Taken by Storm

by Rochelle Alers

  He’d come to look for the red-and-gold highlights in her curly hair, the pinpoints of green in her brown eyes and the velvety sheen of her alizarin-brown skin. It was the second time in his life a woman had tugged at his heart, but his relationship with Simone would differ greatly from the one he’d had with Dorene because it would be short-lived.

  A soft buzzing garnered Rafe’s attention. Turning away from the window he made his way to the nightstand and picked up the vibrating cell phone. The name and number on the display reminded him that he was “on the job.”

  Pressing a button, he spoke quietly into the mouthpiece. “Madison.”

  His expression didn’t change as he listened intently to the voice on the other end of the line. Ian Benton was scheduled to be arraigned at the White Plains federal courthouse Tuesday morning at ten.

  “Thanks for the update.” Depressing a button, he ended the call.

  It was about to begin. Benton would be arraigned and no doubt denied bail. The next phase would be a grand jury hearing. Rafe didn’t want to think of a grand jury not coming back with an indictment in the attempted murder of a federal judge. If not, then Simone Whitfield’s life wasn’t worth the cost of recycled kitty litter.

  He got into bed, pulled a sheet up over his naked body and closed his eyes. What he didn’t want to think about was Benton coming after Simone, because if the man even came close enough to breathe on her, he’d put him on his back.

  * * *

  Simone woke up two hours later than she normally would have, and attributed that to the two glasses of wine she’d drunk at the McMillans’. She managed to slip out of bed without waking Tessa. She completed her morning ablution in the adjoining bathroom and then slipped into a pair of well-worn jeans, an oversized T-shirt and a pair of running shoes.

  Her footsteps were silent as she walked the length of the hallway to the staircase leading to the third floor. She wanted to take an early morning walk, but knew she had to apprise Rafe of her whereabouts.

  There were two bedrooms on the upper level, one unoccupied and the other with a closed door. Stopping at the door, she knocked lightly, waited for movement, then knocked again.

  “Who is it?” asked a muffled voice on the other side.

  “Simone.”

  “What a minute, Simone.”

  “Whatcha doing, Rafe?” she drawled teasingly.

  The door opened, and she wasn’t given time to react when she found herself in Rafe’s arms, his mouth slanting over hers in a kiss that robbed her of her breath. He smelled of soap and aftershave, and tasted like toothpaste. The kiss ended as it’d begun—quickly.

  Simone clung to Rafe’s neck as if he were her lifeline, her gaze moving lazily over his face. “What was that all about?”

  He smiled, deep slashes appearing in his lean cheeks. “That was good morning.”

  She lowered her lashes in a demure gesture. “Well, good morning to you, too.”

  “I assume you want to go jogging.”

  “I’d rather walk this morning.” Rafe’s hands slid down her arms as he pulled her gently into the bedroom, closing the door. “How did you know I wanted to go out?”

  Rafe tugged playfully on her braided hair. “You’re not that mysterious, Miss Whitfield. In fact, you’re pretty parochial.”

  Simone sat on a padded bench at the foot of the queen-size bed, watching Rafe as he sat in an armchair putting on a pair of socks. Jeans and a T-shirt failed to conceal the power in his lean, muscled physique.

  She noticed details about him that weren’t apparent before or that she’d chosen to ignore. He had beautiful hands and feet for a man. They were long, slender and delicately formed. Peering over her shoulder, she saw the twisted sheets. It was obvious he hadn’t had a restful night’s sleep.

  Rafe saw the direction of Simone’s gaze, and longed to tell her that if she’d shared the bed he doubted whether he would’ve tossed and turned throughout the night. Slipping into his running shoes, he leaned over to tie the laces.

  “I’m ready,” he said, rising to his feet. He’d left his firearm in his overnight bag. The fence and closed-circuit cameras served as deterrents for trespassers seeking access to the multimillion-dollar estate.

  Hand in hand, they left the bedroom. “I really enjoyed myself last night,” Rafe told Simone as they made their way down the winding staircase to the first floor. “You have a wonderful family.”

  She smiled up at him. “Thank you.”

  “What’s on today’s agenda?”

  “You’ll see.”

  “I take that to mean you’re not going to tell me.”

  “Bingo.”

  “Be like that, Simone.”

  “I will,” she said, teasingly, flashing a saucy grin.

  “How did your sister meet Micah?”

  “She was his sister’s wedding planner. Bridget was married here this past New Year’s Eve. Tessa had less than three months to coordinate a formal wedding, but she managed to pull it off with rousing success.”

  Rafe stared up at the massive chandelier, trying to imagine the brilliant lights reflecting off the marble floor, the mansion decorated with exotic flowers and filled with guests in their holiday finery who’d come to witness a wedding and to welcome in the beginning of a new year.

  “This house is magnificent.”

  “It is,” Simone agreed. “I can’t imagine growing up in a house with six bedrooms, six full baths, two half baths, two kitchens, formal living and dining rooms, ballroom, full theater, pool and a pool house, all set on six and a half acres. It would take six of my parents’ three-thousand-square-foot house to fit into this place.”

  Rafe shook his head in amazement. “Sleepovers here must have been a blast.” There was a hint of regret in his voice.

  He’d grown up in a large farmhouse-style home, but neither he nor his sister ever had sleepovers, nor were they permitted to sleep over at their friends’ homes. There’d been so many limitations and restrictions that he’d become a virtual prisoner. The exception was school. Having been blessed with above average intelligence and physical prowess, he took advantage of both, earning academic and athletic scholarships to several prominent colleges throughout the country. Sitting down with his parents, he narrowed the choices to two, and decided to accept a full scholarship to Florida Memorial College in Miami, Florida.

  “I’m sure they were,” Simone said in agreement.

  She recalled her sleepovers in Mount Vernon. The ones held at her home were in the attic that’d been designed to replicate a discotheque, including a glittering ball, and the sleepovers in the finished basement at Faith’s made them feel as if they’d retreated to the tropics, with large pots of palm and banana plants, rattan furniture covered with tropical-patterned cushions and a two-hundred-gallon aquarium filled with colorful tropical fish.

  They left the house through a rear door, stepping out into warm, bright sunshine. Droplets of dew shimmered on the manicured lawn and meadow like diamond dust. Simone inhaled a lungful of air, holding it for several seconds before exhaling.

  Rafe gave her a sidelong glance. “What are you doing?”

  “Smelling the air. I love the smell of moist earth and grass early in the morning.”

  He inhaled and then exhaled. “I don’t smell anything.”

  “That’s because my olfactory sensory glands are more sensitive than yours. I can close my eyes and identify the smell of a rose from a tulip or lily,” she admitted. “I’ve been experimenting with extracting the essence of oils from flowers for crèmes and lotions. That’s why I’ve decided to add the outbuildings. I want to use the larger one as a greenhouse and the other as a laboratory to cook and blend my concoctions.”

  His respect and admiration for Simone just went up another notch. She’d become quite an entrepreneur. “How do you plan to market your perfumed crèmes?”

  “It will be strictly mail-order. I don’t want to get caught up in distributors or retailers.”

  Rele
asing Simone’s hand, Rafe looped an arm around her waist, pulling her close to his side when she put an arm around his waist as they made their way along a brick-paved path that led to the southwest end of the sprawling property.

  “What are you going to do if demand exceeds supply?”

  “I’ll hire an assistant or assistants.”

  “Do you like working from home?” he asked.

  Simone’s eyes sparkled with excitement. “I love it. I set my own hours and, more importantly, I don’t have to concern myself with an overbearing boss or catty coworkers.”

  “Can you see yourself as a boss?”

  Shaking her head, she smiled. “Not yet. If or when I become one, I pray I’m not as hard on my employees as I am on myself. I’ve been accused of being a perfectionist, or too anal, but when a client spends thousands of dollars for something as fragile as fresh flowers my focus is complete satisfaction.”

  “Have you ever had a client complain about your work?”

  “I’ve had a few. But there’s one in particular who I’ll never forget. I knew she was going to be a problem during our initial consultation because she tried to nickel and dime me on everything. She wanted orchids that had to be flown in from Tahiti, but she didn’t want to pay the added cost for shipping them overnight. In the end I ordered the orchids from Puerto Rico. They still were expensive, so I gave her a break. Her younger daughter had planned a wedding for the following year.”

  “How were the flowers?”

  “They were spectacular. I’d put together streamers of pink and white orchids and suspended them around the inside of an enormous tent so that it resembled a seraglio. Everyone complimented the bride on the flowers, but her mother continued to bitch and moan about the cost.”

  “Did you give her a refund?”

  “No. I did one better. I refused to do the wedding flowers for her other daughter. She pleaded and begged, but I was done with her. I’ve never come that close to cussin’ out a client, but she’d really worked my last nerve.”

  “Ah, the pitfalls of dealing with the finicky public,” Rafe drawled. “How do you get your clients?”

  “Most of them are referrals. I own a twenty percent share of Signature Bridals, so if a bride signs with Tessa, then I’m commissioned to do the flowers and Faith the cake. But I also have several private clients. Every Monday morning, I deliver flowers to a law firm for their reception area and conference rooms. I also provide the flowers for Whitfield Caterers and send weekly arrangements to Tessa, my mother and my aunt Lucinda.”

  Rafe didn’t have to ask Simone whether Wildflowers and Other Treasurers was doing well because the profits on her tax returns bore witness that she ran a very successful enterprise.

  “How was it growing up in Kansas?” she asked after a comfortable silence.

  “It’s odd living in a state where human beings are the minority. There are two and a half cows for each person in the state,” he said when Simone gave him a puzzled look. “Most people believe that Kansas is flat, but it isn’t. In the northeast portion of the state, there’s the Smoky Hills where the Kansas and Missouri rivers meet. Unfortunately, Kansas is also known as the cyclone state because weather conditions are conducive to tornadoes or cyclones. But the fact is Oklahoma has more devastating wind storms than Kansas.”

  “Have you ever seen a twister?”

  Rafe nodded. “Too many to count. The sound of the wind is similar to that of a speeding freight train. The rule in our house was the moment you see a funnel cloud, head for the storm cellar. Unfortunately, whenever it touches down there’s always devastation: human life, livestock and property. I spent my eighth grade in trailers that were converted into schoolrooms after a twister leveled the school.”

  “When did your family settle in Kansas?”

  “My father’s folks came as squatters in the early 1850s. My mama’s folks settled there after the Civil War.”

  “Historically, were your people Jayhawkers or bushwhackers?”

  “I’m proud to say that they were Jayhawkers. They’d migrated from Massachusetts, and as Yankees were strongly antislavery. My great-great-grandfather was involved in launching raids into Missouri to attack proslavery factions. Unfortunately, he was a casualty during the Bleeding Kansas conflict.”

  Simone listened intently as Rafe revealed that because he’d grown up with farm animals, he knew where babies had come from by the time he was eight. His father bought a bull to mate with several cows, and the first time he saw a bull mount a cow he was transfixed by the act. When he told his father about what he’d witnessed, he was forced to endure a sermonlike lecture that wicked and licentious acts would damn his soul to hell.

  “I was so screwed up in my head about sex that the first time I slept with a woman I couldn’t bring myself to enjoy it. It took a while before I realized there was nothing wrong with me, but that my father’s warped sense of morality made me feel dirty and guilty.”

  “Are you okay now?”

  Rafe stopped, turned and cradled Simone’s face in his hands. Lowering his head, he brushed a kiss over her mouth. “Are you willing to help me out if I’m not okay?”

  Sunlight slanting across her face turned her into a statue of bronze. “I agreed to date you. There’s nothing in our agreement that we would sleep together.”

  A slight frown appeared between his eyes. “Are you telling me that there isn’t a remote possibility that we can share a bed?”

  “To me, sharing a bed is not the same as having sex. My sister and I shared a bed last night.”

  Rafe’s frown deepened. “Must you always be so literal?” She nodded. He lowered his head again, pressing his mouth to her ear and whispered what he wanted to do to her. There was no mistaking her shock and embarrassment when a flush darkened her face. “Was that explicit enough for you?”

  Simone closed her eyes, praying for the earth to open up and swallow her whole as Rafe’s erotically ribald suggestion played over and over in her head. The flush that had suffused her face moved lower until she was unable to stop the tiny tremors that left her shaking uncontrollably.

  Her knees buckled slightly, and she would’ve fallen if Rafe hadn’t held on to her. The need, wanting and the desire she’d repressed for years surfaced with Rafe’s sensually charged admission.

  She opened her eyes, staring up at the man who made her feel things she didn’t want to feel, a man who only days before had come into her home and into her life to make her aware that she was a normal woman who’d denied her femininity.

  “It was very explicit.” Her smoky voice was barely a whisper.

  Tightening his hold around her waist, Rafe pulled her flush against his chest, permitting her to feel his rising desire. A hint of a smile tugged at the corners of his strong, masculine mouth. “As long as we understand each other, then I believe we’re going to get along very well.”

  Simone didn’t remember rising on tiptoe, or her arms finding their way around Rafe’s neck, but what she did remember was his warm breath on her parted lips and the texture of his tongue when it met hers.

  The heat from his body, his natural scent mingling with the clean metallic fragrance of his aftershave and the hardness between his thighs pressing against hers were magnified as Simone gave in to the passion heating her blood to a scalding temperature that threatened to incinerate her into millions of particles.

  They sank down to the verdant lushness of the grass, becoming one with nature. Rafe wanted to devour Simone: her mouth and her body. His hands were in her hair, fingers undoing the loose plait. He didn’t know how long he would have Simone Whitfield as his witness, but wanted to enjoy whatever time they were given.

  His fingers feathered over her chest, then moved down to the hem of her T-shirt, gathering fabric and easing the cotton up and over her breasts. Pulling back, he stared down her breasts under a sheer bra that was an exact match for her tawny-brown skin.

  “Don’t,” he whispered when Simone attempted to cover her ch
est with her hands. “I promise you that I won’t do anything you don’t want me to do. Just let me look at you.” Her hand fell away and he visually feasted on what her clothes had artfully concealed. “You are so beautiful.” There was no mistaking the awe in the four words. Moving down the length of her body, he feathered kisses over her flat belly. “So sweet, so good,” he murmured over and over.

  Rafe unsnapped her jeans, pressing a kiss to the hollow where her hipbones joined her pelvis. He worshipped her flesh, whispering a litany to her beauty. He was aware of the change in Simone’s respiration, the soft moans coming from her throat and the barely perceptible movement of her hips.

  He wanted her more than he’d ever wanted any woman, but knew he couldn’t make love to her out in the open where someone could witness what he considered a very private act. He also couldn’t make love to Simone because he wasn’t able to protect her from an unplanned pregnancy.

  Reluctantly, he raised his head and snapped her jeans, his eyes meeting Simone’s. Passion had darkened them to a sooty-brown. “Thank you,” he whispered.

  Pushing to a sitting position, Simone combed her fingers through her hair and braided it again. “What are you thanking me for?”

  Rafe stood up, offering his hand, and he wasn’t disappointed when she placed hers trustingly in his; he eased her to her feet. “For allowing me to sample your goodies.”

  Simone presented him with her back as she adjusted her T-shirt. “Do I have grass stains on the back of my shirt?”

  Here he was talking about making love to her and Simone was worried about grass stains. “No!”

  She spun around, her eyes flashing fire. “There’s no need to answer me in that tone.”

  It took all of Rafe’s self-control not to actually raise his voice to Simone. “Do you have blood or ice water in your veins?”

  Her eyes widened. “What are you talking about?”