Author: Bella Andre

He tensed before he could will himself not to give his discomfort away, and she pressed a kiss to his chest. “Don’t worry, it’s nothing bad. At least, I don’t think it is.”

She lifted her face to look up at him and his breath caught at how beautiful she was. He kept thinking that, after all these hours they were spending together, he’d get used to it soon.

Considering he’d never been able to get used to it as she’d grown from girl to woman in the past twenty years, he supposed he should just man up and accept that he never would.

She was that beautiful to him.

“What is it?” he said, the realization of just how powerfully the woman in his arms rocked his world making the words come out harder than he intended

“I was just wondering about your tattoos.” She slid the tip of one finger over the Celtic dragon tail that ran from his back to his lower ribcage. “They’re beautiful. I’m sure they must have hurt, so you must have really wanted them.”

Being drilled with a needle for hours hadn’t hurt nearly as much as his father’s punches had. At least the tattoos had made him feel stronger. Tougher. As though the Celtic warriors of the past were in the wings waiting to help him when he needed it most.

“Tell me what they mean.” At his continued silence, she lifted her eyes to his again. “Please.”

Did she know that he could never refuse her anything if she looked at him like that and asked so sweetly? Did she have any idea just how tightly she had him wrapped around her little finger, that even as a bitter ten-year-old boy he’d been held captivate by her?

“That one is a Celtic dragon.”

“We’re always so busy with—” She blushed. “I’ve never really had a chance to see the whole thing up close.” She slid her fingertips over the tattoo, her breath warm on his skin. “It’s amazing. What does it symbolize?”

He’d never shared the symbolism, or his reasons, with anyone else. Had never even been tempted before now. Before Sophie.

“One who conquers the dragon.”

“What about this band around your arm? What does that stand for?”

“The strength of a warrior.”

“And the leprechaun on your forearm? Why does he have his fists raised?”

He would have shut her down if he thought he could get away with it. But he knew with utter certainty that she wouldn’t leave it alone until she had all her answers. And if he didn’t give them to her, she’d just look them up in one of her books. Anyone who thought Sophie Sullivan was a pushover was the real idiot.

“Leprechauns are fighters.”

“Funny, I always thought they were more like rascals hiding a pot of gold.” She moved her hand up his chest, to his right shoulder. “This one looks like a shield.”

“It is.”

She cocked her head to the side, and asked, “No four-leaf clovers anywhere?”

“I’ve never believed in luck.” Or any of the other things that the four leaves represented, like hope, or faith. Or love.

Sure, he’d loved Sophie nearly his whole life. How could he not? But he’d never believed anyone could love him back...never thought there was a chance that luck, hope, and faith would show up on his doorstep in Napa and barge into his life.

She placed her hand flat over his heart and looked up at him. “Strength. Symbols of battle. Warriors. Shields.”

He could hear the sadness she’d been trying to hide from him in the restaurant when he’d finally told her about his mother and father. She moved onto her hands and knees and crawled over him.

“Can we pretend you have one more tattoo, right here?” She pressed a kiss over his heart.

He couldn’t answer, couldn’t speak, couldn’t do anything but pull her up over him so that he could kiss her.

“Thank you for answering my questions,” she added in a husky voice when he finally let her go. “If I wasn’t almost late for work already, I’d thank you properly.” She pressed one more kiss to his lips, then went to take a shower.

Jake remembered what Chase had said on his wedding day—that Chloe was worth a thousand orgies. Jake hadn’t believed it, but now he knew the truth: One of Sophie’s smiles, her gentle kiss—along with the love she’d once declared to him—meant a million times more to him than anything else ever would.

Chapter Twenty

Jake and Sophie stood on the library steps half an hour later. She had kept her hair up in that hot little bun and as he kissed her goodbye, he tangled his fingers in it to pull it loose.

“Knowing you’re in there today looking like that would mess with my head really, really bad.” Her librarian role-play that morning had been one of the hottest things he’d ever experienced. “You don’t have your glasses with you, do you?”

He loved the sound of her laughter, so carefree, so pretty. But then, her smile turned to uncertainty. “Jake, would you come inside with me today?” When he didn’t immediately reply, she said, “I loved spending time with you at the pub. It’s nice to be able to picture you at your desk going over spreadsheets or bossing around your employees like a tyrant.” She looked up at him with impossibly big, beautiful eyes. “I thought maybe you’d like to know about where I spend my days.”

Jake knew it was long past time to stop being such a wimp. Libraries weren’t his thing, but he couldn’t avoid them forever.

“Well,” he said slowly, “if you’ll agree to put your hair back up and have your way with me in a dark corner...”

Sophie smacked his arm and exclaimed, “Jake!” but the grin she couldn’t quite contain along with the sensuous way she ran her hand down his arm before threading her fingers through his as they headed up the steps to the front door told him the truth about how much she liked his teasing.

He held the door for her, but she stopped and sucked in a breath, squeezing his hand tight.

“Sophie? What’s wrong?”

She shook her head, taking a couple of breaths before saying. “Nothing. Just took the stairs a little quick, I think.” She tugged him into the building, her color back, thank God. “Isn’t it incredible?”

Jake had to admit the building was impressive. The domed ceiling in the main room had to be at least three stories tall. At some point someone had painted murals on it and even a nonreader like him could easily guess that they must be scenes from classic literature.

“Sophie, hi!”

A woman he assumed was a co-worker practically ran up to greet them. Sophie’s hand stiffened in his for a split second and he pulled her closer to him.

The woman’s eyes darted between them. “Is this your...friend?”

The urge to claim public possession of Sophie was nearly impossible to hold at bay. But their week wasn’t up yet. And this would be a good chance for him to see where she was in making her decision about letting him stay in her life. The way she’d made love to him this morning had given him a piece of the answer.

It wasn’t until Sophie squeezed his hand and turned to him with a radiant smile, that he realized he’d been holding his breath. “This is Jake.” She never looked away from him for even a second as she said, “My boyfriend.”

There was no point in trying to stop himself from kissing her. After keeping the kiss way shorter than he wanted to out of respect for her job, he held out his hand to her co-worker. “Great to meet you.”

“Wow, it’s really nice to meet you, too. I can’t believe Sophie has been keeping you a secret all this time. Aren’t you the owner of the McCann’s Pubs?”

He was sure Sophie didn’t realize she’d put her free hand over her stomach just then. Two more secrets would—soon—be revealed, whether she wanted anyone to know or not.

Sensing that she wasn’t entirely comfortable with this woman, he said, “Yup, that’s me. Come in for a beer on the house sometime,” before turning to Sophie and saying, “Why don’t you show me around before I have to get going to my meeting?”

The woman’s eyes remained on them as he steered her in the opposite direction. “Thanks for getting us away from her,” Sophie whispered.

He’d felt the same way when she was bailing him out of the mess at his pub earlier in the week. Was this how it would feel to parent two kids together?

He liked being a team with her.

Hell, he liked doing anything at all with Sophie.

At her desk, she locked her bag into the bottom drawer, then offered, “You take the chair for a minute. There’s something I want you to see.” Standing behind him, her hands on his shoulders, she said, “Isn’t it the best view in the whole world? There isn’t anything you couldn’t learn, nothing you couldn’t be in here.”

He was looking at thousands of books, at people reading and learning. He’d been to the top of the Eiffel Tower and looked out over the grid of Parisian streets, had explored the pyramids of Egypt, had been blown away by the blue-green water that seemingly stretched on forever from the beaches of Thailand. He hadn’t thought any view could top those.

But that morning in Sophie’s bed, he’d known just how wrong he was when she’d smiled at him.

He would never love being in a library, given his problems with reading...but that didn’t mean he didn’t comprehend, or appreciate, just how important this world was to Sophie.

“I’ve got to get story time going in a few minutes,” she told him, pointing over to a group of young children and their mothers who were gathering on a colorful rug. “I’d love it if you’d stay a little while longer.”

Jake knew he was already taking up too much of her time, on top of the way he’d monopolized her the past few days. Plus, his phone had been continually jumping in his pocket for the past half hour with calls from his assistant, who worked out of the McCann’s headquarters downtown, about all the meetings he’d been flat-out ignoring. He wanted to chuck his phone across the room and watch it shatter, but he could only ignore the demands of his business for so long. Especially now that he had more than himself to think of.

Still, he couldn’t leave just yet. Not when the chance to sit and stare at Sophie a little longer was too good to pass up.

“Sure. I’d love to see you in action.”

He was rewarded with another one of her radiant smiles. “Maybe you could even read to the kids?”

Panic hit him at her innocent suggestion. It wasn’t that he couldn’t make it through a kids’ book. Of course he could. But reading it aloud in front of people? What if he got stuck on a word? What if he stumbled over a sentence? What if he was so distracted by Sophie’s nearness that the letters took control of his brain the way they always used to instead of the way he’d forcefully trained them to behave?

No.

No way.

He shook his head, trying to act like it was no big deal that he didn’t want to help her out with story time. “They came to hear you.”

She frowned at his refusal. “Okay. But if you change your mind, just let me know.”

He nodded, even though the odds of that were about as good as being able to throw snowballs in hell.

She introduced him to a handful of people as they made their way across the large room. He heard the pride in her voice every time she introduced him as her boyfriend. Guilt slashed through him, stronger now than ever before. He should have gone with her to tell her family everything as soon as she’d informed him that she was pregnant.

But he’d been too much of a coward. Again. He’d been too afraid that they’d see just how unworthy he was of her and try to keep him from her before he had any chance at all to convince her to marry him.

Sophie drew him over to an open seat and leaned over to whisper, “Stop looking so hot. The moms are going to be too busy staring at you to hear a word of the stories.”