He looked between Grace and me. The girl was getting rocked by quivers of unrest that speared through her body, her spirit in turmoil, that energy so fierce I wasn’t sure how I was still standing right there pretending like I was still doing this for myself.
He backed away, nodding. Knew from the expression on his face that it wasn’t in surrender. He pointed at Grace. “Warned you.”
Then he turned and stormed away.
Grace and I stood there in the breezy silence of the quiet neighborhood, watching him go.
The fact the judge had called Reed told me the law was not going to be our best asset.
This was going to be a harder fight than I’d first anticipated, and I’d already been sure it was going to be a shitshow.
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.