30DaystoSyn (40 page)

“Don’t ever intrude on me again when I’m
having a private conversation,” he told her and watched her perfectly tweezed
eyebrows shift upward. He’d never been short with her before and the look of
shock on her face was priceless. “Do you understand?”

“Yes sir,” she said.

Shooting to his feet, he returned to his
seat and buckled himself in. Melina’s words, the way she had spoken them,
caused the blood to pound fiercely in his ears.

The flight attendant gave her a murderous
look before she walked to the back of the plane where she’d been sitting.

He was staring out the window with his
fists clenched on his thighs. She could almost feel the anger rolling off him
and she wasn’t sure if that was directed at her or at the woman who had
interrupted him.

Obviously he’d never barked at her like
that before. The look on her face when he did had been telling. A slender hand
had gone to lips painted bright red to match the fingernail polish she wore,
then on to smooth back the dark hair over her ear. It was a nervous gesture
many women made when…

The realization hit her hard. Dark hair,
green eyes, weighing no more than a buck-ten. Another clone of his mother
sitting in the back of the plane and staring daggers at the back of her head.
It was such a cruel joke she almost laughed. Instead, she turned to stare at
him, wondering what was going through his mind.

He wanted to know which one of the four had
told her about the other women. He suspected it was Spike. The men didn’t care
who he fucked but Spike had always gotten her nose out of joint any time he
took a new woman with him to Savannah.

And there had been dozens of them over the
years. He’d wined and dined and fucked and forgotten them. Only a handful even
stood out in his memory and that was because they’d been the ones to answer the
ad.

The. Fucking. Ad.

He clenched his jaw, grinding his teeth as
he stared out the window. The plane was descending and he always tensed for the
touchdown of the wheels. For some reason that was the only thing about flying
that unnerved him and he had no idea why. He slapped his hands to the arms of
the chair to brace himself. Out of the corner of his eye he could see her
watching him.

He was so afraid of losing her. It already
felt as though she was slipping through his fingers. Damn Spike for putting
doubt in her mind! Did she really think he was going to let her leave him? That
he was going to allow her to take the check and run?

“Hell, no, I’m not,” he said under his
breath. The ring was burning a hole in the pocket of his jeans. He was tempted
to take it out then and there and as soon as the plane came to a stop, get down
on his knee beside her.

The wheels touched down and he flinched,
digging his nails into the armrests. All thoughts were pushed out of his mind
as the drag moved him forward a bit and he pushed back in his seat. He hated
the feeling of deceleration as much as he loved when the plane took off.

He saw the stretch limo waiting beside the
airport terminal and pursed his lips. Just one more damning thing to add to the
ones Melina was already chalking up to his randy lifestyle.

“You can’t just throw money at people
and expect things to go like you want them to.”

One of the things he loved about her was
that she wasn’t interested in his money. Yes, she had agreed to his devil’s
bargain in exchange for a goodly sum but the money wasn’t to buy clothes or
jewelry or luxury cars and fancy houses. The money was for her beloved brother
and she had been willing to sell her body in order to provide for him.

When the uniformed chauffeur got out of the
limo, he groaned. That would be another tick against his name. For one moment
he thought about hiring a taxi to take them out to the marina but that would be
stupid. She’d see the limo and its liveried driver as soon as the plane taxied
into place.

Then there was the yacht. She had to know
it belonged to him and one look at it would tell her it had not been a cheap
purchase. In fact, she might well have been told the
one-hundred-sixty-nine-foot blue-water cruiser had set him back as much as a
fleet of Veyrons—thirty-seven million to be precise. There would be no way to
hide the nine-man crew who sailed her. Their salary alone for this one cruise
from Savannah up to the Outer Banks of North Carolina then back to Hilton Head
to connect with the launch that would take them to the dock of his beachfront
home was more than she made in six months at her job.

Maven walked past him to the front of the
cabin to open the hatch. She was studiously ignoring him and if that was meant
to punish him, it didn’t. All it did was piss him off even more. He made a
mental note to fire her ass as soon as they got back to Atlanta.

Capt. Clarke came out of the cockpit with a
warm smile. “How was the flight, Mr. McGregor?” he asked.

He got to his feet and shook the pilot’s
hand.

“Great as always,” he said. He turned to
her. “Melina Wynth, Captain Joseph Clarke.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Captain. Thank you
for a very smooth flight,” she said politely, shaking Clarke’s hand.

“My pleasure, Miss Wynth. We had good
weather but that isn’t going to hold. They are calling for rain tonight so I
guess you might be eating below deck instead of above.”

He didn’t need to look at her to know what
she was thinking. It would seem to her that everyone knew his modus operandi
for debauchery.

Chalk up another tick on the evil side of
his slate.

“Thank you for telling her my plans,
Clarke,” he snapped.

The pilot’s face turned beet red and he
stammered an apology. “Sir, I am so—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he said. Despite her
taking a step back, he reached down and took her hand, drew her toward the
opened hatch.

“Have a good evening, Mr. McGregor,” Maven
said as he went past her. “I’m sure you will, Miss Wynth.”

He stopped in mid-step and whipped around.
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean, Maven?” he demanded.

“How could she not with you as her dinner
companion?” the brazen bitch asked him.

“Get your things and get the fuck off my
plane,” he said. “I’ll have Spike cut you a termination check and have it
waiting when you get back to Atlanta!”

The woman’s eyes nearly popped from her
fake eyelashes. “Why?” she asked. “What did I do?”

He didn’t answer even when she called out
to him as he drew Melina down the steps behind him. He was so angry that he
completely forgot about the jackets they were leaving on the plane.

“Synnie, what did I do?” Maven called out.

“Synnie?” she inquired. “That settled any question
I had about her.”

He stopped, pulling her around in front of
him. “If you have questions you want answers to, woman, just ask! I’ll tell you
whatever the hell you want to know. If you want details of every woman I’ve
fucked, I’m afraid I can’t oblige because I don’t remember most of them because
they weren’t important to me!”

“Not to deflate your ego balloon, Kiwi, but
I don’t give a rat’s ass about the women you slept with before me!” she told
him and tried to snatch her hand from his.

He wasn’t having any of that. He tightened
his grip.

“Are you sure?” he demanded.

“I am positive,” she said.

Under the glow of the mercury lights
overhead he stared at her for a long time before he finally made up his mind.
“All right,” he said at last. He swept his hand toward the limo.

She took a deep breath and walked ahead of
him to the stretch. The chauffer smiled politely at her, touched the bill of
his black cap, and then opened the door for her. She couldn’t help but wonder
how many women the Kiwi had escorted to this man’s rolling domain.

“Welcome back, Mr. McGregor,” the black man
said.

“How are you, Enoch?” he asked.

“Never better, sir.”

“This is my lady, Miss Wynth,” he said and
she had to bite her tongue to keep from snorting her derision at his remark.

“A pleasure, Miss Wynth,” Enoch said, once
again touching the shiny brim of his cap.

“For me, as well,” she answered
automatically.

She climbed into the limo and knew what a
lone match in a box felt like. The roominess was oppressing and it saddened
her. People all over the world were starving and the leather upholstery in this
opulent ego on wheels could feed many of them for an entire week.

He got in behind her and Enoch closed the
door. The darkly tinted sliding glass window on the divider separating the driver
from the rear compartment was open. Closed, it would insure the privacy of the
passengers.

He said nothing but took possession of her
hand once again, curling his fingers with hers then laid it on his thigh.

She knew this would be her last night with
him. The last time she would see his cocky—sometimes goofy—grin. Hear his deep,
nasally accent. Feel the touch of his strong hands on her and the weight of his
body pinning her down.

A sob escaped her throat and he turned his
head toward her.

“Melina?” he questioned. “Will you please
tell me what’s wrong?”

She came to a decision she knew would hurt
her deeply in the end but was as helpless to avoid it as a deer caught in
headlights.

“How long will it take to get to the
marina?” she asked, pulling her hand free.

“Thirty minutes or so,” he said, his mouth
twisted at her withdrawing from him. “Are you that anxious for the evening to
end?”

“Ask him to close the partition,” she said
and crossed her arms in front of her to take hold of the hem of her sweatshirt.

He looked down, realized her intent and
half smiled. He leaned forward in the seat. “Enoch, would you close the
partition please?”

The chauffeur glanced in the rear view
mirror. “Of course, sir.”

The glass panel began to raise.

She peeled the sweatshirt over her head.

If she had pulled out a switchblade knife
and plunged it into his heart he could not have been more surprised. He
couldn’t move—didn’t dare move—as she stripped away the sweatshirt and unhooked
her bra. Naked from the waist up, her body gleamed under the glow of the lights
coming in through the tinted windows. He was speechless as she toed off her
sneakers, unbuttoned her jeans, unzipped them, and then pushed them down her
legs.

He swallowed hard when she slid across the
seat. “Baby…” he said, finally finding his voice.

“Stop talking,” she ordered. She reached
for the hem of his loose sweater and tugged it from him. She unbuckled his
belt, unbuttoned his fly, then unzipped him.

He arched his hips as she jerked at the
jeans and she shoved them down his legs. Like she had, he toed off his sneakers
and pushed the jeans from his legs with his feet.

She threw her leg over him and settled on
his thighs, his cock pinned between them. “I’ve always wanted to do this,” she
said and her mouth came down upon his.

Wrapping his arms around her silky body, he
met her tongue thrust for thrust with his. He nibbled her lips and when she
arched her head back, he pressed his mouth to her exposed neck. Her hands were
on his head and yet again he wished his hair was long so she could grip him,
pull the strands. It was a primal thing and he wondered why he’d never
considered it desirable before now.

Because, he thought as he returned his
mouth to hers and drew deeply on her tongue, he’d never wanted a woman to
handle him in that way. Memories of his mother yanking his hair when he was a
boy had soured him. An inmate jerking his head toward a grimy, foul-smelling
crotch had made him shave his head the next day. He’d worn his hair buzzed ever
since. Now, he wanted it long almost as much as he wanted to be inside her.

She rubbed her breasts on him and his cock
oozed with rampaging desire. He slid his hands down her back to her hips and
easily lifted her, sat her down on the jutting steel of his erection.

“Synjyn,” she whispered against his mouth
and his name on her tongue made his heart swell with love. It was rare she used
his given name. When she did, it meant more to him than he could ever say.

Settling her body on his, she began to
rotate her hips. His fingers gripped the flare of her hips to guide her in a
rhythm that would satisfy them both. The slow rise of her cunt along his cock
then the firm push downward was doing things that made his entire body throb.
Her nipples sliding up and down his chest as she lifted her body upon him sent
waves of pleasure straight to his groin. She cupped his head in her arms and
pressed his face to her shoulder as she rode him. He braced his legs apart then
turned, laying her down beneath him without breaking the contact of their
bodies.

Like a man possessed, he rammed into her as
hard as he could. He needed to claim her. To mark her as his. To ruin her for
any other man for all time. He slanted his mouth over hers and with each thrust
of his cock, he stabbed his tongue into her mouth. She was clawing at his
back—drawing blood for he could feel it running down his side—and gouging her
nails in his arse. It hurt but it felt good at the same time. To him, it was
her way of branding him as hers.

At least that was how he chose to look at
it.

When he came, he came hard. His body went
completely rigid as his seed shot from him. He grunted. He growled then pumped
furiously, his body slapping against hers. She brought her legs up to imprison
his hips, arched her back and gouged her nails deep into his back. Her orgasm
was as strong as his had been, for he felt the strong tugs on his cock as she
milked him of every last drop.

Breathing loudly, raggedly, he collapsed
atop her with her arms fast around him. He could feel her heart pounding
against his. Could hear his own drumming in his ears.