Tall, Dark & Rich: His Christmas Virgin / Married by Christmas / A Yuletide Seduction

The prestigious apartment building above this underground car park—so unlike her own rambling warehouse-conversion home—definitely looked like the sort of place Jonas would choose to live.

She stubbornly stood her ground. ‘I told you I had a glazier coming out tomorrow.’

Jonas nodded tersely. ‘And I seem to recall telling you that wasn’t good enough.’

Her eyes widened. ‘So you just arranged for one of your own workmen to come over this afternoon instead? Without even giving me the courtesy of telling me about it?’

Jonas could see that Mac was clearly running out of steam, her accusing tone certainly lacking some of its earlier anger. He regarded her mockingly. ‘So it would seem.’

‘I—but—you can’t just take over my life in this way, Jonas!’

He frowned. ‘You see ensuring your safety as an attempt to take over your life?’

‘Yes! Well…not exactly,’ she allowed impatiently. ‘But it was certainly an arrogant thing to do!’

Yes, she was definitely running out of steam…‘But I am arrogant, Mac.’

‘It’s not something you should be in the least proud of!’

He gave her an unapologetic, smile. ‘Your objection is duly noted.’

‘And dismissed!’

Jonas gave a shrug. ‘I presume Bob has now replaced the broken window?’

Mac gave a disgusted snort. ‘He wouldn’t dare do anything else when “the boss” told him to do so “toot sweet”.’

Jonas had to smile at her perfect mimicry of Bob’s broad Cockney accent. ‘Well, unless you want me to break the window again just so that you can have the satisfaction of having your own glazier fix it tomorrow, I don’t really see what you want me to do about it.’

Those smoky-grey eyes narrowed. ‘You think you’re so clever, don’t you?’

Jonas straightened. ‘No, Mac, I think what I did was the most sensible course of action in the circumstances,’ he stated calmly. ‘If you disagree with that, then that’s obviously your prerogative.’

‘I disagree with the way you went about it, not with the fact that you did it,’ she continued in obvious frustration.

He gave a cool nod. ‘Again, your objection is duly noted.’

‘Right. Okay.’ Mac didn’t quite know what to do or say now that she’d voiced her protest over the replacement of her broken window.

She should have just telephoned Jonas and told him what she thought of him rather than coming back into town to speak to him personally. She certainly shouldn’t—as he had already pointed out so mockingly—have followed him home!

The wisest thing to do now would be to get back on her motorbike and drive back home. Unwisely, Mac knew she wasn’t yet ready to do that…

Just looking at Jonas, his dark hair once again ruffled by the breeze outside, the hard arrogance of his face clearly visible in the brightly lit car park, was enough to make her knees go weak. To remind her of the way he had kissed and touched her earlier today. To make her long for him to kiss and touch her in that way again.

To make her question whether that wasn’t the very reason she had come here in the first place…

Jonas had been watching the different emotions flickering across Mac’s expressive face. First the fading of her anger, which was replaced by confusion and uncertainty. And now he could see those emotions replaced by an unmistakable hunger in those smoky-grey eyes as she looked at him so intently…

A hunger he fully reciprocated. ‘I intend to have several glasses of wine as soon as I get up to my apartment—would you care to join me?’ he offered huskily.

She visibly swallowed. ‘That’s probably not a good idea.’

Again, here and now, Jonas was more than willing to go with a bad idea. His body physically ached from the hours he had already spent aroused by this woman today; the thought of an evening and night suffering the same discomfort did not appeal to him in the slightest. Besides, he really did want to see her perfect little bottom in those skin-tight leathers! ‘Half a glass of wine isn’t going to do you any harm, Mac.’

‘Isn’t it?’

Maybe it was, Jonas acknowledged with dark humour. If he had anything to do or say about it. ‘Scared, Mac?’ he taunted.

Her cheeks became flushed. ‘Now you’re deliberately challenging me into agreeing to go up to your apartment with you!’

He gave her an amused smile. ‘Is it working?’

Mac knew that her temptation to go up to Jonas’s apartment with him had very little to do with annoyance. Just talking with him like this made her nerve endings tingle, the low timbre of his voice sending little quivers of awareness up her nape and down the length of her spine, the fine hairs on her arms standing to attention, and her skin feeling as if it were covered in goose-bumps. She also felt uncomfortably hot, a heat she knew had nothing to do with the leathers she was wearing to keep out the early evening chill, and everything to do with being so physically aware of Jonas.

All of which told Mac she would be a fool to go anywhere she would be completely alone—and vulnerable to her own churning emotions—with Jonas.

Except she ached to be alone with him.

She nodded abruptly. ‘I—Fine. Will it be safe to leave my helmet down here with my bike?’

‘I’m sure your bike and helmet will be perfectly safe left down here,’ Jonas assured her.

The implication being that it was Mac’s own safety, once she was alone with him in his apartment, that she ought to be worried about.

CHAPTER SIX

MAC turned to look at Jonas as he fell into step slightly behind her as she crossed the car park to the lift that would take them up to his apartment. Only to quickly turn away again, her cheeks flaring with heated colour, as she saw the way he was unashamedly watching the gentle swaying of her hips and bottom as she walked.

He eyed her unapologetically as he stood beside her to punch in the security code that opened the lift doors and allowed the two of them to step inside. ‘You shouldn’t wear tight leathers if you don’t want men to look at you!’ He pressed the penthouse button.

Mac looked up at him reprovingly as the lift began to ascend. ‘I wear them for extra safety if I should come off the bike, not for men to look at. And you know how hot you are on safety,’ she prodded.

‘Hot would seem to be the appropriate word,’ Jonas teased.

Mac’s cheeks felt more heated than ever at the knowledge that Jonas thought she looked hot in her biking gear. ‘Perhaps we should just change the subject.’

‘Perhaps we should.’ He nodded, blue eyes openly laughing at her.

Mac turned away to stare fixedly at the grey metal doors until they opened onto the penthouse floor. The lights came on automatically as they stepped straight into what was obviously the sitting-room—or perhaps one of them?—of Jonas’s huge apartment.

It had exactly the sort of impersonal ultra-modern décor that Mac had expected, mainly in black and white with chrome, with touches of red to alleviate the austerity. The walls were painted a cool white, with black and chrome furniture, with cushions in several shades of red on the sofa and chairs, and several black and white rugs on the highly polished black-wood floor.

Mac hated it on sight!

‘Very nice,’ she murmured unenthusiastically.

Jonas had seen the wince on Mac’s face before she donned the mask of social politeness. ‘I allowed an interior designer free rein with the décor in here when I moved in six months ago,’ he admitted ruefully. ‘Awful, isn’t it?’ He grimaced as he strode further into the room.

Mac followed slowly. ‘If you don’t like it, why haven’t you changed it?’

He shrugged. ‘I couldn’t see the point when I shall be moving out again soon.’

‘Oh?’ She turned to look at him. ‘Is that why you haven’t bothered to put up any Christmas decorations, either?’

Jonas never bothered to put up Christmas decorations. What was the point? Only he lived here, with the occasional visitor, so why bother with a lot of tacky decorations that only gathered dust, before they had to be taken down again? For Jonas, Christmas was, and always had been, just a time to be suffered through, while everyone else seemed to overeat and indulge in needless sentimentality. In fact, Jonas usually made a point of disappearing to the warmth of a Caribbean island for the whole of the holidays, and, although he hadn’t made any plans to do so yet, he doubted that this year would be any different from previous ones.

‘No,’ Jonas said shortly. Mac really did look good in those figure-hugging leathers, he acknowledged privately as once again he felt what was fast becoming a familiar hardening of his thighs. ‘Come through to the kitchen and I’ll open a bottle of wine,’ he invited briskly before leading the way through to the adjoining room.

He had designed the kitchen himself, the cathedral-style ceiling oak-beamed using beams that had originally come from an eighteenth-century cottage, with matching oak kitchen cabinets, all the modern conveniences such as a fridge-freezer and a dishwasher hidden behind those cabinets, with a weathered oak table in the middle of the room surrounded by four chairs, and copper pots hanging conveniently beside the green Aga.

It was a warm and comfortable room as opposed to the coolly impersonal sitting-room. The kitchen was where Jonas felt most at ease, and was where he usually sat and read the newspapers or did paperwork on the evenings he was at home.

Although he wasn’t too sure any more about inviting Mac McGuire into his inner sanctum…

‘Much better,’ she murmured approvingly. ‘Did you design this yourself?’

‘Yes.’

‘I thought so.’

Jonas raised dark brows. ‘Why?’

She gave an awkward shrug. ‘It’s—warmer, than the other room.’

He scowled. ‘Warmer?’

‘More lived-in,’ she amended.

Jonas continued to look at her for several long seconds before giving an abrupt nod. ‘Make yourself comfortable,’ he invited and moved to take a bottle of Chablis Premier Cru from the cooler before deftly opening it and pouring some of the delicious fruity wine into two glasses.

Mac still wasn’t sure about being in Jonas’s apartment at all, let alone making herself comfortable. And from the frown now on Jonas’s brow she thought maybe he was regretting having invited her, too.

She sat down gingerly on one of the four chairs placed about the oak table. ‘I’ll just drink my half a glass of wine and then go.’

Jonas placed the glass on the table in front of her. ‘What’s your hurry?’

She nervously moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue as he stood far too close to her, only to immediately stop again as she saw the intensity with which Jonas was watching the movement. ‘I just think it would be better if I don’t overstay my welcome.’ Her hand was shaking slightly as she reached out to pick up the glass and take a sip of the cool wine.

Jonas smiled slightly. ‘Better for whom?’

She lifted one shoulder delicately. ‘Both of us, I would have thought.’

‘Maybe we’re both thinking too much,’ he murmured broodingly. ‘Have you eaten dinner yet?’

Mac looked at him sharply. ‘Not yet, no.’ Surely he wasn’t about to repeat his earlier suggestion that the two of them go out to dinner together?

‘I only had a few prawns for lunch,’ he reminded her ruefully. ‘How about you?’

‘I had a piece of toast when I got home. But I’m hardly dressed for going out to dinner, Jonas.’

‘Who said anything about going out?’ He looked at her quizzically.

Mac felt an uncomfortable surge—of what?—in her chest. Trepidation? Fear? Or anticipation? Or could it be a combination of all three of those things? Whichever it was, Mac didn’t think she should stay here alone with Jonas in his apartment any longer than she absolutely had to.

‘It’s very kind of you to offer—’

‘How polite you are all of a sudden, Mac,’ Jonas cut in. ‘If you don’t want to have dinner with me then just have the guts to come out and say so, damn it!’ His eyes glittered darkly.

She gave a pained frown. ‘It isn’t a question of not wanting to have dinner with you, Jonas—’

‘Then what is it a question of?’ he demanded harshly.

Mac swallowed hard. ‘I’m not sure I belong here…’

Jonas scowled. ‘What the hell does that mean?’

She gave an awkward shrug. ‘I—This apartment is way out of my stratosphere. That bottle of wine you just opened probably cost what some people earn in a week.’

‘And?’

‘I am what I am. How I am. I hate dressing up in fancy clothes and “being seen”.’ She winced. ‘I’ve already been through one experience where a man thought I would make a nice trophy to show off on his arm at parties—’

‘And you think that’s what I want, too?’ Jonas asked.

Mac looked a little confused. ‘I’m not really sure what you want from me.’

‘Then that makes two of us,’ Jonas told her with a sigh. ‘For some inexplicable reason you have a strange effect on me, Mary “Mac” McGuire.’ His gaze held hers as he reached out and took the wine glass from her slightly trembling fingers, placing it on the table beside his own before grasping Mac’s arms to pull her slowly to her feet so that she stood only inches away from him.

Jonas looked down at her searchingly, noting the almost feverish glitter in those smoky grey eyes, the flush to her cheeks, and the unevenness of her breathing through slightly parted lips. Parted lips that were begging to be kissed.

His expression was grim as he resisted that dangerous temptation. ‘I’m going through to my bedroom now to change out of my suit. If you decide you don’t want to stay and help me cook dinner then I suggest you leave before I get back.’ He released her abruptly before turning on his heel and going out of the room in the direction of his bedroom further down the hallway.

Mac was still trembling somewhat as she stood alone in the kitchen. She should do as Jonas suggested and leave before he came back. She knew that she should. Yet she didn’t want to. What she wanted to do was stay right here and spend the evening cooking dinner with him before they sat down together to eat it in this warm and comfortable kitchen…

Except she knew that Jonas wasn’t suggesting they just cook and eat dinner together. Her remaining here would mean she was also agreeable to repeating their earlier shared kisses.

Mac sat down abruptly, totally undecided about what to do. She should go. But she didn’t want to. She knew she shouldn’t allow that explosive passion with Jonas at the restaurant to happen again. But she wanted to!

She was still sitting there pondering her dilemma when Jonas came back into the kitchen, her breath catching in her throat as she saw him casually dressed for the first time. The thin black cashmere sweater was moulded to wide shoulders and the flatness of his chest and stomach, jeans that were faded from age and wear rather than designer-styled to be that way sat low down on his hips and emphasised the muscled length of his legs, and his feet were as bare as her own had been earlier when Bob Jenkins had arrived at the warehouse to replace her broken window. They were long and somehow graceful feet, their very bareness seeming to increase the intimacy of the situation.

Jonas looked everything that was tall, dark, and most definitely dangerous!

Mac raised startled eyes. ‘I decided to stay long enough to help you cook dinner at least.’

Jonas’s enigmatic expression, as he stood in the doorway, gave away none of his thoughts. ‘Did you?’

She stood up quickly, already regretting that decision as she felt the rising sexual tension in the room, her pulse actually racing.

Even breathing was becoming difficult. ‘Would you like me to help prepare the vegetables or something?’ she offered lamely.

Jonas very much doubted that Mac wanted to hear what he would have liked to ask her to do at this particular moment. He had never before even thought about sitting down on one of the kitchen chairs with a woman’s naked thighs straddled either side of him as he surged up into the heat of her, but the idea certainly had appeal right now. Making love to Mac anywhere appealed to him right now!

‘Or something,’ he murmured self-derisively as he made himself walk across to the refrigerator and open the door to look inside at the contents. ‘I have the makings of a vegetable and chicken stir-fry if that appeals?’ He looked at her enquiringly.

‘That sounds fine.’

Jonas was frowning slightly as he straightened. ‘Wouldn’t you be more comfortable out of those leathers? Unless of course you aren’t wearing anything underneath?’ he added mockingly. ‘In which case, neither of us is going to be comfortable once you’ve taken them off!’

It was time to put a stop to this right now, Mac decided. They hadn’t even got as far as cooking dinner yet and already Jonas was talking about taking her clothes off!

‘Of course I’m wearing something underneath,’ she said, scowling at Jonas’s deliberate teasing, sitting down to remove her boots before unzipping the leathers and taking them off to reveal she was wearing a long-sleeved white t-shirt and snug-fitting jeans above black socks. ‘Satisfied?’ she challenged as she stood up to lay her leathers over one of the kitchen chairs and place her heavy boots beside it.

‘Not hardly,’ Jonas murmured.

‘Jonas!’

‘Mac?’ He raised innocent brows.

She drew in a deep, controlling breath. ‘Just tell me what vegetables you want me to wash and cut up,’ she muttered bad-temperedly.

‘Yes, ma’am!’ he shot back.

To Mac’s surprise they worked quite harmoniously together as they prepared and then cooked the food, sitting down at the table to eat it not half an hour later. ‘You said you’ll be moving from here soon?’ she reminded Jonas curiously as she looked across the table at him.

He nodded as he put his fork down on his plate and drank some of his wine before answering her. ‘By this time next year we should be neighbours.’

Mac’s eyes widened. ‘You’re moving into the apartment complex next to me once it’s finished being built?’

Jonas didn’t think she could have sounded any more horrified if he had said he was actually moving in with her. ‘That’s the plan, yes,’ he confirmed dryly. ‘Unless, of course, you decide to sell and move out, after all.’

Her mouth firmed. ‘No, I can safely assure you that I have no intention of ever doing that.’

Jonas frowned. ‘Why the hell not?’

‘It’s difficult to explain.’

‘Try,’ he invited grimly.

Mac frowned. ‘The warehouse belonged to my great-grandfather originally, then to my grandfather. Years ago my great-grandfather owned a small fleet of boats, for delivering cargos to other parts of England. Obviously long before we had the huge container trucks that clog up the roads nowadays.’ She chewed distractedly on her bottom lip.

Jonas’s gaze was riveted on those tiny white teeth nibbling on the fullness of her bottom lip, that ache returning to his thighs as he easily imagined being the one doing the biting…

For the moment Mac seemed unaware of the heated intensity of his gaze. ‘I spent a lot of time there with my grandfather when I was a child, and when he died he left it to me,’ she finished with a shrug.

Jonas forced himself to drag his gaze from the sensual fullness of her lips. ‘So you’re saying you want to keep it because it has sentimental value?’

‘Something like that, yes.’

‘Your grandfather didn’t want to leave the property to your parents?’

It really was difficult for Mac to explain the affinity that had existed between her grandfather and herself. How he had understood the love and affection she felt for the rambling warehouse beside the river. How living and working there now made Mac feel that she still had that connection to her grandfather. ‘My parents had already moved out of London to live in Devon when my grandfather died, and so didn’t want or need it.’

‘No siblings for you to share with?’

‘No. You?’ Mac asked with interest, deciding she had probably talked about herself enough for one evening.

Jonas’s mouth thinned. ‘I believe my parents considered that one mistake was enough.’

Mac gasped, not quite sure what to say in answer to a statement like that. ‘I’m sure they didn’t think of you as a mistake—’

‘Then you would be wrong, Mac,’ he said dryly. ‘My parents were both only nineteen when they got married, and then it was only because my mother was expecting me. She would have been better off—we all would have—if she had either got rid of the baby or settled for being a single mother.’ He finished drinking the wine in his glass, offering to refill Mac’s glass before refilling his own when she shook her head in refusal.

Mac had continued to eat while they talked, but she gave up all pretence of that after Jonas’s comment that his mother should have got rid of him rather than marry his father!

Jonas looked bitter. ‘I have no doubts that your own childhood was one of love and indulgence with parents and a family who loved you?’

‘Yes,’ she admitted with slight discomfort.

Jonas gave a hard smile. ‘Don’t look so apologetic, Mac. It’s the way it should be, after all,’ he said bleakly. ‘Unfortunately, it so often isn’t. I believe it took a couple of years for the novelty to wear off and the cracks to start appearing in my own parents’ marriage, then ten years or more for them to realise they couldn’t stand the sight of each other. Or me,’ he added flatly.

Mac gave a pained wince. ‘I’m sure you’re wrong about that, Jonas.’

‘I’m sure your romantic little heart wants me to be wrong about that, Mac,’ he corrected.

He meant his mockery of her to wound, and it did, but Mac’s ‘romantic little heart’ also told her that Jonas’s taunts hid the pain and disillusionment that had helped to mould him into the hard and resilient man he was today. That had made him into a man who rejected all the softer emotions, such as love, in favour of making a success of his life through his own hard work and sheer determination. That had made him into a man who didn’t even bother to put up Christmas decorations in his apartment…

‘Your parents are divorced now?’ she asked.

‘Yes, thank God,’ he replied. ‘After years of basically ignoring each other, and me, they finally separated when I was thirteen and divorced a couple of years later.’

Mac didn’t even like to think of the damage they had done in those thirteen years, not only to each other, but most especially to Jonas, the child caught in the middle of all that hostility.

‘Which one did you live with after the separation?’

‘Neither of them,’ Jonas bit out with satisfaction. ‘I had my own grandfather I went to live with. My father’s father. Although I doubt Joseph was the warm and fuzzy type your own grandfather sounds,’ he added.

Mac doubted it too, if Jonas had actually called his grandfather by his first name, and if the expression on Jonas’s face was anything to go by!

Jonas would have found Mac’s obvious dismay amusing if it weren’t his own childhood they were discussing. Something that was unusual in itself when Jonas usually went out of his way not to talk about himself. But it was better that Mac knew all there was to know about him now. To be made aware that falling in love and getting married wasn’t, and never would be, a part of his future. Jonas had seen firsthand the pain and disillusionment that supposed emotion caused, and he wanted no part of it. Not now or ever.

‘You said earlier that you didn’t belong in these surroundings,’ Jonas reminded her. ‘Well, neither do I. My parents were poor, and my grandfather Joseph was a rough, tough man who worked on a building site all his life. I’ve worked hard for what I have, Mac.’

‘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—’