Savage Alpha (Alpha 8) (14 page)

The argument had started again once they were back in the city and Jonas had told her he was driving her to Gabriel’s house. Lily had wanted to go to her apartment. As Jonas was driving, he had won that argument.

Gabriel had obviously been waiting for them. The front door had opened and her brother stood silhouetted in the doorway, before they even had time to get out of the vehicle. Lily had shot Jonas an accusing glare as she preceded the two men inside the house to Gabriel’s study, guessing that he must have telephoned her brother before they left his home in the forest, probably while she was repacking her things.

“Lily is staying with me,” Jonas now said evenly, Gabriel seated behind his desk, Lily and Jonas seated opposite him.

“The fuck she is—”

“Like hell I am!”
 

Lily and Gabriel both protested at the same time.

Jonas calmly met two pairs of glaring green eyes. “I was hired to do a job. I’m not quitting before the job is finished.”

“You aren’t quitting, you’re being fired,” Lily came back challengingly.

He shrugged. “You can’t fire me.”

“But I can,” Gabriel growled.

“Not when I’m not being paid.”

“Yes, what’s with that?” Lily turned on Gabriel, obviously spoiling for a fight with
someone
, and she didn’t care who it was. “Who and what is Jonas Grayfeather to you?”

Gabriel shifted uncomfortably. “You know I can’t tell you that. National—”

“What did I tell you?” Lily eyed Jonas with scornful triumph.

Jonas looked at the other man. “You should have put her over your knee and spanked her more when she was a child.”

“I never spanked her at all,” the other man said defensively.

He nodded. “You left that temper for some other guy to deal with.”

Lily’s hands clenched at her sides as she saw the way Jonas was looking at her, as if he was sizing her up for what was coming next. “You wouldn’t dare!”

“I gave you fair warning, remember?”

“Lay one hand on me in anger, and I’ll—”

“Who said anything about it being in anger?” Jonas drawled as he reached out, his fingers curling like a steel band about her wrist. He pulled her resisting body toward him. “I’m going to enjoy this too much to feel angry,” he told her as he threw her over his knees and held her in place with his arm across her back. “If you wouldn’t mind, Gabriel? Some things are better done in private.”

The other man raised one dark eyebrow. “You sure about this?”

“Oh yes,” Jonas assured.

“She’s going to hate you afterwards—”

“She
already
hates him!” Lily grated, her efforts to stand totally thwarted by that steely arm across her back. “You can’t do this, Jonas,” she wailed. “Gabriel, stop him!” She looked at her brother pleadingly.

Gabriel folded his arms in front of his chest. “I have no idea what you’ve done to upset Jonas the past couple of days, Lilyflower, but it must have been something bad for him to feel strongly enough about it to want to spank you.”

“I haven’t done anything—Gabriel!” she called out to her brother as he moved toward the door. “You can’t just leave me in here with this—this Neander— Gabriel!” she wailed as he closed the door behind him. “Jonas, please don’t do this…”

“Do what,
Lilyflower
?”

“Only my brothers ever call me that.”

“
Lilyflower,
” Jonas repeated deliberately. He flipped her up and over so that she faced him as she straddled his thighs.

She placed her hands on his shoulders to steady herself. Leather-covered shoulders, because Jonas was still wearing the long black duster. She looked at him searchingly, noting the warmth in his blue eyes, the half smile on his lips. “You aren’t going to spank me.”

“Not this time, no.”

“Then what was all that about?” She frowned.

The humor faded as his expression tightened. “You don’t get to tell me when I’m fired.” His voice was low and dangerous. “Or when this is over.” His hands cupped the cheeks of her jean-clad bottom as he pulled her in tight against the rigid length of his cock. “I’ll go when I’m good and fucking ready to go, and not a minute before. Do you under—”

“I understand, Jonas.” Her cheeks burned with the memory of what had happened between them earlier today, her arms moving up as her fingers became entangled in the blue-black hair at his nape. She pressed her lips against his closed, unresponsive ones. “I’m sorry for the way I’ve behaved this afternoon.” She blinked back the tears. She knew she deserved his rejection.

His expression remained grim. “I’m not the one you’re angry with, and it sure as fuck isn’t Gabriel.”

He was right, it wasn’t. Her anger was caused by frustration with her stalker, and the pain of knowing Evan was dead. Neither of which Jonas or Gabriel were responsible for.

“He’s the way he is because he loves you,” Jonas rasped.

“I know.”

“Then stop blaming him for things that aren’t his fault. You want to use someone as a punching bag, then use me,” he grated.

Lily rested her forehead on his shoulder. “I’m so scared, Jonas.”

“I’m fully aware of that. It’s the only reason I’ve allowed you to get away with as much as I have,” he admitted. “You—”

“Everything all right in there?” Gabriel’s voice came through the closed door. “I’m not hearing any screams?”

Some of the tension left Jonas’s shoulders as Lily gave a shaky chuckle. “Everything is fine,” he answered Gabriel. “You owe him an apology, not me,” he told her.

“I’ve been bitchy to you too.”

He shrugged. “I’ve heard worse.”

She raised her head. “You have?”

“Oh yes,” he confirmed bitterly.

Lily winced. “I really am sorry.”

“Tell that to the man outside.”

She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. “I don’t really hate you.”

“No?” He quirked one dark eyebrow.

“No. I don’t think of you as a Neanderthal either.”

“You can make up for the bitchiness later,” he dismissed. “Right now you need to start screaming. I have a reputation to uphold, after all.”

Her eyes widened. “You aren’t serious?”

Much as Jonas would enjoy spanking Lily for real, this was neither the time nor the place. This certainly wasn’t the right time or place for what he knew would follow.

“No, I’m not serious.” He placed his hands on Lily’s waist and lifted her onto her feet as he stood. “Play nice with Gabriel,” he warned.

Lily looked up at him. “You like him.”

“I respect him,” he corrected.

“Same thing.”

“Maybe.”

“Where are we sleeping tonight?”

He arched one dark eyebrow. “We?”

“We.” She stepped in close. “I have an apology to make,” she reminded him.

She was standing so close, Jonas could feel the heat of her body, and smell her perfume, that heady mix of flowers, lemons, and hot, desirable woman. “I keep an apartment in London,” he admitted. “For the nights I need to stay in town.”

Lily tilted her head. “Alone?”

Jonas scowled. “Now why would you be interested in knowing that?”

Possibly because Lily had admitted to herself she was already halfway in love with him, and the thought of Jonas with any other woman tied her stomach up in knots.

It was so not the time for this, and Jonas was probably the last man she should fall in love with, but… Their time together earlier today had been a revelation.

Beneath that calm, unemotional exterior, she now knew Jonas was a man of deep passions. Desire. Want. Need. Overwhelming intensity. He had shown her all those emotions in his lovemaking earlier.

Lily had not only felt owned this morning, but also cherished, appreciated. She doubted Jonas was even aware it. But she was, so how could she help but fall in love with him?

A love she would do well to keep to herself if she didn’t want Jonas to start running in the opposite direction.

She had watched her brothers with women the past ten years, seen them enjoying the chase and as quickly losing interest once they had captured and bedded their quarry. And God forbid those women should ever fall in love with any of them. That was a sure way to end the relationship.

Jonas was too much like them not to react in the same way.

That likeness to her brothers was not only ironic, it was probably also fate’s idea of a joke. She had spent years trying to get away from her overprotective brothers, only to fall in love with a man who was exactly like them.

Fate or not, she knew better than to give Jonas even a hint of her feelings for him. “I suppose we can always change the sheets,” she said dismissively.

His jaw tightened. “I don’t take women to Larchwood Forest
or
my apartment.”

Lily gave no outward sign of her inner elation at the admission. “Then where do you take them?” she teased.

He shrugged. “A hotel. Their apartment.”

“Ah.” She gave a knowing nod. “It avoids that ‘when the hell is she going to leave’ the morning after.”

“You’ve spent too much time around your brothers.”

She smiled ruefully. “Be afraid, Jonas. Be very afraid.”

Jonas
was
afraid. Not of Lily per se, but of who and what she was becoming to him. The one woman who was capable of getting past his emotional barriers and burrowing deep beneath his skin.

Chapter 10

Jonas’s apartment was absolutely nothing like the house he had built for himself in Larchwood Forest. Instead, it was obviously exactly what he had said it was, somewhere for him to sleep on the nights he had to stay in London.

Lily hated it on sight.

The kitchen was so pristine, she would be surprised if Jonas had ever brewed so much as a cup of coffee in there. The completely white bathroom was also characterless. There were none of Jonas’s paintings on the walls, and the sitting room and bedroom had only the bare minimum of furniture.

The
bedroom.

Because there was only one bedroom, dominated by the huge king-size bed necessary to accommodate Jonas’s height and breadth.

“Sure you don’t want me to take you back to Gabriel’s house?”

Lily turned from looking at that bed and the images in her head of her and Jonas beneath the bedclothes together. “Absolutely.”

“Your choice.” Jonas dropped the keys to the SUV in a bowl on the breakfast bar then stepped into the kitchen area to look inside the fridge, as if her answer was of little importance to him.

And maybe it was.

She and Jonas had been thrust together through circumstances rather than choice. She doubted Jonas would have given an actress a second glance otherwise. But as he had…

Lily followed him into the kitchen before putting her arms about his waist and resting her cheek against his back. Jonas tensed, and then as quickly relaxed as one of his hands moved to encompass both of hers as they rested on his abdomen. “I don’t want to go to Gabriel’s, but can we please go to my apartment?”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t like it here.” Her voice was husky. “There’s nothing of you here, Jonas. It’s cold and impersonal.”

“
I’m
cold and impersonal.”

“Oh puh-lease,” Lily dismissed impatiently. “That isn’t going to fly anymore. Not after this morning.” Jonas had been anything
but
cold and impersonal during his lovemaking. He had been demanding, claiming her totally, time after time without respite. As for the things he said to her in the heat of that lovemaking… Lily felt a warmth in her cheeks every time she thought about them.

“You know exactly what I mean.” He sighed. “Earlier today was—”

“Exceptional? Mind-blowing?” Perfect. Amazing. Unforgettable.

Lily really wished she could see Jonas’s face and somehow gauge what he was thinking or feeling. But he kept a tight hold on her hands to prevent her from moving to face him.

“Yes,” he acknowledged tersely. “But,” he continued firmly before she could answer him, “it can’t happen again. Not like that.”

“Why the hell not?” Lily was too irritated to even attempt to conceal it. “That isn’t what you implied at Gabriel’s earlier.”

“I was defusing an explosive situation—”

“So you lied?” Lily pulled her hands out of his grasp before stepping back, the pain in her heart far outweighing the wrenching of her wrists.

Jonas spun round. “I didn’t lie—”

“You exaggerated the truth,” she said scornfully. “It’s okay, Jonas, I get it.” She held up her hand to stop him as he would have moved toward her. “I was just another one-night stand to you. A diversion to pass the time away during a snowstorm.”

Jonas wanted to deny it, should deny it, because that wasn’t how it had been at all. But wasn’t it better to end that part of their relationship now, before one or both of them were hurt?

He didn’t fit into Lily’s world any more than she did in his, and once this situation was over, she would know that too. Would realize how like her brothers he was, that he was part of their world, not hers, and she wouldn’t want to be with him anyway.