The Taming of Xander Sterne(41)

                Tonight she had definitely returned the hunger of Xander’s kisses. And allowed Xander to touch her more intimately than any other man had but her husband. She’d also been aroused in a way she could never remember being aroused before. Not even at the start of her marriage to Malcolm, the man she had believed herself to be in love with...

                And that knowledge now terrified her!

                She didn’t want to feel anything for Xander Sterne beyond the necessary concern of a carer for her charge. She didn’t want to like him. Or desire him. She certainly didn’t want to ever be stupid enough to fall in love with him!

                ‘Go to bed, Samantha,’ Xander bit out harshly as he saw the way her face had now paled. ‘I’ll manage to undress myself this evening and you can help me shower in the morning,’ he assured her dryly as she looked at him questioningly.

                Her expression was noticeably one of relief. ‘Are you sure?’

                ‘Very,’ Xander confirmed as Samantha rushed from the room.

                Or a lustful Xander Sterne...





                                      CHAPTER SEVEN

                ‘GET IN THE CAR, SAM!’

                It was such a pleasant sunny Monday morning that Sam had decided to walk Daisy to school, before leaving her daughter safely in her classroom.

                Despite Malcolm’s threats on Saturday night—threats Sam had been trying to forget all weekend—she was completely unprepared, as she left the school grounds, to see Malcolm sitting behind the wheel of the sleek black saloon car, the passenger-seat window lowered so that he could speak to her.

                Sam desperately tried to gather her scattered wits together as she glared into the open window at him. She didn’t fool herself for a moment that this was going to be any more pleasant a meeting than the one on Saturday evening had been.

                Malcolm’s eyes narrowed to blue chips of ice as she made no move to do as he instructed. ‘Get in the damned car, Sam,’ he repeated harshly. ‘Unless you would prefer I get out of the car and we talk right there on the pavement?’ he added challengingly, as several of the other mothers leaving the school gave them obviously curious looks as they walked past them.

                Unsurprisingly, when for the last eight months Sam had always been alone when she delivered and collected Daisy from school.

                ‘What are you even doing here, Malcolm?’ she demanded as she wrenched the car door open and slid into the passenger seat beside him, knowing she had no other choice if she didn’t want to cause a scene. And for Daisy’s sake, she really didn’t.

                Her one defiant gesture was to deliberately slam the car door shut. She knew how it would irritate Malcolm; unlike his behaviour towards his wife and daughter, Malcolm had always been obsessive about the care and treatment of his cars.

                Shut in the confines of the vehicle with him, Sam instantly became aware of the spicy—and expensive—aftershave Malcolm had always worn, and which she had only ever associated with him. To a degree that if she had happened to smell it randomly these past three years, on some other man, it had always made her feel slightly nauseous. As it now caused her to swallow down the bile rising in her throat.

                Goodness knew the rest of her weekend had been awkward enough, without this.

                There had been Malcolm’s horrible threats for her to deal with, and on top of that Sam had been dreading seeing Xander again on Sunday morning after the intimacies of the previous evening.