Firestorm by Ann Jacobs Read Free Book Online Page B

out of his system.
    But he hadn’t.
    And the itch was still there. Just thinking about her had his cock hard and throbbing against his zipper. He groaned, shifting against the leather bucket seat to find a more comfortable position.
    He wanted Kate. Not just her pussy, either. That’s what scared him. He wanted to talk with her, look at her, share her thoughts and dreams as well as her sexy little body.
    Ann Jacobs
    Firestorm
    35
    He’d felt that way about Alice, too, and look where that got him. No way would he set himself up for more broken dreams.
    They’d had eight years together. Jake had thought they were good ones. Until Alice had torn his heart out eighteen months ago.
    Ironically, she’d done it while they played the happy couple at Greg’s wedding celebration. After the rehearsal dinner, when he’d tried to take her in his arms, Alice had shattered the last of his youthful illusions.
    Her words were stamped indelibly in his memory. “I'm done with this farce of a marriage. I'm leaving in the morning. I filed for divorce last week. If you hadn't come back early for Greg's wedding, I'd have been gone when you got back to Houston.”
    Jake slammed his fist into the padded dash.
    He’d made a fool of himself that night, begging her to stay for the sake of the unborn baby she’d told him about just three weeks earlier before he took off to solve some problem in a Venezuelan oil field.
    His child. The baby who would never have known anything but love from him, never have felt pressure to become something he wasn't. The baby Jake had wanted since early in their marriage.
    The baby Alice had tossed away like an unwanted toy when she decided he was no longer the hero she’d fallen in love with eight years earlier when he’d been tossing touchdown passes for the Aggies.
    Part of Jake had died when she told him about the abortion, and not just the son or daughter Alice had tossed out like garbage. She’d destroyed the part of him that believed, that loved, that trusted in the goodness of his fellow man.
    He gripped the steering wheel so hard that his knuckles turned white. “Goddamn it, I loved her.”
    Now he didn't even hate her anymore. But it would be a cold day in hell before he’d give another woman his trust.
    He certainly couldn’t trust Kate, whose soft drawl and rural lifestyle reminded him of Alice when they’d first met.
    Jake expected to marry again one day. Hell, he was an only son, and his old man was desperate for a grandson to carry on the family name.
    But his next marriage wouldn’t be for love. The wall he’d built around his wounded heart would keep him safe. He’d find a woman and give her his name and his children, but never his heart.
    She’d have to accept his work, share his interest in sports and rugged outdoor pursuits. Most of all she couldn’t demand more of him than he had to give.
    Ann Jacobs
    Firestorm
    36
    “Damn it to hell.” Jake glanced at the rolling meadows on either side of the two-lane blacktop road. “Why do I keep thinking Kate’s different from Alice?”
    When his only answer was the powerful roar of the Porsche's engine, he let out a stream of vicious curses. Then, powerless to prevent his mind from wandering, he mulled over what he knew of Kate Black.
    He couldn’t figure exactly what made him want her. Unlike his bitch of a former wife, she wasn’t knockout gorgeous. While he had no trouble imagining how her petite body would mate up with his when they got horizontal, and while just thinking about her kept him hard as a horny teenager, Kate’s wasn't the sexiest body he’d ever seen. Or had, for that matter.
    Maybe it was her eyes, soft blue-green, slightly tilted cat eyes on a delicate, fine-featured face. Or that curly mop of dark brown hair that tempted him to reach out and fondle it, to bury his face in its softness?
    Might Kate make him a decent wife?
    She’d sure as hell please him in bed. Just rubbing himself against the convex plane of her