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.”
“Okay.”
He reached out and grabbed just the tip of my two fingers. He swung our arms between us for a moment, so much there, electricity in his touch.
Fire and need.
The hardest part was feeling the undercurrent of sweetness that passed through it all.
“Tomorrow,” he told me.
Then he spun on his heel and bounded down the single step, leaving me standing there against the wall heaving for a breath.
I shook myself off and forced myself to go back inside.
I could hear Wheel of Fortune blaring from the family room, my grandmother’s favorite show. Of course, she wasn’t even in the room, instead moving around the kitchen as she started to prepare dinner.
Mallory’s voice was elevated over the television, the child singing about an affinity for big butts.
Apparently, our lives really had spun out of control.
I went into the kitchen where my grandmother had put Sophie into her high chair, my baby girl shoveling orange slices and dry Cheerios into her mouth. I kissed her head and then looked up at my grandmother, who stood facing away at the stove.
“Good meeting?” she asked.
“Yeah, I think so.”
She looked at me, one hundred percent appraising and just as accusing. “He’s awfully handsome.”
“Yes, he is, but that doesn’t have anything to do with what he’s doing for us.”
She arched a brow as she dumped fresh green beans in to boiling water. “Doesn’t it?”
“No.”
She chuckled under her breath. “I might be old, but I’m not senile.”
I moved across the kitchen and leaned against the counter.
“Where were you the other night?” she asked so casually. As if her question didn’t punch me in the gut.
God.
The woman was a bloodhound.
“Out.” I went for casual, too.
“With who?”
I shrugged and murmured, “No one special.”
She shook her head. “You think I didn’t notice you sneakin’ in here at four in the mornin’, hair all matted and wild, looking like you’d gone a round or two with the devil. What’s that they call it these days? Freshly fucked?”
Horrified, my eyes darted around the kitchen, praying my daughter hadn’t heard. “Gramma,” I hissed under my breath.
She shrugged, all nonchalant. “Oh, come on, Grace, you have three children, so I don’t think it’s necessary for me to sit you down and give you another talk about the birds and the bees, and there you are with your cheeks as red as a clown’s.”
My lips pursed. Maybe she was right. That was what it’d felt like with Ian. New and overwhelming and perfect.
Being touched that way.
Powerfully controlled and knowing I couldn’t be in safer arms.
Letting myself go.
Getting lost.
It was something I’d never experienced before.
My grandmother grabbed me by the chin and searched my face. “That’s what I thought. You did take a tumble with the devil.”
I’m the devil.
Ian’s warning spun through my mind. I wondered if my grandmother had heard it, too.
“Is that what you think he is? Because it sure seems to me as if he’s here to help us.”
“Or get back into your pants.”
“The exact opposite. Us never mentioning what happened the other night is one of his stipulations for helping.”
Still smiling, she shook her head. “All I’m saying is he is a man. Most men know exactly what it is that they want. And that one looks at you like he’s bound to eat you.”
I wished.
“Two of you were about to light up this room. That’s why I didn’t start dinner . . . couldn’t risk turning on the gas stove. Whole place might have blown.”
“Gramma.” It was all a scolding. “Besides, what were you doing up at four in the mornin’ when the kids weren’t here?”
“Might have been out taking me a tumble with one of those old devils myself.” She winked, stirring the pot.
I faked plugging my ears with my fingers. “Na-na-na-na.”
“Na-na-na-na,” Sophie mimicked, laughing manically when I looked her way.
I turned back to my grandmother. “You’re a horrible influence.”
“Nothing wrong with a little fun.” Something went soft about her, and she was watching me in a different way. “You know that, right? Especially with a man that looks like that.”
She was right back to waggling her brows.
I rolled my eyes. “That’s not going to happen. He’s my attorney. That’s it. It can’t go any farther than that. He’s doing this for me, and the last thing I want to do is get him into trouble. He laid out the rules, and we’re going to follow them.”
“Didn’t anyone tell you rules are made to be broken?”
“Says the woman who had me grounded for half my life.”
“You were a troublemaker.” Her voice was all a tease.
I huffed out a sound, words going dry. “I’m pretty sure I’ve broken enough rules.”