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Sensing her reaction, he gentled his mouth and trailed his lips to the long, slender arch of her neck, closing over the wildly beating pulse in her throat. She was scarcely aware when his arm eased around her waist and the hand holding her hair slipped down to cup her breast through the soft fabric of her shirt.
His thumb rubbed lightly across her burgeoning nipple, and it was only when the hot stab of arousal arrowed from her breast to her groin, tightening her wayward flesh, that she realised the very real danger she was in—almost too late…
‘Get your hands off me, you great brute.’ She twisted, dislodging his hand from her breast and breaking free from his restraining arm, and fell back a step.
Jed stared at her for a long moment, his dark eyes hard, and then he laughed—a cruel sound in the fraught silence. ‘You still want me, Phoebe. I felt your heart pounding, your body shaking,’ he mocked
‘With anger…’ she said, fighting down the shameful desire that pulsed through her body. ‘You repulse me,’ she lied, stunned by the ease with which Jed had almost seduced her again.
‘No, I don’t,’ he sneered. ‘But I don’t expect a deceitful little bitch like you to admit the truth.’
It was the cold, hard arrogance of his tone as much as the words that got to Phoebe, and without a second thought she swung at him, landing a hard slap on his handsome face as she yelled, ‘Get out of my house now or I will call the police!’
‘No.’ He caught her hand and almost dragged her into her own living room. ‘And keep your voice down—you will wake Ben.’
‘I don’t need you to tell me how to look after my son,’ she said defiantly, but knew Jed was right. She was angry with herself almost as much as him, and she had let her temper get the better of her. But the damn man was always right…It was another character trait she hated about him, along with his superior attitude and his arrogance.
‘Sit down.’ He pressed her backwards and she felt the sofa at the back of her knees.
Though she was loath to admit it, she was grateful to sit down. Her legs felt weak, and she had not yet got over the power of his kiss, nor her unwelcome response to him.
‘I forgive you the slap, because maybe I was a little harsh, but it was a choice between kissing you or wringing your beautiful neck. Lucky for you the former was my choice, but you should know by now there is nothing that more arouses a man’s passion’s than a challenging woman.’
‘I don’t believe you said that. A male chauvinist pig has nothing on you.’ Phoebe shook her head. ‘You belong in the Dark Ages.’
‘No, I belong with my son.’ He stared down at her, his expression cold. ‘That is why I am here and why we have to talk.’ He shrugged off his jacket and dropped it on the arm of the sofa before adding, ‘But first I could use a drink.’
The sight of Jed in a body-hugging sweater that outlined his muscular chest in every detail was not something she dared contemplate for long and, tearing her gaze away, she got to her feet.
Anything to put off the conversation he was angling for, Phoebe decided, had to be good.
‘Tea or coffee?’ she asked.
‘Have you anything stronger?’
‘Only wine.’ Not waiting for his response, she left the room, glad to escape his powerful presence for a few minutes and trying valiantly to get her thoughts into some kind of order.
Five minutes later she walked back into the living room with two glasses and a bottle of white wine in her hands.
Jed was standing by the bureau. He had picked up a silver-framed photograph of Ben and was studying it intently. Out of nowhere her heart squeezed at the look of wonderment she saw in his eyes, and as she watched she saw him trace with one finger what she knew was the outline of Ben’s smiling face.
‘Wine,’ she muttered, placing the glasses on the coffee table. ‘Not the vintage you are used to, and the bottle has a screw top,’ Phoebe said as she opened the wine. ‘But then the experts are now saying a cork is not necessarily better.’
She was babbling, but seeing the awe and the tenderness on his face as he studied Ben’s picture had unsettled her.
She didn’t want to feel anything for Jed, and he certainly did not deserve her sympathy. Filling the two glasses, she sat back down on to the sofa. Reaching for a glass, she took a sip.
‘How old was Ben here?’ Jed held up the picture frame.
‘Two.’ She didn’t want to talk about Ben with Jed. She didn’t want the man anywhere near her son. But she had a horrible feeling she was not going to have much of a choice.
‘And here as a baby, with Julian Gladstone and the other person? I presume it is your Aunt Jemma?’
‘Yes, Julian is an old family friend, and as for Aunt Jemma, you never met her because you were always too busy, I seem to recall. The picture is Benjamin’s baptism photograph—they are his two godparents.’
‘Julian Gladstone is my son’s godfather?’ he queried, with such a lo
ok of outrage Phoebe almost smiled.
