The Talk of Hollywood by Carole Mortimer

curved invitingly over small and even white teeth.
    An invitation, if Jaxon should decide to risk taking it up, that would no doubt result in those teeth turning around and biting him.
    Now,
there
was a thought guaranteed to ensure he didn’t sleep again tonight!
    Stazy’s smile slowly faded as she saw the flare ofawareness in the sudden intensity of Jaxon’s gaze fixed on her parted lips. ‘I think I’ll go upstairs for a shower before dinner,’ she said briskly.
    ‘I’d offer to come and wash your back for you if I didn’t already know what your answer would be,’ he finished mockingly.
    Stazy looked up into that lazily handsome face—warm and caressing grey eyes, those sculptured lips curved into an inviting smile, that sexy stubble on the squareness of his chin—and briefly wished that her answer didn’t have to be no. That she really was the sophisticated woman she tried so hard to be—the woman capable of just enjoying the moment by separating the physical from the emotional.
    The same woman she had succeeded in being during those other two brief sexual encounters in her past.
    But not with Jaxon, it seemed.
    Because her reaction to him was frighteningly different.
    He quirked one expectant dark brow. ‘You seem to be taking a while to think it over …?’
    ‘Not at all.’ Stazy shook herself out of that confusion of thoughts. ‘I’m just amazed—if not surprised!—at your persistence in continuing to flirt with me.’
    He gave an unconcerned shrug. ‘It would appear I have something of a reputation to live up to.’
    Stazy gave a pained wince. ‘I have apologised for that remark.’
    ‘And I’ve accepted that apology.’ He nodded.
    ‘But not forgotten it …?’
    No, Jaxon hadn’t forgotten it. Or stopped questioning as to the reason why Stazy felt the need to resort to insulting him at all.
    Did he make her feel threatened in some way? And,if so, why? Once again he acknowledged that Stazy Bromley had to be one of the most complex and intriguing women he had ever met. On the outside beautiful, capable and self-contained. But beneath that cool exterior there was a woman of deep vulnerability who used that outer coldness to avoid any situation in which her emotions might become involved. Including physical intimacy.
Especially
physical intimacy!
    Not that Jaxon thought for one moment that Stazy was still a virgin. But she would have chosen her lovers carefully. Coolly. Men who were and wished to remain as unemotionally involved as she was.
    Had she found enjoyment in those encounters? Had she managed to maintain those barriers about her emotions even during the deepest of physical intimacy?
    The cool detachment of her gaze as she looked at him now seemed to indicate those relationships hadn’t even touched those barriers, let alone succeeded in breaching them.
    As Jaxon so longed to do.
    Last night he had briefly seen a different Stazy—a Stazy who had become a living flame in his arms as she met and matched his passion, her fingers entangled in his hair as she wrapped her legs about his waist to meet each slow and pleasurable thrust of his erection against the moist arousal nestled between her thighs.
    Jaxon’s hands clenched at his sides as he fought against taking her in his arms and kissing her until she once again became that beautiful and intoxicating woman.
    ‘I think I’ll go outside for a stroll before dinner.’ Andhope that the fresh air would dampen down his renewed arousal!
    If not, there was always the coldness of the English Channel he could throw himself into to cool off …!

CHAPTER SEVEN
    ‘I’ VE invited an old friend of my grandfather’s to join us for dinner this evening,’ Stazy informed Jaxon when he came into the drawing room an hour later.
    ‘Really?’ He strolled further into the room. He was wearing a black silk shirt unbuttoned at the throat this evening, with black tailored trousers. His hair was once again damp from the shower, the square strength of