She pulled her mouth away from his even as her hand pushed against the hard chest pressed so firmly against her breasts. ‘No, Jordan!’
‘Oh, yes, Stephanie,’ he murmured throatily, and he continued to hold her against him, with his hands pressed against her bottom, his lips now moving down the length of her neck and throat.
She had known sleeping with Jordan was a bad idea from the start. It was the reason she had fought so strongly against it. Because she had no defences against this man. The feelings she’d realised she had for him had stripped away all those defences and left only raw, unadulterated passion in their place.
‘God, you taste good!’ Jordan groaned as his lips returned to claim hers.
He tasted better than good. He was earth, and spice, and irresistible heat.
He parted the lips beneath his as he felt Stephanie curve her body into his, her hands moving up his chest and her fingers becoming entangled in his hair.
They kissed heatedly, hungrily. Lips, teeth and tongues exploring, biting, possessing, as their hunger for each other spiralled wildly, became mindless, out of all control.
It wasn’t enough. Jordan wanted more.
‘I need to see you—to touch you!’
Jordan quickly removed her jeans and panties before taking off her T-shirt to bare those perfect breasts, drinking his fill of her slender nakedness. Then he slowly lowered his head to claim one of those turgid nipples into the heat of his mouth, to stroking it with his tongue as his hand caressed a path down to those silky curls between her thighs.
Stephanie was beyond thought, beyond anything but the perfection of Jordan’s lovemaking. Her back arched to press her breast into the heat of his mouth even as her thighs moved rhythmically against the caress of his fingers.
It wasn’t enough. Stephanie wanted more.
She pulled away to sit up and roll Jordan’s T-shirt up, before pulling it completely over his head to bare his torso to the exploration of her avid lips and tongue.
Kissing his heated flesh, licking him, she moved down the length of his chest to his navel, pausing there to dip her tongue into that shallow well, the heat between her own thighs intensifying as she heard Jordan’s groan of pleasure.
She knelt beside him, able to see the length of his arousal pressing urgently against his boxers, and her fingers reached up for the waistband to roll them down his thighs and legs and remove them completely. Releasing the hard jut of his arousal to her heated gaze.
He was beautiful, so long and thick, and Stephanie moved to kneel between Jordan’s parted legs and curled her fingers about that pulsing velvet-soft flesh, her other hand cupping him beneath.
‘Dear God!’ Jordan’s back arched at the first lick of her hot little tongue against his engorged flesh, and he tightened the fingers of both hands in the bedcover beneath him as she slowly ran the tip of her tongue along the firm length of him, from base to tip, lingering to swirl around the sensitive head even as her hands continued to caress the length of him.
Over and over again she caressed and licked and swirled, building the tension inside Jordan to an unbearable degree. But not so unbearable that he wanted her to stop!
‘Stephanie …’ He gave an aching groan as she finally claimed him in her hot mouth, driving Jordan to the point of insanity. Much more of this and he knew he was going to lose control completely!
Stephanie looked slightly dazed as Jordan sat up to place his hands on her shoulders before gently pushing her away from him.
‘Don’t look at me like that,’ he murmured, as he manoeuvred her over him, so that her knees were placed either side of his thighs. He lay back on the bed, his arousal against the moist, hot core of her. ‘I want to be inside you, Stephanie,’ he pleaded throatily. ‘Deep inside you.’ His gaze held hers as he entered her, inch by slow, pleasurable inch.
Stephanie gasped as she felt herself stretching, accommodating his size. Her flesh was pulsing as she reached down to balance herself above him with her hands on his shoulders, as she lowered down onto the width and length of him until she sheathed him completely from tip to hilt.
‘That is so good.’ Jordan’s eyes glowed golden in the darkness as he reached out to place his hands on her hips. ‘But I’m afraid you’re going to have to do all the hard work now, Stephanie.’
Her cheeks were flushed, her breathing ragged as she began to move, slowly at first, and then harder and faster. Jordan’s hands cupped her breasts to capture the nipples between thumb and finger. He rolled and squeezed them, increasing those pulses of pleasure deep between her thighs to an almost unbearable degree.
She moved harder and faster still, and she felt Jordan become even harder inside her as he approached his own release. She gasped breathlessly as he moved one of his hands and his fingers found and stroked that swollen nubbin nestled in her curls, tipping her over the edge of release. At the same moment she heard him cry out, continuing to ride him as long as his hot, pulsing pleasure consumed them both.
Finally Stephanie collapsed weakly against Jordan’s chest, her pulse still racing, her breathing ragged. Jordan’s arms came about her and she felt him gently smoothing the fiery strands of her unconfined hair down her back. ‘Thank you.’
Stephanie looked at him quizzically as she raised her head. ‘Shouldn’t I be the one saying that?’
He smiled. ‘Surely the pleasure was mutual?’
The pleasure. Oh, God, the pleasure! Stephanie had never known anything like it before. Those few exploratory forays she had made into the physical side of sex while at university didn’t even begin to compare to making love with Jordan. To the wonder of having him inside her still.
Except this should never have happened.
She was the physiotherapist Lucan St Claire had employed with the expectation that she would help Jordan regain the full mobility of his damaged leg; he certainly hadn’t employed her to go to bed with his brother!
And she really had been to bed with him now. Had slept with him. Made love with him.
‘Stop that!’ Jordan instructed harshly as he saw and guessed the reason for Stephanie’s suddenly pained expression.
‘I can’t,’ she groaned.
‘Stephanie—’
‘I need to go to the bathroom.’ Her gaze avoided his as she moved carefully upwards to release him before shifting to the side of the bed to stand up and collect her clothes from the floor. She held them in front of her protectively. ‘I think it would be—be better for both of us if you’ve gone back to your own bedroom by the time I return.’
She could have no idea how absolutely beautiful she looked, standing there with nothing but a few scraps of clothing held in front of her to hide her nakedness. Her hair was a red-gold tangle about the slenderness of her shoulders, her eyes sultry from her release, and her lips were still swollen from the heat of the kisses they had shared.
Even so, Jordan knew from her behaviour that she regretted what had just happened between the two of them. Because of this Richard guy?
He sat up on the side of the bed, feeling only a twinge of discomfort in his leg as he did so. ‘We need to talk about this, Stephanie—’
‘There is no “this”!’ Her eyes flashed deeply green. ‘It shouldn’t have happened, Jordan.’ She held her clothes even more tightly against her.
He grimaced. ‘I believe your next line is, This was a mistake.’
‘It was a mistake!’ She glared at him.
Jordan sighed. ‘Look, I realise that you’re upset—’
‘Upset?’ Stephanie echoed. ‘I’m devastated!’
‘We can talk this out—’
‘No, we can’t,’ she said. ‘I can’t stay here. I have to leave. I’m sorry I won’t be able to help you after all, but—’
‘You have helped me, Stephanie,’ he said gruffly. ‘In ways you can’t even begin to imagine.’
She became very still. ‘By going to bed with you?’
He winced. ‘As it happens, yes.’
She took a step back, even as she looked at him searchingly. The sudden glitter that appeared in those deep green eyes said she didn’t like what she saw!’ You’ve had doubts since the accident about your ability to make love to a woman,’ she realised incredulously.
Jordan scowled. ‘I wouldn’t put it quite like that—’
‘I would!’ She gritted her teeth. ‘Well, aren’t I the lucky one? I had no idea I was helping to restore the sexual confidence of the legendary lover Jordan Simpson!’
‘Damn it, it was interest that I lacked—not sexual confidence!’
Obviously he hadn’t expected to feel like making love to anyone immediately after the accident; he had been in so much pain at the time there hadn’t been room for him to feel anything else. But once he had recovered enough to be discharged from hospital, to have friends come over to his house in Malibu, Jordan had thought he might resume his relationship with Crista. After only a few minutes spent in her company, though, he had known that he no longer wanted her. In his life or in his bed.
As the days and weeks had passed, Jordan had realised that he didn’t want any of the beautiful women—models and actress friends—who’d come to his house and blatantly let him know they would be only too happy to fill the place Crista had once had in his life.
He hadn’t wanted any of them.
Until Stephanie.
Stephanie McKinley had burst into his life like a refreshing breeze. Answering him back. Challenging him. Arousing him.
She gave an impatient shake of her head now. ‘Well, I’m sure you’ll be glad to know you haven’t lost your touch in the slightest! Now, if you will excuse me—’
‘No, I won’t excuse you!’ Jordan surged to his feet and reached out to grasp her arm and turn her forcibly back to face him. ‘You’re twisting this conversation deliberately because of your relationship with someone called Richard—’
‘I do not have a relationship with someone called Richard!’
‘Not any more, no,’ Jordan accepted. ‘I thought that was the problem,’ he said. ‘But don’t you see that the fact you respond to me shows your feelings for this other guy aren’t as strong as you think they are? That you wouldn’t have been able to respond in the way you did just now if you were in love with someone else?’
She looked mutinous. ‘I refuse to talk about this any more, Jordan.’
Jordan frowned down at her, frustrated. Half of him wanted to kiss her again, and the other half wanted to tan her obstinate little bottom. Either solution was guaranteed to make Stephanie even angrier in her present mood. ‘Maybe we can talk again once you’ve had time to calm down?’ he suggested through gritted teeth.
Those green eyes flashed in warning before she wrenched out of his grasp. ‘I very much doubt that I’m going to calm down any time soon,’ she said scathingly. ‘Now, please leave!’ She marched into the adjoining bathroom and slammed the door loudly behind her.
Having given Jordan a tantalising glimpse of her bare and perfectly shaped bottom!
Not his finest hour, he recognised with a pained grimace as he heard the shower being turned on as another way of Stephanie telling him she had no intention of coming out of the bathroom until after he had left.
His movements were slow as he pulled his clothes back on before using his cane to stand up and glare at that closed bathroom door. Stephanie might not want to talk to him, but she was damn well going to listen to what he had to say. And soon!
He came to an abrupt halt when he entered the adjoining sitting room to find Gideon relaxing on the sofa, idly flicking through a magazine. ‘How long have you been in here?’ His eyes were narrowed suspiciously.
Gideon looked across at him mockingly as he put the magazine down before standing up. ‘Legendary lover?’ he drawled speculatively.
‘Oh, go to hell, Gid!’ Jordan limped across the room into his bedroom, slamming the door just as loudly behind him as Stephanie had the bathroom door a few minutes ago.
And just as finally.
It took Stephanie only ten minutes or so to shower and dress in the bathroom, deliberately keeping her gaze firmly averted from the rumpled covers on the four-poster bed when she came back into the bedroom to collect her coat and bag.
She hurried out of the bedroom as if the devil were snapping at her heels. Or those erotic memories of herself and Jordan naked on the bed as they made love together!
‘Leaving us so soon, Stephanie …?’
She turned sharply from closing the bedroom door to find Gideon St Claire leaning casually against the wall just outside the door to Jordan’s suite.
Her chin rose defensively as she saw the dark speculation in Gideon’s eyes. ‘Obviously, with your mother here, you’re all going to be kept pretty busy over the next few days, so I thought I might as well go back to my own flat.’
He gave her a straight look. ‘I totally agree. Jordan can be a complete and utter ass.’
Stephanie felt warm colour bloom in her cheeks and cursed her fair skin—not for the first time. ‘I don’t believe I mentioned Jordan …’
‘But you were thinking it,’ Gideon said knowingly as he straightened. ‘My mother would like to meet you.’
Stephanie’s chest clenched in panic at the thought of being introduced to the matriarch of the St Claire family when she had so recently made love with her youngest son. ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’
‘Why not?’
‘Well—Because—’ She straightened her shoulders and looked him in the eye. ‘I won’t be coming back here again after today, Gideon.’
Blond brows rose. ‘And that precludes you being introduced to my mother?’
‘It makes it … an unnecessary complication.’ Stephanie gave him a look, pleading with him to understand what she wasn’t saying.
Gideon gave a grim smile. ‘Can things between you and Jordan get any more complicated?’
Stephanie felt the colour draining from her cheeks as rapidly as it had entered. This man knew exactly what had happened in Stephanie’s bedroom a short time ago. ‘Obviously not.’ She could no longer meet that knowing dark gaze.
‘So you’re just going to run away? Is that it?’ Gideon asked.
Stephanie’s mouth firmed. ‘Lucan employed me as a physiotherapist for Jordan. Obviously that is no longer possible. There’s nothing more I can do here,’ she added determinedly as Gideon continued to look at her from between narrowed lids.
His mouth thinned. ‘You’ve already done more for Jordan than anyone else has been able to do since the accident.’
‘So I understand,’ she said self-consciously.
Gideon gave a rueful smile. ‘Actually, I wasn’t referring to any personal relationship the two of you might or might not have.’
‘Contrary to what you may have thought or assumed, I don’t have a personal relationship with your brother,’ Stephanie told him determinedly. ‘I really do have to go now—’ She broke off as Gideon reached out and lightly clasped her arm.
‘Before you went to Gloucestershire Jordan had shut himself off from everyone. Had become completely reclusive. Uncommunicative.’ He shook his head grimly as he slowly released her. ‘It had gone on for so long that we had all begun to think he was never going to come out of it. He changed after you went there, Stephanie.’ His expression softened. ‘I could see the difference in him immediately after I arrived at Mulberry Hall yesterday.’
‘I didn’t do anything—’
‘You didn’t need to do anything but be yourself,’ Gideon assured her. ‘Watching the two of you together, I’ve realised that it’s the very nature of your personality which provokes him. Challenges him.’
‘I’m not sure that saying I get on Jordan’s nerves enough to provoke him into doing things is altogether flattering—’
‘You’re deliberately misunderstanding me,’ Gideon said shrewdly.
‘No, Gideon, I’m not.’ She sighed, then reached out and gave his arm an apologetic squeeze, knowing that his co
ncern for his twin was genuine. ‘I’m pleased if you think I’ve annoyed Jordan enough that it’s challenged him out of his seclusion at last, but my decision to leave is based solely on my own needs—not his. I simply can’t stay on here any longer after—Well, I just can’t,’ she said emotionally.
‘Do you think Jordan is just going to let you walk out of his life?’
Her eyes widened. ‘Don’t you?’
He gave her a wicked smile—the exact twin of Jordan’s. ‘Knowing Jordan, I somehow doubt it.’
Stephanie locked suddenly weak knees. ‘I’m sure you’re wrong.’
At least she hoped Gideon was wrong.
There was absolutely no future for herself and Jordan that Stephanie could see. Even if she could persuade him into believing she wasn’t involved in a relationship with Richard Newman, he was still a world-famous actor while she was a mere physiotherapist. Jordan lived and worked in America; she lived and worked in England. This house, the private helicopter, the opulence of the Mulberry Hall estate—all of those things were an indication of the gulf there was between them, both socially and financially.
And, worst of all, Stephanie knew she had been nothing more than a diversion for Jordan. A pique to his interest. Once he was back to his full health, back in LA and working again, he would forget that Stephanie McKinley even existed!
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘WHAT are you doing here, Jordan?’
Jordan scowled as Stephanie showed all too clearly, by the way she’d deliberately kept the door to her flat half-closed, that she had no intention of inviting him inside. ‘Surely it’s obvious why I’m here?’ he bit out impatiently as he leant heavily on his cane.
He had spent the morning at the clinic with his mother, and now his hip and leg were aching from that and from the sheer effort of getting to Stephanie’s apartment building—let alone discovering there was no lift when he got here, and so having to walk up two flights of stairs to her flat on the second floor.
‘Not to me.’ She gave a shake of her head.
Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail today, and she was dressed in a figure-hugging blue T-shirt and faded low-slung jeans. But her make-up-less face was so pale that the sprinkling of freckles across her nose showed in stark relief.
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