Hurricane Hearts

by Nina Levine

  I stared at him as he made his declaration, and knew I was screwed. Not only had he kissed me, but now I had to spend an entire afternoon with him while my family loved on him. My brothers thought of him as their brother, and my mother adored him. And hours of being in his presence, with his sexiness overwhelming me, would be the worst kind of torture when there was no way I could allow myself to have even a night with him again. One night would lead to two nights and then three nights, and before we knew it, we’d be together again. And that would only lead to heartbreak when he discovered the real reason I broke up with him.

  I pursed my lips in frustration. “Fine, go to lunch, but if you ever try to kiss me again, I will knee you in the balls so hard you’ll wish you never came near me.”

  His smile remained firmly in place as he leaned close to me. “The fact you’re thinking about my balls tells me everything I need to know, Angel.”

  4

  WINTER

  I leaned back against my chair at Jennifer’s table after lunch and extended my arm out across the top of Birdie’s chair. She wasn’t sitting in it. If she had been, she would no doubt have told me what to do with my arm. I would have moved my mouth to her ear and told her she should keep fighting me because it turned me on. And then she would have removed herself from the spot next to me.

  I sucked back some beer. Yep, I knew Birdie Beaumont as well as I knew myself. Most of the time. There was still a good 25 percent of the time that she surprised me. It was one of the things I loved about her. Life had never been boring when we were together.

  Birdie’s brother Carey grinned at me as I ran my gaze over his sister who stood in the kitchen talking to her mum and Sarah, her brother’s fiancé, about the Color Run she’d signed up for. Jerking his chin at her, he said, “She’s not going to make it easy on you, man.”

  I nodded, keeping my eyes firmly glued to Birdie. I wasn’t wasting a second of my time with her. “Yeah, I’m counting on it.” The chase made it that much sweeter.

  He chuckled. “Fuck, it’s good to have you back. It’s been quiet the last five years without you.”

  That caught my attention enough to draw my gaze from Birdie. “How so?”

  “Birdie’s hardly been around. We didn’t see her much after she moved to Melbourne when you guys broke up, and then while she spent three years travelling on and off. I can count on one hand the number of guys she’s brought home since you. And when I say on one hand, I mean two fingers.”

  Carey and I were the same age and we’d been tight for the decade I was with Birdie, but after she left me, I’d joined Storm and spent all my time with the club. We’d kept in touch, but the phone calls slowed down over the years while we were both busy with life. It seemed, though, that he still had my back. He still knew how my mind worked and what information would be important to me.

  “Either of them last long?”

  He grinned. “Not even a month each. Hell, I reckon she’d booted them within a week. Birdie’s fussy, and let’s be honest, she’s still hung up on you.”

  I knew all about her fussy ways. Some of that shit had almost driven me to drink. And yet, she was the only woman in the world for me.

  “What are you boys talking about over there?” Jennifer called out, watching me with a smile.

  “We were just discussing Birdie’s lack of men.” Carey always was the shit-stirrer of the family.

  Birdie’s eyes bulged and she hit him with a filthy look. “What lack of men? I’ve had more than enough.”

  As much as I tried, I couldn’t fight the grin that formed on my lips. Fuck, she was beautiful when she was fired up. And that perfect pink pout never failed to stir my desire for her.

  Her other brother, Lucas, joined in the conversation from across the table. “I do recall that plumber you brought home once. Didn’t he spend half the night in the toilet trying to plunge his own shit after blocking it?”

  Carey laughed, almost choking on his beer. “Fuck, he did! The smell from his shit could have painted this place brown. And what about that other dude? The one who worked in the funeral home? I swear I’ve never seen a paler face than his. He had to be wearing white make-up or something.”

  Lucas nodded. “Yeah, and a whole heap of black shit on his eyes. Seriously, Birdie, how the fuck did you go from Winter to those guys? I bet they didn’t even own a dick between them.”

  Birdie glowered at them. “God, you two can be assholes sometimes.” While her brothers laughed at her response, she busied herself tidying up the kitchen, placing salads in the fridge and clearing food scraps from the plates. “And for your information, they both had big dicks. Huge dicks that they knew what to do with.”

  And the grin on my face died. I didn’t want to think about Birdie being fucked by someone else.

  Jennifer helped her load food into the fridge. She didn’t seem so convinced by Birdie’s declaration. “Really? How big are we talking?”

  “Mum, seriously,” Birdie said, “Big. Why, do you doubt me?”

  Jennifer shrugged. “You did try to tell me that painter’s dick was huge a couple of years ago. Then I saw the dick pic he sent you, and let me tell you that if you think that’s huge, we need to get you out more.”

  Fucking hell.

  Enough with the goddam dick talk.

  Carey had me covered. He interrupted the conversation. “Mum, did you end up going on a date with that guy your friend was going to introduce you to at her dinner party?.”

  “Oh God, no. He spent the night of the dinner party picking his teeth and continually smoothing his hair. How hard is it to find a normal man?”

  “My thoughts exactly,” Birdie agreed. “All the good men are taken.” Her eyes met mine as she said that, and I didn’t miss the way her gaze lingered on me.

  “Birdie,” Jennifer said, passing her a container of food, “Can you please take this out to the freezer in the garage?”

  She did as her mother asked, and I made my move. I’d spent the last three hours waiting for this moment, and I wasn’t about to miss it now. I followed her to the garage, closing the door behind us as I entered.

  The way she didn’t react told me she knew I’d followed her, and when she said, “Winter, this isn’t going to go down the way you want it to,” I knew she was lying to herself. She would have stopped me on the way in here if she meant what she’d just said. She sure as fuck wouldn’t have waited until we were alone.

  I folded my arms over my chest and leaned against the wall near the freezer. “How do you think I want this to go down?”

  She met my gaze. “You think we’re going to dance around each other for a while, you chasing me, me avoiding you. You think I’m just playing and will eventually give in. But that’s not how things will play out. I broke up with you for a reason, and I don’t have any intention of starting a relationship again.”

  I narrowed my eyes at her. “And what exactly was that reason, Birdie? Because I don’t remember you ever giving me a real reason.”

  “Have you forgotten how much we were fighting?” Her tone was challenging, like she was looking for an argument.

  “Christ, I’d just come back from Afghanistan. It was an adjustment period for us. Of course we were fighting.”

  Her body tensed. “We were fighting way before you came home that last time.”

  “And you were happy to just throw away ten years together without us working on it once I was home full-time?” I loved her, but fuck, I was still mad with her.

  Her gaze dropped to the ground and she took a step away from me. “We’d been working on it and we weren’t getting anywhere.” There was something off here. I’d always gotten the feeling there was something she wasn’t telling me, and I was getting that same damn feeling again.

  “Was there someone else, Birdie? Is that it?” I hoped to hell she didn’t say yes. I’d never fully believed that, but it had crossed my mind, because her behaviour had been so out of character for her that nothing had made much sense.
/>
  Her head jerked up and her eyes met mine again. “No,” she said with complete conviction, “I never cheated on you.” Her voice softened a little as she reiterated that, “Never.”

  Thank fuck.

  An overwhelming need to have her in my arms hit me, and I pushed off the wall and closed the distance between us. One arm slid around her waist while I took hold of her face with my free hand. “I hadn’t been working on us. You might have been, but my mind was so fucked up from what I saw over there that I hadn’t wrapped it around what I needed to do back home. I screwed us up, Birdie, and I’m going to make it right. Let me back in. Let me work on us.”

  I felt the moment she gave in. She might not have felt it, but I did. Her eyes fluttered closed for a second before opening again and looking at me with heat. Her body relaxed into mine and she gripped my shirt. And while she continued fighting me, she’d crossed the line back to me.

  “You didn’t screw us up. We both played our part. But I can’t go back. I don’t—”

  I bent my mouth to her ear and cut her off. “We’re going back, Angel. Don’t fight me on this, because you won’t win.”

  With that, I claimed her mouth and kissed her for the second time that day. This time, she struggled against me and tried to push me away. I pulled my lips from hers and growled, “Tell me you don’t want this. Tell me you don’t feel something when we’re together and that you aren’t imagining fucking me. I am deadly fucking serious when I say I want you back and that I’ll do whatever it takes, but I’ll give you this one opportunity to tell me no.”

  She stared up at me, breathless and sexy as fuck, and she didn’t tell me any of that. Instead, she pulled my mouth back to hers and kissed the hell out of me.

  We were going back.

  5

  BIRDIE

  “You what?” Cleo asked, coming to a complete stop to stare at me in shock, dropping the foam rollers that were precariously balanced in her arms.

  We were at work, in the middle of preparing for our first Pilates class early Monday morning, the day after I’d kissed Winter. The day after I’d lost my damn mind.

  I bent and helped her pick up the rollers. “God, I know. It wasn’t my finest moment. I don’t know what came over me.”

  “Oh, I do. Winter Morrison came over you.”

  He did. But she didn’t know the worst of it. So far, I’d only told her we’d kissed, not that I initiated one of those kisses. “Umm, so I was the one who kissed him. He gave me the opportunity to say no, to say I felt nothing, and instead of telling him that, I kissed him.”

  She blinked in the way she did when someone had completely stunned her. It didn’t happen often with Cleo; not much left her speechless, but this news did.

  She walked to the corner of the room and placed the rollers down. “Tell me everything so that we can put a game plan in place to deal with this detour.” Stopping abruptly, she narrowed her eyes at me. “Wait, unless this is what you want. Do you want Winter back?”

  That was the kind of question that had a million parts to the answer. And that answer was destined to cause more heartbreak.

  I met Cleo’s eyes, regret in mine. “You know the answer to that.”

  Cleo was the only person besides my mother who knew the full details of what had gone down between Winter and me. I knew it wasn’t fair to Winter to keep any of it from him, but I did it in an attempt to preserve some of his heart. And so when I couldn’t share my secrets with him, I’d turned to my best friend.

  She contemplated that. “I know that in the past five years you haven’t found a man who even came close to Winter. I mean, sure, you’ve met some guys worth knowing, but Birdie, not one of them held the kind of spark for you that Winter does. He’s been back in your life for a second and you’re already kissing him.” Her voice softened. “Do you think maybe it’s worth considering telling him what happened and seeing where it leads?”

  My eyes widened as panic swept through me. “God no. I can’t. Never. It would kill him.”

  “Would it?” she asked softly. “Or is this more about you than him?”

  I swallowed down my fear. And my guilt. I’d spent last night weighed down with both as I’d turned this over in my mind again. The first year after I left Winter, I’d been consumed in this same way, and now all those feelings and thoughts had crashed back into me. I’d never actually managed to move past them; I’d just shoved them in my dirty secrets box and pushed it down as deep as I could.

  “It’s about him… okay, and me…. Fuck…” My face twisted with the torn emotions coursing through me. “I don’t honestly know anymore.”

  “This is something I think you need to put some serious thought into, because if I know Winter as well as I think I do, he’s not going anywhere. And, if I know you as well as I think I do, you won’t be able to resist him for much longer.”

  She wasn’t wrong about any of that. After I’d kissed him yesterday, he’d tried to boss me into having dinner with him tonight and I’d almost said yes. He’d had me under his spell, that was for damn sure. Somehow, though, I’d called upon my skills of denial and managed to say no. And I’d then forced him to accept that no. Well, as much as anyone can force Winter to do anything. I knew it was only a matter of time before he made another attempt at ambushing me. I just had to be better prepared for him.

  “Geez, Mum, how do you find anything in here?” I asked late that afternoon as I dug through the pile of clothes on the couch in her spare bedroom. My mother wasn’t known for her organisational skills, but I’d never seen this room so messy.

  She nudged me aside. “Let me find it. And stop with the judgey eyes, darling. I’ve been busy with more important things.”

  “What things?”

  “Men things,” she said as she passed me the pink top I’d been looking for.

  I cocked my head to the side. “Men things?”

  Straightening, she smiled. It had a whisper of sexy to it that caught my attention. “I’ve been chatting with this guy online for the past two weeks. He’s kinda been distracting me from everything, including housework.”

  It had been fourteen years since my father died. Mum had dated a lot of men since then, trying to find someone to love her like he had, but she was still to find the one. The fact my father had loved her something fierce made it harder for her. When you’d had the best, how did you ever replace that? I understood; I’d had the same struggle since leaving Winter.

  Gripping her wrist excitedly, I said, “You need to tell me everything.”

  “Do you wanna stay for dinner? I’m making that walnut salad you love. I’ll tell you everything while we eat.”

  I exited the room, heading to the kitchen, dragging her with me. “I’ll help you make it while you talk. And I wanna know absolutely everything. Your first conversation. All about him. Your first date plans. Whether he gives you that feeling in your tummy that Dad did. Don’t leave a single thing out.” I spotted her phone on the kitchen counter and grabbed it. Passing it to her, I demanded, “Show me what he looks like.”

  Taking the phone, she giggled. Like a freaking schoolgirl. “Oh, Birdie, don’t go getting all excited. It probably won’t go anywhere with him.”

  I arched a brow. “Seriously? The last time I heard you giggle like that was when Dad was alive. I’m not calling it yet, but I think this dude might start showing up at our Sunday lunches in the future.”

  She shook her head as if to say she thought I was being ridiculous. Then, as she passed me her phone with the guy’s dating profile open on it, she said, “If I start seeing him, it’ll be a while before he starts showing up at our family lunches.”

  I eyed the dude. Glen. Good strong name, and he had a good strong face to go with it. Mum had excellent taste. Glancing up at her, I asked, “Why?”

  She frowned. “Why what?”

  I gave her back the phone. “Why would it take that long for you to invite him to lunch? Life is short, Mum. You know that better than an
yone.”

  “I don’t know. I just… I don’t want to rush into anything.” The vulnerability bleeding through her voice shot sorrow through my heart. It had taken her a good three years to get back out there dating after Dad died, and another couple of years to be truly open to finding a new partner. It didn’t seem, though, that time had lessened her wariness. The fact I hadn’t witnessed this with any other man she’d met told me there must be a spark here with this guy. A spark that caused her a little bit of fear.

  I reached for her hand and squeezed it gently. “I get it, Mum. No rushing. But still, I wanna know everything so start spilling.” I wouldn’t rush her, but I’d push her in an effort to get her out of her comfort zone. Just a little. That was my job as her daughter.

  We spent the next twenty minutes making salad and talking about Glen. I managed to learn he was a lawyer, divorced with two kids, who spent his free time doing anything that involved water sports or motor racing. I’d also learned they shared similar taste in music and art. They hadn’t organised a first date yet, but I got the impression that wasn’t for his lack of trying. It was Mum holding them up. And that surprised me because she hadn’t ever slowed down a first date.

  “So, why do you need my pink top?” she asked, barely taking a breath after telling me there was no date lined up. It was obvious she was attempting to divert the conversation.

  “Ah, we haven’t finished talking about Glen. I was thinking you guys should get tickets to see Bon Jovi. They’re coming next week and I know there are still tickets available. And you just told me you both love them. That’d be a great first date. Dinner and a concert.”

  “Birdie,” she started, her voice settling into the warning tone that I knew meant I’d pushed this as far as she would tolerate today. “Let me decide this for myself, okay?”