Summer With Love: The Spanish Consultant

How could she have forgotten what it felt like to kiss Jago?

Instead of pulling away, she pressed herself closer to him, quivering with response as he kissed her senseless.

Her body softened under the hard possession of his mouth, her insides melting as his tongue probed and teased in an erotic reminder of more intimate moments.

‘Jago, please …’ She was out of her mind with excitement, her whole body consumed by a wild hunger that was totally outside her control.

She needed him so badly.

It had been so long.

The hot demands of his mouth intensified and she started to shiver, held in the grip of an electrifying force so powerful that that she thought she might explode.

She felt frantic.

Desperate.

When Jago finally dragged his mouth away from hers, she staggered slightly, grateful that his fingers were gripping her arms so tightly. If they hadn’t been, she would undoubtedly have fallen.

Aghast and embarrassed by the uninhibited way she’d responded to him, she freed herself from his grip and backed away, deriving some small satisfaction from the fact that Jago looked as stunned as she felt.

Maybe he wasn’t quite as cool and in control as he liked to pretend.

He sucked in his breath and took a step backwards, reaching out to steady himself as he almost tripped over the chair.

His dark eyes burned into hers. ‘You definitely need to call Freddie.’

With that parting shot he turned and strode out of the room, leaving her staring after him in trembling disbelief, feeling intensely vulnerable.

What had she done?

She’d kissed Jago.

And that hadn’t been any old kiss. That kiss had been as close to sex as it was possible to get without removing clothing.

She groaned in mortification. Knowing Jago, he wasn’t going to let her forget it. He was self-confident and arrogant enough to have taken that response as a green light. From now on he’d be pursuing her with all the subtlety of a herd bull.

Shocked and confused, she sat on the edge of the bed until the sound of the doorbell disturbed her.

It would be Freddie. What was she going to do?

She stared at the closed door with something close to desperation.

She was engaged to Freddie but she’d kissed Jago. And kissing Jago had exposed her to a level of excitement that she’d denied herself for eleven years. Intense, toe-curling excitement that could so easily become addictive.

Lifting a hand, she touched her lips, still able to feel a slight tingling where he’d plundered her mouth with his.

No one but no one kissed like Jago. Jago had cornered the market in sexual excitement.

Hearing Freddie’s voice in the hallway, she closed her eyes, knowing that she needed to make a decision.

Fingers shaking, she stood up just as Freddie tapped on the door and walked in. He stopped in surprise, visibly taken aback by her appearance.

‘Goodness, Katherine, what have you done to your hair?’ His frown was faintly disapproving. ‘The Fletcher-Gibbs are quite formal usually and this evening is very much a business dinner. There’ll be clients there. You might want to wear it up.’

Katy blinked, suddenly realising that she’d forgotten to redo her hair after Jago had strode like the conquering male out of her bedroom, having kissed her to the point of total surrender.

She lifted a hand and realised that her long blonde hair, normally fiercely restrained, was flowing loose over her shoulders.

‘I—I—’ She broke off, suddenly needing to ask him a question. ‘Freddie, do you like it like this? If we weren’t dining with the Fletcher-Gibbs, would you prefer that I left it down?’

He looked at her with the expression of a man who knew he was on dangerous ground. ‘You look lovely,’ he said tactfully, ‘but generally speaking I prefer it up. It projects the right sort of image, don’t you agree?’

And that was what Freddie cared about, of course. Image.

Katy looked at him thoughtfully. Jago didn’t prefer it up. Her hair had always driven him wild. But, then, as Libby had pointed out, Freddie wasn’t the sort of man to be driven wild by anything except stocks and shares.

And that had been one of the reasons she’d agreed to marry him.

But what was she going to do now?

Could she ever be satisfied with the blandness of Freddie after experiencing the heat and colour of a man like Jago?

CHAPTER SEVEN

JAGO strode through the A and E department the next morning, satisfied that he’d successfully salvaged what could have been a difficult situation.

All right, so he’d made a mistake about Katy, but her response to his kiss had more than convinced him that she’d forgiven him for not trusting her. After the kiss they’d shared the night before he was supremely confident that she would have ended her engagement to Freddie.

Which meant that they could resume their relationship.

And he had every intention of doing exactly that.

He loved her.

He’d always loved her.

Convinced that he had the situation well in hand, it came as an enormous shock to see her clutching a huge hand-tied bouquet of flowers as she walked along the corridor towards him.

Instinct told him that they had to be from Freddie and he tensed in stunned disbelief. What sort of guy sent flowers after he’d been dumped only a few months before the wedding?

Unless she hadn’t dumped him.

Maybe his plan wasn’t going quite as smoothly as he’d anticipated.

‘You didn’t do it?’ He glowered at her, disconcerted by the feeling that tore through him. The feeling that he only ever seemed to experience when he was around Katy. ‘I can’t believe you still intend to marry that man. How can you marry him after the way you kissed me last night?’

‘You kissed me, Jago,’ she pointed out calmly. ‘And please don’t criticise Freddie. He’s romantic and kind.’