The Gold Collection: A Bride For The Taking. Maggie Cox

you want to tell me about the dream? It can sometimes help to dispel the memory if you talk about it rather than just bottle your feelings up inside.’

      ‘I’d rather not, if you don’t mind. I’m already feeling better because you’re here … honestly.’

      A muscle flinched in the side of his unshaven cheek. ‘I’m glad about that. I really am. But you must know that sooner or later you’re going to have to confront this bully of a father-in-law of yours, or else he’ll be intimidating you for the rest of your life … and maybe Charlie’s too.’

      ‘I know—and you’re right.’ Sophia agreed with a sigh. ‘I do need to confront him, and to let him know that I refuse to be bullied by him any longer. God knows I spent enough miserable years being bullied by his son! The thing that worries me is that he’ll bring the whole weight of the judicial system down on my head until he gets the outcome that he wants—and that’s Charlie.’ She laid her hand over her chest to calm her racing heart. ‘If the case goes to court I can’t afford a good defence lawyer, and trust me … it’s going to take someone very special and clever to face the intimidating might of Sir Christopher Abingdon.’

      ‘Christopher Abingdon?’ Jarrett’s blue eyes visibly widened. ‘He was your father-in-law?’

      ‘You know him?’

      He shook his head, grimacing. ‘I don’t know him, but I know of him. I’ve seen him on enough political talk shows to know that he’s perfectly odious and reprehensible. Don’t worry about affording legal fees, my angel. I happen to have a very good friend in the legal realm—a man who is particularly dedicated to stamping out injustice wherever he finds it. If he can’t represent you then he’ll know someone who will. We’ll find you the best damn lawyer money can buy, and that’s a promise. Just don’t tell me that you won’t accept my help. It would mean a lot to me if you let me.’

      As she absorbed the passionate intent of his words she relaxed against him in the realisation that, for the first time since she’d lost her father, she felt safe and secure in the presence of a man—a man she was slowly but surely beginning to allow herself to trust. To have Jarrett’s sincere regard made Sophia feel more valued than she’d felt in a long, long time. It also lifted her spirits to know that at last someone really wanted to help her.

      Raising her head, she knew her smile was a little shy, but she couldn’t hide how much his words had meant to her. Before she could say a word Jarrett’s hand had moved round to the back of her head to bring her face closer to his. Then his mouth covered hers. She had already had an example of how his kiss could make her dissolve, but this kiss—gently coaxing at first, then inexorably gathering in heat—was so gloriously seductive that she wondered how on earth she’d lived without his touch for so long.

      The sultry caress quickly turned into a helpless, hungry demand that she couldn’t help but rise to. As Jarrett’s tongue melded hotly with hers and the roughened prickle of the beard that studded his jaw scratched against her skin his sensual ministrations sent her spinning. Suddenly she was caught in the eye of a storm that she didn’t want to escape from.

      When he cupped her breast through the thin jersey of her dress and teased the already rigid nipple between finger and thumb the force of the pleasurable groan that eased huskily from her throat didn’t sound like the repressed and lonely woman of her hard, embittered marriage. It didn’t sound like her at all … And when he carefully but firmly moved her off his lap to lay her on her back next to him she had not one single thought in her head about protesting. On the contrary, she just about contained herself from ripping his jacket and shirt from off his back so keen was her desire and need for him to love her.

      As if reading her mind, he kicked off his shoes, then shrugged off his jacket. In less than a heartbeat he was leaning over her, his mouth continuing its exciting barrage on her senses, mind and body with luxuriously hot and exploring kisses to die for. But then came the dizzying point when even the most combustible kisses weren’t enough …

      ‘If you want me to stop then you have to tell me now, sweetheart. Although I’m strong I’m only human—and you’re driving me wild.’ Lifting his head, Jarrett threaded his fingers through Sophia’s hair, smiling wryly down into her eyes.

      ‘I don’t want you to stop.’ Her reply was a broken whisper of long-suppressed need and remembered heartache, but she knew there was no way on God’s good green earth that she wanted to put an end to what they both so urgently desired.

      ‘That’s what I’d hoped you’d say,’ Jarrett murmured, already reaching towards her to help her remove her dress.

      In the flickering firelight as she lay down again, shivering in anticipation of what was to come, she was treated to a candid view of his fit male body as he disposed of his shirt. There was not one ounce of spare flesh on his hard-muscled chest with its smattering of ebony hair. And his strong arms with their silky, toned biceps were in a mouth-watering category all of their own. But her appreciative musings were instantly laid aside when he hungrily claimed her lips yet again and ran his hands lightly but expertly down over her body.

      ‘You’re so beautiful,’ he murmured, his riveting blue eyes glancing passionately down into her face.

      ‘So are you,’ she answered.

      ‘Does that mean that you now find me more appealing than when we first met?’

      ‘I’m not going to encourage your vanity by saying anything further.’

      ‘Good. Because I think the time for talking is past … at least for now. Don’t you?’

      He bent his head and put his lips to her breast. A spike of molten heat shot through her, rendering her boneless and making her tremble. The sensation was so off the scale of any barometer of pleasure she could have imagined that Sophia’s eyelids drifted closed in order to deepen the deliciousness of the experience … to lose herself in a sensual world that for so long had been denied her. The moan that left her throat was soft and low, and as Jarrett’s warm lips and beard-roughed jaw moved down over her heated skin, she drove her fingers through his silky cap of ebony hair.

      For a moment she went rigid when his mouth dipped lower to caress the more sensitive skin between her thighs. After his long, lazily exploring kisses, the urgency that was building inside her was at breaking point, and suddenly she couldn’t wait to hold him close and feel his body moving over hers, skin to skin …

      ‘Jarrett …’ His name left her lips on a breathy sigh, and he immediately responded by lifting his head and giving her a heart-stopping smile.

      ‘What is it, sweetheart? Tell me what you need.’

      Utterly transfixed by his devastating blue-eyed stare in the firelight, for a moment Sophia couldn’t think straight. Tell me what you need … To answer the sexily-voiced command was almost beyond her powers, so alien was the sensual request.

      ‘I need—I need you to love me,’ she breathed.

      In just a couple of effortlessly fluid movements Jarrett moved up, sat back and tugged off his jeans. Before he let them fall onto the floor he extricated his wallet and a small foil packet therein.

      Her cheeks burned red at the impressive sight of his aroused sex, and in her mind she immediately scolded herself. For goodness’ sake, Sophia … it’s not as though you’re some untried virgin! But the thought gave her no comfort, because it made her remember that she’d given her virginity to a man who had despised her.

      As if intuiting that just such a thought had stolen into her mind, her would-be lover sheathed himself with his protection and carefully straddled her, stroking back her hair as he gazed deep into her eyes. ‘Don’t let the past spoil this time we have together,’ he urged. ‘Because everything’s going to be all right.’

      ‘It is?’

      Any further speech she might have been going to utter was silenced by the warm pressure of his mouth against hers. As she lost