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.
‘I don’t need a physiotherapist—’
‘Oh, yes you do—’
‘And we didn’t go anywhere near a bed,’ Jordan continued coldly.
He just wasn’t getting this, Stephanie realised impatiently. And why should he? Gideon was his brother, and if his closeness to his twin was anything like her own to Joey, then Jordan felt none of the awkwardness at his brother’s intrusion into their lovemaking that Stephanie did. But then, he wasn’t the one who had totally lost control. Who had screamed in ecstasy as he found release—
Oh, God, Jordan’s hands had been all over her body! In her body!
Stephanie sat down abruptly in one of the armchairs, putting her hands completely over the heat of her face as she felt the tears well up before falling hotly down her cheeks.
Jordan stared down in utter frustration at Stephanie’s bent head as he heard her quiet sobs, having absolutely no idea what he should do or say next. In his experience women didn’t usually cry after he had made love to them!
They didn’t usually cry after they had made love with world-famous actor Jordan Simpson, he reminded himself grimly; the crippled, useless Jordan St Claire was obviously something else entirely. Someone else entirely!
God, how he hated feeling so damned helpless. So unlike himself. It was—
‘I’ve been thinking…’
Jordan turned fiercely at the sound of his brother’s voice. ‘Get out of here, Gideon!’
‘That I’m probably an unwanted third,’ his brother finished unhurriedly, and gave a pointed look in the direction of the obviously upset Stephanie. ‘I can easily book into the pub in the village for the night and come back in the morning.’
‘No!’ Stephanie looked up to protest, hastily drying her cheeks as she stood up. ‘Of course you mustn’t leave, Mr St Claire—’
‘Gideon,’ he invited coolly. ‘Mr St Claire makes me sound too much like my older brother.’
‘Whatever,’ she dismissed uncomfortably. ‘You have as much right to stay here as Jordan does. I’m the one who should leave.’
