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.