Free Sarah's Sin by Tami Hoag Page A

the hardwood. Muffins went bouncing in all directions with Blossom chasing after them, trying to catch them in her mouth like balls.
    Matt stayed where he was, too enchanted by the sight of a grown woman turning purple with embarrassment to worry about his unclothed state. Sarah dropped to her knees and glued her gaze to the floor as she fumbled with the scattered contents of the tray. Silver rattled against china. The tightly capped coffee thermos slipped out of her grasp and rolled across the floor like a bowling pin.
    “I'm so sorry,” she mumbled. “I should have knocked. I thought you would still be asleep. I had no idea you'd be … be—”
    “Naked,” Matt supplied, amusement twitching his lips.
    “Oh,
mein Gott?”
    It didn't matter that she was no longer looking at him. She'd already gotten an eyeful and all of it was burned into her brain. She'd seen him with his shirt off and she'd seen him in his running shorts, but what she'd just seen certainly made a big impression on her overall view of the man. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to banish the image from her mind and only succeeded in calling up every detail in startling clarity. Trim hips, muscular thighs. Flat belly with a line of dark hair leading down the center from the edge of his bandages to spread into a thicket of curls around thatwhich made him male—extremely male. “Oh,
mein Gott”
she mumbled in despair.
    “Gee, Sarah, I think that's enough praise. Ill get a big head … or something,” Matt said, barely able to contain his chuckles. He grabbed his bath towel off the end of the bed and slung it around his hips out of deference for her delicate sensibilities and to disguise the fact that he was enjoying having her see him just a little too much. 'Its okay, honey, really. I'm decent now.”
    She chanced a peek up at him and went crimson all over again. Decent? Decadent was more like it. The man had no sense of propriety. He certainly had other fine attributes, she thought with a flash of heat in her face, but modesty was not among them.
    Matt dropped another towel on the floor to sop up juice and knelt on a dry spot, bending over to look into Sarah's face.
    “Sweetheart, its okay. Its no big deal. I don't mind you seeing my body. We've all got one under our clothes.”
    She looked at him, utterly shocked, and sputtered, “I don't got one and you had ought to keep yours covered! It looks like a very big deal to me!”
    She shoved her soggy note at him and fled, leaving the tray behind. Matt fell over on the floor, laughing and groaning, holding his aching ribs, finally howling in a combination ofhysteria and pain. Blossom dropped the muffin she was devouring and howled along.
    Sarah grabbed her cloak and bonnet and rushed out the back door of the house. Gravel scuffed her shoes as she ran across the driveway and down to the small barn where the Woods allowed her to keep her horse. Her breath fogged in the crisp fall air like steam. It probably
was
steam, she thought. Everything inside her felt hot and churning.
    Why had she had to see Matt that way after making her big decision to end the adventure of getting to know him? Now everything female in her just wanted to get to know him better. Lust. Pure, sinful lust, that was what it was. And to her discredit, she didn't feel the least bit ashamed of it. What she felt was angry and frustrated.
    She grabbed a section of harness and tossed it on Otis without taking the time to brush him first. She had kept the brown gelding for herself when she had sold the rest of the farm and equipment after Samuel's death. The horse looked at her now with his limpid brown eyes, blinking as if she had just awakened him from a deep, restful sleep.
    “We're going to town,” she told him, buckling the bellyband with more force than usual, winning herself a fierce offended look fromthe old horse. She ignored him, too wrapped up in the whirlwind of her own emotions.
    She would go to town and do her errands as