‘Mac…?’
She raised her eyes to look at him before as quickly looking away again as she felt that familiar thrill of awareness down the length of her spine. ‘We should sit down and eat before the food gets cold.’
Jonas frowned at the awkwardness he could feel growing between them. ‘Mac, are you even going to look at me?’
She leant back against the table as she turned and raised startled lids, her eyes huge grey orbs in the paleness of her face, her expression pained. ‘What are we doing, Jonas?’ she groaned huskily.
He gave a rueful shrug. ‘Eating dinner together, I thought.’
She shook her head. ‘After agreeing only this afternoon that it was a bad idea!’
‘No, you said it was a bad idea. I don’t think you asked for my opinion,’ Jonas recalled dryly. Although, if asked at the time, he would have said it was a bad idea, too! ‘As you said, the food is getting cold, so I suggest that for now we just sit down and eat and think about this again later?’ He moved to pointedly pull back one of the chairs for her to sit down.
Mac regarded him quizzically as she sat. ‘You really do like having your own way, don’t you?’
‘Almost as much as you enjoy doing the exact opposite of what you know I want,’ Jonas acknowledged with a quick smile as he sat down opposite her before picking up the bottle of wine and deftly opening it.
Mac chuckled softly. ‘Interesting.’
‘Irritating for the main part, actually,’ Jonas admitted as he poured the wine into their glasses. He raised his own glass and made a toast. ‘To—hopefully—our first indigestion-free meal together!’
Mac raised her glass and touched it gently against the side of Jonas’s. ‘To an indigestion-free meal!’ she echoed huskily, not too sure about the ‘first’ part of the toast. It implied there might be other meals to come, and, as Mac knew only too well, she and Jonas always ended up arguing if they spent any length of time together.
Well…almost always. The times when they didn’t argue were even more disturbing…
‘You really do like Christmas, don’t you?’
Mac looked up from helping herself to some of the food in the cartons to see Jonas was looking at her brightly decked Christmas tree. ‘I would have said, doesn’t everyone?’ she replied. ‘But I already know that you don’t.’
‘I wouldn’t go that far,’ Jonas said.
‘No?’ Mac eyed him interestedly.
He shrugged. ‘I don’t dislike Christmas, Mac, it’s just a time I remember when my parents were forced to spend a couple of days in each other’s company, with the result they usually ended up having one almighty slanging match before the holiday was over. As my grandmother died on Christmas Eve, Joseph wasn’t particularly into celebrating it, either.’
‘What about your cousin Amy and her family?’
‘Amy always goes away with her partner for Christmas, and I’m not close to my uncle and aunt. What can I say?’ he drawled at Mac’s dismayed expression. ‘We’re a dysfunctional family.’
It sounded awful to Mac when she thought of her own happy childhood, and the wonderful memories she had of family Christmases, both in the distant past and more recently. ‘Why did you call your grandfather Joseph?’
Jonas gave a humourless smile. ‘Calling out “Granddad” on a building site didn’t go down too well with him, so it became a habit to call him by his first name.’
Looking at Jonas now, so suave, so obviously wealthy from the car he drove and the penthouse apartment he lived in, it was difficult to envision him as a rough and tough teenager working on a building site.
Yet there were those calluses Mac had noticed on his palms three days ago. And there was a ripcord strength about Jonas that didn’t look as if it came solely from working out in a gym. Wealthy or not, underneath all that suave sophistication, she realised he was still capable of being every bit as rough and tough as he had been as a teenager.
‘What?’ Jonas paused in eating his food to look across at her questioningly.
Mac shrugged. ‘I was just thinking that maybe you should think about starting your own Christmas traditions.’
From the way Mac had been looking at him so searchingly Jonas was pretty sure that hadn’t been what she had been thinking at all. Although quite what she had been thinking, he had no idea.
She was still something of an enigma to him, he recognised ruefully. There was no sophisticated gameplaying with Mac. No artifice. As she had so emphatically told him, what you saw was what you got. And what Jonas saw he wanted very badly indeed…
He sighed. ‘It’s never seemed worth the bother when I only have myself to think about.’
Mac looked at him assessingly. ‘I’m taking a bet that you usually go away for Christmas. Somewhere hot,’ she qualified. ‘Golden sandy beaches where you can sunbathe, and there are waiters to bring you tall drinks with exotic fruit and umbrellas in them. Somewhere you can forget it even is Christmas,’ she teased.
‘You would win your bet,’ Jonas acknowledged with a smile.
She shook her head. ‘I can’t imagine ever going away for Christmas.’
Neither could Jonas when he could clearly see the distaste on Mac’s face. ‘What do you and your family do over Christmas?’ he asked.
Those beautiful smoky grey eyes glowed. ‘Nowadays we all converge on my parents’ house in a little village called Tulnerton in Devon. My mother’s parents, several aged aunts. All the presents are placed under the tree, and Christmas Eve we all have a family meal and then attend Midnight Mass at the local church together. When we get back Mum and I usually put the turkey in the oven so that it cooks slowly overnight and the house is full of the smells of it cooking in the morning when we sit down to open our presents. When I was younger, that sometimes happened as early as five o’clock in the morning,’ she recalled wistfully. ‘Nowadays it’s usually about nine o’clock, after we’ve checked on the turkey and everyone has a cup of tea.’
Jonas’s mouth twisted. ‘The perfect Christmas indeed.’
Mac eyed him ruefully. ‘To me it is, yes.’
Jonas reached out and placed his hand over hers as it rested on the tabletop. ‘I wasn’t mocking you, Mac,’ he said gruffly.
‘No?’
Strangely enough, no…It was all too easy for Jonas to envisage the Christmas Mac described so warmly. The sort of Christmas that many families strived for and never actually experienced. The sort of Christmas Jonas had never had. And never would have.
‘There are no arguments?’ he prompted.
Her eyes glowed with laughter. ‘Usually only over who’s going to pull the wishbone after we’ve eaten our Christmas lunch!’
His fingers curled about hers. ‘It sounds wonderful.’
Mac was very aware of the air of intimacy that now surrounded the two of them. But it was a different type of intimacy from a physical one. This intimacy was warm and enveloping. Dangerous…
She removed her hand purposefully from beneath Jonas’s to pick up her fork. ‘I’m sure there must have been arguments; you can’t put eight or ten disparate people in a house together for four or five days without there being the odd disagreement. I’ve obviously just chosen to forget them.’ She grimaced.
Jonas looked across at her with enigmatic blue eyes. ‘You don’t have to make excuses for your own happy childhood, Mac.’
‘I wasn’t—’
‘Weren’t you?’ he rasped.
Yes, she supposed she had been. Because Jonas’s childhood had borne absolutely no resemblance to her own. Because, although he wouldn’t thank her for it in the slightest, her heart ached for him. ‘If you haven’t made other plans yet, perhaps you would like to—’ Mac broke off abruptly, her cheeks warming as she realised how utterly ridiculous she was being.
Jonas eyed her warily. ‘Please tell me you weren’t about to invite me to spend Christmas with you and your family in Devon.’
That was exactly what Mac had been about to do! Impulsivel
y. Stupidly! Of course Jonas didn’t want to spend Christmas with her, let alone the rest of her family; with half a dozen strangers there, as well as Mac herself, he would necessarily have to be polite to everyone for the duration of his stay.
Her cheeks were now positively burning with embarrassment. ‘I think I feel that indigestion coming on!’
Jonas studied Mac through narrowed lids, knowing by her evasiveness that she had been about to invite him to spend Christmas with her and her family. Why? Because she actually wanted to spend Christmas with him? Or because she felt sorry for him and just couldn’t bear the thought of anyone—even him—spending Christmas alone?
His mouth thinned. ‘I don’t recall ever saying that I’m alone when I spend my Christmases sunbathing on those golden sandy beaches.’
‘No, you didn’t, did you?’ The colour had left Mac’s cheeks as quickly as it had warmed them, her eyes a huge and haunted grey as she gave a moue of self-disgust. ‘How naïve of me.’
Jonas knew that he had deliberately hit out at her because pity was the last thing he wanted from her. From anyone. Damn it, he was successful and rich and could afford to do anything he wanted to do. He had never met refusal from any woman he’d shown an interest in taking to his bed. All the things he had decided he wanted out of life years ago when he left university so determined to succeed he had achieved.
Then why did just being with Mac like this, talking with her, make him just as aware of all the things he didn’t have in his life?
Things like having someone to come home to every night. The same someone. To share things with. To laugh with. To make love with.
‘Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it,’ Jonas drawled. ‘In fact, why don’t you consider giving the traditional family Christmas a miss this year and come away with me instead?’ he asked as he looked at her over the top of his wine glass before lifting it and taking a deep swallow of the ruby-red liquid.
Mac stared at Jonas, absolutely incredulous that he appeared to be asking her to go away with him for Christmas.
Chapter Ten
WAS Jonas serious about his invitation? Or was he just playing with her, already knowing from her earlier remarks exactly what her answer would be?
One look at the unmistakable mockery on his ruggedly handsome face and Mac knew that was exactly what he was doing.
She stood up. ‘It would serve you right if I said yes!’ she snapped as she picked up her glass of wine and moved across the room to stand beside the Christmas tree.
‘Try me,’ Jonas invited as he relaxed back in his chair to look across at her thoughtfully. ‘I assure you, if you said yes then I would book two first-class seats on a flight that would allow us to arrive in Barbados on Christmas Eve,’ he promised huskily.
Mac looked at him scornfully. ‘That’s so easy to say when you knew before you even asked that I would refuse.’
‘Did I?’ He stood up to slowly cross the room, his piercing blue gaze easily holding hers captive as he came to a halt only inches away from her.
Mac stared up at him, her breathing somehow feeling constricted. She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. ‘I had already told you that I couldn’t imagine spending Christmas anywhere but at home with my parents.’
Jonas’s dark gaze was fixed on those moist and slightly parted lips. ‘I’m curious to know what your answer would have been if that family Christmas was taken out of the equation?’
Mac gave a firm shake of her head. ‘I hate even the idea of spending Christmas on a beach.’
Jonas had no idea why he was even pursuing this conversation. Except perhaps that he wanted to know if Mac’s invitation for him to spend Christmas with her family had been out of the pity he suspected it was, or something else…‘What if I were to suggest we went to a ski resort instead of a beach?’
She smiled slightly. ‘I can’t ski.’
‘I don’t recall saying anything about the two of us actually going skiing. I seriously doubt I would have any desire to leave our bedroom once we got there,’ Jonas admitted wickedly.
Once again her cheeks coloured with that becoming blush. ‘Wouldn’t that rather defeat the object?’
He gave a shrug. ‘Surely that would depend on what the objective was?’
Mac looked up at him and frowned. ‘I believe we had this conversation three days ago, Jonas. At which time, I believe you made it more than clear that you’re not at all interested in becoming my first lover.’
He hadn’t been. He still wasn’t. Except he had realised these last three days that he didn’t like the thought of some other man being Mac’s first lover either! ‘Maybe I’ve changed my mind,’ he replied guardedly.
‘And maybe you just enjoying playing games with me,’ Mac said knowingly.
‘Mac, I haven’t even begun to play games with you yet!’ he teased. Although whether that teasing was directed at her or himself, Jonas wasn’t sure…
He wanted to make love with this woman. He actually wanted it so badly he could taste it. Taste her.
Dear God, there were so many ways he could make love to this woman without actually taking her virginity. So many ways he could give her incredible pleasure. And she could give him that same pleasure in return.
But would it be enough to sate the ever-rising hunger inside him? Would touching Mac, caressing her, making love to her but never actually taking her, being inside her, ever be enough for him? Did he really have that much self-control?
Where she was concerned? Somehow Jonas doubted it! The only reason they hadn’t already become lovers when she had been at his apartment was because of the realisation of the seemingly insurmountable barrier of her virginity.
Jonas moved away abruptly. ‘You’re right, this conversation is pointless. Christmas is still two weeks away—’
‘And we may not even be talking to each other again by then!’ Mac put in with black humour.
‘Probably not,’ he admitted. ‘But even if we are, we still both know that you will be spending Christmas in Devon with your family and I will be sitting on a beach somewhere improving my tan.’
Mac didn’t think that Jonas’s tan needed improving; his skin was already a deep gold. And from the calluses on his hands and those defined muscles in his shoulders and chest, she didn’t think that tan had been acquired sitting on a beach anywhere!
In fact, if she had arrived home a little later than she had this morning, then she was pretty sure that she would have found Jonas up that metal tower outside her home beside Ben and Jerry as he helped to paint over the graffiti. Jonas might now be rich and powerful, the owner of his own company for some years rather than an employee, but his rugged appearance and weather-hewn features were testament to the fact that he still enjoyed getting his hands dirty occasionally.
‘I was totally sincere in my invitation for you to spend Christmas with my family, Jonas,’ she said huskily.
His eyes were a hard and mocking blue. ‘And what do you think your family would have made of you bringing a man home for the holidays?’
Mac’s cheeks warmed as she easily imagined her father’s teasing, and the whispered speculation of her aged aunts, if Jonas had accepted her invitation and accompanied her to Devon. ‘Oh.’ She grimaced. ‘I hadn’t really thought of that.’
‘Exactly,’ Jonas said, drinking the last of his wine before placing the empty glass on the table. ‘It’s probably time I was going.’
Mac blinked. ‘It’s still early.’
As far as Jonas was concerned, it was seriously bordering on being too late!
She looked so damned beautiful, so desirable with the coloured lights on the tree reflected in the glossy curtain of her long black hair, her eyes a deep and misty grey, her skin like a warm peach, and her lips—dear heaven, those full and pouting lips!
Jonas wanted to take those lips with his own, devour them, to kiss her and explore the hot temptation of her mouth until she felt the same need he did. If he didn’t leave here soon, in the n
ext few minutes, he wasn’t going to be able to withstand that temptation at all.
‘You didn’t get to see my studio earlier; would you like to see it now?’
Jonas was jolted out of that rising fiery haze of desire to focus on Mac. ‘Sorry…?’
She shrugged narrow shoulders. ‘Obviously the studio is pretty empty at the moment with most of my recent work being at the exhibition, but you’re welcome to take a look. If you would like to,’ she added almost shyly.
Did he want to do that? He had evaded taking up the invitation earlier because he didn’t want to find himself being drawn into Mac’s world any more than he already was. To see where she had created the amazing paintings like the ones he had seen at the Lyndwood Gallery the previous week, and to feel himself being pulled even deeper into the intimacy of Mac’s life.
He still wanted to avoid doing that, didn’t he?
‘I would like to,’ Jonas instead heard himself accept gruffly.
Mac smiled. ‘It’s just up the spiral staircase.’ She placed her glass down next to Jonas’s on the table before turning to lead the way.
Jonas reached out and grasped her arm to look down searchingly into her face, sure by the way she avoided meeting his gaze, that she was already regretting having made the invitation. ‘Don’t take me up there if you would rather not, Mac…’
‘I—no, it’s fine,’ she reassured him, not really sure that it was fine, but unwilling for Jonas to leave just yet.
Because she could sense the air of finality about him now and she had the feeling that once he left this time he would ensure that it really was the last time she saw him.
Yet wasn’t that what she wanted? Didn’t she want Jonas out of her life? To never have to see and deal with this disturbing man ever again?
‘It will only take a few minutes,’ she told him briskly as she pulled out of his grasp and walked over and switched on the light overhead. She’d rather take him up the spiral staircase to her studio than answer any of her own soul-searching questions.
His Christmas Virgin Page 11