Читать книгу Hired For His Pleasure: The Talk of Hollywood / Keeping Her Up All Night / Buttoned-Up Secretary, British Boss - Кэрол Мортимер, Susanne James - Страница 11

‘IF YOU had let me know you were going out riding earlier this morning then I would have come with you, rather than just sat and watched you out of the window as I ate my breakfast …’

Stazy’s gaze was cool when she glanced across at Jaxon as he entered the library the following morning. ‘To have invited you to accompany me would have defeated the whole object.’ Having to accept one of her grandfather’s security guards accompanying her, and in doing so severely curtailing where she rode, had been bad enough, without having Jaxon trailing along as well!

After last night he was the last person she had wanted to be with when she’d got up this morning!

Neither of her two experiences had prepared her in the least for the heat, the total wildness, of being in Jaxon’s arms the previous evening.

It had been totally out of control. She had been out of control!

Her two sexual experiences had been far from satisfactory, and yet she had almost gone over the edge just from having her legs wrapped around Jaxon’s waist while he thrust against the silky barrier of her panties!

Having escaped to her bedroom the previous evening, Stazy had relived every wild and wanton moment of being in Jaxon’s arms. The thrumming excitement. The arousal. And—oh, God!—the pleasure! She had trembled from the force of that pleasure, the sensitive ache still between her thighs, her breasts feeling full and sensitised.

She had been so aroused that she dreaded to think what might have happened if Jaxon hadn’t called a halt to their lovemaking. Would Jaxon have stripped off her clothes? Worse, would she have ripped off her own clothes? And would he have made love to her on the carpeted floor, perhaps? Or maybe he would have just ripped her panties aside and taken her against the cabinet? Having either of those two things happen would have been not only unacceptable but totally beyond Stazy’s previous experience.

‘Am I wrong in sensing the implication that you much preferred to go out riding rather than having to sit and eat breakfast with me …?’ Jaxon prompted dryly.

She looked across at him. ‘Is that what I implied …?’

He eyed her frustratedly. Knowing that beneath Stazy’s exterior of cool logic was a woman as passionate as the fiery red-gold of her hair, a woman who had become liquid flame in his arms as she absorbed—consumed!—the blazing demand of his desire before giving it back in equal measure didn’t help to ease that frustration in the slightest.

‘Besides which,’ she continued briskly, ‘I was up at six, as usual, and breakfasted not long after.’

Jaxon closed the door behind him before strolling over to sit on the edge of the table where Stazy sat. ‘I’ll have to remember that you’re an early riser if I ever want the two of us to breakfast together.’

Stazy could think of only one circumstance under which that might be applicable—and it was a circumstance she had no intention of allowing to happen! That didn’t mean to say she wasn’t completely aware of Jaxon’s muscled thigh only inches away from her where he perched on the edge of the table.

He looked disgustingly fit and healthy this morning for a man who had flown over from the States only yesterday: the sharp angles of his face were healthily tanned, that overlong dark hair was slightly damp from the shower, his tee shirt—black today—fitted snugly over his muscled chest and the tops of his arms, and faded denims outlined the leanness of his waist and those long legs. There was only a slightly bruised look beneath those intelligent grey eyes to indicate that Jaxon suffered any lingering jet lag.

‘I shouldn’t bother for the short amount of time you’ll be here,’ she advised dryly.

He gave a relaxed smile. ‘Oh, it’s no bother, Stazy,’ he assured her huskily.

She shifted restlessly. ‘Considering your time here is limited, shouldn’t we get started …?’

Jaxon didn’t need any reminding that he now had only six days left in which to do his research. Just as he didn’t need to be told that it was Stazy’s intention to keep her distance from him for those same six days.

There had been a few moments of awkwardness the previous evening, when he’d told Little that Stazy wasn’t feeling well enough to finish her meal and had gone upstairs to her bedroom. The knowing look in the older man’s eyes, before he’d quietly cleared away her place setting had been indicative of his scepticism at that explanation. But, being the polite English butler that he was, Little hadn’t questioned the explanation—or Jaxon’s claim that he didn’t want any more to eat either.

Food, at least.

Jaxon’s appetite for finishing what he and Stazy had started had been a different matter entirely!

Once upstairs, despite feeling exhausted, he had paced the sitting room of his suite for hours as he thought of Stazy’s fiery response to his kisses, his shaft continuing to throb and ache as he remembered having her legs wrapped about his waist, the moist heat between her thighs as he pressed against her.

A virtually sleepless night later he only had to look at her again this morning to recall the wildness of their shared passion. The fact that her appearance was every inch the prim and cold Dr Anastasia Bromley again today—hair pulled back and plaited down the length of her spine, green blouse loose rather than fitted over tailored black trousers, and flat no-nonsense shoes—in no way dampened the eroticism of last night’s memories.

In fact the opposite; if anything, that air of cool practicality just made Jaxon want to kiss her until he once again held that responsive woman in his arms!

‘Fine.’ He straightened abruptly before taking the seat opposite hers and concentrating on the pile of papers Geoffrey Bromley had left for him to look through.

That was not to say he wasn’t completely aware of Stazy as she sat opposite him. He could smell her perfume—a light floral and her own warm femininity—and the sunlight streaming through the window was turning her hair to living flame. A flame Jaxon wanted to wrap about his fingers as he once again took those full and pouting lips beneath his own.

‘Have you heard from Geoffrey this morning?’ he prompted gruffly after several minutes of torturous silence—minutes during which he was too aware of Stazy to be able to absorb a single thing he had read.

She shook her head. ‘As I’ve already told you, my grandfather has become a law unto himself since Granny died.’

Jaxon sat back in his chair. ‘And before that …?’

Her gaze instantly became guarded. ‘What exactly is it you want to know, Jaxon?’

He shrugged. ‘All my own research so far gives the impression their long marriage was a happy one.’

‘ “So far”?’

Discussing Stazy’s grandparents with her had all the enjoyment of walking over hot coals: one wrong step and he was likely to get seriously burned! ‘You know, we’re going to get along much better if you don’t keep reading criticism into every statement I make.’ He sighed.

It wasn’t in Stazy’s immediate or long term plans to ‘get along’ with Jaxon. In fact, after her uncharacteristic behaviour last night, she just wanted this whole thing to be over and done with. ‘Sorry,’ she bit out abruptly.

‘So?’

‘So, yes, their marriage was a long and happy one,’ she confirmed evenly. ‘Not joined at the hip,’ she added with a frown. ‘They were both much too independent in nature for that. But emotionally close. Always.’

‘That’s good.’ Jaxon nodded, making notes in the pad he had brought downstairs with him.

Stazy regarded him curiously. ‘You mentioned your own parents when you were here last … are they happily married?’

‘Oh, yes.’ An affectionate smile curved Jaxon’s lips as he looked up. ‘My brother, too. One big happy family, in fact, and all still living in Cambridgeshire. I’m the only one in the family to have left the area and avoided the matrimonial noose,’ he added dryly.

Stazy doubted that he was in any hurry to marry, considering the amount of women reputedly queuing up to share the bed of Jaxon Wilder. Something she had been guilty of herself the previous evening …!

‘I don’t suppose your lifestyle is in any way … conducive to a permanent relationship,’ she dismissed coolly.

Jaxon studied her through narrowed lids. ‘Any more than your own is. An archaeologist who travels around the world on digs every chance she gets …’ he added with a shrug as she looked at him enquiringly.

She smiled tightly. ‘That’s one of the benefits of being unattached, yes.’

‘And what do you consider the other advantages to be?’ he prompted curiously.

She gave a lightly dismissive laugh. ‘The same as yours, I expect. Mostly the freedom to do exactly as I wish when I wish.’

‘And the drawbacks …?’

A frown creased the creaminess of her brow. ‘I wasn’t aware there were any …’

‘No …?’

‘No.’

He raised dark brows. ‘How about no one to come home to at the end of the day? To talk to and be with? To share a meal with? To go to bed with?’ He smiled ruefully. ‘I suppose it can all be summed up in one word—loneliness.’

Was she ever lonely? Stazy wondered. Probably. No—definitely. And for the reasons Jaxon had just stated. At the end of a long day of teaching she always returned home to her empty apartment, prepared and ate her meal alone, more often than not spending the evening alone, before sleeping alone.

That was exactly how she preferred it! Not just preferred it, but had deliberately arranged her life so it would be that way. Apart from her grandfather, she didn’t want or need anyone in her life on a permanent basis. Didn’t want or need the heartache of one day losing them—to death or otherwise.

She eyed Jaxon teasingly. ‘I find it difficult to believe that you ever need be lonely, Jaxon!’

He gave a tight smile. ‘Never heard the saying “feeling alone in a crowd”?’

‘And that describes you?’

‘Sometimes, yes.’

‘I somehow can’t see that …’ she dismissed.

‘Being an actor isn’t all attending glitzy parties and awards ceremonies, you know.’

‘Let’s not forget you get to escort beautiful actresses to both!’ she teased.

‘No, let’s not forget that,’ he conceded dryly.

‘And you get to go to all those wonderful places on location too—all expenses paid!’

Jaxon smiled wryly. ‘Oh, yes. I remember what a wonderful time I had being in snake and crocodile infested waters for days at a time during the making of Contract with Death!’

Her eyes widened. ‘I’d assumed you had a double for those parts of the film …’

And from the little Stazy had said during that first meeting six weeks ago Jaxon had assumed she was far too much the academic to have ever bothered to see a single one of his films! ‘I don’t use doubles any more than I do hair extensions.’

‘You must be a nightmare for film studios to insure.’

‘No doubt.’

‘What about the flying in Blue Skies …?’

He shrugged. ‘I went to a village in Bedfordshire where they have a museum of old working planes and learnt to fly a Spitfire.’

A grudging respect entered those green eyes. ‘That was … dedicated. What about riding the elephant in Dark Horizon?’

He grinned. ‘Piece of cake!’

‘Riding a horse bareback in Unbridled?’

He gave her a knowing look. ‘A blessed relief after the elephant!’

‘Captaining a boat in To the Depths?’

So Stazy obviously hadn’t seen just one of his films, but several. Although Jaxon was sure that Stazy had absolutely no idea just how much she was revealing by this conversation. ‘I used to spend my summers in Great Yarmouth, helping out on my uncle’s fishing boat, when I was at university.’

Her eyes widened. ‘You attended university?’

Jaxon was enjoying himself. ‘Surprised to learn I’m not just a pretty face, after all?’

If Stazy was being honest? Yes, she was surprised. ‘What subject did you take?’

He quirked a teasing brow. ‘Are you sure you really want me to answer that?’

She felt a sinking sensation in her chest. ‘Archaeology?’

‘History and archaeology.’

She winced. ‘You have a degree in history and archaeology?’

He gave a grin. ‘First-class Masters.’

‘With what aim in mind …?’

He shrugged. ‘I seriously thought about teaching before I was bitten by the acting bug.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me that before?’ Before she’d made a fool of herself and treated him as if he were just another empty-headed movie star. That, in retrospect, had not only been insulting but presumptuous.

Jaxon shrugged wide shoulders. ‘You didn’t ask. Besides which,’ he continued lightly, ‘you were having far too much fun looking down your nose at a frivolous Hollywood actor for me to want to spoil it for you.’

Because it had been easier to think of Jaxon that way than to acknowledge him as not only being a handsome movie star but also an intelligent and sensitive man. Which he obviously was.

A dangerous combination, in fact!

Stazy straightened briskly. ‘Shall we get on?’

In other words: conversation over, Jaxon acknowledged ruefully. But, whether she realised it or not, he had learnt a little more about Stazy this morning; it was a little like extracting teeth, but very slowly he was learning the intricacies that made up the personality of the beautiful and yet somehow vulnerable Stazy Bromley.

And finding himself intrigued and challenged by all of them.

‘Time for lunch, I believe …’

Stazy had been so lost in reading one of her grandmother’s diaries that she had momentarily forgotten that Jaxon sat across the table from her, let alone noticed the passing of time. Surprisingly, it had been a strangely companionable morning, that earlier awkwardness having dissipated as they both became lost in their individual tasks.

She gave a shake of her head now. ‘I rarely bother to eat lunch.’

‘Meaning that I shouldn’t either?’ Jaxon teased.

‘Not at all,’ she told him briskly. ‘I’ll just carry on here, if you would like to go and—What are you doing …?’ She frowned across at Jaxon as he reached across the table to close the diary she was reading before rising to his feet and holding out his hand to her expectantly.

‘Ever heard the saying “all work and no play …” ‘

Her mouth firmed as she continued to ignore his outstretched hand. ‘I’ve never pretended to be anything other than dull.’

‘I don’t find you in the least dull, Stazy,’ Jaxon murmured softly.

She raised startled eyes. ‘You don’t?’

‘No,’ he assured her huskily; having spent the past three hours completely aware of Stazy sitting across the table from him, how could he claim otherwise? She was a woman of contradictions: practical by nature but delicately feminine in her appearance. Her hands alone seemed proof of that contradiction. Her wrists were fragile, her fingers slender and elegant, but they were tipped with practically short and unvarnished nails. He had spent quite a lot of the last three hours looking at Stazy’s hands as she turned the pages of the diary she was reading and imagining all the places those slender fingers tipped by those trimmed nails might linger as she caressed him.

‘Let’s go, Stazy,’ he encouraged her now. ‘I asked Little earlier if he would provide us with a lunch basket.’

She frowned. ‘You expect me to go on a picnic with you?’

‘Why not?’ Jaxon asked softly.

Probably because Stazy couldn’t remember the last time she had done anything as frivolous as eating her lunch al fresco—even in one of the many cafés in England that now provided tables for people to eat outside. When she was working she was too busy during the day to eat lunch at all, and when she came here her grandfather preferred formality. Occasionally Granny had organised a picnic down on the beach at the weekends, but that had been years ago, and—

‘You think too much, Stazy.’ Jaxon, obviously tired of waiting for her to make up her mind, pulled her effortlessly to her feet.

Stazy couldn’t think at all when she was standing close to Jaxon like this, totally aware of the heat of his body and the pleasant—arousing—smell of the cologne he favoured. ‘Aren’t we a little old to be going on a picnic, Jaxon?’

‘Not in the least,’ he dismissed easily. Not waiting to hear any more of her objections, his hand still firmly clasping hers, he pulled her along with him to walk out into the cavernous hallway. ‘Ah, Little, just in time.’ He smiled warmly at the butler as he appeared from the back of the house with a picnic basket in one hand and a blanket in the other. ‘If Mr Bromley calls we’ll be back in a couple of hours.’

Jaxon handed Stazy the blanket before taking the picnic basket himself, all the time retaining that firm grasp on Stazy’s hand as he kept her at his side. He strode out of the front doorway of the house and down the steps onto the driveway.

The warm and strong hand totally dwarfed Stazy’s, and at the same time she was tinglingly aware of that warmth and strength. The same strength that had enabled him to ride an elephant, go bareback on a horse, to handle the controls of a Spitfire and captain a fishing boat, and do all of those other stunts in his films that Stazy had assumed were performed by someone else.

Making Jaxon far less that ‘pretty face’ image she had previously taken such pleasure in attributing to him.

If she were completely honest with herself Jaxon was so much more than she had wanted him to be before meeting him, and as such had earned—albeit grudgingly!—her respect. It would have been far easier to simply dismiss the pretty-faced Hollywood actor of her imaginings; but the real Jaxon Wilder was nothing at all as Stazy had thought—hoped—he would be. Instead, he had a depth and intelligence she found it impossible to ignore.

Add those things to the way he looked—to the way he had kissed her and made her feel the previous evening—and Stazy was seriously in danger of fighting a losing battle against this unwanted attraction.

That was why it really wasn’t a good idea to go on a picnic with him!

He turned to look down at her from beneath hooded lids. ‘Beach or woody glade?’

‘Neither.’ Stazy impatiently pulled her hand free of his. ‘I really don’t have time for this, Jaxon—’

‘Make time.’

She eyed him derisively. ‘Did you need to practise that masterful tone or does it just come naturally?’

Jaxon grinned unconcernedly. ‘Just getting into character for next week, when I become captain of a pirate ship and need to keep my female captive in line.’

‘Seriously?’

The look of total disbelief on Stazy’s face was enough to make him chuckle out loud. ‘Seriously.’ He grinned. ‘That’s before I have my wicked way with her about halfway through the movie, of course.’

She winced. ‘After which she no doubt keeps you in line?’

‘I seem to recall I then become her willing slave in the captain’s cabin, yes,’ Jaxon allowed dryly, enjoying the delicate blush that immediately coloured Stazy’s cheeks; for a twenty-nine-year-old woman she was incredibly easy to shock. ‘So, Stazy—beach or woody glade?’ He returned to their original conversation.

Stazy’s thoughts had briefly wandered off to images of herself as Jaxon’s captive on his pirate ship, where he swept her up in his arms. Her hair was loose and windswept, and she was wearing a green velvet gown that revealed more than it covered as he lowered his head and his mouth plundered hers.

Just imagining it was enough to cause her body to heat and her nipples to tingle and harden inside her bra as the warm feeling between her thighs returned.

Good grief …!

She gave a self-disgusted shake of her head as she dismissed those images. ‘I think you’ll find that my grandfather’s security guards might have something to say about where we’re allowed to go for our picnic.’ She grimaced as she recalled how her ride this morning had been decided by one of those attentive guards.

‘Let’s walk down to the beach and see if anyone tries to stop us.’ Once again Jaxon took a firm hold of her hand, before walking towards the back of the house and the pathway down to the beach.

Dragging a reluctant Stazy along with him.