Free Jordan St Claire: Dark and Dangerous by Carole Mortimer

her lips nervously. Heglanced even lower and saw the unmistakable signs of her nipples pressing against the soft wool of her sweater. ‘Don’t you?’ he murmured knowingly.
    There was a look of panic in her eyes now. ‘No, I—’
    ‘Yes, Stephanie,’ Jordan insisted gently as he ran the pad of his thumb lightly across the soft pout of her lips and felt the way they quivered beneath his caress. ‘Your response to my touch clearly says yes.’
    She swallowed hard. ‘You’re still trying to force me into leaving.’
    ‘Is it working?’ Jordan taunted. He knew damn well that it was; he wasn’t so out of practice that he didn’t know when a woman was responding to him! ‘I won’t stop at kissing next time, Stephanie,’ he warned her. ‘Next time I’ll kiss and touch you until you’re so aching and wet for me that you’ll be begging me to make love to you!’
    He spoke so forcefully, so graphically, that Stephanie had no trouble whatsoever in imagining them naked in bed together, skin moving on skin, their breathing ragged and their bodies entangled as they caressed and kissed each other to completion.
    Just thinking of the possibility of it made Stephanie aroused all over again.
    She had made her decision to stay on here when she was upstairs, well away from Jordan’s physically disturbing presence. Calmly. Coolly. But they weren’t emotions Stephanie could maintain when she was actually in his presence.
    She raised her chin stubbornly to meet the mockery of his gaze head-on. ‘Just because the tabloids often scream out headlines about the “eligible and sexy Jordan Simpson” as he escorts his latest airhead somewhere,it doesn’t mean that every woman you meet is going to fall down adoringly at your feet. Or any other part of your anatomy, for that matter,’ she added scathingly.
    He gave a hard smile. ‘No?’
    ‘No!’ Stephanie snapped as she heard the deliberate challenge in his tone.
    ‘Flattered as I am that you’ve bothered to read those tabloids—’
    ‘I didn’t say I had read them, only that I’d seen the headlines,’ she defended hotly.
    He gave her a knowing look. ‘If you say so.’
    ‘I do!’
    Jordan shrugged. ‘I’m not answerable for what the tabloids choose to print about me, Stephanie. Or to the women I’ve dated in the past.’
    ‘Don’t you mean currently?’ Stephanie accused. ‘That
was
Crista Moore who telephoned you this morning, wasn’t it?’
    The name Crista really was too unusual for Jordan’s earlier caller to have been anyone else. Which meant he was probably still involved with the beautiful actress.
    Which made letting him kiss her even more stupid on Stephanie’s part!
    ‘What if it was?’ he said.
    Her eyes narrowed. ‘Maybe you should just stick to one airhead at a time!’
    ‘I wouldn’t put you in the airhead category, Stephanie,’ he teased.
    ‘We aren’t dating!’
    ‘We aren’t anything yet,’ Jordan accepted dryly. ‘But if you insist on staying on here we’re most definitely going to be something.’
    Stephanie’s cheeks blushed hotly. ‘You can’t possibly know that.’
    ‘Would you like me to show you?’
    ‘You arrogant, overbearing, self—’
    ‘Sticks and stones, Stephanie …’
    ‘No, it’s the truth,’ she maintained forcefully. ‘You may have—may have caught me slightly off-guard this morning when you kissed me, but it won’t happen again.’
    ‘No?’ He moved closer to her.
    Stephanie stood her ground. ‘No!’
    His eyes gleamed with amusement. ‘You seem slightly—flustered.’
    ‘I’m getting rather annoyed, actually,’ she flared back at him.
    Jordan narrowed shrewd eyes. ‘Just not annoyed enough to leave?’
    ‘No!’
    ‘Fine.’ His mouth firmed as he finally stepped away from her, making her sigh inwardly in relief. ‘Have it your own way. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.’
    It sounded more like a threat to Stephanie than a warning.
    A threat of intent.

CHAPTER SIX
    ‘I’ M