The Taming of Xander Sterne(18)

                At least, she hoped she wasn’t.

                Surely any woman could be forgiven for finding herself momentarily unable to move or speak after being confronted with an almost naked Xander Sterne?

                Almost, because he had a small towel secured about his waist that only just covered his—well, it just about covered his modesty.

                Not that he had any reason to feel in the least modest from where Sam was standing.

                And looking.

                She was captivated by the sight of his completely bare, tanned chest and wide, muscled shoulders. His chest was covered in a fine dusting of golden hair, a six-pack rippling at his abdomen.

                Sam’s fascinated gaze shifted lower as he stood up, drawn to the long lean length of his bare and muscled legs, the temporary cast he wore in the day having been removed in preparation for his shower, and revealing the reddened scars from his operations six weeks ago.

                Even his feet were attractive: long and elegant. Very long and elegant, Sam acknowledged slightly breathlessly, her gaze moving higher as she recalled reading somewhere that the length and size of a man’s foot was in direct proportion to his—

                ‘Samantha!’

                She gave a guilty start as she reluctantly dragged her gaze away from the concealing towel to look up into Xander Sterne’s handsome but obviously impatiently irritated face.

                ‘Sorry.’ She moved briskly into the bedroom and approached where he now stood beside the bed, her cheeks feeling warm with embarrassment as she realised she was behaving like a starstruck teenager.

                Come to think of it, Xander wouldn’t look out of place in any action movie, his perfect form blazoned across the big screen.

                ‘Samantha...!’ Xander now sounded exasperated rather than just annoyed by her obvious distraction.

                ‘I can’t continue standing unaided for too much longer, Samantha,’ he reminded harshly.

                No, of course he couldn’t.

                Just because Xander was the most glorious male specimen she had ever seen, on or off the big screen, that was no reason to keep ogling him as if he had the starring role in her favourite sexual fantasy.

                ‘I’ll go and turn on the shower,’ Sam told him as she put an instant stop to those thoughts, her gaze shifting sharply away from continuing to look at all that breathtaking manhood as she walked towards the bathroom, needing a few minutes alone in order to pull herself together.

                Which didn’t mean her thoughts didn’t continue to churn as she distractedly opened the smoked-glass door to the shower that ran the length of one wall of the bathroom, her gaze becoming unfocused as she drifted off into thought again after she had turned on the water and stood waiting for the temperature to adjust.

                Responding so viscerally to her boss’s nakedness was something Sam hadn’t expected! Especially with a man who was even more wealthy and powerful than her ex-husband. She hadn’t so much as looked at another man since leaving Malcolm, let alone reacted so physically to one! Her breasts felt uncomfortably tingly, her nipples highly sensitive.

                Sexual arousal.

                For Xander Sterne, of all people.

                And because she had never in her life been this close to such a gorgeous—and very naked—man before tonight; Malcolm had never looked so blatantly, predatorily male, not even when the two of them had first met. Malcolm never could have the physique and looks of Xander, not in a million years of working out at the gym three times a week.