Storm Warning

by Sydney Somers

  Then she arched up, crying out as a brutal release finally claimed her. Boneless, she melted back against the mattress, aware of Drew watching her, unmoving.

  Her stomach flipped backwards at the tenderness she saw on his face, overshadowed only by a glimpse of hunger that ignited her insides all over again. He dropped an intimate kiss on her stomach, before he turned and gave her a sensational view of his ass as he bent to grab a condom from his pants.

  She waited until he returned to the bed, then pushed him back on the mattress and straddled him.

  His lips quirked in a teasing smile. “Is this that journalist climb for the top coming through?”

  “This is saving myself from being completely at your mercy.” Not until she said it aloud did she realize how true it was, how vulnerable he made her feel. She wanted him, maybe too much.

  “I promise I’ll go easy on you.” His seductive tone suggested otherwise.

  “Oh, me too,” she swore with only a hint of remorse. Whatever she wanted from this man—a few more hours, a few more days, a few more years—it would be anything but easy. Getting to this point had been far from typical for her, and everything about the man trapped beneath her whispered a warning that this was how a woman wound up in over her head.

  But she’d never been afraid to follow a hunch, to take a chance. She wasn’t about to be scared off now.

  Drew gripped her hips and thrust his hard length along the inside of her thigh. She shifted until the full head of his cock pressed against her slick opening. Anticipation clawed up through her middle and she moaned deeply.

  His fingers tightened, and he pushed up on his elbows, just close enough to flick his tongue out and catch the tip of her nipple. A lethal expression darkened his face. He repeated the action again on her other breast, leaving both puckered tips wet and swollen.

  Her core shuddered and clenched, and putting them both out of their misery, Blair rocked down, taking him inside her.

  Drew collapsed back against the mattress, his cock sliding in hard, filling her completely. Her head dropped back, her inner walls bunching and clutching at him, as though to pull him deeper. His hips jerked, the soft bounce making them both groan. Blair raked her fingers down his chest, needing something to hold on to before the sensation tunneling up from her sex devoured her completely.

  She lifted her bottom, felt his thick length pulling out, and sank back down, taking him faster this time. Harder.

  In only a few thrusts, he had planted his heels and pumped his hips to drive his cock up into her. His eyes were closed, a look of rapture burned into his handsome face. Taking the rhythm down a notch, she leaned forward, closing her mouth over the strong column of his throat.

  He buried his hands in her hair, drawing her mouth higher until she met his lips. His tongue pushed into her mouth, dragging her into a feverish kiss that would undoubtedly become the benchmark for every passionate kiss for the rest of her life. An impatient tug on her hips changed the angle ever so slightly and she whimpered in pleasure. For long moments they stayed that way, with him locked inside her, only the subtle rocking of their bodies building the momentum. Higher…higher.

  Molten threads pulled taut, and she straightened, driving her hips harder. She couldn’t seem to ride him fast enough now, take him deep enough, fuck him hard enough. Her skin felt too hot, her heart racing too fast.

  “Drew,” she pleaded, her voice barely loud enough to be heard. Not that she could have said more. Not when her insides hummed and strained for release, not when there were no words to capture the unexpected intensity that crackled between them.

  He hooked a hand around her nape and hauled her down to him. His lips covered hers. “I know.” The kiss turned savage. “God, I know.”

  He flexed his hips hard, and everything inside her skated out of control. She didn’t care if anyone overheard her shout of pleasure. She clung to him, biting down to soften the yell.

  Then she was on her back.

  Drew hiked her legs up on either side of him. His eyes met hers, and he plunged his cock into her aching sex. Blair didn’t know if it was her soft cry at the ruthless thrust or the way her inner muscles clamped around his shaft that satisfied him the most. He tucked his face against her throat, his breath as fast and wild as her own.

  She locked her arms around him, moaning at the ruthless pumping of his hips, the hot friction against her clit almost too much to stand. She tucked her knees closer to her body, lost to the fierce rhythm of him driving into her, over and over, until she came again in a shattering rush.

  His mouth found hers, his groan exploding between their lips as he shuddered with the force of his climax. She tightened her grip on him, holding him close, not caring he crushed her into the mattress.

  He shifted to his side just a bit and kissed her slowly, tenderly.

  She opened her eyes a second later to find him watching her. “You’re not looking for a grade are you, because I seldom hand those out after the first time.”

  Drew laughed, and bent to nibble a path from her shoulder to the curve of her breast.

  She bowed up against his mouth, the easy intimacy as he lingered over her mouth once more tugging at far more than just her hormones.

  As though he knew he was the center of her thoughts, he frowned. “Not thinking of kicking me out now that you’ve had your wicked way with me, are you?”

  “I fear my wicked ways have untapped potential, actually. Assuming you can keep up.”

  His answering grin threw her heart into a backspin. Right before a flash of primal awareness danced across the back of her neck. There wasn’t time to squirm out from beneath him before he threw down the gauntlet.

  “I do so love a challenge.”

  By the time Blair returned to her room, bearing fresh coffee and pastries, she wondered if she’d be able to stop smiling any time soon. Her body’s subtle aches and the pleasant hum of exhaustion—that only came from spending the night alternating between blissful sleep and sweaty, heart-pounding sex—hardly slowed her down at all.

  She couldn’t hold in the soft sigh of relief at finding Drew still in her room. Leaving had been as much of a test as a need for nourishment. A man only in it for a night of sex would probably take the opportunity and get out of Dodge. That she found Drew still there, singing in the shower by the sound of it, made her smile even wider.

  She set the coffee and pastries down. She’d already showered before slipping out to grab breakfast. Drew hadn’t so much as stirred when she’d gotten out of bed earlier, hopefully as exhausted as he’d left her after waking her again just before dawn. The series of hot, open-mouthed kisses he’d pressed the length of her spine before following the curve of her hip had been nothing short of bone melting.

  The water shut off in the bathroom and a few seconds later Drew opened the door, a plush white towel wrapped much too securely around his waist. His lips parted in what she was beginning to think of his you-can-run-but you-can’t-hide smile.

  “Morning.”

  She didn’t move as he closed the distance between them and, catching her chin in his palm, tipped her mouth up to meet his.

  “Morning,” she whispered against his lips.

  “And you brought food.”

  “You’ll need your strength for the swim challenge.”

  A hopeful glint brightened his eyes. “Does that mean I’ve managed to convince you to hang around for a little while?” He disappeared back into the bathroom, and she started to follow, thinking she’d like to watch him shave if that was the next part of his morning ritual.

  She only made it halfway, her answer cut off by the ring of a cell phone.

  Blair moved instantly for her bag, then paused as she realized it was Drew’s cell on the dresser next to his wallet that was ringing. She picked it up and turned to carry it to him. Her pulse only skidded for a couple beats when she glimpsed Molly on the caller-ID screen.

  Drew poked his head out, still smiling as he took the phone and d
ucked back into the bathroom. It rang again, and she waited for him to answer.

  Girlfriend? Wife?

  The words rang in her mind like a tornado siren too late to prevent disaster. Was he involved with someone? She’d been so damn caught up in her attraction to him—their mutual attraction—it foolishly hadn’t crossed her mind to ask. Stupid. Very stupid.

  The phone stopped ringing, but he hadn’t answered it. He emerged a minute later. An expression of—guilt?—crossed his face as he set the phone aside.

  “Work tracking you down?” she asked. A nice, neutral way to broach the subject. Maybe it would prompt him to elaborate about the job he’d continued to avoid talking about when they’d lain in the dark sharing bits and pieces about their lives.

  “No.” He smiled again, but the curve of his lips felt a little too stiff.

  A sinking feeling hit her hard in the stomach and she knew she had to ask. “Girlfriend?”

  “No.”

  The denial rang true, yet something in his eyes wouldn’t ease the doubt that niggled at the back of her mind. Maybe things were going too fast. Maybe this was just a wake-up call for her to slow down a second.

  Too late, her heart whispered.

  “Ex-wife?” She tried for teasing, but knew her tone came dangerously close to interrogating.

  He shook his head and his gaze fell from her face. “Complicated, actually.”

  Wasn’t it always? Girl meets great guy. Guy makes girl mistake raging lust for some kind of connection. Girl realizes guy has issues. Complicated issues that involve Molly.

  “Complicated how?” The blunt question came out on instinct, the way it would if she were trying to get to the bottom of any story. She knew she should back off. He didn’t owe her any explanations. So they’d spent one scorching night together. That hardly entitled her to probe into his life. But knowing that and letting it go were two very different things.

  He cocked his head. “Nothing to do with this.”

  Whatever this was. His answer did nothing to squelch the doubt that she’d set herself up to be disappointed by falling into bed with him so quickly last night. She didn’t indulge in one-night stands, and sure as hell didn’t know what to do with the questions swimming in the back of her mind. Normally she talked her way through most of them well before making out on a beach or inviting men she hardly knew back to her room.

  Despite the part of her that wanted to spend the rest of the weekend here—hell the rest of the month—to find out what this was, she wouldn’t be stupid. Wouldn’t trust blindly. She knew better. Had made a career out of giving people reasons why they shouldn’t, why they should always ask the hard questions even when the answers might not be what they wanted to hear.

  “I need to get back, actually.” Needed to go before she considered suppressing the increasing doubt that something was off. Things had happened so fast between them last night. She needed time to process it, didn’t she? Or did she just need to give Drew the chance, right here and now, to give her a reason to stay?

  The minute his chin dropped, Blair knew she’d foolishly expected—hoped for—too much. Whatever his relationship to Molly was, he clearly had no intention of clarifying, and she had no intention of staying when she couldn’t be sure what that meant. Secrets—harmless or complicated—made trust impossible, and she knew she couldn’t let things go any farther between them without it. Maybe he only wanted a few more hours before they went their separate ways, but she would drive them both crazy wondering who Molly was. Friend? Coworker? High school sweetheart?

  “I’m going to go for a walk before I head out.” It was the best way to say goodbye without making things uncomfortable. Before last night, before murmuring quietly in the dark, laughing at each other’s stories, too tired to move but too awake to sleep, before losing herself to his touch, his voice, his smile, she might have been able to handle a no-strings weekend fling. But somewhere between first spotting him on the beach and now, she’d come dangerously close to thinking…

  “Blair, wait.”

  She stopped with her back to him, her hand on the door. His fingers closed over hers and he turned her around.

  His mouth covered hers, the kiss thoughtful and almost bittersweet. “Last night was incredible.”

  But… She heard it in his tone, but wouldn’t—couldn’t—wait to hear some weak excuse. “Bye, Drew.” She grabbed her purse and let herself out of her room knowing it would take far more than a walk to make her stop wishing for something that wasn’t meant to be.

  Chapter Four

  The second he’d let Blair walk out the door, Drew knew he’d fucked up. Just one more mistake to add to the growing list. Not since he’d been seven years old and part of the system, shuffled between group homes and foster parents, had his life felt so beyond his control. Maybe Rae had been right to give him some waste-of-time assignment until he got his head on straight. Though he doubted she’d be thrilled when she learned he couldn’t do that at the cushy resort she’d sent him to and, with zero demon activity, sticking around wasn’t working for him. Not when he’d thrown a woman he couldn’t stop thinking about into the chaotic upheaval that was his life.The greatest source of that upheaval was no doubt sound asleep in the house in front of him. Rae assumed he needed distance to get some perspective. For a few days, he’d believed the same thing. But wasn’t that what he’d been doing for the better part of the last two months, trying to keep his distance? The timeless practice of relying on his adoptive parents to help him out had seemed the most practical solution. He didn’t have any more of a clue on how to move forward than he had when everything had been knocked out from under him.

  Everything had started going down when he and Cass had been taken by the same Scion that had nearly killed Quinn. He’d still been licking his wounds and nursing his pride over letting the enemy get the drop on him when the next blow had come.

  Molly.

  Drew stared up at the front of his parents’ house. They’d be asleep by now as well. He’d gone back to his place first, but it had been too quiet, too empty and exactly what he’s always loved about the place—until tonight.

  Using his own key, he let himself in the back door. He didn’t need to flip any light switches to make his way through the house he’d been raised in from the age of ten. It had taken him three years to figure out what it took to get a family to keep him—making the woman of the house adore him.

  Easier said than done for a kid with a history of fighting and being too distant to last in any one foster home for more than a few months at a time. Still, he’d liked Giselle and Elliot from the beginning, and after realizing they weren’t interested in taking on more foster kids, he set his mind on winning the couple over. Curbing his tendency to fight with other kids who assumed that because he was smaller he’d be an easy mark had taken a little more effort and restraint.

  The patter of feet overhead caught Drew’s attention. Taking the stairs two at a time, he reached the landing quickly. Light spilled from the bottom of the closed guestroom door.

  His stomach churned, caught somewhere between pleasantly wary and scared shitless. He was almost getting used to the feeling. Drew reached for the door, then paused, cursing under his breath. Closing his eyes, he braced his hands on either side of the frame. Would he ever feel ready for this? He sure as hell missed the unshakable confidence Giselle swore he must have been born with. Not even when he’d been attacked and his stealth abilities emerged had he questioned himself or what was happening to him. The changes had felt…right. Had fit.

  But two months ago none of that fine-edged confidence had prepared him for Molly. Drew stepped away from the door and continued down the hall, past the room where he could hear his mother mumbling in her sleep and his dad snoring like a freight train next to her.

  He set his bag on the floor and stretched out on the same bed he’d slept in when he’d been seventeen and hardly home any longer than it took to stuff his face and borrow the car. He certainly
wouldn’t trade his life now for those teen years, but there was something to be said for being blissfully ignorant to the responsibilities that had a way of showing up on peoples’ doorsteps, whether they were ready for them or not.

  Drew wasn’t sure how long he’d been staring at the ceiling when the door down the hall opened and footsteps padded up the hall. They hesitated outside his door, much the same way he had, then a mop of curly brown hair and soulful brown eyes peeked around the corner. A bright, wide smile spread across her face.

  He sat up. “How come you’re not sleeping?”

  “I was waiting for you to come home.”

  Drew frowned. He hadn’t even told his parents he was coming back yet, but then this wasn’t the first time Molly had surprised him with her eerie ability to know when he would be by to visit.

  “Let’s get you tucked back in bed.”

  Molly beamed, reaching up to tuck her tiny hand in his. “Can you read me a story too, Daddy?”

  “Married,” Whitney said flatly. Her voice echoed through the speakerphone in Blair’s car. “Why else would he decide to clam up like that when you started asking him questions?”

  Blair didn’t respond, and she knew Whitney didn’t really expect her to. They’d been over the subject a dozen times since last weekend, and she wasn’t in the mood to say anything that would give Whitney a reason to launch into another full-scale all-men-are-jerks rant. More than once this week Blair had suspected Whitney’s frustration with her own love life made her eager to dissect Drew’s motivations.

  She’d only allowed herself to mull it over for a couple of days, determined to put it out of her head. At this point it didn’t matter if Drew had really been involved with someone else or not. They hadn’t exchanged numbers and that was probably for the best. A man with secrets would only drive her crazy trying to piece them together.

  “You’re lucky you got out of there before you saw him turn into the dickhead he obviously was.”

  “Right.” Another automatic response to placate Whitney. Too bad saying so out loud didn’t stop her from wondering how they would’ve spent the rest of the day if she hadn’t handed him the phone that morning.