Savage Alpha (Alpha 8) by Carole Mortimer Page B

completely spontaneous, and it made him look years younger. The hardness was gone from his eyes, and there were deep grooves in his cheeks, his teeth very white against his burnished skin.
    “Oh, come on, Jonas,” she wheedled. “I’ve been looking for you for ages, and it’s years since—”
    “Since…?” he prompted at she stopped speaking abruptly.
    She sighed. “When my parents were alive, we had a house in the country. My brothers are all a lot older than me, but even they used to come outside and have snowball fights when it snowed. We moved into London shortly after my parents died. It rarely snows there, and even when it does, it doesn’t stay long.”
    It was impossible for Jonas to miss the wistfulness in her voice and expression.
    He had seen her outside earlier from the window, but had assumed she was just exploring the immediate area. It hadn’t occurred to him she was looking for him. No one looked for or expected him. He did his job, he came home, and he owed no one explanations regarding any of his movements.
    Lily was outside looking for me .
    Because she knows I’ll keep her safe.
    Nothing more. Nothing less.
    Jonas had slept fitfully the night before, and in the end had given up and risen early to start painting the sunrise. Not because he was worried they had been followed or was concerned about the snowfall. But because he knew Lily was only feet away, and he wanted her. In his bed. In her bed. Didn’t matter which, as long as he had her. He wanted her so badly, his damned teeth ached from where he had clenched his jaw for what seemed like hours during the night, and probably was.
    This was all new to him. Spending this much time with a woman was all new to him. And he had known from the first time he looked at Lily, she wasn’t just any woman; she was special. Different.
    She wasn’t in the least intimidated by his size or moody nature, for one thing—possibly a result of having grown up with four brothers who were almost as big as Jonas and certainly cynical and uncommunicative by the time Jonas met any of them for the first time. Whatever the reason, it was refreshing to find a woman who was so relaxed in his company, and he was starting to like it a little too much. Starting to like her a little too much.
    Becoming any more involved with Lily than he was already was a bad idea. A very bad idea.
    “Please, Jonas.” She looked at him appealingly as she reached out to clasp his hands in hers and tried to pull him to his feet. “A little snowman.”
    He resisted that pull. “Does this wheedling usually work on your brothers?”
    She grinned. “When I can be bothered to use it, yes.”
    “You just prefer to argue with them?”
    She shrugged. “Wheedling is usually a last resort.”  
    Jonas could understand why it worked too. There was something so impish in Lily’s expression, along with a certainty in her eyes that he wouldn’t let her down. He would bet all the Knight brothers, including Gabriel, found it hard to say no to her when she looked at them that way.
    Jonas was no exception. “Okay.” He freed his hands before he stood, preferring to ignore her hurt expression as he stepped away from her to wipe his paint-smeared hands on a cloth. “But only if you promise to cook brunch for us when we come back in.”
    “Done,” she agreed instantly.
    Jonas would have agreed to build six snowmen if the result was seeing her look this happy and carefree.
    From the moment they met, Lily had been confronted with one trauma after another, and although she had stayed strong through all of them, they had certainly taken their toll on her. This morning, Lily looked relaxed and radiantly lovely, and although that might be taking a toll on Jonas’s self-control, he would rather see her like this than with that anxiety constantly visible in her face and the tension of her body.
    He also wanted to get her out of his studio.
    Like the house, painting was his refuge. The place he went to