“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.”