A Weaver Baby

by ALLISON LEIGH,

  And yet, when he lifted the crystal glass and grazed the cool rim ever so faintly against her lower lip, she seemed frozen in place.

  His voice dropped another notch. “What are you nervous about?”

  If her face got any hotter, her blood was going to steam right out of her ears. “Nothing.” She snatched the glass from him and inelegantly chugged the remainder, then pushed the glass back at him. When he didn’t take it, she reached past his broad shoulder and balanced it on the corner post of Latitude’s stall. “Good night, Mr. Forrest. You should go play with your debutantes.” She turned to go.

  His hand on her shoulder stopped her dead in her tracks. “I’m not interested in any debutantes.”

  She sent up a breathless prayer for her fleeing common sense to get back where it belonged. But the light touch of his fingers on her shoulder didn’t move away, nor did her common sense trot on back to the barn. “Mr. Forrest—”

  “Most of the crew calls me Jake.” His fingers finally moved, sliding down her shoulder, grazing over her bare elbow beneath the short-sleeved shirt, only coming to a stop when they reached her wrist. He pressed his thumb against her frantic pulse. “But not you, not even after all these years. Why is that?”

  “I like to keep things professional.” Unfortunately, her low, husky voice sounded anything but.

  “You’re the epitome of professionalism.”

  She couldn’t help it. She looked up at him through her lashes. “Pardon me, but I don’t feel that way just now.”

  His coffee-brown eyes would have looked sleepy if not for the heat blazing from them. “Your job is secure no matter what. Miguel is in charge of the stable crew.”

  “And you’re in charge of Miguel.”

  “Miguel is in charge of Miguel,” he corrected wryly. He upended the rest of the champagne into the flute and lifted the glass again. “But if you insist on going, take this with you, at least. You, more than anyone, has earned some very fine champagne today.”

  “Latitude did all the work.”

  “Latitude ran for you. Miguel wanted me to sell him until you started handling him.”

  Jake wasn’t telling her anything she didn’t already know. She took the glass. Felt her head swim as she sipped again at moonbeams.

  And somehow she found the toes of her scuffed boots boldly brushing the toes of Jake’s highly polished ones. She wasn’t even sure if his arm came around her waist first, or if it was her hand pressing against the solid warmth of his chest. But the crystal flute was suddenly caught between them, the glittering liquid spilling as their mouths found one another.

  Champagne moonbeams were no comparison at all when it came to the taste of Jake Forrest.

  It made her weak. Deliciously weak.

  And there was no earthly way she could convince herself that one kiss would be enough.

  Not when his splayed fingers were hard and hot against her spine through the thin knit of her shirt. Not when his other hand slid along her shoulder, cupped her cheek, fingers threading through her hair, urging her head back. Not when she felt the murmur of her name in his low, deep voice whispering along her neck before he pressed his lips against the pulse at the base of her throat.

  Her mind reeled, trying to find reason. Or justification. Jake was a worldly man. He wouldn’t expect anything later that she wasn’t capable of giving.

  Her fingers flexed against him, encountering champagne-damp silk and cool crystal. Then the glass fell, landing with a soft shatter when Jake lifted her off her feet until her mouth was level with his again. “Do you still want to run?”

  She could feel his heart thudding hard against her. Her fingers clutched his broad shoulders. Their faces were so close, she could have counted every one of the dark, spiky eyelashes that surrounded his gleaming gaze. “Do you want me to run?”

  He pressed her against the paneled wall next to Latitude’s stall and ran his hands along her thighs, drawing them up, alongside his hips. “What do you think?”

  Every unyielding inch of him from shoulder on south pressed into her and she had to choke back a moan. “Mr. Forr—”

  His mouth cut her off. “Jake,” he said against her.

  Her hands slid behind his neck. His thick hair was cool between her fingers. “Jake,” she obliged breathlessly. She’d have said anything as long as he didn’t take away the intense pleasure of his kiss. “Jake,” she said again on a low moan of delight when his weight pressed even harder into her. Her fingers slid from his hair to curl into the smooth silk covering his back, pulling it up until she could feel the warmth 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 sh
oulder 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 she’d never done before in all the time she’d worked at Forrest’s Crossing. If there was an issue at the stable, she would have gone to Miguel.

  Which, to Jake, meant only one thing.

  She was going to quit.

  “I thought it best not to tell Mabel the specifics.” J.D.’s fingers whitened even more over the back of the chair. “Actually, I tried to get an appointment with you at your office at Forco, but your secretary there was even less accommodating than Mabel. She said you had nothing available on your calendar there until November.”

  “Lucia is my assistant, actually. And she controls my schedule at the plant more than I do.” He wanted to go around to her and peel those fingers away from the leather, urge her down into the seat and tell her anything that would make her relax.

  He remained where he was. Things would be better all around if he refrained from touching her, since he already knew he seemed unable to exercise much control where she was concerned. Touching her was flammable. They’d already proven that. “You could have just phoned me directly, you know. Avoided the others altogether.”

  Her face looked a little pinched. “I don’t have your direct number.”

  He frowned a little at that and immediately pulled out a business card. He scribbled on the back of it. “Now you do.” He handed it to her. “Would you like a drink? I can call Mabel—”

  “No.” She took the card gingerly. “No, thank you.” She glanced over her shoulder as if she were afraid that his secretary would already be standing behind her.

  But the door to his office was firmly closed.

  They had all the privacy either one of them could want.

  He dragged his mind out of that dangerous direction.

  “How are things down in the stable?”

  Her slender throat worked. “They’re not too happy, needless to say. Everyone had high expectations for the Hopeful last week. I’m sure you did, too.”

  Despite the thrilling success at Latitude’s maiden race, followed up by an even more spectacular finish at the Saratoga Special, Latitude had fallen far short at the Hopeful Stakes, coming in damn close to last. “Yes, I did. My sisters and I expect winners, not losers.” That’s what Forrest’s Crossing did—produced world-class, winning thoroughbreds. “And you?”

  She lifted one shoulder and her yellow FC shirt tightened over the subtle, high swell of her breasts, needlessly reminding Jake of that night. “I’m never disappointed in Latitude.”

  Because she was the only one in his stable crew who wasn’t motivated by winning, he knew.

  “I think you’ll have him more than ready for the Champagne Stakes,” he assured.

  If anything, J.D. looked even more strained. “The Champagne isn’t until next month. But I didn’t come to talk about Lat, actually.”

  Which just confirmed his fear that she was there to resign.

  “Well, before you get started, I do want to talk about him.” He took shameless advantage of still being the boss. “I’m telling Miguel that I don’t want anyone but you working with Latitude. Not even him.”

  At that, her lashes flew up and those gut-wrenching green eyes of hers finally met his. Even the waves in her pale blond hair seemed to spring with shock. “If this is about what happened between us, then—”

  “It isn’t.”

  She very nearly snorted. She even released that whitened grip on the chair to lift her hands up in the air. “You’ve never made decisions around Miguel before. He’ll have a fit.”

  “Miguel works for me,” Jake reminded.

  At that, she laughed out loud. “You yourself said nobody was in charge of Miguel. He allows you to keep him on the payroll because he chooses to be here. He could go anywhere in the world if he wanted and work with two dozen owners instead of just one. But he stays, and you let him run the stable the way he wants to run it because he brings you winners. And I kn
ow for certain that he wouldn’t put me in charge of Latitude.”

  “Lat won his first two races because you were working with him. Miguel took over again before the Hopeful and he barely wanted to finish.”

  Her eyes widened and her bow-shaped lips pressed together. Evidence that she’d thought he was unaware of some details. “Just because I’ve been away on business for two weeks doesn’t mean I don’t know what’s going on in my own stable,” he said. “Miguel may not want to face the fact that you have the magic touch where Latitude is concerned, but I have, which is why I’m assigning you specifically to him. Miguel can focus all of his energy on bringing along Platinum. Of course, that means your fee will increase and—”

  “Stop.” She shook her head. “This is all wrong.”

  “You don’t want to work with Latitude?”

  She tossed up her hands. “Well, of course I want to work with Lat. I love that colt, but you need to know—” Her voice cracked to a stop. She looked away from him again. “You need to know that I’m, well, that I’m—”

  “Excuse me, Jake?”

  They both stared at the woman who’d had the audacity to open his closed office door. Only it wasn’t his secretary, who would have known better. It was Jake’s aunt Susan who rushed into the office.

  “What’s wrong?”

  His aunt barely gave J.D. a glance as she hurried toward him, her slender hands twisting in front of her.

  “Bill Franks just called me. Mabel put him through to me since you were busy.” Her gaze flicked for a moment to J.D. “There’s been an accident.”

  Everything stilled except Jake’s guts. Bill and Jennifer Franks were his ex-wife’s in-laws. “The boys?”

  She hurriedly waved her hands. “No, no. Connor and Zachary are fine.”

  Relief slammed through him. His twin sons were fine. “Sidney? Charlotte?” They were his sisters, and aside from Susan who’d lived at Forrest’s Crossing since he’d been a boy, the only other family who mattered to him.

  Again his aunt shook her head. “It’s Tiffany. She and her husband were driving—the boys weren’t with them—they had an accident.”