Jonah thumbed the gold lettering along the spine of a collection of Spanish poetry. He recalled she spoke the language fluently. “Have you ever met your biological father in person?”
“Once.” Her voice drifted over his shoulder, soft and a little husky. “I was about seven at the time.”
“That’s years after the last-known sighting of him.” Jonah kept his back to her for the moment. Perhaps that would make it easier for her to share. So he continued to inventory her books.
“I don’t know where we went. It felt like we took a long time, but all travel seems to take forever at that age.”
He recalled well the family trips with his three brothers and his parents, everything from Disney to an Egyptian pharaoh’s tomb. Their vacations would have been so different from that mother-daughter trip to see a man who barely acknowledged her existence. Sympathy kicked him in his gut. “Do you remember the mode of transportation?”
“Of course.”
“Not that you’re telling.” He couldn’t stop the grin at her spunk.
“I may not have a relationship with my father—” sounds rustled behind him, like the determined restoring of order as she moved things around on her desk “—but that doesn’t mean I’m any less concerned about his safety, or the safety of my brothers.”
“That’s right. Medina has three sons.” He clicked through what he knew about Medina from the research he’d been able to accomplish on his own—when he should have been working. But damn it all, this was important. “Did you meet them as well?”
“Two of them.”
“That must have seemed strange to say the least.”
“I have a half sister, remember? It’s not like I don’t understand being a part of a family unit.” Her voice rose with every word, more than a little hurt leaking through. “I’m not some kind of freak.”
He turned to face her again. Her desk was so damn neat and clean a surgeon could have performed an open-heart procedure right there. Germs wouldn’t dare approach.
Jonah, however, had never been one to back down from a dare. “Your mother would have already been remarried by the time you were seven.”
“And Audrey was a toddler.” She clasped her hands in front of her defensively.
Her words sunk in and…holy hell. “Your mom went to see her old lover after she was married to another guy? Your stepfather must have been pissed.”
“He never knew about the trip or any of the Medinas.” She stood straight and tall, every bit of her royal heritage out there for him to see. She ruled. It didn’t matter if she was sitting in a palace or standing in a dark, cramped, little office. She mesmerized him.
And she called to his every protective instinct at the same time. What kind of life must she have led to build defenses this thick?
“Your stepfather didn’t know about any of it?” Jonah approached her carefully, wary of spooking her when she was finally opening up, but unable to stay away from her when he sensed that she could have used someone to confide in all these years. “How did she explain about your father?”
She shrugged one shoulder. “She told him the same thing she told everyone else. That my father was a fellow student, with no family, and he died in a car accident before I was born. It’s not like Harry talked about my dad to anyone else. The subject just never came up for us.”
Jonah skimmed his fingers over the furrows along her forehead. “Let’s not discuss your stepfather. Tell me about that visit when you were seven.”
Her forehead smoothed and her face relaxed into a brief flicker of a smile. “It was amazing, or rather it seemed that way to me through my childish, idealistic eyes. We all walked along the beach and collected shells. He—” she paused, clearing her throat “—uhm, my father, told me this story about a little squirrel that could travel wherever she wanted by scampering along the telephone lines. He even carried me on his shoulders when my legs got tired from walking and sang songs in Spanish.”
“Those are good memories.”
She deserved to have had many more of them, but he kept that opinion to himself. Better to wait and just let her talk, rather than risk her clamming up out of defensiveness.
“I know it’s silly, but I still have one of the shells.” She nudged a stack of already perfectly straight note slips. “I used to listen to it and imagine I could hear his voice mixed in with the sound of the ocean.”
“Where is the shell now?”
“I, uh, tucked it away in one of my bookcases at home.”
A home she’d decorated completely in a seashore theme. It couldn’t be coincidence. He gripped her shoulders lightly. “Why don’t you go see him again? You have the right to do so.”
“I don’t know where he is.”
“But surely you have a way to get in touch with him.” The soft give of her arms under his hands enticed him to pull her closer. He should take his hands off her, but he didn’t. Still he wouldn’t back off from delving deeper into this issue. “What about the lawyer?”
She avoided his eyes. “Let’s discuss something else.”
“So the lawyer is your point of contact even if the old guy never bothers to get in touch with you.”
“Stop it, okay?”
She looked back at him again hard and fast. Her eyes were dark and defensive and held so much hurt he realized he would do anything, anything to make that pain go away. “Eloisa—”
“My biological father has asked to see me.” She talked right over him, protesting a bit too emphatically. “More than once. I’m the one who stays away. It’s just too complicated. He wrecked my mother’s life and broke her heart.” Her hands slid up to grip his shirt. “That’s not something I can just forget about long enough to sit down for some fancy dinner with him once every five years when his conscience kicks in.”
He churned over her words, searching for what she meant underneath it all. “I miss my father.”
His dad had died in a car wreck when Jonah was only entering his teenage years.
“I told you I don’t want to see him.”
Jonah cupped her face, his thumb stroking along her aristocratic cheekbone. “I’m talking about how you miss your mother. It’s tough losing a parent no matter how old you are.”
Empathy softened her eyes for the first time since they’d stepped into her office. “When did your father pass away?”
“When I was in my early teens. A car crash. I used to be so jealous of my brothers because they had more time with him. Talk about ridiculous sibling rivalry.” He’d always been different from them, more of a rebel. Little did they know how much it hurt when people said he would have been more focused if only his father had lived. But he refused to let what others said come between him and his family.
Family was everything.
“We almost lost our mother a few years ago when she was on a goodwill tour across Europe.” The near miss had scared the hell out of him. After that, he’d knuckled down and gotten his life in order. His skin went cold from just thinking of what had almost happened to his mother. “An assassin tried to make a statement by shooting up one of her events.”
“Ohmigod, I remember that.” Her fists unfurled in his shirt and her hands smoothed out the wrinkles in soothing circles. “It must have been horrible for you. I seem to recall that some of her family was there…. You saw it all happen?”
“I’m not asking for sympathy.” He clasped her wrists and stilled her hands. She might mean her touch to be comforting, but it was rapidly becoming a serious turn-on. “I’m only trying to say I understand how you feel. But, Eloisa, once you’re in the spotlight, there’s no way to step back out.”
“I completely get your point,” she said emphatically. “That’s why I’ve kept a low profile.”
He brought her hands together, their hands clasped as he tried to make her understand. “You were born into this. There’s no low profile. Only delaying the inevitable. Better to embrace it on your own terms.”
“That’s not
your call to make,” she snapped, pulling her hands away.
God, it was like banging his head against bricks getting this stubborn woman to consider anything other than a paradigm constructed a helluva long time ago. “Are you so sure about your father’s reasons for choosing to close himself away?”
Her spine starched straight again, ire sparking flecks of black in her eyes. “What are you hoping to accomplish here?”
He’d been hoping to learn more about her in an effort to seduce her and had ended up pissing her off. But he couldn’t back down. “You don’t have to play this their way anymore, Eloisa. Decide what you want rather than letting them haul you along.”
Her hands fisted. “Why does this need to get so complicated, and what the hell does it have to do with you?”
Anger stirred in his gut. “I’m the guy who’s still married to you because it’s so complicated. Damn it, Eloisa, Can you understand my need to do something, fix this somehow?”
“Maybe there’s nothing to fix. And even if there is, do you know what I really want?”
“Okay. Mea culpa.” He thumped his chest. “You’ve got me there. I haven’t got a clue what you want from me.”
“Well, prepare to find out.” She clasped his face in her hands, only giving him a second’s warning.
Eloisa planted her mouth on his.
He blinked in shock—for all of three seconds before he hauled her against him and kissed her right back.
As her arms slid around his neck, he decided the time had come to take this as far as she would go.
Seven
Eloisa couldn’t decide if she’d just made the best or worst decision of her life. Regardless, she knew she’d made the inevitable choice in kissing Jonah. They’d been leading up to this from the second he’d stepped out of his limousine last night.
She pressed her body closer to his, fully, for the first time in a year, her mouth opening to welcome him. Last night’s staged kiss outside the party had been too brief. She’d somehow forgotten how well they fit, the way she tucked just inside his embrace, his head angling down. He was taller than she was, but somehow it worked just right for her arms to rest on his shoulders while she burrowed her hands into his hair.
And ohmigod, his hair.
Eloisa touched and roved and savored his head, the slight waves curving around her fingers as if coaxing her to stay. No persuasion needed, she was on fire with want after a year without this kind of sensual contact.
She’d reached for him in frustration, her desire slipping past when her defenses were weakened by irritation. But now that he was touching her, stroking her, coaxing her body against his, she forced all that ire away, just put the whole argument right out of her mind.
Still, part of her feared he’d sparked something deeper inside just by caring enough to ask the hard questions others avoided. He confronted things she liked to keep tucked away.
Either way, she didn’t want to argue. She wanted that connection she remembered from a year ago, and she didn’t want to fight it another second.
“You taste like apples.”
“My lip gloss,” she gasped.
“Ah,” he said, smiling against her mouth. “You’re wearing lip gloss today.” He traced her lips with his tongue, then dipped deeper, sharing the hint of flavor with her.
His kiss growing bolder, fuller, he backed her against the desk and she welcomed the bolstering because she wasn’t sure how much longer her legs would hold. Jonah stroked her back, her sides, the tops of her thighs, nowhere overtly intimate but intensely arousing all the same. His hot breath caressed her neck a second before his mouth skimmed her oversensitive flesh. Her spot. He remembered. The fact that he still knew what she liked turned her inside out as much as the touch of his lips to her skin.
She bit back a moan, her head falling to rest on his shoulder. “We need to slow this down. I’m at work.”
He pressed a finger to her lips, still paying detailed attention to her neck. “Shhh. We’re in a library. Haven’t you ever made out in the library?”
“Never,” she answered, one word all she could manage.
“Or caught people making out in the stacks?” His hands slid up and down her sides, each time grazing farther and farther over her ribs, just below her breasts.
“A time or two.” She’d sent them on their way like a good, responsible adult, but right now she was feeling anything but responsible.
Jonah nudged his leg between hers, the thick press of his muscled thigh sending sparks of pleasure radiating upward. And clearly she wasn’t the only one feeling the effects of their clench. There was no mistaking the rigid press of his arousal against her stomach. He wanted her. Here. Now.
And heaven help her, she wanted him too and to hell with the emotional fallout later. Hadn’t she thought just this morning about how wonderful it would be to indulge with Jonah, no marriage, no strings? And other than a piece of paper, they weren’t really married. Their lives wouldn’t be tangled up beyond these next couple of weeks.
“Let’s continue this at my house.” She took the leap. “Or at your place even.”
“Trust me. I wouldn’t risk getting you in trouble.” He kissed her quiet again.
They had their clothes on. She was off the clock for lunch. He was only kissing her.
Kissing her senseless.
But still. Who could object? When she’d stumbled upon other couples necking in the library before, while it had been mildly embarrassing for the people caught, all had just laughed good-naturedly. And she was locked in her office on her lunch break.
Why not?
“Okay then, I trust you,” she vowed against his mouth, meaning the words for now, this moment.
“That’s what I want to hear.” A smile kicked up into his cheek as he lowered his head to hers.
She threaded her fingers through his hair again. Thick and luxurious, wild and sexy. Like the man.
Jonah angled her closer. His palms spanning low on her back, he urged her into a gentle rock against him. His leg pressed more firmly. Pleasure tightened more insistently. She ached for release but held back, nervous and excited by the notion of losing control. They were just making out, for heaven’s sake.
Memories of a similar embrace in his rented home in Spain steamed through her mind, of him pressing her just this way against the kitchen counter when they’d made a 3:00 a.m. forage for food. Naked. Both of them had been exhausted and starving from their workout in bed. The images of then tangled with the present until the clothed kiss became so much more in her mind…. She could almost smell the sangria and fruit juices they’d licked from each other’s bodies.
It had been so long, too long, a whole damn year without this feeling, a growing sense of frenzy no man other than Jonah had been able to engender. What if he were the only man who could stoke her passion to this level? What would it be like to go through life never feeling this level of want and pleasure and pure sensuality again?
The warm sweep of his tongue, the familiar taste of him, stoked her need higher, hotter, tighter. She wriggled to get closer. The tension gathered low, right where he so perfectly teased. He pressed his leg more insistently against, rocking it rhythmically against her until she realized…
Gasped…
Couldn’t stop…
He caught her moan with his mouth. She arched her back, flinging full-out into her release. Every muscle inside her pulled taut as if to hold on to the sensation as long as possible, clenching up each sparkling aftershock.
Slowly, the warm flush along her skin began to cool. She shivered and he gathered her against his chest. Thank God he didn’t speak. She would have been mortified, but she could barely think, much less talk.
Jonah brushed his mouth along the top of her hair. “Enjoy the rest of the lunch break and your sandwich. I’ll pick you up for supper.”
Then he was gone. The door to her office closed behind him with a gentle swoosh while she sagged into her chair. Eloisa smoothed a sha
ky hand over her hair, to her lips, against her still-racing heart.
She didn’t regret her decision, but had to admit, she’d been so very wrong. Things with Jonah could never be uncomplicated. She’d just had the best orgasm of her life.
And he’d only kissed her.
He’d only kissed her.
Parked in her town house lot five hours later, Jonah shut off the engine on his rental car—top-of-the-line Range Rover, the same sort he always picked and owned because it worked best for him on work sites.
He’d spent the afternoon settling into Pensacola a little deeper, renting wheels. He’d stopped by his penthouse suite to complete paperwork and calls, also lining up two of his employees to oversee the early work trickling in unexpectedly.
Basically, he’d spent the afternoon figuring out ways to make his schedule more open to Eloisa. Damn, how his brothers would laugh at him if they were here to see, but he refused to lose this chance to settle things with Eloisa.
With the scent of her still all around him, he knew he wasn’t giving up. He had to have her.
Jonah draped his wrist over the steering wheel and stared at her door. Their encounter in the library had gone just as he’d planned…and yet it hadn’t turned out at all the way he’d imagined.
No way in hell could he have imagined being this rocked by seeing her come undone in his arms. This was moving so fast and if he wasn’t careful, she would bolt again.
Good thing he’d made reservations at a restaurant. He wasn’t sure he could withstand another evening alone with her in her place.
He reached for the car door and his cell phone chimed, stopping him short. He unclipped it from his waistband. His mother’s number from her airplane phone scrolled across the screen.
It still blew him away that diplomats and politicians around the world feared his mother’s steely nature. Ginger Landis was tough, sure, but she was also fair with a soft heart.
He thumbed the Talk button and turned on the speaker phone. “Hey Mom, what’s up?”
Jonah cranked up the Range Rover again so the A/C would keep the car cool on the muggy May afternoon.
The Tycoon Takes a Wife Page 7
