Wait for Me (8 page)

“So why does this bother you?”

“Understanding doesn’t remove the ugly feeling. Can we go somewhere I won’t be hosed down with questions and suspicions of my character? Believe it or not I am somebody without you, Blakemore.”

Jonathan eyed the room while placing his jacket over her shoulders. Crossing the room, he edged them around some of the chairs pushed away from the tables. Ushering her out the door, he caught the tension in her back with his hand around her waist. He tucked his jacket around her shoulders. He doubted she wanted to go back for her coat. The negative sting of being a Blakemore reared its ugly head.

~~~~

The grounds were dormant this time of year. Brown grasses, and the water off the river chilled the air blowing across the flat ground. Jonathan stepped from the jeep, handed Kenya from the front seat, and eased her across the walk to the whiskey vault. The cellar went deep into the mountains. Impressed she didn’t seem bothered by the claustrophobic feeling some felt going down the stone stairs.

“Gonna be quiet the rest of the day?” he asked.

“I’m trying not to cuss you out. Your family is too suspicious for my taste, and if every woman you bring here has to go through this, I see why you’re still single.”

Stopping, he pulled her against his body, whispering in her ear, “They’ve had no experience seeing me with a woman. Jamie’s a different story as he lives here. It’s new for them, go easy. I want you here with me, and have a bar full of questions won’t, I hope, send you packing and jumping on the next plane to the States.”

Fisting his sweater, Kenya leaned away from him. “You’ve never brought a woman here before? I didn’t believe Sophie.”

“Forgive me if I hog the covers tonight. I’m not accustomed to sharing my bed either, outside of us back at the penthouse with you.”

“You’re serious?”

“You think I have a rotating door on my bed?”

Kenya tilted her head and he couldn’t help running a hand through her thick hair.

“The way everybody’s coming at me, says you’ve been burned by women and they’re protecting their interests.”

“It’s time for me to take over. Everybody’s watching whoever’s on my arm.”

She stared at him before kissing him, slow. Slipping a hand down her thigh he cupped her ass pulling her into his groin, hungry for more of his woman regardless of having taken her less than hour ago.

“Pretty lady, you have the sweetest lips, makes me wanna kiss you all day.”

Running her fingers over his lips, she said, “How often did you visit here growing up?” Kenya asked, her hand on his back as he led them through two steel doors into a room covered wall to wall in bottled whiskey, some older than the estate itself. The scent intoxicated the senses, the moment he took a breath. 

“As a boy Seamus brought me back at least twice a year,” he recalled, smoothing a hand up the side of the wall finding a light switch and flooded the room in soft light. It poured over bistro style table with four tall stools tucked beneath. “Here, see this room?” he asked, pointing toward a stain door shielding a wall of wine, priceless whiskey and a second door. The stain held the family crest set in water, wavy ancient and elegant. “Special bottles of Connemara whiskey are kept in here. Although it’s available to the public, I’m partial to some of the first bottles being made in this region.”

“Is Connemara a city or providence? I’ve never heard of it before,” she queried, turning her gaze around the room.

Her curious attention had him staring at his woman and wondered why it felt so good to have her admire his family. His heritage.

“It’s not an administrative entity like a town or county. It’s the name given to the western portion of county Galway. It lies between lough Corrib and the Atlantic.

“Hmm…Wine too?” she asked, surprised, opening the door to step inside the vault. Smoothing the dress beneath her hips accentuated her curves. His body reacted jerking behind the zipper of his pants. “Jonathan these are seriously old bottles of wine. Is this your collection?” brushing a finger over the label peering back over her shoulder.

He nodded. “At one time they used this room for family meetings. The wines were gifts between families. They’re kept behind that door as part of Blakemore and McGhee heritage. Signaling a time when they families worked together. I think they’re too important to drink.”

Jonathan relaxed trailing Kenya’s finger stroking over the old weathered wood of the wine riddle rack. To think this delicious woman was handed to him on his doorstep just over a month ago and here he was showing her his family home. Women like her don’t usually go for men like him. They went for gentler men and gentle he wasn’t. 

“The door,” she acknowledged, “where does it lead to?”

“A private room and a vault with a hidden panel. Family papers and irreplaceable items are kept in there. That also leads deeper into the mountains. - It was built as a smuggling shelter to import shipments coming off the Atlantic.”

“Illegal liquor?” she asked.

He corrected, “Stolen—liquor, guns, mainly whatever they wanted to go untaxed, and unnoticed into the country.”

“They?”

“Back then they were pirates. The McGhee’s shut it down when they acquired the land hundreds of years ago. My Great-great-grandfather McGhee wanted to set it up as an underground lodging in one of the tunnels under the mountains for fisherman coming to shore.”

“Sounds like a good idea and a profitable one if he charged a small fee. What happened?” Kenya padded leisurely around the room brushing dust off labels and shaking her head, murmuring to herself. “Jonathan, I don’t know the value on aged wine or whiskey, but these have to be worth quite a bit of money.”

“Quite a bit, yes,” he confirmed. The bottles held history and he would never sell his heritage.

Standing in the doorway Kenya asked. “Why didn’t the plan work?”

“It worked for many years. If you go farther back down in the private room behind you, there’s tunnels that were rooms for the men to set up camp for the night, away from the castle. Not many, but then gambling, murders…a number of illegal activities went on. When he shut down all illegal dealings, they lost money, sending the family into debt. Then there was a fire burning down the family home.” 

“And how did Blakemore get involved?”

“They lived on the other side of the mountains and agreed to help restore the land. That’s when the contract came into play. Future children were to get married and combine the families.”

“Oh…Brian wants to get all that money flowing again through liqueur and gambling?”

“Aye,” he agreed.

“So how did shareholders come to be a part of the family?”

“Shareholders are mostly extended family on the Blakemore side, but the land is more valuable than the castle and that’s in the McGhee name.”

“Through Sophie.”

He nodded. “Seamus started the financial firm over forty years ago here in Ireland to bring in more income. After college I opened a firm in the States. I had no desire to come back here.”

“So, there’s the land, the mountains, the fishing, sheep farmers, and what else?”

“Ponies.”

“And all this brings in funds to help run the castle?”

“Aye,” he replied fascinated how she slipped into financial mode so smoothly. "Money from the farmers, and some private stockholders helped keep the castle floating until the Inn made a profit. Now major changes must go through the stock holders.”

“I have a question…Sophie.” her cautious tone said she hadn’t wanted to ask whatever ate at her mind. “Did she ever like Brian?”

“No. She loved a different man…Jamie’s father, Calder.”

Kenya bolted up and hand over her heart. “Brian took Sophie away from his brother?”

To anyone who didn’t know the truth that was the story the gossip mongers carried through the years. He flexed his fingers then said, “He was given, Sophie as per the contract.”

That information always irritated him. He turned to the shelf, grabbed a rock glass, and a bottle of Whiskey. The gold liquid made a glugging sound being poured into the glass. He tossed it back in one swallow.

“That’s why Sophie doesn’t like being here? She still loves Calder. Coming here became a reminder of all she’d lost, including, Calder. Where’s his wife? I haven’t met her.”

“Jamie’s mother died from cancer three years ago.”

She sighed deep in her chest. “That’s awful, Jonathan.” Kenya leaned against the doorjamb, fingers cupping the wood edge. “Don’t look at me crazy, but why doesn’t she and Calder—?”

His brows snapped up. “She’s still married, Kenya—”

“Oh.” She snapped her fingers. “That was unthoughtful. I’m sorry. She’s such a nice woman I just…This might be weird for everyone if they were to get together.”

“She’s respected my aunt’s memories by staying away from Calder.” He came around to the far side of the counter and leaned back on his elbow. “No one knows this, Kenya.”

“She’s forgoing her happiness to maintain her family land,” she observed with a hint of sorrow. He watched Kenya return to the dusty bottles. “Does…Calder know?”

He twisted the cap on the bottle setting it on the low shelf, then turned threading a hand through his hair. “He’s loved her since she was a young girl. He and Brian’s relationship's been strained all my life.”

“I would think so.” Kenya closed the door crossing the room wiping her hands free of the dust. “How would you feel if—?”

“Enough about them.” Holding her hands he wiped any remaining dust from her palms then lifted Kenya onto the stool, easing in between her legs. He closed his fingers over her knees and pushed the brown silky dress up her firm thighs until the material draped back over her waist. When his fingers slipped over lace on her thighs, he raised a brow and watched Kenya's mouth tweak up on the corner. She wore thigh highs. Hadn't noticed her putting them on when they dressed earlier. "I'm partial to thigh highs,” he confessed, moving up to cup her swollen sex.

"Jonathan, am I gonna get to see more than the ceiling in every room we go into?"

"Next room I'll make certain you feel how cool the wall is on your back. Now back to these, Pretty Lady," touching the lace on her thighs, "Love you in thigh highs."

“I had no idea,” she smirked. He’d undressed her more than once. Of course she knew he liked the lacy silk.

“You have a smart mouth, Pretty Lady. However, I’ll excuse it because you know how to use it on me.” The way her tongue flicked over his skin had him coming before he knew he was aroused. "I love your smart mouth, woman."

Kenya blushed and waved him off indicating the vault. “If the bottles are priceless why isn't the room locked?" 

“I unlocked it with the remote under the table.” He smiled at her sweet, brown eyes glittering beneath the soft light. “The button to open it is disguised.” Touching her face, he ran a finger over her well-manicured brows. “You’re beautiful, Kenya. Thank you for coming with me.”

“I like you, Blakemore. More than I want to,” she admitted, causing a pressure in his heart no other woman had given him before.

“Why is that a problem?” he asked, slipping his hand beneath the skirt of her dress cradling her thighs around him. The warmth of her sex rode his groin. Jonathan kissed her nose. "Kenya?” he prodded.

“I see your life here. Your family, the estate, and mine in the States just don’t mesh. The look on your face when you came into the suite earlier revealed real pain. And not asking what happened is not my nature."

He ran a hand over her hip cupping her behind pulling her snug against his groin. "Not all stiff drinks come from a bottle. A few licks between your thighs calms my nerves." 

A soft flush moved up her throat to warm her face and brighten her eyes. "Do you honestly need my financial help, Jonathan? You seem to be more interested in seducing me."

“I'm a man, Kenya, and I’m not seducing you. I love your body. Is that a crime?" Pressing her back down to the marble tabletop, he closed his mouth over hers, halting her complaints. Cupping the back of her head, he dipped his tongue between her lips, licked the bowl of her mouth. Slow down, he told himself. He only had one speed with her, out of control. She was an addiction and he’d behaved as a schoolboy attacking her every time they were alone. Forget slowing down, this is how she liked him and this is how he liked her, unshackled and unrestrained. She wouldn’t be here if she didn’t want him. His family's suspicions had him questioning Kenya. He pushed away the thoughts and refocused on the woman giving herself to him.

Fisting the silky panty, he felt beneath her dress easing it down her thighs while licking his lips. He sucked in a breath, Kenya pressing her fingers between them unfastening his belt, shoved his trousers down around his ankles.

Lifting her, he settled her over his swollen arousal, eased in gently after taking her so forcefully earlier. 

“Baby…” sliding inside Kenya’s hot body gloved around the length of him moving excruciatingly slow, he focused on her pleasure, what she needed.

She moaned against his chest. “Oh, Jonathan…you do that so good." Kenya's body sighed over his, as she gripped his shoulders through his thick sweater her thighs locked around his waist.

“This is what you do to me, drive me wild with want…making me try to crawl inside your body, snug and tight, letting you pulse around me—a wet fist.” His body began to crack, wanted to thrust into her faster, harder. Slow, gentle…loving, he’d missed gentle and loving from a woman. Didn’t realize Kenya brought him a completeness no other woman had his entire adult life. Jonathan could feel his body reaching for the end of his woman, sealing itself in her heat, swelling, imprinting himself leaving nothing for any man able to satisfy. God he wanted her, wanted…wanted a child with Kenya. Wanted his seed carried by this woman.  Crawling in tighter, he could feel sweat between their bodies, slick on her stomach where he had her dress shoved up to her breast. His control was slipping. He pierced her.

“Jonathan,” she pleaded on a gasp into the neck of his sweater her fingers fisting in the thick material. “Please…now, please.”