Forbidden

He wondered if she had only sex on her mind

Leah advanced on J.T., her dark eyes all hot desire. Stopping in front of him, she kissed him like her life depended on it.

Good Lord, what this woman did to him. “Hello to you, too,” he murmured, cupping her shoulders and pulling her slightly away.

She grabbed his hand and started leading him into the house, leaving no doubt about her motivations for being there. It made him a little uneasy.

“Can a guy catch a shower first?” he asked, stalling.

She turned toward him. “But I want you to be dirty.” The flush of passion on her pale cheeks made it clear what she meant.

J.T. swallowed hard. Just the passion in Leah’s face made him forget about the work that needed to be done, forget that she’d very obviously come out just for sex.

He loved claiming her sweet body. Loved making her go over the edge.

But it was her heart he was after.

And he was afraid he’d never reach it.

Dear Reader,

SLEEPING WITH SECRETS… Intrigued? We have to admit the title of this miniseries grabbed us from the start and refused to let go. It tempted us to step into the shadows, opening our eyes to all sorts of forbidden, sexy ideas that began with our title in the January 2004 Private Scandals anthology and continues with three books for the Blaze line.

In the first story, Forbidden, sexy single mom Leah Dubois Burger had life all figured out…until J. T. West awakened a restlessness in her a year and a half ago, setting off a chain reaction that was as destructive as it was exciting.

We hope Leah and J.T.’s story draws you in and doesn’t let go until the very last page. We’d love to hear what you think. Write to us at P.O. Box 12271, Toledo, OH 43612 (we’ll respond with a signed bookplate, newsletter and bookmark), or visit us on the Web at www.toricarrington.com for hot drawings. And don’t miss the other two books in our SLEEPING WITH SECRETS miniseries. Look for Indecent in June 2004 and Wicked in August.

Here’s wishing you love, romance and compelling reading.

Lori & Tony Karayianni

aka Tori Carrington

Forbidden

Tori Carrington

www.millsandboon.co.uk

We warmly dedicate this book to Diana Tidlund

aka Moosehog, the coolest biker babe we know!

May all your adventures be sweet….

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Epilogue

1

EVERY TIME IT RAINED Leah Dubois Burger thought of J. T. West. The way he’d dragged his strong fingers down the flesh of her back, tracing a path to her bottom. He’d branded her, claimed her, all the while vividly reminding her what it meant to be a woman.

Unfortunately, it rained a lot in Toledo, Ohio, in April. And J.T. hadn’t been in the city for nearly a year and a half.

And J. T. West was responsible for the biggest mistake of her life.

Leah leaned against the steering wheel of her late model Lexus and stared at the rain pelting the windshield. She’d shut off the car engine so all she heard were the rhythmic drops hitting the hood of the car. Across the parking lot she could make out the blue neon lights of the Kroger store. It was only 7:00 p.m. but the heavy dark clouds had ushered in dusk early making it feel like winter was holding on by its fingernails. A loaf of bread was all she had to buy. She needed it to make Sami lunch in the morning. She pictured her eleven-year-old daughter waiting at their house in Ottawa Hills, finishing the dinner dishes and talking to her father on the phone like she did every night at about this time. Asking when he was going to move back into the house.

Dan…

Leah waited for an emotion, any emotion, to hit her. She’d been married to the man for eleven years and for the past three months they’d been going through post-marriage therapy to try to patch up their marriage. But her ex-husband failed to bruise the outer edges of her thoughts.

J.T…..

The bottom of her stomach dropped out and her heart began pounding harder than the rain against the asphalt. Such a profound reaction, despite that nearly sixteen months had passed since she’d last seen the man. Despite that he had tempted her into an affair that had ended her marriage and plunged her daughter into a preadolescent funk. Yet how could she forget that he’d made her feel alive again for the first time in…well, a very long time. In truth, she hadn’t felt so vital, so free, since that one long-ago August when she was sixteen, he barely eighteen, and the summer had seemed to stretch on forever, making it seem like what they had might never end.

But it had ended.

Only to begin again fourteen years later. After she’d married another man. After she’d started a family. After she’d believed she’d long since grown out of her crush on J. T. West.

A passing car’s headlights cut a swath through the soggy night, making Leah blink. She reached for the umbrella on the passenger seat, then hesitated, deciding a little cold rain might be just the thing she needed to wash away wayward memories of the few steamy weeks she’d spent loving a man who had twice disappeared from her life as abruptly as he’d appeared.

She walked toward the supermarket even as her brain told her she should run. Within moments her beige blouse was plastered against her skin and her tan slacks were soaked and wet. But she couldn’t bring herself to care beyond pushing her thick, blond hair from her face. An uncharacteristic reaction for someone who spent a great deal of time perfecting her conservative yet stylish appearance. First it had been because she was a judge’s daughter, then because she was a prominent attorney’s wife. But mostly she enjoyed taking care of her appearance because she liked to look good, liked to feel feminine. Which was also why she allowed herself one self-indulgence—the supersexy lingerie she always wore. She caught a glimpse of herself in the automatic glass doors the moment before they opened. She barely recognized the bedraggled woman staring back at her. The limp, wet hair. The vacant expression. The untidy clothes. She guessed that she should feel something at the sight, but didn’t.

She pushed herself forward, blinking at the bright lights. It seemed odd that everyone was going on with life as usual. She didn’t know what else she expected. Maybe that they would all pause and look at her as if they knew what she’d been thinking. Or rather whom she’d been thinking about. Whisper comments on her dreadful appearance. Instead the cashiers scanned groceries, the patrons perused the impulse-buy magazines on display at the checkout counter, and the bag boys slid merchandise into white plastic bags, none of them giving her any notice.

All in all, life went on as usual.

Why, then, didn’t it feel that way for her?

She absently picked up a shopping basket and cut through an empty line, her steps slow, her mind sluggish. All day she’d been distracted and disoriented. She’d forgotten to wash Sami’s basketball jersey and her daughter hadn’t been happy about it, Febreze-doused and sporting a spot above the “U” in Burger no matter how hard Leah had tried to rub it out. She’d sat through lunch with her sister, Rachel, barely tasting the food and hardly registering her sister’s presence beyond how happy she looked now that she and Gabe Wellington had set a date for their wedding. Her father had called while she’d been making meatloaf for dinner and she’d forgotten to add eggs so it had come out dry and cracked. She wasn’t sure how she felt that Sami hadn’t seemed to notice beyond commenting on how much better her Grandma Burger’s meatloaf was, then reaching for the ketchup bottle.

When had life become so…routine? So dull?

“Oh, Leah, if only life was all roses and candlelight,” she could hear her mother saying when she’d been stood up the night of her junior prom. “Comfort yourself with the knowledge that when things get bad, it means good times are ahead.”

Leah figured she was long overdue for good times. Or even okay times.

Or, at the very least, a few minutes with her mother who had always somehow managed to make her feel better.

But Patricia Dubois had died of breast cancer over a year and a half ago.

Curiously, at the same time Leah had crossed paths with J. T. West again.

She stared down at the can of chicken noodle soup in her hand, not remembering picking it up, and with no real sense of how long she’d been standing staring at it.

“This weather is something else, isn’t it?”

Leah looked up at an elderly woman standing nearby. “Isn’t it, though?” She managed a feeble smile, put the can in her basket, then moved farther on down the aisle.

Bread. She’d come here for a loaf of bread. She programmed her feet to head in the direction of the bakery section. Maybe a long, hot bath and a book would help ease her out of this strange mood. And chocolate. Lots of chocolate. She stopped at the end of the aisle and rather than continuing toward the bakery section, she backtracked to the racks upon racks of sweets where a nice extra-large bar of Hershey’s with almonds was waiting for her.

Along with J. T. West…

She blinked. It wasn’t possible. Had to be a trick of her imagination. She’d conjured up his presence through the power of wishful or wistful thinking. But no. The more she blinked, the clearer he became. He was there. Back in Toledo. In the grocery store. Looking at her as if she was the entire reason he was there.

Where she’d been numb, now every nerve ending sparked to glorious, heated life.

Temptation incarnate, J. T. West. Looking better than any one man had a right to.

Standing at the other end of the aisle, leaning a wide shoulder against the shelving, his long, thick jean-clad legs crossed at his booted ankles. His leather jacket remarkably dry, the white T-shirt underneath hugging his abs in all the right places. The only evidence that he’d been out in the rain at all lay in the dampness of his hair. Jet-black hair that swooped down over his forehead, giving his eyes an intense quality even here in the brightly lit supermarket.

It seemed strangely apropos that he’d picked the candy aisle in which to reveal himself. He fit right in among the forbidden sweets. Decadent and illicit.

Oh, God, J. T. West is back.

A shiver ran the length of Leah’s body from the top of her head to the very tip of her toes.

She swallowed thickly.

Oh, God, J. T. West is back….

J.T. WASN’T SURE WHY he’d chosen now to reveal his presence to Leah. This moment. He’d rolled back into Toledo on his Harley four days ago. And had been tailing Leah ever since.

Up this close, Leah Dubois Burger looked better than even his memory of her. J.T. shoved his hands deeper into the pockets of his jeans for fear that if he didn’t trap them they’d automatically reach out for the woman who looked so hauntingly beautiful—even in the glaring fluorescent lights of the supermarket, even soaked to the bone—it made him ache.

“Hello, Leah.”

He stared at the long line of her elegant neck as she slowly swallowed, her gaze fixed on him.

“J.T….”

Something coiled tight in the pit of his stomach at the way his name exited as a hushed breath through her lush, lush lips.

He fought a groan.

How long had he envisioned this moment? When he might come face-to-face with Leah again? Might take in her beautiful features? A month? A year?

No. He knew exactly how long. Since the moment he’d left her sleeping in that ratty motel room exactly sixteen months, three days and fifteen hours ago.

Throughout every waking and sleeping moment since then, she’d been a constant presence in his life. As a memory. A sigh.

And throughout every waking moment he’d cursed that clinging memory. Tried to ban it. Ban her. Make himself forget.

But it was during his dreams when he had no power over the direction of his thoughts that she wiped away all his willpower and held him at her mercy. Until he stood right where he was now. Looking at her. Assessing her. Trying to fathom whether she’d thought about him as much as he had about her.

Somehow he knew that she had thought about him. Thought about them. Could tell by the dilation of the pupils in her dark eyes. The flick of her tongue at the corner of her mouth. The shallowness of her breathing. The tightening of her nipples under her damp blouse that seemed to beg him for attention.

J.T. knew that if he slid his fingers inside the waistband of her slacks he’d find her hot and wet and ready. And right then he wanted that more than anything. More than the food that sustained him. More than the air that he breathed.

More than the risk of his own freedom.

Leah finally broke away and turned toward the shelf. She stuffed a chocolate bar into her basket, began to walk away, then backtracked and put another bar, then another into the basket before she passed him.

J.T. noted that she had yet to say more than his name. As she disappeared at the end of the aisle, he supposed seeing him again after so long was quite a shock for her. She might even be having some trouble convincing herself he was really there.

His mind filled with the ways that he could prove to her that he was back.

2

PLEASE, HURRY.

Leah pushed her few items down the checkout line conveyor belt, mentally praying for the cashier to pick up the pace. She wanted…no, needed to get out of there as quickly as she could. Before J.T….

Someone put a six-pack of Coors on the belt behind her. Her breath froze in her lungs. She didn’t have to look to see who it was. She already knew. The brand was J.T.’s.

“Ma’am? Your card, please.”

Leah blinked to stare at the cashier. Her card…Her brain distantly registered that she was being asked for her savings card, but she couldn’t bring herself to retrieve it from her purse. “No card,” she whispered.

The cashier entered a code and began ringing up the purchases.

Leah was acutely aware of J.T.’s presence behind her. Felt a magnetic force drawing her in, affecting the flow of her blood, the direction of her thoughts. Never in her life had she met someone as physically powerful, emotionally mesmerizing as J. T. West. He entered a room and you knew it. If J.T. wanted you, you were loath to refuse him.

The cashier named a price.

Pay…she needed to pay for the groceries.

Leah’s brain refused to register the simplest of commands.

She reached into her bag and rummaged around inside for her wallet, her hands trembling wildly. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath…then watched as the contents of her purse dumped out onto the floor at her feet.

She knelt to pick everything up at the same time as J.T.

Leah swallowed thickly. God, he smelled good. Too good. There was something about the way the detergent he used on his clothes combined with the musk of his soap and the rich leather of his jacket that appealed to her on a primal level. Made her think of clear streams and wide-open spaces. And of a passion so wild she forgot who she was.

“Ma’am?” the cashier said again, repeating the price.

In that one moment, Leah forgot not to look up into J.T.’s eyes. Forgot that up this close the intoxicating golden hue would hypnotize her. Tempt her to count the flecks of green in the light brown depths. Lure her into doing things that in her right mind she would never, ever do.

“I’ve got it.” J.T. peeled a couple of bills from a roll he took from the back pocket of his jeans.

“No, really…” Leah stood up, nearly dumping her purse again, only to realize she was too late. J.T. had not only paid for her things, but was now paying for his beer.

She stared at him as he handed her bag to her and gestured toward the door.

Leah knew she should say something. Thank him for buying the groceries. Offer to pay him back. Ask him what he was doing there. But she couldn’t seem to bring herself to say anything. Instead she virtually rocketed for her car and climbed in, ignorant of the rain and her appearance.

And unsurprised when J.T. climbed into the passenger’s seat next to her.

Her gulp sounded loud in the small confines. She hadn’t been prepared for how…intimate the setting would be. With the darkness outside, the rain pelting against the rooftop, the scent of his nearness crowding her senses, it was all she could do not to gasp at the evocativeness of it all.

“When did you get back?”

Leah’s words sounded breathy even to her own ears and she wondered if J.T. could hear the thud-thud of her heart in the silence of the car.

He squinted at her. “Does it matter?”

No, it didn’t. But his response did imply that he’d been back for more than just a day.

The thought made her thighs grow even damper. Knowing that J.T. had been in town for a prolonged period presented her with a whole different viewpoint. Partly because she’d known that when he’d left sixteen months ago, he’d left town completely and she’d figured he’d never come back.

But he had. And for more than a day.

And now he was sitting in her car making her remember with vivid clarity how sweet it was to kiss his skillful mouth. How thrilling it was to have his arms around her.

How very wrong it was for her to want both.

“Dan and I are reconciling,” she said.

That got a response from him. He dropped his gaze then squinted through the windshield, headlights from a passing car flickering over his granite features. “You divorced?”

Leah caught her bottom lip between her teeth and also looked away. She nodded, wondering how wise it was to reveal that she was free.

Oh, free was so wrong a word it made her wince. She wasn’t any freer now than she had been back then. She and Dan were reconciling. For God’s sake, they were even now discussing the date when he might move back into the house. Her daughter, Sami, talked about her father’s return nonstop. Her family had come to accept the reconciliation and plans were being made for a family dinner on Easter, mere weeks away.

And she still wanted the man sitting next to her with a ferocity that scared her to death.

Leah felt J.T.’s hand on her cheek. The thick, callused pad of his thumb felt so natural against her skin that rather than pulling back, she allowed her eyes to drift close and her head to lean into his touch.

“Do you love him?”

Leah felt her chest cave in on her heart. She blinked to look into J.T.’s intense gaze. He’d asked the question of her before. The night they’d first met.

She hadn’t answered him then. And she had never asked herself the question again.

“J.T., I don’t think this is such a good idea. Sami’s waiting for me to get home. I’m glad to see you, happy you’re doing well…”

“Kiss me, Leah.”

The words were so simple, so straightforward. And had the effect of a bulldozer on all her good intentions.

She crossed the mere inches separating them and did as he requested.

Oh God, oh God, oh God…

He tasted so good. Better than she remembered. Like butterscotch candy and hot, hot man. His lips were soft and malleable. His tongue like a lick of fire as it entered her mouth.

Leah’s breath quickened, her blood flowed through her veins enticing her limbs to action. Her fingers found their way to J.T.’s damp hair. Her chest found a way to crush against his across the narrow console. Her mouth slipped and bit and devoured his lips until she was afraid that the fire of his tongue would ignite her entire body.

He caught her chin in his hand and held her steady for long, silent moments, staring into her eyes. “Are you sure this is what you want?” he asked.

Yes.

No!

Leah didn’t know what she wanted. She just wanted what she was feeling never to stop.

Her silence appeared all the answer he needed as he hauled her across the console until her bottom rested in his lap and her legs dangled over into the driver’s seat. She became instantly aware of his erection, long and hard against her bottom. She moaned and melded her mouth to his, afraid of what might happen if they continued, afraid of what might happen if they didn’t. Her fingers found their way to his jacket and pushed open the leather, then shoved up the soft cotton of his T-shirt. She remembered that he was rock-hard everywhere and she quickly discovered that hadn’t changed. Except that he seemed to be even more solidly muscular. Leaner. A dangerous energy emanated from him that caught her up in its conflicting current.

She didn’t realize he’d opened her blouse until she felt his tongue against the upper swell of her right breast. Leah stretched her neck and gritted her teeth together, shivers traveling down her back then up again, making her tremble from head to foot. J.T. cupped her breast, then squeezed, forcing the flesh upward from the lacy demi cup. He fastened his mouth over her painfully distended nipple and she cried out, digging her fingers deeply into the flesh of his shoulders. She knew a need so powerful it rocked her to the core.

She fumbled for and found his zipper, tugging it down and sliding her fingers inside the cotton of his boxers until she held the very essence of him. His turgid flesh was so long. So thick. So hard. Her mouth watered with the desire to taste him. To coax out his bittersweet semen. To hear him call out her name, his fingers entwined in her hair, tightly holding her to him.

With some awkwardness, she helped him rid her of her slacks and then straddled him, her right knee hitting the console, her left wedged tightly against the door. But she didn’t care. All she could concentrate on was how badly she wanted this one man. How hot she was, how hot he was, and how she knew that only he could put out the fire twisting and turning inside her.

She reached to position him against her hungry flesh. She gasped when he grabbed her wrist in a viselike grip.

“No,” he ground out.

The air disappeared from Leah’s lungs.

“Not like this. Not in a car. Not so soon.”

Leah blinked at him, incapable of speech.

J.T. stared at her for a long moment then deposited her back onto the driver’s seat. She watched, dumbstruck, as he adjusted his clothing with the same control he did everything else, then he sat back and looked at her, his eyes full of question and mystery.

“It was good seeing you, Leah,” he murmured.

Then he climbed out of the car and slammed the door.

J.T. STOOD ALONE in the parking lot, the cool spring rain washing over him as he watched Leah’s taillights disappear into the damp night. She had turned toward the big, warm house waiting for her a few miles to the west. The house that over the past twelve years she’d made a home. A place not unlike the hulking house she’d grown up in. He’d visited both places only once and had known instantly that he didn’t belong in either. Just as he’d known that Leah hadn’t belonged in either his father’s rusty trailer or the shabby, no-star motels he’d recently called home.

But if there was one thing he’d come to understand during his thirty-two years—and especially in the past year and a half—it was that outer trappings had very little to do with basic human wants and needs. And if the past thirty minutes were any indication, he wanted…needed Leah on a level he couldn’t begin to understand. All he knew was that he had to explore what it was. If for no other reason than to tuck her and whatever existed between them neatly into the past, where so far it had refused to rest.