I realized it right then . . . that’s what I’d seen beneath that harsh, brazen exterior.
“You think you know all that from the few times that we’ve talked?” It was a hard, savage defense.
I inhaled, my heart a clatter in my chest, affection coming on fast. Just the way I knew that it would. So quick to get attached.
Craving the feeling he incited.
The feeling as if I could maybe be important. Something more than waste. And I was certain he needed to know he was important, too.
I could feel my fractured heart splintering a little more, opening up to make him room.
“I see you . . . looking so flashy in your expensive suit. So proud. Covering something broken inside.”
I touched the tattoo that peeked out from the cuff on his wrist, as if the design were dripping sorrow, mourning for something unseen.
The demon.
And I wondered what could have possibly gone so wrong in his life that he’d ever think himself evil.
I was overcome by the urge to peel back his shirt, push it from his shoulders, explore and discover.
“Am I wrong?” I pushed.
His thick throat rolled. “No.” He fiddled with a piece of my hair. “No, Angel Girl, you’re not. Maybe that’s what scares me the most.”
His teeth gritted. “But it’s those broken parts you recognize inside me that make me who I am. They are what make me cruel. I learned as a little boy that the only person I could look out for was myself. Learned it was the only way to survive. I’ve done horrible things, Grace.”
Shame passed across his face, and his voice dipped, churning with grief. “Things that haunt me. And still, I know at the root of me, that I will continue to do whatever it takes to survive. I look out for myself. The only people who get any part of me, who hold any part of my heart, are my brother and his family and Mack. That’s it. They are the only people I know I can rely on. They’re the only people I have space for. The only people I can trust.”
If it was possible, he got closer.
Winding and winding. Drawing me in.
“And then there’s you. This girl who I don’t even know who I feel like I might fight to the death to keep.”
Tears gathered in my eyes.
Why was I close to crying?
But sometimes we all needed to be held. Supported. Fought for. I let my fingertips run down the side of his gorgeous face. “And what if you don’t like the parts of me that you don’t know?”
He gripped my hand, his lips to my knuckles, kissing them softly.
I sucked in a breath, so close to coming undone right there.
“I don’t think there’s anything you could tell me that would make me unwant you.”
There was the threat of a smile.
A hint of seduction.
Hell, there was an avalanche of it. Knocking me right off my feet. Apparently, the boy was a pro at that.
“I’m sorry for the wait. Are you ready to order, or would you like me to start you off with something to drink?” We both jumped when the server’s voice hit us from the side.
Ian cleared his throat and glanced at me. “Share a bottle of wine with me?”
“Yeah, that would be nice.”
This time, she returned quickly, and Ian poured us each a glass.
Lifting his, he clinked it to mine. “To misplaced slippers.”
He let one of those wicked grins ride to his lush mouth, and I felt a blush rushing to my face. “That was probably the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to me.”
Shifting to sit a little to the side, he watched me, his expression soft. “Is it wrong that I’m not feeling so sorry that you fell?”
I took a sip of my wine. “I’m having a hard time feeling sorry that I did, either.”
He reached out, a finger running the angle of my jaw.
Tingles spread. So fast. So hot.
It was a little terrifying the draw this man held over me.
“I still have that shoe.”
My head jerked back an inch. “You do?”
Amusement played across his features. “I figured I’d keep it as a memento from an unforgettable night.”
I chewed at the inside of my cheek, warmth slipping through every inch of my body.
There was something about him that made me feel that way.
Comfortable and safe.
Like maybe he really would fight to the death for me.
“Tell me you don’t have some kind of weird shoe fetish?” I teased.
Laughter rumbled in his massive chest, and one of those wicked smirks climbed to his mouth. “I wouldn’t go so far to call it a fetish, but I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t want to see you wearing those shoes again.”
He leaned in, words spiraling through the middle of me. “Wearing nothing else but me.”
My skin felt sticky and hot, and my belly did a tumble and flip.
Needy breaths pulled from my lungs, and he was back to searching me, fingers playing casually in a lock of my hair.
But there was nothing casual about the way his tone shifted. “What were you doing there that night?”
I looked at him, hoping he’d understand. “I was taking a chance, Ian. I was stepping out and taking a chance. Praying someone might see me. Might listen. And when I looked up, what I found was you.”
Cinnamon eyes flashed.
A shockwave of need.
Heat blistering across my flesh.
He might as well have tossed me into that fire.
Because flames lapped, burning up my insides.
One of those big hands landed on my neck, trailing south, gripping at my waist. He breathed out, a plea of words that he whispered at my mouth. “Just dinner isn’t going to work for me, Grace. Not when there’s so much more to you. So much of you waiting to be discovered.”
“You make me feel like I’m standing at the edge of something brilliant. Something significant,” I confessed in a twined rasp of words. “You make me feel something . . . want something that I don’t think I’ve ever wanted in all my life. Something I’m not sure I even understand.”
Ian set his wine aside, took my glass, and did the same. He stood, a tower of shadows that lapped over me. He took out his wallet, pulled out a hundred-dollar bill, and trapped it under one of the stems.
Then he reached out his hand. “Let me show you.”
Thirteen
Grace
I stood anxiously facing the double-doors in the foyer on the top floor of the new building just two blocks over from where we hadn’t gotten around to just dinner. There were only two condos on this floor, and Ian had punched a code into the elevator to gain us access.
Standing behind me, he snaked an arm around my side and slipped a key into the lock. His big body was at my back. Covering me like a shroud.
Nerves rustled through my body, making me shake.
Was I really doing this? It was so unlike me. So far removed from who I was. But I didn’t know how to stop from following this man.
Enthralled.
Spellbound.
The lock clicked, and one side of the door swung open. A murky darkness billowed out from within, his condo darkened, the rambling space only illuminated by a long row of windows at the far end of the open living room.
It overlooked the bay, the view beyond a hazy glow of moonlight and glitters of sparkling city lights.
I took a tentative step forward, my gaze jumping around his home as if it might give me a clue into the man.
From behind, he edged forward and shut the door. The lock clicked back into place.
It resounded around the expansive room that was so sparsely furnished you’d think you’d just stepped into a sales model that had never been lived in.
Everything was perfectly in place.
A designer sofa that faced a television on a designer stand. A white marble table set for ten that gave the impression that it’d never been used. An immaculate kitchen that I doubted had ever seen a dirty dish.
As if he thrived on control.
Ian stepped forward and plastered his chest to my back, his head dipping down and his nose digging through the strands of my hair to find the sensitive flesh of my neck. A big arm looped around my waist and tugged me firmly against all that hard, hard man.
Rigid muscles and massive, rock-hard cock that prodded at the small of my back.
A threat.