CHAPTER 39

JOHNNY'S mind was in total ferment, but his body kept moving, driven by its own physical need to satisfy the desire roaring through him. As he'd stepped out on the verandah, the cooler air of the outback night had hit him in the face, sobering him enough to realise what he was doing…taking Patrick's daughter to bed with him. Yet Megan wanted it, too. She was clinging to him. No second thoughts from her.

And she was grown up. Well and truly grown up. Even prepared for sex, having her own form of protection since she didn't need him to use anything. Which meant he'd been completely wrong about her attitude to all men. She couldn't have been sour on them. Only him. So why was she letting him do this? More than that, actively stirring him into it.

Pride stung by the comments he'd made about her yesterday?

Using sex to take away the bitter taste of her father's death?

Using him because he was here and she thought he was the kind of man who would view it as meaningless?

He reached her door, opened it. His heart was rocketing around his chest as he carried her inside. The ache in his groin demanded that he stop thinking and simply take what was being offered. He closed the door, switched on the light, his mind fiercely dictating that Megan not hide him in darkness.

He set her on her feet, cupped her face in his hands, forcing her gaze to meet his. 'It's me… Johnny,' he said, searching her eyes with gut-wrenching intensity for answers he could live with. 'Sure you want this, Megan?'

Angry defiance sparked. 'Getting cold feet, Johnny?

Want to put me back into the little sister box?' 'No, I don't!' exploded from him.

The sparkles changed to glittery challenge. 'Then don't treat me like an idiot child. We're here. And yes, I'm sure.'

He stopped caring about what was in her mind. The desire burning inside him flared up, took control, directing the paths it wanted to take. His hands slid slowly down the long elegant neck that held her head so high. Her skin was warm, soft, silky smooth. She stood absolutely still, watching him, absorbing his touch without the slightest flinch. The sensual trail of his fingers was interrupted by the necklace at the base of her throat.

His pearls.

Leave them there.

He wanted her stripped of everything else but not them. The pearls were a link to him. They had meaning. He lifted them, rubbed them between his fingers, knowing their lustre was increased by contact with flesh—her flesh—his.

'Why did you wear them today?' he asked, wanting it to be significant.

Still the challenge sizzling at him. 'Why not? You gave them to me to wear. They looked good with my black suit.'

Denying them any personal meaning yet all his instincts insisted it was there—if only as a weapon in her armoury to get at him. Flaunting her hair, her figure, his necklace…was it just some sexual battle she was waging?

The primitive survivor in Johnny stirred.

Regardless of what was driving Megan, he would win out in the end.

And get it right.

Megan sucked in a quick nervous breath as the skin- tingling pads of his fingers glided down the edges of her jacket's V neckline. Panic was still blurring her mind. She'd thought he was going to stop, back off. The white-hot need for intimacy was no longer outrunning control and she couldn't bring herself to force it by throwing herself at him. They were here in her bedroom. He had to want her…want her so much nothing would stop him.

She shouldn't have hit out with that negative stuff, reminding him of the years between them, pretending that his necklace was just a necklace.

But he wasn't backing off. It was happening.

And she was scared stiff that he'd find her hopelessly inadequate at meeting him as an equal when they were finally in bed together, that he'd realise how relatively inexperienced she was and wish he hadn't been tempted into having any sexual connection with her.

She'd only been thinking of satisfying herself before.

But that wasn't enough.

She wanted Johnny to love her, need her, come back to her.

With tantalising slowness he undid the top button of her jacket. Then the next. And the next. Her breasts seemed to swell with a terribly tight feeling. Yet her legs were turning into wobbly jelly. He slid her jacket off her shoulders, caressed her arms as he pushed the sleeves down. Her skin broke out in goose bumps. She had to do something or she'd end up paralysed by inhibitions.

His coat and tie had been discarded after the visitors had left, the sleeves of his shirt rolled up when he'd been helping in the kitchen. As his hands moved around her back to undo her bra, the thought of being stripped naked while he was still dressed galvanised Megan into action. She attacked the buttons on his shirt, needing to rip it off him as fast as she could, keep some kind of equality between them.

Once he'd dispensed with her bra, he helped, tossing his shirt on the floor to join the other discarded clothes, then removing her skirt while she hesitated over touching his trousers. She'd seen Johnny naked to the waist before— washing up outside many times. The beautifully sculpted masculinity of his chest and arms held no surprises for her, but close up like this, with the taut muscles and smooth hairless skin barely a heartbeat away from the tips of her bare breasts, she was too caught up in breathless anticipation to even attempt stripping him further.

Besides, he did it fast enough, revealing himself without any worry whatsoever about her reaction to his completely naked body. No doubt he was perfectly comfortable in his own skin. And why wouldn't he be? On any male scale he was magnificently built. Impossible for him to feel any sense of inadequacy with so much blatant power in his physique.

Her stillness, her staring, evoked a gruff taunt from him. 'Not freezing up on me, are you, Megan?'

Her chin jerked up, eyes flaring a bold challenge. 'Just looking.' This was no time for backing down!

'Satisfied?' 'I hope I will be.'

Something like an animal growl issued from his throat. His hands spanned her waist. She was lifted off her feet, carried swiftly to the bed, laid down so he could stand back and look at her. Which he did, taking in every detail of her from the spill of her hair on the pillow to the uncontrollable curling of her toes. Megan wanted to close her eyes but she couldn't allow herself that weakness. It would betray the nervous fear pumping through her. She watched him, waiting for his response, her heart drumming in her ears.

Johnny could barely contain himself. She lay there in seductive abandonment, her hair a fiery halo, her arms lying loosely across the bed, waiting to wrap around him when he came to her, the lushly full breasts peaking their invitation, her pale skin gleaming like sensual satin. He'd lose himself in her in no time flat if he wasn't careful.

No way was he going to leave Megan thinking of him as a rutting animal. If she wanted that kind of perverse satisfaction, she wasn't about to get it.