A Sweet Life-kindle Read online

  When the female guests flirted with him at the bar, he flirted back. So what if none of them were even half as pretty as Sophie? The Sullivans might be pairing up one after the other as if they’d been infected by the same virus, but Jake had had his shots.

  Love wasn’t going to take him down.

  He knew better than to think that love meant a damn thing when the going got rough and it was easier to split. No wife, no kids, plenty of pretty women, but no rings, was what Jake’s future held. He’d play with all the kids the Sullivan clan was bound to pump out, would enjoy being Uncle Jake, but he wouldn’t make the mistake of thinking he’d ever be a good husband or father.

  McCanns didn’t come with those genes. He knew it for a fact since his father had been nothing but a worthless drunk and had come from a long line of them back in Ireland.

  “You haven’t had anything to eat yet.”

  The slightly husky female voice reached out and grabbed him a split second before he looked straight into Sophie’s eyes. Her soft sensuality in that pink dress and the sweet smell of her perfume were a one-two punch straight to a gut that hadn’t yet recovered from watching those tears slip down her cheeks, or the radiant smile that had followed.

  Without waiting for an invitation, she put a full plate on the back table for him and moved around the bar to stand next to him. “Scoot over. I’ll help out while you eat.” She bumped her hip into his, causing him to become rock-hard in an instant, his body not giving a damn that she was Off-Limits.

  How could her brothers have let her out looking like this? What were they thinking? Didn’t they care even a little bit about their sister’s welfare?

  He thanked her for the food in a gruff voice, and then while he was standing there losing his mind over her, Sophie took drink orders and deftly poured glasses of wine and mixed drinks for the wedding guests. She was a librarian, not a bartender. She shouldn’t be so good at serving drinks.

  And no librarian should ever be this hot, either, Jake thought as he clamped his jaw so tight his temple started throbbing. He’d let her help for five minutes, and then he’d send her back to her table to celebrate with the rest of her family and make sure she stayed there for the rest of the reception.

  Even if he had to tie her to her seat.

  The beer bottle nearly slipped from his grip as Jake was hit with a crystal-clear vision of Sophie tied to his bed, naked and begging for him to touch, to taste, to—

  “I hear you’re a librarian,” a male voice said to her. “Read any good books lately?”

  Jake surfaced from his triple-X daydream just in time to notice a guest leaning on the bar and looking down the top of Sophie’s dress.

  She didn’t seem to notice any of that as she smiled back at the guy. She was too innocent to realize when a guy like this was aiming for one thing and one thing only: to get into her panties.

  Panties Jake was almost certain she wasn’t even wearing.

  “Mmm,” she said in that seductive voice, still slightly hoarse from her tears during the ceremony. Of course, Jake could barely remember Chase and Chloe’s vows as he was slammed with another crazy vision of Sophie lying naked beneath him, crying out his name again and again until her voice gave out altogether.

  Completely unaware of what Jake was doing to her in his mind, Sophie replied to the guest, “I’m always reading great books.” Her smile was utterly beautiful. Too beautiful for Jake to keep trying to ignore as she continued the conversation, asking, “What do you like to read?”

  The guy shrugged, not seeming to care that there was a huge backup of thirsty people bottlenecking behind him. “I’m a doct—”

  “What are you drinking?” Jake broke in.

  The guy shot him a look that said, Can’t you see I’m about to score here?

  “Corona,” he said to Jake before turning back to Sophie’s phenomenal breasts, and then, several beats later, he finally refocused on her face. “As I was saying, I’m a doctor, so I don’t have too much time to read. But when I do, I usually read thrillers. Medical thrillers, to be more specific.”

  Jake couldn’t believe it when Sophie leaned over the bar and said, “Oooh, how exciting. Medical thrillers always leave me breathless.”

  Didn’t she get that this loser was way beneath her? And that he’d found a way to brag about being a doctor within thirty seconds of meeting her? She should be throwing a drink in his face, not giving him a better view of her perfect body as she leaned down to grab a bottle of beer. Dr. Dickwad looked like he’d hit a home run and was counting the minutes until he could strip that dress from her tanned skin and find out if she tasted as good as she smelled.

  Like hell. Jake would kill him first.

  Jake snatched the bottle from her hand and shoved it at the guy. “Here’s your beer. Time to let everyone else get a drink.”

  He could feel Sophie frowning at him as he pinned the guy with his hardest look. If she couldn’t pick good from bad, he was going to have to save her. Whether she wanted him to or not was irrelevant.

  Although the guy flinched at Jake’s silent promise of violence, it didn’t stop him from saying, “Be sure to save a dance for me, gorgeous,” before he walked away.

  Jake held on to his control by a very thin thread. Nothing would feel better than to jump over the bar and tackle the guy to teach him what happened when he flirted with the wrong girl. A girl who was too sweet, too pretty, too damn perfect, for him to even think of touching one hair on her head.

  “You’re not dancing with him,” he growled. “Not tonight. Not ever.”

  Sophie’s eyes widened slightly at his pronouncement before she tilted her chin up and told him, “I’m a big girl, Jake. I’ll dance with whomever I want.”

  Serving the customer always took priority. But not this time. Turning his back on the crowd still in line, he slid between Sophie and the bar, then forgot his rule about not touching her as he put his hands on her shoulders and gripped her hard.

  “No. You won’t. He’s not good enough for you.”

  Fire flashed in her eyes, but her voice was soft as she said, “It’s so sweet of you to be concerned, Jake. But I can take care of myself.”

  Rationally he knew she was right, that she’d done a great job of taking care of herself for twenty-five years. But he couldn’t get the picture out of his head of Dr. Dickwad’s hands on her curves, his smarmy mouth on hers.

  Still, one thing remained irrevocably true. “Your brothers would kill me if anything happened to you.” They’d also kill him if they ever suspected the way he was thinking about her.

  “Actually,” she said as she looked over his shoulder, “I think my brother’s guests might kill both of us if we don’t keep serving them drinks.”

  He wanted to grab her tighter, pull her closer, find out if the rest of her skin felt as soft, as perfect, as her shoulders did beneath his palms. Instead, very reluctantly, Jake removed his hands from her bare skin and shifted back into position. But even though he didn’t spill a drop and his fingers didn’t slip on any more bottles, his attention was wholly focused on Sophie. Which was why he saw her shoot a glance at the a-hole who had been flirting with her just before saying, “I think he looks perfectly harmless. In fact…”

  Jake tossed an empty bottle into the bin beneath the bar with a loud crash. “In fact what?”

  “Since you don’t want to help me out with my plan to make my ex jealous, maybe I should use that guy instead.”

  “Sammy,” Jake called out across the reception area, motioning for his employee to take over the bar again. He didn’t wait for Sam to make it to the bar before wrapping his hand around Sophie’s wrist and pulling her out from behind the bar. He didn’t stop walking until they were hidden behind a large storage shed, just on the edge of the reception area.

  When he turned to face her, her face was flushed and he thought she looked as beautiful as he’d ever seen her. The shock of being this close to all that beauty, and to her sleek and soft curves in
the pink dress, had him barking out one short word at her.

  “No.”

  She tossed her hair over her shoulder as she informed him in a sassy voice, “There are thousands of other words in the English language other than no, you know.”

  He ignored her sarcasm and told her flat-out, “You are not getting within a hundred feet of that guy again.”

  She looked down at his hand where it was still clamped around her wrist and tried to yank her arm from him, but he held fast. Anger flared in her eyes. Eyes that had been full of happy tears, full of pure joy, just a short while ago.

  “You can’t tell me what to do.”

  “Like hell I can’t.”

  This time she managed to yank her arm away from him, but when she started to walk away, he couldn’t let her go. Not when she was bound to do something stupid, like kiss a smarmy doctor. And maybe even offer him her body, those sweet curves slipping and sliding beneath him as she gave herself to him.

  Furious at the picture of anyone touching Sophie like that, instead of just grabbing her wrist or her shoulders, this time Jake wrapped his arms all the way around her and pulled her into him. He held her tight, her chest pushing into his forearms, her height matching his so that her hips fit perfectly between his open legs, her soft hips pressing into his groin.

  God, she felt so good. So perfect. Like she was meant to be his.

  “Let go of me,” she said from between clenched teeth.

  “No.”

  His new favorite word was muffled by her hair, so soft, so silky, against his chin and lips. And the truth was, he couldn’t have let go of her for the world. Not just because he didn’t want that other guy touching her…but because he’d never wanted to hold anyone more than he did Sophie.

  How long had he dreamed of holding her? Too many years to keep count. And yet, he’d never had a clue just how incredibly good she would feel in his arms, her dangerous curves pressed into him, her chest rising and falling against his arms.

  “I’m not going to let you go until you promise me you’ll stay away from him.”

  Now it was her turn to say, “No.”

  He shifted his hand enough to slip a finger beneath her chin and turn her face so that he could look into her eyes. “Promise me, Sophie. It’s for your own good.”

  Sophie yanked her face away from his hand, then her whole body, and when she turned to face him head-on, her eyes were flashing. “I can’t believe you just said that! Especially since you of all people have no idea whatsoever what’s good for me.”

  “Wanna bet?”

  In an instant Jake had pulled her back into his arms so that her breasts were pressed up against his chest, his mouth on hers before he could put the brakes on his desire. He was too angry, too frustrated with himself for wanting her this much—and her infuriating stubbornness—to be gentle.

  Lips weren’t enough. He needed to feel her tongue slick against his. He needed to slide one hand into her hair to tilt her head at just the right angle to take what she’d been about to offer some other worthless guy. He needed to grip the luscious curve of her hip with his other hand to drag her in closer.

  Somewhere in the back of his brain, he knew he was moving too fast for her to possibly enjoy the kiss, let alone keep up with him. But even though she should have been fighting him, her arms had slid up to twine around his neck, and she was moaning softly against his mouth as her tongue pressed out to slide against his.

  Sweet Lord, Sophie was everything he’d ever wanted in a woman. Her scent, her taste, the feel of her. He’d wanted to touch her for so long that now that the impossible was finally happening, he couldn’t stop his hand from creeping up from her hip to her waist, to the bottom of her rib cage and then—holy hell, she felt good—the curve of one breast in his palm.

  She gasped into his mouth, shivering with pleasure as his thumb crested the aroused tip, and Jake knew he was barely a breath away from lowering her to the grass and pulling her dress up her long legs, until he could touch and lick and—

  What the hell was he doing?

  Knowing Sophie didn’t stand a chance of fighting off a guy like him if he put her in his sights, his gut churned with self-hatred as he abruptly released her, so quickly that she stumbled back in her heels.

  Even though he knew better than to ever touch her again, he couldn’t let her fall. As soon as he knew she was steady on her feet, he forced himself to let go, the need to pull her back into his arms so strong it felt as if it was clawing at his insides.

  Sophie’s mouth was swollen from his rough kiss, her cheeks were flaming and her eyes were shining with what he assumed were budding tears. He expected her to slap him, or at the very least to turn and run to her brothers to tell them what had just happened.

  So that they could kill him.

  Which was exactly what he deserved for daring to kiss those too-sweet lips.

  But she didn’t run. And she wasn’t crying. Instead, she stood in front of him looking more beautiful than she ever had before. One part vulnerable, the other part stunned.

  “No one has ever kissed me like that,” she said in a breathless voice, “like you couldn’t get enough, like you couldn’t stop yourself and I was driving you crazy.” She stared at him, her blue eyes filled with amazement. And desire. “All these years and I never knew it would be like that.”

  Jesus, it was hot when she replayed their kiss like that. But his chest twisted at the way she was acting—like he hadn’t been mauling her, like he hadn’t been seconds away from ripping her dress off and taking something from her she should never, ever give a guy like him. After all these years, she was still enough of a romantic to have made him out to be something other than the bastard he really was.

  Jake knew the truth. He came from a long line of bastards.

  “Sophie,” he said in a low, remorseful voice. “I never should have kissed you. Especially not like that.”

  He’d been a crazed man without any self-control at all. A few more seconds, and she would have been beneath him on the grass, her pretty dress hiked up around her hips and pulled down beneath her breasts, getting wrinkled and stained with grass smears while he took her without caring what he was ruining. Not just her dress, but her.

  If he’d done that to her, if he’d marked her with his out-of-control lust, he wouldn’t have waited for her brothers to kill him.

  He would have done the job himself, with pleasure.

  She’d tried to run from him earlier. This time when she turned from him, he’d make himself let her go.

  Only, instead of making any move to get away from him, she was moving closer as she said, “We were both part of what happened.” Her voice was soft, but surprisingly firm. Her eyes were clear and steady on his as she surprised the hell out of him, yet again, by actually saying the words, “I’ve wanted you to kiss me for a long time. A very long time.”

  As she took another one of those deep breaths that had her almost popping out of her dress, Jake knew this was the universe paying him back for every bad thing he’d ever done. He felt as if his collar was too tight, even though it was unbuttoned and he wasn’t wearing his tie anymore.

  She moved even closer. Too close. But he couldn’t make himself back away from her. Not when every last cell in his body wanted to erase the distance and go back to that place where she was finally in his arms.

  Perfect. She’d felt so perfect.

  “Sophie,” he said in a voice made raw by desire and his unsuccessful attempts to shove it down, “don’t—”

  Her hand, pressed flat onto his chest, right over the heart that was nearly leaping from it, made him lose track of what he’d been about to tell her, that she couldn’t talk about wanting to kiss him. Because they were completely off-limits for each other. Always had been, and always would be.

  Her eyelids closed for a moment, almost as if she were counting the beats of his heart, before she opened them again and said, “My brothers were losing it before the wedding when they s
aw me.” Jake couldn’t help but be impressed by her courage as she gestured to her dress, her hair, her face, with the hand that wasn’t touching him. “They kept asking me what was going on, and I told them it was nothing. I told them all I wanted was to have fun with the hairdresser and makeup artist. But I was lying to them.” She looked him straight in the eye. “I did it for you, Jake. To see if I could finally get you to notice that I was alive. To let you see that I’m not a little girl anymore with a silly crush. That I’m a woman and a person who knows her own mind. Who knows exactly what she wants. And who.”

  Jake didn’t have any experience with this kind of honesty, with a woman opening up her heart to him like this and laying it at his feet. He could run a business worth millions. He could pilot a seventy-foot yacht through rough waters after three sleepless nights. But he couldn’t keep up with the beautiful girl standing in front of him.

  He knew his limits, knew that despite the success he’d had with his pubs, he was still just the dumb son of a bartender. Sophie deserved better. She belonged with a guy who had as many college degrees as she did. One day, Jake knew, he’d be here at her wedding, watching her walk down the aisle, even though the vision of Sophie in another man’s arms—in another man’s bed—had him seeing red.

  Hadn’t he known better than to let her get too close?

  “The dress, the makeup, they look great, Nice.” He purposefully used her nickname, wanting her to remember who he was to her. “But they don’t change the fact that you’re going to have plenty of crushes on guys before you find the one who’s right for you.”

  Something flared in her eyes, a look he’d seen flashes of over the past few months. “Do you really think so?” She ran her tongue over her full bottom lip, and his blood pressure spiked another ten points. He could have sworn she was purposefully screwing with him when she leaned a little closer and said, “Do you really think I’m going to feel that way again kissing some other guy?”