'Cramped feet?' he asked.
'They're not used to wearing fashionable shoes,' she drily admitted.
'Want me to massage them?'
'Is that a big brotherly thing to do?'
The mocking taunt whipped his gaze up to meet the smoking challenge she was directing straight at him.
Megan could no longer contain the furious frustration that had been welling up in her all day. 'I am not your little sister and I do not need you to watch over me,' she threw at him in seething protest over how he had acted with her—last night, holding her hand and kissing her forehead as though she were a baby, keeping close to her today, ready to be supportive at any falter on her part, inserting himself at her side whenever he thought she might not be able to handle what he interpreted as possibly unwelcome attention.
He hitched himself forward in his chair, gesturing for understanding, frowning over her reaction. 'It was just a friendly offer, Megan.'
Friendly!
For him to now sit on the other end of the sofa and nursemaid her to the extent of massaging her toes… It would drive her so crazy she'd probably end up needling his crotch with them! She swung her legs off the sofa and stood up, viewing him with bristling hauteur.
'I'm fine. What's more, I'm all grown up, Johnny, in case you haven't noticed. Which you should have, since I made the effort not to neuter myself today.'
He grimaced. 'Impossible not to notice.'
'So what did I get wrong?' 'Wrong?'
'You weren't moved to make any positive comment.' She lifted her arms and tossed her hair back over her shoulders in angry impatience with it hanging around her face—hair she'd spent over an hour shampooing and blow- drying so it would look fluffy and feminine. 'Still not good enough for you!' she muttered, mocking herself more than him.
'Not good enough?' he repeated incredulously, shaking his head as though hopelessly confused by her attitude.
Of course her words made no sense in the context of his little sister mind frame. Totally incensed by his insensitivity to this major attempt at changing his view of her, Megan clenched her jaw and headed for the liquor cabinet at the other end of the room, determined on blotting out the stupid futility of trying to change anything where Johnny was concerned.
'Well, I'm certainly old enough to get drunk tonight,' she tossed at him derisively. 'Entitled to, what's more. So why don't you go off to bed, Johnny, and leave me to drown my sorrows?'
He suddenly exploded off his chair, grabbing her arm as she moved past him. 'What do you mean by…not good enough?' He bit out the words as though they were killing him. His eyes slashed at hers, trying to cut through to her soul.
The intensity coming from him pumped Megan up to defy him further. 'You didn't even notice I was wearing the pearls you gave me for my twenty-first birthday,' she rattled out recklessly. 'On the other hand, why should you? You probably got some aide to buy a suitable gift and send it to me.'
'I did notice them,' he fiercely refuted her. 'I chose them myself. And I was pleased to see you wearing them.'
'You didn't say anything!'
'What do you want me to say? That you look fantastic? That I could hardly keep my eyes off you? That I wanted to beat every other man away?'
A sense of wild triumph zinged around Megan's brain. She had succeeded in getting to him as a man. Johnny Ellis had actually been jealous of the guys who'd shown her some admiration. He had seen her as a woman with the power to attract male interest.
It was a huge step forward, but where did it get her if he wasn't prepared to act on it? 'So you think I need your protection now?' she flung at him.
'It's the last thing on my mind.'
The emphatic beat of his voice was like thunder in her ears, thunder in her heart. And she got action aplenty. He stepped closer, scooping her body around to face him. The hand that had seized her arm lifted, its fingers raking through her hair, dragging her head back so that it was tilted up to his. The raw desire flaring from his eyes made her stomach quiver in anticipation.
Johnny Ellis wanted her.
His mouth crashed down onto hers in a passionate plundering that incited an equally passionate response, years of wanting pouring into her need to taste this man, have him tasting her, wanting more of her. She wound her arms around his neck, stretched up on tiptoe, pressed closer, trying to lock in every possible physical contact with him, revelling in the exciting heat of his big strong body, the tension in his muscles.
He kissed her as greedily and urgently as she kissed him. When he sucked in air, she did, too, her pulse racing, her breasts heaving to the same rise and fall of his chest. Though even the slightest pause in this hectic intimacy hit a panic button. She didn't want him to stop, to pull away from her, have second thoughts about what he was doing. She kept a tight hold on him, her fingers thrusting through his hair, curling around his head, rabidly encouraging continuance.
He kissed her some more, with a deepening eroticism that stirred her desire for him into a chaotic frenzy, every nerve in her body sizzling for the fulfilment of all he promised. His hands roved over her back, following its curves, curling over the taut mounds of her bottom, squeezing, lifting, fitting her more closely to him. No doubt about how strongly he was aroused. She felt his erection against her stomach and exulted in the blatant physical power of his desire for her.
Then he tore his mouth from hers and buried his face in her hair, rubbing his cheeks over it, breathing in the scent on it, tasting it with hot sensual kisses. And she pressed her own face into the warm hollow of his neck, savouring the smell of him, her sensitised lips picking up the rapid throb of his pulse beat there, enclosing it, sucking on it, excited by his excitement and wildly wanting to drive it higher and higher.
'Megan…'
The hoarse whisper carried the sound of raging need, making her heart leap with fierce exhilaration. His throat moved in a convulsive swallow.
'Megan…' A stronger tone, harsh with urgency. 'Tell me —' intense command '—is this right for you?' 'Yes…yes,' she answered, every fibre of her being affirming its rightness for her.
'You know I have to leave tomorrow,' he said in strained argument.
'I don't care,' she cried recklessly.
'Then neither do I,' he muttered savagely, and Megan found herself abruptly swept off her feet, her legs hanging over his arm, the rest of her clamped to his chest, and he was carrying her out of the sitting room. 'Better than drowning your sorrows in a bottle,' he bit out, apparently still needing to convince himself he wasn't doing wrong by her.
'Yes,' she agreed emphatically. 'Much better.' 'Your room or mine?'
'Mine.' Where she had dreamed so many times of Johnny Ellis coming to love her. Years of dreams. Never any substance to them. At least she was about to experience some physical reality of all those secret desires, even if it was only sex.
When he stepped out on the verandah, he hesitated. 'I don't have any protection with me.'
'I told you I don't need your protection.' 'Right!'
Relieved of any worries about getting her pregnant, he surged forward again, striding out, legs pumping with driven purpose as he headed straight for her room. Megan had no protection at all against the possibility of conception, but she didn't care. She hung on to him, recklessly abandoning every care.
It didn't matter what was said. Didn't matter what was done.
As long as she had Johnny Ellis in her bed tonight!