Taming the Last St Claire

by Carole Mortimer

  Which was pretty stupid when she could have gone to bed with him herself on Wednesday night. Something that still sent quivers of awareness down the length of her spine.

  ‘Why the interest?’ Gideon asked directly.

  Joey shrugged. ‘It just seems…out of character for you, and that intrigues me.’

  ‘Really?’ Gideon drawled.

  ‘Okay—fine.’ Joey held up her hands in surrender. ‘If you want me to continue to think you spend Thursday afternoons in bed with your married mistress—’

  ‘If I want you to carry on thinking what?’ Gideon spluttered incredulously.

  Joey’s cheeks warmed as she saw the disbelief in his expression. Proof, if she had needed it, that she was way off the mark with the mistress remark. ‘It was just a thought.’

  ‘I’m not sure whether I should feel insulted or flattered,’ Gideon grated. ‘Maybe, as a precaution against allowing your imagination to run even wilder than it already has, I should tell you I deal with…other legal matters on Thursday afternoons.’

  Joey blinked. That certainly hadn’t been in her list of possibilities when she’d been considering Gideon’s Thursday afternoon activities!

  ‘I didn’t know you still had a private practice.’

  Gideon looked as if he wished he had never started this conversation, his jaw tense. ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Then I don’t understand.’

  He sighed heavily. ‘Do you really need to understand?’

  ‘I think so, yes.’

  Gideon continued to look at her for several long seconds before giving in. ‘Purely in the interest of keeping you quiet, I’ll tell you. I’ve helped to run a free legal advice clinic here in the city for the last couple of years.’ He shrugged casually. ‘See—no big secret. And no mistress—married or otherwise!’

  ‘Oh.’ It was so not what Joey had been expecting that she couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  ‘Yes—oh,’ Gideon echoed dryly. ‘Now, could we stop wasting time and just look at the appropriate disk?’

  In other words, end of subject. Joey understood that as she moved around the desk to stand beside him. But it didn’t stop her thinking. From realising that she had once again misjudged him.

  She was so close to him now that she could take in tantalising breaths of clean male overlaid with an elusive tangy aftershave. Close enough to become uncomfortably aware of the heat of his body. Of how one of them only had to move slightly in order for them to be touching.

  Stop it, Joey, she instructed herself firmly, even as she moved as far away from Gideon as it was possible for her to be and still be able to see the screen of his laptop. What was wrong with her? She and Gideon had absolutely nothing in common. Well…that wasn’t quite true, was it? They were both twins. Both valued their family. Liked their independence. Were both focused on their work—to the extent that Gideon actually helped run a free legal clinic, which she deeply admired.

  Just those four things alone were more than some couples who had been married for years had in common!

  ‘Joey, are you paying attention?’

  She gave a guilty start as she realised that Gideon had been playing the disk while her thoughts wandered.

  ‘Of course I’m paying attention,’ Joey said mendaciously. ‘I’ll tell you when we get to the relevant part—there!’ she shouted excitedly as the image came onto the screen. Her hands moved instinctively to grip Gideon’s shoulder. And as quickly she removed them again once she realised what she had done. ‘Sorry,’ she muttered awkwardly.

  Gideon glanced up at her curiously, surprised to see the slight flush to her cheeks, and the way her downcast gaze avoided meeting his own. Almost as if.

  ‘Joey, if you would like to rethink your decision of Wednesday evening—and despite the wildness of your earlier imaginings—I’m still open to the idea.’ He swivelled his chair so that she now stood between his parted legs.

  Joey raised startled eyes, a frown creasing her creamy brow, her breasts rapidly rising and falling beneath the white silk of her blouse. ‘I thought we had agreed it isn’t a good idea for us to become involved?’

  They had. And it wasn’t. Not two days ago. Not now.

  Except Gideon had only needed to take one look at Joey again this morning for all the pent-up desire of the past few days to once again attack every one of his senses. Damn it, he would only be trying to deceive himself if he didn’t admit he had spent every one of the past thirty-six hours aching to make love to her.

  He held her gaze with his as his arms moved about her waist, to slowly pull her towards him until the warm dip of her thighs rested against his erection, Joey’s breasts beneath the silk blouse warm and soft against the hardness of his shirted chest, her lips only inches away from his.

  ‘I want to take you right here and right now,’ he rasped harshly.

  Joey moistened suddenly dry lips, her hands once again resting on his shoulders, this time in a feeble effort to try and keep her distance. ‘You do?’ she whispered.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Gideon admitted throatily.

  She still wanted him too—needed him to assuage this constant burning ache inside her. Yet…’I seem to remember we were interrupted the last time we tried this here,’ she protested.

  ‘I’ll lock the doors,’ he murmured.

  ‘There’s still the window …’

  ‘The window?’ Gideon’s gaze moved past her incredulously, to the huge picture window.

  Joey nodded. They might be ten floors up, but the building across the street was nine floors high, and had a roof garden that Joey had seen several of the employees there step out onto over the past few days, whenever they wanted a cigarette. As if to prove her point, right at that moment a couple of men appeared on the roof opposite.

  Gideon frowned his irritation. ‘Then we’ll go into the adjoining bathroom and lock the damned door!’

  Joey’s cheeks burned. ‘Wouldn’t that look…a little strange, if May should come in here?’

  Gideon’s eyes glittered a deep burnished gold as he stood up. ‘Who the hell cares how it looks?’ He retained a tight grip on Joey’s wrist as he led the way into a huge private bathroom she hadn’t even realised was through this door from Lucan’s office.

  And it truly was a bathroom, Joey noted slightly dazedly as she looked around them. With a huge smoky-glass-sided shower in one corner, a marble bench seat beside it, and two sinks against the mirrored wall opposite. The walls and floor were also covered in mellow terracotta and cream marble, and the fittings were all in gold, with huge brown bath towels draped over a warm towel rail.

  Gideon shut and locked the door behind them, before turning to press Joey back against the marble wall, his whole body tense as he lowered his head and his mouth captured hers for the first time.

  Not roughly or demandingly, as Joey would have expected, but with a raw, absorbing sensuality that she had no will or desire to resist.

  His mouth sipped from hers time and time again, his tongue a soft caress between her lips, before venturing deeper, claiming the heat of her mouth, and then retreating, only to claim her again. And again. Igniting a hunger inside her…a need for more.

  Joey was too lost in those arousing kisses to protest as Gideon moved her slightly away from the wall to push her jacket down her arms, before discarding it completely. Her blouse quickly followed and Gideon broke the kiss long enough to gaze his fill of her breasts, cupped in a cream lacy bra, the nipples dusky-pink rosettes beneath that lace. He ran the soft pad of his thumb across their engorged tips.

  ‘I want you naked, Joey,’ he breathed huskily, and turned her so that she stood with her back towards him, facing the mirrored wall, his hands lightly cupping her breasts as he looked over her shoulder at their reflection.

  Joey stared at that reflection too, her arousal deepening as she felt the warmth of Gideon’s breath on her shoulder, the press of his arousal against the curve of her bottom where he stood so goldenly handsome behind her,
his hands dark against her bra and much paler skin.

  Gideon continued to hold her gaze with his as he lowered his head to move his mouth lightly against her throat, sipping, tasting. Joey’s back arched invitingly as his hands tightened about her breasts, pushing them up so that they swelled temptingly over the cream lace.

  ‘Unfasten your bra for me, Joey,’ he encouraged huskily.

  Joey continued to stare at their reflection in the mirror as she slowly reached behind her to unfasten the hooks of her bra, too mesmerised to be shocked at her behaviour, barely able to breathe as the hooks came loose. Only Gideon’s cupping hands and the thin satin straps on her shoulders were keeping her bra in place now.

  He didn’t touch her in any other way as he kissed first one shoulder and then the other, nudging those thin straps down her arms and allowing the bra to fall away and bare her breasts completely.

  His breath caught in his throat as he stared at Joey’s reflection. Her breasts were full and tipped with temptingly beautiful dusky rose nipples, which became even harder, more swollen, as Gideon continued to look at them in the mirror.

  ‘You’re beautiful,’ he breathed, stepping out from behind her to move her, so that she now sat on the marble bench seat, and pushing her skirt up her thighs so that he could kneel between her legs. He was able to feel the heat of her arousal as he cupped her breasts before bending to find first one dusky rose nipple and then the other with his mouth.

  She tasted wonderful, her nipples swelling as Gideon drew on them hungrily, stroking with his tongue at the same time, all the while feeling Joey’s trembling response as he allowed his teeth to gently scrape across those sensitive tips.

  Joey was too lost in the vortex of pleasure to question why it was she was responding so totally to Gideon, of all men.

  ‘Aren’t you…a little overdressed still …?’ she prompted restlessly, desperate now to touch him in the same way he was touching her.

  ‘A little.’ He gave a rueful smile as he straightened, slipping out of his jacket and pulling off his tie before dropping them down on the floor with Joey’s discarded clothes.

  ‘Let me.’ Joey gently pushed his hands away as he would have unbuttoned his shirt himself, and her gaze easily held his as she slowly unfastened each of those buttons. She only lowered it to look at him as she took off his shirt completely, to bare his tanned chest.

  His shoulders were so wide, his muscled chest so clearly defined, with a light dusting of golden hair that dipped lower, to taper down beneath his trousers. Joey touched him lingeringly, running her fingers lightly over that tanned flesh. Gideon’s nipples were hard little buds beneath her fingertips where they nestled amongst those golden curls.

  Would kissing one give Gideon the same pleasure he had just given her? she wondered. She satisfied that curiosity, knowing by his sharply indrawn breath as he cupped the back of her head and held her against him that the answer to that question was a definite yes.

  Emboldened, she turned to give the second hard bud the same treatment. His skin felt hot to the touch, and Joey was able to feel the rapid beating of Gideon’s heart beneath her fingertips. Her hands moved lower, feeling the leap of his hard shaft as her fingers swept against him tentatively.

  ‘God, yes, Joey …’ Gideon groaned achingly, his hips pushing against her hands. Her caresses instantly became bolder at his encouragement, and she started to stroke the pulsing length of his erection harder and faster.

  Gideon unbuttoned and unzipped his trousers himself, pushing them and his boxers down to his hips and instantly feeling relief as his arousal sprang free. He growled softly in his throat as he felt her hands taking possession of his bared flesh, instinctively thrusting into those caressing hands, knowing he was on the brink of release, and needing-oh, God—needing it so badly.

  ‘Change places with me, Gideon,’ Joey encouraged urgently, and she released him long enough for him to take her place on the marble seat. Now she knelt in front of him, stroking her tongue lightly across his sensitive tip, licking and tasting as her hand continued to stroke him firmly.

  Gideon’s vision became slightly blurred as he looked down and saw Joey taking him into her mouth, her slender fingers still curled about him, her tongue continuing that rasping, rhythmic swirl.

  ‘I’m going to come if you don’t stop! ‘

  In complete contradiction of that warning Gideon moved one of his hands to the back of Joey’s head, and his fingers became entangled in the glossy red of her hair, holding her to him as he instinctively began to thrust deeper. At the same time his other hand cupped and caressed one of her uptilting breasts, teasing, squeezing, before rolling the engorged nipple between finger and thumb.

  Joey moaned in pleasure even as she felt the responsive warmth flood between her thighs.

  She had never been this intimate with any man before. Never wanted to be this intimate with any man before Gideon. Had never felt this heady exhilaration at the giving and receiving of pleasure. Her caresses were purely instinctive.

  ‘Yes, Joey …’ Gideon’s eyes glowed like molten gold between narrowed lids. ‘Oh, God,’ he groaned.

  ‘Gideon?’ A knock sounded on the bathroom door. ‘Are you unwell, Gideon?’ Concern could be clearly heard in May Randall’s voice as she obviously stood on the other side of the locked bathroom door.

  Joey froze, totally stricken, shocked at her complete lack of inhibition!

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ‘OKAY, so you were proved right. Attempting to make love in a bathroom wasn’t the most sensible thing I’ve ever thought of doing!’

  Gideon paced Joey’s office impatiently fifteen minutes later as she sat looking at him guardedly from behind her desk. Both of them were now fully dressed, and the pallor of her cheeks told him exactly how upset she still was.

  Was is embarrassment at the depth of the intimacy they had shared earlier? Or disappointment because that intimacy had been interrupted? Gideon wasn’t sure.

  He did know that they had both reacted like guilty teenagers when May Randall knocked on the bathroom door. Joey’s face had been stricken as she’d stood up to turn her back on him, quickly dressing in her cream lace bra and silk blouse. Gideon hadn’t been much better as he’d forced his still aching erection back inside his boxers and zipped up his trousers. Tersely, he had assured May that he was fine, and would join her in her office in a few minutes, before pulling his shirt on and fastening the buttons with hands that had shaken slightly.

  No, it certainly hadn’t been Gideon’s finest hour.

  As he had just told Joey it hadn’t been his most sensible one, either. Sadly, his usual cool sensibility had gone out of the window the moment she had come to work in the adjoining office!

  ‘Will you please say something, Joey?’ he pleaded now, at her continued uncomfortable silence.

  Maybe she would break her silence if she could think of something to say. If she wasn’t still so totally shocked by her own behaviour.

  Ideally she needed to say something dismissive and sophisticated. But, as she didn’t feel in the least dismissive or sophisticated at the moment, she had no idea what she could say without sounding ridiculously gauche and inexperienced.

  Just looking at Gideon now, remembering the depth of the intimacy between them earlier, was enough to make her want to crawl away somewhere and hide. At least until she stopped feeling as if she might die from embarrassment every time she so much as looked at him. Which would be never.

  Maybe the best thing was to just avoid the subject altogether. ‘Have you had chance yet to look at that security disk?’

  Gideon stopped his pacing to stare across the desk at her incredulously. ‘Is that the best you can do?’

  ‘I can see no benefit to either of us in talking about what just happened.’ Especially as she was still in shock because of it!

  Neither did he. Until, that was, Joey expressed her own reluctance to talk about it.

  Just being near this woman made him behave rec
klessly, impulsively, illogically. Something he never, ever did—in any situation. Hearing her dismiss that behaviour as if it were of absolutely no consequence was enough to make him want to shake her!

  He glowered down at her from the other side of the desk. ‘How about we discuss a time when we can finish what we started?’

  Green eyes met his briefly before Joey looked quickly away again. ‘That would be extremely stupid of us.’

  ‘No more stupid than me walking about with a constant erection and you on the brink of orgasm!’ he retorted.

  Two bright wings of colour appeared in the pallor of her cheeks. ‘You’re being deliberately crude—’

  ‘I’m being honest,’ Gideon corrected.

  ‘Then perhaps you ought to consider being less honest and a little more circumspect!’ She glared up at him.

  Gideon gave a humourless laugh. ‘Until you came along, circumspect used to be my middle name. It seems to have abandoned me.’

  ‘Then I suggest you find it again! ‘

  She briskly shifted some papers on top of her desk, drawing Gideon’s attention to the golden dragon sitting majestically at the front. Those glittering yellow eyes seemed to glower at him malevolently.

  ‘Your good luck charm doesn’t appear to be working at the moment,’ he murmured ruefully.

  ‘My good luck charm is working just fine.’ Joey reached out to touch the dragon defensively. ‘It’s the two of us who are behaving irrationally.’

  Gideon looked slightly self-conscious. ‘I have no more idea than you do what’s going on between us.’ He scowled his frustration. ‘But something obviously is,’ he added less forcefully as he gentled his expression. ‘And we obviously can’t keep doing this.’

  Her fingers curled about the golden dragon. ‘Doing what?’

  ‘Going a little further each time we make love and then stopping.’ He frowned darkly. ‘Besides being frustrating as hell, it’s totally disruptive!’

  Joey smiled tightly. ‘How typical that you should look at this from the point of view of how it affects your work—’