My last memories as a boy sped up to meet me.
Rushing.
Hitting me head on.
I slowed as I approached the old building, and part of me wanted to ram on the accelerator and get the fuck out of there before I was taken back to that time.
A hostage.
A prisoner.
Instead, I forced myself to slow, and I cracked the window of my car, which was so out of place that people kept turning their heads, distrust in their postures as they stopped in their tracks to watch me drive by.
The sounds of the inner city came at me in waves. A baby crying and a woman shouting. Music thumping and a fight down the street.
Maybe it was shock I felt when I came to a stop at the address in front of the rundown building where everything had changed.
Where my life as I had known it had come to an end.
This was where I’d become someone else.
This was where I’d become a man.
A man who had chosen to take what he wanted for his life rather than a boy who had scrounged for any scraps he could find.
A fire burned in my eyes and raced my throat.
I fought the sensation because it made me fucking weak.
My hands clamped down on the steering wheel and sweat poured from my brow when I saw the three women stumble out of the building. It was early, but I guess some jobs were never done.
Men always breathed. Ready to degrade and take and overpower.
Didn’t matter the time of the day.
I squeezed my eyes closed. Like it could stop it. Staunch it. But it would never matter how far I went or how calloused I became or how many years had passed.
She was always right there.
My greatest sin.
Treason and betrayal.
Twenty-Four
Grace
“You have a walk-in haircut.”
Melissa was smirking at me as she walked into the salon area from the front waiting room.
My heart skipped and sped in a million wayward beats when I saw who followed behind her.
Foolish, foolish heart.
But there was no stopping the reaction to the man, so tall and powerful and commanding that he made the ground tremble beneath my feet.
“It seems someone’s hair grows really fast.” The words falling from Melissa’s mouth were perfectly wry, delivered with a silent, Plan on dishing the details later.
No doubt, she would pin me down and pry it out of me.
“Okay,” I managed to mumble, looking back to the older woman sitting in my chair. “Let me finish up with Mrs. Galvez, and I’ll be right with you.”
Ian nodded, those hands in his pockets, the energy speeding between us like it was fuel for an out-of-control train.
I finished styling Mrs. Galvez, quickly dusted off the hair from her robe, and unsnapped it. She pushed from the chair. “Thank you, dear. I’ll see you in six weeks.”
She reached out and stuffed a five-dollar tip into my hand before she scurried around Ian, who looked as if he was half inclined to chase everyone out of the salon.
As if he needed me alone.
As if he just . . . needed me.
There was something unhinged about him, so raw and abraded and sensitive beneath all that hardness.
Those eyes flashed, and I gulped as I quickly swept up the mess under the chair and tossed the bill onto my station. I angled my head. “Let’s get you washed up, Mr. Jacobs.”
His nostrils flared the second I said it, and he strode across the salon, his legs taking long, purposed strides as he moved toward me.
I could feel it.
The shift in the air.
A hot intensity that spun and shivered and shook with every step that he took. He passed by, brushing my arm, sending shivers skating across my flesh.
This was so bad. So, so bad, because I couldn’t stop my reaction to him. The way my body ignited with the simple touch.
I wanted this man in a way I shouldn’t.
In a way that was wholly profound and wholly impossible.
He sat at the same basin as the one he’d occupied just a week before. I did the same thing I did then, turned on the water and tested its temperature before taking the nozzle and slowly wetting his hair.
It turned dark beneath my hands, as dark as his eyes that watched me carefully.
“What are you doing here?” I finally whispered.
Anger stormed across his face, the emotion just as distinctly marked in his voice. “I want to submit for an emergency injunction. I don’t want your children anywhere near Reed.”
A gust of surprised air left my lungs. “That . . . seems impossible. That would mean having him declared as unfit, and the only thing Reed cares about is his reputation. He’s not going to take lightly to us trying to make him look bad.”
We were both whispering, held in our little bubble as I gently washed his hair, and he issued words that filled me with too much hope and too much fear.