legs that were nothing but miles of silk and curves and seduction.

  I’d gladly get lost and roam them forever.

  My own sacred promised land.

  I continued to kiss her while everything between us intensified.

  Growing more desperate by the second.

  Wasn’t like I hadn’t been inside this girl before. Taking her. Owning her.

  But this . . . this was different.

  We both knew it.

  It was the pinnacle we’d been climbing toward.

  Where everything melted and then melded.

  Where me and this girl became one.

  This was where I offered everything.

  Where it was only Grace and me.

  This . . . this was where love lived.

  Her fingers trembled as she worked through the buttons of my shirt, the girl shaking as she pushed the fabric off my shoulders. I twisted out of it, tossing it onto the floor with the rest of her clothes, the girl making short work of my pants, shoving them down my thighs so I could kick them free.

  I hovered over her body, my eyes devouring every inch, cherishing every second.

  “You’re so beautiful,” I murmured, dipping down to nip at her ear. “So sexy. I can’t see straight when I’m looking at you, because the only thing I see is my perfection. Everything I’ve ever wanted. But it’s this heart . . . this sweet, sweet heart that changed mine.”

  Her chest heaved.

  I dipped down to kiss along the slender column of her neck, and her head rocked back. Fingers sank into the flesh of my shoulders.

  Lips traipsing, I moved lower, roving over the wild thrum of her beating heart. I licked a path across one breast until I was taking it into my mouth, sucking and laving and making her moan.

  “Ian.” Hands found my hair, tugging. “Ian.”

  “What do you need, Angel Girl, what do you need?”

  “You. The only thing I need is you. I don’t think I know how to keep living without you. Not when the meaning of life now includes you. You’re a part of me. Forever.”

  Her fingertips traced over the designs marring my flesh like she could read everything that was etched into my skin. Like she could grasp the story, dip her fingers in deep and feel every scar. What they meant. Where they came from.

  Her fingers traced over the demon on my arm.

  A shiver rolled through the darkest depths, and the confession was pouring out, “With you, I don’t want to be him. Not anymore. If I could be someone else for you, I would.”

  “You’re the man I fell in love with, Ian. You. Not who you could be or who you were in the past. But the man who’s shown me time and again who he really is. The man who’s stood up for me. For my children. The man who’s taken a risk when I know what I’m asking for is more than anyone should have to give. That’s who you are, Ian.”

  She was back to pressing her palm against the thunder that roared in my heart.

  And I was taken.

  Delirious.

  I positioned myself at the welcome of her sweet body before I drove home.

  Her body arched, and she softly cried out my name.

  Home.

  I gasped out at the stark pleasure that sizzled through every nerve.

  I could stay in that spot forever and be content.

  But I was dropping down and hooking my arm over the top of her head, holding her by the back of the knee with the other, opening her up for me as I began to move.

  Hard and slow and deep.

  Different.

  So different from how I’d ever been with another girl. Who fucking knew how many girls I’d fucked. Hundreds? A thousand? I didn’t know. The only thing I knew was none had compared to this.

  “You are the best thing I’ve ever felt. This . . . this is the gift, Grace. That I get to experience this with someone, even if it’s only one time.”

  I rocked into her, and the girl met every thrust.

  I dipped down. Kissed her long and slow and with everything I had.

  Forever and ever.

  With the truth that she’d come to mean everything, and still I wanted more.

  Our breaths turned shallow, and she was releasing these throaty pants into the air that I swallowed down. They only wound me up more, my stomach in knots and muscles flexing and bowing and rippling beneath her touch.

  Because the girl . . . she was touching me everywhere.

  My scars and my skin and my heart.

  “Ian.” She started to jut up into my body, needy for more. That was the one thing I could give her. I edged back, angling to hit her just right, holding myself up on one hand while I stroked her clit with the other.

  The girl clawed and whimpered and moaned, her body stretching tight below me. Everything cinching down.

  Bliss taking hold of the air.

  Taking us with it.

  “Ian,” she gasped one more time, and I captured her mouth to silence her scream.

  The girl came undone.

  Billows of her pleasure streaked through her body and directly into me.

  Sinking in and setting me free.

  Pleasure knotted at the base of my spine, my balls lifting as they slapped against her body.

  Harder.

  Faster.

  More.

  With Grace, I would always want more.

  But this was what we had.

  This moment.

  I gripped her tight when I came. Exploding into her body. My cock surging and pulsing and pouring into the wet, warm welcome of this woman.

  My mouth dropped open on a silent roar.

  Nothing . . . nothing had ever felt as good as that.

  Giving myself to her. Letting her hold it. My body went rigid, both of us hit with tremors and aftershocks.

  Floating somewhere high where I wished we could stay forever.

  She clung to me, holding me as close as she could as we both floated back down.

  Still, it felt like reality couldn’t touch us. Because it was just me and Grace and the ghosts in that room.

  I kissed her again.

  Nothing but the soft press of lips.

  Adoration.

  Then I rolled to my side and took h
er with me, tucking her into my side, refusing to let her go. I ran my fingers through those silky locks as she stared at me in the shadows.

  Hope blazed from the depths of those eyes. “Where do we go from here?”

  Guessed we both knew there was no going back from what we’d just shared.

  My words were gruff. “I don’t know, Grace. The only thing I know is I have to protect you and your kids from that bastard. That is the only thing that matters right now. Beyond that?” I gripped her tighter. “We will figure it out.”

  “I don’t want to lose you,” she admitted through a whisper, burrowing deeper into my side. “Not when I’ve finally found who I’ve been looking for.”

  I kissed her forehead. “And you’re exactly what I’ve been running from all along.”

  A frown pulled to her brow, understanding winding into her expression.

  The girl taking me under. “Will you tell me about her?”

  A tremor rolled through my body, and I opened my mouth, because somehow, I’d allowed this woman to cut me open wide.

  Thirty-Five

  Ian

  Seventeen Years Old

  The apartment door creaked open slowly, and the dread and worry that Ian had been tossing in all night shifted into anger. His hands balled into fists, and he pushed to standing from the couch as his mother walked through the door.

  A whole twenty-four hours since the last time he’d seen her.

  She was wearing a skin-tight dress and no shoes, and her hair was ratted and her makeup smeared under her eyes. She hobbled inside, limping on her left leg like she’d been injured.

  Beaten down.

  Worn and used up.

  That anger gripping Ian’s chest shivered in a flash of repulsion.

  How could she do this?

  She’d promised when they’d moved back to the city after Jace went to prison that things were going to be different. That she’d never touch drugs again. That she was going to take care of him, just like he’d promised he was going to take care of her.

  Things were going to be better. They had to be because Ian couldn’t fathom anything worse than the emptiness he’d felt when his brother had been taken away.

  Jace had been the one person he could rely on, his protector and his best friend, and now Ian was trying with all his might to step up and take his place.

  How was that ever gonna happen when his mama kept doing this?