Hell, I’d known it was close to hopeless from the get go.
Reason I didn’t want to take it in the first place.
Not when I felt like every part of me was wrapped up in the middle of it.
My fists clenched in agitation when his engine roared and his tires squealed as he flipped around and tore down the street.
Every muscle in my body was rigid, antsy and angry and hungering to go after him. But it was the worry I felt for Grace that had everything breaking down around me.
She stood in some kind of terrorized, numbed state.
Her jaw slack and her gaze vacant.
“I’m so sorry I didn’t get here sooner.” It rumbled out of me, so low it became one with the whip of the wind.
Grace turned my way, emotion so thick in her expression that I was having a hard time standing in her presence.
Especially after this afternoon at the salon. After what I’d just walked in on right then.
“You’re sorry, Ian? You saved me.”
My face pinched as I let the admission free. “I want to kill him, Grace. I want to get in my car and chase him down and end it all. Destroy him so he has no chance of hurting you or your children again.”
She edged my way, locks of long, wavy hair whipping around her face, the girl a tornado of energy.
She reached out a trembling hand and touched the spot over my eye where the prick had gotten in a shot. “You’re here. That’s the only thing that matters.”
“Grace,” I whispered, unable to stop, overcome with this swell of emotion that filled me up. Bubbling from the deepest part of me, in that vacant place that had been left for ugliness that now glowed with something warm.
She reached her hand out for me. “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up. You’re a mess.”
I followed her into the house. The walls echoed with a profound stillness. Or maybe the intensity that beat between us was so alive that it was the only movement I could feel.
Pulse after pulse.
She moved down the hallway, and I followed. She turned into the first door on the left that was a small bathroom.
She shut the door behind us.
It closed us in.
Swore, I could taste her on my tongue.
That I was inhaling her spirit and imbibing her goodness.
That this woman was ruining me.
Those hands found the buttons of my shirt, and she was peeking up at me as she worked through them.
Slowly.
One by one.
Her heart battered so hard I could feel it drumming against the walls.
Ricocheting.
Slamming from her and into me.
Beat after beat.
She pushed the shirt off my shoulders.
Shivers rushed, and my breaths turned shallow. “Grace,” I whispered again.
Her head slowly shook. “I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t have shown up here.”
Rage burst in my blood. Flames of fury and hatred.
Incinerating.
I reached up and ran the pad of my thumb across her bottom lip.
Wiping hard.
Like I could erase the bastard.
“He tried to kiss you.”
I knew he’d intended more. Way more. His hands all over her. Slipping under and trying to get inside. All of it . . . it made me crazy. Self-control chipped away as I pictured what could have happened.
That he’d hurt her. Touch her. Force her.
Could feel that thread fraying, spinning, getting ready to snap.
I brushed my thumb across her lips again, entranced by the motion.
Kisses are for who you love most.
Emotion bottled in my chest.
So tight.
So big.
So real.
And the girl, she ran her fingertips over my mouth, tenderly, in a way I wasn’t sure I’d ever been touched.
I breathed out, lips parting.
Those blue eyes watched me with something vast. Something endless.
A toiling sea of all the things she couldn’t feel.
The things that I couldn’t feel.
But it was there.
Brimming in the space between us. Lapping like the lull of her waves. Rising higher and higher. So comforting and quiet that I was under before I knew I was drowning.
Our bodies had begun to move, circling, hovering, magnets that attracted and repelled.
Not quite touching.
So close. So close.
Unable to resist the connection, I dropped my forehead to hers, a choked sound leaving me, pain and wounds and the overpowering desire to protect her.
To keep her and hold her.
I squeezed my eyes closed, rocking forward and rocking back, pained pants leaving my lungs as I warred with this feeling.
With the compulsion.
Compelled to find this girl in a way I’d never found another.
There was nothing I could do.
My mouth slanted over hers, and I felt myself slip into oblivion.
Our lips pressed softly.
Once.
Twice.
God, she tasted so good. So right. So perfect.
The sweetest, juiciest plum.
It was instant. The way delirium raced.
A need unlike I’d never had before.
Wanting to consume all of her.
Like taking of her could fill up the hollowed-out space in my chest. Provide and sustain.
My hand twisted in her soft hair, and I slanted my mouth over hers, swallowing her needy gasp as I kissed her.
I kissed her.
“Ian.” On a raspy moan, her fingernails sank into my shoulders, raking my skin, trying to get closer.
Her tongue sought mine.
A soft, sugared petal.
Swirling so deliciously.
Ecstasy.
I’d never known it quite like this.
I kissed her harder, possessively, lips and tongue and nips of teeth. I wanted to devour her, gulp her down and gorge on her beauty.
She kissed me back just as recklessly. Hands everywhere. The two of us spiraling. Spinning as we banged into the wall, the door, the sink.
Hot, hot kisses.
A fever in my veins.
Need, want . . . love.
Oh, God.
Was pretty sure that was when the thread of sanity finally snapped.
When I lost all control. Mind gone. Insanity taking over. Everything I’d fought and overcome and put behind me finally caught up to me.
There were some things in life you couldn’t outrun.
Fear.
My oldest friend. My constant partner. Cold and hungry and afraid.
It gripped me everywhere, in a way I hadn’t felt since I was seventeen.
My chest tightened and everything came crashing down.
Raining.
Pouring.
Annihilating.
Panic gripped me by the chest. A steely vice. Crushing.
I couldn’t do this.
I couldn’t.
I pressed my hands to her shoulders and pried myself away, lungs jerking as I sucked for the air that had gone missing, horrified as I stared down at the girl who was watching me with what I couldn’t receive.
Panic took control of my shaking movements, and I snatched my shirt up from the floor, shrugged it on, and flew out the door.
Twenty-Eight
Ian
Twelve Years Old
Ian shot upright in his bed. Darkness surrounded him. He blinked, disoriented, his sight almost completely taken by the deep, desolate night.
But he knew he’d heard it.
The front door bursting open and banging against the wall.
His heart took off the way it always did, fear creeping up behind him like a monster that would jump on his back and sink its fangs into the side of his throat.
Drain him dry.
Ian struggled to breathe.
He wanted to burrow under the blanket. Hide. But that’s what cowards did, and Ian was no coward.
His brother told him he had to be brave.
That he had to take care of himself.
He shoved off the itchy fabric and stood, his knees shaking so badly he almost dropped to them when he heard a crash of shattering glass and the whimper of his mother, all of it muddled together with another voice.
Gulping down the terror, Ian inched to the door, squeezing his eyes closed as he turned the knob and sneaked out into the hall. A hazy light glowed from the main room of the apartment.
This one was nicer than they’d had for as long as he could remember, the refrigerator full and the water always warm when he wanted a shower.
His mama said she was going to take good care of them from now on. She’d promised that she hated it when they were cold and hungry, and that she was going to make sure it never happened ever again.