Storm

by Mankin, Michelle

  Peeking in the window, I could see him closing the suitcase he had on the bed. “Looks like Journey’s finished packing. I’d better go.”

  “Okay. I’m here if you need me.”

  “Thanks, Sophia. I love you. Peace out.”

  “I love you too, Lotus. Peace received,” she said, and ended the call.

  I felt better after talking to her, even though I wasn’t any further along in figuring Journey out.

  “Everything okay?” Journey stepped outside and his eyes met mine.

  “Yeah, Sophia was just checking up on me.”

  Standing only a foot away from him, I felt calmer, even with all the unanswered questions. I wanted to dismiss it as something to do with his compelling scent, but I knew it was just him.

  “Good.” His brow smoothed. “I was worried something was wrong.”

  I liked that Journey was worried about me. Liked that my well-being seemed important to him. Just that little bit of caring made me feel so much less alone.

  “Sophia seems like a good friend,” he said. “I’m glad you have her.”

  Journey might not want to have sex with me again, but I believed he was truly glad Sophia was checking up on me. Even with a big life change of his own, that he was concerned meant a lot to me.

  Before I could carry that further, Cork stepped through the open apartment door with a guitar case in each hand.

  “Careful with those.” Journey released the handle on the large suitcase he’d rolled outside and ruffled my brother’s hair. “Don’t have much of value but those. They’re my babies.”

  “Will do.” Cork beamed proudly at being given such an important responsibility. One he was certainly up to.

  But even if he messed up, he would learn, a hard lesson for all if the guitars were damaged. But maybe I sheltered him too much. After all, wasn’t a big part of life learning and growing from what we learned, sink or swim, fail or fly?

  People were like seeds. During germination, water filled the seed, activating the enzymes to begin the plant’s growth. Then the seed grew a root to access more water, and reached upward toward the necessary energy of the sun.

  You could begin that process of germination directly into soil, but it was better to start with a little pot to get the roots time to get established and not expose their delicate first roots to full-strength soil.

  Hadn’t I done that with Cork since his accident? Given him a safe, protected, little-pot environment to germinate? However, purpose and meaning in life were discovered in the process of growing, doing new things, and becoming something more than you were now. Was it time to see what more my brother could do outside the boundaries of our own insular world?

  “Can you go back inside and grab my plants, babe?” Journey tipped his gaze to me. “I put them in a cardboard box, but I’d appreciate it if you took a look and made sure they’re safe and secure.”

  “Sure. I’d be happy to do that.”

  As I brushed by him, the curve of my hip brushed against the hardness of his, and heat swept through me. My pulse pounded hard. My heart raced.

  Even though the attraction was one-sided, I beamed like my brother had at receiving Journey’s attention. The journeying guitarist might only be a moment-by-moment guy who avoided personal entanglements, but he had a way of making you feel valued when he included you in his life. It wasn’t only me that he included now, but my brother also. I liked that a whole lot, and decided figuring Journey out wasn’t necessary.

  At least, not right now.

  For now, I just wanted to enjoy his company and the day. Journey was right that I didn’t often take time for myself. Like almost never.

  Cork wasn’t the only one who lived too sheltered of an existence. I decided today was the day to let the currents of my heart guide me like I’d written on the card Journey had purchased.

  Storm

  FLOATING ON MY board, I held the middle position between Lotus and Cork. It felt good being there. And right. With the sun warm and the rhythmic swells of the ocean rocking me gently like a hammock, it was almost too idyllic of a moment to be believed. Especially for a loner like me.

  I liked Cork a lot. He was an enthusiastic helper who shared a lot of the same interests I did. Even without Lotus in the mix, I would have been drawn into friendship with him. The time flew today, talking to him about surfing and music.

  And Lotus? Well, she was Lotus. Being with her always felt right.

  An added bonus to an already fantastic day was that she looked sexy as hell in her wet suit. No developing teenage curves anymore, she was a woman. A sexier one I’d never seen. Never touched.

  Her tits were a perfect handful for my large hands. Her legs were long and toned, and felt so good wrapped around my waist. Her hips were just right to grip when driving my cock deep into her tight pussy. Her ass was as fine as the rest of her. I hadn’t had the time with her that I would have liked.

  With those heated thoughts in my mind, I drifted closer to her, but her brother splashed me.

  I shook the cold water from my face. The splash had been purposeful, based on the censuring look Cork gave me. He knew I was into his sister.

  Cork was intuitive, as well as funny, and smart. But I’d witnessed several disturbing moments where his judgment had been faulty, most notably at the gas station. He’d turned without looking first to go into the convenience store to get the ice we needed for the cooler, and almost gotten clipped by a car. There seemed to be a disconnect between cause and effect with his actions at times.

  “Outside,” Cork called as a developing lump rolled steadily toward us.

  “Take it,” Lotus said.

  “Yours, buddy.” I gave him a chin lift, letting him have it.

  We’d been surfing out here long enough to have a feel for the set pattern on this section of beach. The wave he’d called for his own was going to be a righteous ride.

  Cork paddled around us and into the wave. Turning the nose of his board toward the shore, he popped up into his stance as the water rose beneath him. His form was fluid, his feet sure.

  Dancing across the surface of the ocean, he was at one with the sea and his board. Well, technically my board. A crystalline blue curtain formed over him. He ducked beneath it at just the right moment and emerged in an exhale of spray on the other side a few moments later.

  His ride over, Cork’s exuberant laughter drifted back to us as he slipped backward off his board, dipping his head into the ocean to slick back his hair.

  “He loves surfing,” Lotus said, a trace of bitterness in her sweet voice. She watched him with shining eyes, a thoughtful wrinkle between them. “We hardly ever get a chance to surf anywhere new. Nowhere outside of OB since we don’t have a car. Thanks for bringing us here.”

  She turned her head, making eye contact with me, contact that was a fiery dart that found its mark in the center of my chest and burned.

  “Thank you for agreeing to come.” My voice was low as I held her gaze and the unadulterated truth slipped free. “I needed the help, and I enjoy your company, babe.”

  “I enjoy yours too.” She gave me back truth of her own. It shimmered in her sultry eyes, more ochre now than brown. “I like you, Journey. Honestly, I have from the moment we met. I feel comfortable with you, like I’ve known you for longer than I have.”

  As she studied me, I donned a casual expression, although her words sent both a frisson of trepidation and a surging bolt of satisfaction through me. If the surges I felt with her could be linked together into one long, sustainable sensation, like linking a few smaller waves into one continuous ride all the way to the shore, I could so easily become addicted to her.

  “So, can we truly be friends now?” she asked. “Look after each other and spend some occasional time together like this? Agree to put what happened in LA behind us?”

  No way in hell was I going to be able to go back to being just friends with her. Lotus was too beautiful, too compelling to resist.

  At
the concert. Behind her bar. In my bed. And on the ocean—my new current favorite.

  Her flawless skin glistened. She wore water droplets like crystal jewels, a sea nymph with her hair as dark as the depths of the ocean. She’d plaited the long tresses into a single French braid before we went into the water. The style was elegant, drawing attention to her delicate features. Her uniquely shaped eyes were umber-hued when her emotions were high. Her petite nose wrinkled when she was amused. Her full lips swelled and darkened when she was turned on.

  Lotus fascinated me. I wanted to know everything about her, and my hands ached to explore every inch of her. Before I could stop it, some of my frustration from the sexual tension slipped out.

  “So, last night you couldn’t talk to me about this, but you’re bringing it up now?” My eyes narrowed on her, but in my peripheral vision, I noticed Cork paddling rapidly toward us.

  “Yes, we are,” she said. “You and me. Privately.”

  “In other words, Saber doesn’t know. You didn’t tell him it was me in LA,” I said, knowing full well she hadn’t.

  If she’d told him, I wouldn’t be with her now. He would have kicked my ass and forbade her from spending time alone with me. Or he would have tried to, at least. I might not know my older brother as well as I once had, but he was my brother, and I knew how I would react if she were mine.

  “I tried to tell him.” Her gaze drifted. “He knows I was with someone in LA. No matter what you want to believe, he and I were broken up when you and I . . . when we . . .”

  “When we fucked.” I didn’t miss that opportunity to fill in where she faltered. Though underneath the words, there was more. So much more.

  “Yes, that.” She bobbed her head, and even in the bright afternoon sunlight, I could see the dusky rose color that suddenly darkened her cheeks.

  “So, being friends with me is really all you want?” I asked, watching her closely.

  “Yes, of course.” The thoughtful wrinkle in her brow became a notable crease. “Isn’t that what you want?”

  “I’d rather show you what I want.” I grabbed her board and pulled her toward me.

  “Journey,” she said softly when I had her close and her leg bumped mine.

  A bolt of lust rocked me just from that. Her warm breath spilled over my skin as I gently grasped her chin in my hand. Intense attraction like an electrical current surged between us.

  Was it two-sided, this need? It had to be with a connection this strong. Did her skin, fuck, her entire body burn the way mine did?

  I tipped her face to the height I wanted, forcing her to look at me.

  “I want to fuck you again, Lotus, make no mistake.” Even with her breathing out the wrong name a moment ago, my cock was rock hard. “You want that too. Don’t deny it.”

  All the signs were there. Her eyes were dark, her lips parted.

  “I’m attracted to you,” she said, her voice hoarse. “You’re handsome, and good in bed. Not that I’ve had many lovers . . . fuck buddies, in order to make that comparison, but good is good, and you’re very good at it.” She was rambling, nervous. Her breaths were shortened pants now. “But I told you that already. I say things when maybe I should be silent.”

  Her total honesty rocked me once again, a rogue wave slamming into me like seeing her in the audience in LA had.

  “I was free to be impulsive in LA,” she said. “I don’t regret it, not totally, but I’d appreciate you keeping silent since Saber doesn’t want to know, and I want to respect his wishes. You should want that too.”

  “Why the fuck would I want that?” Puzzled, I frowned at her.

  “You’re in a band. Saber’s band. You signed a contract and now you’re committed. No more journeying for Journey. You and the guys are a band family, whether you choose to see them in those terms or not.”

  Her gaze flickered with something. Desire, definitely. Disappointment, maybe. And something else that seemed significant that I just couldn’t read.

  Once, a long time ago, I would have known exactly what she was thinking. A big part of me still wanted to be that close. No woman had ever intrigued me like she did. But the hard guy I’d become didn’t do relationships or the necessary groundwork to coax thoughts from a woman like Lotus.

  These days, I was a man accustomed to taking what I wanted and having it, to hell with the consequences . . . except the consequences were huge here. Her, first and foremost. And she was right—I did have a commitment to the band.

  Plus, Saber wasn’t just any band member. He was my brother.

  “You’re right,” I said, reluctance making my voice gruff. “Friends it is.”

  I pushed her away before I could cross another line with her that I wasn’t certain I could or even wanted to redraw.

  Lotus

  MY HEART WAS heavy as we prepared to return to Ocean Beach. I loved my hometown. There was nowhere I’d rather live. However, being away for the day had been just the escape I needed, a mini vacation from my responsibilities.

  “You really got a good barrel on that last one,” I said to Journey, standing next to him behind the tailgate of his Scout. Side by side, we’d been working together to stow away all the beach gear.

  “You got a few good ones too,” he said.

  As he tied a knot in a rope to secure our boards to the roll bar, his biceps flexed distractedly. All of him was distracting, whether he was in his wet suit, or simply wearing a heather-gray tank top and aqua blue board shorts like he was now.

  “Not like you.” I caught his eye, experiencing another shiver of pleasure from the visual connection.

  Journey had a vastly different approach from mine to surfing, like a lot of things. He took on each wave like they were foes to be conquered, not friends to be won over.

  “I got lucky a few times.” He shrugged a muscular shoulder.

  Sadly, that shoulder shrug wasn’t as potent as it would have been before he’d gone to the public shower to change. No more wet suit turned down at the waist to reveal his dripping-wet chiseled torso and colorful skin.

  “Cork was the one to really watch out there,” Journey said. “Even the shitty waves, he transformed into something spectacular.”

  “Yeah.”

  An analogy could be made to my life. Cork transformed even the bad stuff to good.

  With love in my eyes, I looked over at my brother. Rinsed off and dripping water, he sat in one of our chairs with a beach towel draped around his hunched shoulders. He’d surfed until the last possible moment and was now scarfing down his second sandwich. The first one he’d practically inhaled.

  “He has a symbiotic relationship with the waves.” I returned my gaze to Journey to find him watching me closely. “They lend him their energy, and he pays them homage.”

  “I can see that.” He nodded thoughtfully. “Your style’s not much different.”

  “I’m not at his level at all. Not even close.”

  “Maybe not, but you’re experienced. You’re elegant out there. You dance on the water.” He swept his gaze over me, and even a foot away, I felt him and his gaze like a caress. “You’re beautiful to watch, Lotus.”

  “Thank you.” I refocused on my brother, trying to catch my breath and get my rapid heartbeats to slow. “Cork turns everything into something good, not just the waves he surfs.”

  “You two are really close.” Journey moved beside me, his gaze on Cork now too.

  “He’s authentic, kind, and selfless.” My gaze burned like my heart did as I wished things were different for Cork. “Nothing about him is difficult to love.”

  “You’re a lot like him,” Journey said softly.

  I turned and stared at him, my mouth agape. His expression was sincere, his gaze steady, but I couldn’t allow myself to believe a compliment of that magnitude.

  “You don’t really mean that.” I swallowed hard and looked away.

  “I do. I mean it. I see you,” he said in that low rumble of his that melted me.

 
I trembled, fighting the current that had drawn me toward Journey since the beginning. It would be so much easier to surrender to that current than to fight it.

  “You’re beautiful,” he said softly. “Aptly named. A delicate blossom above the water line like the flower you’re named for. That’s what most see, but there’s also those other captivating qualities beneath the surface.”

  “How can you say that?” I swung around to look at him, barely able to frame the question as I reeled from his words.

  “Abandoned by your mother. Your brother injured. Your father gone. Your own dreams certainly lost. But you remain who you are—lovely, sweet, and caring to Cork and your friends. Even to a new one like me. You’re a survivor. I am too, in my own way, but I do it for selfish reasons. You do it mostly for others. That’s pretty fucking amazing.”

  How am I supposed to resist Journey when he says wonderful things like that?

  Tears pricked my eyes. The desire to throw myself at him was strong. Too strong. I needed a moment to compose myself.

  “Thank you,” I murmured as I backed away. “It’s getting late. I’d better go rinse off the saltwater and change.”

  Turning, I walked away as fast as I could from him in my flip-flops. Ducking beneath the arroyo willows, I went, my rubber soles snapping on the packed sand. My nerves were frazzled. To anyone looking, it was obvious I was freaked out. Luckily, I didn’t run into anyone.

  The facility was just a cinder-block building with a couple of restrooms and two rudimentary outdoor showers. Next to it was a concrete half wall, convenient for leaning surfboards against or throwing wetsuits over.

  No one else was around at our section of the beach anymore, at least not for the last hour anyway. It was almost rush hour. Everyone had probably left to avoid hellacious traffic.

  “Lotus,” Journey called.

  Shit. He followed me.

  “I wasn’t finished talking to you.”

  Stepping unto the concrete slab next to the building, I kicked off my flip-flops but didn’t look directly at him. Looking at Journey was another temptation, and I had enough to resist. I didn’t need any more.