Taming the Last St Claire (11 page)

His jaw tensed. ‘I’ve never denied that you’re a beautiful woman, Joey.’

‘Just not one any sane man should ever be attracted to, hmm?’

He scowled. ‘If that’s the case, then it would seem I’ve joined the ranks of the insane.’

And Joey, having changed her opinion of Gideon being a cold and stuck-up aristocrat, also had to be out of her mind!

‘Maybe we should just forget about that too?’ she suggested.

He arched blond brows. ‘For the moment? Or indefinitely? ‘

‘Gideon, are you being deliberately awkward, or am I just imagining it?’ She glared at him in frustration.

No, he conceded ruefully, she wasn’t imagining anything. He had just been thrown slightly by the strength of his protective reaction on hearing that some strange man had obviously tried to pick her up.

It was because she was Stephanie’s sister, he told himself. That connection made Joey ‘family’, and as such under the protection of the St Claires. It had absolutely nothing to do with his own illogical attraction to her. Nothing at all.

‘Sorry,’ he said, aware she was still waiting for a reply. ‘So this man spoke to you?’

‘It seemed perfectly natural at the time,’ she said, obviously accepting his apology. ‘How the changeable weather was causing colds, et cetera. But he also asked me if I worked locally—’

‘You didn’t tell him, did you?’ he barked.

‘Gideon, will you give me credit for having
some
intelligence?’ She gave him a fierce frown.

‘Sorry,’ he muttered again.

‘Of course I didn’t tell him where I worked,’ Joey continued calmly. ‘But I do remember at the time making a conscious effort not to do so. Almost as if I somehow knew that I shouldn’t.’ She frowned. ‘I excused myself as quickly as possible, but I remember feeling as if he was watching me as I walked away—What now?’ she asked, when she saw Gideon’s knowing expression.

He shook his head. ‘I’m just surprised you would find that behaviour strange. Any red-blooded man would feel the same temptation to watch you as you walk away in those sexy high-heeled shoes.’ He eyed her as he leant back in the chair. ‘And do you have any idea how much like my
mother you sound when you talk in that scolding tone of voice?’

‘That’s probably because—no doubt,
exactly
like your mother—I’m tempted to smack you every time you do or say something aggravating!’

Gideon smiled. ‘My mother didn’t believe in smacking any of her sons.’

‘That probably explains why you, at least, have grown into such an annoying adult.’

Gideon found himself chuckling softly as he answered her. ‘What’s
your
excuse?’

‘Oh, my ability to aggravate and annoy just comes naturally,’ she assured him dryly.

Gideon laughed outright this time. Something he seemed to do quite a lot of around Joey, he found himself thinking.

‘Well, at least I know when I’m being annoying,’ Joey defended.

‘Unlike some people?’

‘Exactly!’

‘In your case, you do it regardless,’ Gideon accused.

She grinned. ‘Of course.’

‘Especially where I’m concerned.’

‘Oh, especially then.’ She nodded unabashedly. ‘It’s just too irresistible when you’re so easy to tease.’

He looked rueful. ‘Most people would know better than to even attempt it.’

Joey shrugged. ‘I’ve already told you—I’m not most people.’

No, she certainly wasn’t. Joey McKinley was unlike anyone else—certainly any other woman—Gideon had ever met.

‘Perhaps we should just look at the disk for lunchtime?’

He took out his laptop to place it on top of the desk and turn it on.

Joey was thrown slightly by the sudden change of conversation. Although why she should be, she had no idea; Gideon had proved, time and time again, how adept he was at avoiding subjects he didn’t wish to talk about.

Talking of which.

‘Did you do anything nice on your afternoon off yesterday?’ She deliberately kept her tone lightly enquiring, having no intention of letting him see how consumed with curiosity she really was regarding his whereabouts.

He glanced at her over the top of his laptop, his expression inscrutable as he answered. ‘I did what I usually do on a Thursday afternoon.’

‘Which is?’ Joey definitely had a problem imagining a workaholic like Gideon actually taking an afternoon off work to visit a mistress—or maybe that was just wishful thinking on her part? An aversion to even imagining him spending the afternoon in bed with another woman?

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.