It was her own confession.
I gripped her by the sides of the face so I could stare down at her, my eyes moving over her gorgeous face, my words so raw as they scraped from the bottom of my soul. “I love you, Grace. I fucking love you, and I love your kids, and it’s going to destroy me. I know it. I know it. It will, and I don’t care. The only thing that matters right now is loving you. If I get to feel this for even one day, it will be enough.”
“Oh, Ian.” It was a wisp from her mouth, her hands spreading over my chest, riding up to grasp my face. “There will never be a day when I don’t feel this. When you won’t matter. You’ve become everything.”
We were spinning.
Crashing.
Kissing.
Kissing, kissing, kissing.
Nothing had ever felt so good. So right.
Hands everywhere.
Frantic and needy and unhinged.
I gulped her presence down, kissing her hard and possessively as I backed her toward the bed.
That crazy energy thrummed between us. But tonight—tonight I swore that it glowed. Brighter than ever before.
Those hands found my shoulders, and she pressed her tight body against mine, whimpering as she tried to get closer. “Ian . . . my sweet broken man. How am I supposed to live without you now? How . . . when you’ve changed everything? What I want and who I am?”
“I love you.” It was the only answer I had.
“I love you,” she rasped, the words winding through me like the most passionate caress. Delirium on my ears. Perfection on my soul.
All I wanted was more.
And she was giving it to me. Like she knew how desperately I needed it.
“I love you so much it hurts, Ian. So much that I can feel you etched on my skin. Written on my heart. Marked on me forever. You are my gift. The hero I never expected.”
I knew that was the moment Grace finally shattered me.
Pieces spilled out and poured into her hands.
Part of me wanted to deny it, to tell her again that we couldn’t do this.
But I was swamped by the truth that oozed from her body. Overcome by the devotion that poured from mine.
The crazy realization that I would do anything, give up anything, if it meant she found the joy she deserved.
Freedom with her children.
Her sweet, sweet kids.
Barely even knew them. Didn’t matter. It was all-consuming. The instinct to wrap them up and protect them the way I wanted to protect her.
To love them.
To love them.
Derangement clouded my mind, distorted my judgment.
I kissed her harder, and she gasped out a throaty sound, and I didn’t stop, didn’t slow as I devoured her delicious mouth.
I wanted all of her. Every inch. To possess and claim and mark.
I growled and hoisted her into my arms.
Mine.
She wrapped those lust-inducing legs around my waist.
Blood pounded south, and my dick grew so hard, it was close to painful.
Pained, perfect bliss.
That was this girl.
Flawless desolation.
“I won’t let him hurt you,” I promised as I carried her to the massive bed set against the far wall, the bedding plush and thick and soft.
As soft as this girl.
While every inch of me was hard and rippling with possession.
“I won’t let him take them from you. I promise you. He has nothing. Nothing. I’ll die before he gets the chance. Do you understand?”
Teal eyes found mine. So real. This girl life. “I trust you, Ian. I trust you.”
“I need you. Now.” It was all a mumble between my impatient kisses. My lips tugging and nipping and moving in a frenzied dance with hers.
I shoved down the misery when my thoughts traveled to the truth that I couldn’t keep her. That I was still her attorney. If the courts even caught a whiff of what we were doing, anything I could do for her would be null.
Void.
“I’m yours,” she whimpered. “I think I have been since the moment you chased me down on that dancefloor.”
“Mine,” I mumbled back. “You’ve been mine since the second I looked up and saw you. God, Grace . . . it’s you . . . you who changed everything inside me.”
Kisses are for the ones you love most.
Standing at the foot of the bed, I laid her down in the middle of it. Her blonde hair spread out across the pillow, her lush body rocking with her own need.
Her hand fluttered toward me, that charm bracelet on her wrist tinkling as it slipped up her arm, the connection binding us pulling taut, her voice comfort and seduction. “That man’s been there all along. You just needed someone to believe in him. I believe in him. I believe in you.”
I stood staring down at the girl of my dreams.
A fantasy.
Everything I’d never believed I deserved or even wanted.
And there she was, spread out like my idea of eternity.
A partner to this place that screamed of purity and safety and love.
Faith told us last night that magic happened in this room.
Miracles.
I’d become a believer.
Because standing there, I knew I’d never be the same.
Grace. Grace. Grace.
I needed it in my life.
I needed her in my life.
How had I been so blind to what I was missing?
I climbed over her, and those long legs parted, making me room.
Hands planted on either side of her head, I stared down at her in the moonlight.
My chest expanded, so wide I was sure it was going to burst.
Those fingers trailed down my face.
She angled up to brush her mouth across my bottom lip. “I love you, Ian Jacobs.”
Hands diving into her hair, I captured her mouth.
Kissed her wild.
With the type of passion I’d never allowed myself to experience.
Unbridled.
Raw.
Real.
Emotion pitched and rocked and drove us higher.
Her heart was drumming an erratic thud, thud, thud, and I spread my hand out over it, feeling it pound for me.
“I love you,” I said again.
Because I couldn’t stop.
She moaned through a small laugh and whispered, “I love you so much.”
I drank down her words like they were the water of life.
God.
She was exquisite.
Her tongue temptation.
A sweet, juicy plum.
Every flick of it sent shockwaves of lust racing through my body.
“You are delicious, Grace.” I couldn’t help but tell her.
Another giggle slipped up her throat and landed on my tongue.
Like she was offering me her joy.
Joy.
That might have been the first time I felt the fullness of it. The wholeness of what it meant.
I edged back so I could peel her shirt over her head, leaving her in her bra and jeans. Her hair mussed and her lips swollen from my kisses.
Her spirit danced and lapped, at one with the shadows, glowing in the darkness.
Wrapping me up in ribbons and bows.
Sitting back on my knees, my eyes rode up and down her perfect body.
“Grace,” I murmured, reaching out to stroke her cheek with my thumb, running it under the hollow of her eye, down to that mouth.
Back and forth.
Back and forth.
“Look what you’ve done to me.”
I pressed my hand behind her back to rid her of her bra before I edged up a fraction so I could reach down to flick the button of her jeans.
I left her only long enough to rip them and her underwear down those legs.
Those legs that were nothing but miles of silk and curves and seduction.
I’d gladly get lost and roam them forever.
My own sacred promised land.
I continued to kiss her while everything between us intensified.
Growing more desperate by the second.
Wasn’t like I hadn’t been inside this girl before. Taking her. Owning her.
But this . . . this was different.
We both knew it.
It was the pinnacle we’d been climbing toward.
Where everything melted and then melded.
Where me and this girl became one.
This was where I offered everything.
Where it was only Grace and me.
This . . . this was where love lived.
Her fingers trembled as she worked through the buttons of my shirt, the girl shaking as she pushed the fabric off my shoulders. I twisted out of it, tossing it onto the floor with the rest of her clothes, the girl making short work of my pants, shoving them down my thighs so I could kick them free.