Read Online The Bridal Path: Sara by Sherryl Woods - Free Book Online

her eyes closed. The image brought a smile to his lips. Finding Sara snuggled into one of his chairs was getting to be a habit, one he could get used to, he feared.
    Drawn despite himself, he crossed the room silently and stood over her. She’d showered and changed since he’d seen her. Her cheek was flushed where it rested against her arms. Her hair, that glorious tangle of fire, was dangerously beguiling. Her lashes feathered against her cheeks in dark smudges that seemed tipped in gold.
    Something hard and cold inside him melted at the sight. The sensation shook him as nothing else in his life ever had. This thing with Sara was a familiar game, nothing more, he vowed silently.
    To prove it, he moved to his desk and focused on the computer screen, pretending she wasn’t even in the room.
    Within minutes, he knew it was no use. He was aware of her with every fiber of his being. Much later, he knew the precise instant when she stirred.
    Glancing sideways he saw her eyelids flutter, then open. A vision of her in bed, coming sleepily, sexily awake in his arms ripped through him. It was so vivid, so real that his blood heated and surged through him, leaving him aching in a way that would, no doubt, keep him awake half the night.
    He shifted uncomfortably and drew her startled gaze.
    “Oh, my,” she murmured sleepily. “I must have fallen asleep. When did you get here?”
    “A couple of hours ago,” Jake said, concentrating very hard on calming his rampaging hormones.
    “And you just let me sleep?”
    “It seemed like the gentlemanly thing to do.”
    Her lips curved. “I’m disappointed, Jake. I was so certain you were no gentleman.”
    The taunting remark stirred his passion and his temper in equal measure. “You’re doing it again,” he said, gritting his teeth.
    “Doing what?”
    “Trying to provoke me.”
    She blinked, her expression so innocent he could almost believe it wasn’t an act.
    “How?” she asked.
    “By throwing all those innuendoes and subtle dares in my face. I’m warning you, you’re flirting with disaster, sweetheart.”
    Her grin then was slow and deliberate and very definitely provocative. “Oh, dear, and here I thought I was flirting with you.”
    The taunt made Jake’s head spin. He was on his feet in a heartbeat, across the room in two.
    And then Sara was in his arms, her body crushed against his as his mouth plundered hers. She might have been exhausted. Hell, she might have been half asleep, but she came fully awake at once.
    Jake’s intentions might have been to shock and take, but he was the one who wound up surprised. Sara gave everything to that kiss, willingly, eagerly.
    They were both breathing hard when Jake finally pulled away and shook his head to clear it. He gazed into green eyes that sparked with passion and questions.
    Questions he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—answer.
    “It would be a disaster,” he muttered, half to himself.
    “What would be?”
    “You and me.”
    To his amazement once more, she smiled knowingly. “You were the one who made marriage part of the deal, Jake. Isn’t it nice to know that we won’t be bored in bed?”
    Before he could form a coherent response to that, she was gone. And he was left to another restless, lonely night.

Chapter Five
    K issing Sara Wilde could get to be habit-forming, Jake concluded during a long and very restless night. He was relieved that he’d be heading out first thing this morning for a two-day check of the fence lines. Time and distance would surely cure him of this unwanted fascination with the boss’s daughter. Women rarely tangled up his emotions for more than forty-eight hours at a stretch, especially when he gave his common sense time to kick into gear.
    Just to be sure there would be no last-minute temptations, he avoided the dining room, grabbed a bowl of oatmeal in the kitchen and settled down to eat it under Annie’s watchful eye. That was almost more disconcerting than dealing with Sara.
    “You