Tall, Dark & Rich
‘I didn’t mean to imply—’
‘Didn’t you?’ He gave her a grim smile. ‘I probably owe part of my success to the fact that my grandfather had no time for slackers,’ he continued relentlessly. ‘You either worked to pay your way or you got out. I decided to work. My parents had both remarried by the time I was sixteen and disappeared off into the sunset—’
‘Jonas!’ Mac choked as she sat forward to place her hand over his as it lay curled into a fist on the tabletop.
He pulled his hand away sharply, determined to finish this now that he had started. Mac should know exactly what she was getting into if she decided to become involved with him. Exactly! ‘In between working with my grandfather before and after school and cooking for the two of us, I also worked hard to get my A levels. Then I worked my way through university and gained a Masters degree in Mathematics before going into architecture. I worked my ba—’ He broke off with an apologetic grimace. ‘I worked hard for one of the best architecture companies in London for a couple of years, before I was lucky enough to have a couple of my designs taken up by a man called Joel Baxter. Have you heard of him?’
Mac’s eyes were wide. ‘The man who makes billions out of computer games and software?’
‘That’s the one,’ Jonas confirmed. ‘Strangely, we became friends. He convinced me I should go out on my own, that I needed to take control of the whole construction of the building and not just the design of it, that I would never make money working for someone else. It was a struggle to start with, but I took his advice, and, as they say, the rest is history.’ He gave a dismissive shrug.
Yes, it was. Mac was aware of the well-publicised overnight success of Buchanan Construction—which obviously hadn’t been any such thing but was simply the result of Jonas’s own hard work and determination to succeed.
She moistened dry lips. ‘Are you and Joel Baxter still friends?’
Jonas’s expression softened slightly. ‘Yeah. Joel’s one of the good guys.’
Mac brightened slightly. ‘And your parents, surely they must be proud of you? Of what you’ve achieved?’
Jonas’s eyes hardened to icy chips. ‘I haven’t seen either one of them since my father attended my grand-father’s funeral when I was nineteen.’
Mac looked at him incredulously. ‘That’s—that’s unbelievable!’
He looked at her coldly. ‘Is it?’
‘Well. Yes.’ She shook her head. ‘Look at you now, all that you’ve achieved, surely—’
‘I didn’t say that they hadn’t wanted to see me again, Mac,’ Jonas cut in. ‘Once Buchanan Construction became known as a multimillion-pound worldwide enterprise, they both crawled out of the woodwork to claim their only lost son,’ he recalled bitterly.
Mac swallowed hard. ‘And?’
‘And I didn’t want anything to do with either of them,’ he said emotionlessly.
Mac could understand, after all that had gone before, why Jonas felt the way that he did about seeing his parents again. Understand his feelings on the subject, maybe, but accepting it, when the situation between Jonas and his parents remained unresolved, was something else. Or perhaps he considered that just not seeing or having anything to do with his parents was the solution?
She looked sad. ‘They’ve missed out on so much.’
Jonas lifted an unconcerned shoulder. ‘I suppose that depends upon your perspective.’
Mac’s perspective was that Jonas’s parents had obviously been too young when they married each other and had Jonas, but it in no way excused their behaviour towards him. He had been an innocent child caught up in the battleground that had become their marriage.
Was it any wonder that Jonas was so hard and cynical? That he chose to concentrate all his energies on business relationships rather than personal ones?
‘Don’t go wasting any of your sympathy on me, Mac,’ he grated suddenly as he obviously clearly read the emotions on her face. ‘You told me earlier what you didn’t want, and the only reason I’ve told you these about myself is so that you’ll know the things I don’t want.’ He paused, his mouth tightening. ‘So that you understand there would be no future, no happy ever after, if you chose to have a relationship with me.’
She raised startled eyes to look searchingly across the table at Jonas as he looked back at her so intensely. She saw and recognised the raw purpose in his gaze. The underlying warmth of seduction and sensuality in those hard and unblinking blue eyes.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE chair scraped noisily on the tiled floor as Mac suddenly stood up. ‘I think it’s time I was going.’
‘Running scared, after all, Mac?’ Jonas mocked, watching her through narrowed lids as she turned agitatedly to pick up her leathers.
She dropped the leathers back onto the chair and faced him, her chin raised challengingly. ‘I’m not scared, Jonas, I just don’t think I can give you what you want.’
‘Oh, I think you can give me exactly what I want, Mac.’ He stood up slowly to move around the table to where she stood determinedly unmoving as she looked up at him. ‘Exactly what I want,’ he repeated as he reached out to curve his arms about her waist and pull her firmly up against him so that she could feel the evidence of what it was he wanted from her. All that Jonas wanted from her or any woman.
Mac gasped as she felt the hardness of his arousal pressed revealingly against her. She felt an instant echoing of that arousal in her own body as heat coursed through her breasts to pool hotly between her thighs.
God, she seriously wanted this man! Wanted him so badly that she ached with it. Longed to strip the clothes from both their bodies and have him surge hard and powerfully inside her and make her forget everything else but the desire that had burned so strongly between them ever since they’d met again at her exhibition on Saturday evening.
She gave a desperate shake of her head. ‘I don’t do casual relationships, Jonas.’
His face remained hard and determined. ‘Have you ever tried?’
She swallowed. ‘No. But—’ Her protest ceased the moment that Jonas’s mouth claimed hers in a kiss so raw with hunger that she could only cling to the hard strength of his shoulders as she returned the heated hunger of that kiss.
Jonas felt wrapped in the luscious smell and heat that was Mac, even as his hand moved unerringly to that strip of flesh between her T-shirt and jeans that had been tantalising him all evening. He needed to know if those full breasts were bare beneath that thin cotton top, and the first touch of her creamy flesh against Jonas’s fingertips made him groan low in his throat.
Mac was pure heat. Silk and sensuality as his hand moved beneath that T-shirt and up the length of her bare spine. Jonas felt the quivering vibration of her response in the depths of his body as he pressed her closer against him. He deepened the kiss, his arousal surging in response as his tongue moved skilfully across the heat of Mac’s lips and then into the hot, moist vortex beneath.
She took him in, deeper, and then deeper still, as her hands moved up Jonas’s shoulders to his nape, her fingers becoming entangled in the thickness of his hair as her tongue touched lightly against his, testing, questioning. Jonas instantly retreated, encouraging, enticing, giving another low groan as that hot and moist tongue shyly followed.
He stroked her satiny flesh beneath her T-shirt, closer, ever closer to the firm mounds that he now knew without a doubt were bared to his touch, loving the way Mac arched into him as his hand moved to cup and stroke one of those uptilted breasts, capturing the soft cry that escaped her lips with his mouth as his fingers grazed across the swollen nipple.
Mac had never felt this way before and felt lost to everything but Jonas as he continued to kiss and touch her, mouth devouring hers, sipping, tasting her, with deep and drugging kisses that drove her wild with longing. While his tongue brushed lightly over the sensitivity of her lips and teeth, his hand—Oh, God, what the touch of Jonas’s hard and slightly calloused hand against her naked flesh was doing to her…
Her whole body felt hot, sensitised, and she gasped and writhed, the moisture flooding between her thighs as Jonas rolled her nipple between thumb and finger. Gently, and then harder, the almost pleasure-pain like nothing Mac had ever experienced before.
Her neck arched when Jonas dragged his mouth from hers, his breath hot and moist against her skin as he left a trail of kisses across her cheek, the line of her jaw, before moving down her throat to the hollows beneath, tongue dipping, tasting, as he seemed to draw in the drugging scent of her arousal with his every breath.
Mac could only cling to the power of his shoulders as he swept her along in a tidal wave of desire so strong she felt as if Jonas were her only anchor. All that mattered. Her only reality.
Jonas had never wanted a woman as much as he did Mac. Had never hungered like this before. Had never needed to be inside any woman so badly that he literally seemed to blaze with that need, every cell and nerve in his body aching for her, robbing him of his usual self-control as he longed to feel her hands on him.
His mouth moved back to claim hers in a kiss that was almost savage, Mac offering no protest as Jonas grasped the bottom of her T-shirt to tug it upwards, only breaking that kiss long enough to pull the article of clothing over her head and throw it down on the floor.
He could barely breathe, his eyes glittering darkly blue as he looked down at her tiny breasts. Their nakedness peaked shyly through that long ebony hair. ‘My God, you’re beautiful,’ Jonas groaned before lowering his head to capture one of those rosy red nipples into the heat of his mouth, intending to drink his fill, to wrest every last vestige of pleasure from her hot and delicious body.
Mac gasped at the first touch of Jonas’s lips against her breast, her back tensing now as she arched into him, cradling his head to her as he drew her deeper, ever deeper into his mouth, tasting her sweetness, her heat, the heady smell of her arousal driving him mad with need.
He raised his head to look down at the nipple that had swollen in size, gaze intent as he turned the attention of his lips and tongue to her other breast. At the same time he released the fastening on her jeans to slip his hands beneath the material and grasp her hips before sliding further back to cup the perfectly rounded cheeks of her bottom encased in lacy panties.
Jonas looked up at Mac with darkened and hungry eyes. ‘Touch me, Mac,’ he growled. He deliberately, slowly, flicked his tongue against that hard and delicious nipple, watching her response as the pleasure vibrated, resonated through the whole of her body.
Mac had never felt so sensitised to the touch of another, so aroused and needy, her body a single burning ache as she moved eagerly to return those caresses, tugging Jonas’s jumper up and off his body to reveal the hard and muscled perfection of his chest before she placed her hands flat against it. He stood immobile in front of her, that glittering blue gaze hidden beneath hooded lids, but the husky exclamation of pleasure he gave as Mac touched him for the first time encouraged her, incited her to explore all of that hard, silken flesh.
He felt like steel encased in velvet, the tiny nipples hidden amongst the light covering of chest hair standing to attention as Mac ran her fingers over them delicately. She wondered curiously whether Jonas would feel the same pleasure as she did if she were to kiss him there.
‘Oh, yes, Mac!’ Jonas moaned at the first flick of her tongue against that tiny enticing pebble, his hand moving to curve about her nape as he threaded his fingers in the dark tangle of her hair and held her against him, encouraging, demanding.
Mac felt empowered, exhilarated with the knowledge that she could give Jonas the same pleasure he gave her, continuing to flick her tongue against him there as her hands roamed restlessly across the broad width of his back and down the muscled curve of his spine.
Mac’s mouth moved down his chest as her fingers moved lightly along the length of the erection pressing against his jeans, able to feel the heat of him through the material as he grew even harder as she touched him.
Jonas stood unmoving beneath the onslaught of those caresses, barely breathing, body tense, hands clenched into fists at his sides as he fought grimly to maintain control as Mac’s lips and hands drove him almost wild with need. Knowing he was losing the battle as that image he’d had earlier, of him sitting on a chair with Mac’s naked thighs wrapped about him, caused his thighs to throb and surge in painful need, his jeans too uncomfortable, too tight to contain him any longer.
‘We need to be somewhere more comfortable,’ he growled before he bent down and swung Mac up into his arms. He moved out of the warm kitchen, down the hallway to his bedroom, kicking the door closed behind them. He walked over to the bed and placed Mac on top of the downy duvet before turning to switch on the soft glow of the bedside light.
He stood looking down at her for several seconds, eyes dark as he looked at that cascade of straight ebony-black hair spread across his pillows, her eyes bright, cheeks flushed, lips slightly swollen from the hunger of their kisses, and then down to the swell of those perfect breasts.
Jonas drew in a harsh breath as he gazed at those orbs with their rosy-hued nipples jutting out firmly, and then down over the curving indentation of her narrow waist, a tantalising glimpse of her lacy panties visible beneath her unzipped jeans.
He sat on the side of the bed, his gaze briefly holding hers before lowering as he slowly tugged those jeans down to fully reveal those white panties with the soft curls dark behind the lace, and the long length of her legs.
Mac was barely breathing as she looked up into the dark intensity of Jonas’s face as his gaze slowly, hungrily, devoured every inch of her, from her head down to her toes.
His face was flushed as that glittering blue gaze returned to meet hers. ‘I’m think I’m going to have to make love to you until you beg for me to stop,’ he muttered gruffly.
Mac longed for that, ached for it, but at the same time she trembled at the depth of the desire she could feel flowing between them. ‘I hope you aren’t going to be disappointed,’ she whispered.
Those blue eyes narrowed. ‘Why should I be disappointed?’
Mac shook her head. ‘I’m not experienced, and—I—I don’t have any protection,’ she warned, not wanting to break the spell of the moment, but only too aware now of the reason Jonas’s parents had married each other. Of how much he would despise any woman stupid enough to make the same mistake with him.
‘You aren’t on the pill?’ Jonas slid open the drawer in the bedside cabinet and took out a small foil packet.
Her cheeks were flushed. ‘I—No, there’s never been any need.’
Jonas looked at her suspiciously as an incredulous thought suddenly occurred to him. ‘You can’t possibly still be a virgin?’
‘Why can’t I? Jonas…?’ Mac frowned her uncertainty as he stood up abruptly.
Jonas stared down at her disbelievingly—accusingly—for several long seconds, before turning away to run an agitated hand through the thickness of his hair. A virgin! Jonas couldn’t believe it; Mac McGuire, a beautiful woman in her late twenties, who looked and dressed like a Bohemian, was a virgin!
He turned back. ‘And exactly when were you going to tell me that interesting little piece of information?’ he bit out angrily. ‘Or were you just going to let me find out for myself once it was too late for me to do anything about it?’
Mac gave a dazed shake of her head. ‘I don’t understand,’ she whispered.
Jonas glared at her. ‘Virgin or not, you can’t be that naïve!’
Mac was too stunned by the sudden tension between them to know what to think. ‘I don’t believe I’m naïve at all,’ she said slowly as she sat up, her hair falling forwards to cover the nakedness of her breasts. ‘I thought you realised after I told you about my one youthful disaster of a relationship—Jonas, what difference does it make whether or not I’ve had other lovers?’
‘All the difference in the world to me,’ Jonas assured her harshly.
Mac gave a pained frown as she wrapped her arms defensively about the bareness of her knees. ‘But why does it?’
‘Because I have no intention of being any woman’s first lover, that’s why.’ His jaw was tightly clenched.
‘All women have a first time with someone—’
‘Yours isn’t going to be with me,’ he reiterated.
‘Most men would be only too pleased to be a woman’s first lover!’ Tears of humiliation glittered in her eyes as she glared back at him and she resolutely blinked them away. She refused to cry in front of him!
‘Not this man,’ he said fervently.
Mac couldn’t believe they were having this conversation. Couldn’t believe that Jonas was refusing to make love to her just because she was a virgin!
‘Why is that, Jonas?’ she challenged. ‘Do you think that I’m making such a grand gesture because I already imagine myself in love with you? Or do you think I’m trying to trap you in some way?’ Her eyes widened as she saw from the cold stiffening of Jonas’s expression, the icy glitter of his eyes, that was exactly what he thought—and so obviously feared. ‘You arrogant louse!’ she scorned furiously.
‘No doubt,’ he acknowledged. ‘But I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s better if this stops now?’
‘Oh, don’t worry, Jonas, it’s stopped,’ she said scathingly as she moved to sit on the side of the bed, grabbed up her jeans from the carpeted floor and started pulling them back on.
‘I’m going back to the kitchen; I suggest you join me there once you’ve finished dressing. You might need this.’ He took a black T-shirt out of the tall chest of drawers and threw it on the bed beside her before turning on his heel and leaving the bedroom, almost slamming the door behind him.
Mac stilled, unsure as to whether the tears now finally falling hotly and unchecked down her cheeks were of anger or humiliation, too confused still at the way their heated lovemaking had turned into an exchange of insults.
Did Jonas really imagine Mac was somehow trying to trap him into a relationship with her by giving him her virginity? Into making him feel responsible for her because he’d become her first lover?
If that was what he thought, what he was desperately trying to avoid, then Jonas didn’t deserve her tears. He didn’t deserve anything but her pity.
Unless you’re in love with him, after all? a little voice deep within her wanted to know.
No. She was most definitely not. Mac had felt closer to Jonas this evening. Felt she understood him and his motivations better after hearing about his parents’ marriage and his own childhood. And she had physically wanted him. That was undeniable. But none of those things added up to her being in love with him.
Not even a little bit? the same annoying voice persisted.
No, not even a little bit! she answered it firmly.
Jonas was arrogant. Cold. And his behaviour just now proved that he was also completely undeserving of her emotions or her body.
Jonas had pulled his jumper back on and was sitting at the oak kitchen table drinking some of the wine when Mac came back into the room, his gaze narrowing as he took in her appearance in his T-shirt. It was far too big for her, so long it reached almost down to her knees, the shoulder seams hanging halfway down her arms—and yet, somehow, she still managed to look sexy as hell.
Nothing at all like the virgin she was.
Jonas couldn’t have known about her inexperience. He would never have guessed it from how she’d responded to him so passionately, so eagerly…
He scowled across at her broodingly. ‘Having dinner together was obviously no more successful than our attempt at having lunch.’ The food remained half eaten and cold on the plates.
Mac strode across the room to grab her own T-shirt from the back of the chair where Jonas had draped it. ‘At least I know who to see now if I ever want to lose weight,’ she retorted.
Jonas’s jaw tightened. ‘You’re too thin already.’
Her eyes flashed a deep, smoky grey. ‘I didn’t hear you complaining a few minutes ago!’
He raised dark brows, his smile sardonic. ‘I wasn’t stating a preference now either, only fact.’
Mac wanted to slap that mocking smile off his face. No—she wanted to pummel his chest with her fists until she actually hurt him. As he had hurt her when he’d turned away from her so coldly.
She held her T-shirt protectively in front of her. ‘Is there a bathroom I can use to change back into my own top?’
He kept one mocking brow raised. ‘Isn’t it a little late for modesty when I’ve already seen you naked?’
Her cheeks warmed hotly. ‘Not completely!’
Jonas gave a shrug. ‘The part you’re going to expose, I have.’
Mac’s mouth set determinedly. ‘Would you just tell me where the bathroom is?’
‘The nearest one is down the hallway, first door on the right,’ he told her before turning away.
It was a cold and uninterested dismissal, Mac realised with a frown as she turned and walked out of the kitchen. Anyone would think that being a virgin at her age was akin to having the plague! Maybe in his eyes it was…
She wasted no time in admiring the luxurious bathroom as she quickly pulled off Jonas’s overlarge T-shirt and replaced it with her own white one, a glance in the mirror over the double sink showing her that her hair was in too much of a mess for her to do any more than plait it loosely in an effort to smooth it into some sort of order.
Her face was very pale, her eyes huge and slightly red from the tears she had shed earlier, her lips full and swollen from the intensity of the kisses she had shared with Jonas.
Most of all she looked…sad.
Which wouldn’t do at all, Mac decided as she set her shoulders determinedly before leaving the bathroom to go back to the kitchen. She was a mature and confident woman—even if, horror or horrors, she was still a virgin!—and she intended to act like one.
Jonas was still sitting at the table surrounded by the remains of their meal, although the level of wine in his glass had definitely gone down in her absence.
Mac placed his T-shirt on the back of one of the other chairs. ‘Thank you,’ she said stiltedly, her face averted as she sat down to begin pulling on her leathers.
This, putting her clothes back on in a strained and awkward silence, had to be one of the most embarrassing and humiliating experiences of her entire life. More embarrassing than if she and Jonas had actually made love completely? Probably not, she acknowledged with a self-derisive grimace, as she could only imagine his reaction if he had discovered her virginity when it was too late for him to pull back.
Once again Jonas watched Mac broodingly through narrowed lids, easily able to read the self-disgust in her expression, the underlying hurt. Damn it, he had never meant to hurt her. Hadn’t wanted to hurt her. He just knew he had nothing to offer a woman like Mac. Beautiful. Emotional. Virginal…
His relationships were always, always based on a mutual attraction and physical need. That desire definitely existed between himself and Mac, but the fact that she was still a virgin, and had been willing to give that virginity to him, had also warned him that if they made love together then she would probably want more from him than that. Much more.
Jonas didn’t have any more than that to give. Not to Mac or any other woman. But that wasn’t her fault.
‘I’m sorry.’
She gave him a sharp glance as she straightened from lacing her boots. ‘For what?’
Jonas grimaced. ‘For allowing things to go as far between us just now as they did. If I had known—’
‘If you had known I was a virgin then you wouldn’t have invited me up to your apartment at all!’ she finished knowingly as she stood to zip up her leathers.