“I think you know by now that I will do whatever it takes to keep my children safe.”
She dug back into the same bag that she’d pulled the folder from, the same one she’d come in with the other day. She started pulling out a wad of that cash.
I flew out of my seat and was around my desk in a flash, sitting down on the edge of the chair next to her and shoving her hand back into the bag, my voice lowered to a hiss. “For the love of God, woman, put that money away. You think I don’t know where it came from?”
And if it did come from where I was betting, there was no chance that piece of shit was going to let it go.
Taken aback, she blinked at me. “We already discussed that this is just another case for you, Mr. Jacobs, and I know your services don’t come cheap.”
“I’m not taking your money.”
There I went again with the crazy talk. Seemed that, when it came to her, I couldn’t stop it from flying from my mouth.
Still, that mangled, black spec in the middle of my chest was making the decision for me.
Grace blew out a surprised breath. “Yes, you are, Mr. Jacobs. You’re taking this money, and you’re going to pretend you don’t know where it came from. I can’t sit here in good conscience and let you do this.”
“I don’t want your money.”
“Everything changed when you took me on as a client.”
“Everything changed when I saw you sitting at that bar.”
More craziness.
Unstoppable.
But no one had ever made me feel the way Grace did.
I tucked the money back into the bag, reaching over her so I could zip the satchel closed. It brought us too near, her spirit dancing out from her flesh, the girl’s presence so profound I could feel it shaking through me.
Our eyes locked, and I got lost there. In that deep, teal-blue ocean. The depths of her gaze unfathomable.
Entrancing.
“I’m taking this case on, pro bono.” My words lowered with the command, my lips moving two inches from hers while she watched me with some kind of awe and shock and horror.
Our bodies were so close, I could physically feel every erratic beat of her heart. Could almost hear the swoosh of the blood thumping through her veins. Could taste the desire that came off her skin.
“Mr. Jacobs.”
I grabbed her by the back of the neck, hauling her to the edge of the chair, our noses touching. “Call me that again, and I’ll have you bent over my desk,” I warned.
I’d lived all of my adult life in control.
Self-control, that was.
And this woman had single-handedly made me lose it.
Gone.
Obliterated.
Threatening the most reckless of things. But the only thing I could see right then was the image of doing exactly that, bending her over that wood and pushing her skirt up over her ass. Maybe making it mine.
What it might cost really didn’t seem to matter that much.
A tremble rolled through her. Her lips parted, and her eyes darted to mine, and I knew she was contemplating her own wicked things.
Pushing past all my boundaries.
Climbing over my walls.
Getting under my skin.
My teeth nipped at her chin. Never before had I wanted to eat a girl up more than I wanted to devour Grace right then.
She gasped, and her hands found my shoulders where they curled into the fabric of my suit jacket. “Mr. Jacobs.”
Need rumbled in my chest. “You are begging for trouble, aren’t you, Grace?”
I set my hand on her knee and ran it up the inside of her thigh.
Parting her legs as I went.
My other hand twisted up in that mass of blonde hair.
What the fuck did I think I was doing?
“What are you doing to me, Grace? I have no control when it comes to you. You make me want things I can’t have. Make me want to risk things I can’t risk.”
Her fingers dug deeper into my shoulders, words nothing but wisps of need against my face. “What do you want?”
“I want you. I want to explore every inch of your body. Taste and lick and fuck.”
I want to keep you.
“I thought you said that couldn’t happen?” The question was nothing but jutting rasps from her mouth as my hand continued to slip higher beneath the fabric of her skirt. I played my fingertips across the damp material of her satin underwear.
“It can’t.”
The girl was on the edge of her chair, the same as I was. Her legs were parted only enough to allow me to run my fingers over her panties, lightly, where I caressed the line of her slit with each pass.
Her legs were shaking so bad I was sure she couldn’t decide if she wanted to clamp them shut or spread them wider.
We were nose to nose.
Breath to breath.
This woman the only thing I could see.
Long legs and high heels and lusty pants.
“Ian.”
It was a plea.
A question.
She was asking for the answer to everything I didn’t understand myself. My tongue darted out to wet my dried lips, and I was sucking down her every exhale as I nudged the silky fabric aside and pushed two fingers into her pussy.
Slowly.
Deeply.
A low moan rolled up her throat.
I pressed my mouth there, up under her chin, kissing along the flesh of her trembling neck. “Shh,” I murmured. “Spread for me, baby. Let me make you feel good.”
Her grip cinched down tighter as she opened for me, and I began to drive my fingers in and out of her sweet body, my fingers fucking her slow and hard and greedily.
Coaxing all these little mewling sounds from her.
I just wanted to make her lose her mind one more time. Exactly the way she was making me lose mine. I wanted to feel her come on my fingers. To know I could draw out her pleasure.
See to it that she was wanting me just as desperately as I wanted her.
She was so soft.
So wet.
So right.
So perfect, I couldn’t help but tell her.
“You have the sweetest cunt, Grace. Did you know that? Did you know I haven’t stopped dreaming about it since I had you? Do you know how many times I’ve fantasized about it? All the ways I’d take you if you were mine?”
She moaned a needy sound.
My dick pressed painfully at my pants.
It took everything I had not to rip off my belt and do exactly what I’d warned. Bend her over my desk and take her from behind. Take her lush cheeks in my hands as I drove into her.
Hard and possessive.
That was what I felt.
Possessive.
This girl mine.
I wanted to own her.
Take her.
Keep her.
Deeper.
More.
“More,” she whimpered like she was a partner to every single thing I was feeling, to every thought, and I was watching her face, tugging her back by the hair as I drove the girl wild.
Her eyes were doing that mystical thing.
Drugging me.
Or maybe it was me who was drugging her.
Because she was grinding on my hand, ass barely hanging from the edge of the chair, desperate to get closer. Her head started to shake back and forth as she tried to make sense of what I was doing.
Energy flashed, and her entire body tightened. The woman rode the razor-sharp edge of pleasure. One I got the sense that she wanted to cling to forever.
“You want me everywhere, don’t you, Angel Girl? Would you let me take you? Take every single thing that I want?”
“Yes.”
I flicked my thumb over her clit.
It was instant. The way I felt her shatter.
Spasms rocked through her body.
Her pleasure in my hand.
Pooling and throbbing and speeding.
She curled her fingers into my hair, yanking hard, a scream locked in her throat. I ran my lips over it, across the vibration that blazed under the soft, delicate flesh, silently commanding her to keep it bottled and contained.
She rode on that ecstasy, tiny whimpers slipping from her mouth while all the wicked things I wanted to do to her welled up to feel like something precious that I held in my hands.
Like it would be okay to sink into her.
Claim her as mine.
And I knew I was losing it.
The way I had the intense urge to kiss her. Hold her. Promise her it would all be okay.
Instead, I slipped out of her body while I promised myself this could never happen again.