Mallory shook her head. “My little sister is nothin’ but a handful. Ask Grams.”
Grace pried the crayons from the baby’s hand. The child screamed and stretched her arm back out from them. “Give, Sophie! Mine!”
Sighing, Grace tossed the crayons on to the table, where they promptly rolled off and landed on the floor. She bounced the baby on her hip and looked at me. “This is Sophie Marie, who is, in fact, a handful.”
With the last she smacked a kiss to the child’s temple, the kid going from screaming to giggling in a second flat, Grace nuzzling her nose to the child’s fat, rosy cheek.
I just sat there.
Realizing this all had to be a bad dream.
That was it.
I’d drank too much last night, and none of this was real.
Grace was a figment and her kids were a fabricated illusion sent to test my mind.
My will.
Then my eyes were going round, and a shocked shot of air jumped out of my lungs as cold liquid pooled on the front of my pants and soaked through to my dick, which was already having a really terrible day.
My attention jerked to the little girl who had crawled on top of the table to get an apple from the fruit bowl and had knocked over my glass of water in the process.
“Oopsie,” Mal Pal said with another one of those little shrugs and a grin.
Motherfuck.
It wasn’t an illusion.
It was just hell.
I glared at the kid. She and I were definitely not pals.
“Oh, goodness, Mal, look what you did,” Grace said, blowing out a frustrated sigh that somehow sounded like love.
She set Sophie on her feet—the kid who immediately went for the crayons rolling around on the floor—and grabbed a dish towel to clean up the mess.
Didn’t take but a second for the handful to start scribbling on the old linoleum floor.
Towel in hand, Grace rushed for me, not giving it a thought when she started rubbing the wet spot on my crotch.
Not helping things.
Because it was instant. The way my wayward dick reacted, desperate for the girl to give it a little love and kiss all this bullshit better.
A needy groan rumbled in my chest, and Grace inhaled sharply, like she felt the lust start seeping from my skin and climb to the air.
My jaw hardened, and I grabbed the towel. “I think I can manage, thank you.”
She bit down on her bottom lip. I couldn’t tell if she wanted to laugh or cry.
Crying sounded like a great idea.
Two seconds more, and I’d be rocking in a corner, sucking my thumb.
“Oh, God, I’m sorry,” Grace whispered as she tried to hold back the amusement that was clearly playing around her pretty face.
“Ian-Zian the Great and his pee-pee pants.”
Mal Pal.
I sent her a glare.
“What?” the child asked, way too sweet. “You got pee-pee pants.”
Grace barked out a laugh, no longer able to keep it contained.
My teeth gritted, and I buried my face in the towel. Like maybe I could up and disappear into it.
Refuse this craziness I was feeling.
Suffocated and warm and cold.
Made me feel like I was being stretched thin.
Torn apart.
I choked down the emotions and forced myself to grab on to the professionalism I’d perfected. That was the only thing I could do. What I was there for in the first place. “Mallory, since you’re an author and all, would you happen to have a notebook I could borrow?”
“Yes! Oh, yes, oh, yes, I got the best one ever as a present for my birthday and it’s really pretty and since you’re the hero, I’ll give it to you.” She scrambled down with a fist pump into the air and a leap.
Ballerina or unicorn, I couldn’t tell.
Either way, the kid apparently thought she was saving her crazy imaginary world.
She disappeared through the archway, her feet pounding down the hall, and I went back to dabbing the towel on my still hard cock I was half inclined to beat into submission.
Or maybe I could just ask Grace for the favor.
Yeah.
Not going to happen.
Not ever.
And that shit was just sad.
I was still looking down when I felt those eyes on me. That energy zapped between us.
A live wire.
Thrumming through the space.
I was pretty sure it was going to be the biggest problem of all.
Bigger than these damned kids or her damned situation or her damned mouth that I wanted to devour.
Because I couldn’t help but look up. Couldn’t help but get lost in that overpowering gaze and that tender smile. “Thank you, Ian. Thank you so much.”
“I haven’t done anything yet.”
“Except show up at my door. That’s the most important thing of all.”
I turned away, scrubbing some more at my pants, unable or unwilling to respond.
Wasn’t sure which.
The only thing I knew was I couldn’t take her gratitude. Didn’t deserve it.
A minute later, Mallory was back with a pink pad and an array of pink pens for me to choose from.
Awesome.
“Here you go, Ian-Zian.”
Grace reached over, tore a piece of paper from it, and gave it to the little girl on the ground who rolled onto her belly and started scribbling on the blank sheet.
“I get paper!” the tiny girl hollered up at me from the floor. She stuck out one of the crayons she gripped in her chubby fist, grinning at me like I wasn’t some kind of stranger and she knew me and she was eager for my approval.
I was pretty sure Grace’s children had declared anarchy.
Didn’t think it could get worse.
Oh, but it could.
Because my lungs locked up tight when a young boy came around the corner.
All scowls and bad attitude and messy, sandy-blond hair.
He reminded me so much of myself at that age that it took about everything I had not to go bolting out the door.
When she saw him, Grace softened and moved to where the kid had come to a stop in the archway. He stood there, taking me in with nothing but hostility.
She touched his cheek, his chin, so soft.
I didn’t want to watch it.
That real kind of love every kid deserved to feel.
To know their mom would be there for them when they woke up, no matter what.
And this kid might have that taken away.
I couldn’t stand—
“Thomas, this is Mr. Jacobs. He’s an attorney who is going to represent our case.” Grace started talking before I had the chance to finish the thought.
There was no missing the way her words had changed for him, no doubt the boy far too aware of the direness of their situation.
The hopelessness.
From out of nowhere, an overwhelming emotion charged through my being.
Determination girding every cell.
Emphatic.
Different from dedication and tenacity.
This felt like . . . purpose.
And that right there scared the living shit out of me.
The kid looked at me as if he were adding me up. Calculating the threat.
Wary, he looked back at his mom. “What if he works for him?”
I frowned. “What does that mean?”
Thomas laughed. “Everyone does. Dad gets what Dad wants. Right?”
Scorn. It oozed from his every pore.
“And what is it you want?” I asked, grabbing the notebook, knowing the kid was going to be a challenge, but he was also probably my best source.
My best witness.
Hell, the little girl could probably be swayed by a lollipop and a trip to the local bookstore.
Not this kid.
He lifted his chin. “I want to protect my mom.”
Huh.
Guessed the kid and I were on the same page, after all.
Twenty
Grace
I hovered.
Chewing at my nails and fighting the ball of emotion that had my insides twisted in a knot, every part of me wound up and held in Ian’s hands.
Thomas sat in the chair beside him, antsy, knee bouncing a hundred miles a minute under the table while Ian remained calm and casual, as if our worlds weren’t hanging in the balance.
But that didn’t mean I didn’t feel the intensity radiating from him.
The care.
Even when he didn’t want to admit it.
This beautiful, rough man who I wanted to reach out to and just . . . hug. Let him hold me and pray I could maybe hold a bit of him. But I knew that was impossible.