‘I PREFER TO SLEEP on the right side of the bed.’
‘So do I.’
‘It’s my bedroom.’
‘And, as your guest, don’t you think I should be allowed first choice as to which side of the bed I would like to sleep on?’
‘Not if my guest is a gentleman.’
As conversations before leaping into bed with a man went, this one was pretty pathetic, Stazy acknowledged self-derisively. No doubt due in part to the fact that now they were actually at the point of getting into bed she was awash with flustered embarrassment.
To a degree that she questioned which part of her brain had actually been functioning when she had accepted Jaxon’s offer to spend the night in her bedroom with her. Certainly not the logical and ordered Dr Stazy Bromley part! And even the less logical, easily-aroused-by-Jaxon-Wilder, Stazy Bromley now questioned the sanity of that decision too!
It had been an impulsive decision at best, made out of a desire not to lie alone in the darkness for hours with her own worried thoughts.
Having just returned from the adjoining bathroom in a white vest top and the grey sweats she slept in, she saw the soft glow of the bedside lamp revealed that Jaxon wore only a pair of very brief black underpants that clearly outlined the enticing bulge beneath. His bare shoulders were wide and tanned, chest muscled and abdomen taut, his legs long and muscular and equally tanned, allowing Stazy to fully appreciate just how ridiculously naive that decision had been.
Especially when her clenched fingers actually itched with the need she felt to touch the fine dark hair that covered his chest before it arrowed down in an enticing vee to beneath those fitted black underpants...
‘Perhaps you should go to your bedroom first and get some pyjamas...’ she said doubtfully—as if Jaxon wearing pyjamas was really going to make her any less aware of his warmth in the bed beside her!
‘That would probably be a good idea if I actually wore pyjamas.’ Jaxon eyed her mockingly across the width of the double bed.
Right. Okay. Definitely time to regroup, Stazy. ‘In that case you can have the right side of the bed—’
‘I was just kidding about that, Stazy,’ Jaxon drawled softly when she would have walked around to the side of the bed where he stood. ‘The left side of the bed is fine.’
To say he had been surprised by her acceptance of his offer was putting it mildly. That only went to prove that Stazy was even more complex than he had thought she was. To the point that Jaxon had no idea what she was going to do or say next. That was very refreshing from a male point of view, but damned inconvenient when a man was only supposed to be acting as a concerned friend...
For some reason he had expected her to be wearing one of those unbecoming nightgowns that covered a woman from neck to toe when she came back from the bathroom. Instead she wore a thin white fitted top with narrow shoulder straps, clearly outlining her upthrusting and obviously naked breasts, and in the process allowing Jaxon to see every curve and nuance of her engorged nipples, along with a pair of loose grey soft cotton trousers that rested low down on her hips and gave him the occasional glimpse of the flat curve of her stomach. The cherry on top of the cake—as if he needed one!—was that she had released the long length of her red-gold hair from its plait and it now lay in a soft and silky curtain across her shoulders and down her back.
All of them were things that were pure purgatory for any man who was expected to behave only as a friend...
He should be grateful Stazy had a double bed in her room, he supposed; just think how cosy the two of them would have been in a single bed! Even so, Jaxon was well aware of how much space he was going to take up, so it was perhaps as well that Stazy was so slender.
He quirked one dark brow as he looked across the bed at her. ‘Are we going to get in and get warm, or just stand here looking at each other all night?’
Stazy drew in a slightly shaky breath. ‘Perhaps your spending the night here wasn’t such a good idea, after all— Oh!’ She broke off as Jaxon lifted his side of the duvet before sliding in beneath it to look up at her expectantly.
‘It’s much warmer in here than it is out there...’ he encouraged, and turned the duvet back invitingly.
Stazy wasn’t sure any extra warmth was necessary. She already felt inwardly on fire, her cheeks flushed, the palms of her hands slightly damp.
Oh, for goodness’ sake—
‘Better,’ Jaxon murmured as Stazy finally slid into the bed beside him.
She turned to look at him as she straightened the duvet over her. ‘Is that a statement or a question?’
‘Both,’ he assured her softly, before reaching out to turn off the bedside lamp and plunge the room into darkness. His arms moved about her waist as he pulled her in to his side and gently pressed her head down onto the warmth of his shoulder.
Stazy didn’t feel in the least relaxed. How could she possibly relax when she was snuggled against Jaxon’s warm and almost naked body, her fingers finally able to touch the silkily soft hair on his chest as her hand lay against that hardness encased in velvet, her elbow brushing lightly against that telling bulge in his underpants?
This had so not been a good idea. She was never going to be able to relax, let alone—
‘Just close your eyes and go to sleep, Stazy,’ Jaxon instructed huskily in the darkness.
Her throat moved as she swallowed before answering him softly. ‘I’m not sure that I can.’
‘Close your eyes? Or go to sleep?’
‘Either!’
‘I could always sing you a lullaby, I suppose...’
‘I didn’t know you could sing...’
‘I can’t.’ His chest vibrated against her cheek as he chuckled, then Jaxon’s hand moved up to cradle the back of her head as it rested against his shoulder. He settled more comfortably into the pillows. ‘This is nice.’
Nice? It was sheer heaven as far as Stazy was concerned! Decadent and illicit pleasure. A time out of time, when it felt as if only the two of them existed. Those ‘witching hours’ between dusk and dawn when anything—everything!—seemed possible.
‘Stop fidgeting, woman,’ Jaxon instructed gruffly when she shifted restlessly beside him.
Or not, Stazy acknowledged ruefully. ‘I was just getting comfortable.’
When a man wanted a woman as much as Jaxon wanted Stazy, her ‘getting comfortable’ could just be the last straw in the breaking of his self-control. Especially when that ‘getting comfortable’ involved her hair spilling silkily across his chest, the softness of her breasts pressing into his side, and the draping of one of her legs over the top of his.
Her hand rested lightly on his stomach as she snuggled closer to his warmth... ‘What’s that noise...?’ she murmured sleepily minutes later.
‘Probably my teeth grinding together.’
‘Why—?’
‘Will you please just go to sleep!’ Jaxon’s jaw was tightly clenched as he determinedly held his desire for her in check.
‘I thought people were usually grouchy when they woke up in the morning, not before they’ve even gone to sleep...’
Jaxon had a feeling he was going to be grouchy in the morning too—probably more so than he was now, if he had been lying beside Stazy all night with a throbbing erection! Worst of all, he had brought all this on himself, damn it. ‘I’ll try not to disappoint,’ he murmured self-derisively.
Stazy chuckled sleepily, and the evenness of her breathing a few minutes later told him that she had managed to fall asleep after all.
Leaving Jaxon awake and staring up at the ceiling in the darkness, in the full knowledge that he wasn’t going to be able to find the same release from his own self-imposed purgatory...
* * *
Arousal.
Instant.
Breathtaking.
Joyous!
‘Are you awake...?’ Jaxon prompted softly.
‘Mmm...’ Stazy kept her eyes closed as she relished the sensation of Jaxon’s large and capable hands moving lightly, slowly over her and down her body, as if he intended to commit every curve and contour to memory.
Her back. The soft curve of her bottom. Skimming across her hips. The gentle slope of her waist. Her ribcage and up over her breasts. Until he cupped the side of her face, his fingertips moving lightly across the plumpness of her parted lips before running lightly down the length of her throat to dip into the hollows at its base. Those same fingers ran a light caress over her clavicle, before pushing the thin strap from her shoulder and down her arm, tugging gently on the material of her top until one plump, aroused breast popped free of its confinement.
Stazy gave a breathless gasp as she arched into that large and cupping hand, its thumb and index finger lightly rolling the engorged bud at its tip before tugging gently. Pleasure coursed through her hotly as Jaxon alternated those rhythmic caresses for several agonisingly pleasurable minutes before the hot and moist sweep of his tongue laved that throbbing nipple.
‘Jaxon...!’ Her eyes were wide open now, and she looked down at him in the early-morning sunlight, the darkness of his hair a tousled caress against her flesh, those grey eyes smoky with arousal as he glanced up at her. ‘Please don’t stop this time...!’ she encouraged achingly.
One of her hands moved up to cradle the back of his head and her fingers became entangled in the overlong darkness of his hair as she held him to her.
Pleasure lit his eyes before he turned his attention back to her breast, alternately licking, biting and gently suckling, before moving across to bestow that same pleasure upon its twin.
His skin was so much darker than hers as he nudged her legs apart and moved to settle between her parted thighs, all hard muscle and sinew where her hands moved caressingly down the length of his spine. Stazy was totally aware of the long length of his arousal pressing into her as her hands dipped beneath his black underpants to cup the muscled contours of his bottom.
Jaxon’s hands tightly gripped Stazy’s hips as he raised his head to draw in a hissing breath. Those slender hands squeezed and caressed him, turning his body slightly, and he encouraged those hands to move to the front of his body, ceasing to breathe at all as long and slender fingers curved around his shaft and the soft pad of her thumb ran lightly over the moisture escaping its tip.
He had fallen asleep fitfully, only to wake mere hours later. Stazy had continued to sleep. His body had been hard and aching, and finally he hadn’t been able to resist waking her. He had needed to touch her—just a light caress or two, he had promised himself. And so he had caressed her hips. Her stomach. Her throat.
That was when he had lost it, Jaxon acknowledged achingly. The arching of Stazy’s body into that caress had been more than his control could withstand, and the pulse of his shaft grew harder as he’d suckled her greedily into his mouth.
And now, at the first touch of her fingers on him, Jaxon felt as if he was about to explode—
‘Lie back, Jaxon, and let me take these off for you,’ Stazy encouraged huskily, and she pushed him back against the pillows before moving up onto her knees beside him, pulling off the tangle of her top to ease her movements before sitting forward to slowly pull his black underpants down over his hips and thighs. His eyes were riveted on her naked breasts as they bobbed forward enticingly, and he groaned low in his throat as his throbbing shaft was at last allowed to jut free as she discarded his underpants completely before looking down at him with greedy eyes.
Jaxon groaned again as he saw her tongue appear between those pouting lips before moving over them moistly. If Stazy so much as touched him with those wet and pouting lips then he was going to—
‘Oh, dear God...!’ Jaxon’s hips lifted up off the bed as Stazy lowered her head, one of her hands once again firmly grasping his shaft and the other cupping him beneath, and her lips parted widely as she took him completely into the heat of her mouth, licking, sucking, savouring...
He could smell Stazy’s arousal now—a hot and musky scent that drove his own pleasure higher than ever as her tongue laved him, fingers lightly pumping, before she took him fully into her mouth and sucked him deep into the back of her throat.
It was too much—Stazy was too much!
‘You have to stop. Now!’ Jaxon gripped her shoulders as he pulled her up and away from him, allowing the full heaviness of his shaft to fall damply against the hardness of his stomach. ‘It’s my turn,’ he assured her huskily as he saw the questioning disappointment in her eyes, and he laid her gently back against the pillows and moved to roll the last piece of clothing from her body, sitting back on his haunches to look down at the pearly perfection of her naked body: pale ivory skin, the fullness of her breasts tipped with those ruby-red nipples, a red-gold thatch of curls between her thighs.
His nudge was gentle as he parted her legs to kneel between her thighs and reveal her hidden beauty to him. He enjoyed Stazy’s groan of pleasure as he ran the tips of his fingers over and around her sensitive bud before lowering his head to move his tongue against her, again and again, until she arched into him as he gently suckled her into his mouth.
Stazy gave a low and torturous moan as Jaxon’s finger caressed and probed her moist and swollen opening before sliding gently inside her, quickly joined by a second. Those muscled walls clasped around him and he began to thrust into her with the same rhythm as his suckling mouth. Stazy arched into those thrusts, needing, wanting—
Pleasure coursed hotly, fiercely through her as she began to orgasm. There was a loud roaring sound in her ears and a kaleidoscope of coloured lights burst behind her eyelids as ecstatic release ripped through her for long, relentless minutes. Jaxon gave no quarter as he coaxed the last shuddering spasm of pleasure from her boneless and replete body before finally releasing her, to lay his head against her thigh.
That was when Stazy became aware she still had that loud roaring noise in her ears. Her eyes opened wide as she looked down at Jaxon dazedly. ‘What...?’
He raised his head lazily, eyes dark, lips moist and full. ‘I’d really like to take credit for being the cause of that phenomena, but I’m afraid I can’t,’ he murmured ruefully.
Stazy looked about the bedroom dazedly, completely disorientated—both by the satiated weakness she felt following the fierceness of her first ever orgasm, and by that loud, inexplicable roaring in her ears.
Her gaze returned to Jaxon when she could find no possible reason for that noise in the neatness of her bedroom. ‘What is it?’ she breathed huskily.
Jaxon had a feeling he knew exactly what it was. Who it was. Just as he knew it was a presence guaranteed to wipe away that look of satiation from the relaxed beauty of Stazy’s face!
He gave Stazy’s naked and satisfied body one last regretful glance before levering up onto his elbows and knees and crawling off the end of the bed to stroll over to the window. He twitched aside one of the curtains to look down on to the manicured lawn below.
‘Yep, I was afraid of that.’ He grimaced, letting the curtain fall back into place as he turned back to where Stazy now sat on the side of the bed, looking across at him with wide, still slightly dazed eyes.
‘Afraid of what?’ She gave a puzzled shake of her head.
Jaxon drew in a heavy breath before answering her. ‘It’s your grandfather. He’s just arrived by helicopter,’ he added, as Stazy still looked completely dazed.
Her eyes widened in alarm. ‘He— I— You— We—’ She threw back the bedclothes to stand up abruptly, completely unconcerned by her nakedness—and Jaxon’s, regrettably!—as she hurried across the room to pull one of the curtains aside for herself. ‘Oh, dear Lord...!’ she groaned, obviously in a complete panic as she quickly dropped the curtain back over the window and turned to grasp Jaxon’s arm. ‘We have to get dressed! No—first you need to go back to your own bedroom!’ She released his arm to commence frantically gathering his discarded clothes up off the carpet, before screwing them up into a bundle and shoving them at his chest. ‘You need to take these with you—’
‘Will you just calm down, Stazy?’ Jaxon took the clothes from her and placed them on the bedside chair, before reaching out to grasp both her arms and shake her gently. ‘You’re twenty-nine years old, for goodness’ sake—’
‘And that’s my grandfather out there!’ Her eyes had taken on a hunted look.
‘We haven’t done anything wrong,’ he said soothingly.
‘If this were my apartment, or a hotel, then I would be inclined to agree with you—but this is Gramps’ home!’ She was breathing hard in her agitation, her face white against the deep green of her eyes as she hurried through to the adjoining bathroom to return with her robe seconds later.
‘Stazy, I very much doubt that the first thing Geoffrey is going to do when he enters the house is come up to your bedroom to see if by some chance we might have spent the night together in his absence—’
‘Please don’t argue any more—just go, Jaxon!’ She looked up at him pleadingly after tying the belt to her robe.
‘I have every intention of going back to my own bedroom, Stazy,’ he assured gruffly. ‘But I think I should dress first, don’t you? Rather than risk bumping into your grandfather or one of the household staff in the hallway when I’m completely naked...?’
He had a point, Stazy accepted with a pained wince. She hadn’t expected— It hadn’t even occurred to her— She hadn’t been thinking clearly at all last night when she had agreed to Jaxon’s coming to her bedroom and spending the night with her!
And her explanation—her excuse for what had happened with Jaxon this morning...?
She didn’t have one. At least not one that she wanted to think about right now. She couldn’t think at all now—not with her grandfather about to enter Bromley House!
‘Nor,’ Jaxon continued grimly, ‘do I find it in the least acceptable to sneak out of your bedroom like a naughty schoolboy caught in the act!’
Stazy winced at the obvious displeasure in his tone. ‘I wasn’t implying that—’
‘No?’ He turned away to sort impatiently through the pile of clothes on the bedroom chair, giving Stazy a breathtaking view of the bare length of his back and the tautness of his buttocks as he pulled on those fitted black underpants. ‘It seems to me that’s exactly what you’re implying.’ His expression was bleak as he unhurriedly pulled on the rest of his clothes before sitting down on the side of the bed to lace his shoes.
‘Look, we can talk about this later, Jaxon—?’
‘What is there to talk about?’ He stood up, towering over Stazy as she stood barefoot in front of him. ‘In my profession I’ve learnt that actions invariably speak louder than words, Stazy,’ he bit out harshly. ‘And your actions, your haste to get rid of me, tell me that you regret what just happened—’
‘And you’re behaving like that ridiculous schoolboy—’ She broke off as she saw the thunderous darkness of Jaxon’s frown. His eyes were a pale and glittering grey as he looked down the length of his nose at her, a nerve pulsed in his tightly clenched jaw.
‘Just forget it, Stazy,’ he bit out bleakly.
Forget it? Forget that amazing, wonderful lovemaking? Forget that she had wanted Jaxon enough, trusted him enough, to share her first ever orgasm with him...?
That alone was enough to tell Stazy how inconsequential her two sexual experiences had been. Just how much of herself she had held back from those other men...
Just now, with Jaxon, she had been completely open. The barriers that she had kept erected about her emotions for so many years had come crashing down around her ears as she gave herself up completely to the pleasure of Jaxon’s lips and hands on her body.
Meaning what, exactly?
She couldn’t actually have come to care for Jaxon over these past few days alone with him, could she?
And by care, did she mean—?
No!
She wasn’t going there!
Not now.
Not ever!
Jaxon was an accomplished and experienced lover—a man used to making a conquest of any woman he went to bed with. Those were the reasons—the only reasons!—for her own loss of control just now.
Her chin rose proudly. ‘Fine, then I guess we won’t talk later,’ she said dismissively.
Jaxon looked down at Stazy from between narrowed lids, wishing he knew what thoughts had been going through her head during those few minutes of silence, but as usual her closed expression revealed none of her inner emotions to him.
He probably shouldn’t have been so annoyed with her just now. No—he definitely shouldn’t have been annoyed with her just now! His only excuse was that it had been irritating, galling, to be made to feel like a guilty indiscretion as far as Stazy was concerned—especially when he could still feel the silkiness of her skin against his hands and taste her on his lips and tongue. When he was aware that he was starting to care for her in a way he had never imagined when they had met six weeks ago...
‘I really think you should go now, Jaxon.’ Stazy backed away from the hand he had raised with the intention of reaching out and caressing her cheek.
Jaxon’s hand dropped back to his side and he looked down at her searchingly for several long seconds before nodding abruptly. ‘But we will talk about this again before I leave here,’ he promised softly, his gaze intent, before he turned on his heel and crossed to the door, letting himself quietly out of the room.
Stazy felt awash with regret as she watched Jaxon close the bedroom door behind him as he left, having to bite down painfully on her bottom lip to stop herself from calling out to prevent him from going.
What would be the point of stopping him? Their lovemaking, her pleasure, might have been life-altering for her, but as far as Jaxon was concerned she had merely been another sexual interlude in his life...