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 up-thrusting 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