by Bourne, Lena
Stormi was supposed to be the silver lining of this very hands-on, personal killing I was a part of tonight. Griff and his sons were the first men I’ve known and killed, before them there were only strangers. It’s easier to box remorse and pangs of conscience away when it’s strangers. Burying men I spent time with was hard. What they did to Stormi, the way they treated her went a long way to justify it all in my mind, but now she’s not returning my calls.
I give it one last shot, call her one more time, even though I know I should’ve given up by now. If she wanted me, she’d call me back. Right?
The call goes straight to voicemail again, just like the last five calls I’ve made. I don’t leave a message. I just lay down on my narrow bunk, stare into the darkness and pretend I’m gonna sleep.
I won’t sleep.
Just like I won’t give up Stormi this easily.
So there’s really only one thing to do.
Go speak to her face to face.
Have her send me away while looking into my eyes.
* * *
I don’t know if it was my twisted luck, or just genuine luck at play, but Cross was still at the compound and still awake, when I went to ask if I can make another run to Vegas. He didn’t even need any convincing to let me go, telling me that I’ve done a good job and that it’s enough for now.
The road to Vegas and Stormi’s home just outside it seemed to grow longer with every mile my bike ate up. The night grew darker, not lighter as the hours passed. I kept worrying if the luck that sped me on this way was the twisted sort, the kind where I find Stormi never wants to see me again at the end of my ride. After how easy it was to decide to come here, and how easily I got permission from Cross, that would be a fitting twist to the whole thing.
The sun’s rising above the desert, paining the sky pale orange over white as I turn into the street where we said goodbye just two days ago.
The house I left her in front of looks empty. There are no cars in the driveway and no lights in any of the windows. I have no idea if it’s even really her house or just a random one she had me stop at, because she didn’t want me to know where she really lives.
I push all those dark doubts to the back of my mind as I park in the empty driveway and stride to the front door, where I don’t think at all before ringing the doorbell twice in quick succession, finishing with one longer press. Like I’ll be known by the way I ring the doorbell. Like I rang the doorbell at home when I forgot the keys. I didn’t even know I still remembered that.
Silence is all that answers my ring.
Silence so still I’m sure time actually stopped.
I’m just about to ring again when the curtain on the glass part of the door moves and Stormi’s face appears. She’s pale like a dream, her face set in shocked surprise. But I have no time to wonder about that before the door opens with a bang and she crashes into my arms.
I barely had time to open my arms to catch her, barely had time to attach dark meanings to her shocked look, or stop the doubts rising in my mind because of it. All those dark doubts are barely a hint in my mind, even the threat of them gone like it never existed, as she hugs me tight, molding her warm, soft body so close to mine I feel her heartbeat against mine. I’ve never been welcomed home this warmly or this completely in my whole life.
* * *
Stormi
I thought it was the rumbling of a Harley that woke me, but that sweet noise was gone when I opened my eyes. The dead silence of an empty house was all that greeted me. The bike arriving was just a dream. A perfect dream. But not real.
When the doorbell rang, piercing the calm silence, my racing heart plunged my mind straight into a waking nightmare.
The sun is up and my mom didn’t call. Did she send someone to get me? Did she come herself to tell me something happened to Misti? Something she couldn’t tell me over the phone? Something so bad she couldn’t speak it?
All those thoughts raced through my mind as I got up slowly, the fear of hearing the worst news at the end of my short walk down the stairs making my legs heavy as lead, yet jelly-like at the same time. All the way to the front door, my soul seemed to float over my body, not a part of it at all. I tried to stop my mind from adding more anxious thoughts to the mess already in my mind, but there was no stopping the flood of fear.
I was shaking all over by the time I reached the door and looked out to see who it was.
Ace! My heart screamed his name silently, or maybe it was my soul. It crashed back into my body just as I crashed into his arms.
The mess of fear and anxiety in my brain parted like dark clouds before the sun’s rays as I looked into his pristine summer sky eyes. His kiss was the wind that drove them away past the edges of my mind, away forever.
I don’t know how much time has passed since then.
I don’t remember letting him in and leading him upstairs to my bed.
I don’t remember not kissing him.
His hands are caressing my breasts and my stomach, my neck and my hair, his kiss deep and wild, just as his touch is soft and slow, hiding the passion, the desire, the fire that’s always hot enough to scorch and consume us both. That fire is banked for the moment, but the flames are ready to erupt high enough to reach the sky.
“Slow,” I asked and he’s obeying.
His cock is rock hard and pulsing inside me, sliding in and out of my pussy in slow strokes. The pleasure those caresses send coursing through me is like the never-ending waves on the open ocean with no shore to break them. Each of those pleasure waves is crested with sweet sparkles of bliss that fly off into all parts of my body, my mind and my heart like the gentle spray of cleansing, warm water. Soon I won’t be able to contain all that anymore. Soon the spray and drops of bliss, the deep, endless waves of pleasure will fill me whole and explode out of me, into the room, into the world.
“Faster,” I moan, my voice obeying my body’s need for release, for the explosion that must come, that it can no longer stand against.
He grins and kisses my neck, as he thrusts his cock into me faster, deeper, all the way. I gasp and moan as he does it again and again. His thrusts come harder and they’re deeper, but only a little faster.
The bliss and pleasure form a fiery ball inside me, his skilled thrusts feeding it flame. Together, they’ll soon set off the welcome, needed explosion. Soon.
I dig my nails into the hard muscles of his hips, bucking up to meet his thrusts, urging him to go faster. But he just grabs my wrists and pins them down, locking his summer eyes with my fuzzy gaze as he continues the maddeningly pleasurable, deep, hard, yet too slow strokes.
I’m gasping for breath by the time he picks up the pace, my body willingly accepting all of him, his cock, his heart, his soul, all the pleasure only he can give me. I’m screaming by the time release finally comes, fireworks of every hue and every shape, exploding before my eyes and inside me as he buries his cock deep and comes too, riding the waves of my own pulsing orgasm. The waves of pleasure take me under, dousing the flames of the explosion, but not lessening the pleasure. I could float like this for all time, forever, and never need to resurface.
But much too soon, the room starts forming again before my eyes.
“So, you did want me to come back?” he asks breathlessly, as he rolls onto his back on his side of the bed.
There’s an edge in his voice, one that suggests what we just shared wasn’t simply connectedness and love. His eyes and his grin as I prop myself on my elbow to look at him say different though.
“I wanted you to come back to me just as much as I ever wanted my sister to get better,” I say. I’m not sure he fully understands what that statement means, so I add. “And I never wanted anything as much as I wanted that.”
“You didn’t answer my calls,” he mutters, but in a faraway voice like he’s saying something he was determined to say to me, but doesn’t think it needs saying anymore.
“I didn’t see any,” I say kinda sharply, the way I migh
t have said it yesterday, while I was still waiting for his call.
“I called you at least ten times,” he says making my eyes go wide.
I should’ve checked the phone more often. I really should’ve. It’s still in Misti’s overnight bag in the hospital. I didn’t even look for it after they took her to the operating room.
“I was so afraid I’d never see you again, that you wouldn’t call me at all, that you’d just disappear from my life. I was too frightened of all that to keep hoping. That’s why I didn’t look at the phone all evening and night last night,” I say, surprised at the honesty in my voice. The things I just told him, I didn’t even fully admit to myself yet.
He doesn’t say anything, just looks at me kinda blankly, but anger isn’t the dominant emotion rising inside me. It used to be my go-to reaction, since it makes all losses, all heartaches, all pain so much more bearable, but I don’t need that while I look into his sparking, summer-sky eyes. They’re enough just on their own.
“I feel like I’ve found my home again with you,” he says, his face still mostly blank and his eyes very vast and empty. And warm. “The home I lost a long time ago and never thought I’d find again.”
This time it’s me staring at him blankly. But that’s just because I don’t know whether I should smile, or laugh, or cry with the joy opening like a flower to the sun inside me.
“Let’s never leave each other again,” I finally say, opting for a grin.
“Yes, let’s stay together forever from now on,” he says, grinning back.
I kiss the smile off his face, tasting the happiness and love that’s already filling my chest with its soft, sparkling perfectness. As he deepens the kiss, that happiness and love spreads everywhere, starting in my soul and in my heart, but filling the entire room, the entire house, the whole world. Home. Yes. I found my home in him too. And I will never leave it again.
Epilogue
One Month Later
Stormi
“My, look how strong you are,” Misti says in a very coy voice as Ace lifts her from the hospital wheelchair and puts her in the backseat of my mom’s car. Technically she could easily get into the car by herself, but he likes to be helpful like that. My man. Misti and Ace took to each other from the moment I introduced them. He treats her like a little sister and she sees him like the brother we never had.
“Hey, find your own guy,” I say anyway, in a fake shocked voice but with a big smile on my face. “This one’s mine.”
The love that spills from his eyes as he hears me say it, and the happiness that flows through me at his touch as he wraps his arm around my shoulders and pulls me close is out of this world amazing. It leaves me gasping.
“Damn right, I am,” he says right before he kisses me and it’s awhile before I can even hear Misti’s giggles, let alone focus my eyes on her again.
“Get a room you two,” she chides us and that finally breaks us apart.
“Oh, we will,” Ace assures her while winking at me, and I think I blushed at Misti’s mock outraged gasp. Or maybe it was at the love and lust in his eyes. No one has ever desired and wanted me as much as Ace does. I’ve never wanted or desired anyone as much I do him.
Misti’s recovery was slow, but the doctor just did one final check up and gave her the all-clear to start living her life to the fullest.
We’re taking Misti to the Strip to celebrate tonight. We’re going dancing and drinking, which is something Misti was never able to do before. At least not the way she can now. She finally has a full life to look forward to. And so do I.
The End
* * *
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Also by Lena Bourne
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Outlaw’s Hope, Book 1 - A Standalone MC Romance
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Episode 1: amzn.to/1R2Czj1 (FREE eBook)
Episode 2: amzn.to/1c4dNiX
Episode 3: amzn.to/1FnngfK
Episode 4: amzn.to/1EiT7KF
Episode 5: amzn.to/1c4dULo
Episode 6: amzn.to/1R2Cb40
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About the Author
Lena Bourne writes steamy, suspenseful romantic stories, which include bad boy romances, MC romances, dark romances, military romances, sports romances, and many more. Hot bedroom scenes and fast-paced, action packed plots are Lena’s specialty. Her heroines are strong, sassy and independent, and her heroes are usually rough-around-the-edges alpha bad boys.
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