Jared tipped her chin and kissed her, a lingering, sensual kiss that nearly made Mara’s toes curl.
“You look hot in anything you wear,” he told her hoarsely, his mouth trailing over her temple. “Even hotter in just your soft, perfect bare skin.”
Wrapping her arms around his neck, she pulled back and smiled at him playfully. “Uh-huh. Smooth talker.”
Reaching up, he pulled her hand from his nape and moved it down to his cock. Mara’s fingers flexed as they met his rock-hard erection.
“I’ll never say anything I don’t mean to you,” Jared told her harshly.
Mara shook her head. “I’m sorry. Sometimes I just find it so hard to believe that you feel this way about me.”
“Ditto,” he answered in a gentler voice, pulling her hand away from his erection and wrapping it around his neck again. “I missed you last night. That’s why I woke up early. I couldn’t wait to see you, find out how your night went. I wanted to call you, but your lights were off and I didn’t want to wake you up.” He bussed her on the forehead tenderly and stepped back, fishing something from his back pocket. “I got this for you. I know yours was destroyed, and you’re going to need it.”
Mara gawked at the sleek, beautiful new iPhone. “For me?” she asked incredulously. She took it, cradling it in her hand. Her old cell phone had been a relic, and she hadn’t planned on replacing it anytime soon. Every penny she had that wasn’t needed for basic necessities was going back into the business.
“When I couldn’t see you, I texted you,” he said huskily.
Pushing the button to activate the phone, Mara clicked on the one text message showing as unanswered.
I miss you.
The message had been sent at two o’clock in the morning. Just three simple words that tugged at her heart.
Fumbling with the newer model phone that she wasn’t used to, she didn’t look up at Jared as she replied.
I missed you, too.
She heard the muted ping of his phone, and she waited breathlessly as he pulled it out of his pocket.
Lifting her head, she drew in a sharp breath as he tilted her chin and kissed her with a possessive voraciousness that held her in his thrall for a moment before she wrapped her arms around him and returned his embrace. Jared kissed her like a man possessed, his hunger undisguised as he plundered her mouth. His body shuddered, and he was breathing heavily as he pulled his lips from hers. “I don’t want to miss you anymore. I think I’ve missed you my entire life. Be with me, Mara.”
“I am with you,” she whispered softly, soothingly near his ear. “I’m not going anywhere.” The ferocity of his need for her fed her own cravings for him, and she wrapped her arms around him tighter, harder.
“I don’t want anything to happen to you. I want you to live with me, be in my bed with me every night. I want your face to be the first one I see every morning when I wake up, and the last person I see or talk to before I sleep.” He molded her body against his, the covetous hold enveloping her.
He’s scared that something will happen to me.
Jared had only one other woman in his history that he’d cared about, and she’d died in a tragic accident. “I’ll be here, Jared,” she crooned, stroking the hair at the nape of his neck. She’d learned that life could end unexpectedly at any moment after her close call when her home burned to the ground. But she’d never leave Jared by choice. Not as long as he really cared about her.
Seeing him like this made her both elated and protective. This was the real Jared Sinclair, a big, gorgeous man with a tender heart. He’d opened his tortured, bottled-up emotions to her, and she was taking a leap of faith with him. She’d be just as open, just as willing to show him how she felt about him. She had the same fears, the same insecurities, but they weren’t at the same painfully high level as his were. She’d had a mother who had loved her, and no painful past to overcome. Even with her lack of baggage, it wasn’t easy to open her heart completely to a man that she cared about as much as she did about Jared. She wanted him so badly that it nearly terrified her. The emotion between them was so powerful, so intense that it was nearly painful.
“Stay,” he grumbled greedily as Mara tried to pull away slightly to see his face. He dropped into the recliner and pulled her down onto his lap, keeping his arm locked around her waist as he reached for the laptop. “Here’s your site.”
Mara set her new phone down carefully on the small table beside their coffee and took the computer on her lap.
Incredible.
The site was amazing, colorful without being gaudy, and the name of her own business was sporting the logo she and Jared had designed together. It was classy and professional—everything she could have hoped for and more.
He reached around her waist and showed her how the site functioned, how to see her orders, traffic, and the various pages about her featured items.
When he was finished, Mara stared at the screen, lifting her hand to trace the logo on the website. “It’s real. Mara’s Kitchen is really happening.” She and Jared had worked out most of the details except the actual business contract while she’d been laid up in his home, but this was so much more than she’d imagined. Jared had taken their ideas and made them come alive. Squinting at the screen, she clicked back hesitantly to her orders. “Oh, my God. Do I really have this many orders? How can that have happened so soon? The site just came up.”
“I might have called in a few favors to advertise the launch of the site,” Jared muttered sheepishly.