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‘I just need to settle my account,’ she told him.
‘It is done.’
She frowned. ‘But—’
‘Please come at once, senyorita. Senyor de la Vega does not like to be kept waiting.’
Jordan wasn’t happy about it, but she held her tongue. Arguing with the hired muscle was pointless. She would say something to Xavier, though. She couldn’t allow him to pay her hostel bill. It didn’t matter that she’d prepaid the accommodation and the outstanding charges had just been for a few incidentals. It was the principle that counted. And while she wasn’t one to hold a grudge, neither would she forget in a hurry the stinging assumptions he’d made about her motives. The last thing she wanted to do was give him any reason to cast such aspersions on her again.
But when she got to the car, this time thanking the other man who opened the door, she couldn’t say as much to Xavier because he had his phone pressed to his ear and was conversing with someone in Spanish or Catalan.
She hesitated, wondering if he’d prefer privacy, but he beckoned her in with a perfunctory wave of his hand. Then he continued his conversation as if she wasn’t there.
Which was fine, she told herself as she settled back against the cool leather, carefully arranging her skirt to avoid another incident of indecent exposure. It was Friday, the middle of a working day for him. She could raise the issue of the hostel bill later.
Besides, there was something deliciously indulgent about simply sitting there, listening to that deep, molasses-rich voice of his. His tone was brusque and authoritative, suggesting the call was work-related rather than personal, but still she found his voice utterly mesmerising. And she didn’t have to feel uncomfortable about eavesdropping. Besides the odd word she could translate, she didn’t understand what he was saying.
‘Un moment,’ she heard him say, and translated that in her head: one moment.
Then she heard, ‘Belt up,’ and it took her a few seconds to realise he’d spoken in English. Another few to register his silence.
Suddenly her senses prickled. She jerked her gaze from the view outside her window to the man beside her and found his grey eyes fastened on her intently.
A jolt went through her midsection. ‘I’m sorry—were you speaking to me?’
His eyebrows snapped down. ‘Seatbelt,’ he said, and when she didn’t immediately move he made an impatient sound in his throat, put his phone down between them and reached across her.
Three seconds. That was how long it took for him to pull the belt across her front and secure the latch, yet still her pulse leapt and her breathing fluctuated wildly as she pressed back against the seat. Somehow he avoided touching her—not even a brush of his long fingers against her clothing—but his face came so close she felt the warm stroke of his breath on her collarbone and caught the subtle scents of sandalwood and something citrusy on his skin.
She swallowed—hard—and he must have heard for his gaze settled on her throat, right where she felt the frantic beat of her pulse. His eyes became hooded and for just a second, no more, his gaze dropped, skimming down the front of her white V-necked T-shirt, then up again.
Their eyes locked and something flashed in his, something hot and furious, almost accusing, that she didn’t understand.
Then, abruptly, he pulled back, snapping his gaze away from her as he picked up the phone and resumed his conversation.
Dragging her gaze off his hard profile, Jordan let out a shaky breath. Had she done something wrong? Aside from forgetting to put her seatbelt on?
She glanced down and—Oh...
Oh, no...
Was that what he’d seen? The clear outline of her hardened nipples thrusting like little beacons of desire against her cotton bra and T-shirt?
Heat suffused her face. Mortified, she folded her arms over her breasts.
For heaven’s sake. What was wrong with her? With her body? It wasn’t as if she’d never met an attractive man before. Her ex, with his square jaw, dark blond
hair and deep blue eyes, had always drawn more than his share of female attention and probably still did.
But Josh had always had to touch her—intimately—to induce this sort of powerful, conspicuous reaction.
If Xavier could have this effect without even touching her, what would happen if he actually put his hands on her?
She hugged her arms more tightly over her chest. Spontaneous combustion came to mind.
Which was silly as much as it was unsettling. She didn’t even believe in this sort of thing. Not really. Plain old physical attraction she understood, but the much more abstract concept of chemistry...? Not so much.
Whenever she’d heard sex described with words such as explosive and mind-blowing and electric, she’d always dismissed them as exaggeration or pure fiction. Sex with Josh had been enjoyable for the most part, but she didn’t remember ever feeling any lightning strikes of sensation or ‘explosions’ of pleasure. Orgasms for her had been a rather hit and miss affair—secondary to Josh’s release—and on the occasions when she had climaxed it had been satisfying, but hardly a ‘mind-blowing’ event. And, because Josh had seemed to know what he was doing, she’d never imagined there was much more to sex beyond what she’d experienced with him.
