‘Xavier!’
Her soft voice curled through his insides like the silky song of a siren, sweet and seductive and impossible to resist.
‘Would you hand me my towel, please?’
Damn it.
He turned back, saw the fluffy white towel on the lounger next to him and grabbed it just as she hoisted herself out of the water. Extending his arm so he didn’t have to get too close, he held the towel out. But she didn’t take it straight away, instead lifting her arms to wring out her hair.
Jaw clenched, he tried looking anywhere but at her. Impossible. Especially once he’d caught an eyeful of pert breasts and budded nipples under the wet, clingy Lycra of her crimson bikini top.
‘For God’s sake, Jordan,’ he gritted out, before his self-control caved in and he let his gaze sweep the rest of her. ‘Take the damn towel.’
Her eyes widened, and then her mouth pursed and she snatched the towel from him, wrapping it sarong-style around herself.
‘You’ve had four hours to cool off,’ she muttered. ‘Don’t tell me you’re still angry.’
Angry? He almost laughed. Try deeply sexually frustrated. Or how about conflicted?
Because it was an unfamiliar kind of hell he found himself in—desiring a woman he shouldn’t have. A woman who wasn’t remotely suitable for him.
Over the past decade he’d been judicious in his choice of lovers. Not only because he’d felt the need to counterbalance his brother’s playboy antics but because as Chief Executive he held himself to a higher standard. To command respect his behaviour had to be beyond reproach—not only in his professional life but his personal life as well.
Always there’d be those like Hector and Diego, hovering in the wings, watching and waiting for him to screw up, to prove himself unfit for the role.
As a rule he kept his relationships low-key and avoided one-night stands. He chose lovers who were emotionally mature and discreet about their personal lives, and he demanded exclusivity for the duration of their relationship, whether that be for two months or two years.
And he never, never, made himself vulnerable the way he had with Natasha.
When he’d hit thirty and succeeded his father as CEO he’d felt more keenly than ever the external pressure to ‘settle d
own’. Many of his peers had taken wives, started producing the requisite heirs to their personal fortunes and empires. Conservative board members and shareholders preferred a leader who represented stability and family values. Hell, even his own brother had traded in his hedonistic lifestyle for the domestic idyll of marriage and fatherhood, giving their delighted parents their first grandchild—a baby girl—a few months ago.
Consequently Xav had become even more circumspect in his choice of lovers, narrowing his criteria to exclude women who didn’t have the qualities of a desirable marriage partner.
The problem was that most women clung to the flawed romantic ideal of marrying for love, and he was too brutally honest to let a woman believe he would ever love her.
Respect, physical gratification, even affection...he could do all of these things. But love? With all its pressure and expectation and potential for pain? No.
Unfortunately that made finding the perfect woman damn near impossible. Which was why he had recently engaged the services of an exclusive high-end matchmaker—the very idea of which had drawn the patent disapproval of the woman standing before him now. A woman who’d also appeared scandalised at the idea of marrying for compatibility and not love.
And right there was all the deterrent he should need—without even going near the mind-bending fact that she was his birth mother’s stepdaughter—and yet here he stood, mesmerised by a pair of golden-green eyes, a supple body and a lush mouth that made his own water hungrily at the recollection of driving her soft lips apart and delving into the honeyed depths—
‘Xavier?’
His name was no more than a husky whisper across those beautiful lips, but it snapped him back to full consciousness. His palms felt cool and damp, and he saw with a jolt that his hands were curled over Jordan’s wet shoulders. And he was close. So close their thighs and torsos almost touched. Her head tipped back on her slender neck to look up at him. Her eyes were big and round, lips parted.
Dios.
He didn’t even remember moving. He jerked his hands off her body, stepped back, but she came with him and he realised one of her slim hands gripped the front of his polo shirt.
‘Xavier, please... You’ve barely said a word to me since...’
She trailed off and he read frustration and confusion in her flushed face, but also desire. It was there in her widened pupils and her softly parted lips. In the way the hectic colour spilled down her throat and décolletage and stained the pale upper slopes of her breasts.
If he chose to do so right now he could carry her up to his room, peel away the wet bikini and satisfy his desire to taste her until she came against his tongue, and she wouldn’t stop him.
The deeply erotic thought had him hardening and lengthening in his jeans until the tight fit of the denim was almost unbearable.