The only delicacy I’d known as a child were the ones I’d scraped out of a trash can. I wondered what she’d think then?
“That’s good then . . . because you should know, I’m not going to be impressed by the location. The only thing that can impress me is the man.”
God, this girl. So damned different.
“I guess I already have everything going against me then, don’t I?” I tried to inject some humor into it, but I realized I was sending her a warning. If she looked too deep, she wasn’t going to like what she’d find.
She turned that teal gaze on me as we entered through the revolving door, my hand at the small of her back as I ushered her inside.
With a glance over her delicate shoulder, her stare scattered over my body. Or maybe it was just breaking me into pieces. “Is that what you think? That you aren’t worth it? That you aren’t worth the chance you’re asking me for?”
Apparently, when it came to this girl, I had no impulse control. Because I had her pushed against the interior wall in a flash.
A gasp of air shot from her lungs, and I was immediately sucking it down. Wanting to breathe in every element.
Earth and water and sky.
I gripped her by both sides of her gorgeous face. “Make no mistake. I’m not worth it. I’m not ever going to be. I’m an asshole, Grace. The greediest bastard you’ll ever meet. But with you . . .”
My words trailed off, my eyes moving over her face, wondering what the fuck it was she was making me feel. “With you . . . for once in my life . . . I wish that I could be someone else. Someone better. That I could be worth it.”
She blinked up at me, guilt and hope and belief blazing through the depths of those eyes. A dark, mesmerizing sea.
There I was giving her an out, and she was looking at me like I’d just given her a gift.
“I guess we both want to be. To be worth it,” she murmured, her words wrapping me like a caress.
An extension of grace.
And I didn’t deserve it. Not after all the things I’d done.
“Isn’t that what everyone wants? To be worth taking that chance on? To matter?” she continued, voice so soft.
So sweet.
So real.
I thought she might be the most honest thing I’d ever held.
Taking her by the hand, I threaded our fingers together, relishing in the flash of heat that skidded up my arm.
A jolt that threatened to shock my heart back to life. I pressed my mouth to her temple and whispered as I guided her toward the elevators, “What are you doing to me, Angel?”
She didn’t have time to answer before the elevator doors swept open and a drove of bodies came flooding out. I stepped back in not-so-pleased surprise when I saw the huge body in the middle of it.
Shit.
Just what I needed. Hell, this was probably exactly what I deserved.
Instant karma, baby.
The second Mack saw me, he angled his head as if he were trying to make sense of the scene in front of him.
I kind of wanted to grab Grace. Wrap her up. Take cover and hide.
Instead, I shuffled my feet like a pansy bitch.
I roughed an uneasy hand through my hair.
“Ian,” Mack said, amusement in his voice as he looked between Grace and me, clearly making the calculation between the text I’d up and ditched him for last night and what had led me to be standing in that spot right then.
His voice twisted with knowing emphasis, a razz fraying from the seam. “What are you up to, man? Long time no talk.”
Right.
I tried not to grind my teeth, but they were instantly getting mashed to shit.
His gaze darted between me and the girl tacked to my side, his blue eyes riding high as silent questions fired from him like arrows.
Are you on an actual date?
Seriously?
Where is my best friend and the bullshit he was feeding me last night?
This was something he’d never once witnessed before. He knew full well an exchange of names and numbers and dinner as a prelude had never been my style.
Discomfort and a shot of something unexpected rushed me.
This protectiveness that whipped and gusted and blew.
Gale force.
Like I wanted to make a statement.
Tell him she was different.
That this was different.
That it mattered.
But I didn’t have time to evaluate any of those things before her sweet voice was filling the space—a soft giggle and a glance of those eyes as she raked her teeth over her bottom lip. “We’re just having dinner.”
I couldn’t stop the bolt of surprised laughter that came rumbling from my chest, this girl a confusing mix of hard and bitter and soft and sweet. Then she went and was throwing out a tease to my big-ass, burly best friend as if he didn’t intimidate her at all.