Claimed for Destiny

by Brenda Jackson

  “You look nice,” he said huskily, releasing her lips and letting his gaze roam over her body. “You’re definitely wearing this bathing suit—but not for long.”

  With a flick of his wrist he re leased her top and then bending, he caressed her bare shoulders with the tip of his tongue. That was followed by slow nibbling kisses that he placed on her neck before moving to her breasts, taking the hard tips of her nipples into his mouth one at a time.

  When she began to shudder he slowly lowered himself down in front of her and began easing the bikini bottom down her legs.

  “Your body leaves me breath less, Dana,” he whispered as his lips trailed kisses all over her stomach. “And your scent drives me crazy.”

  His mouth moved down ward and he reached out and gently grabbed hold of her hips. Glancing up at her and seeing how she watched everything he was doing while taking measured breaths and grip ping his shoulders for balance, he said, “I love kissing you all over.”

  He felt a shiver flow through her body and whispered huskily, “But I especially love kissing you here.”

  He heard her moan when his mouth closed over her most intimate part, finding her hot and wet. His tongue flicked out and began stroking her slowly and tasting her completely. When she arched against his mouth, he became greed y, insistent and possessive.

  “Jared!”

  She screamed his name. He felt her buck le against his mouth as every sensitive nerve in her body exploded. He wanted it all and he didn’t let up until her last shudder ended and she became soft and limp. Standing, he swept her into his arms and carried her over to a huge padded bench and held her. Placing her in his lap he tightened his hold on her and drew her closer, needing the con tact and not wanting to question the why of it.

  “You’re too much, Jared,” Dana whispered on a half sigh, barely opening her eyes.

  His smile was intriguing. “Is that a bad thing or a good thing?”

  “Umm, I imagine it’s a good thing,” she said softly.

  His chuckle was soft and the sound of it sent more sensual chills up Dana’s body. “You imagine? You’re not certain?”

  She hooked her arms around his neck. “Give me a few moments to re coup and I’ll let you know for sure.”

  “You don’t have a few moments to spare, sweet heart. I want you too much,” he said throatily. And then he was kissing her again, his lips hungry, his tongue hot, in tense. Her body immediately responded and began to heat up all over again.

  He slowly pulled back. “Come on, let’s swim for a while.”

  He stood with her in his arms and walked over to the pool. “The water is temperature controlled, so it’s warm.”

  They eased their bodies into the pool. After treading water for a few moments, they swam to the other side of the pool then back again. Going to the edge of the pool he gathered her close. Before she could gasp her next breath, he kissed her, touched her all over and completely shattered her sanity.

  Mindlessly, she moaned his name when his finger slipped in side of her, stroking her to heated bliss. “Wrap your legs around my waist.”

  Meeting his gaze she placed her arms around his neck, and when he positioned her body just where he wanted it he slowly eased in side of her, finding she was still moist and hot.

  And when he had gone as deep as he could go, Jared’s head came down and moments before he covered her lips he whispered the words, “This is as perfect as anything can possibly get.”

  And then he began moving in side of her, making love to her, taking, giving and sharing. Water lapped against their skin, absorbing the heat of their naked flesh, stroking their passion to a fevered pitch.

  It seemed as if it had been months, years since they had shared passion this way and all the longings Dana could possibly endure broke through, encasing her in a storm of emotions and pleasures that ripped through to her very soul. And when he in creased the rhythm, she pressed closer to him, urged him to take more as passion swirled around her, driving her through turbulence that could only have one end. Each stroke he made pushed her closer and closer to re lease. She dug her fingers into his shoulders as liquid warmth gathered, anticipation hovered and pleasure crested.

  Jared let out a deep guttural groan when he felt a shudder race through Dana’s body and she ground her hips against him, pushing him deeper in side of her, to the hilt. And then he lost it, that final, fragile hold on his sanity. His next powerful thrust connected them in a way that made sensations shoot through both of them simultaneously. Blood pounded in his ears and her name trembled from his lips at the same time that his body shook in a re lease so strong that he was whirled into a massive impact that stole his next breath.

  He felt Dana tremble in his arms, her response shame less, total and complete. The effects tore through him, ripped him in two and demanded that he give up everything, all that he had, whatever he possessed, to the fury of passion that consumed them both.

  And as he crushed her to him, he surrendered to the multitude of feelings that drew them together. She was his.

  Ten

  “I want my wife back, Jared. She refuses to see me or talk to me so what do you suggest that I do?”

  Jared sighed deeply wondering how Sylvester expected him to answer a question like that when he had his own personal is sues to deal with. It had been almost two weeks since his mother’s surgery and tonight was the night of Thorn and Tara’s anniversary party—and the final act of the play in which he and Dana had been participants. They were sup posed to officially end things tonight by breaking their engagement.

  “Jared? Are you listening to me?”

  Jared turned his attention back to his client who’d been pacing his office for the past half hour. Evidently, Sylvester thought that as his attorney Jared had all the answers, which was a completely false assumption. He was in the business of ending marriages and not trying to find ways to save them.

  “Have you tried begging?” Jared decided to ask. The last time he had spoken with Jackie Brewster’s attorney, he’d been in formed that she was adamant about giving her husband the divorce he’d asked for. She re fused to re main married to a man who had wrongly accused her of being unfaithful.

  Sylvester frowned. “I’m serious, Jared.”

  “So am I. According to your wife’s attorney, she wants us to proceed. She says there’s no chance of reconciliation.”

  Sylvester, with a defeated expression on his face, dropped down in a near by chair. “I can’t lose her. I love her, Jared, and I will do whatever I have to do to save my marriage. I was wrong. I knew what a good woman she was, yet I was quick to think the worst. It was so hard to accept that some one could actually love me and give me their complete devotion.”

  Behind his desk, Jared leaned back in his chair. It was odd to watch Sylvester this torn up over a woman. In the past, he’d been quick to end things and move on, usually because he had some other woman waiting in the wings. But that wasn’t the case this time. It was obvious Sylvester was in love with his wife.

  Love.

  With that one word, Dana quickly came into his thoughts. He blinked, refusing to go there. What he felt for her was desire, gut-wrenching desire, lust of the strongest kind. He’d been in relationships before and was an ace at getting out of them whenever things got stick y. And he would be the first to admit that things between him and Dana were definitely getting stick y. It was time to split—with no regrets.

  “Isn’t there something you can do, Jared? I’m desperate.”

  Sylvester’s words recaptured his attention. He stared up at the ceiling in deep thought for a moment. “Maybe there is,” he said, making a quick decision. “I’ll do my best to arrange for you and Jackie to have a private meeting, with out me or her attorney present. I can’t make any promises, but I’ll try. Once the two of you are alone, it’s going to be up to you to convince her that you’re worthy of forgiveness.”

  He saw the hopeful gleam that appeared in Sylvester’s eyes and the optimi
sm that lined the man’s features. It was evident he was struggling to hold on to his composure. If there had been any doubt in Jared’s mind of just how deeply Sylvester felt about his wife, it vanished at that very moment.

  “Are you okay, Dana?” Cybil asked, studying her best friend’s face.

  Dana looked up from the papers on her desk and forced a smile. “Yes, I’m fine.” She quickly glanced away, knowing she couldn’t hide her emotions from Cybil.

  “If you’re fine then why have you been crying?”

  Dana began studying the papers on her desk again. “Who says I’ve been crying?”

  “I do,” Cybil said quietly, crossing the room to stand in front of Dana’s desk. When seconds ticked by and Dana didn’t say anything, Cybil spoke again, her voice low and imploring. “I didn’t want you to get hurt.”

  Dana slowly stood from her desk and walked over to the window. She stared out until she was certain that her voice wouldn’t tremble with each word she was about to say. “I didn’t get hurt. I enjoyed each and every moment I spent with Jared.”

  “And you fell head over heels in love with him,” Cybil said, stating the obvious.

  Dana met Cybil’s concerned gaze. “Yes, I fell in love with him. I didn’t mean for it to happen, but it did. I love Jared with all my heart and I don’t have any regrets about it.”

  Cybil crossed the room to stand in front of Dana. “All right. Now what?”

  Dana looked away, to glance back out the window. “Now we’ve come to the end of our road. Tonight we end things and tomorrow I go back to being an unengaged woman.”

  Pain settled deep in Dana’s heart. How could she go back to the solitary life she’d known after being with Jared for the past six weeks? Not only with Jared, but with all the Westmorelands. For a little while, they had filled a need in her she hadn’t realized existed—a need to be long to a family. It was going to be hard going back to being alone again.

  “Ben and I are going to the Amelia Islands in the morning to at tend the tennis tournament. Come with us.”

  Dana gave Cybil a reassuring smile. “I’ll be fine. I will survive.” She chuckled. “It won’t be my first broken engagement,” she said teasingly.

  “But it will be the one that really mattered— pre tense or not.”

  Dana nodded. “Yes, it will be the one that mattered.”

  “And will you be read y for the questions on Monday? The speculations? The gossip?”

  On a long sigh Dana ran her hand through her hair. No, she wouldn’t be read y for any of that but she would deal with it. She gave a wry smile. “I’m read y for whatever comes my way, Cybil.”

  But she knew the moment she’d said the words that they were a lie.

  “Why do I get the feeling that you’re not in a good mood tonight?”

  Jared gave his cousin Storm a crooked smile and lifted the glass of punch to his lips, took a sip and then asked. “I don’t know. Why do you?”

  A chuckle escaped Storm’s lips. “I’ve of ten heard if you want a straight answer, then don’t ask an attorney a question.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard that one, too,” Jared said, giving his cousin a wink and taking another sip of his punch. He glanced around, seeing all the people who had shown up to celebrate Thorn and Tara’s first wedding anniversary. Even after a year, the thought of Thorn being married was still hard to get used to. Jared never thought there was a woman alive who was brave enough to put up with the surly Thorn Westmoreland. Evidently he’d been wrong. Tara seemed to be handling his prickly cousin very well and it didn’t take much to see how in love they were.

  Storm’s marriage six months ago had been another surprise, and Jared couldn’t help but dwell on all the changes that had taken place in Storm’s life since then. The man who had once been Atlanta’s most sought-after bachelor, who had been known as The Perfect Storm to multitudes of women, the man who swore he would never, ever marry was now a happily married man with a wife and twins on the way.

  “What happened?” Jared asked. He suddenly needed answers and he’d force them out of Storm if necessary.

  Storm raised a dark brow. “What do you mean what happened?”

  “With you and this marriage thing. You swore you would never fall in love but you did and I want to know what happened.”

  A huge smile stretched Storm’s lips. “Since you’re engaged to be married your self, I don’t understand the need for this cross-examination. But just in case for some reason the verdict’s still out, or you’re attempting to find logic in all of this, the answer is simple. Love happened. I met a woman who I couldn’t live with out. At first I thought it was strictly physical since there was such a strong attraction between us, but then I discovered there was more to it than just being intimate. I enjoyed being with her, going places with her, seeing her smile and sharing my thoughts with her. And she was different from any woman I’d ever known.”

  Storm chuckled before continuing. “It took me a while to rationalize the depth of my feelings but when I did, I knew just what I wanted and who I wanted. And I also knew what I could lose if I didn’t accept the truth and act on those feelings. I needed Jayla in my life, as part of my life, just as much as I needed to breathe.”

  Jared’s troubled gaze met Storm’s. “You were vulnerable.”

  Storm shook his head. “That’s a subjective viewpoint, Jared, but also a wrong one. I was in love. I was so deeply en trenched in the throes of it that there was no way I could walk away. Jayla has added meaning to my life in ways I didn’t think possible. But then from what I can tell, Dana has done the same for you. It shows every time the two of you are together. I’ve never seen you this attentive to any woman. For the past ten minutes you’ve been standing here getting agitated as you wait for her to return from touring the house with Tara. You love her, man. I thought I had it bad, but you have it worse. Hell, you’re in worse shape than Thorn was and he hadn’t known he was in love with Tara until it was almost too late.”

  Jared took another sip of his drink. He wondered what his cousin would say if he were to tell him he was wrong, that he wasn’t in love with Dana, and that the entire engagement had been nothing but a sham.

  Whatever he was about to say died on his lips the moment Dana walked through the patio doors with Tara. Tara and Thorn had had the house built and had moved into it a few months ago. It was a beautiful structure located in the out skirts of town on land that had been in the Westmoreland family for generations.

  “Well, there’s your lady, Jared. And if you’re as smart as I know you are, whatever doubt that’s beginning to form in your mind will soon vanish. Dana is a treasure worth having and if I were you I’d go a step further than just putting a ring on her finger. I’d make her officially mine as soon as I could.”

  “And what about the risk?”

  Storm’s eyes came swiftly to his. “What risk?”

  “Divorce.”

  Storm shook his head. “You’ve been handling way too many divorce cases, Jared. When you’re in love, you don’t think of failure, you only think of success and prosperity. Life is full of risks. Each time I leave the station and head out to fight a fire there’s a risk. You don’t dwell on the what-ifs, and you have to believe that some risks are definitely worth taking. You have to believe in forever. And with that,” Storm said, setting down his glass on the table be side him, “I think I’ll go find my wife and give her a huge kiss.”

  Jared lifted his fore head. “Why?”

  Storm gave him a smart-ass grin. “No particular reason. Just because.”

  Jared watched as Storm walked away before switching his attention back to Dana. She met his gaze and smiled. He smiled back then sighed deeply as he thought of how right things seemed at that moment. From the first, Dana had blended well with his family. And when she stood in a group with his female cousins, as she was doing now, she seemed so much a part of the Westmorelands. It seemed perfectly right for her to be here with them and with him.

 
; As he continued to hold her gaze he suddenly knew that everything Storm had said was true. As much as he wanted to deny it and had denied it, the truth was now crystal clear. He was in love. He wanted and needed Dana in his life.

  He wanted forever.

  How many times in the last six weeks had he reminded himself that their engagement was nothing but pre tense? That no matter how much he enjoyed being with her, the time would come for it to end, and for him to go back to playing the field with flash y women who weren’t looking for commitment? All the while knowing that his life would become empty with out Dana in it.

  How many times had he longed to keep things the way they were, but convinced himself that he didn’t want or need a woman in his life? That he had seen the ugly side of marriage too much to take the risks for himself? But Storm was right. Some risks were worth taking.

  The thought of Dana with some one else, sharing what they had shared was unacceptable. When they had entered into this pre tense, he’d had no intention of letting his guard down around her. But he had. And she had eased her way into his heart as easily as anything he’d ever seen. He’d tried to put up resistance, had told himself count less times what he’d felt for her was nothing but lust. However, he knew just as sure as he was standing here that what he felt for her was love of the richest kind and if he was completely honest, he could even admit he had probably fall en in love with her the moment she’d stormed into his office. From that day on, he had wanted her with a passion unlike anything he’d ever felt before.

  He wondered what Dana wanted. Was there a chance that she had feelings for him? Could she love him? There was only one way to find out. If she loved him, too, it would definitely make things a lot easier, and if she didn’t, then he would just have to take the same advice he’d given Sylvester earlier that day. He would beg if he had to, because he had no intention of letting Dana go. Whether it was using reason or re sorting to seduction, he would do what he had to do to win Dana’s heart forever.