by Nina Lane
With a jolt, the car lurched back onto the road. Colton gave a whoop of victory.
Archer climbed from the ditch, dragging his boots out of the heavy muck. His chest heaved with exertion, and water ran in rivulets over his hair and face. He went to talk to Colton, bracing one hand against the roof of the car.
I tracked the camera down his body, over his powerful chest to his legs encased in wet jeans. When he pushed away from the car, Colton sped off through the rain.
Archer turned, catching sight of me through the windshield of the truck. He frowned and stalked toward me.
A little shiver of apprehension went down my spine. I quickly hit the stop button on the camcorder and shoved it back into the bag.
“Nice work!” I called cheerfully through the open window. “Is he meeting us at the next pit stop?”
Archer didn’t respond, his glower deepening. My apprehension grew stronger. He was soaked to the skin, filthy, and exhausted. With mud and rain streaking over his face and hair, he also looked more than a little menacing.
He stopped outside my window. “Were you filming me?”
“Um… maybe?”
“What the—”
“Not for commercial use,” I assured him quickly. “Just for… er, well…”
A sudden blush fired over my skin.
Archer frowned. “For what?”
“For my own private use,” I admitted. “You’re just so sexy with your muscles straining and your shirt plastered to your body like that, and you know how much I love it when you’re dirty…”
The scowl between his eyebrows eased a little, but he still didn’t look any too pleased. He shoved away from the window and strode around to the driver’s seat. He climbed inside, slamming the door shut behind him.
Now in the confines of the truck, his irritation was tangible. I scooted away from him. He bent to unlace his mud-caked boots and yank them from his feet.
“Are you thirsty?” I asked, still trying to keep my voice bright. “I have chocolate milk in the… oh!”
Before I could finish, he’d grabbed me and hauled me against him. All the breath escaped my lungs as he brought his mouth down on mine in a hard, crushing kiss.
I fell against him, parting my lips under his to accept the sweep of his tongue. Sparks flared through me, but too soon he was lifting his head, his dark eyes hot. He jerked his thumb toward the back of the truck.
“Get back there,” he ordered. “Now.”
My heart pounded. I hurried to scramble over the front seat to the cab, where we kept a few boxes of equipment. Archer shoved some of it aside to make room before hauling me down on the seat and climbing on top of me.
The delicious shock of his weight combined with the rain still dripping off him fired me with lust. Cold water seeped through my shirt and pants. He took hold of my shirt and ripped it right off me, pulling my bra down to expose my breasts.
I gasped, squirming against him, already sizzling with heat and urgency. I wiggled out of my jeans, struggling to help him off with his, and then we were both half-naked and he was pushing into me with an intense, powerful surge.
I wrapped myself around him, gasps and moans streaming from my throat as he thrust again and again, his body still tense with strain and exertion, his breath hot on my neck. I came hard, arching up against him, thrilling in the force of our release, the sheer, uncontrollable power of him.
When he rolled off me with a groan, I nestled up against his side. I splayed myself half over his long, muscular body, resting my head on his chest. He stroked his hand through my hair.
“Next time, I get to film you being dirty,” he said.
“Okay,” I agreed.
He grinned. I spread my fingers over the tattoo on the left side of his chest—his own drawing of the superhero Blue with tornados spinning from her palms and her blue-streaked hair windblown by a storm.
He’d agreed to get the tattoo without knowing what it was—after I’d decided to play my trump card and choose the new design for him. Since the tattoo was on his chest, though, I’d insisted he wear a blindfold until the artist had finished.
“Exactly where my storm girl belongs,” Archer had said after seeing the design. “Right over my heart.”
Even the tattoo artist had smiled.
I eased closer to Archer, stroking my hand across his chest. A warm contentment filled me, along with the heady anticipation of not knowing what lay ahead for us.
In the two weeks we’d been storm chasing, we had already faced down another tornado, gotten lost on country back roads, driven through rain and hail, and had more explosive sex than I’d ever dreamed possible.
We were on our way back to Mirror Lake for the rest of the summer, where Archer had plans to look for construction or repair work over the winter as we prepared to launch the Spiral Project next spring.
Though Archer had wanted to give some of his inheritance money to the project, I’d refused to let him. Instead he was going to talk to Dean about investments, and he’d mentioned taking art classes at the local community college and possibly even earning his GED one day. I loved that his talents were so focused on fixing, repairing, restoring, and creating.
As we lay there in the back of the truck, the rain pounding on the roof and thunder rumbling in the distance, I felt it again, like a bright, shiny balloon lifting my heart. Happiness.
I was so happy with him, this man who had taken me once again into the beauty of storms. He was the man who loved all of me, even my worst flaws. He had proven that together we could challenge fear and win. He was my exhilaration and my peace.
And he had shown me that letting go and surrendering was a measure of strength. No longer alone, no longer afraid, we had both given over to loving each other forever.
Archer rubbed his hand across the front of my body, his touch warm and gentle. He lowered his mouth to mine. I sank into him, feeling the steady beat of his heart, the coiled strength of his body, the heat of his skin.
Pleasure unfurled inside me as he pressed his hand between my breasts. He shifted, deepening our kiss. My heart flipped like a coin, flashing silver against the palm of his hand. And then I was caught, swept up and spinning into my own perfect storm.
Thank you for reading BREAK THE SKY. Please consider providing a review on Amazon and/or Goodreads. I hope you enjoy Liv and Dean’s story.
And suddenly you know… it’s time to start something new and trust the magic of beginnings.
—Meister Eckhart
CHAPTER ONE
OLIVIA
IT’S AN EPIC MELTDOWN. A PART the seas, lightning bolts from the sky, plague of locusts, peanut-butter-smeared meltdown. His face is red as a beet, drenched with tears, his fists clenched. He’s alternating between pounding the floor with his feet to flopping over like a beached whale and howling.
I’ve tried everything. Food. Changing. Toys. Reasoning. TV. Cajoling. Music. Going outside. Coming inside. Checking his temperature. Books. A vain attempt at a nap. I gave him the wooden spoon I’d been using to stir chocolate frosting because… chocolate, but even that didn’t work.
Nothing is working. My nerves are shot. I’m exhausted, and the house looks like it’s been hit by a tornado. I haven’t showered all day. I look at the clock, calculating I have about three hours to calm Nicholas down and coax him to sleep, get my gourmet dinner prepped, and somehow wrestle the house into tip-top shape. And make myself at least somewhat presentable.
“How about Thomas?” I suggest, quickly pulling up a video on my laptop.
Nicholas wails something incomprehensible and flounders around on the sunroom floor. A headache hammers at my skull. I turn the video toward him. He grabs the laptop from the coffee-table and sends it smashing to the floor.
“Tuck!” he yells.
“I know. I have given you five trucks.” I point
to the garbage truck, Mack truck, and three dump trucks amidst the clutter of cars on the floor.
“Tuck!”
“I don’t think you have any more trucks,” I say desperately.
“Fed!”
Fed. Fed what? Federal? Does he have an FBI truck? Does such a thing even exist? But if it did, what two-year-old knows that Fed refers to the FBI? Maybe he means something else, like red?
I rummage through the half-empty toy box and find a red bulldozer, which I hold up.
“This?” I ask.
“No!” Nicholas unleashes an ear-splitting scream.
“Are you thirsty?” I ask, deciding to change tactics even though I’ve asked him that question about a dozen times already. I grab his sippy cup of orange juice from the table and hand it to him. “Juice!”
For a second, his sobs decrease in volume. I almost hold my breath with hope as he grabs the cup from my hand. He throws it on the ground. Orange juice sprays all over the tile and splashes onto my sweatpants.
“No-spill” cup, my freaking ass.
I grit my teeth, clinging to what little patience I have left. My lack of sleep last night, thanks to Nicholas’s penchant for flailing around when he sleeps in our bed, is yanking out the final threads of my frayed sanity.
Badly needing a break, I grab Nicholas and get him into the playpen, where he can at least continue his meltdown without whacking his head against a hard surface.
I set the laptop back on the table, mop up the juice with a few napkins, then go into the kitchen and silently pray my darling, holy terror of a son will wear himself out and fall asleep. With his dark hair and thick-lashed eyes, he’s adorable when he’s asleep.
Now? Not so much.
I scribble “Buy orange juice” on a Post-it and stick it to the refrigerator along with all the other reminders of stuff I need to buy and do.
I grab a spatula and smear chocolate frosting over the lumpy, lopsided cake sitting on the central island. The stupid thing looks nothing like the elaborate, raspberry-chocolate layer cake on my Pinterest board, the one I thought would be “easy enough” to recreate.
I glance at the clock, wondering if I have time to run to the bakery. Then again, the last thing I need is to haul a screaming toddler into a bakery to buy a chocolate cake. We’d barely made it out of the grocery store without being disintegrated by the disapproving, death-ray stares of older women who apparently raised perfect, well-behaved angels.
Nicholas lets out a yell that sounds like he’s being tortured. My heart plummets. I drop the spatula and run into the sunroom, where he is flailing against the mesh sides of the playpen.
“Nicholas, what?”
My headache intensifies, nails driving into my skull. I lean over to lift him out of the playpen. He swings a fist, catching my front teeth in a punch.
Pain radiates over my jaw. Tears spring to my eyes. I sink to the floor as he wiggles out of my grip and flops next to me with another screech of indignation.
“Ah, my beloved family.”
Dean’s deep voice washes over Nicholas’s wailing. I jerk my head up in surprise to find him standing in the kitchen doorway, his briefcase in hand. Aside from looking travel-rumpled, he’s as gorgeous as ever, his thick dark hair disheveled and his tall, muscular body clad in an open wool peacoat over his standard travel clothes of worn jeans and a forest-green rugby shirt.
He takes in the scene before him—the screaming child, the sunroom strewn with books and toys, the pile of dirty dishes and sippy cups in the sink, the disaster of a kitchen with cake ingredients and messy mixing bowls scattered over the counter.
Not to mention his wife collapsed on the floor in old sweatpants stained with spaghetti sauce and orange juice, her unwashed hair limp and tangled, and her torn T-shirt stinking of sour milk.
Dean smiles at me. “Hey, beauty.”
I burst into tears.
He sets his briefcase down and comes toward us, one hand reaching for Nicholas and the other for me. Nicholas, oblivious to his father’s homecoming, grabs a plastic hammer and pounds it on the rug.
I fall against the solid wall of Dean’s body and give in to sobbing for a minute before pulling myself together for what feels like the hundredth time that day. I wipe my wet face and runny nose on his shirt and ease back to look at him.
“W-what are you doing home so early?” I hiccup. “You were supposed to be home at eight.”
“There was room on an earlier flight, so I grabbed a seat,” he says, pushing my hair away from my sweaty forehead. “Didn’t you get my text?”
“Do I look like I got your text?” I retort, suddenly annoyed with both him and American Airlines for screwing up my plan to welcome my husband home after two weeks away.
“No,” Dean admits reflectively, sliding his gaze over me. “You do not.”
He pushes to his feet and reaches for Nicholas, who evades his grasp and toddles over to the basement door.
“Tuck!” Nicholas screams. “Fed!”
“Hold on.” Dean hauls our son into his arms and sets him in the playpen, then goes down into the unfinished basement. He returns with a Lego Duplo-block fire truck and puts it in front of Nicholas.
And, like turning off a water faucet, Nicholas stops wailing.
My ears are still ringing, so for a moment the silence is deafening. Nicholas lets out a few lingering sobs and gulps. Dean grabs a napkin from the table and wipes Nicholas’s face and nose, lifting him out of the playpen and onto the sunroom floor. Nicholas hugs the fire truck like it’s a long-lost friend.
Which I suppose it is.
“Oh my God.” I groan and bury my face in my hands. “Are you freaking kidding me?”
“That’s Fred,” Dean says helpfully. “Didn’t you know that?”
I take my hands away from my face to stare at him. “Do I look like I know that?”
“No,” he admits.
“Why would I know our son has a fire truck named Fred? And moreover, why the hell is Fred in the basement rather than the toy box where he belongs? I have spent all day dragging your son’s toys out, trying to get him to stop wailing like a banshee, and now I find out there are more toys in the basement?”
Dean scratches his head. “Just a few. I put them there for safekeeping when Nicholas was into throwing things down the stairs. He broke apart a fishing boat and had a tantrum, so I’ve been trying to keep the Lego Duplo sets intact.”
“And you couldn’t have told me?”
He shrugs. “I thought I did.”
A wave of frustration almost makes me start crying again. With a grunt, I push to my feet and go into the kitchen. Nicholas rolls the truck on the floor and makes a high-pitched siren noise that sounds like the sweetest lullaby ever compared to his previous screaming.
I grab the spatula and slap frosting on the cake like I’m flogging it. Dean comes up behind me.
“I missed you,” he remarks.
I growl in response.
“I love you,” he adds.
Another growl rumbles in my throat. I turn and smack Dean’s chest with the spatula, leaving a smear of chocolate on his shirt.
“You were supposed to be home at eight,” I repeat accusingly. “I had it all planned out. Nicholas was going to be sleeping peacefully, I’d be showered and all prettied up with lingerie on under my dress, waiting for you with a glass of scotch and a delicious gourmet dinner, followed by homemade chocolate cake. Afterward, I was planning to take you upstairs and actually get sexy.
“However, since you were inconsiderate enough to come home three hours early, you get nothing.” I wave the spatula in the air and turn back to the cake. “Nothing!”
“Oh, I’ve got something.” Dean slides his hands around my waist and pushes his groin up against my bottom. “I’ve got the hottest, sexiest, most perfect wife in the univer
se.”
“Hah. Good luck with that.”
“Mmm.” Dean pushes my hair away from my nape and kisses the back of my neck. “You smell like Spaghetti Os with meatballs. My favorite.”
“Again…” I push my hips backward in a half-hearted attempt to shove him away, but the movement only presses my ass closer against him. “Good luck.”
“I don’t need any more luck.” Dean presses his lips in a line over the ridge of my collarbone. “I’ve already got you.”
Okay, so that wasn’t bad. He continues pressing little kisses over my neck and shoulder, sending tingles raining down my spine. I lick a drop of frosting off my finger and make him work for a few more minutes before turning in his arms to face him. The heat of his body flows into me, soothing the tight anger and frustration that have been gripping me all day long.
“I’m still mad,” I warn him, holding up the spatula.
His eyes warm as he tracks his gaze over my face.
“You’re so pretty,” he says.
“Sure. You should have seen what I was planning to look like when you got home,” I grumble. “It would have been a transformation like Cinderella at the ball, except sexy.”
“You don’t need a transformation to be sexy,” Dean remarks. “But I’d be happy to provide you with a couple of balls.”
That brings a chuckle out of me, despite my fatigue over the full-time care of our son. A few weeks ago, my good friend and part-time nanny Marianne moved out of town to be closer to her daughter and grandchildren. I hadn’t realized how much I’d relied on her help with Nicholas until she was gone. And then with Dean’s work taking him out of town more often than I’d like…
He licks frosting off the spatula I’m still holding before putting his hands on my hips and pulling me closer.
“Give me a kiss, beauty,” he says.
“I haven’t even brushed my teeth today.”
“I don’t care.” He rubs his lips against mine. “I haven’t kissed my wife in two weeks. No way am I waiting a second longer. Not to mention, you taste like chocolate.”
