by Sybil Bartel
Not wanting him to jostle Charlie or his stitches, I shoved a desk chair over to the front door and climbed up to undo the bolt he’d thrown. The wind gusted and pushed at the door like it couldn’t wait to get in. Alex held his foot against the bottom frame to secure it until I stepped down, then he kicked the chair out of the way.
The door immediately blew open and rain pelted in.
Alex stepped against the open door so it didn’t slam shut on me or the dogs. “Car’s unlocked.”
I grabbed three leashes and glanced at the useless lock on the glass door of the kennel. “I won’t be able to secure the door after we leave.”
“Doesn’t matter. If the wind doesn’t blow out the windows, the water will breach the door anyway.” He nodded at his car. “Go.”
I rushed to his fancy car and had to hold the door open against the wind. Merry struggled against me and Sparks whined as I slid into the leather seat. The second I tucked the two smaller dogs at my feet, Alex was there. Hunched over Charlie to protect him from the rain, he set the golden retriever on my lap. The heavy weight of him sank down on my thighs and he cried out.
“It’s okay, sweet boy. Almost done.” I cradled his head and Alex shut the door. By the time he crossed the front of the vehicle and got behind the wheel, he was soaked through.
Shoving his hair back and running his hands down his equally soaked thighs, he started the engine.
“I’m sorry about getting your seats wet.” I glanced down at Charlie as Merry and Sparks huddled at my feet. “And the dogs in your car.” He’d have hair everywhere.
Skirting the ever-growing flood in the kennel’s parking lot, he didn’t respond. He expertly maneuvered the car around a fallen branch as thick as my thigh and pulled onto the access road.
Tension cut through the small interior of the car and the dogs were quiet as Alex sped toward the main access road that cut east to his condo. Sheeting rain on the windshield, gusts biting into the car, Alex hit the last curve in the road then suddenly slammed on the brakes to avoid a fallen tree.
I grasped at Charlie as the car jolted but it wasn’t enough. His poor broken body jerked in my arms and he howled in pain.
“Fuck, sorry.” Alex spun the car around and glanced at the GPS map on the center console.
Fighting panic, I stroked Charlie’s head. “There’s another—”
“I see it. Hold on.” He stepped on the gas and the car effortlessly shot down the road.
I didn’t tell him the other end of the access road was low-lying, because we didn’t have a choice. As we sped past the kennel, the last of the parking lot was already submerged and the front door was hanging at an odd angle. We were running out of time to get out of the flood zone.
Water crept up the sides of the road, and Alex kept the McLaren straddled over the middle lane marker. Trying not to panic so I didn’t scare the dogs, I didn’t realize I was holding my breath until we made it to the end of the road and I saw the turn onto the state road was passable. Air escaped my lungs as he pulled on to the main corridor.
Ignoring the traffic lights that still had power as they swayed dramatically, Alex sped toward the barrier island without stopping.
Halfway between the kennel and his place, he broke the tense silence. “How is he?”
I rubbed Charlie’s ear. “Okay right now. His wounds are healing okay, but he still has broken ribs.”
Alex didn’t say anything else. Turning north on to US Highway 1, he maneuvered around the low-lying flooded areas and made his way to the south bridge for the barrier island. But as we got close, a police car with flashing lights was parked sideways, blocking access.
Alex pulled right up to the cruiser and lowered his window.
The cop dropped his window a few inches. “The bridge is closed, sir.”
“I’m an island resident. La Mer Towers. I need to get home.”
“Sorry, east side of the bridge is already flooded.” He glanced at his watch. “They’re closing the north bridge in fifteen minutes. You may have enough time.”
Alex nodded and put the window up. Backing up, he spun the car around.
I nervously glanced at the clock on the dashboard. “Will we make it?”
“Six minutes,” he clipped.
“You’ve timed it before?”
“I like to drive.” He sped up.
My back pressed into the seat and I watched the clock instead of the angry, churning hurricane. Five minutes later, he pulled onto the access road for the north bridge. Police cars were parked on the street but they weren’t blocking the bridge yet.
Alex flew past them.
We crested the top of the bridge and a giant gust of wind pushed the car into the next lane.
“Alex.” I clutched at Charlie as the barrier rushed my door.
He swerved the car back into the other lane. “We’re fine.”
My heart pounded as visions of us careening over the side of the bridge and plummeting into the Intracoastal flew through my mind. “Please, slow down,” I begged.
He slowed, but only marginally. “You should’ve answered,” he clipped as we hit the down slope of the bridge.
I held on to Charlie and glanced nervously out the window. “Answered what?”
“If you’d taken my call two hours ago, we’d already be in the penthouse.”
I didn’t argue, because right now, with the streets almost completely flooded and the winds tossing the car around, he was right. Except I’d never wanted to ride out a hurricane with him. A few hours ago, I wouldn’t have felt safer anywhere else. But now? I told myself I was only here for the three ownerless dogs that didn’t deserve to ride out a hurricane in a dilapidated kennel with shitty windows that a rich bitch was too cheap to fix. A rich bitch Alex had…. I sucked in a breath and shoved the thought away.
“Why’d you call Talon?”
The abrupt question caught me off guard. “I didn’t. I called Jesse.”
He turned south onto A1A. “Let me guess. Instead of taking care of you, he passed you off on Talon?”
I couldn’t deny it, he was right. But after the stress and anxiety of the past couple hours, thinking about all the women he’d been intimate with and how it meant nothing to him, along with his attitude right now, I got mad. Seriously mad. “I didn’t ask you to come get me. I didn’t tell you to take in three homeless dogs. You showed up and told me to get in your car or else. You didn’t even give me a choice. So cut the bullshit alpha attitude. I’m not riding out a hurricane with an asshole, and these dogs don’t deserve any more stress in their lives.” Merry was already a shaking mess at my feet. It was probably because she was cold, but still. She didn’t ask for this. None of them had.
His jaw clenched and he took a sharp turn into his condo complex. The garage door opened as we approached and he pulled into a spot and cut the engine. His hand on the door handle, he spared me one glance. “I would never force you to do anything. You weren’t safe at the kennel.”
My heart twisted as he got out of the car. The silence of the garage after the howling of the wind only intensified the fact of where I was and who I was with.
When Alex opened my door, Sparks picked his head up and growled.
“Quit it.” His authoritative command made Sparks instantly stop, and Alex reached for Charlie. “Easy, boy.” He lifted him off my lap as gently as he could. “Grab the other two.”
It occurred to me in that second that Alex wasn’t bossy so much as commanding. Commanding like someone who was used to being in charge. Curiosity got the better of me. “What was your job in the military?”
“Recon,” he said vaguely.
I scooped up the two little dogs and got out of the car as Alex headed for the stairs. “We’re not taking the elevator?”
“If the power goes out, we’ll be stuck.” He held the door open with his foot.
I glanced at the elevator and sighed. Twenty floors. Shit. I took the first flight up then set Sparks down. “Come on, Sp
arks. Up you go.” I nudged him and he sprang into action. Three seconds later, he was already a story ahead of me.
I silently trudged up with Merry, switching her from arm to arm every few floors. Halfway to the top, I took my jacket off and glanced over my shoulder. “You good?”
“Fine.” Not even sweating, an expressionless mask in place, he didn’t make eye contact.
“Awesome.”
We didn’t speak the rest of the way up. The only sound in the stairwell was Sparks’s and my panting and the distance roar of the wind. By the time we hit the top floor, my thighs were burning. I held the door for Alex and he stepped sideways through.
“You want me to open the—” I started to offer to unlock his door but he was already ahead of me.
“Got it.” He punched a code into a keypad next to the door. One click and the door swung open. “There’s a linen closet down the hall. Grab some blankets.” He walked into the living room with Charlie.
I set Merry down as Sparks flopped in the entryway. Noticing the paintings from the fundraiser were gone, I made my way down the hall with Merry on my heels. A closet the size of my kitchen had shelves neatly stacked with towels, sheets, blankets and one comforter. I grabbed two blankets and the comforter and squished my way back to the living room in my wet sneakers.
Waiting for me, Alex nodded toward the fireplace. “Right there.”
Shooing Merry away, I dropped my jacket and the blankets and set the comforter down. “The paintings are gone.”
“Guest room.” He set Charlie down and he whined. Petting his head, he adjusted the blankets around him. “Have they eaten?”
I stepped out of my sneakers then put the two makeshift blanket beds next to Charlie. “Yeah, I fed them and took them out before you showed up.” I stumbled over the last two words. Alex had come for me—through driving rain and hurricane-force winds, he’d come for me. I wanted to ignore what that did to my heart, but I couldn’t. Sucking in a deep breath, knowing we were safe now, I fought the lump in my throat as Merry settled on the blanket closest to Charlie, and I whistled for the other dog. “Sparks, come.” He trotted over and I patted his bed. “Lie down.” I checked on Charlie. “You okay?” He licked my hand and I smiled. “Love you too, sweet boy.” I stood and glanced at Alex.
His hands on his hips, he was staring at me.
Just like at the kennel, my heart skipped a beat and emotions swirled in my head. The tension between us was so thick, I could taste it, but my body didn’t know he was a liar or that he sold himself, and it didn’t care. Need pulsed between my legs and awareness shot up my spine. Worse, my chest ached just to feel his arms around me.
Sparks growled.
I looked over my shoulder and three tails thumped. I couldn’t help it, I smiled. “Behave, Sparks.” His tail wagged harder. Still smiling, I glanced at Alex. “Ignore him, he thinks he’s badass.”
Alex didn’t smile. “Sparks?”
I nodded. “He’s pretty feisty. And Merry is the little girl Terrier. She was left at the kennel the day before Christmas.” Merry wagged her tail when she heard her name. “And Charlie you know.” I sucked in a breath and told myself I could do this. I could talk about the dogs, make small talk, ride out the storm, then I’d leave in the morning. Mentally nodding to myself, I got down to tasks. “I need to get them some water.”
“Bowls are in the kitchen. I’m going to close the shutters.” No smile, no emotion, he went to the balcony.
Exhaling, I watched him through the wall of glass that caged in his living room. The muscles in his shoulders bulged as he pulled heavy accordion shutters across the length of the balcony, and I glanced at the dogs. “If we’re lucky, a big gust will swamp him before he comes back inside.” Sparks woofed in agreement. “My thoughts exactly.”
I searched through the kitchen cupboards and filled three cereal bowls with water. Alex came back inside and the noise was noticeably less as he grabbed a remote off the wall and clicked through a series of buttons. Automatic shutters started sliding down over the windows.
I set the bowls down by the dogs. “Do you want me to fill a bathtub?” Assuming he had one.
“Why?” He put the remote back as his condo descended into an eerie, unnatural darkness.
“For water.” If the power went off, chances were it’d also go off wherever the water supply came from, and when that happened, the city always put a boil water notice into effect. Not to mention, if the power was off, I wanted to still be able to flush a toilet.
“I have bottled.” He disappeared down the hall.
“Ohh-kay.” I squatted next to Charlie. “Come on, sweet boy.” I held the water bowl close to his muzzle. “Drink something for me.” His tongue halfheartedly lapped a few sips then he put his head back down. “I know, it sucks, but in a few hours, I can give you more medicine.”
“What are you giving him?”
Startled, I jumped and some water sloshed out of the bowl. “Pain meds.” I tried to wipe the floor with my already soaked tank top but I only spread the water around.
In dry shorts and a T-shirt, he held out some clothes. “Give me your jeans. I’ll run them through the dryer before the power goes off.”
My tank top stuck to me, my jeans damp from taking the dogs out to pee before he’d shown up at the kennel, I shivered and took the outstretched clothes. “Where should I—”
“Bathroom down the hall.”
Intimidated by his mood, I simply nodded. I padded to the bathroom and shut the door. Even with all the shutters closed in his fortified castle, I could hear the wind and feel a slight sway in the building.
I ran my hand over the smooth granite of the bathroom counter and wondered just how safe his condo was. I didn’t grow up with anything close to fancy shutters that closed with the touch of a button. My brother would put up the plywood we stored in the garage over all the windows and the house would get a new round of nail holes for his efforts. We would fill the bathtub and my mom would buy cereal and peanut butter and bread. Add a few random candles from the grocery store in tall glass jars with pictures of Jesus on them, and that was our hurricane preparedness.
My brother and I would play cards or board games, my mom would knit, and we’d sweat until the power came back on. But Alex’s penthouse wasn’t hot. It wasn’t even warm. It felt like it was sixty-five degrees and there wasn’t a corner that didn’t have design thought put into it. Design that was paid for by….
I shook my head and whispered to myself, “Nope.” Not going there.
A knock sounded on the door and I shoved the thoughts of exactly what he did for a living and Talon’s justification of it down deep. “Yeah?”
“Give me your clothes. If you want a shower with hot water, you should take one before the power goes out.”
“Just a sec.” I quickly stripped and folded my shirt and underwear into the jeans. Grabbing a towel off the rack, I wrapped it around me and cracked the door. “Here you go. And thanks.” I held my arm out but he didn’t take the clothes. “What’s wrong? Are the kids okay?”
“Kids?” His voice sounded off. Strained.
“The dogs.”
“Fine.”
My arm suspended, my muscles took notice. “Alex?”
When he didn’t answer, I opened the door wider.
Achingly beautiful blue eyes stared down at me. “Did he touch you?”
I didn’t have to ask who. “No.” Talon had walked me to my apartment and watched me with a silence that reminded me of my brother as I’d grabbed a change of clothes and my phone charger. Then he’d driven me to the kennel, took one look at the place and said I shouldn’t stay there. I told him I wasn’t moving Charlie, and he’d reluctantly dropped me off.
Alex’s exhaled breath whispered across my skin and gooseflesh crawled up my neck. For one impossible moment, I felt it. An invisible tether wound so tight around my heart, it ended and began with him. I wasn’t truly living until I’d met him. I was drowning in grief and
guilt, and the life I’d been breathing, it ended when he’d kissed me for the first time. But now that I knew what he was, I couldn’t see a future anymore and my past was suddenly buried too deep to give me solace.
I was adrift. And the man standing next to me wasn’t the anchor.
Alex Vega was the storm.
Don’t do it. Walk away. Take the fucking clothes and walk. Away.
I didn’t fucking walk.
I opened my mouth like a goddamn pussy and shit in my head bled out.
“Judge all you want. I won’t apologize for who I am.” Not to her, not to anyone.
She blinked. “I’m not judging you.”
“That’s exactly what you’re doing. The second you found out I slept with women for money, you condemned me.” Slept. Past tense. Past fucking tense because that’s what she’d done to me.
“I was angry that you lied.”
“I didn’t lie. You didn’t ask.” I’d never fucking lied to her.
She lowered her arm. “Alex….”
It wasn’t the four letters she said when she was drenching my dick in her come. It wasn’t even a name. It was a fucking condescending insult, and I lost it. “The size of my dick and wallet was good enough for you last night.” I ruthlessly held her gaze. “Then you found out you weren’t the only woman who’d come on my cock.” Goddamn, I was pissed. “I can’t have a past? You’re the only one allowed to have one?”
“Stop it.” She held the towel to her chest.
“Stop what? Stop asking you why it’s okay for you to have fucked other guys before we met but it’s not okay for me to have fucked other women?”
“You’re being an ass, and that’s not what you asked, nor is that what this is about.”
“Isn’t it?” I was done holding back. What the fuck did I have to lose now? “You can fuck Talon or your asshole friend, but I couldn’t fuck your boss?”
She flinched and went even paler.
“Which part bothers you the most? That your boss paid three grand to suck my dick? Or that I got off on it?” Goddamn, I was fucking pissed.
“Fuck you!” She stepped back and tried to slam the door.