“Are you all right? Do you promise me?” he asked. He searched my face for the truth.
“I’m fine, I swear it. You have to find her. Just go!”
He tore his eyes from me and jerked his head toward Dean. Jackie came to sit beside me, and the next thing I knew, they were gone. Joe in the lead, and Dean right behind him. I could hear the storm’s fury, and wondered what the hell I’d just done.
27
Joe
I’d seen the goddamned storm touch down twice behind me, as I’d recklessly torn up the asphalt racing it back. I’d prayed to reach the church before it did, and I had… but only by seconds. Dean had gotten everyone downstairs. Everyone but Maggie… and I hadn’t stopped until I’d found her.
“Lift.” I heaved one end of a shattered beam and Dean took the other. Together we dragged it out of the way and climbed the stairs. The winds weren’t as loud now, and the storm had shifted. It was moving… but it could always shift back…
“Here,” Dean coughed and pointed. We ran for the end of a long hall, and I looked up to see patches of sky through the rooftop. “Bathrooms are here.”
“Emily?” I pushed the door and it fell away from its last remaining hinge. “Emily…!”
The stall walls had collapsed in on themselves and water was pouring from a broken pipe. I could see tiny legs.
“Mama…,” the little girl wailed. My heart broke at the sound, but her voice was strong and she was very much alive.
“Hold still, Emily,” I said, as soothingly as I could. Dean reached to support the metal walls, as I dragged the door aside. “Your mama is just fine, sweetie.” I swallowed a thick lump of gratitude as I caught sight of her. She was wet and she was dirty, but in spite of the chaos, there wasn’t a scratch on her.
“I want Mama,” she said, reaching her arms out for me as I gathered her up. Dean and I shared a look over her shoulder, a split second of mutual heart-stopping relief, and he smiled.
“Then I guess we’d better go find her.”
Emily’s mother met us on the stairs. Ryan and Henry had done their best to hold her back, but she’d become almost hysterical once the initial shock had worn off. She flew towards us and smothered the little girl with kisses. Emily wrapped her arms around her mother’s neck and smiled back at me.
“Are you okay, baby?” I asked. Maggie’s face was pale. She threw herself into my arms and buried her face in my chest.
“Fine, now,” she said, as I wrapped my arms around her. ‘But I don’t think I’m ready to let you out of my sight again.” I felt her chest rising and falling unevenly with her breath. “Where you go, I go…”
I chuckled and kissed her forehead, leaving my lips on her as I scanned the room, listened for the storm. It wasn’t gone, but it was distant now. I could hear the crackle of the radio. For the moment at least, the warning was over.
“How is everyone, Jackie?”
She came over and smiled at us. Nothing, it appeared, could shake her calm exterior.
“Good,” she answered. “A few scrapes and bruises.” She brushed her hair back with both hands. “That fucker hit fast.”
Dean came over with a bottle of water and handed it to her. She looked up at him gratefully and drank. “You forget to take of yourself, Jackie,” he chided. “You were the last damned one down here.”
“Only second to you,” she shot back. Their glance held a moment longer.
“Where are the Walkers?” I asked, looking for them in the wavering light. Everyone’s here except for them…”
“Oh my God,” Maggie pulled back from me sharply. “How the hell could I have forgotten?” She grabbed at me arm. “They left for the farmhouse… hours ago. What if they got caught on the road?”
Emergency services had arrived and were busy clearing the remaining debris from the staircase. A paramedic was checking each person before they were taken back up and into the mottled, fading daylight. The four of us stayed together. And we were the last ones up to see the devastation.
“It could have been a hell of a lot worse,” I said aloud, keeping Maggie at my side. “F-1… 2, maybe… Mother Nature might have blown off enough steam… for now…” I glanced around, getting my bearings. “The Walkers are most likely fine, but I have to make sure, Maggie. I want you to stay here with Ryan and Dean. I’ll use the two-way to keep in touch as long as I can… I’ll only be gone…”
“No!” she spat out. “Not without me, not again. I’m not letting you leave me again.”
Dean took her arm gently, but she pulled away sharply. “I’m not leaving him,” she said, her eyes strong, her voice firm. “You may not like it, Dean… you may not understand the way that I feel… the way that I’ve always felt.” She looked from his face to mine. “I love you, Joe,” she said simply. She turned to face her brother. “I love him.”
“And I love her, too,” I said gently to Dean, facing him.
“I don’t want this to come between us… not between any of us. But Maggie’s no child anymore. She’s the strongest woman I’ve ever known and she knows her own mind. I love her, and I’ll never hurt her. I’ll also never give her up.”
Dean drew in a breath to speak. Then I saw Jackie reach over and take his hand. It was a tiny movement, but it was there. He exhaled and stayed silent, but I could see in his eyes that he hadn’t accepted it.
“We have to go find them,” Maggie said determinedly. “If they didn’t make it to the farmhouse, and there’s another storm…”
I looked at Dean and his face was grim. “She isn’t going with you,” he said to me. He turned to face her. “You’re staying here with me, where it’s safe. Hell, I’ll go with Joe, but I want you here… It’s too damned dangerous…”
“He’s right, Maggie,” I added. “I’m going alone. I want you here… Stay with Jackie and the others. I’ll be back in a few hours…” I touched her face and felt Dean bristle. “I need you to wait…”
“The Walkers are my responsibility,” she said stiffly. I could tell by the set of her mouth how angry she was. “And to hell with you both, if you think you can discuss me as if I’m not even here.” She planted her feet and stared us both down.
“Don’t do this, Maggie,” Dean said, his eyes dark and his tone a warning…
“It’s already done,” she replied coldly.
28
Maggie
The sky had grown darker by the time we were on the road. The thunderheads were still visible, but the winds had died down fast and the air was finally still. We were both a mess, tired, and dirty… Joe was angry at me, but I flattered myself that he was proud, too. I watched him at the wheel, and he was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
“Come here,” he said, seeing my look from the corner of his eye. He pulled me next to him and I took my first deep breath in forever.
“I was afraid you’d never come back,” I confessed. “The storm hit and you hadn’t made it back. I felt the way I did when I was little and you’d left for college. Like I’d never see you again… like it was all over.”
“I’m not that easy to get rid of, Maggie,” he said back easily. “And I’m going to have hell to pay when we get back. I’ve never seen Dean so furious… He’s right, you know. You should have stayed behind… you do take risks. And he may never forgive me for wanting you… He doesn’t want to see you hurt. Neither do I.”
“You won’t hurt me, Joe… not as long as we’re together…”
He lifted my hand and kissed the back of it. “Do you remember the day I pushed you on the swing? I promised you I’d always be here… And I am.”
I also made you promise to marry me, I thought, feeling foolish at the memory. But it was just a promise to a child, to soothe her aching heart. A promise easily made and forgotten. But I still treasured the memory.
Joe turned the radio on and it hissed static. He turned the old knob back and forth, finally giving up. His hand came to rest comfortably on my thigh, and suddenly I wished I’d wo
rn anything but long denim jeans. It felt like forever since I’d felt his hands on my skin.
It had only been yesterday…
I fought to stay awake as the old tires bumped a steady rhythm along the road. I kept my eyes open until I knew we were close. The light was almost entirely gone, and I rested my head against Joe’s solid shoulder and let the silence soothe me. I wanted to sleep, in a warm, safe bed. I wanted to wake up, back home in his arms…
“We’re here, baby.” I opened my eyes. Surely it had only been a minute...?
“Their truck is here… It looks like they made it just fine.”
The porch light flickered on and the front door opened. “Maggie… Joe…!” Margie leaned on the screen door as Ron came out to greet us. “You two look like… oh, my God… we heard on the news that a storm touched down close to town…”
“It touched down on top of the church,” Joe said, as we sagged down onto the sofa together. “Everybody’s fine… we just had to make sure you were, too.”
We spent the evening at the kitchen table, sharing the soup that Margie had made and telling them all that had happened.
“It’s been quiet as a mouse out here,” Ron said. “Who’d have thought…? We’d end up missing all the excitement…”
I leaned heavily against Joe’s arm. It had only been an hour since we’d arrived, and the food had made me relaxed and sleepy. Margie smiled at me indulgently. “Why don’t you two head up. I’ve got the dishes, and I’d imagine a hot shower would feel pretty good before bed. We’ve got the room off the kitchen…” She tipped her head toward a short hall. “Plenty of rooms upstairs…”
I thanked her from the bottom of my exhausted heart, and leaned against Joe as we climbed the stairs. Tired as I was, images of us flashed in my mind. The silky feel of his skin… the way that he’d touched me. He opened the door to the room we’d shared just last night… a lifetime ago… And I remembered the taste of him on my tongue…
He laughed softly when I reached out for him and caught my wrists in his big hands. “I know, Maggie… Me, too. But you’re exhausted, sweetheart. You need to sleep.”
I pressed my body against him, even as he held my wrists. My breasts pressed into his chest… I knew he wanted me, too…
“Tomorrow,” he promised gently, as he picked me up and carried me to the bathroom. He undressed me, as the old clawfoot tub filled with deliciously steamy water. Then he picked me up and put me in. Desire fought hard against the weight of weariness. My body responded to his touch as he began to wash me. But sleep was pulling me away, as teasingly and seductively as his gentle hands. The winds began to blow again outside, and the last thing I remembered was his voice as I drifted off…
“There’s nothing that won’t wait until morning, sweetheart. We have tomorrow, and a thousand more after that. Just sleep, Maggie…
Just sleep.”
29
Joe
Forecast highs near 115, tornado watch in effect for the next twenty-four hours. Warnings imminent.
Although everything had turned out fine, at least in regard to the Walkers, I was still unsettled about Maggie’s decision to come along. Dean would be imagining the worst right about now, and I couldn’t blame him. I’d crossed the line… way the fuck past the line… and I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to fix that between us. Maggie should have stayed behind. But she was stubborn, and driven, and determined to have her way. And it was one of the things I loved about her most…
We hadn’t been asleep longer than an hour or two, Maggie a little longer. When she’d fallen asleep in the tub, I’d eased her out and wrapped her in a towel, drying her without waking her. I had tucked her into bed and quickly washed myself. I’d brushed my clothes off as well as I could. Then after taking a long, hard look at her, innocent and vulnerable, I’d dressed again before laying down next to her. It was my own best chance at a little sleep.
But the winds had started again. Enough to rattle the old windows… enough to wake me out of a dream. It had been all about Maggie, luscious and sweet and wet… and when I opened my eyes, she was there. Real and warm and soft beside me. She reached out and lit a fire inside me…
“Is it starting again?” she asked. I pulled her close and wrapped my arms around her. The sheet that had covered her was gone. She was all bare, tender skin.
“No, baby,” I said, reassuringly. “It’s just the wake behind the storm.” I ran my hands down her body gently and felt her nipples begin to stiffen. I ran my thumb over one until it was hard and thick as a marble. Then I shifted her onto her back and took it into my mouth.
“Oh… Joe…,” she moaned in the darkness. I sucked harder and she writhed underneath me. “I don’t want to wait for anymore tomorrows…,” she gasped. She tangled her hands in my hair and arched her back. “No more tomorrows… no more waiting…
This is what I want,” she said, unzipping my jeans and taking me into her hands. “There is no perfect moment to wait for… There’s just now… and now is what’s perfect…”
I stripped away the last of my clothes and eased my weight down on top of her. She opened her thighs and wrapped her legs around me, cradling my hips in hers… my cock buried in the warmth of her swollen lips. As far as we’d gone before, it was the first time, touching her this way… my cock to her sweet pussy. As badly as I needed to thrust my way inside, I knew I had to hold back… She needed to be ready, very fucking ready, to take me.
I reached down, leaving my cock where it was, and slipped my fingers into her liquid depths. She was tight, but she was soaking wet and slippery, too. I pushed in another finger, working her hard little clit with the head of my cock. She spasmed on my fingers, and I thrust them in deeper.
“Give me one, sweetheart,” I groaned into her ear. I licked and sucked at her nipples, pushing her on. She responded like flame to open air, and the heat from her body rose, carrying her scent to me. The civilized man in me gritted his teeth and held back. The animal in me responded to his mate. I took her earlobe in my teeth and pulled her to me, biting and kissing along the long stretch of her neck. I pushed three fingers into the hilt and felt her push back against me for more. She was ready… she was so fucking ready… Whatever pain she would feel would be lost in her pleasure…
I felt her orgasm begin to swell and that’s when I took her. In one swift movement, my fingers were gone and my head was pushed just inside her swollen lips. “Christ… Maggie…,” it was my turn to moan. I’d tried to go slowly, but she’d wrapped my waist with her hips, crying out with demands of her own. She bucked with her hips and I felt the head of my cock reach her sweetest, deepest spot. My balls were tight against her ass. She’d taken every last inch of me…
I ached to take her in long, pounding thrusts. But she was tight… so fucking tight… I bit into my lip and rocked gently, an inch at a time until she was moving along with me. We worked slowly at first, but our bodies were made for each other, and before long we had found a rhythm all our own. I was moving in full, deep strokes now, and our breathing was as fast as our heartbeats.
‘I love you… my sweetheart… my darling.” I buried my face in the curve of her throat, my cock in the heat of her precious flesh. “You belong to me now,” I breathed. I pulled a long stroke out and paused to see the look in her eyes. “Tell me,” I demanded harshly. “Tell me now…”
“I love you,” she gasped out, clutching my back and digging in her nails. “I belong to you…”
In one hard stroke, I was inside her again… our bodies one… along with our flesh and our blood and our souls. I felt her climax explode as I felt the first hard pulse of my seed spill inside her…
I filled her with everything in me… the love and the desire. I filled her with the promise of every tomorrow, and I felt the answer in her response. She held on, biting my shoulder and calling my name. I could feel the amazing power of her climax, and still I pushed her on. We demanded everything from each other and gave everything we had. Together, we
rode the storm that enveloped us… wave after crashing wave of need and its fulfillment.
The last thought in my mind was her… just her. She’d been so fucking right...
There could be nothing more perfect… than now.
30
Maggie
It was the wind that woke me again. The glass windowpanes rattled in their wooden frames, and I could feel the old house shift almost imperceptibly.
“Maggie,” Joe was already up. “Get up, baby. I need you to get up and get dressed.”
It was the warning in his voice. I was alert in seconds and pulling on my jeans and shirt. “It can’t be happening again. It was over… it blew itself out.”
“I hope to God you’re right,” he answered. “But these fucking things have a will of their own. She may have just been gathering…”
I pulled on a boot and grabbed a storm lantern. “We need to get downstairs… wake up the Walker’s.” I opened the bedroom door shouting over the building roar. “There’s got to be a cellar!” We were halfway down to the kitchen when the winds began to shriek in earnest.
“Ron… Margie!” Joe tore open the door to their room, finding them up and terrified. “Is there a storm cellar? Did you see a door?” He was screaming over the storm now, not knowing if they could even hear him.
Ron was moving his mouth, but the words were lost. He had Margie by the arm and was pulling her toward the hall. She grabbed hold of the bedpost, shaking her head, her eyes wide and her face stricken with terror. Together, the two men half dragged, half carried her down the narrow hall. Ron pointed to the door at the back of the kitchen.
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