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

      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.