A Weaver Baby. Allison Leigh

of his satin-smooth flesh instead.

      A deep sound rumbled from him to her and she couldn’t just hear his want…she could taste it. Then his hands clasped her rear and she was vaguely aware of glass crunching beneath his boots as he carried her into an empty stall, and she almost cried out at the loss when he settled her on her unsteady feet.

      But the loss was mercifully brief. He knelt before her, dragging the hem of her shirt from her blue jeans, shoving it up as his mouth pressed, open and hot, against her abdomen. She swayed, clasping his shoulders, only to draw his hands greedily to her breasts when they hovered so close, so teasingly near.

      His thumbs dragged the thin cups of her lacy bra aside, raking tauntingly over her tight nipples and needles of delight shot through her. She yanked off the strangle-hold of her twisted shirt and slid bonelessly to her knees. She felt blind to everything but the fire burning in Jake’s eyes; couldn’t look away from him as his long fingers slid away from her breasts to meet at the zipper of her jeans. “Don’t stop now,” she whispered.

      A muscle flexed in his angled jaw and he pulled down the zipper. Before she could shimmy out of the jeans, though, he tipped her back and she felt the scrape of soft, fresh straw against her spine.

      “Boots.” His voice was a low, husky drawl that was as arousing as his touch. He pulled off her boots and tossed them aside.

      Her impatient hands reached out for him again then, but he pushed to his feet, and she could only lie there, breathless with tightening desire, as he pulled off his own boots. The silk shirt followed as he yanked it over his head, not even bothering with the buttons.

      Then his hands fell to the belt at his waist. Her mouth ran dry as he slowly pulled it loose, dropping it aside, right along with every other stitch he wore.

      She wasn’t exactly a virgin. She’d had two lovers before, brief though those failed relationships had been. But it was still good that she was already sprawled in the straw because the sight of all that male glory made her dizzy. Dark hair swirled across his muscular chest, narrowing to a fine line over his tight abs, just inviting her to follow its trail.

      And then he was pulling at her jeans, sliding them off her hips. His lips pressed against her navel, and the heat inside her threatened to explode as she nearly bowed off the ground.

      “What happened here?” His fingers smoothed over the faint remains of a long-healed scar that peeked above the edge of her pink panties.

      “Stepped on by a horse.”

      He trailed the line up and down. “Must’ve hurt.”

      Agonizing in ways she didn’t let herself think about anymore. “You work around horses, you’re going to have some bruises somewhere along the way.”

      His lips kicked up. “First time I fell off, I was five.”

      “Six.” She shifted, impatient for him to get beyond the cotton panties. And he seemed to realize it because his mouth traced the thin scar as he drew the hank of fabric down her thighs with an intensity that made her feel perfectly beautiful and unscarred.

      His breath whispered against her abdomen. “Are you sure?”

      She couldn’t help the strangled laugh that quivered up her throat. Her thighs shifted restlessly and she reached for him. “I’m dying here,” she managed.

      “Impatient.” The edge of his white teeth flashed for just a moment as he slowly moved over her. “I like that.”

      She wanted to sink her teeth into his shoulder when he didn’t move fast enough to suit her, and she pushed at him, flattening him on his back with a speed that had those crow’s-feet crinkling again. “I am impatient,” she whispered. “I haven’t done this in a long while.” In one smooth arch, she took him in.

      Her breath stopped. Her heart stopped.

      The world might have stopped, too, except she was too busy staring into the unholy pleasure that tightened Jake’s face to notice. He sucked in a sharp breath and closed his hands hard and tight around her hips. “How long a while?”

      She shook her head. How could she care about details that didn’t even merit comparison to this? “It doesn’t matter. Years.” She slowly worked her hips against his, and knew with feminine instinct that it felt as torturously perfect for him as it did for her.

      He sucked in another hard breath. “You’re dangerous.”

      “Next time, think twice before you give me Cristal.”

      She felt his bark of laughter down to the very center of her, and then neither one of them was laughing as he rolled her in the straw and sank even deeper. “You feel incredible,” he breathed against her ear.

      What she felt was a climax bearing down on her with the speed of a freight train. Her head twisted in the soft straw. “Jake—”

      “Forget the warm summer night.” He pushed up on his forearms, tendons tight in his neck. His shoulders. “You’re a storm.”

      And she felt suddenly buffeted. She cried out, the cataclysm spiraling even harder because Jake was right there with her, his own satisfaction flooding through her.

      It seemed endless, that pure pleasure that streaked through her veins, heating her from fingertips to soul. And maybe it was endless, because by the time Jake finally drew in a deep, shuddering breath and rolled over on his back, his arms splayed in the straw, J.D. knew the world could have come to a halt and she wouldn’t have noticed.

      She let out a long, shaking breath of her own. She couldn’t have moved just then to save her soul.

      “Wow,” he murmured after a while.

      She almost giggled. And she’d never much been a giggling sort. “I think I’m still vibrating.”

      He huffed out a faint laugh. “Honey, flattering as that is—” his voice was a low, sexy drawl “—I think that might be my cell phone.” He pushed himself up until he was sitting, his intoxicating gaze roving over her as he tugged the edge of his trousers out from beneath her hip. He pulled out his vibrating cell phone, his gaze meeting hers with a devilish humor. “Never going to be able to talk on this thing again without thinking about…today.”

      She wanted to roll over and bury her hot face in the straw, but his hand settled on her bare flank. It was vaguely appalling that she felt a stirring all over again, even when her entire body drifted in satiated stupor.

      But then his phone vibrated again and he checked the display. The humor in his face died and he drew back his hand.

      Despite the hot night, J.D. felt a sudden chill.

      Then he hit a button and set the phone to his ear. “Tiffany. What have the boys done now?”

      Chapter Two

      “Thanks for agreeing to meet me.”

      Jake rose from his chair and eyed J.D. where she stood, just inside the door of his study. “Of course.” He waved at the leather chairs situated in front of his desk. “Have a seat.”

      Her green eyes didn’t meet his as she crossed the room. But instead of sitting, she stopped behind the chair closest to the opened French doors. She closed her fingers over the back of it and her knuckles were white.

      He bit back a sigh.

      Since that night in the barn more than a month ago, they’d only seen one another a handful of times. For minutes only, when it came right down to it. But even then, the brief encounters had felt awkward.

      Not because he regretted touching her.

      But because it was so clear that she did.

      “You didn’t tell Mabel why you wanted to meet with me.” His personal secretary had been quite put out as a result. But Jake could have told Mabel that he already had a good idea why J.D. had requested a meeting. It was something