Chasing Storm

by Kade, Teagan

  Dad steps forward crouching beside the bed. “I’m sorry, baby. I’m sorry.”

  Fresh tears flood my face.

  I let them come. I let them come freely.

  Jemma arrives, but even she can’t snap me out of my misery.

  Every time I close my eyes he is there, sacrificing himself.

  I picture them together, Storm and Tim, all the loves of my short life mixing and blurred together into a grand mess of tragedy and sadness.

  “Is it me?” I ask Jemma.

  “Am I cursed?”

  She strokes my hair. “You’re not cursed, Al.”

  “I am.”

  I let her calm me, let her feed me soup while I wait. For what, I do not know.

  *

  Two days pass.

  I’m up at least, moving about the house like a glacier, but eating again even though recent events have taken their toll on my body. I’ve lost almost 10 pounds.

  We’re seated around the breakfast table as I try to stuff dry toast into my mouth. It could be cotton wool for all I know.

  There’s a knock on the door.

  Dad steps up to answer it.

  “Alice,” he calls.

  I stand up and move to the front of the house.

  It’s Dan, hat in his hands as he stands solemnly in the door. My heart freezes.

  Mom and Dad pull behind me, their presence a solid wall of comfort and support.

  “It’s Storm,” says Dan, and no one moves a muscle. “They’ve found him.”

  Chapter Twenty

  “God damn miracle he’s alive. Found him pinned under half of a house a quarter mile down the road. He’s a bit battered and bruised, but otherwise fine.”

  I can’t find the strength to reply. The last two days have been emotionally draining. I thought he was dead, that I’d lost Tim all over again. I made it certain in my head. Hope never factored into it.

  “Has he asked for me?”

  “Yes.” Dan looks ahead and I can’t tell what he’s thinking about this news. Maybe he wishes Storm was never found. It would only make him human, fallible.

  “Where is he?”

  “Memorial Hospital. I’ll take you there now and then I’ll be on my way.”

  “Thank you, Dan.”

  “For what?”

  “Just… thank you.”

  “Well, you can thank Storm for me. He’s probably the only reason we’re sitting here. That twister was coming in one way or another whether we wanted it to or not. A brave thing he did, an upstanding thing.”

  We pull into the hospital and Dan speaks with a girl at the front desk who directs us to the recovery wing.

  Dan stops. “Hospital’s full up from the twister, but I managed to get him a private room. The least I could do.”

  He points down the hall. “Number 52.”

  “You’re not going to come?”

  “Afraid not.”

  “Too much to ask?”

  “You could say that. Like I said, I owe the guy, but if I’m in the same room with him again I have to be honest and tell you I’ll probably just try and knock his block off.”

  I nod, smiling. “It’s okay. I get it. You’d fight him, for me?”

  “Any time, any place, but it’s not me you want, is it?”

  A single florescent bulb illuminates Dan in the hospital hallway. We meet in the center at the hum overhead. He smiles and nods slowly.

  “You know,” he starts, trying not to make eye contact. “We’d be great together you and me.”

  “Dan, I’ve told you…”

  He waves me off with his giant paw of a hand. “I know, I know, and look. I think I get it. Perhaps I’m wrong about your boy in there. Perhaps I’m not, but I know he cares for you, that you have something together I can’t understand. I’ve made my peace with that. I just want you to know.”

  I don’t know what to say. Instead, I reach up and touch his cheek.

  He’s right. He’s the safe choice, the man who could probably make me happy, but I have to know what a life with Storm can be like. I have to try, even if it breaks me.

  “You should know I put in for a transfer,” he continues. “Just got the call saying it’s been accepted. I leave next week.”

  “To go where?”

  He laughs. “New York, funnily enough. How’s that? You escaped the Big Apple and I’m heading into it.”

  “Is it what you want?”

  He runs his hand through his hair. “Honestly, I don’t know what I want any more. Maybe this is the kick in the ass I need, a new start.”

  “You’re going to make some hot little New Yorker very happy,” I chide, but I know it does nothing to take away the sting of my rejection.

  He nods. “Perhaps.”

  “Got any good places to eat?”

  “Eat?” I motion down at my meagre frame. “Does it look like I do a lot of eating?”

  “No, No… I just.”

  “Double ShackBurger at Shake Shack. Can’t go wrong.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “I’m going to miss you, Alice.”

  “I’m going to miss you too, Dan.”

  We embrace and there are more than words there. I nestle into his shoulder and kiss his cheek, the woody undertones of his aftershave all that is safe and comforting in the world. Doubt flickers, but I let it pass.

  He holds me at arm’s length. “Goodbye.”

  “Bye,” and he’s gone, turning one last time to look my way before the doors breathe open and with hat on he is no more, another love lost to the greater world.

  With heavy feet I make my way down the hallway, pausing outside Storm’s room as a soft sweep of rain begins to fall outside.

  Pathetic fallacy. How perfect.

  I stop, leaning against the doorway, chest moving up and down, anticipation, fear, everything knotted together in my stomach.

  I walk and he’s there, propped up in bed and watching the rain slide down the windowpane to his right in wet sheets.

  I close the door behind me.

  The only light is the cool blue from outside carving out his features as he turns towards me and smiles. He’s pretty cut up, but he is in one piece. “Didn’t think you’d come.”

  I sit at the edge of his bed. “Why not?

  My hands are folded nervously in my lap.

  “Dan and you, I thought…”

  “No, it’s only ever been you. You know that.”

  He doesn’t reply but instead looks again at the window. The rain is gentle, a whisper against it.

  “What do you see in me?” he asks.

  “You’re asking me honestly?”

  “Yes.”

  “I just have to be around you. I don’t know what it is, but I can’t stop thinking about you. You’re everywhere I go, always in my head. Everything I do is done thinking about you. You. You. You.” I say it over and over again like a mantra, trying to concrete this as the right decision. “What do you see in me?”

  He doesn’t hesitate. “Beauty, more than I have ever known, and strength.”

  I laugh. “Ha!”

  He sits up further and winces. “I’m serious. You’re the strongest person I know.”

  “You mustn’t know many people.”

  “You’re right, but what I do know is what I feel for you, and that’s more than enough. It doesn’t have to be complicated, you and me. It’s simple. We’re meant to be together.”

  “You really think so?”

  “I do.”

  He swallows, turning his eyes towards me the same cool color as the windowpane by his side. “I love you, Alice, more than anything.”

  “More than Texas Pete’s rib sandwiches.”

  “You bet your ass.”

  My body responds and I climb onto the bed, letting his hands fall upon and my face and our mouths mash together as the heat overtakes us both and finally, finally, I have him in my arms again.

  I move on top of him and he kicks
the sheets off, the papery hospital gown he’s wearing only emphasizing the hard surfaces that lie below.

  We kiss heavily, breathing deep, twisting and pulling at each other in need as the rain ramps up outside.

  I don’t care if someone finds us. I don’t care who sees. I just want this man, now, with urgency.

  My core pulls, begging for release, but it’s Storm who strikes first.

  He holds my ass and pulls me forward on top of him, holding me under the thighs and lifting me over his face. My skirt falls around his head and I hold the top of the bed, panting, struggling for support as he pulls the damp crotch of my panties aside.

  I let myself sink over his lips. My head drops back as his tongue parts my folds and presses into the hot confines of my pussy.

  His hunger is insatiable, his need desperate as he holds my buttocks, clawing at them as I grind on his face.

  The bed creaks. I jam my hips down upon him, his face stained with my juices and my pussy wide open and willing.

  I moan, mew into the nothingness as he directs his attention to my clit, wrapping his tongue around the tight bundle before using the underside to lick down my folds in long strips, teasing at the tight ring of muscle that waits for his cock.

  I reach behind myself and lift his gown, fumbling with desperation for his member. I find it, hard as a pipe, fingers curling around it and jerking him off as he continues to fuck me with his tongue and lips, pulling, sucking, twisting, teeth grazing my sensitive vulva as my orgasm begins to well up.

  I stroke him harder, letting his balls roll between my fingers. I use his pre-cum to lubricate his shaft. It twitches in my grip and I need it inside me with every molecule of my being, to feel him take me as he did that first night in the barn.

  I lift myself from his face and scoot back, holding his cock upright and then lowering myself upon it until it slides to the hilt inside me.

  I lift and lower my body, allowing him to press towards my g-spot. I lower myself forward and take his mouth, fingers clawing at the nape of his neck as I kiss him deeply. My desire is upon his lips, the earthy scent of my cunt between us as I fuck him, his cock gliding inside my body and our pelvises pressed together in union as the bed shifts on the floor and he breathes in soft sighs around my mouth.

  “Come,” I whisper into his ear. “It’s okay.”

  He grabs my hips and flips me over onto my back, pulling the hospital gown clean from his body and sinking himself deep inside me with powerful thrusts.

  “Yes, yes,” I mutter as my clit stirs and his mouth stifles my cries, his hot, mewling fingers all over me, a clothed nipple pulling to attention in his mouth as he pummels me.

  The rain dissipates and the room is instead filled with the wet slapping of our bodies as they meet. Finally, we’re one again and I know this is right, that this is exactly where I’m meant to be whether it destroys me or not.

  “Come,” I request again, as he breathes at my ear, and he does, thrusting fully inside me and releasing, balls emptying against my ass. My own orgasm rushes over me and my cunt clamps around him, draining him dry until we’re both left stunned and star struck, breathing like wasted animals on the rough-hewn texture of the hospital sheets, cum leaking out from my body as his cock comes free. I take it in my hand, squeezing the last drops into the sheets as he gasps for air and repeats my name over and over.

  “Sorry.”

  “For what?” he says. “That was amazing.”

  “You should be resting.” He quivers as I roll my fingers over the sensitive head of his cock.

  “There’s nothing else I’d rather be doing than making love to you.”

  “You wouldn’t rather one of those hot nurses outside?”

  “You mean Bertha with her cankles and three scoops of Deb?”

  We both laugh, sweat turning cold on my face as I roll and lie on his stomach.

  “I’m going to treat you right, Alice. Wait and see.”

  I smile. “I know.”

  ###

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  About Teagan Kade:

  Teagan Kade thinks talking about yourself in the third person is silly, just like her collection of snow globes and rare manga. When she’s not being silly, she’s hanging out with her own Storm and two children in the south of Australia, dreaming of new characters and torturous ways they can get themselves into trouble. Teagan loves hearing from her readers, all of whom are as dear to her heart as salted caramel cookies. Shoot her an email at: teagankadeauthor@gmail.com. She doesn’t bite.

  Excerpt from Chasing Winter (Dan’s Story), coming soon:

  Even the chief looks a little apprehensive as he introduces us. “Meagan, this is Dan Winters, from Rosie, your new partner.”

  It’s clear this Meagan character is a lot different to the girls from Rosie. She wears tight black pants could well be painted on, a singlet that’s somehow even tighter and a thigh holster that screams Mission Impossible. I have a sneaking suspicion she’s an MMA fighter, a closet wrestler, a spy. Who knows? She doesn’t seem like the type to spend her Sundays with a box of tissues and the latest Nicholas Sparks.

  “You done?”

  I realise I’ve been staring at her chest. “Oh, no. I wasn’t-”

  She holds a finger out. Even the chief jumps back. “Shut the fuck up. All I want to know is, are you going to have my back?”

  “Of course,” I nod.

  She places her hands on her hips. “Good, because the last dildo they assigned me couldn’t protect a cup of warm piss. Are you following me?”

  Just. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “What did you just call me?”

  The chief cuts between us, clapping his hands together. “Well, I’ll leave you two to it.”

  He evaporates, leaving me forced to tail Meagan as she tears off into the thick of the office.

  I was in charge of four officers, total, in Rosie. Here there’s more like four-hundred. It feels just like I’m back in that cursed twister again.

  There’s a sudden, sharp pain as I question what she’d be doing now. What he’d be doing to her…

  Let it go, Dan.

  Meagan moves at blinding speed, yelling back instructions to me she no doubt expects me to understand, pointing and gesturing around the room.

  She does have a great body.

  She stops, turns and, what do you know, catches me eyeing off her ass. “Yeah,” she says, serious as a heart attack, “it’s a nice ass, isn’t it? Spin classes three times a week, Muay Thai twice a week and a hell of a lot of squats. But if you think I’m just here so you can stand around all day and jerk off staring at my rear, I’ve got news for you.”

  A tall guys shouts across the room, phone cradled on his shoulder. “Cross!”

  I realise he’s referring to Meagan.

  “Got one for you, 10-20, downtown.”

  “On it,” she shouts back, grabbing my wrist and pulling me hard towards the front doors. “Buckle up, cowboy. The show’s about to begin.”