A Sweet Life-kindle Read online

  Sixty seconds later he finished stripping his clothes off, pulled back the covers, slid in next to her and wrapped his arm around her waist to pull her into him, her soft curves fitting perfectly against him, her hips a soft, warm cradle for the erection that wouldn’t go away. Jake slid one hand into her long hair, breathing in her sweet scent.

  Maybe it shouldn’t feel right to have Sophie Sullivan in his bed. But nothing had ever felt quite so right before.

  “Good night, princess.” He whispered the words against the top of her head, pressing a soft kiss there. Sleep claimed Jake long before he thought it would, with the one woman he’d never thought he could have safe and warm in his arms.

  Twelve

  Sophie felt so safe, so warm, as she floated in that in-between space between sleep and coming completely awake. She knew exactly where she was, knew precisely why she felt so good. Jake was holding her, his arms curled protectively around her shoulders, with one of his hands splayed flat over her stomach beneath the T-shirt as if he were trying to protect more than just her.

  And he was completely naked.

  She could feel the rigid flesh of his erection against the small of her back, the hairs on his thighs against the smooth skin of her legs, and as desire swiftly stole through her, she couldn’t stop her half-asleep body from wanting to get even closer.

  She’d assumed night would be her enemy, those dark hours during the seven days she’d promised. But now she knew it didn’t matter whether it was day or night, light or dark.

  She was her own worst enemy.

  Jake wouldn’t have to ask her for a darn thing. Just to be near him like this, if only to know the sweetness of his touch for a few seconds, she’d give up everything.

  Obviously hearing her secret admission, Nice Sophie came completely awake inside of her and started yelling at her to protect herself from being hurt any worse than she already was. Nice tried to remind her of the pain she’d felt for two long months, tried to hold on to those truths she’d made herself face the day before.

  But Naughty Sophie, the part of her that had clearly been held down for way too long, wanted to go back to that place where Jake had been touching her, teasing her, taking her to heaven and back. She’d be careful this time. She wouldn’t be foolish enough to blurt out her love for him—or even to admit that she felt it—no matter how good he made her feel.

  Of course, when Jake softly blew the hair away from her neck and pressed his lips to the sensitive skin there, it was inevitable that Naughty would win the battle over Nice. Rather than trying to fight it, knowing it was pointless to even try to pretend she didn’t want to be his lover for the next seven days, Sophie did what came naturally and arched her neck to give his mouth better access.

  His low groan of pleasure rumbled from his chest to hers as he pulled her hips even more tightly against his, his hand never leaving her stomach. His tongue slid over her exposed neck, and she shivered at the delicious sensation of being tasted. Savored. And when he blew over her damp skin, she felt her nipples become sharp points of need. Her breasts were more sensitive now, probably due to her pregnancy. And, oh, how she wanted his hand to move those few inches, up from her waist.

  But then his mouth was back on her neck, nipping at her skin, causing a trail of thrill bumps in its wake before latching on to her earlobe, and the breath Sophie hadn’t realized she’d been holding whooshed from her chest as his teeth bore down on the soft flesh.

  More ready for sex than she’d ever been in her life, she instinctively pressed her hips into his erection, trying to widen her legs for him, so that he could take her. But his thigh between hers held her captive.

  “Jake,” she pleaded, barely awake and already begging.

  “Shhh,” he soothed, and she might have pressed her case for quick and fast if not for the fact that he finally started moving his hand.

  Sophie went completely still, not wanting to do anything that would make him stop the sinfully slow press of his fingertips over her belly button and then her lowest ribs. But even as she tried to hold still, she could feel herself trembling.

  How long had she dreamed of Jake touching her like this? As if she was the most precious thing in his world? As if he’d never let anything hurt her? As if he’d slay all her dragons for just one more moment with her?

  As his fingers skimmed over her skin, it didn’t matter that Nice Sophie was screaming at her to know better, to wake up and face reality. Naughty Sophie promised that reality could wait, and it would have to, because there was no way she could leave Jake’s arms now, not when he was so close to touching her—

  His hand stilled just below the swell of her breasts, and she nearly groaned with disappointment.

  “Soon,” he promised her, and the wicked intent in his voice—along with the shocking tenderness of his promise—had her toes curling against the tops of his feet.

  Her breath came fast as he rained more kisses and soft little bites down from her ear, over her neck, then across her raised shoulder. She could have sworn his erection was actually throbbing against her back by that point, that he was teasing himself just as much as her, but his own clear desire for her didn’t make him move any faster. If he kissed his way up and down her body like this, he would drive her nearly insane…every press of his lips on her skin taking her closer to the peak, but never all the way there.

  At long last, his fingers recommenced their erotic journey, lightly brushing over the curve of both breasts until his hand was in position to touch both at once. The taut peaks ached from the slightest touch of his palm, and she arched into his touch to try to get him to take more from her.

  Everything. Jake could have everything from her in this moment. It didn’t matter what it was, she would give it to him, just as long as he made good on his promise of pleasure.

  “So soft.” He cupped one breast in his hand so gently she gasped at the sensation of his slightly rough skin against her. And then he was pressing his mouth into the curve where her shoulder met her neck, and her gasp turned back into more begging she couldn’t control.

  “Please, Jake.”

  From the way she couldn’t stop her hips from rocking into his, he had to know what she wanted. Just to be taken like this, while he was holding her and she was in the sweetest heaven anyone had ever known.

  But when her begging didn’t get her any closer to her goal, Sophie realized Jake would always be in control when they were together like this. The thought shocked her, but not as much as the realization that she loved it.

  And, oh, to be his, if only for a little while in his arms like this…her Nice inner voice had no choice but to go quiet. A moment later, even the newly unmuzzled Naughty voice was silenced as Jake pulled his T-shirt off of her, and his tongue slid against her skin again, moving slowly down her spine just as he shifted his hand to fill his palm with her other breast and slowly pressed his thumb and forefinger over one nipple.

  Her insides felt like molten lava, and even though he hadn’t touched anything but her neck and back and overly sensitive breasts, Sophie felt herself going over the edge, hurtling toward an unexpected climax that claimed her breath, her thoughts, just as Jake had claimed all of them.

  “Oh, oh, oh!”

  As the gasping little noises left her throat, Jake’s thigh muscles bunched and pressed between her legs, and she rode him like a woman possessed. There was no room for embarrassment here. Nor was there space for the anger and hurt she’d felt earlier.

  All that remained in the in-between early morning of his bed was exquisite pleasure. Pleasure that ran so deep, she was powerless to do anything but let it take over every cell, inside and out.

  He slid his hand down from her breasts, thankfully moving faster on the way down than he had on his earlier trip up from her belly. “I need to touch you,” he said as he hooked his fingers on the side of her panties and pulled them down her legs.

  The unexpected climax only ratcheting up her need, this time when she moved to
spread her legs, he let her. And then his hand was moving over her pelvic bone, softly sliding over her damp curls, not stopping like he had before when she’d been dying for him to caress her breasts. She could feel a slight tremor shake his arm as he came closer to her core, almost as if the self-control he’d had earlier—his obvious intent to torture her slowly and gently—was slipping.

  “Sophie.”

  Her name fell from his lips as he covered her with his whole hand. His raw heat shocked her, shook her, enough that her head fell back into the curve of his shoulder. Jake’s big, strong body cradled her, his hand cupping her sex, literally holding her in the grip of anticipation for what would come next.

  “So soft,” he said again. “So wet for me.”

  And then, before she could figure out how to take her next breath, his fingers were inside of her, filling her, stroking her core so perfectly that the pressure way down deep in her belly grew again. Her sex throbbed against his talented fingers, and her breasts ached for more of his touches.

  Finally, Jake let her back fall flat against the mattress, and for the first time since the night before, she got to look at his impossibly beautiful face, those eyes so full of heat, so dark and dangerous. She couldn’t look away, could feel desperate words of love about to spill from her lips, even though she knew better, even though she’d vowed not to let it happen again.

  “Jake, I—”

  His mouth covered hers before she could say anything more, and his passionate kiss drove her thoughts away. She loved feeling him over her like this, like she wasn’t the only one who couldn’t get close enough, and she kissed him back with all of the love in her foolish heart, giving herself up to all the emotions she’d sworn never to let herself feel for him again.

  Too soon, he took his mouth away from hers, but she instantly forgave him when he lowered his head to her breast, laving first one and then the other. While the hand between her legs continued to stroke her nerve endings in the most delicious way, his free hand slid over her other breast.

  It was too much. The way her lips still tingled from his kisses, and now his mouth, his hands on her, covering her, caressing her, tormenting her.

  “This feels so good, even better than before,” she moaned as she arched up off the bed into his hands and mouth and taut muscles, needing to press even closer to the man who was loving her as no one ever had before. Waves of pleasure rolled over her, going on and on like the sea, dragging her out with them until she was doing no more than bobbing in and out of them, trying desperately to catch her breath.

  But Jake wouldn’t let her fill her lungs as his mouth came back over hers. His tongue swirled with hers, his hands moving to grip her hips. His skin felt even rougher against her softness, and she reveled in the slight scratch of his large hands, the calloused fingertips that so deftly played over her, inside of her.

  He shifted so that his entire weight was over her, and she instinctively opened her legs wider to give him room to settle between them. The head of his shaft slipped and slid over her sex, and she arched into him again, but he held her hips still in his big hands, holding himself just as rigidly above her as he lifted his mouth from hers.

  “You’re absolutely sure you’re pregnant?”

  She didn’t know why he was asking her that question. “Yes. I’m sure.”

  “I’m safe, Sophie. I just had a blood test, and I swear I’m safe.”

  Somehow, through the lust-filled haze that clouded her brain, she realized what he was saying. He didn’t want to use a condom. She didn’t want anything between them, either, wanted Jake and Jake alone to fill her.

  The thought made her so wild with need, she could barely get out the words, “I am, too.”

  “Thank God,” he said, and the words really did sound like a prayer of thanks falling from his lips.

  She held her breath, waiting for him to slam into her the way he had their first night together. Instead, he gently slid his hands out from beneath her hips. Not to fondle her breasts. Not to tease her skin the way he had just a little while ago. But to reach for her face, to hold her jaw so gently with those big hands that were capable of such strength.

  He didn’t kiss her, just stared at her with those dark eyes, and she was held completely in his thrall. “You’re mine.”

  This time there were no sage, protective inner voices to stop her from agreeing. How could there be when they were all on the edge of anticipation?

  “I’m yours.”

  The word mine sounded in the room again as he slowly entered her, his eyes still locked with hers. Sophie had never known such intensity, in or out of bed, as Jake’s presence wrapped itself around her just as his arms had, cradling her, holding her steady when she otherwise would have broken apart.

  She had to tell him, needed him to know. “I’ve never felt like this before.” Pleasure so sweet couldn’t possibly exist. And yet, she now knew it did. “I never knew.”

  It was what she’d said to him after their first kiss, and now she was saying it again as he made love to her in his big bed as the sun rose higher in the sky and washed over them.

  “All those books, and you never knew.”

  Her eyes widened as she realized he was teasing her, the corners of his beautiful mouth curving up for a split second before he bent down to press one soft kiss against her forehead, and then each cheekbone, before moving lower to the curve of her neck, her collarbone, the upper swell of her breasts.

  If their lovemaking after the wedding in Napa had been a fierce staccato of desire and unquenchable need, the way Jake now lingered over every inch of her skin was like a beautiful sonata, playing slowly as the soundtrack to their coupling.

  She knew sex was simply part of their one-week agreement, had thought she could hold part of herself back from him while still finding pleasure in his touch. Only, now she had to face just how impossible that goal really was.

  After loving him in secret for so long, to have him touch her like this, to know his intention was to convince her to let him be a part of her and her baby’s life…it was too much for Sophie to resist.

  And in the end, it was his tender attention, along with his unexpected smile, that had her crying out in the ultimate pleasure, his mouth capturing the sounds as he moved with her, taking her higher and higher with every stroke of his body into hers.

  Together, they moved, sweat-dampened skin slipping and sliding, mouths taking and giving in equal measure as her inner muscles gripped him so tightly that he had to fall with her, just as far, just as hard, just as long. As she felt him explode inside of her, she leaped to an even higher peak she hadn’t known to reach for, one where it felt as if the explosions would continue forever, ripples of pleasure that had no end.

  She’d thought she needed fast and rough, had believed her urgency to be taken by him warranted nothing else. But she’d been wrong.

  Because after everything that had happened, she’d needed to be loved.

  And, oh, how Jake had loved her.

  Thirteen

  Jake lay over Sophie, pressing her into the bed, her slim arms wrapped tightly around his neck, her gorgeous legs wrapped around his waist. He could stay like this with her forever, never wanted to let go—

  Oh, no! He scrambled off her, practically jumping out of the bed.

  “Jake? What’s wrong?”

  “I can’t believe I forgot.” He grabbed pillows and shoved them under her knees while she stared at him like he’d lost his mind.

  She tried to sit up, tried to reach for him again. “What are you doing?”

  He put his hands on her shoulders and gently laid her back against the bed. “I was crushing you. I could have hurt you, could have hurt the baby.”

  He’d noticed this morning that her stomach had a slight swell to it. Not big enough that anyone would notice the change if they didn’t know she was pregnant. But he knew, and that knowledge had already changed him. He’d never felt like this, so protective and pleased…and proud.


  Sophie’s laughter broke through his thoughts. “I can’t believe you think that a little sex is going to hurt anything.”

  He couldn’t believe she was laughing at him. Or that she’d taken what had just happened between them and reduced it to practically nothing. What had happened to the quiet, mild-mannered girl he’d known for so long?

  “I wouldn’t exactly call what we just did ‘a little’ sex.”

  Again, her mouth curved up with laughter, but when she saw that he was serious, she said, “I feel fine, Jake.”

  She clearly didn’t understand. It was his kid in there. He’d planned to put her on her hands and knees, to take her from behind so she couldn’t look at him with those big, hopeful eyes, and so he wouldn’t crush her with his weight.

  But he hadn’t been able to do that. Because he had to look at her. Had to see that beautiful expression of pure joy come over her face when he came into her with nothing between them this time.

  He shouldn’t have wanted to hear her say she loved him again…but he had. More than he’d ever wanted anything in his life. Even worse, looking at her lying beneath him—so open, so giving, so sweet—had made crazy things rattle around inside his head. And his chest. He’d made himself cover her mouth with his before either of them could say something they’d regret later.

  And in the end he’d lost all control, taking her without any thought at all to the life she carried inside.

  “I’m pretty sure sex is perfectly fine during pregnancy,” she told him in a reassuring tone.

  “I’m going to ask the doctor.”

  Her frown came back. “Oh, no. No way. We are not doing this.” She threw back the sheets and got out of the bed, giving him a mind-blowing view of her naked curves as she bent over to pick up her clothes.

  Now it was his turn to say, “What are you doing?”

  He was pretty sure she didn’t remember she was completely naked as she faced him, clearly irritated. “I am not made of porcelain. I get that you’re all freaked out, that you want to control everything around you, but I absolutely will not let you control me!”