I Only Have Eyes for You (The Sullivans #4)(35)

The truth was, he didn’t have anything much up his sleeve for the time being. He wanted to get through this doctor’s appointment first before he moved on to his next step in convincing her to marry him. But Sophie didn’t need to know that. Especially not when he found he liked having her on her toes, anticipating what he was going to do next.

Whether she’d ever admit it or not, she liked it, too.

“Don’t you wish you knew?” he said in as sensual tone as he could muster around his grin, then sped off into traffic before she could say another word.

Chapter Fourteen

Sophie checked in with the receptionist, then sat on one of the padded leather seats in the waiting room and picked up a magazine. She was determined to ignore Jake. Of course, that was nearly impossible, with all the other women in the room staring at him in wonder.

These women were all pregnant, for God’s sake! What were they doing looking at a stranger like that?

It wasn’t that she was possessive about him, she told herself, just that they were behaving inappropriately. Their husbands wouldn’t be pleased if they knew the way their wives were practically bowing down prostrate before Jake’s male beauty.

“So,” he asked one of the women, “how’s your pregnancy going?”

Of course, he couldn’t just leave it alone, could he? The woman beamed at him as though he were the Second Coming.

“Really great.” The woman leaned in close as if she were telling him a secret. “I’m having a boy.”

Jake leaned closer and grinned at the woman. “That’s great.”

“I’m having a girl!” another woman from across the room piped in.

Jake smiled at her, too. “Congratulations.” He nodded at the women. “There really is nothing prettier than a pregnant woman.”

Sophie had never seen people look as happy as these women did after he made his proclamation. What was wrong with them?

And why did she feel so pathetically jealous?

“I knew it,” she muttered into her magazine and the woman closest to her raised an eyebrow.

“What do you know?” he asked, putting his hand on her knee.

Why did he have to be so warm? And why did she have to love being touched by him so much? Way too much.

She purposefully uncrossed and recrossed her legs so that he’d have to slide his hand away. I knew you were one of those pregnancy fetish creeps was what she was thinking, but she simply said, “Nothing.”

He leaned in close and she could feel his breath on her earlobe. “I’ll find a way to convince you to tell me later, you know.” His tongue flicked out against her earlobe before he pulled away and she barely swallowed a lust-filled moan before it escaped her lips.

Angry with herself for having absolutely zero control over her hormones around him, she hissed, “You’re a pervert, that’s what!”

His laughter at her crazy statement rumbled through the waiting room. “I can’t wait to hear why.”

“You know why.”

He looked at her in confusion for a second and she had to nod her head in the other women’s directions before awareness dawned. His laughter was loud enough this time to ring out through the room. “So that’s what your muttering about fetishes was this morning. You think I’m into—” He broke off, laughing again.

She purposely lifted her magazine closer so that she could pretend to be engrossed in the article she hadn’t even glanced at yet.

A moment later, when he’d finally stopped laughing, he leaned back over and whispered, “Might be easier to read this way.”

His big, strong body was too close to hers in the small waiting room for her brain to figure out what he was talking about until he turned the magazine around in her hands.

Oh my God. How embarrassing. She didn’t normally care what a bunch of strangers thought of her, but then again, she’d always blended into the background, so no one had ever really noticed her.

Being with Jake, she was slowly realizing, was the opposite of being invisible. He had too much presence, was far too charismatic and charming—not to mention gorgeous—for her to stay hidden when she was with him.

It should have been easier to get lost behind him. But he wouldn’t allow that, she realized, as he put his hand back on her thigh and held it there, no matter what she did to try to shake him off. For all his arrogance, he didn’t seem interested in hogging the limelight. Instead, she got the strange sense that he was proud to be sitting there with her.

Even when she was doing dumb things like pretending to read a magazine upside down.

“When are you due?”

Sophie couldn’t believe the woman in the corner asked Jake the question instead of her, like they had some special bond just because he’d smiled at her and said she was pretty.

Of course, it stung even more that Sophie hadn’t needed much more of a reason than his smile to fall in love with him so many years ago.

“In the fall.”

No one could miss the possessive note in his voice, or his clear joy at the prospect of having a baby. Sophie felt her heart soften despite herself.

Darn it, why couldn’t he be more of a jerk all the time? Why did he have to keep having these moments when he seemed like the perfect guy? It would make it so much easier to hate him if he would just behave like a self-absorbed imbecile, rather than a sweetly concerned, uber-sexy father-to-be.