Riding the Thunder - Deborah MacGillivray [16]
She had a feeling Jago Fitzgerald could be the exception.
Yes, she craved to take those few steps to him, maybe shock him with her surrender. However, as she thought of doing that—was just a breath away from doing it—images of a balefire seared her mind’s eye, of two lovers coming together with a passion that would burn out all reason.
Swallowing back her yearning for him, she turned on her heels. And fled.
Yes, wanting was a dangerous thing.
Jago watched Asha rush to her bungalow and unlock it. She reached inside, flipped on a light, and then with a glance over her shoulder, entered. Sliding the patio door shut, she turned and relocked it. Hesitating, she stared with haunting eyes out into the night. At him. The instant spun out, making it hard for him to breathe.
It wouldn’t take much to push the hand of fate and knock down those barriers she was carefully constructing between them. She wanted him. Oh, how she wanted him. It probably terrified Miss Prim and Proper just how much she did. An intelligent woman, she recognized she was his for the taking, that had he reached out and kissed her, he’d be in her bed this night. No words, no promises, just her sweet surrender. The needy look from those tawny eyes set his brain on a slow burn. Made him nearly forget his best intentions.
With a sharp yank, she pulled the cord on the heavy drapes, and shut him out of her contained little world. He didn’t like being shut out. Still, despite his annoyance, he smiled, seeing that her bungalow was next to his. He figured she likely had a personal code about never dating customers. Picky women often made such rules.
“And Asha is very particular, aren’t you, love?” He said the words as a challenge.
Taking another drag on the Swisher Sweet, he relished the hint of cherry in the tobacco. Damn cheap-arse cigar, but one fine smoke. His brother Desmond always sniggered at his choice of cigars. Of course, Desmond did everything first class. Were he to smoke, only Havana’s best would be good enough for him. Jago didn’t indulge often, but at times a smoke was relaxing. It allowed him to savor the moment. Like now.
He wanted nothing more than to go knock on that glass door with the drapes pulled against the night. Against him. See if Asha would let him in. He wanted to push past the line she’d drawn in the sand, see if she’d make an exception for him, test if she’d break those rules. There was a restlessness inside him. A queer, itchy feeling that had been creeping up on him for the past ten months.
The restiveness had first started back in winter, though he couldn’t now precisely pinpoint the date. He recalled going to the refrigerator looking for something, though he wasn’t hungry. He wondered if the compulsive action was caused by lingering childhood memories when food had been scarce. That seemed logical. He’d noticed when watching television, he’d constantly flip channels; nothing held his attention. And women . . . they’d become like his incessant trips to the refrigerator—plenty of choices, but nothing for which he truly hungered.
Jago couldn’t recall the last time he wanted a woman the way he ached at this moment for Asha Montgomerie—craved her until reason faded and age-old instincts to mate possessed his mind. What he felt for her was primitive, raw. It was dangerous. In more bloody ways than one.
So odd, Trevelyn and he were twins, yet their approach to women was wholly different, dissimilar even from their elder brother Desmond. Desmond liked women; he just didn’t like them to cling—especially after the novelty of the relationship wore thin. Trevelyn loved sex. He ran through women like one might a box of tissues when you had a cold. Strange to think of sharing a face and body with another being, yet inside that wrapper was a person poles apart. Trev was a tiger on the prowl. And himself? Jago sighed . . . not sure what he was anymore.
The disquiet within him had grown worse after Sean Montgomerie’s funeral last May. Desmond, Trev and he