Hired For His Pleasure: The Talk of Hollywood / Keeping Her Up All Night / Buttoned-Up Secretary, British Boss

‘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 up-thrusting 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.