Alpha: Savage Alpha Part 18

"Jonas-"

"She leaves with me." His narrowed gaze challenged Gabriel to continue with his protest.

The other man looked at him searchingly for several long seconds before glancing down at his sister. Lily's head lay against Jonas's shoulder; her eyes were closed. Gabriel nodded. "Take everyone else's statements tonight by all means, but she leaves with him," he told the police inspector.

"Miss Knight?" the inspector prompted.

Lily roused herself enough to open her eyelids and look at the police inspector. "I want to leave with Jonas," she confirmed huskily.

No one else offered a word of protest as Jonas carried her out of the room, down the hallway, and out the back door of the theater.

"Where are you taking me?" Lily prompted wearily as Jonas drove the SUV through the lamp-lit streets of London.

"Larchwood."

Lily heaved a sigh of relief as she leaned back against the headrest. "You do know that I wouldn't normally allow you to just take charge like this?"

"Oh yes."

"Your poor hands!" Lily groaned as she looked at Jonas's bleeding knuckles where he tightly gripped the steering wheel.

"You should see the other guy," he attempted to joke.

Lily had seen the other guy, and as far as she was concerned, Todd Shaw deserved every cut and bruise-and broken nose-that now adorned his previously boyishly handsome face.

"I don't think I'm the only one to have inflicted injury on him," Jonas drawled as he recalled the blood flowing down Todd Shaw's face and the way he had favored his left leg as the police took him away.

She nodded. "I managed to get in a head-b.u.t.t and a kick before he tried to knock me out by banging my head against the wall."

Jonas straightened. "You do realize you deserve another spanking for trying to deal with him on your own."

"Really?"

"Except you'd probably enjoy it too much." He scowled. "What the f.u.c.k did you think you were doing, antagonizing Shaw like that?"

"I had every confidence my hero would save me."

"Me?"

"You," she confirmed. "I just thought I'd put in a few kicks of my own while I was waiting. Todd is totally insane, I'm afraid." She went on to explain the other man's warped reasoning behind his actions.

Jonas nodded. "It sounds as if he'll be placed in an asylum on suicide watch rather than a prison. Unfortunately."

The horror of being alone with Todd loomed less immediate to Lily the farther they drove away from London. After her near-death experience, it felt good to be able to look at Jonas again. To be with him again.

He smelled wonderful. That woodsy aroma that was totally Jonas, along with a heavy musk that made her body ache and her head swirl. The fact that she was here, on her way to his house in the woods with him, must surely mean that he felt something for her, even if it was only his protective instinct kicking in. She could work with that.

"I've missed you," she told him huskily.

The SUV swerved to the left as Jonas briefly lost concentration. He righted the vehicle again before glancing across at her.

"Did you miss me too?" she prompted.

"Could we save this conversation for when we get to my house?"

"I don't know, can we?"

Jonas gave a heavy sigh before he admitted, "I missed you too."

"Good." Lily was satisfied with that.

For now...

"I can walk, you know," she protested a short time later. Jonas had parked the SUV and then insisted on carrying her the half mile through the woods to his house. The snow had melted in the last week, but it had left the trail slippery in places.

"This is quicker," he dismissed. Not only was he carrying Lily, but as she didn't have a coat of her own, he had also wrapped that black leather duster around her to protect her from the worst of the icy chill in the air. He seemed impervious to that cold in just his T-shirt and jeans.

"Are we in a hurry?" she prompted curiously, her arms curved about the back of his neck.

"Yes."

"Oh."

A smile curved Jonas's lips as he glanced down at her. "Don't tell me you're finally at a loss for words?"

"I'm sure I can think of something to say, if you think it's necessary?"

"It's not." He shook his head. "Almost there," he added with satisfaction.

Lily felt herself trembling again. Not that bone-shaking trauma of being alone with a cold-blooded killer like Todd Shaw, but with the antic.i.p.ation of being alone again with Jonas. The man she loved.

Jonas didn't put her down once they were inside his house. Instead, he carried on, walking through the open-plan sitting room and down the corridor to his darkened bedroom.

Lily looked up at him uncertainly as he placed her on the bed. "Jonas?"

"You need a hot bath and then bed." He didn't look at her face as he sat on the side of the bed and began to unwrap her from the leather duster.

"In that order?"

Jonas's gaze was guarded as he glanced at her. "Not necessarily."

Lily moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. "In that case, bed first."

Jonas drew in a sharp breath as he straightened. "You scared the s.h.i.t out of me earlier. You know that, don't you?"

"Why?"

"Why?"

"Yes."

Jonas knew this was one of those moments of truth that came only once in a lifetime. Sometimes not even that. If he f.u.c.ked this up now- "I thought you weren't going to come out of that room alive once I realized what was going on. I walked away from you last week because-I realized I'm in love with you, and it terrified the life out of me." That hadn't been as difficult to say as he'd thought it would. "I love you," he said again. "I am in love with you." Amazing, the more he said it, the easier it got.

"I heard you the first time." Lily moved up on her knees on the bed in front of him, eyes glowing in the light from the hallway as she curled her arms about his neck. "You love me?"

"Yes." His arms moved about her possessively.

Her heart soared in her chest. "I love you too, Jonas."

"You do?" His arms tightened about her.

"Oh yes."

"You love me?"

"I really do." She nodded. "But I thought-I believed I was only an obligation to you. A debt to be repaid."

"d.a.m.n Seth," he growled. "No, that's unfair. I let you believe that."

"Why?"

"Because it was easier. Because it made you leave. Because then I didn't have to admit I'm in love with you."

Her hands cupped the sides of his face. "I love you so much, Jonas. This last week without you has been...well, it's been just horrible."

"Horrible?" he teased, eyes gleaming.

"Ever heard of the understatement-" Lily next words were cut off as Jonas took possession of her mouth and commenced kissing her, thoroughly, pa.s.sionately.

Kissing led to caressing. Caressing led to stroking. Stroking led to- "Wow," Lily breathed in glowing satisfaction when she finally managed to catch her breath.

The two of them were completely naked on the bed, bodies entwined. Jonas's c.o.c.k was still buried deep inside her as he rolled onto his back and took her with him.

Lily stretched naked along the muscular length of his body and smiled down at him, happier at this moment than she'd ever been in her life. Jonas loved her.

"Marry me."

Her eyes widened. "Marry you?"

Uncertainty flickered in those dark blue eyes. "Unless you would rather not."

Lily had no doubts she had Jonas's stick-up-their-a.s.s English family to blame for that uncertainty, for making Jonas feel less because of his Native American heritage. "I would be honored to be your wife, Jonas. I never thought-I didn't think you were the marrying kind."

"I'm not," he acknowledged dryly. "Except when it comes to you. This past week without you has been the longest, loneliest time I've ever known, as if each hour was a day, each day a week. I never want to feel that way ever again. I want-need you with me, Lily, to know you're my wife. That I'm your husband. For us to be together. Always."

"Even if it means you get four brothers-in-law who are just like you?" she teased softly.

He grimaced. "Even then."

"Then my answer is yes." She beamed down at him, her happiness glowing in her eyes. "Oh G.o.d, yes, please, Jonas."

Everything else could be worked out later. For now, all that was important was their love for each other. That they were going to be married and spend the rest of their lives together.

Chapter 15.

"Nervous?"

"Nope." Why would Jonas be nervous about the best day of his life?

The second-best day. The very best day was when Lily told him she loved him as much as he loved her, and she had agreed to marry him.

Six weeks later, he was sitting at the front of the church, Seth beside him as his best man, with three of Lily's brothers acting as ushers. Gabriel was giving Lily away, of course, and any minute now, the church doors were going to open and Lily would be standing there, ready to walk down the aisle and become Jonas's wife. Life didn't get any better than this.

"No, I'm not in the least nervous," he repeated with absolutely certainty.

"You shouldn't be. Lily is a lovely lady." Seth squeezed his shoulder supportively, no doubt as eager to see his own wife again. Diane was acting as Lily's maid of honor.

The weeks since Shaw's arrest had been sad ones as well as happy.

Attending Charlie Driscoll's funeral at Lily's side.

Then Evan Butler's.

Todd Shaw had never reached a courtroom, having been placed indefinitely in a secure mental facility after psychiatrists diagnosed him as being a psychopath capable of killing again without mercy.

Jonas had asked Gabriel's permission to marry Lily. That had been Lily's idea, not Jonas's. He could well have done without seeing that look of glee on his future brother-in-law's face. But the look of joy on Lily's face afterward had been worth even that.

Lily wanted a simple and quiet wedding, and that was exactly what they were having. Family, Lily's closest friends, and the men and women Jonas worked with at Grayson Security and Knight Security. In a strange twist of fate, those two companies had now become one, Dair Grayson having sold out to the Knight brothers after deciding he had lost so many of his men to marriage that Grayson Security was no longer viable. Jonas worked for Knight Security now, but only in a consulting capacity.

It wasn't as if he needed the money.

Jonas had been left a small fortune by his maternal great-grandfather upon the man's death ten years ago, but it was money Jonas seldom touched, apart from the purchase of Larchwood Forest. Money he never talked about either, although Lily knew about it now, obviously. The two of them shared everything. Love. Laughter. Happiness.

Jonas had told Lily how he had only met his great-grandfather once, when the old man had made it clear he had loved his granddaughter dearly, and he didn't echo his son's and daughter-in-law's feelings in regard to Jonas's Native American heritage.

Now, ironically, it was that family money which was allowing Jonas to live the life with Lily that he so much wanted, had hungered for without even being aware he did.

There were also several members of his own family present.

Lily had insisted on sending invitations to his grandparents, along with his great-uncles, uncles, and aunts. His grandparents hadn't even acknowledged the invitation, but to Jonas's surprise, several second cousins had seen the wedding invitations sent to their parents, and they and their children had contacted him to ask if they could attend. It was more than Jonas had ever hoped for and wouldn't have happened without Lily's encouragement.

"This is it, man," Seth murmured at his side. The two men stood as the wedding march began to play and the doors opened at the back of the church.