The Complete Tempest World Box Set

by Mankin, Michelle

  “No. We discussed it. This is your time to shine. Believe in yourself. Show them what you’ve got…for you, for me, and for George…he would’ve wanted that for you. He always said, ‘faith in yourself is the magic that makes your dreams come true.’”

  After I ended the call, everything suddenly seemed to come together in a moment of simple clarity.

  I had told Dizzy at the cove that thinking happy thoughts didn’t change reality. And that was true. But my actions could change my reality. I could make my own dream come true for the time being, and it would be mine to treasure forever…no matter what happened after that.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Dizzy

  “I’m coming,” I shouted as the banging on the door persisted. “Coming, coming, coming,” I muttered under my breath as I carefully set my SG back on its stand. If only. For a guy used to plenty of tail that just wasn’t happening, not anytime soon, not for real, anyway. It was just the one hand jive these days. The universe was having a good laugh at the irony because for the first time in ever, my desire was fixed on one woman only, the one woman I couldn’t have.

  I flipped the lock and opened the door without bothering to check the damn peephole. My eyes immediately widened though I managed a casual stance, leaning a forearm against the frame. “April,” I acknowledged, giving her the once over, noting her work uniform, the tight jeans, the Diamond Mine tee, and her hair tied back in its usual ponytail.

  “What can I do for you?” I rolled my shoulders, indifferent to the fact that I was shirtless and that my jeans were in danger of falling because I hadn’t bothered fastening more than a few buttons. I hadn’t really been expecting company.

  “Can I come in,” she said softly, avoiding eye contact while she stared down at the phone in her hands. She shifted her weight back and forth before finally looking at me, her jade eyes pleading. “Please?”

  “Sure.” As she walked past me, I couldn’t help it I had to get in a dig. “How’s the hubby?”

  She froze for a moment before continuing on into the living room where she turned to face me. “He’s out of town for a couple of days.” She lifted her chin. “He doesn’t know I’m here.” She licked her lips and yeah, my gaze went there, and my body responded as I imagined that mouth doing things to me.

  “Do you think that’s wise?” My sarcastic tone reflected my frustration.

  “Probably not.” Her hands formed fists at her sides. She squeezed her eyes shut. When she reopened them just moments later they glinted with a familiar purposeful determination though until now I’d never been the sole focus of it. “But here I am.” She came closer. My heart went a little haywire like my pedal board did when it got jammed with interference. I inhaled her scent. I felt her body heat. She held her hand out toward me, stopping with her palm hovering a few inches from the center of my bare chest. “Can I touch you?” I saw the uncertainty in her gaze.

  I nodded. Her lip was between her teeth as she slid closer. I watched her hand connect with my skin, exhaling shakily as she held it there a moment. Then she peered up at me and did something unexpected and that felt more profound to me than any words she could have spoken.

  She lowered her head and placed her lips exactly where my heart was practically beating out of my chest. Whether an apology for her rejection the other night or a healing elixir, I needed and felt both profoundly because I knew that a kiss from her meant so much more than that. I’d seen her give away others and knew that love always accompanied them. They transferred unspoken tenderness for her stepdad as she cared for his needs. They conveyed heartfelt concern for her mother as she smoothed away the worry from her cheek. They passed on pure adoration to her brothers whenever and where ever she got the chance.

  April Reynolds had just freely given me a love I’d never experienced, a love I’d never felt worthy of…until now.

  And then she lifted her head, framing my face with her soft fingers, and gave me more.

  “The things you told me about the way you feel.” Her pupils were large and her eyes brighter than any spotlight I’d ever been under. “I want you to know that I feel the same way.”

  Bloody, hell. I held my breath, unable to quite believe it at first.

  “I want you. I’ve never wanted anyone more. Everything I see as I look at you. The more I learn about you. Your charm. Your gentleness. Your thoughtfulness. Your concern. When I’m with you, I don’t feel trapped anymore. I feel free. You make me feel beautiful, desired, and so very blessed.”

  “April…”

  “Wait.” She covered my mouth with her hand, three fingers soft and warm across my lips.

  I removed then gently. “Babe.” I kissed each fingertip, but didn’t release her hand. No way was I letting her go, if I had my way. Never.

  “Please I need to finish. I have trouble thinking straight when you touch me.”

  “Yeah?” I lifted a querying brow. “That makes two of us.”

  She giggled, a lighthearted, sexy sound that I wanted to hear her make again after I’d had her in my bed and had fucked her long and hard and thoroughly. “I’ve been afraid to admit just how much I care about you.” Her fingers twitched in my grip. She brought our joined hands up to her face and rubbed my knuckles against her soft cheek. “You’re the magic, the dream, the one I’d risk everything to have.”

  “You already have me, Kitten.” My jaw hardened and my muscles tensed as everything in me prepared to protest the brush off I felt coming.

  “I pushed you away last night because I can’t offer you forever, and that’s just not fair to you.” Her mouth tightened, and her eyes glistened with a misty plea there was no way in hell I would accept. “You should probably show me the door. Find someone else. Someone better.”

  “I don’t want anyone else.” I used her hands to haul her closer, and then wrapped my arms around her trembling body. “How can I make you understand that? It’s just you. There’s no other for me.”

  “For me, either,” she whispered, aligning her body and finally her wishes with mine. “But I just wanted to give you a chance to back out.”

  “Where would I go, babe? When I’ve already got everything I didn’t even know I was looking for right here in my arms?” I slid my hands down her spine resting them just above the curve of her ass so I could position her where I’d been desperate to have her.

  She gasped.

  My lip curled. “Yeah, Kitten, that’s all for you.”

  “Dizzy Lowell.” She intoned my name like it was the beginning of a vow, and rubbed her smooth cheek and moist lips back and forth across my chest like she wanted to burrow inside me forever. “Will you be mine?” She lifted her head, and her expression was solemn. “Mine alone? Just the two of us, forsaking all others, for here and now and however long this dream can last?”

  • • •

  April

  I’d offered him all I had to give. My heart was long ago his. From the beginning I’d been caught up in the powerful pull of his rip current. I might very well drown, but I was no longer content with the safety of the shore.

  “Without a doubt. All I want it you.” His velvety voice rang with the same certainty I felt. “The rest are just minor details.” He adjusted his hold, and suddenly I was swept off my feet.

  I yelped in surprise and threw my arms around his neck for balance. He stilled for an almost imperceptible moment, then rolled his shoulders as if acclimating himself to my touch. I traced the words around his neck reading them out loud, “Dream as if you’ll live forever, live as if you’ll die today.”

  “Trust me I’ll show you things you never dreamed.” He grinned down at me, a delectable smile full of a promise that he soon fulfilled as he carefully placed his lips over mine.

  With insistent pressure, he parted my mouth and slid his tongue inside kissing me breathless at the same time that he moved us, striding into the bedroom so fast my ponytail lifted off the back of my neck.

  My heart was pounding fast and my head w
as already foggy with need when Dizzy ripped his mouth from mine and laid me gently on the mattress. I kicked off my shoes and peeled off my socks while watching him sweep pages of sheet music off the bed and out of our way.

  His eyes were dark as they traveled the length of me. I was enjoying looking at him, too. All that gleaming skin above his jeans, the wide shoulders, the corded muscles, and his tats and piercings, all him, the man I wanted. “You look so good lying on my bed, Kitten.” His expression was ravenous enough to make me shiver. No one had ever looked at me quite like that, as if he had to have me or die. It made all the fear go away leaving me feeling powerful instead of in peril. “The things I wanna do to you,” he taunted, “I can’t decide whether it’s good or bad that you can’t read my mind.” He leaned over me and grabbed the hem of my shirt yanking it over my head.

  I sputtered spitting out the mouthful of my hair that’d gotten caught between my lips. “I love your beautiful hair, babe.” He helped me out by removing some of the wayward strands. “So silky,” he breathed, rough fingertips grazing my lips. He sifted through the strands reverentially before brushing my ponytail over my shoulder. His muscles coiled tightly, his jeaned thigh touched mine. His body seemed to hum as he stared at me with liquid gold eyes. I could see the rapid pulse beating in his neck. My body thrummed with need, too. I found it difficult to be still as I watched his gaze sliding back and forth the between my mouth and my breasts.

  Before I had time to feel self-conscious, he reached out and traced my shoulders, following the line of my bra strap for a bit before smoothing his hands down my arms, threading our fingers together, and opening my arms wide. My nipples were hard against the silk of my bra and my lips felt warm and tingly. They parted instinctively under his approving gaze. I wanted his mouth on me everywhere he could put it and his body covering my own. “Now, Dizzy, please,” I begged, voice unsteady.

  “Hell, yes.” He put his knee into the mattress dipping it. I tumbled forward, getting what I wanted, his strong arms around me and his lips touching mine. A perfect fit. He moved them subtly, infinitesimally slowly. I would’ve gotten frustrated with the pace and doubted my appeal if it weren’t for the fact that I could feel his arms shaking, vibrating the entire bed.

  Buoyed by the effect I had on him, molten desire surging through my blood. Feeling bold and brazen, I pulled back. His gaze heavy lidded, he looked at me and made a protesting sound. “My turn.” I adjusted the angle of my head, plunged my fingers into his thick hair, and grabbed a greedy fistful for leverage as I thrust my tongue between his lips. I pillaged the dark interior first before slowing to trace the outline of his mouth, lingering on his piercing. I captured it and tugged it gently between my teeth.

  “Fuck,” he growled the expletive, his eyes pure fire, and flipped us around, throwing me back on the bed. His hard chest and his heavy weight came down on top of me, flattening my breasts. His mouth was as unyielding as his dick felt between my hips. I rocked over him trying to alleviate the ache within and he kissed me with wild abandon, his mouth wet and his tongue lashing, punishing me with pleasure in a way that made me throb with need.

  He suddenly eased back. I opened my eyes, and looked up at him. His hair was tousled from my frantic fingers, and he had his arms braced on either side of me. His lips were wet, his chest heaving with rapid breaths, and his eyes were black as midnight as he studied me. Lips curling at the corners, face hard with desire, he balanced on one arm so he could trace his fingers over my face, starting at my brow and moving down to my lips. He tugged on the bottom one to separate them before he lowered his head again, plundering me so deeply that I felt completely owned and quivered with desire. Before I realized what had happened, I felt a loosening around my chest, and then a quick brush of silk before cool air bathed my breasts. He leaned back and gave me a mischievous grin. He’d unclasped my bra while we’d been kissing. Very slick. Or so I thought. It was my last coherent one before his mouth closed around my nipple, and he schooled me, teaching me the meaning of passion, paying loving homage to my breasts, tracing and teasing with his tongue, sucking first softly then deliciously harder with his talented lips, and intermittently dragging the metal of his piercing back and forth across the hardened tips.

  I moaned, arching my back off the mattress, my head writhing against the sheets, consumed by want. “Dizzy,” I cried in desperation, tugging on the hair at his nape. “I’m close.”

  “So am I, Kitten.” His passion deepened voice dialed my urgency even higher. I took his hand and placed it between my legs, rolling my hips shamelessly against it. He stilled, looking at me his eyes as liquid as my desire. “Get those jeans off now,” he ordered, sliding his hand softly across me to tease before scrambling off the bed. My breasts bouncing, I wiggled my way out of my jeans while he unbuttoned the remaining buttons on his.

  Luckily, I got mine off first because once I saw Dizzy Lowell naked, I was transfixed. I just stared. He was everything I knew he would be. Strong. Proud. Long legs and between the v of his hips a dusting of dark hair and a magnificent member, thick and hard, the tip already glistening for me.

  The ache in me peaked, pulsing softer and wetter in anticipation. I wanted him in me. I scooted back to the bed. He rolled on a condom, put a knee back on the bed, and parted my thighs with gentle but insistent hands.

  “Eyes on me, Kitten.” His voice was the only thing that could compel me to look away from that spot where the two of us were almost finally joined. The moment he had my gaze, I felt him enter in one smooth stroke.

  “Dizzy,” I moaned eyes closing. It felt so good, so right, even though I knew it wasn’t.

  “Keep your eyes open and on me, babe. I wanna see it in them when you come.” He slid his warm palms under my ass, lifting me so he could go in deeper. Then he pulled practically all the way out. His rhythm was slow at first, gliding back and forth, the friction perfect over just the right spot.

  I felt the tension building, coiling tighter and tighter. I moved with him. His face was tight with his own need, but his eyes remained on mine. Then he picked up the pace, pounding hard and delectably deep. I felt him stiffen, perceptibly harder inside me, and then it happened, the delicious wave that swept that safe shore completely out of sight.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Dizzy

  I ran my hands along her naked curves staring into her beautiful passion hazed eyes. Her skin seemed to leap to my touch as if I were its master.

  I smiled at that idea. She had certainly mastered my heart. It was so full of things I needed to say. But there seemed to be a clock ticking in the background creating a sense of urgency, that the time to say them might be all too short.

  “April,” I began, propping myself up on an arm and gazing at her for a moment drinking her in knowing I was never going to be able to get my fill of her. “I’ve never felt like this about anyone before. I’ve got to tell you right now that I…”

  “Don’t.” She cut me off. “Please don’t say the words. I feel it, too. You’ve got to know that. My heart beats for you. It races whenever I’m with you. I feel like I can’t catch my breath. That’s what scares me. I feel like every time we’re together will be our last. The people I care most for seem to be snatched away from me. First my stepfather, then my beautiful ba—” Her jaw clamped shut.

  “I know about your child.” I ran my thumb softly down her creamy cheek. She started to turn her head away, but I stopped her with my fingers curled around her chin. “Why don’t you ever talk about it?”

  “It hurts too much.” Her eyes got glassy. “It was so hard for me to get pregnant in the first place. The doctors said it was doubtful that I could again.”

  The devastation she felt was written all over her face. My heart ached for her.

  “We probably didn’t even need to use protection.” She made a strangled sound. “But then I guess with your history…”

  “Stop.” My eyes hardened. “Remember, it’s just you and me here. You don’t have to
lash out at me. I’m sorry that you can’t have any more children of your own. Especially when I think about all the women like my worthless mother who never even care about the kids they have. But you should know better than anyone that it’s not the name on a birth certificate that makes someone a parent. It’s love that binds people together in the way that really matters. Like you and your stepfather. Like us. I don’t want you to be scared. I don’t want to take your breath away. I want to give it back to you. I want to be the reason you breathe, and the reason you finally breathe easily.”

  “Dizzy,” she said my name with a look of awe on her face, her eyes filling.

  “Hey, don’t cry. That’s the last thing I wanna see from the first woman I’ve ever made real love to.” I traced a silky lock of her hair down from her scalp to her shoulder. “And you don’t need to be afraid of my past, either. We don’t have to do the condom thing if you don’t want to. There’s been no one for me since that night in Whistler. I’ve been tested since then. I’m clean. I was hoping that if I ever got you to say yes that it’d mean something to you to know that. Might make me seem less, I don’t know, less contaminated.”

  “You’re not, Diz.” She put her hand on my chest and lifted her gaze. “We all have things in our past that make us feel unclean.”

  “That’s the thing about you, April. You don’t look at me as some sort of reclamation project. You understand pain. God knows you’ve experienced more than your fair share of it. You know some things just aren’t fixable. But I think we can help each other climb over all that broken stuff. Start fresh on the other side.”

  “Diz.” She stared at me as if she couldn’t believe her good fortune. I certainly hoped that was so.

  “April,” I replied, attempting to infuse those five letters with all emotion swirling around in me. I wanted to possess and dominate her and make her mine. I wanted to make love to her again. And again. I wanted to tell her with my body the things she wouldn’t let me say with words.