She must surely have imagined the incredulity in those narrowed grey eyes, she told herself seconds later, when it had been banished to be replaced with a satirical smile. ‘Are you indeed? You do surprise me.’
His tone caught her off guard, making her say defensively, ‘You find it hard to believe that David could love me?’
‘Not particularly that he could,’ came the ambiguous response, ‘but that he has. He certainly hasn’t taught you to purr instead of scratch,’ he added contemplatively, his eyes assessing her stiffening body.
‘So you’re in love with David. Do you sleep together?’
The question threw her, making her colour vividly. ‘What does it matter if we do?’ she asked breathlessly. ‘Our relationship doesn’t affect our work, if that’s what you’re implying.’
‘I can see that. He’d have let me tear you to pieces back there, wouldn’t he? He’s not the man for you, Storm,’ Jago said softly. ‘He’ll never tame you…’
’I don’t want to be tamed!’ Storm told him defiantly, her eyes widening as she realised what she had betrayed.
Jago watched her. ‘So that’s it. You don’t love David,’ he told her positively, ‘you’re using him as a means of keeping your feelings in cold storage. Well, you can’t do that for ever.’
‘Who’s going to stop me?’ Storm responded angrily, wondering how she had allowed herself to be manoeuvred on to this dangerous subject. ‘You?’
There was a tiny pause when she wished as she had never wished for anything in her life before that she had not added that foolish, challenging word, and then, observing the satisfaction gleaming in the grey eyes watching her, knew that she had been deliberately goaded into it.
‘Why not?’ Jago drawled smoothly, his fingers reaching out to brush the curls back from her cheek. Even that light touch was enough to make Storm back nervously away from him, her defences alerted to the danger he represented.
‘Don’t touch me!’ she choked fiercely, but he merely laughed, and moved towards her, his eyes lingering on the rapid rise and fall of her breasts beneath their thin covering of silk.
‘If you really are in love with David, my touch won’t have any power to affect you, will it?’ he murmured logically, his eyes almost mesmerising her. ‘But you don’t love him, do you, Storm?’
‘Of course I do!’ she protested. ‘Why are you doing this to me? Why can’t you leave me alone?’
‘Why? Because you’re an extremely desirable young woman, with a body that excites me. I want you, Storm,’ he told her suddenly, shocking her with the baldness of his statement. ‘And what I want, I get.’
‘Well, I don’t want you!’ Storm protested vehemently, emotion darkening her eyes to the colour of pansies. ‘I love David.’
Jago looked at her for a moment and in his eyes she saw the determination of a man used to getting his own way. It took all the self control she had at her command to hold that gaze.
‘You’re a liar,’ he told her, ‘on both counts, and before too long I’ll prove it to you.’
‘I’m going straight to David to tell him what you’ve just said!’ Storm told him furiously, but the steely grip of his fingers on her arms sliced off her protests, his eyes dark as they bored into hers.
‘You do just that,’ he told her softly, ‘and you’ll find out exactly how little your precious David cares about you. Once he knows I want you he’ll drop you like a hot potato. All David Winters wants from life is peace and quiet, and if he thinks letting me have you will get it for him, he will wrap you up himself in pretty paper and hand you over tied up in pink ribbons.’
‘I hate you!’ Storm breathed, trembling with indignation. ‘David would never…’
Her protest was silenced as hard male lips claimed her mouth her body drawn against masculine contours and she was forced to endure an intimacy of touch she had always previously avoided. She stiffened within the embrace, her mouth closing stubbornly as she refused to respond.
Jago laughed softly.
‘You’ve got a lot to learn, Storm Templeton,’ he told her mockingly, ‘but I shall enjoy teaching you.’
‘I loathe you!’ Storm spat at him, pulling herself out of his arms.
He made no attempt to follow her, his expression thoughtfully assessing as it lingered on her dilated eyes.
‘You fear me,’ he corrected, startling her with his insight. ‘And you fear the emotions I might arouse, isn’t that more to the point? Is that why you chose David? Because he was nice and safe?’
‘You’ve no right to question me about my private life,’ Storm protested, fumbling with the door. ‘And whatever you may choose to think of your prowess, you do nothing for me.’
‘But I shall.’ Jago promised softly as she fled. ‘Believe me, Storm, I shall.’
Her first instinct was to go straight to David and tell him what had happened, but the tiny kernel of truth in Jago’s statement would not be denied. David hated trouble of any kind, and while she did not believe for one moment that he would ‘hand her over’ as Jago had suggested—she was not David’s possession, after all—she knew that he would probably try and reason her out of her present frame of mind, explaining away Jago’s comments as a form of teasing, or worse still a product of her imagination. She had always approved of his lack of jealousy, she reminded herself, so it was hardly fair now to wish that he might tell Jago in no uncertain terms that she belonged to him. Anyway, she had no need of David to defend her. Surely she was perfectly capable of telling Jago herself that he did not interest her? But somehow she had an idea that he would take ‘no’ for an answer.
She could still not quite believe that it had all happened. One moment they had been discussing work and the next… But no, that was not true, she acknowledged. From the moment he had looked at her in that disturbingly sensual manner she had known that he desired her. It had happened before and she had not felt the tremulous fear she felt now. But Jago Marsh was like no man she had ever known before, she acknowledged, and something deep inside her reacted to him whether she liked it or not. He aroused in her a primitive fear she had never known before, panicking her into all manner of foolish reactions. She would just have to strive to appear cool and in control of the situation, she told herself. Men like Jago Marsh did not normally have to work very hard to secure their sexual pleasures and doubtless once he realised that she did not intend to play ball, he would drop her and pursue someone else.
The shock of seeing him there in David’s office this morning had made her more vulnerable than she would normally be, but from now on she would be on her guard. He might desire her, but so what? an inner voice asked sardonically. She herself had said that he changed his girl-friends as frequently as he changed his shirts, and no doubt the sophisticated crowd he moved in thought no more of going to bed with someone than they did of shaking hands—possibly even less.
He was still on her mind later in the day when she left the studio, and she grimaced a little at her own stupidity in allowing him to monopolise so much of her attention as she unlocked the Mini. If Jago Marsh thought she was going to be another easy conquest,
