Jamie closed her eyes as a rush of emotion so intense it was dizzying poured through her. She clung to him, her knees weak, her head spinning. “You let me walk away,” she whispered. “You didn’t try to make me stay. When Saran told you not to let me go, you s-said that forcible seduction wasn’t your style.”
He brushed her mouth with his. “And there you were, hoping to be forcibly seduced?”
Her face turned crimson. “I’m not in the mood to be teased!” She began to struggle indignantly. “Let me go, Rand.”
“No way. I learn from my mistakes, honey. You just told me that if I hadn’t let you go earlier today we could’ve avoided a day in hell. And so—”
He clamped his mouth over hers, and when she opened her mouth to protest, his tongue darted between her parted lips, filling her mouth and claiming it in a fiercely demanding, possessive kiss. Jamie’s arms crept around his neck, and her body arched instinctively, fitting her soft feminine curves against the hard planes of his masculine frame as she responded to him with all the vibrance and passion of her nature.
“I love you, Jamie,” he said huskily, as they held each other, panting and breathless with emotion and arousal. “There’s never been anyone like you in my life. I took one look at you in the library that day and lost my head. Not long afterward I lost my heart to you, too. Everything I’ve done and said since then has been to keep you with me. Forever, Jamie.”
“You love me,” she repeated softly and felt the tears begin to slide down her cheeks. She’d never cried so much in her entire life as she had today, but these tears were different, they were tears of joy and relief and sheer emotional release. “Oh, Rand, I love you, too. I’ve loved you for such a long time and I thought—I hoped—that you were falling in love with me, too. And last night was—”
“Perfect,” Rand cut in, holding her tightly against him. “I felt a happiness, a sense of completeness I’d never known. So when Daniel showed up at the door, blathering about that damn bet—”
“I know there wasn’t a bet, Rand.” It was her turn to interrupt. “Not on your end, anyway. As for your writing as Brick Lawson, I’m sorry I made it impossible for you to tell me. Now that I know it’s you who has written those books, I know I’m going to love them.”
Rand laughed. “Honey, you don’t have to go that far. You don’t even have to read them. I just want you to love me, Jamie. And to marry me. Your grandmother called the Sons of Italy hall from my place this afternoon and booked our wedding reception for the beginning of August. Will you do it, Jamie? Will you marry me?”
“Oh, Rand, yes!” she cried exultantly. He lifted her off her feet and exuberantly swung her around in circles as she laughed and cried with happiness.
The drive from her house to his was a joyous one, as they made plans for their wedding, for their future, teasing and laughing and kissing hotly at each and every stop sign and red light. Rand carried Jamie into the house and directly to his bedroom. She clung to him, trembling with anticipation and arousal.
“I love you, Rand,” she said as he gently lowered her to the bed. It was both a pledge and a promise.
“And I love you, my darling.” Rand began to undress her, taking the time to kiss and caress her after he removed each garment. By the time she was naked, hot ribbons of pleasure were streaking through her. Rand quickly pulled off his own clothes, and she assisted him with eager hands.
He drew her into his arms for a long, lusty kiss, while they sensually explored each other, reexperiencing the pleasures of last night while making new and exciting erotic discoveries about each other.
He positioned her to receive him, his eyes holding hers, and a slow, sexy smile curved his lips as he merged their bodies with a sure, masterful stroke.
Jamie cried his name again and again as he moved within her, savoring the full feeling of him inside her, loving the emotional and physical intimacy they were sharing. His deep, slow strokes accelerated into a hard, fast rhythm that made her move for him and with him as the pleasurable, powerful tension built and grew, finally exploding into paroxysms of white-hot rapture. The force of her climax triggered his own, and Rand was thrust over the edge into ecstasy, losing himself in her and the binding passion of their love.
They lay in each other’s arms, replete and wonderfully sated as they slowly, languidly drifted to earth from the rapturous heights of passion. “I’m so glad we made up, Rand,” Jamie murmured, gazing at him with warm, limpid eyes. “I don’t think I could’ve managed to get through the night, thinking that you didn’t love me.” A small shudder quivered through her at the terrible prospect.
“I thought you couldn’t love me, that it wasn’t possible for me to keep your love,” he confessed haltingly. “And then I read chapter six in that damn courtship book and it was all about fighting and breaking up and knowing when to let go and face the fact that it’s over. I felt as if it had been written especially for me.”
“Oh, Rand, we’re going to fight from time to time, all couples do, but let’s make a vow never to walk away from each other again,” Jamie whispered passionately, intensely, hugging him tight. “So that no matter how mad we might get at each other, we’ll know deep down that our fight will end in us making up and not breaking up.”
“Jamie, that’s a promise I’m happy to make.”
The sincerity in his voice and the love in his eyes brought emotional tears to her eyes. “I love you so much, Rand. I’ll never leave you, ever. I promise.” It was a pledge as binding and as irrefutable as the wedding vows she would take in August.
Rand knew it and made one of his own. “And I’ll never let you go. We’re together forever, Jamie.” He smiled, feeling almost light-headed with happiness. And jubilant enough to tease her. “So you’re going to stick with me, even after you read the reviews of my next book?”
“I certainly am. And I’m going to read all your books and love them,” she insisted with her characteristic determination. “From now on, I’m a rabid Brick Lawson fan.”
“Fair enough,” Rand said, caressing her arousingly, lovingly as passion flamed between them once more. “Because I’ve always been an ardent, devoted, impassioned, adoring Jamie Saraceni fan.”
“Your mind really is a virtual thesaurus,” Jamie marveled, and then her mouth claimed his for an ardent, devoted, impassioned, adoring kiss.
END
Table of Contents
Three
Seven
Ten
Rule Breaker Page 18
