Mandy's He-Man (2 page)

Gathering Mandy up in his arms and carrying her back to the Jets group was the only possible course of action in JT’s mind. Her safety was paramount, and holding on to her also seemed an effective way of reining in his intense anger.

Chapter Two

His thick, muscular arm was warm under her thighs. He had gently encircled her waist with his other arm. He was carrying her towards the bar. Mandy was glad to be moving away from the little mob that had built to watch the ugly proceedings, and she dabbed at her probably smudged makeup with the hanky JT had thoughtfully given her.

When they reached the bar, Mandy finally got some answers to her questions. JT was there at the club with friends. Although JT appeared to be sober, his younger friends were all happily intoxicated, definitely intent on enjoying themselves. There were also quite a number of women surrounding the men, playing up to them and receiving plenty of attention in return.

The males of the group began cheering and backslapping JT as he rejoined them, calling him a hero. To Mandy, JT looked uncomfortable with all the fuss and attention. So, not only did he seem to not fit in at the club, he also appeared a little out of place among the half-dozen loud young men.

“Let me buy you a drink,”
he said with calm authority
.
“I think you could use one. And then you can fill me in on what was going on with that arsehole.”

To anyone looking on, it probably would have been quite an amusing sight, since JT hadn’t actually put Mandy down yet. And, apparently, was not in any hurry to do so. Oddly enough, Mandy was becoming aware that she wasn’t in any real hurry for him to release her, either. She was enjoying the feel of JT’s warm, strong body as it enveloped her. It was as if his touch was bringing her back to life.

Con had taken a toll on Mandy with his cruel ways. For the first time in months, she actually felt safe. She was just going to hold on to that feeling for a little while longer and try not to think about the fact that Con would be even angrier with her now.

“Thanks, I think you might be right. I need a Scotch. And JT, thanks for what you did back there. The arsehole was, in fact, my ex, a huge mistake that I’ve been trying to erase for a while now. He… Con… My ex just doesn’t like the thought of me moving on and isn’t averse to using his fists to show me.”

As Mandy admitted to her past mistake she looked JT right in the eyes, trying to portray a look of confidence so he wouldn’t think her the weak, pathetic type, regularly in need of rescue. For some reason, Mandy felt that JT’s opinion of her mattered.

“Dickhead needed to be taught a lesson,” growled JT.
“There is no excuse for manhandling a woman. Glad I was here, just wish I’d moved faster.” JT met her gaze, but to Mandy’s relief showed no signs of judgement or condemnation.

The end of the night turned out to be a whole lot more fun than the beginning had been. Mandy soon figured out that JT was acting as a babysitter, of sorts, to the group of younger team members. 

“Bodyguard to all,” she whispered dreamily as she sipped her Scotch and Coke, about the sixth passed her way by the happy and friendly group of men from the local rugby league side. Mandy had only managed to completely finish one of the drinks so far. As a new drink arrived, JT would swiftly remove the old drink from her, empty or not.

If she had managed to drink all the alcohol handed to her, Mandy knew she wouldn’t have been able to walk. Not that this was really a problem yet, as she was still sitting comfortably on the very large lap she was becoming accustomed to. Mandy was trying not to wiggle, too much, on the incredibly hard ridge that was pressed up against her bottom, but she could not ignore the fact that it was exciting her, making her want things she hadn’t wanted in a long time, such as the feel of that hardness buried deep inside her.

* * * *

As all good things must come to an end, so did her night. While the young Jets players were all being safely poured into taxi cabs by their very protective teammate, Mandy tried to flag down a taxi of her own. But JT was having none of it, and insisted that he would drive her home. He seemed convinced that if he didn’t, Caitlin would have his hide. Mandy was amused at the thought of her downstairs neighbour skinning this gigantic man.

Wow, the skin would be huge. You could reupholster a houseful of furniture with a hide as big as that,
she thought, and couldn’t stop the giggle that was building in her chest from escaping. JT raised an eyebrow in her direction and smiled.

As Mandy walked hand in hand with JT, varying tones of soft blues and calm greens flowed through her mind. The colours travelled slowly, lazily, like a meandering river, indicating her relaxed and happily subdued state of mind, despite what had happened earlier in the evening.

JT’s big, black V8 Ford GT reminded Mandy of a panther waiting to pounce. The soft leather seat she sank into was warm. With the seat-warmer and interior heating turned on, she was having trouble staying awake. It wasn’t long until the excitement of the night took its toll and Mandy drifted off.

Chapter Three

JT carried Mandy’s limp, little, velvet-clad body up the stairwell of the building that was so familiar to him. She had looked so peacefully asleep in the passenger seat of his car that he’d decided not to wake her. But when he reached the door to her flat he realised his mental picture of gently delivering her sleeping form into her own bed wasn’t logistically possible. He had to wake her to get the key to her door.

Mandy had fitted so comfortably in his arms and on his lap earlier tonight, and now, as he held her sleeping form in his arms, he was still trying to decide what to do. He’d expected her to struggle from his grasp the minute the shock from the attack had subsided. She’d always had the air of a feisty little scrap of a thing, dressed in so much black and with all that war paint on her face. War paint that was a little smudged now, JT noticed with a smile. Something about Mandy, the handful of times he’d been around her, always brought out a protective instinct in him that he found hard to understand.

He’d been pleased that the boys had been reasonably well behaved—not giving him a hard time about her, just happily buying Mandy one drink after another. JT had thought that maybe his young team mates were plying her with alcohol for his benefit. She’d seemed to struggle with the frequency of drinks, so he had started removing the old glass from her hand as the new drink had appeared, whether she’d finished or not. The little smiles of gratitude she’d given him each time had been priceless.

The thought of just sitting down on the floor and holding her until she awoke crossed his mind. JT again looked from the locked door back to her face, but this time he found her eyes open and staring back at him.

“You have the most amazingly well-structured face I’ve ever seen,” Mandy declared with sudden alertness. “It’s so balanced. Most people have a very unbalanced face, one side out of synch with the other, but yours is so symmetrical.” She reached up and drew her finger around JT’s jaw line.

JT was gobsmacked. What on earth was she talking about?

“Still a wee bit tipsy, are we, Mags?”

“Urghh!” Mandy harrumphed indignantly. She struggled out of JT’s hold to stand on her own two feet, then looked up into his face and spoke in a stern tone that reflected her displeasure at both his assessment of her sobriety and choice of nickname. “My name is Magenta, as in the colour, He-Man, I’m not some sort of optional extra that you put on your car. It’s
mah-jen-tah
!” She enunciated the word as if speaking to a slow-learning child. “What is it about Aussie men that they have to shorten surnames into some sort of nickname? It’s really not very imaginative—and I am not drunk!” she seethed.

Mandy turned her back on him and put the key in the lock, opened her front door and walked inside.

JT had felt the loss immediately when she’d struggled from his grasp, but he turned to leave. Although disappointed the night was over, he was glad the fight had come back into Mandy’s amazing eyes. He was still not able to put his finger on what it was about her eyes that attracted him. Lost in his own thoughts, he was surprised to hear the challenge in her voice as she called out to him.

“Hey, He-Man, where are you going? You too chicken to come inside?”

Mandy stood back, as if to give him room to pass by and enter her home. She stood with her hands on her curvy hips and looked at him with one eyebrow raised questioningly.

“What could it hurt?”
JT grinned as he stepped towards the little spitfire.

Standing just inside the door, JT looked around the room. The layout was similar to Caitlin Walters’ flat on the ground floor of the same building, but the décor was nothing like it. Mandy’s living room was chaos. Easels, paint and paintbrushes littered the room. Canvases of all sizes—some used and some still blank—leaned against the walls. Splashes of colour seemed to be everywhere.

It took JT a moment to realise that he was in a studio. Mandy Magenta was an artist, and judging by what he could see, she did it all—portraits, still life, landscape, abstract…it was all there. Including what looked, in JT’s opinion, to be a painting of a giant penis.

Chapter Four

Mandy closed the door and waited for JT’s reaction to her flat. Looking around as if through his eyes, she could see that it would appear cluttered, but she knew it was clean. Dirt and dust were not good for wet paint.

With him just standing there, his back so close, she couldn’t resist any longer and had to run her hands over the well-defined muscle formation. She could see those protruding ridges stretching the lines of his shirt. He looked so powerful, so masculine. Mandy was almost drooling at the thought of copying his likeness to canvas. She was a little distracted by her own imagination, so when he spun her around and grabbed at her hands, halting their explorations over him, she jumped.

“Whoa there, wait a minute, woman. A man normally likes to take the lead in this sort of thing.” JT spoke in an amused but throaty voice.

Mandy looked up at him, confused and a little annoyed. He held her hands in his, a little above her head, his grip firm but still gentle. Strangely, she did not feel even a flicker of fear.

“You have the most impressive body I’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing up close. I just wanted to feel every shape, ridge and roped muscle beneath my fingers,” Mandy enthused. “The colours you are creating in my head are unbelievable. I want—no,
need
—to see you nude. To imprint that picture in my memory. You are the perfect specimen of everything that is male.”

Although speaking earnestly, honestly, her voice came out sounding rather husky to her own ears.

JT released the hold he had on her hands. He picked her up and pushed her against the wall, his mouth closing in on Mandy’s lips. JT kissed her hungrily, nipping at her bottom lip until she opened up for him.

Mandy wasn’t sure what had hit her. But as that hard, hot mouth descended on hers she immediately felt the connection. The colours exploded through her mind. A kaleidoscope of vermillion reds and bright oranges combined in vibrant patterns that resembled flames licking at her. Scorching her. Her body was also on fire, fevered, the heat so intense that it was as if her skin was being stroked by hot embers. The feeling of JT’s tongue consuming her mouth, invading, making a claim, seemed to wake some hidden animal within her. She threw her arms around his thick neck and wrapped her legs around his waist, finding that she was just able to lock her ankles around his massive form. She thrust her tongue into JT’s mouth, trying to challenge his ownership, making her own claims in return, as she rubbed her body up against him.

“Slow down, Mags,” JT said breathlessly, but she saw the wild, hungry look in his eyes that contradicted his words.

Mandy looked at JT, her confusion turning to anger.
Slow down?
The man had, without warning, pounced on her like some savage, slammed her up against the wall and kissed her senseless.

Obviously, JT had not realised it had been the artist in Mandy speaking. He had completely missed the implication that she wanted only to sketch or paint his likeness onto canvas.

But when he’d kissed her, Mandy had known that this was right. This man was what her body craved. Needed.

So why on earth did he want to slow down? She could have scratched his eyes out for heating her up so much, just to pull away. Mandy almost shouted at him as she fought her desire to pummel his chest.

“Hey, He-Man, you started this. Can’t you take the heat? Not very gentlemanly of you to get a girl all fired up, just to walk away. So what
do
they call the male equivalent of a cock tease?”

Chapter Five

JT was speechless. No-one had ever spoken to him quite so passionately. Her voice, the things she’d said, had awoken in him a primal need that he hadn’t felt for so long.

But he was confused by her words. He hadn’t started anything. He had spent the night resisting the urge to take her in his arms and kiss her. Had worried about taking advantage, after the shock she had suffered. She had been the one spouting all that romantic stuff about his body, with that sultry look in her eye and her pouty lips biting at each other. Not to mention, it had been her hands roaming all over his back, her touch burning him in its wake. He must be going mad.

“I didn’t start this, you did… All that sexy talk about me.
What
was that about?”

JT was not expecting her response. Not at all. He was shocked when she actually laughed at him. His cock would have softened, if not for the fact that her hot pussy was still pushed snugly up against it.

“I wanted to use you as a model. To sketch you, paint you. Draw every defined muscle of that amazing physique you’ve created. Not get down and dirty with you, He-Man. Although I think I’ve changed my mind on that one. I want all of you. Are you up for it?”