by Meg MacRose
Meg MacRose
Unequivocally His Under Lockdown
Copyright © 2020 by Meg MacRose
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Meg MacRose asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
Meg MacRose has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet Websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
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Contents
Lockdown Day 1
Lockdown Day 2
Lockdown Day 3
Lockdown Day 4
Lockdown Day 5
The End ... or is it?
The Love Under Lockdown Series
Full Series List
London Billionaire Series
Meg’s Story
Also by Meg MacRose
Lockdown Day 1
Tansy
Tansy’s peeled open to the bright morning sun as it glared through the bare windows. She squeezed her eyes back closed. Who forgot to close the curtains? She stretched out her arms, still half asleep. Her head hurt like crazy. She sunk back down into the lush soft pillow, refusing to wake up just yet.
Wait, this was way too soft.
Her eyes reopened with tentative, slow motions. There was no point amplifying that pounding in her head.
She froze. The light in the room was wrong. This wasn’t her bedroom! Not even her flat. The shape of the room was wrong.
Shit. Tansy pressed her hand against her face and emitted an unladylike grunt. She was in someone else’s bed.
Memories from yesterday’s special event flooded back. Stevie’s big day. He’d finally gotten married to Ella. Tansy smiled, despite her headache. It’d been a brilliant reception. Stevie’s big brother had agreed for his exquisite heath-side house and gardens as their last-minute venue. She might not like Jake. No, she corrected herself; she despised the smug and arrogant older brother. But the marquees and live music that he’d provided were faultless. And the cocktails. Those bright coloured cocktails had been delicious and far too easy to devour.
“Who opened the curtains?” Tansy groaned to herself as her eyes adjusted to the bright room. Sweet syrup stuck in her mouth. Ugh. The aftertaste of cocktails.
“Gross.”
She needed a toothbrush or a strong black coffee to wash away the aftertaste.
At least the big white bed was empty next to her. She hated waking up the morning after in someone else’s bed. She shuddered, there was nothing worse than having to be pleasant before she’d even had her coffee. Not that waking up in someone else’s bed was a regular habit of hers. Not these days, anyway. Her fun loving uni days were well behind her.
Her hand pressed against the throbbing at the front of her head. It was awful.
Tansy Owen-Smith never again will you do an all-nighter and end up in some stranger’s bed. Her silent reprimand was in vain. It didn’t change the situation. She’d just have to put her big girl pants on and make her excuses to whoever and scarper.
The problem was, she didn’t remember leaving Jake’s house. It’d been fun dancing and having a last drink for the road, that much she remembered. Everyone’s ‘last hurrah’ before the lockdown rules applied in the morning. It had been a lot of fun still dancing after the band had packed up. She’d provided her playlist on her phone.
Shit, where was her phone? She reached out to feel around the bed, but her fingers didn’t curl around anything metal. It wasn’t caught up in the duvet.
It’d turn up. It had to.
Last night had been a buzz. Who knew what the future held? Everyone she knew had been nervous at the thought of not being able to see their friends. Not with that virus. It had already locked down most of Europe. The rest of the world, she corrected herself. Lucky it hadn’t really come to London. Yet. It was beyond her how they would lock a massive city like London down.
Shit. She lifted her arm, activating her smart watch into life.
7:54 am. London was already essentially in lockdown.
Fuck. For someone who didn’t normally curse, there was no other word for it. She didn’t want to isolate in some random stranger’s house.
Surely, lockdown would only start after one returned to their own home?
Doubt nibbled at her. These were unprecedented times. She shook her head, trying to remember what she’d heard on the radio yesterday morning. The government had been emphatic that from sunrise onwards on Monday, everyone except essential workers were to remain in their own houses. Locked down. As an architect, she was definitely not an essential worker. She’d just have to get a taxi back home ASAP.
Worst-case scenario, she could even pretend that she was an essential worker, just to get home.
She sat up and glanced down. Yep, naked. With only a sheet over her. She stretched out, surprised that her thighs felt stiff. Possibly from drunken dancing in the garden last night. Or was it from a night of wild inebriated sex with one of Stevie’s and Ella’s wedding guests? Probably the dancing, she decided.
A spot of turquoise on the cork-tiled floor caught her eye. Her beautiful and way-too expensive dress lay discarded near the doorway. Dancing didn’t remove her dress! She racked her mind, trying to remember the faces of the guests who she’d danced with. From what she remembered, she’d danced mostly with Ella’s brother. But doubted that she’d ended up in his bed. He had a boyfriend of his own. Unless perhaps she’d just crashed at his house? Wishful thinking, more like!
Where had she ended up?
Her thoughts were an incoherent montage. A blur of colours, faces and drinks.
She frowned as the sun tried hard to stream through a bared window.
Was this a hotel room? A pain jolted through as she shook her head. Hotels were stark white like this room. But then, hotels almost always had curtains.
Righty-o Tansy, up up and away. The sooner she was out of here, the quicker she could sprawl out on her beloved sofa in the sanctuary of her own flat and chill.
Footsteps thudded. The rhythm suggested a male climbing a staircase. She yanked up the sheet to cover her naked breasts. Whoever she’d spent the night with was coming this way. A familiar face stopped at the doorway.
Jake? Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. How on earth had she ended up in his bed?
She took this realisation as a blood-rush to the ears. She wasn’t angry with the helplessly handsome figure who stood in the doorway. No siree. Her annoyance was entirely with herself. And with how his chocolate brown eyes melted her insides.
They didn’t even like each other. Not since they’d been kids. Jake thought she was a waste of
space. The egotistical and conceited older brother had told her more times than she cared to remember.
Fragments of last night returned. Jake had poured her a nightcap. Some special whiskey.
His dark blue eyes had glittered as he handed the glass to her.
“Little Tansy. Just look at you, you’ve been making a spectacle of yourself all night. You egged that fellow on. Don’t tell me he hasn’t scored? Or was it all an act to make Steven jealous?”
She’d felt his eyes on her all night. Like a hawk watching her every move. She’d purposely danced with her back to him, just so she didn’t have to see him staring. But she knew he was there.
His insult had incensed her. But like she had always done with Jake when he said something to annoy her, she pretended it hadn’t hit its mark. So, she’d strutted right up to him and smiled sweetly. Her face was so close to his that his warm breath had fanned her cheek.
“Sounding like you’re a little jealous yourself.” She’d put on the sultriest voice that she’d been able to muster. The alcohol had given her that extra bravado. Turning on her heel, she’d then tried to sashay off, happy that she’d gotten the last word in.
Except, he was faster than she was. Before she’d walked away, he’d leaned forward and turned back as he pressed his mouth against hers. His kiss had been hard and slow. Purposeful and demanding. And against all common sense, she’d melted into him as she’d kissed him back.
And that had been her downfall. All thoughts about who he was, that she didn’t like him, dissipated. A primal desire had taken over her body, and that had only been the start of it.
Now she was in his bed. Her insides quivered, ready for his touch again. His cologne was fresh and tangy. She licked her lips.
Only she wasn’t drunk anymore. Despite what her body told her, she wasn’t staying here any longer. Hell, she didn’t even like the guy.
“You. Don’t tell me this is your place.” Her rhetorical question stalled for time.
Explicit images from last night danced through her head.
Her lying on top of him on the staircase, trying to tear his suit pants off him. Her straddling him.
She almost groaned out loud. He’d have no misconception on how desperate she’d been for his body. How responsive her body had been to his touch.
“Good morning Tansy. And yes, this is my place.” He stepped into the room balancing a tray full of drinks and food. “I thought you might be hungry.”
His voice sounded deep and sexy as hell as it echoed through her head. She trembled under the sheet. She just had to concentrate on keeping a straight face. She would never show that she burned for him.
“Don’t tell me we… well, that we, um?…”
“That we had sex?” Jake smiled as he toyed with her. His eyes hadn’t left her face since he’d entered the room. Not even as he placed the breakfast tray onto the bedside table.
He looked like a god. And last night he’d been hers.
Even with a pounding head, she appreciated that the strong manly figure in front of her was most women’s fantasy. So, he’d made it in the looks department? He’d always looked good. It was his attitude that she’d always had the problem with.
She drank in the sight of him as he fussed around with the full breakfast tray. Jake wore nothing more than a black t-shirt that stretched across his strong, muscular chest and denim jeans which were far more snug around his thighs than they needed to be. Yep, he was all male. He looked more like a male model instead of the bossy and big-headed CEO that she knew he was.
The sheets pulled tight around her as he sat down next to her on the side of the bed. The smell of freshly showered male pervaded her senses. He was just far too near. She was far too naked.
“Well, dear Tansy. Are you asking if you drunkenly passed out, and I rescued you by giving you a bed to sleep in?”
His deep, quiet voice teased her. His explanation was far more endurable than the images which had been going through her sordid mind.
She breathed out a sigh of relief. He would let her keep some face. She’d live with that. Despite her sore head, she’d do the pleasantries and leave.
“Okay, Jake. Thanks. Sorry I made a mess of myself!” She looked at him squarely. “Is that coffee?” She pointed to the mugs on the breakfast tray.
“Little Tansy.”
The inflection in his voice made her bristle. She held her breath. He would never let her live it down.
“I’m sorry to say that I didn’t in fact rescue you from being passed out in the backyard.” He paused as he watched her. His face was devoid of any emotion. But then, that wasn’t unusual.
“Did you know that you snore?” His left eyebrow raised in question.
She ignored him. One pastime that she knew he excelled at was riling her.
“Spit it out, Jake. I have a headache from hell. I really don’t want to deal with you today.”
“I’m sure you do.” He snorted back at her.
She waited with bated breath as he hesitated.
Her fingers tightened their clasp on the white sheet as his eyes lingered on her frame. She wasn’t sure what he meant. What he wanted.
“We had quite a night. You and I. Judging by the used condoms left on the floor, I’d say we had sex at least three times.” She detected a hint of a wry smile in his voice.
“Yeah, well, alcohol does the strangest of things,” she whispered back at him in a hoarse voice.
Sex with Stevie’s brother had never been on the cards. Never, ever. They hated each other’s guts.
“Not only sex, Tansy dear. But hot and steamy, rock your boots off type of sex.”
Tansy gulped. She wasn’t sure what shocked her most. That he acknowledged that sex between them had been that good; or that Jake, of all people, used the words hot and steamy. He wasn’t a prude. Nothing like that. She’d seen the photos of the women he dated - rich, beautiful women. But this was Stevie’s brother talking, and in all her life, she’d never heard him even mention sex.
He flabbergasted her. No words formed in her mouth for a quick and punchy response. She curled her toes tightly, a last attempt to stop her body from reacting to his words. It didn’t work. Under the sheet, her breasts ached for his touch.
“I have to say, my male ego is a little bruised. While I didn’t exactly expect a rerun, though I wouldn’t say no, I expected some kind of comment as to my prowess in bed.”
His offer to repeat their actions sent a tingle down her core. Not that he’d ever know.
“Go fuck yourself, Jake. My head hurts too much to deal with you this early in the morning. Make yourself useful and pass me a coffee.” He really brought out the worst in her.
“Ah, the lady doth protest too much. Besides, there’s definitely no need for me to fuck myself, as you so politely put it. Unlike you, my memories of last night are very vivid.” He paused for a second. “Who’d have thought Steven’s little Tansy was such a lively creature in bed?” He rubbed his neck. “I believe you were the bearer of this badge of honour.”
She hadn’t noticed it before, but there was a distinct bluey-purplish mark on his neck. A love-bite.
The gold flecks in his eyes glinted as he teased her. Her cheeks burned. Surely not? Oh god. What made it worse, he enjoyed every minute of her discomfort.
She licked her bottom lip as she tried to think of a retort. But there was none forthcoming.
As she saw it, she had two routes. One, she passed it off and pretended that she slept with unfamiliar men all the time. Or two, tell him that the mere thought of sex with him mortified her, and then make her escape back to the sanctuary of her flat ASAP. A third option crept into her mind. A replay. He was pure macho male.
No, no, no. Her mind screamed at her. She couldn’t afford to give this man an inch. He’d use it against her for sure. She didn’t trust him.
Not that he’d actually ever done anything to her. But no, this was Jake. The man with the constant flow of judgmental comments. E
very time they met.
No siree, she wasn’t giving in to this man.
“Jake, be a gentleman will you and pass me the damned coffee.” She’d play this by her rules. She would ever show him how much he affected her.
His midnight blue eyes bore deep into her. She bit down on her lip, convinced that he read her mind.
“Okay okay. Ease up.” He reached over and passed her a mug. “It’s black. I couldn’t remember if you took sugar and milk or not.”
An electric bolt ran through her the second their fingers brushed. She pulled promptly back, almost spilling her coffee. She avoided looking at him by closing her eyes as she breathed in the delicious steam.
1-2-3-4-5. Counting in her head as she breathed had always been her way to find control.
“Tansy. Are you okay?” Jake’s voice interrupted her thoughts.
With reluctance, she opened her eyes. “Yes. I’m fine. Thanks for the coffee. I’m sure it’ll do wonders for my headache.” She took a tentative sip. If she was lucky, he’d take his coffee back downstairs. Though she doubted it.
He leaned over to the tray and retrieved a small white box. “Here you go. Paracetamol.”
“Oh thanks. Um, that’ll do the trick.” Surprise laced her voice. She rested her coffee precariously on her lap as she manoeuvred a tablet out of the box.
She popped the round pill into her mouth and washed it down with her drink.
“I’m sure yesterday wasn’t easy for you.”
She almost spluttered her coffee and tablet back up.
What the…? She did not understand what he spoke about. She put her hand up to pause him, while she gulped down another mouthful of her hot, delicious, and much needed coffee.
“Why was yesterday difficult for me? I didn’t get married.” She frowned. He made little sense.
“Exactly. Steven’s wedding day.”
“And?…”
“Well, you and Steven have been literally together for nearly two decades.” His face shuttered as he took a sip of his own drink. His eyes drilled into her face.
“What do you mean we’ve been together? We’re friends. Full Stop.” He gave her that look. Like he had when she was a teenager, as he bade his time to pass judgement on her. Something inside her snapped. She didn’t have to explain anything to him. Not at this ungodly time of day.