Reprieve (Love's Second Chance Book 1)

by Scott,Scarlett

  It was dark when they finally reached Sophie’s house and a furtive glance at the dashboard revealed to her that Trevor would have a late return home. She turned to him when he glided the Audi into park. It was difficult for her to make out his face since there were no streetlights in her historic neighborhood and there was only the light of the moon to illuminate him.

  “I would invite you inside, but since it’s so late,” she murmured, “you’d probably like to leave right away.”

  Even floating high on a cloud of wine, Sophie recognized inviting Trevor into her house would be a mistake. A big one, to be precise.

  “Actually,” he said, surprising her, “I’ve got a late start tomorrow at the gallery. So if the offer still stands?”

  What could she do but nod yes?

  So it was that they came to be seated at her kitchen table over two cups of steaming coffee, silence reigning between them once more. Sophie fiddled with the handle of her terracotta-colored mug, unaccountably nervous. She didn’t know what to say to Trevor and he seemed content to merely watch her with that fathomless gaze of his. It was making her more and more uncomfortable by the minute.

  She cleared her throat. “Thanks again for dinner. It was lovely.”

  “My pleasure.”

  “How’s the coffee?”

  “Perfect,” he assured her. “Just the way I like it.”

  “Would you like the chocolate cake?” She rose from her chair, crossing the kitchen. “I’ll get a plate.”

  “Sophie.”

  She ignored him, pulling open a cabinet door to retrieve a plate.

  “Sophie.”

  Large hands settled on her waist, spinning her around to face him. His big, lean body was mere inches from hers, so close she could feel the heat of him, sense the barely leashed power. Her hands fluttered about, finally settling on his strong forearms, trying to push him away, but he was having none of it.

  “Sophie, look at me.”

  She did, meeting his captivating gaze, and she was instantly lost. Desire crackled in his eyes. He was so ruggedly beautiful. She tried to remind herself this was too soon, summon a mental image of Peter, but all she could see was rakish black hair, a pair of honey-gold eyes and firm lips about to give her a kiss.

  “Trevor,” she said, trying to form an objection.

  “I want to kiss you.”

  His grip on her waist tightened, pulling her body into contact with his. Every inch of his muscled form pressed into her softness. Her breath left her lungs in a faint whoosh. The feel of him against her was so arousing, so right.

  “Do you want me to kiss you?” His warm breath fanned her lips.

  “No. Yes.” She blinked. “I don’t know.”

  She couldn’t do this. Peter’s memory deserved better than this, her pawing some stranger in the kitchen. He had been such a good, kind man. He deserved better.

  But even as the thoughts swirled through her mind, she pressed closer to him, basking in his heat and touch. She ran her hands up his arms, then down over his chest, enjoying the ripple of powerful muscles beneath her fingertips.

  His lips were half an inch from hers, on the brink of the kiss she so desperately craved. All she had to do was lean in to him.

  “Kiss me, Sophie.”

  She hesitated for the briefest second, then leaned forward, brushing her lips hesitantly over his. He groaned, his hands roaming over the small of her back in a caress. The chaste kiss deepened as Trevor angled his lips over hers, applying just enough force to make her want more.

  Her hands were tangled in his hair before she even knew what she was about and she was clinging to him as if she was afraid he would disappear. His tongue traced the seam of her lips, sending sparks of heat shimmying through her body to pool low in her belly.

  “Open for me,” he whispered.

  She obeyed, her knees growing weak as his tongue swept into her mouth. He tasted of hazelnut coffee and she had never tasted anything so deliciously decadent and wonderful. She wanted more.

  She wanted him.

  Sophie touched her tongue to his. The kiss grew hungrier, wilder, like they were both starved for one another. And maybe they were. She pressed her body shamelessly to his, needing to be closer, until she could feel the rapid thud of his heart against her chest.

  He broke the kiss to trail his lips across her jaw, then down the side of her neck in delicious little kisses. He pressed his mouth to the hollow at the base of her neck where her pulse galloped at a mad pace. His tongue slid against her bare skin like hot, wet velvet. Sophie moaned, tilting her head back to allow him better access. God, she was on fire for him.

  His fingers were on the buttons lining the front of her simple, white shirt and she was suddenly glad she’d changed into a shirt with buttons before they had left for the Washington Tavern. It was easier to remove.

  When he parted the front of her shirt, pulling the sides down over her shoulders, she knew a moment of self-consciousness. She instinctively tried to shield her breasts from his sight with her hands.

  “Trevor,” she protested shakily, feeling like an awkward teenage girl with her first boyfriend. Except in her case, her first boyfriend had been her only boyfriend and later, her only lover. These sensations were so new to her, so foreign.

  He took her hands gently in his, pulling them aside. “You’re exquisite, Sophie. My God.”

  She let her hands drop, mesmerized by the expression on his face. He cupped her breasts through the filmy lace of her bra. His thumbs traced a path of fire across the bare swells.

  He pressed a kiss to the corner of her lips. “Let me spend the night.”

  She wanted to say yes so badly she ached with it. But no matter how much she wanted to be with Trevor, she couldn’t do it. It would be the ultimate betrayal to Peter’s memory.

  “I can’t,” she whispered brokenly, meeting Trevor’s gaze, her eyes pleading with him to understand.

  “Sweetheart, I’m sorry.” He pressed a kiss to her cheek. “I’ll go.”

  But as he released her and stepped away, she caught his arm. It was impossible. She didn’t want him to go, but yet she didn’t want him to stay. Suddenly, the idea of spending the night alone seemed intolerable. She couldn’t form the words to say it.

  Trevor’s eyes were questioning on hers. “Tell me what you want, Sophie.”

  “I don’t know what I want,” she confessed. “I’m so confused.”

  He frowned at her, beginning to fasten the buttons on her shirt as though she were a child who needed his help getting dressed. “I never should have touched you. You’re hard to resist.”

  She remained silent, watching as he finished placing the last button in its mooring.

  “I’ll go.” He pressed a brotherly kiss to her forehead and turned away, striding to the table to retrieve his keys.

  Sophie was rooted to the spot, half afraid that if she dared move, her knees would buckle beneath her weight. For a brief moment, the loneliness she had seen in his eyes reared up before her, making her want to go to him.

  But it was too late. Trevor was already opening up the back door to leave. He paused, looking back at her, his expression inscrutable. “Goodbye, Sophie.”

  “Goodbye,” she managed before the door clicked shut behind him. She wondered then if she would ever see him again or if she had pushed him too far away.

  Sophie did her best to avoid getting paint all over her cordless phone as she answered it. She was in the middle of working on the painting she had promised Trevor, paint splattered all over her clothing and hands.

  “Sophie.”

  Recognition slid through her at the sound of that deep voice.

  “Trevor.” She tried to squelch the note of eagerness in her voice. She hadn’t heard from him in three days and she had begun to fear she would indeed never see him again. “How are you?”

  “As good as can be expected,” was his brooding response.

  Sophie was instantly on alert. “Is something
wrong? Is it my paintings?”

  She hadn’t quite realized just how much her success had begun to mean to her.

  “The paintings are still selling like hot cakes,” he assured her.

  “Then what is it?” Sophie sent a speculative glance at her clock. It was nine on a Friday night and Trevor was home, alone and calling her? Sophie found that hard to believe. Exceedingly hard to believe.

  “Do I need a reason to call you?” He neatly avoided her question.

  She was beginning to appreciate just how adept Trevor was at skirting the truth. “You don’t strike me as someone who enjoys idle chatter,” she observed.

  “Would you believe I just wanted to hear your voice?” There was a smile in his tone.

  She could picture that sexy, roguish half-grin of his. Somehow, in the dim confines of the Washington Tavern, their relationship had transcended the bonds of mere friendship. Try as she might to convince herself this wild attraction she felt for Trevor was wrong, she couldn’t bring herself to believe it. Like a child given her first piece of candy, Sophie wanted more.

  “I take that silence to mean you don’t believe me,” he interrupted her thoughts.

  Sophie smiled to herself. “Was there something in particular that you wanted?”

  “Now that you mention it, yes. Several things, in fact, but a few of them might offend your tender sensibilities.”

  That won a grudging laugh from her. Her tender sensibilities, indeed. It had been so long since she’d indulged in such lighthearted banter. It felt good.

  “Why don’t you just tell me the PG ones,” she suggested archly.

  “Ah, you’re no fun, Sophie.” He sighed. “One, how’s your painting coming? Two, what are you doing tomorrow night?”

  Sophie smiled again. “The painting is coming along just fine. As for tomorrow night, I have a date.”

  “What?”

  Sophie just barely suppressed a chuckle. In truth, there was no date, but she was enjoying stringing him along a bit.

  “I thought about it after you left on Wednesday,” she said cheerfully, “and I realized you were right. I should start dating again.”

  “I didn’t say that,” Trevor protested, his voice coming out as a low growl.

  “Not in so many words.”

  “Not at all, damn it!”

  “You didn’t?” she asked with feigned innocence.

  “Are you free for lunch?” His voice was a curt demand.

  “Yes,” she said, taking pity on him and deciding to confess. “Trevor, I—”

  “I’ll pick you up at twelve sharp,” he interrupted. “Don’t be late.”

  With that last, terse directive, he hung up. Sophie followed suit, returning her cordless to its cradle. She’d always kept it out of her studio to maintain her focus, but now its every ring had her running to answer. She made her way back to her studio in a slight daze.

  Was it possible that Trevor was actually jealous of her phantom date? No. She scoffed at the notion, deeming it ridiculous. He probably just had more papers for her to sign, nothing more.

  Besides, men like Trevor didn’t fall for women like her. There was physical attraction yes, but allowing herself to become emotionally involved with him would be pure, unadulterated stupidity. It was just the newness of being desired by a man again that left her breathless with anticipation to see Trevor tomorrow. It seemed he was to be her reprieve from grief and misery, but there was no reason why he should be anything more than that. No reason at all.

  When twelve o’clock finally rolled around Saturday afternoon, Sophie found herself pacing in the entryway, stopping every fifteen seconds to peek out the window to determine whether or not Trevor had yet arrived.

  Nervous, she ran her hands experimentally over the soft fabric of her dress. She had actually indulged in some hasty shopping earlier that morning purely on a whim. The dress had caught her eye immediately.

  It was salmon-colored silk with flirty ruffles along the hem and neckline. Bright and sexy, the dress was everything she was not. Or at least, she hadn’t thought she was, until she had tried the dress on in the fitting room. Sophie had not been able to pass it up and not just because the dress was stunning. It was symbolic, the shedding of the old skin for the new.

  Odd though it was, she recognized she was somehow a million miles away from the broken woman who had tried to kill herself one month ago. How it had happened, she would never be quite sure. It seemed she had reached her breaking point on that endless stretch of highway, the place in the journey of her life where the road forked into two paths and she had been forced to choose one.

  Sophie allowed herself another peek out the window. No sign of Trevor.

  She sighed.

  The longer it took for him to arrive, the more time she had to stew over the endless string of trivialities rushing through her head. Was her neckline too low? Would he like the dress and would she care if he didn’t? Was she trying to look too young or too sexy? Would he forget about their lunch date? The list, it seemed, was positively endless.

  Thankfully, her ruminations were cut short when Trevor’s shiny black car glided into her driveway. She tore her face away from the window lest she be caught lurking at the door like a teenager anxious for her first date with a boy. Sophie made a face at the very thought of it. She did feel like the clock had been turned back and she was fifteen years old, waiting for Peter’s beat-up old truck to come down the road. It suddenly struck her just how very inexperienced she was when it came to matters of the heart. She wondered, and not for the first time, how much she had missed by settling with Peter.

  Peter.

  Guilt struck her with the force of a physical blow. Her life with Peter had been good. He had been a loving husband and father. Looking back on their past from this point in her life was not fair to him.

  Trevor rang her doorbell before she could spend more time deliberating on the troubling answer. Smoothing down her dress one last time, she took a deep breath and opened the door.

  The sight of him took her breath away. His hair was damp, as though he had gone from the shower right to his car. He was dressed casually in tan pants that fit his lean legs to perfection. Not too tight and not too baggy, paired with his signature white shirt. His bronze skin looked even darker than normal, his eyes warm and appreciative as they raked over her from head to toe.

  “Hello, Trevor.” She stepped back to allow him entrance.

  “Sophie.” He hesitated for a moment, his gaze lingering on her new dress. The sudden darkening in his eyes told her she had made an excellent choice.

  She couldn’t quite contain her smile. “Would you like to come in?”

  “Yes.” He stepped inside. “God, you look fantastic, Sophie.”

  Warmth seeped through her at his compliment. “Thanks,” she said, breathless. “You don’t look half bad yourself.”

  She caught his gaze dipping to the neckline of her dress again and a responding tug of desire sizzled low in her belly. If he didn’t stop looking at her as if she were a particularly delicious piece of cake he was about to devour, she’d go insane.

  Trevor reached out and took her hand in his. The contact sent a fresh wave of heat cascading over her. He tugged her closer, closer, until their bodies were nearly touching. Awareness of him overwhelmed her. She leaned in to him, their lips almost touching.

  “Sophie,” called a familiar voice as the front door clicked open. “The girls and I—”

  Sophie turned to meet the shocked gaze of Peter’s sister. They hadn’t spoken in a few weeks, but they liked to keep in touch. Anne Marie had a habit of dropping in from time to time with her daughters. Realizing what Anne Marie must be seeing, Sophie instantly jumped away from Trevor with a guilty start.

  Anne Marie’s mouth hung open, then snapped shut. “Oh. Well. I didn’t realize you had company.”

  Sophie’s heart sank. “Anne Marie.”

  Just then, ten-year-old Samantha and six-year-old Amy appeared at t
heir mother’s side, gazing in at the scene with wide, blue eyes. Anne Marie clamped a hand on Amy’s shoulder, turning the girl around.

  “We’ll just go,” Anne Marie said coolly, censure clearly visible in the tense lines of her face.

  Guilt drove into her like a knife’s blade. What had she been thinking?

  “No.” Sophie rushed to the door and placed a staying hand on Anne Marie’s arm. “You don’t have to leave, Anne Marie.”

  Her sister-in-law’s gaze flicked over Sophie’s shoulder to Trevor. “Really, Sophie. It’s been two years since everything happened and well, I can understand if you’re ready to move on.”

  But Anne Marie’s face told a different story. Looking at her sister-in-law was always like coming face-to-face with Peter’s ghost. They were so alike in looks and coloring they could have been twins. Of course, the girls reminded Sophie of her precious Elizabeth too. Sometimes it was hard to see them, to know Elizabeth would never reach their age, never go to kindergarten, play soccer, or get the leading role in the school play.

  Ten years Sophie’s senior at forty-two, Anne Marie felt it was her duty to keep Sophie in line and remind her she was still a part of the Olsen family. Sophie had last seen Anne Marie at the hospital after her accident, since Samantha had had a soccer game during Sophie’s welcome home party. Which was probably best, given that Anne Marie didn’t get along with half of Sophie’s friends and family.

  Trevor stepped forward and offered Anne Marie a charming grin and a firm handshake. “Trevor James,” he introduced himself. “I’m an art dealer from New York City. I’ve been looking at Sophie’s work. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  Anne Marie relaxed at his calm handling of the situation. She flashed Trevor a polished smile in return. “I’m Anne Marie Smith, Sophie’s sister-in-law. Nice to meet you too.”

  To Sophie’s surprise, Trevor bent down until he was eye level with Samantha and Amy. “And who might these beautiful young ladies be?”