Tall, Dark & Scandalous: Jordan St Claire: Dark and Dangerous

Jordan’s arms tightened about her as she struggled to stand up. ‘Stay, Stephanie. Please.’

She looked up at him shyly. ‘But—’

‘If I had known you wanted to be alone, Jord, then I would have just telephoned you instead of flying up here to speak to you in person!’ a mocking voice drawled behind them.

Jordan didn’t need to turn and look across the room in order to know that the voice belonged to his twin brother Gideon…

CHAPTER SEVEN

‘OH, GOD!’ Stephanie gave a devastated groan and buried her heated cheeks against Jordan’s chest after shooting a single glance across the room and seeing the devastatingly handsome blond-haired, dark-eyed man who stood in the open doorway, looking back at her with a cynical expression on his face.

‘Not quite,’ the man said derisively.

‘Not even close, Gideon,’ Jordan retorted.

‘I guess you were a little too…preoccupied to hear the helicopter landing fifteen minutes ago?’ Gideon said pointedly.

‘I guess we were,’ Jordan said acerbically. ‘Does that mean that Lucan is here, too?’ The scowl could be heard in his tone.

‘I flew myself up.’

‘Why?’

There was a short, telling pause. ‘I would rather we talked in private, Jordan.’

‘Not yet,’ Jordan said grimly, his arms tightening about Stephanie as she trembled against him. ‘How about giving the two of us a few minutes’ privacy, Gideon?’

‘By all means,’ the other man murmured. ‘Would you like me to continue waiting in the kitchen or—?’

‘Will you just go, Gid?’ Jordan grated harshly, and Stephanie gave another groan as she burrowed even deeper against his chest.

Stephanie wanted to die of embarrassment! She had never felt quite so much like crawling away and digging a hole before burying herself in it! She had done some stupid things in her life, but surely never anything quite so stupid as this?

Not only had she become totally lost in Jordan’s kisses and caresses, but there had been a witness to that loss of control. Not just any witness, either, but obviously Jordan’s twin brother!

‘It’s okay, Stephanie, he’s gone; you can come out now,’ Jordan cajoled.

Gideon St Claire might indeed have left the room, but Jordan certainly hadn’t. And Stephanie was no more eager to look him in the face again after what had just happened than she was his brother.

What on earth had possessed her to behave in that totally uninhibited way?

With Jordan Simpson, of all men!

She had no choice now—no more arguments to make to the contrary. She had to leave. Immediately. She couldn’t stay on here another minute, another second—

‘Stephanie, calm down!’ Jordan ordered as she sat up and began to struggle for release from his restraining arms. ‘We’re both consenting adults and—Damn it, Stephanie, we haven’t done anything wrong.’

Stephanie stopped struggling long enough to glare up at him. ‘You may not have done, but I certainly have!’ She gave a self-disgusted shake of her head, eyes huge in the pallor of her face. ‘I have to leave right now, Jordan.’

‘Why do you?’ His arms tightened about her. ‘Gideon never stays long.’

‘As far as I’m concerned he’s been here far too long already!’ Her eyes flashed with the glitter of the emeralds they resembled as she glared up at him. ‘Let go of me,’ she pleaded, as she attempted to stand up and found the tightening of Jordan’s arms once again prevented her from doing so.

His jaw was clenched. ‘Not until you calm down.’

Stephanie was calm. Or as calm as she was ever going to be when she had just made a complete idiot of herself. Not just with Jordan, but in front of his brother too…

Stephanie inwardly cringed as she thought of how intimately Jordan had touched her. How completely unravelled she had become under the influence of those caresses. How her body, her breasts, were still so highly sensitised she could feel the brush of her clothing against her skin. How the heat of her thighs still quaked and trembled in the aftermath of that earth-shattering climax!

Jordan shrugged. ‘I accept it was a little inconvenient, having Gideon walk in on us like that, but—’

‘A little inconvenient?’ Stephanie gave a humourless laugh as she finally managed to wrench herself out of Jordan’s arms and surged forcefully to her feet, straightening and fastening her clothing before turning back to glower down at him. ‘How long do you think your brother was standing there? Do you think that he saw—that he heard—?’ She broke off with a groan as she thought of the way she had cried out loud as those powerful waves of release had surged through her.

Jordan shook his head. ‘Even if Gideon did see or hear anything, I assure you he’s too much of a gentleman ever to mention it.’

‘You’re just making the situation worse, Jordan!’ Stephanie said in protest, and raised her hands to the heat of her cheeks.

Jordan could see that as far as Stephanie was concerned that was exactly what he was doing. But, while he accepted that it was a little awkward to have had Gideon walk in on them in that way, he didn’t consider it quite as cataclysmic as Stephanie seemed to. ‘Look, just put it to the back of your mind—’

‘That’s easy for you to say when you weren’t the one caught in a compromising position!’

Jordan watched as Stephanie began to agitatedly pace the room, obviously unaware that her hair had come loose during their lovemaking and now fell in a fiery cascade about her shoulders, the firelight picking out the gold and cinnamon highlights amongst the fiery red.

She looked beautiful. Wild and wanton. Like a woman who had just been thoroughly made love to. Only not quite as thoroughly as he’d have liked!

‘Oh, I’m pretty sure that I was there too,’ he pointed out, the tightening throbbing of his arousal a sharp reminder that he hadn’t attained that same release.

Her eyes narrowed to icy-green slits. ‘I should warn you, Jordan, I’m not in the mood right now to appreciate your warped sense of humour.’

‘Then stop making such a big deal out of this,’ he snapped, his expression grim as he reached for his cane and rose awkwardly to his feet. It eased the confines of his painfully engorged arousal, if nothing else!

‘It is a big deal, damn it!’ Stephanie said emotionally. ‘Not only do I not normally behave in that—that abandoned way, but I certainly don’t do it in front of an audience.’

‘I told you—Gideon won’t refer to it again if you don’t.’

‘As if I ever want to think about it again, let alone talk about it!’ Stephanie exclaimed.

Jordan’s mouth tightened and he suddenly became very still. ‘Why is that, exactly?’ His voice was silky soft. Deadly.

‘Why?’ she repeated incredulously.

‘Yes—why?’

‘Surely it’s obvious?’

A nerve pulsed in Jordan’s tightly clenched jaw. ‘You wanted it. I wanted it. And as I said we’re both well over the age of consent—so what’s your problem?’ he snarled.

‘My problem is that Lucan hired me to be your physiotherapist, not to go to bed with you,’ she told him heatedly.