As if he needed me alone.
As if he just . . . needed me.
There was something unhinged about him, so raw and abraded and sensitive beneath all that hardness.
Those eyes flashed, and I gulped as I quickly swept up the mess under the chair and tossed the bill onto my station. I angled my head. “Let’s get you washed up, Mr. Jacobs.”
His nostrils flared the second I said it, and he strode across the salon, his legs taking long, purposed strides as he moved toward me.
I could feel it.
The shift in the air.
A hot intensity that spun and shivered and shook with every step that he took. He passed by, brushing my arm, sending shivers skating across my flesh.
This was so bad. So, so bad, because I couldn’t stop my reaction to him. The way my body ignited with the simple touch.
I wanted this man in a way I shouldn’t.
In a way that was wholly profound and wholly impossible.
He sat at the same basin as the one he’d occupied just a week before. I did the same thing I did then, turned on the water and tested its temperature before taking the nozzle and slowly wetting his hair.
It turned dark beneath my hands, as dark as his eyes that watched me carefully.
“What are you doing here?” I finally whispered.
Anger stormed across his face, the emotion just as distinctly marked in his voice. “I want to submit for an emergency injunction. I don’t want your children anywhere near Reed.”
A gust of surprised air left my lungs. “That . . . seems impossible. That would mean having him declared as unfit, and the only thing Reed cares about is his reputation. He’s not going to take lightly to us trying to make him look bad.”
We were both whispering, held in our little bubble as I gently washed his hair, and he issued words that filled me with too much hope and too much fear.
The two collided.
Turmoil that clashed in the center of my chest.
I wanted it . . . so badly . . . to permanently remove my children from Reed’s control. And I realized I was conceding to that fate, believing that would be the only way for me to maintain custody of my children.
To share them.
But that meant Reed having influence on them, too.
That meant telling them goodbye each week and seeing the fear and questions and sadness in their expressions.
Ian sat completely still, all except for those eyes that were flickering across my face, as if he were watching all of those exact fears play through my mind.
My own questions, and my own sadness.
And I realized my children and I were just passing that back and forth to each other. Each time they left and returned, it only grew.
“He’s dangerous.” Ian’s jaw clenched, and I froze, watching the way the chiseled stone of his face hardened more.
“How do you know that?” Of course, I knew that. He was a man capable of doing wicked, horrible things. It was the reason I’d left. It was the sudden urgency coming from Ian that had me shaken. “Did . . . did you find something out? Do you have proof?”
“I don’t have solid proof yet. But I will find something. The only thing I’m going on right now is my gut, plus what Thomas confided in me. That’s big.”
Something flashed through Ian’s eyes.
A vulnerability unlike anything I’d ever witnessed in him before. I searched the depths, silently begging him to let me in, when the best thing for both of us would be for him to keep me out.
But I wanted to know him. To hold him a little in the way he was holding me.
“I . . .” His voice cracked as he struggled to find the words, and he pinched his eyes as if he couldn’t look at me when he admitted them. “I lived in fear my entire childhood, Grace. I never knew when I’d be hugged or when I’d be hit. I never knew who would protect me and who would hurt me. I don’t want that. Not for them.”
Horror locked in my throat. I slowly rinsed his hair, my fingers threading through the soft, soft locks, my own words wobbling as I released them from my throat. “I’m so sorry, Ian. I’m so sorry you went through that.”
His teeth ground, and I could feel his breaths turn ragged.
All I could picture were the scars littering his skin, covered with shadows and ink.
Gaze opening to me, he reached up and grabbed me by the wrist. “I told you not to pity me.”
My voice turned so shallow I could barely speak. “I don’t pity you, Ian. I’m in awe of you. Of who you are and who you became.”
His eyes squeezed closed again. “I’m not a good man. I’ve done horrible things.”
I turned off the faucet and grabbed a towel, tenderly rubbing it over his head, my face so close to his that our noses were touching when I quietly said, “You were only trying to survive, doing the best you could. I don’t know your whole story, Ian, but I know you are good underneath it all. I see it.”
My mouth fell to the shell of his ear. “I’ve felt it.”
A shudder rolled through him, and I could feel the pain emanating from his spirit. Something old and hidden ripping free. But it was anger that came tearing from his mouth like a curse. “My mother . . . she was a junkie and prostitute. I have no idea who my father even was.”
Grief.
It streaked through me.
A thunderbolt.
Rending me in two.
Instantly, my mind was back on the confession I’d made to him in his office. He was the first person I’d ever told that I suspected Reed was involved with illicit things. Taking women because he could afford to buy them.
It left something sour on my tongue.
I could almost sense Ian as a child, a sweet, sweet boy who’d been shaped and molded and formed into a hardened man.
A deep-seated realization crashed over me.
This was why he thought of children has a burden. As too great a risk.
“I would never neglect my children.” I was almost begging him to believe me when I said it.
Emotion twisted through his expression, anger and hurt and fear. Gruff words breezed across my face. “Sometimes, it’s already happening before someone realizes it’s too late.”
“It’s okay to love her and be angry with her for the way you were raised.” I knew I was going a direction I shouldn’t go.
Tumbling.
Tumbling.
But I couldn’t stop, wanting to hold the grief that thundered through his veins and thrashed in his spirit.
He barely shook his head, fighting opening up. “I did love her. So much, Grace. So much. And I failed her.”
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.