Taken by Storm by Jezelle Page A

he asked. But he didn’t mean it.
    His dark eyes flashed fire. Open challenge. Muscles rippled under a tight black T-shirt and faded jeans as he sauntered forward, hips swinging, like an undulating slab of granite. All brawn, all arrogance. All insolent sizzle. Too rugged to be handsome—too obnoxious—but undeniably hot. Something was seriously wrong with a world that allowed such a jerk to look so down-and-dirty fuckable.
    “No, I don’t want a ‘time-out.’ I want you out of my face.” She struggled to hold her ground under his advance, but her feet had other ideas. Each step he took pushed her back an inch. By the time he reached the stoop, her spine was pressed against the broad front door. He stopped less than a hand-span away, towering over her.
    Very aggravating.
    At five-ten, she was tall herself for a woman, but even in heels, couldn’t meet him eye-to-eye. He knew how she hated having to look up at him, knew damn well what an edge his size gave him. He loved to intimidate.
    The big bully.
    He didn’t intimidate her—much—but being Jackson, he always tried. It was all he knew. Brute force, whether he was brawling with the guys or balling the babes. As the captain of their high school football team, he’d lorded it over the other players and treated the girls of the cheerleading squad like they were his personal harem. All except the head cheerleader, of course. Her. His in-your-face sex appeal had never worked on Cait.
    Well…yes, it had. But she was damned if she’d admit it. That was one old pattern into which they were not going to fall.
    Where the devil was that senile butler? She needed an escape route, and the only one was behind her. And locked.
    Branstonnn! Open the goddamned door!
    Jackson grinned. A nasty grin, like he’d read her thoughts, the evil swine. He leaned in and flattened his palms on the wood, one on each side of her shoulders, caging her between his arms.
    “I don’t have to leave. I live here, remember? And you don’t anymore. So maybe you’re the one who should move it.”
    “Like hell. You’re just the gardener, buddy. This is my father’s house.”
    A hot house at the moment.
    Unfortunately, the bulk of the heat came not from the balmy June weather but the muscular male body looming over her. She felt moisture beading her skin. Most undignified. Usually she managed to perspire, like a lady, but Jackson had a way of making her sweat like a whore. God, she despised him.
    The thermostat rose as he leaned closer, lowered his head till their noses almost touched. “Yeah, well, that’s what we need to talk about. When I got up this morning I found the maids gone and Branston on his way out the door to visit his niece in Florida. He told me they’d all been given a two-week paid holiday. Want to know why?”
    Not really. But no doubt he’d tell her, regardless. Her breath snagged in her throat while she waited. Whatever had happened, she wouldn’t like it. Jackson looked insufferably smug. If the news was good for him, it was certain to be bad for her.
    “Because they won’t be needed until the newlyweds return from their honeymoon.”
    “N-newlyweds?” Oh crap, she could smell it coming. After twenty-eight years of carrying a torch for the wife who’d died giving Cait life, Daddy had finally remarried.
    “That’s what I said, sweetheart. But the best part is, your father is now my uncle. He eloped at dawn today with his cook.”
    Martha Storm.
    Jackson’s widowed aunt.
    Aw no, no…
    The marriage, she could understand—two lonely people looking for companionship. Daddy always had treated the Storms more like friends than servants. Hell, Martha had been the closest thing to a mother Cait had known.
    I love her, myself.
    Despite the woman’s intolerable nephew.
    Who was now a lot more than the “hired help”…
    Cait’s legs shook. “Don’t call me sweetheart ,” was all she could strangle out before her knees buckled.
    Jackson caught her under the arms