I hovered over her body, my eyes devouring every inch, cherishing every second.
“You’re so beautiful,” I murmured, dipping down to nip at her ear. “So sexy. I can’t see straight when I’m looking at you, because the only thing I see is my perfection. Everything I’ve ever wanted. But it’s this heart . . . this sweet, sweet heart that changed mine.”
Her chest heaved.
I dipped down to kiss along the slender column of her neck, and her head rocked back. Fingers sank into the flesh of my shoulders.
Lips traipsing, I moved lower, roving over the wild thrum of her beating heart. I licked a path across one breast until I was taking it into my mouth, sucking and laving and making her moan.
“Ian.” Hands found my hair, tugging. “Ian.”
“What do you need, Angel Girl, what do you need?”
“You. The only thing I need is you. I don’t think I know how to keep living without you. Not when the meaning of life now includes you. You’re a part of me. Forever.”
Her fingertips traced over the designs marring my flesh like she could read everything that was etched into my skin. Like she could grasp the story, dip her fingers in deep and feel every scar. What they meant. Where they came from.
Her fingers traced over the demon on my arm.
A shiver rolled through the darkest depths, and the confession was pouring out, “With you, I don’t want to be him. Not anymore. If I could be someone else for you, I would.”
“You’re the man I fell in love with, Ian. You. Not who you could be or who you were in the past. But the man who’s shown me time and again who he really is. The man who’s stood up for me. For my children. The man who’s taken a risk when I know what I’m asking for is more than anyone should have to give. That’s who you are, Ian.”
She was back to pressing her palm against the thunder that roared in my heart.
And I was taken.
Delirious.
I positioned myself at the welcome of her sweet body before I drove home.
Her body arched, and she softly cried out my name.
Home.
I gasped out at the stark pleasure that sizzled through every nerve.
I could stay in that spot forever and be content.
But I was dropping down and hooking my arm over the top of her head, holding her by the back of the knee with the other, opening her up for me as I began to move.
Hard and slow and deep.
Different.
So different from how I’d ever been with another girl. Who fucking knew how many girls I’d fucked. Hundreds? A thousand? I didn’t know. The only thing I knew was none had compared to this.
“You are the best thing I’ve ever felt. This . . . this is the gift, Grace. That I get to experience this with someone, even if it’s only one time.”
I rocked into her, and the girl met every thrust.
I dipped down. Kissed her long and slow and with everything I had.
Forever and ever.
With the truth that she’d come to mean everything, and still I wanted more.
Our breaths turned shallow, and she was releasing these throaty pants into the air that I swallowed down. They only wound me up more, my stomach in knots and muscles flexing and bowing and rippling beneath her touch.
Because the girl . . . she was touching me everywhere.
My scars and my skin and my heart.
“Ian.” She started to jut up into my body, needy for more. That was the one thing I could give her. I edged back, angling to hit her just right, holding myself up on one hand while I stroked her clit with the other.
The girl clawed and whimpered and moaned, her body stretching tight below me. Everything cinching down.
Bliss taking hold of the air.
Taking us with it.
“Ian,” she gasped one more time, and I captured her mouth to silence her scream.
The girl came undone.
Billows of her pleasure streaked through her body and directly into me.
Sinking in and setting me free.
Pleasure knotted at the base of my spine, my balls lifting as they slapped against her body.
Harder.
Faster.
More.
With Grace, I would always want more.
But this was what we had.
This moment.
I gripped her tight when I came. Exploding into her body. My cock surging and pulsing and pouring into the wet, warm welcome of this woman.
My mouth dropped open on a silent roar.
Nothing . . . nothing had ever felt as good as that.
Giving myself to her. Letting her hold it. My body went rigid, both of us hit with tremors and aftershocks.
Floating somewhere high where I wished we could stay forever.
She clung to me, holding me as close as she could as we both floated back down.
Still, it felt like reality couldn’t touch us. Because it was just me and Grace and the ghosts in that room.
I kissed her again.
Nothing but the soft press of lips.
Adoration.
Then I rolled to my side and took her with me, tucking her into my side, refusing to let her go. I ran my fingers through those silky locks as she stared at me in the shadows.
Hope blazed from the depths of those eyes. “Where do we go from here?”
Guessed we both knew there was no going back from what we’d just shared.
My words were gruff. “I don’t know, Grace. The only thing I know is I have to protect you and your kids from that bastard. That is the only thing that matters right now. Beyond that?” I gripped her tighter. “We will figure it out.”
“I don’t want to lose you,” she admitted through a whisper, burrowing deeper into my side. “Not when I’ve finally found who I’ve been looking for.”
I kissed her forehead. “And you’re exactly what I’ve been running from all along.”
A frown pulled to her brow, understanding winding into her expression.
The girl taking me under. “Will you tell me about her?”
A tremor rolled through my body, and I opened my mouth, because somehow, I’d allowed this woman to cut me open wide.
Thirty-Five
Ian
Seventeen Years Old
The apartment door creaked open slowly, and the dread and worry that Ian had been tossing in all night shifted into anger. His hands balled into fists, and he pushed to standing from the couch as his mother walked through the door.
A whole twenty-four hours since the last time he’d seen her.
She was wearing a skin-tight dress and no shoes, and her hair was ratted and her makeup smeared under her eyes. She hobbled inside, limping on her left leg like she’d been injured.
Beaten down.
Worn and used up.
That anger gripping Ian’s chest shivered in a flash of repulsion.
How could she do this?
She’d promised when they’d moved back to the city after Jace went to prison that things were going to be different. That she’d never touch drugs again. That she was going to take care of him, just like he’d promised he was going to take care of her.
Things were going to be better. They had to be because Ian couldn’t fathom anything worse than the emptiness he’d felt when his brother had been taken away.
Jace had been the one person he could rely on, his protector and his best friend, and now Ian was trying with all his might to step up and take his place.
How was that ever gonna happen when his mama kept doing this?
Ian’s jaw clenched, staring at his mother who was just repeating the same bullshit he’d spent his years growing up in.
She lifted her face to him. There was a scratch down her cheek, and part of him wanted to run to her, demand to know who had hurt her so he could hunt the asshole down.
Fight for her and protect her.
But he was so over it. So over her promises that were nothing but lies.
His lip curled and the hurt and hatred came spilling out. “I can’t believe you. You’re into that same bullshit again?”
Rage thrummed with the heartbreak, fractures cracking through the middle of him.
It was supposed to be different.
She’d promised. She’d promised.
A soft whimper left her mouth, and she edged forward, dropping her purse directly onto the floor as she inched toward him. “I had to, Ian, you don’t understand.”
Disgust shot out of him on a hot breath. “I don’t understand? What’s not to understand, Mama?” He spat the last like it was a filthy word. “That you’re nothin’ but a junkie? That you’d rather leave me here to worry about you, worry you’re dead in a dumpster somewhere, while you go get your fix of dope and dick? Is that what I don’t understand?”