I Thee Bed.... Jule McBride

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      “Come to bed…” Edie murmured

      Jimmy paused in the doorway. “I’m enjoying the view.” His gaze was as warm as the candlelight that fluttered on his skin, and it was fixed where she was lying, propped against pillows piled high against the headboard.

      She smiled. “I don’t know what I’d have done without you the past week and a half.”

      He merely shrugged. He was shirtless, his muscular chest bare. He looked delicious, silhouetted in the semidarkness, a black line of wild curling hair bisecting his pecs and arrowing downward as if pointing to the most intimate part of him.

      Just gazing at him made everything inside Edie ache and grow tight. She’d never felt this way about a man before.

      Noticing the open bottle of champagne and two long-stemmed glasses dangling from his fingers, she frowned. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think thats meant for the Darden wedding.”

      “What did they order?” he asked, grinning. “A hundred cases?” He shrugged. “They won’t miss one bottle.”

      She couldn’t help but smile again. “You’re positive about that?”

      “Yeah. And this was a premeditated act,” he admitted huskily. “I even chilled the bubbly a couple of hours ago.” He moved into the room. “Somehow I figured we’d wind up in bed….”

      Dear Reader,

      I do hope you’ll enjoy my last book in the BIG APPLE BRIDES trilogy for the Harlequin Temptation line! It’s been fun writing about the three Benning sisters and the special, sexy men they each have met along the way.

      After living in another state for some time, I recently returned to make my home in New York again. As always, I feel embraced by the sights and sounds! As far as I'm concerned, the city itself might as well be a Harlequin Temptation hunk, grabbing me by the waist, whirling me around until I’m breathless, then smacking me on the lips! Not that I wouldn’t trade New York for this last hero, Jimmy Delaney!

      I do hope you’ll find him just as breathlessly exciting!

      Watch for my next book in Harlequin Blaze, coming in 2006.

      Happy reading!

      Jule McBride

      Books by Jule McBride

      HARLEQUIN TEMPTATION

      875—THE HOTSHOT*

      883—THE SEDUCER*

      891—THE PROTECTOR*

      978—BEDSPELL

      1005—SOMETHING BORROWED†

      1013—NIGHTS IN WHITE SATIN†

      HARLEQUIN BLAZE

      67—THE SEX FILES

      91—ALL TUCKED IN…

      I Thee Bed…

      Jule McBride

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      Contents

       Chapter 1

       Chapter 2

       Chapter 3

       Chapter 4

       Chapter 5

       Chapter 6

       Chapter 7

       Chapter 8

       Chapter 9

       Chapter 10

       Chapter 11

       Chapter 12

      1

      “ALL RISE!”

      “Whatever happens this time,” Ches Edmond whispered, coaching his client, “keep your cool, Jimmy.” As his eyes met those of the man beside him, the shared gaze held countless memories—everything from downing too many cold brewskies on fishing trips, to fighting over the same head cheerleader, to their last year of playing football together at a high school outside Cleveland. A few months after taking the team to the state finals, they’d packed their bags and moved to the Big Apple to share an East Village sublet that Jimmy had found over the Internet.

      Ches added, “Judge Diana once wrote a book titled The Wrongdoers.”

      Exhaling a long-suffering sigh, Jimmy Delaney whispered, “You’re kidding me, right?”

      “Nope. Hit the stands a year ago last spring.”

      “And you didn’t tell me before now?”

      Ches shrugged, a two-thousand-dollar suit pulling snugly across shoulders so powerful that it looked as if he was wearing the pads from his high-school ball-playing uniform. “Did you really want to know?”

      “Guess not,” agreed Jimmy as he rose slowly, fighting the urge to loosen the knot of a suffocating tie, a red, white and blue monstrosity he’d bought for his parents’ fortieth wedding anniversary which, had luckily fallen on July fourth, and which Jimmy now hoped would communicate his sense of patriotism to the judge.

      “She’s also thinking about running for public office,” Ches added.

      Jimmy considered. “Republican?”

      “Having written The Wrongdoers? What do you think?”

      “And for our purpose that means?”

      “The harsher the sentence, the better.”

      “Swell,” muttered Jimmy dryly. From behind him, he could feel the eyes of his other buddies, celebrity photographers who hung around The Suds Bar on Avenue A in the East Village—Benny, Alex and Tim—burning a space between his shoulders. Glancing behind himself, Jimmy rolled his eyes, showing he wasn’t about to be cowed by a judge in a skirt and was pleased when he got supportive grins and a thumbs-up in response.

      His spirits lifted further when he glanced at Ches again and remembered their public-speaking class in high school. The teacher, Mrs. Hepplewhite, had always said that, when nervous, you should imagine your audience naked. Easy enough in this case, Jimmy thought. Judge Diana Little might have been nearing fifty, but she took good care of herself. She had beautiful skin, and her tawny blond hair was flattering, cut to shoulder length. Even the square, black-framed glasses perched midway down her nose were kind of sexy, Jimmy decided, as he slowly, mentally removed her black robe.

      Her voice, unfortunately, was hardly of the sex-kitten variety. “Mr. Delaney?”

      He raised his eyebrows. “Yes, ma’am?”

      “Before I sentence you,