~Excerpt~Chapter One

Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned,

Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.

—William Congreve

Jenny Eastman buried her face in her trembling hands. It was exactly twenty-four hours since Jared Cates had sunk into her like a bear cub discovering a honey pot. She'd given it all up. He'd had access to every crevice and cranny of her body and her soul, and played her like a virtuoso on a violin. He'd made her moan and groan in perfect tune with his every move.

Once she'd believed that it wasn't possible for a man to be all that. A man was a man. They all had the same basic equipment and the same way to get from point A to B in the lovemaking department. But Jared had to be all that and a bag of chips. Thirty-five years old, six feet two, he was muscled and lean with burnished pecan skin and strong, chiseled features, and so good-looking that grandmothers turned their heads to look wistfully after him, remembering younger days. To top it off, he was a doctor, a genuine MD, with smarts, confidence, and a sense of humor. Jared Cates was more than a notion.

The memory of their lovemaking made her moisten her lips. She'd been greedy, greedy, greedy. Jared had filled her up like dark, amber nectar—her silky, sweet-sticky thang. She couldn't get enough of him.

When she'd left his apartment, she'd been walking on a rainbow-colored cloud of optimistic emotion. Had she found her soul mate? Their connection had been beyond the physical. It had been beautiful, soul-stirring. Perfect passion. She'd regretted the time she'd wasted resisting him. She'd been wrong about him. Didn't a man who could love so good and hard, who could make her feel so beautiful, have to be more than a low-down dirty dog?

So why hadn't he called?