Unexpected Storms (The Unexpected Series Book 4)

by Stacy Eaton

  So now, the employees were gone, and I sent a text to a phone number that everyone was gone. I was surprised when Harvey and another man arrived, and I hoped that they didn’t notice my hands shaking.

  I went into my office as soon as I could, hoping to keep myself busy with paperwork that had piled up, but all I could think about was the man in the other room. His voice traveled down the hallway, and I listened like a woman starved for conversation.

  He laughed a few times, husky chuckles that oozed right down my spine and into my groin. I rubbed my hands over my face and heard a cellphone ring, and then talking, but I couldn’t make out the words until I heard Harvey tell him to go.

  I saw Alex rush out the back door and stared at the wall. Oh, my god! I’m alone with Harvey now. Like alone. Like just the two of us. Was this my chance to tell him that I’d made a mistake? My heart started to race as I stood and peeked out the door.

  Was he freaking out too? I stared at him for a moment as I stepped out and asked what happened. He looked as nervous as I felt as he explained why Alex had left.

  I suggested that I could help him, but didn’t expect him to accept it. I assumed he would get all macho and tell me to hide in the office, but he didn’t. I happily went to make us some coffee. When I came back, I found him on the ladder, his t-shirt hiked up so that his smooth abdomen was visible. I’d had my hands on that stomach. Oh, my god. I almost licked my lips.

  “Coffee is on. What can I do?” Besides begging you to come down that ladder and kiss me again. He stared at me for a minute, and then he looked away and suggested I talk about my job.

  Okay, safe subject. Good idea. I started telling Harvey how I started cooking at the age of four, and by ten, I was inventing recipes and never stopped. He seemed genuinely interested and asked questions, chuckling at some of my responses. Each time he did, I had to shift a little to ease the tension building in the base of my spine.

  How long was this going to take? Would he be upset if I excused myself and went back to hiding in my office? I wasn’t sure I would be able to stick this out.

  I went to get the coffee and brought back his mug. When I handed it to him, there was a mysterious glint in his eye as he stared at me. It both excited and scared me, and I stepped away and went to stand on the opposite side of the work station so that it was between us.

  “So, I believe your sister said you were in the military.”

  He nodded and set his mug down. “Yeah, I did twenty, hurt my shoulder right at the end, and retired.”

  “And now what do you do at the security company? I mean besides install hidden cameras.”

  He smirked. “Actually, this is not what we normally do.”

  “What?”

  He grinned toward me. “Yeah, the security work that I do is overseas. The company that I work for trains civilians to go into dangerous areas for humanitarian work. Mostly medical situations like clinics and hospitals. Sometimes we train and escort engineers or other people, but mostly medical staff.”

  “You train them? Like how?”

  He went back to work on the cameras. “Mostly educating them on customs, expectations of Americans in the regions they are going, but we also give them some self-defense, weapons, and basic medical training if they need that.”

  I grinned at him. “You teach people to shoot?” He nodded. “That’s kind of cool. I always wanted to learn how to shoot. Alice and Maggie said they would take me some time.”

  He stared at me. “Alice doesn’t know how to shoot.”

  I laughed. “Yes, she does! She’s a competitive shooter.”

  He stared at me like I had three heads. “Where did you hear that?”

  “She told me.” I set my mug down and started to walk toward my office. “I’ll show you.”

  I went into my office and collected my cellphone, finding a text from Holly that said, you’re welcome, with a smiley face. I frowned at the message and then turned around and yelped.

  Harvey was standing right behind me, and I’d crashed right into him. “Holy crap! I didn’t even hear you come up behind me. Jesus, don’t do that; you nearly gave me a heart attack.”

  “Sorry,” he said softly, but the look in his eye didn’t seem to go along with that apology. He looked anything but sorry as he stared at me. How easy it would be to lean forward, take one step, and I could be up against his chest again. We continued to stare at one another, and then he finally spoke softly. “You were going to show me something.”

  I startled out of la-la land and took a step back, returning my attention to my phone. “Yeah, sorry.” I tried to bring up the video that Maggie had sent me, but my hands were shaking. Finally, I was able to get my hands to work, and I put the video on the screen and turned it to face him.

  He reached for the phone and stared at the video. “Holy shit! Damn, she’s good!”

  “I haven’t seen her in action, but Maggie said she has a ton of trophies. She’s been shooting since she was a little girl.”

  He laughed. “I wonder if Jake knows this. I can’t believe that Alice never said anything.” He continued watching the video, and I watched him. Holy cow, how had I not noticed just how handsome he really was?

  He stepped away and chuckled as he set the phone down on my desk. “That’s pretty cool. I’m glad you showed me that. Now I have a way of getting back at Alice.” He turned and left the room.

  “Getting back at Alice? What do you mean?”

  He glanced over his shoulder. “I mean, this whole setup.”

  I frowned. “What setup?”

  He turned so suddenly that I almost crashed into him. His nose flared slightly right before he spoke. “We need to stop doing that.”

  “Doing what?” I said breathlessly.

  His eyes slipped over my face. “Crashing into each other.”

  “We do seem to have a history of doing that.”

  “Yes, we do.”

  I shuffled back half a step. “The first time I saw you, you looked upset. Almost hurt, or maybe it was worried. What was wrong?”

  He cocked his head and then rubbed the stubble over his jaw. “I was in a hurry to go help a friend. What made you think I was worried?”

  I shrugged a shoulder. “I don’t know. I guess it was the look in your eyes. They looked almost haunted, and you seemed very distracted.”

  He took a half step closer to me. “You saw that?”

  I nodded, unable to speak as I had trouble swallowing.

  He took another step, and I started to back up, but the counter behind me abruptly halted the process. “How did you see that? People I know can’t read me that well.”

  He was almost against me, and I lifted my chin, staring up into his beautiful green eyes. “I don’t know. It’s just what I thought when I saw you.”

  He lifted his hand, a finger tracing down my cheekbone before letting his hand fall back to his side. The feeling went straight to my chest. “Ali, you need to tell me to stop. You need to tell me to back up.”

  “Why?” My fingers itched with the urge to touch his abdomen. I desperately wanted to run my palms up under his shirt.

  “Because if you don’t, I can’t promise that I won’t do something you might regret.”

  I blinked. “Why would I regret it, and you wouldn’t?”

  He chuckled ever so slightly. “Because I’m not the one involved with someone.”

  I straightened my back, bringing my chest closer to his, our mouths only two inches apart. “Try me.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Harvey

  She did not just say try me. She was so close that all the scents on her clothing mixed with her unique scent spiraled around my head and made it hard to breathe. I should take her face in my hands and bring her lips to mine. I should lift her by the ass and set her on the counter. Ravish her from top to bottom.

  My fingers quivered at my sides, and just as I started to reach for her, my cellphone vibrated and brought me back to reality. I stepped away
from her quickly, turning my back on her as I pulled my phone out and read the message.

  Sorry about taking off on you. Lexi is good—false alarm. Do you want me to come back and help you?

  I frowned. Maybe Lexi hadn’t been feeling very well, or perhaps it was all part of this master plan to screw with my head. Either way, I wasn’t going to let him know that this bothered me. I quickly replied, No, stay with her. I got this. Glad she is alright. Kiss her for me.

  Will do.

  I inhaled sharply and then released it. “That was Alex. Lexi is doing alright.”

  “How far along is she?”

  “About seven months, I think,” I replied as I pulled out the last hard-wired camera and set it aside to get the ladder set up.

  “And she is married to Alex?”

  “Yeah. They got married a few months ago.”

  “How does she feel about him traveling overseas to dangerous places?” I glanced back at her. If Ali and I were a couple, would she have a problem with that? Stupid question, of course she would, but who cared. It was never going to happen—even if she did dare me to kiss her.

  Jesus, she had been so damn close. I should have kissed her again, one more time to see if it still felt the same. Maybe it would be nothing like it had been after that dance. Perhaps I’d made all of that up out of some fancy romantic notion.

  I dismissed the thought and answered her questions instead. “He doesn’t travel anymore; neither does Trevor. Although both of them will go if they have to, now that they have families, they prefer not to travel. Lexi lost her brother to the war, and when she and Alex were first dating, Alex was held hostage for a while. It didn’t bode well for their future until Alex decided Lexi was more important than the job.”

  “Are all the rest of the guys married? I guess that it would be hard to have someone you love travel to dangerous places all the time.”

  “Well, Trevor isn’t married yet, he’s engaged, but he has a son who is about one. Greg and Maggie are together now, but Maggie travels with us.”

  “Would she travel if she had kids?”

  “I don’t see them having children,” I said, not wanting to share what Greg had told me in confidence. I was now up on the ladder and trying to keep my attention on what I was doing.

  “Okay, that makes sense.” She paused. “Would you travel if you had kids?”

  “Probably. I guess that would depend on the woman I was with and how much she wanted me to stop what I was doing. My career is pretty important to me.”

  Ali crossed her arms and leaned back. “Yeah, mine is too.” She grew quiet and then slowly started to talk again. “Harvey, let me ask you a hypothetical question.”

  I chuckled. “Okay, shoot.”

  “Let’s just pretend that we were together, and we wanted to have a child. Would you expect me to quit my job and stay home to raise him or her?”

  “No.”

  She sounded surprised. “You wouldn’t?”

  I glanced at her. “No. As I said, my career is important, and I would like to think that I would fall in love with a woman who appreciates that and has a love for her own job. I would never try to tell my wife, or girlfriend, or whatever they are what they should do with their career.”

  “So, you would support them no matter what?”

  “Yeah.”

  She threw her hands in the air. “See! Now that’s how a relationship is supposed to be.”

  I turned back to what I was doing, not wanting to think about her being in a relationship with anyone else. “I take it you haven’t seen eye to eye in the past with some men.”

  “No, I haven’t. Pretty much every man I have been even slightly serious with has all but said they would love for me to cook, but I need to cook for them while I’m barefoot and pregnant at home. Some have even tried to get me to quit this job so that I can work more normal hours. They don’t realize that these are normal hours for me.”

  I chuckled; she was cute when she was pissed. I was dying to know if Blake was one of those people, but it wasn’t my place to ask.

  “What are your normal hours?”

  “I’m usually at the restaurant by two, and I’m here until midnight most nights.” She sighed. “I guess that is kind of hard to expect someone else to tolerate if they work a day job.”

  “It could make a relationship tricky,” I replied as I screwed the camera into place.

  “Would you be able to deal with it? I mean, if you dated a woman who worked a schedule like me, would you have a problem with it?”

  Jesus, I didn’t want to think about this. “Probably not, because I have a crazy schedule that she would have to deal with.”

  She was quiet for a few moments, and then I finished and climbed down the ladder. I set the drill to the side and closed the ladder, laying it on the floor along the wall so it wouldn’t tip. When I turned around, she was standing a foot away from me.

  Time stood still as we stared each other down. I needed to get this done and get out of here. “Why are you staring at me, Ali?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “You know what.”

  “Do I? As far as I know, you could be sorry that you have me here at one-thirty in the morning.”

  She squinted at me as she pursed her lips. “You know that is not why.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest and leaned a shoulder against the wall. I had a feeling that until we aired this shit, I wasn’t going to get anything else done. I might as well let Ali talk, accept her apology, and then get back to work. “Fine, you don’t owe me an apology, Ali. You picked the man that you thought would be the best for you.”

  “Do you really think that?”

  “Think what? I assume that is why you chose Blake. You thought he was the better option. I haven’t seen your dances with him, so I have no idea how you two connected with one another. For all I know, you two had a stronger connection than we did.”

  “No,” she said softly and then stepped forward. “We didn’t.”

  I eyed her carefully. What was she saying? What was the point of this whole conversation other than to bring up the pain of not being picked?

  “I’m sorry for not choosing you, Harvey. I should have. You were right; I was playing it safe. I was afraid of how you made me feel. Afraid that after it was all over and the excitement wore down, it wouldn’t feel the same. That I wouldn’t be enough for a man like you.”

  My lips parted in surprise, and I straightened, my arms falling to my sides slowly as I spoke. “How could you ever think you wouldn’t be enough for any man, Ali?”

  “I don’t know. That’s just how I’ve always felt. Like I couldn’t give a man what he wanted because I was also so focused on my own life. I’ve been called selfish many times because I am devoted to my career.”

  I shuffled toward her. “Ali, that’s not being selfish. That’s being true to yourself. You should never give up your dreams for someone else.”

  “I know,” she said as I stopped in front of her.

  “Were you really afraid of how I made you feel?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did I make you feel, Ali?” I took in every feature of her face.

  “You thrilled me, made my heart pound, and you looked at me like I was your world. Like you would do anything for me, but I’m not sure that I can be that to someone in return.”

  I touched her cheek; she was very perceptive. At the time that we were dancing, that was pretty much how I had felt. I would have done anything for the woman, and I hadn’t even known her.

  “What do you feel right now?”

  “Like my heart is pounding and I’m afraid that if we kiss, it won’t be the same. I’m afraid that it won’t feel as perfect as it did, but I want to know. I need to know, Harvey, but I’m afraid.” Her hands were on my chest now that she closed the distance. She lifted her lips to mine. “Please.”

  I speared my hand through her hair and curled my fingers around her
neck, holding it right where it was, not allowing her any closer as she stared up at me and begged with her beautiful green eyes.

  I would never be able to deny this woman anything. I leaned forward, slowly, slower than I had when we had danced, and our breath mingled. Her hands fisted my shirt, and I wondered if she could feel my heart pounding. Our lips brushed; she quivered in my arms, and I finally sealed my mouth over hers.

  I felt things exploding in my head, felt dizzy as I tilted my head more, and opened my lips to mingle my tongue with hers. She whimpered and went up on her tiptoes, pushing her body into mine as she wrapped her arms around my neck and clung to me like I was saving her life from a tidal wave.

  I pulled her body flush to mine and ran my palms over her back. From her shoulders to her waist, it felt like I had come home. My hands knew this body, knew how the muscles felt shifting under the material of her clothing. I wanted it all off. I wanted her skin on mine. I wanted to ravish every inch of her body.

  A sound of the freezer compressor kicking on reminded me of where we were, and I took her face in mine, slowing the kiss and pulling back to stare down at her.

  “Disappointed?” I asked her huskily. She shook her head, and I grinned at her. “Me either, but we need to not do that again. I have work that needs to be finished, and you—” I frowned. I’d never made a move on a taken woman before. I stepped back. “Well, at least that answered your question. I need to get this done. The minis will only take a few minutes each.”

  “Alright,” she finally replied as I stepped away. “Um, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to finish some paperwork in my office.”

  “Yeah, sure. I’ll let you know when I’m done.” She disappeared down the hallway and into her office, and I ran a hand along my jaw. “Well, that was stupid,” I said softly to myself before I snagged the box of minis off the floor.

  Stupid was an understatement. There was no denying that whatever connection the two of us had when we danced was still there. I don’t ever recall kissing a woman that way before and feeling like I should drop to my knees and beg them to let me please them.