Savage Alpha (Alpha 8) by Carole Mortimer Read Free Book Online Page A

body, with that heady male musk still detectable beneath the lemon and spice of his aftershave. If he had shaved; the perpetual dark stubble on the square strength of his jaw said he didn’t bother with that very often. The blue-black stubble suited him somehow, added to that edge of danger Jonas wore like a second skin.
    “What do you want me to do with this?”
    Lily looked at Jonas blankly for a second or two, until she realized he was holding up the packet of spaghetti they had bought. “Haven’t you ever cooked spaghetti before?”
    “I cook, but mainly with a microwave or barbeque. Does Gabriel cook?” He placed the packet down on the work surface as she eyed him mockingly. “Or any of your other brothers, for that matter?”
    He had a point. Gabriel had moved all the family to London after their parents died, using the money left to them to buy the house and hire a housekeeper to cook and clean. It made life easier but also meant none of her brothers cooked. Lily had only taught herself to do so these past couple of years, since she had lived in her own apartment. She had no idea of Jonas’s living arrangements—or anything else about him—but she doubted he would welcome a live-in housekeeper invading his space.
    But maybe a live-in girlfriend?
    Or a wife?
    Just because Jonas seemed like such a loner didn’t mean he didn’t have one or even both of those things. He had certainly shut down that moment of intimacy quickly enough between the two of them last night.
    “What?” That scowl was back on Jonas’s brow as he caught her staring at him.
    She moistened her lips as she thought how best to phrase her next question. “I was wondering… Am I keeping you from being with someone right now?”
    He folded his arms across his chest to lean back against the kitchen unit. “Define someone?”
    “Mother, sister, wife, girlfriend?”
    “None of the above.”
    Lily breathed an inward sigh of relief. She wasn’t comfortable lusting after someone who was already taken.
    Lusting after?
    Well…yes. No point in denying something that was so obvious. To her, at least. She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Jonas since they met last night. She only hoped that lust wasn’t as apparent to him. That would be too embarrassing.
    Her eyes widened as she realized what he had said. “Your not-Apache mother is dead?”
    “She was dead to most of her upright English family long before she breathed her last breath,” he said harshly.
    “Your mother was English ?”
    “Yes.”
    “How on earth did your parents ever meet?” Lily prompted without thinking, and then realized her mistake as Jonas’s eyes narrowed in warning. “Sorry, that was incredibly rude of me.”
    He sighed. “You aren’t going to stop asking questions until you know, are you?”
    “I’m interested in people. Most actors are. Writers too, I believe.”
    “And are you, personally, interested in people in general? Or just me?” His eyes were dark and stormy.
    Had it suddenly got very hot in here, or was she the only one that felt it? And had the room shrunk too, so that she and Jonas seemed much closer than was comfortable?
    Lily had a feeling that the answer to both those questions lay in Jonas’s sudden tension, and knowing she was the complete focus of those dark blue eyes. “Only you,” she acknowledged gruffly.
    His mouth thinned. “My parents met at Harvard, where they were both taking a law degree. When they graduated, they married, and went back to the reservation in Arizona to fight for Native American rights. I was born there. Heard enough?”
    Not nearly enough. The more Jonas revealed about himself, the more Lily wanted to know.
    And the more resentful Jonas became.
    “Thank you for telling me.” She reached out a tentative hand, intending to touch the heat of his chest through his T-shirt.
    “Don’t.”
    Her hand stopped only centimeters away, fingers trembling slightly in her need to touch him. “I was