“Yes, just be ready for dinner in an hour.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He lumbered out the archway.
There was my grumbling boy.
I watched him until he disappeared, my eyes pinned on that spot, unable to look back at Ian who I knew was watching me.
I could feel it.
The heat searing across my flesh.
The way my heart tumbled and thrashed and sped.
Finally, the lure of it was too strong, and I looked his way.
Ian held me in the grips of his gaze. There was something so hard and angry there. Something so volatile and explosive. All of it for me. For my children.
Ian blinked as if he had to break himself from the trance we were under, and he pushed to his feet and flipped the cover of the notebook closed. He lifted it in the air. “Let’s hope Mack doesn’t see me with this.”
A giggle burst free, coming from the depths of the strain and butting against the absurdity of it all.
How had we ended up here?
“Don’t laugh,” he said, but there was something playing at the corner of his mouth.
“How can I not?”
He waved it around. “I better get out of here before she draws me into your story with a tiara and a pink cape.”
“No capes. Don’t you know anything?”
A twitch of a smile danced around his gorgeous mouth before he staunched it and tucked the notepad under his arm.
There he was.
So good under all that brash.
I followed him out of the kitchen and into the small foyer. Voices drifted in from the living room, my grandmother keeping the girls busy while Ian had asked Thomas questions.
Ian opened the door and stepped out into the cool, late afternoon, fall approaching quickly, the leaves on the trees spinning from green into gold.
Stepping out behind him, I hugged myself as another rush of gratitude prepared to gush from my lips.
I didn’t get a chance before I was gasping, shocked when Ian suddenly spun around, the powerful man backing me into the far corner of the stoop.
We were hidden behind a large shrub that crawled up the trellis and reached all the way to the eaves.
He kept coming toward me until my back thudded against the wall, and there was nothing I could do but breathe in the man.
Cinnamon and orange and delicious, mind-numbing sex.
I could almost taste him on my tongue.
My mouth watered, and my tummy tilted.
“You and I . . . we need to talk. Lay this all out. I need to know everything.”
I could barely nod. “I know.”
“I . . .” Ian curled his fist against the wall at the side of my head.
It was palpable.
The way violence skated across his skin.
“I hate him, Grace. I hate him for putting you through this. For putting that fear in your son’s eyes.” His voice dropped in menace. “I hate him that he ever touched you.”
He dipped in closer, his breath gliding across my face and sinking into my soul. “How fucked up is that? That I want to destroy this guy, take him out, because you once belonged to him?”
Emotion tangled around my heart. Tightening and tightening. “I thought you said this was just another case?”
Ian laughed a bitter sound. “I think you and I know better than that. You . . .”
His head angled to the side, the man searching for restraint. “You drive me insane. How’s it possible I let you get under my skin like this?”
“Do you think I don’t feel the same? I don’t even recognize myself around you.”
He dropped his forehead to mine. “I can’t have you.”
“I wish you could. Maybe in another life.”
Somberness bled out, his lips parting on a soft chuckle that rang with pain. “That’s too bad, considering we’re only given one.”
A tremble rippled between the two of us.
He inhaled against my temple. “You’re going to ruin me, Angel Girl.”
“And you’re going to save me.”
“That’s the intention.” He pulled back, gazing down at me with those penetrating eyes. “Do you trust me? Do you trust me to do this? If I fail you—”
I reached out and pressed two fingers to his lips before he could get it out. “The only thing I ever asked is that you take a chance on me. On us.”
He was still right there, in my space, the distance between us bare and alive. Blistering and boiling with that energy. He ran his nose up the curve of my jaw and to my ear.
Oh God.
This was so not good.
His lips moved against the sensitive flesh. “Just one thing . . . did you love him?”
He pulled back to take in the truth he knew he would find in my eyes.
“I did . . . once I did . . . before he ruined all the faith I had.”
He stepped back and nodded. “Tomorrow. Be in my office at nine. You tell me everything.”