A year. I’ve chased the woman for a blasted year and still she’s running from me.” Jared pushed his fingers restlessly through his short hair as he paced the length of his mother’s kitchen two days later, uncomfortable under the eagle-eyed scrutiny of his too perceptive mother, Carolyn Raddington Madison. He couldn’t get Kimberly out of his head. It was frustrating, aggravating, driving him insane with the liquid heat pulsing through his bloodstream and keeping his cock in a constant state of readiness. But even more was the ache in his arms to hold her. Fuck, he just wanted to hold her close to his heart, to shelter and protect her from the pain he had glimpsed in her shadowed green eyes. He wanted to see laughter there. Wanted to see warmth and passion and naked need, and happiness. He couldn’t sleep for the image of her lying across that table, fighting for her orgasm. And he knew, deep in the darkest hours of the night that it wasn’t the orgasm she was reaching for as much as it was a sense of freedom and escape.
