Two and a half months ago, she’d given herself to him without a second thought. Now, even though she clearly wanted him as much as he wanted her, he could see her intent was to withhold every part of herself that she could. Yes, she’d agreed to be in his bed, but even though that should have been more than enough for him, it wasn’t. Not anymore. Not after having had all of her once before.

What, he wondered, would it take for Sophie to open up to him again? To trust him the way she’d trusted him in Napa?

A heavy weight settled in Jake’s gut as he silently acknowledged her valid reasons for not trusting him. She would never believe him if he told her he wasn’t the kind of guy who slept with a girl and then left her hanging for months. He’d always been clear with his lovers about expectations, about the fact that they couldn’t have any. And he’d never slunk away in the middle of the night like a coward.

Until Sophie.

And he had no idea how to make it up to her.

No question, the sexual connection he and Sophie shared was as good as it got. Their desire for each other wasn’t going anywhere, no matter how hard she tried to slam the brakes on it.

But that wasn’t enough. He’d always liked Sophie, but now that he was seeing the different sides to her—the smart and the sexy, the complicated emotions and the simple pleasures she took from beauty and food, the spark that sprang from the serene—he realized he wanted her to like him, too.

And that, he already knew, was going to be the biggest hurdle of all, considering he’d be hard-pressed to come up with reasons why she should.

Sophie came back to the car wearing a soft, long-sleeved sweater dress in gray that did more for her curves than he figured she knew. She’d put on a little makeup and brushed her hair until it shone. She buckled her seatbelt and sat with her hands primly clasped on her lap before telling him the address of her doctor’s office in a tight voice.

He couldn’t help but smile at the way she was trying so hard to rein in all that passion she’d been losing the battle to just minutes before. His lovely, foolish girl. Didn’t she realize she should just give in already?

“We’re about to be late,” she snapped when he didn’t start the car. But when she finally turned to him, whatever she’d been about to say fell away, confusion taking its place. “Why are you looking at me like that? What are you smiling about?”

She was so easy to rile up. He could already see he’d never get tired of putting sparks into her pretty eyes.

“Whatever you have up your sleeve,” she muttered, “you’d better just forget it.”

The truth was, he didn’t have anything much up his sleeve for the time being. He wanted to get through this doctor’s appointment first before he moved on to his next step in convincing her to marry him. But Sophie didn’t need to know that. Especially not when he found he liked having her on her toes, anticipating what he was going to do next.

Whether she’d ever admit it or not, she liked it, too.

“Don’t you wish you knew?” he said in as sensual tone as he could muster around his grin, then sped off into traffic before she could say another word.

Chapter Fourteen

Sophie checked in with the receptionist, then sat on one of the padded leather seats in the waiting room and picked up a magazine. She was determined to ignore Jake. Of course, that was nearly impossible, with all the other women in the room staring at him in wonder.

These women were all pregnant, for God’s sake! What were they doing looking at a stranger like that?

It wasn’t that she was possessive about him, she told herself, just that they were behaving inappropriately. Their husbands wouldn’t be pleased if they knew the way their wives were practically bowing down prostrate before Jake’s male beauty.

“So,” he asked one of the women, “how’s your pregnancy going?”

Of course, he couldn’t just leave it alone, could he? The woman beamed at him as though he were the Second Coming.

“Really great.” The woman leaned in close as if she were telling him a secret. “I’m having a boy.”

Jake leaned closer and grinned at the woman. “That’s great.”

“I’m having a girl!” another woman from across the room piped in.

Jake smiled at her, too. “Congratulations.” He nodded at the women. “There really is nothing prettier than a pregnant woman.”

Sophie had never seen people look as happy as these women did after he made his proclamation. What was wrong with them?

And why did she feel so pathetically jealous?

“I knew it,” she muttered into her magazine and the woman closest to her raised an eyebrow.

“What do you know?” he asked, putting his hand on her knee.

Why did he have to be so warm? And why did she have to love being touched by him so much? Way too much.

She purposefully uncrossed and recrossed her legs so that he’d have to slide his hand away. I knew you were one of those pregnancy fetish creeps was what she was thinking, but she simply said, “Nothing.”

He leaned in close and she could feel his breath on her earlobe. “I’ll find a way to convince you to tell me later, you know.” His tongue flicked out against her earlobe before he pulled away and she barely swallowed a lust-filled moan before it escaped her lips.

Angry with herself for having absolutely zero control over her hormones around him, she hissed, “You’re a pervert, that’s what!”

His laughter at her crazy statement rumbled through the waiting room. “I can’t wait to hear why.”

“You know why.”

He looked at her in confusion for a second and she had to nod her head in the other women’s directions before awareness dawned. His laughter was loud enough this time to ring out through the room. “So that’s what your muttering about fetishes was this morning. You think I’m into—” He broke off, laughing again.

She purposely lifted her magazine closer so that she could pretend to be engrossed in the article she hadn’t even glanced at yet.

A moment later, when he’d finally stopped laughing, he leaned back over and whispered, “Might be easier to read this way.”

His big, strong body was too close to hers in the small waiting room for her brain to figure out what he was talking about until he turned the magazine around in her hands.

Oh my God. How embarrassing. She didn’t normally care what a bunch of strangers thought of her, but then again, she’d always blended into the background, so no one had ever really noticed her.