Rumors on the Red Carpet

by Carole Mortimer

  ‘I would, yes.’

  She nodded. ‘I’ll look them out in the morning.’

  ‘So what happened?’ Jaxon said slowly. ‘Why didn’t the two of them marry when Anastasia knew she was expecting Geoffrey’s child?’

  ‘They didn’t marry earlier because Anastasia didn’t know she was pregnant when she was dropped behind enemy lines in late February 1944. By the time she realised her condition she had already established her cover as a young Austrian woman, recently widowed and bitterly resentful of the English as a result, and it was too late for her to do anything but remain in Berlin and continue with the mission she had been sent there to complete. She always maintained her pregnancy actually helped to confirm that identity.’

  ‘My God...’ Jaxon fell back against his chair.

  ‘Yes.’ Stazy smiled affectionately. ‘Of course my grandfather, once informed of Anastasia’s condition, ensured that she was ordered out of Berlin immediately.’

  ‘And she refused to leave until she had finished what she went there to do?’ Jaxon guessed.

  Stazy met his gaze unblinkingly. ‘Yes, she did.’

  ‘She went through her pregnancy, gave birth to her son, cared for him, all the while behind enemy lines under a false identity that could have been blown apart at any moment?’

  Her chin tilted. ‘Yes.’

  He gave an incredulous shake of his head. ‘God, that’s so—so—’

  ‘Irresponsible? Selfish?’ There was a slight edge to Stazy’s voice now.

  ‘I was going to say romantic.’ Jaxon grinned admiringly. ‘And incredibly brave. What a woman she must have been!’

  Stazy relaxed slightly as she answered huskily, ‘I’ve always believed so, yes.’

  Jaxon nodded. ‘And so you should. You’re very like her, you know,’ he added softly.

  ‘I don’t think so, Jaxon.’ Stazy gave a choked laugh. ‘Even in her nineties Anastasia would have made sure she got on that Harley tonight and somehow managed to ride it out of here, despite all those guards trying to stop her!’

  ‘Maybe,’ he acknowledged dryly. ‘But you definitely gave it your best shot.’

  She shrugged. ‘Not good enough, obviously.’

  ‘Choosing the Harley for your first attempt was extremely gutsy.’ In fact Stazy’s behaviour tonight was so much more than Jaxon would ever have believed possible of that stiffly formal and tightly buttoned down Dr Anastasia Bromley he had been introduced to six weeks ago. ‘So you think Geoffrey meant for me to find the marriage and birth certificates...?’

  She nodded. ‘I’m sure of it.’

  ‘Why?’

  Stazy gave a rueful smile. ‘For some reason he seems to trust you to do the right thing...’ she said slowly, knowing there was no way her grandfather would ever have put the reputation of his darling Anastasia in the hands of a man he didn’t trust implicitly.

  Something she should probably have appreciated more while resenting Jaxon these past six weeks...

  He leant across the table now, to take one of her hands gently in both of his. ‘And do you trust me to do that too, Stazy?’

  She did trust him, Stazy realised as she looked across the table at him. That silver-grey gaze was unmistakably sincere as it met hers unwaveringly.

  Yes, she trusted Jaxon—it was herself she didn’t trust whenever she was around him!

  Even now, worried about her grandfather, frustrated at not being able to leave the estate, Stazy was totally aware of Jaxon as he held her hand in both of his. Of the roughness of his palm, the gentleness of his fingers as they played lightly across the back of her hand, sending a quiver of awareness through her arm and down into the fullness of her breasts and between her thighs. Warming her. Once again arousing her...

  ‘I trust my grandfather’s judgement in all things,’ she finally said huskily.

  ‘But not mine?’ Jaxon said shrewdly.

  Stazy pulled her trembling hand out of his grasp before pushing it out of sight beneath the table, very aware of the heat of awareness singing through her veins. ‘It’s late, Jaxon.’ She stood up abruptly. ‘And tomorrow looks as if it’s going to be something of a long and anxious day. We should at least try to get some sleep tonight.’ She picked up their empty cups and carried them over to the sink to rinse them out before placing them on the rack to dry.

  All the time she was aware of Jaxon’s piercing gaze on her. Heating her blood to boiling point. Her legs trembled slightly, so that she was forced to resort to leaning against the sink unit for support.

  ‘Stazy...?’

  She drew in a deep breath, desperately searching for some of the coolness and control that had stood her in such good stead these past ten years. Searching and failing.

  ‘If something I’ve said or done has upset you, then I apologise...’

  Stazy had been so deeply entrenched in fighting the heat of her emotions that she hadn’t even been aware that Jaxon had moved to stand behind her. The warmth of his breath was now a gentle caress as it brushed against the tendrils of hair at her nape that had escaped the neatness of her plait. If he should so much as touch her—!

  She slipped away from that temptation before turning to face him. ‘You haven’t done anything to upset me, Jaxon,’ she assured him crisply. ‘I think it’s as you implied earlier—I’m just emotionally overwrought.’

  Jaxon could see the evidence of exhaustion in the dark shadows beneath her eyes. Her cheeks were pale, those full and vulnerable lips trembling slightly as she obviously fought against giving in to that exhaustion. ‘Time for bed,’ he agreed firmly, before taking a tight grip of her hand and leading her gently across the room to the doorway, switching off the kitchen light on his way out.

  He retained that firm grip on the delicacy of her hand as the two of them walked down the shadowed hallway and up the wide staircase together, allowing him to feel the way her fingers tightened about his and her steps seemed to slow as they approached the top of the stairs.

  Jaxon turned to look at Stazy in the semi-darkness. Her eyes were deeply green and too huge in the paleness of her face. ‘Stazy, would you rather have company tonight...?’ Even though he spoke softly his voice still sounded over-loud in the stillness of the dark night surrounding them.

  Stazy came to an abrupt halt at the top of the stairs, frowning as she turned to look at him searchingly, the contours of his face sharply hewn in the moonlight, the expression in his eyes totally unreadable with those grey eyes hooded by long dark lashes and lowered lids. ‘Exactly what are you suggesting, Jaxon...?’ she finally murmured warily.

  ‘I’m asking if you would like me to come to your bedroom and spend the rest of the night with you,’ he bit out succinctly.

  Exactly what Stazy had thought he was offering! ‘Why?’

  Jaxon chuckled softly. ‘How about because I know how the hours between two o’clock in the morning and five o’clock can sometimes be tough to get through if you have something on your mind.’

  Stazy raised auburn brows. ‘Are you talking from personal experience?’

  He gave a hard grin. ‘Difficult as you obviously find that to believe, yes, I am. Never anything as serious as your present concerns over your grandfather, but I’ve definitely had my fair share of worries over the years.’

  ‘Things like looking in the mirror for the first grey hair and wrinkle?’ she came back teasingly.

  ‘Hair dye and botox injections,’ Jaxon came back dismissively.

  Her eyes widened. ‘Have you ever—?’

  ‘No, I can honestly say I’ve never resorted to using either one of those things!’ he assured her irritably, seeing her obvious humour at his expense.

  ‘Yet.’

  ‘Ever,’ Jaxon assured firmly. ‘I’m going to live by the adage and grow old gracefully.’

&nbs
p; Stazy knew he was teasing her—was very aware that these last few minutes they’d both been talking only for the sake of it. Delaying as they waited to see what her answer was going to be to Jaxon’s offer to spend the night with her...

  ‘Well?’ Jaxon prompted huskily.

  He claimed he was making the offer so that she didn’t have to spend the hours before dawn alone; and God knew Stazy didn’t want to be alone, knowing that once she was in her bedroom her imagination was going to run riot again in regard to her grandfather’s safety. Did that mean she was actually thinking of accepting Jaxon’s offer to spend the night with her...?

  CHAPTER NINE

  ‘I PREFER TO SLEEP on the right side of the bed.’

  ‘So do I.’

  ‘It’s my bedroom.’

  ‘And, as your guest, don’t you think I should be allowed first choice as to which side of the bed I would like to sleep on?’

  ‘Not if my guest is a gentleman.’

  As conversations before leaping into bed with a man went, this one was pretty pathetic, Stazy acknowledged self-derisively. No doubt due in part to the fact that now they were actually at the point of getting into bed she was awash with flustered embarrassment.

  To a degree that she questioned which part of her brain had actually been functioning when she had accepted Jaxon’s offer to spend the night in her bedroom with her. Certainly not the logical and ordered Dr Stazy Bromley part! And even the less logical, easily-aroused-by-Jaxon-Wilder, Stazy Bromley now questioned the sanity of that decision too!

  It had been an impulsive decision at best, made out of a desire not to lie alone in the darkness for hours with her own worried thoughts.

  Having just returned from the adjoining bathroom in a white vest top and the grey sweats she slept in, she saw the soft glow of the bedside lamp revealed that Jaxon wore only a pair of very brief black underpants that clearly outlined the enticing bulge beneath. His bare shoulders were wide and tanned, chest muscled and abdomen taut, his legs long and muscular and equally tanned, allowing Stazy to fully appreciate just how ridiculously naive that decision had been.

  Especially when her clenched fingers actually itched with the need she felt to touch the fine dark hair that covered his chest before it arrowed down in an enticing vee to beneath those fitted black underpants...

  ‘Perhaps you should go to your bedroom first and get some pyjamas...’ she said doubtfully—as if Jaxon wearing pyjamas was really going to make her any less aware of his warmth in the bed beside her!

  ‘That would probably be a good idea if I actually wore pyjamas.’ Jaxon eyed her mockingly across the width of the double bed.

  Right. Okay. Definitely time to regroup, Stazy. ‘In that case you can have the right side of the bed—’

  ‘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 upthrusting 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 th
e 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.

  Her back. The soft curve of her bottom. Skimming across her hips. The gentle slope of her waist. Her ribcage and up over her breasts. Until he cupped the side of her face, his fingertips moving lightly across the plumpness of her parted lips before running lightly down the length of her throat to dip into the hollows at its base. Those same fingers ran a light caress over her clavicle, before pushing the thin strap from her shoulder and down her arm, tugging gently on the material of her top until one plump, aroused breast popped free of its confinement.

  Stazy gave a breathless gasp as she arched into that large and cupping hand, its thumb and index finger lightly rolling the engorged bud at its tip before tugging gently. Pleasure coursed through her hotly as Jaxon alternated those rhythmic caresses for several agonisingly pleasurable minutes before the hot and moist sweep of his tongue laved that throbbing nipple.

  ‘Jaxon...!’ Her eyes were wide open now, and she looked down at him in the early-morning sunlight, the darkness of his hair a tousled caress against her flesh, those grey eyes smoky with arousal as he glanced up at her. ‘Please don’t stop this time...!’ she encouraged achingly.