be happening.
She made a sound into his mouth that was more like a moan, and he responded by cupping her breast and moving his hips against hers. She felt an intense sudden urge to wind her arms around his neck and pull him closer. An ache spread through her belly into her thighs.
She knew she had to stop.
Immediately.
She pressed her palms more firmly against his broad hard chest and pushed. He paid no attention. His lips left her mouth and moved down her throat leaving hot, wet kisses.
“Jared,” she finally managed, but her raspy voice sounded more like encouragement than an objection. He must have thought so, too, because he pulled her tighter against him, cupping her buttocks as he moved against the juncture of her thighs.
He was fully aroused, she realized, and despite her embarrassment, she couldn’t deny that she was aroused, as well. His hand moved to the waist of her jeans, and she gasped as he quickly unsnapped the button and started to slide her zipper down.
“Jared!”
In a dim corner of his mind, Jared knew there was a problem with this dream. He just wasn’t quite sure what it was. The pleasure pumping through his body at the moment certainly wasn’t the problem, and neither was the feel of the soft smooth skin under his fingertips. This was the stuff that real dreams were made of. And since he’d never quite had one this intense before, or this enjoyable, he wasn’t quite ready to let go of it yet.
He kept his eyes closed, struggling to hold on to the fantasy—
“Jared!”
A woman called his name again, and he heard the alarm in her voice. This was no dream, he realized abruptly.
Maybe there was a problem, after all.
He opened his eyes slowly, waiting for them to adjust to the dim light. There was a woman in bed with him. A living breathing long-limbed woman with short blond hair.
And she sure as hell hadn’t been here when he’d gone to bed. He definitely would have remembered, no matter what state he’d been in.
Lifting his head, Jared peered at the woman in the semidarkness. She was breathing rapidly and her breasts were pressed firmly against his chest. The hardened peaks of her nipples burned his skin. He could feel the furious beating of her heart and realized his own heart was keeping time.
Dammit. The woman in his dream had not only been willing, she’d been eager. This woman was obviously distressed, and the pressure she exerted on his shoulders was hardly an invitation to lovemaking.
“Who are you?” he said raggedly. “And what the hell are you doing here?”
“Jared, it’s Annie,” she said breathlessly. “Annie Bailey.”
He went completely still. He blinked, then sucked in a deep breath. “What?”
“Annie Bailey,” she repeated.
Jared frowned deeply, drawing his dark brows together.
“Annie?” Bewildered, he lifted his head higher, blinking again as his eyes began to adjust to the light and focus on the woman lying beneath him. “Annie...Bailey?”
She nodded.
They both lay there, breathing hard, neither one of them moving, whether to hold on to the contact or because they were both too stunned to move, Jared wasn’t sure. He stared at her, absorbing the fact that she was not only real, but she was in his bed.
And one of them wasn’t wearing any clothes.
He rolled away from her, swearing as he grabbed the covers and pulled them over his hips. Annie sat, turning her back to him, and he watched as she took a few deep breaths.
He narrowed his eyes. It was Annie. Her hair was shorter, but she most definitely was Jonathan’s fiancée.
Ex-fiancée, Jared reminded himself grimly.
Her eyes were wide and full of expression as she turned back to him. “Hello, Jared,” she said, smiling weakly as she forced a short laugh. “It’s, uh, nice to see you.”
He frowned at her. She certainly had seen him. That was like Annie, to try to alleviate tension with a joke. The only problem was, he wasn’t exactly in a joking mood at the moment.
He was still reeling with the realization that he’d woken up with a woman in his bed. That hadn’t happened in a hell of a long time. And it wasn’t just any woman. It was Annie, for God’s sake.
He closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath, still trying to bring his body under control. He’d been dreaming something incredibly erotic. Although that certainly wasn’t strange, considering the state of his sex life lately. The woman in his dream had been tall and slender and blond, and while that wasn’t strange, either, the fact that she’d looked remarkably like Annie was. He still wasn’t sure exactly what had happened, but he did know that he’d nearly made love to her, that he sure as hell had wanted to.
Dammit. He still wanted to.
His throat suddenly felt dry as a Texas plain. He stared at the bottle beside the bed and realized he’d probably had a little too much last night. He did that occasionally. Sometimes he had weird dreams.
But Annie had been no dream. She was very real, and sitting twelve inches away from him.
He couldn’t stop the ache that tightened his loins. Damn, but she had felt good. She’d smelled like spring flowers and tasted like something minty. Her skin had felt soft and smooth under his hands, and her hardened nipple under his palm—
He cursed himself again. This was Annie. Jonathan’s Annie. He couldn’t think about her like that. He had no right.
He’d never have that right.
He raked a hand through his tousled hair and closed his eyes. “Annie... God, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.”
“Hey, Jared, it’s okay,” she said with a flip of her hand, but he could see her fingers shake as she tucked a loose strand of blond hair behind one ear.
Dammit, she had every right to be scared. He’d practically attacked her!
“Besides,” she went on, “it’s my fault. I never should have come in here like I did. It’s just that I heard a crash and you called out, and I, well, I thought you were sick or something.”
A crash? Jared glanced around the room, then realized that a glass, the one that had been sitting beside the whiskey bottle, had fallen behind the nightstand and shattered. Good Lord, had he been reaching for the bottle even in his sleep?
“I’m fine.” Careful to keep his distance from her and just as careful to keep the sheet over his hips, Jared scooted to the edge of the bed. “I had a late night, that’s all.”
It must have been later than he thought, Jared realized, as he searched the bedroom floor. “Where the hell
