Enjoy the following excerpt for I ONLY HAVE EYES FOR YOU...
Jake decided to steer completely clear of Sophie for the
rest of the wedding. A little distance from all those soft curves and plump red
lips would help him get his head back on straight.
“I’ve got this,” he told Sammy, one of his best bartenders
at the original McCann’s in the city. “You can circulate with the trays.”
Fortunately, the wedding guests were thirsty, clearly
needing some vino or hops to wash the taste of the syrupy vows from their
tongues. Pouring drinks for strangers was as natural to Jake as breathing, and
he immediately got into a rhythm in the middle of the vineyard as the meal was
served and people kept a running line behind the bar between courses. He
couldn’t remember a time he hadn’t been drying clean glasses, rearranging
bottles. As a kid, when his dad had been the one running the taps, Jake had
been in the back loading and unloading the dishwasher for a few extra bucks
while the cooks at whatever pub they were at slung together plates of fish and
chips and colcannon.
When the female guests flirted with him at the bar, he
flirted back. So what if none of them were even half as pretty as Sophie? The
Sullivans might be pairing up one after the other like they’d been infected by
the same virus, but Jake had had his shots.
Love wasn’t going to take him down.
He knew better than to think that love meant a damn thing
when the going got rough and it was easier to split. No wife, no kids, plenty
of pretty women, but no rings, was what Jake’s future held. He’d play with all
the kids the Sullivan clan was bound to pump out, would enjoy being Uncle Jake,
but he wouldn’t make the mistake of thinking he’d ever be a good husband or
father.
McCanns didn’t come with those genes.
“You haven’t had anything to eat yet.”
The slightly husky female voice reached in and grabbed him a
split second before he looked straight into Sophie’s eyes. Her soft sensuality
in that pink dress, the sweet smell of her perfume, were a one-two punch
straight to a gut that hadn’t yet recovered from watching those tears slip down
her cheeks, or the radiant smile that had followed.
Without waiting for an invitation, she put a full plate on
the back table for him and moved around the bar to stand next to him. “Scoot
over. I’ll help out while you eat.” She bumped her hip into his, his body not
giving a damn that she was OFF LIMITS.
How could her brothers have let her out looking like this?
What were they thinking? Didn’t they care even a little bit about their
sister’s welfare?
While he was standing there losing his mind, Sophie took
drink orders and deftly poured glasses of wine and mixed drinks for the wedding
guests. She was a librarian, not a bartender. She shouldn’t be so good at
serving drinks. And no librarian should ever be this hot, either, Jake thought
as he clamped his jaw so tight his temple started throbbing. He’d let her help
for five minutes, and then he’d send her back to her table to celebrate with the
rest of her family and make sure she stayed there for the rest of the
reception.
Even if he had to tie her to her seat.
A beer bottle nearly slipped from his grip as Jake was hit
with a crystal-clear vision of Sophie in his bed, begging for him to—
“I hear you’re a librarian. Read any good books lately?”
Jake surfaced from his triple-X daydream just in time to
notice a male guest leaning on the bar and looking down the top of Sophie’s
dress.
She didn’t seem to notice any of that as she smiled back at
the guy. She was too innocent to realize when a guy like this was aiming for
one thing, and one thing only.
“Mmm,” she said in that seductive voice, still slightly
hoarse from her tears. “I’m always reading great books. What do you like to
read?”
The guy shrugged, not seeming to care that there was a huge
backup of thirsty people bottlenecking behind him. “I’m a doct—”
“What are you drinking?” Jake broke in.
The guy shot him a look that said, Can’t you see I’m
about to score here?
“Corona,” he said to Jake before turning back to Sophie. “As
I was saying, I’m a doctor, so I don’t have too much time to read. But when I
do, I usually read medical thrillers.”
Jake couldn’t believe it when Sophie leaned over the bar and
said, “Oooh, how exciting. Medical thrillers always leave me breathless.”
Didn’t she get that this loser was way beneath her? She
should be throwing a drink in his face, not giving him a better view of her
body as she leaned down to grab a bottle of beer. Dr. Dickwad looked like he’d
hit a home run, was counting the minutes until he could strip that dress from
her tanned skin and find out if she tasted as good as she smelled.
Like hell. Jake would kill him first.
Jake snatched the bottle from her hand. “Here’s your beer.
Time to let everyone else get a drink.”
He could feel Sophie frowning at him as he pinned the guy
with his hardest look. If she couldn’t pick good from bad, he was going to have
to save her. Whether she wanted him to or not was irrelevant.
Although the guy flinched at Jake’s silent promise of
violence, it didn’t stop him from saying, “Be sure to save a dance for me,
gorgeous,” before he walked away.
Jake held on to his control by a very thin thread. Nothing
would feel better than to jump over the bar and tackle the guy to teach him
what happened when he flirted with the wrong girl. A girl who was too sweet,
too pretty, too damn perfect for him to ever even think of touching one hair on
her head.
“You’re not dancing with him,” he growled. “Not tonight. Not
ever.”
“I’m a big girl, Jake. I’ll dance with whomever I want.”
Serving the customer always took priority. But not this
time. “Sammy,” he called out across the reception area, motioning for his
employee to take over the bar again. He didn’t wait for Sam to make it to the
bar before wrapping his hand around Sophie’s wrist and pulling her out from
behind the bar. He didn’t stop walking until they were hidden behind a large
storage shed, just on the edge of the reception area.
“You are not getting within a hundred feet of that guy
again.”
Anger flared in her eyes. Eyes that had been full of happy
tears, full of pure joy, just a short while ago. “You can’t tell me what to
do.”
“Like hell I can’t.”
She yanked her arm from his and started to walk away, but he
couldn’t let her go. Not when she was bound to do something stupid, like kiss a
smarmy doctor. Furious at the picture of anyone else touching Sophie, instead
of just grabbing her wrist or her shoulders, this time Jake wrapped his arms
all the way around her and pulled her into him. He held her tight, her chest
pushing into his forearms, her height matching his so that her hips fit
perfectly between his open legs, her soft hips pressing into his groin.
“Let go of me.”
“No.”
The word was muffled by her hair, so soft, so silky against
his chin and lips. And the truth was, he couldn’t have let go of her for the
world. Not just because he didn’t want that other guy touching her...but
because he’d never wanted to hold anyone more than he did Sophie.
How long had he dreamed of holding her? Too many years to
keep count. And yet, he’d never had a clue just how incredibly good she would
feel in his arms, her dangerous curves pressed into him, her chest rising and
falling against his arms.
“I’m not going to let you go until you promise me you’ll
stay away from him.”
Now it was her turn to say, “No.”
He shifted his hand enough to slip a finger beneath her chin
and turn her face so that he could look into her eyes. “Promise me, Sophie.
It’s for your own good.”
Sophie yanked her face away from his hand, then her whole
body, and when she turned to face him head-on, her eyes were flashing. “I can’t
believe you just said that! Especially since you of all people have no
idea whatsoever what’s good for me.”
“Wanna bet?”
His mouth was on hers before he could put the brakes on his
desire.
Source: eARC
My Review....
So I have not read the whole series yet but so far out of the 4 this one is hands down my favorite we will see if it stays my fav after the other books in the series.
I have adored Sophie through out the series especially the fact that she was the quiet one with a fierce heart but totally misunderstood by her siblings. Her whole life she feels like she has unrequited love with her brothers best friend Jake but beknownst to her that those feelings were returned just held close to the vest.
It broke my heart that Jake had such a crap life he did not see the man he actually was. Thankfully Sophie saw the real him and fought like a rabid dog for what she wanted. I am such a big fan of friends to lovers for some reason it always makes it feel more real to me than other story lines.
Since there was a build up of Sophie and Jake in the other books you got to feel with them a bit more than the other books. Right away you felt the angst, hope and love between the two. Oh goodness the scene at Chase and Chloe's wedding during the speeches was so beautiful. My heart melted and fell more in love with this amazing family.
Jake and Sophie's journey is a rougher one yet so profoundly beautiful. I loved them!
For this book 4.5 Heart warming Thumbs up!
. 5 Lauren
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Awesome review! I'm glad you enjoyed reading "I Only Have Eyes For You!" It's my personal favorite of the Sullivan series. Thanks for taking part in our gigantic tour, and if you have time to cross-post your reviews to Amazon and GoodReads, that would be awesome, princess (as Jake calls Sophie). ;-)
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