Storm Warning

by Sydney Somers

  To…to understanding what was happening inside her?

  To falling in love with him?

  Both.

  His lips found the corner of her mouth, teasing up her cheek, and holding.

  “Drew?”

  “Everything’s going to be okay,” he promised, his arms wrapping around her.

  God, she believed him. She was terrified of losing herself to this.

  He opened his mouth over hers, sealing their next breaths together. The hum pulsed wildly inside her. In the next instant, she heard the distant boom of thunder.

  “Did you feel it?” he asked, his lips at her ear. “Hear it?”

  “Yes.”

  He kissed her softly, making her melt. “Do it again,” he coaxed.

  She pushed back against him, the ache between her thighs thumping harder at the feel of his thick arousal tucked against her ass. Needing something more to hang onto, she looped one arm around his neck, inviting a deeper kiss. A harder one. They both groaned and another burst of energy snapped inside her.

  More thunder. It started to rain—pour.

  Drew arched his hips, his tongue sliding faster between her lips. She wanted more. Much more.

  A flash of lightning lit up the room just as she opened her eyes.

  She shoved herself to her feet. She shook her head, wrapping her arms around her middle.

  This couldn’t be happening—wasn’t happening. She wouldn’t let it.

  “Blair?”

  “I was wrong.” So very wrong. “It’s not just my emotions, my emotional highs that trigger this inside me.” She faced him, overwhelmed by the desire and need pounding through her. She swallowed. “It’s yours too.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Drew rapidly closed the distance before she put more space between them. “Hey.” He braced himself, half expecting another shock when he pulled her close, but felt only soft, warm flesh.She trembled in his arms. “It’s you too. I can feel it.” She buried her face in his chest. “It’s everywhere inside me, how much you want me. I can feel it and it makes me—”

  “Horny?” He’d say anything to keep the situation from slipping any farther out of his control. Later, he’d think about the implications of what she said. What it meant.

  She saw right through his transparent attempt to keep her from worrying. “It’s like when you get too close it unleashes inside me.”

  “There is no monster inside you.” He saw the fear in her eyes. “You’re a little different. Stronger. Special.” He caged her face in his palms, needing her to understand. “But it’s still you.”

  “Shadow Demons feel their victim’s emotions. Feed off them. What if that happens to me? God, even now I can feel that you want me and I want to feel more of it. More of you.” She shoved him back as though the temptation was too much.

  “Fighting it won’t make any of this go away.”

  Defiance glittered in her eyes. “I can’t become like them.”

  “I won’t let that happen.”

  Her bitter laugh scared him more than the panic he heard in her voice. “You don’t get it, Drew. I’m not being attacked this time, it’s already inside me. You can’t save me from this.”

  The hell he couldn’t.

  He hauled her into his arms, exploiting his speed and strength to get a hold of her and keep her there.

  She shook her head. “Don’t.”

  “You forgot to say please,” he whispered and covered her mouth with his.

  Her hands fisted in his shirt, but the longer he kissed her, slowly devouring her mouth like he had an eternity to do it, the less she pushed him away. With every brush of his lips, every long sweep across her tongue, he silently begged her to trust him.

  “Stop,” she breathed when he bent to explore her throat. The fierce grip she had on him, her body sinking into his, told a different story.

  “Can’t.” He’d do whatever it took to get through to her, even using her own weakness against her.

  Giving into the fear was the beginning and end for people like them. The second she became afraid of herself, it was over. He knew it, and it scared him so bad he couldn’t have stopped this short of someone ripping her away from him.

  Her skin warmed beneath his mouth, and he nipped and pulled, the taste of her intoxicating. Her pleading whimper pulled him back to her mouth, and he didn’t stop kissing her until his lungs threatened to ignite in his chest.

  “You faced a war demon with nothing but a broken bottle. Don’t run from this, Blair. Don’t run from me.”

  “You’d have to let go first.”

  He laughed, relieved she wasn’t shutting down on him. Not yet. He kissed her forehead, trailing down to beneath her eye, her jaw, her mouth. “Do you feel this?”

  “Hard not to,” her voice shook, but not from fear. Her arousal thickened on the air between them, filling his senses.

  Need engulfed every cell in his body, a carnal wave rolling down his spine to sit hard and heavy at the base of his cock. “Does it make you want more?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “If it doesn’t, I’m obviously not doing it right.” Again he caught her lips, dragging a lusty sigh from her. “Ready to tear my clothes off yet?” It was getting harder to string a complete sentence together when her lush mouth felt so damn good.

  Blair tensed in his arms. “I can’t play your game.”

  “Who said you had a choice?” He scooped her into his arms and carried her to the bedroom.

  She scrambled across the bed the second he let go of her to shut the door. He wanted her contained, needed her to face this, not hide from it. She watched him from the head of the bed, her gaze tracking his progress across the room, a stunning mix of lust and wariness imprinted on her face.

  He stripped off his shirt. The rain outside had worked up to a steady downfall, but no raging booms of thunder or streaks of lightning. Was she getting a better hold of it or had he just not provoked her enough yet?

  He moved to one side of the bed. She slid off the other side, keeping the bed between them. He wanted to grin. She had to know by now the thrill of the hunt was just as enticing as catching her.

  “I think you do want to play.”

  “No.”

  “You can say whatever you want, but your body doesn’t lie. Your heart is racing and with every other glance you’re drinking me in and burning me up.”

  She shook her head, her breath coming faster.

  “Even now, you’re thinking about what will happen when I get my hands on you. How loud I’ll make you scream.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  Out of his ever livin’ mind.

  He didn’t doubt it for a second. He’d just stopped believing that it made a difference either way. He was tired of doubting himself, tired of second-guessing every move he made. She made him ache in ways he hadn’t imagined, filled places inside him he hadn’t realized were empty until she’d looked at him that day on the beach. Really looked. Like she was seeing him and not a Shadow Destroyer heading for burnout, or the father he hadn’t asked to be.

  Just him.

  He wouldn’t lose her to this. Not when he was just beginning to realize how deep his feelings for her ran.

  “You should go.” Blair crossed her arms beneath her breasts.

  He ventured a little closer. “I think you want me to stay.”

  “You’re wrong.” She couldn’t look him in the eye.

  “Am I?” Only a foot separated them now. “Then why are you already wet for me?”

  A tremor ran through her.

  “I think you want me to take your clothes off piece by piece—”

  Heat flared in her eyes.

  “—and fuck you until neither of us can move.”

  A crack of thunder exploded overhead, and then she was in his arms, going up on her toes to kiss him long and deep.

  He wound one arm around her waist, pressing the hard length of his arousal against her to take the worst of the edge off
. She cradled his jaw in her palm, the wicked lap of her tongue in his mouth driving him out of his mind.

  “Drew?” Hesitation lingered beneath the sultry tone.

  He tightened his hold on her, unsure if the soft sound she made was a sigh or a wince. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  “Promise me.”

  He didn’t miss a beat. “I swear you’ll come through his.” He wouldn’t consider any other option.

  The tension in her spine dissolved and she arched back. Her breasts strained against the T-shirt she wore.

  “I need to touch you.” He yanked off her shirt, spanned his hand across her stomach. “Everywhere.”

  “Please,” she hissed, moaning when he nipped at her through her bra.

  He tugged her bra down until the hard tip of her nipple peeked over the top. He pulled it into his mouth with a long, wet tug, letting her slide free as she backed out of his arms.

  “You were right.” Her hands went to the snap of her jeans. “About all of it.” She shimmied them over her hips and off. She ran her finger along the top edge of her panties. “I am wet. And hot”—she tugged them down an inch—“and aching and if you don’t fuck me until neither of us can move—”

  The rest of her admission was lost under his mouth. They fell back on the bed and the feel of her naked curves plucked viciously at his control. He ended up between her legs, and pushed against her sex. Just enough to drive them both a little crazy.

  Blair moaned, and he knew he needed to hear it again. And again. He trailed his mouth down her neck, teasing his lips over the tops of her breasts that looked way too confined in her bra. She sighed in pleasure as he took it off.

  He was in the process of stripping off her panties too when she managed to slip her hand down his pants without him seeing it coming. Her fist closed around him, pumping once.

  Jesus.

  She pushed him to his back and he went willingly, watching her work his pants down. Only one other thing could come close to satisfying his need to sink deep inside her—having her mouth on him.

  His cock pulsed in her soft grip, and he closed his hand over hers, tightening her hold.

  Blair shook her head. “You wanted me to play.”

  Her hungry gaze shook him to the core, and he let go, watching her test the length of him with her fingers, then with her tongue. All the way from base to tip.

  Soft. Wet. Unfuckingbelievable.

  Her mouth would slay him faster than any demon could. One hand closed around the base of his cock, slowly shuttling up to meet the delectable lips that tugged the head of his shaft deeper. Her tongue curled around the tip, the soft suction making him nearly shout.

  He hauled her to her knees, pulling her down for a gut-wrenching kiss. Things had surpassed slow and testing and had fallen swiftly into downright treacherous. For him. For whatever it was inside him that seemed to unravel a little more each time he got his hands on her.

  He moved from beneath her, draping his hand possessively across her back to keep her on her knees. She watched him from over her shoulder, bunching the blanket between her fingers. Raw, unbridled passion flashed in her eyes.

  He jerked at the pants tangled around his legs and moved behind her. His sac grew taut as he worked her panties down, the last barrier between them. He pressed his mouth to the curve of her lower back, then down across smooth flesh.

  “Now. Please, now.”

  He parted her slick folds with his fingers, rubbing back and forth.

  “Now!”

  She cried out when he sank himself deep in her sex, whimpered when he withdrew and filled her again. He couldn’t have gone slow if he’d wanted to—she wouldn’t let him. She rocked back to meet every thrust, her silky walls rippling around him.

  He bit down, unable to stop from ramming into her. Harder.

  Crashes of thunder outside, bursts of lightning brightening the room, then plunging it back into darkness.

  Rocking faster, she yelled something he didn’t catch. He was too busy dying a little every time he buried himself inside her. She was too slick and tight, and he was within an inch of coming hard. His fingers tightened on her hips, tilting her up and hissing when the small change in angle let him slide just a little deeper.

  Too much. Too incredible. He was going to die right here, inside her, staking his claim on this woman. This made her his now.

  She just didn’t know it yet.

  He lengthened each thrust, and the hot walls of her sex clenched around his cock with long, sweet spasms.

  Blair cried out as she came and her climax triggered his own. A fierce groan ripped up his throat. They both collapsed on the bed, only the harsh rhythm of their breathing heard in the wake of the retreating storm.

  “Drew?”

  He hadn’t even realized his eyes had started to close until he heard her say his name. He turned his head, drawing the covers a little higher over them. “You’re not kicking me out, are you?”

  She shook her head, and he snaked an arm around her waist to keep her close should she try rolling away again. He figured if he held onto her long enough, she’d get the message.

  “You okay?”

  When she didn’t answer right away, he rolled to his side. “Blair?”

  “It was just…intense.”

  No, they’d passed intense a long time ago. That was something else entirely.

  “What happened to Molly’s mother?” she asked after a long minute. “I’m not trying to change the subject.”

  The hell she wasn’t.

  “Are the two of you divorced?”

  “We were never married. Leanna was killed in a car accident six months ago.”

  She fell silent. “I’m sorry.”

  “We hadn’t been together in a long time. After the accident, Molly’s grandmother planned on raising her alone, but then she found out she had cancer and decided I needed to know about Molly.”

  “How could Leanna not tell you?”

  He’d been asking himself that for weeks, and he couldn’t help but still be a little bit resentful over that. The years with Molly he’d been denied… And he couldn’t even ask Leanna why she’d never said a damn word. They’d dated on and off for almost two years. He hadn’t been some one-night stand that got her pregnant and disappeared. “I wish I knew,” he finally answered.

  “What about your friends? Didn’t any of them know about Molly?”

  “Leanne moved away after she found out she was pregnant. Not too long after we broke up, I was recruited by the network and fell out of touch with the few mutual friends we had who might have known. Still…”

  Blair frowned, her gaze a little too perceptive. “She kept Molly from you. That’s not your fault.”

  He shrugged, wondering again if he’d done something to make Leanne think he wouldn’t have cared about the baby or that he wouldn’t have made a good father. Had she felt the same doubts he had the second he laid eyes on his little girl? That he’d never figure out how to live up to the hopeful expectation he’d glimpsed in Molly’s eyes that day?

  “I’m glad you have the chance to know your daughter now,” she said softly.

  “Me too.” Tightening his hold on Blair, he closed his eyes.

  “Must be hard,” she mused, “trying to raise her with what you do.”

  “She dreamed of you,” he said before thinking it through, before she could ask him why his parents were looking after his little girl. He didn’t want to look in Blair’s eyes and see her disapproval that he’d chosen the easy way out.

  “Molly?”

  “She dreamed of a woman in a place with loud music and there was a monster watching her. She told me I had to save her. Save you.”

  Her eyes widened. “When?”

  “The night before the war demon on the roof.”

  “How is that possible?”

  He sagged back against the mattress, staring at the ceiling. “I wish I knew.”

  Down the hall, his tracker starte
d to beep. Wonderful.

  She sat up, frowning. “Pager?”

  “Trouble.” He threw back the covers. “I have to go. You sleep.”

  “Shadow Demon?”

  “Probably.” He wasn’t lucky enough for it to be just a glitch with the damn device. “I’ll be back when I can.” He began to dress, really hating how his home turf was turning into a damn hot zone. There used to be some small measure of comfort in coming home after an assignment and not having to watch his back—much.

  Blair snagged his hand and, pulling him back to the bed, kissed him fiercely. “Be safe.”

  Blair couldn’t sleep. Not now. Not until he was back. How did her brother get used to this feeling when Quinn was on assignment somewhere without him? No matter how much she’d learned about Destroyers being highly trained, even witnessing Drew’s skills first-hand, she couldn’t relax enough to drift off.

  She held up her hand, studying her palm in the faint moonlight drifting through the blinds. Pure, unbidden satisfaction coursed through her veins.

  No. She wasn’t okay at all. What happened between them had been far more than just intense. What began as a challenge had spiraled so far out of control she knew there was no going back, and Drew hadn’t even realized it.

  He’d been right that she’d wanted him to stay, wanted to play. The more he’d enjoyed it, the more she did. Every demand for submission, every possessive kiss and every hot curl of lust—she’d felt it, hungered for it, basked in it.

  Even thinking about it, about him, threatened to awake it inside her all over again. She squeezed her eyes shut tight. God, if he knew how much she’d loved it, how much she’d gotten off on feeling the emotions run off him in thick waves, there was no way he would have held her so close afterward. He would have put as much distance between them as he could. Would have been crazy not to.

  He wanted to save her, but it was too late.

  She was already like them.

  Blair threw off the covers and sat on the edge of the bed, trembling inside and out. She wanted to go to sleep and wake up in Drew’s arms back at the resort. If she’d done something differently that morning, hadn’t jumped to conclusions about Molly, could this have been avoided?