The Talk of Hollywood by Carole Mortimer Read Free Book Online Page B

tight-fitting white short-sleeved tee shirt that revealed the tanned strength of his arms and black denims that rested low down on the leanness of his waist.
    He looked, in fact, every inch Jaxon Wilder—sex symbol of both the big and little screen. A stark reminder—if Stazy had needed one—of just how little itactually mattered to this man whether or not she liked or approved of him and what he was doing.
    Her chin rose determinedly. ‘I’m sorry to disappoint you, Jaxon, but I have absolutely no interest in … in providing you with a—a romantic diversion to help while away your leisure time during your week-long stay here,’ she assured him derisively.
    ‘What on earth makes you think I would be in the least interested in having you as “a romantic diversion”—now or at any other time …?’ His expression was amused as he leant back against the desk and looked down at her with mocking grey eyes, his arms folded across the powerful width of his chest, revealing the bulge of muscle at the tops of his tanned arms.
    Stazy’s cheeks heated with embarrassed colour at this deliberate set-down. What on earth had she been thinking? Of
course
Jaxon’s challenge hadn’t been hinting he was in the least interested in her in a personal way!
    ‘But just to set my mind at ease, if things
should
go that way between us I’d be interested to know whether or not you’re involved with someone at the moment …?’
    When had Jaxon moved so that he now stood only inches away from her? Stazy wondered warily. He was pinning her as he looked down at her with piercing grey eyes.
    She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. ‘I don’t see what that has to do with anything …’
    ‘Humour me, hmm?’ he encouraged gruffly.
    The more immediate problem for Stazy—the whole root of the problem between the two of them—was that from their first meeting she had realised his magnetism was such that she wanted to do so much more than humour this man!
    It was totally illogical. Ridiculous. Not only that, but it went totally against everything she had said and thought about this man!
    And yet at this moment she literally
ached
to curve her body into his as she ran her hands lightly up the warmth of that muscled chest, over the broad expanse of his shoulders, before allowing her fingers to become entangled in the heavy thickness of that overlong dark hair to pull his head down and have those sensually chiselled lips claim hers.
    This wasn’t just ridiculous—it was dangerous!
    And so completely out of character that Stazy barely recognised herself. Damn it, she didn’t even
want
to recognise herself as this woman who couldn’t seem to stop fantasising about the two of them in one clinch or another!
    She had taken precisely two lovers in her twenty-nine years. The first had been one of her university lecturers, twenty years her senior, on a single night ten years ago. The second one had been a man on a summer dig in Tunisia four years ago—a man who had a wife and children back home in England. Admittedly that was something Stazy had only learnt
after
spending the night with him, when his wife had telephoned to inform him that one of his three children was in hospital and he was needed back home immediately!
    Neither of those experiences had resulted in Stazy feeling any warmth or pleasure in the act, let alone having an orgasm. They certainly hadn’t prepared her for the seductively lethal charm and good looks of Jaxon Wilder!
    She stepped back abruptly. ‘As it happens I’m not involved with anyone at the moment. Nor do I wish to be,’ she added with cold dismissal.
    It was a coldness so at odds with the quickened rise and fall of her breasts, the deepening in colour of those sultry green eyes and the soft swelling of poutingly moist lips, that Jaxon wanted nothing more than to take Stazy in his arms and prove her wrong!
    That need hovered in the air between them for several long, tense seconds.
    Stazy’s chin rose