Storm Watch

11

CECE HAD TO GIVE Hunter credit-he was cool under pressure. He simply seemed to accept what fate had brought him that day-a hugely pregnant chick. One who was losing it.

“Oh, God,” she whimpered. “Goddammit.”

“Another one?”

“Another one, the same one.” She tried to curl into a ball. “It’s all the same one.”

“Look at me. Cece, focus on me.”

She inhaled sharply and, following his calm, assertive request, stared into his eyes.

It’d been hours. She hadn’t let him go for help. He didn’t have reception on his cell phone so no one was coming for them.

It was just the two of them, alone, in this together.

He’d told her that eventually, probably at first light, the emergency crews would make a sweep and find them. It’d been her plan to wait for them.

She’d hoped that was still a viable plan, but she sincerely doubted it because this baby was coming-soon. She knew it.

And so did Hunter.

“How are you doing?” he asked, stroking her hair back.

“I’m losing it, big-time.”

“You’re not.”

There was admiration in his voice, which she marveled at. She’d told him about herself, practically thrown her past at him, and he still was looking at her as if she mattered. “Tell me about you,” she whispered. “Tell me your story.”

“You have other things on your plate right now.”

She managed a laugh. “But we’re about to get fairly, horrifyingly intimate here. As in I’m going to drop a baby into your hands. I could use a little distraction.”

“All right. I work at the nine-one-one dispatch center for the county. I’m the night dispatch supervisor there, that’s why you haven’t seen me. I moved from Texas to take the job because I wanted a change.”

“Change as in you cheated on your wife and she kicked you out?” she asked, fishing.

His mouth quirked. “No. There’s no wife.”

“Okay…change as in your girlfriend wanted a diamond and you bought a Harley instead and ran off?”

“No girlfriend, either, not at the moment. And my Harley’s ten years old and paid for. If I wanted to buy a diamond ring, I would.”

She stared up into his calm, very pleasing-on-the-eyes face. “I know you have baggage. Everyone has baggage. I need to know yours, Hunter. Start with your family. Truth. Are they crazy?”

“No.” He smiled again, and she decided she loved it when he smiled. “Well, maybe a little,” he corrected. “I have five older sisters, three brother-in-laws, two elderly parents, and let’s see…seven nieces and nephews. All is good there, sorry to disappoint you.”

“What about crazy exes? You can tell me-you’re a serial dater, right? Love ’em and leave ’em?”

“I’ve had several long-term relationships, but they ran their course.”

“Okay,” she said, talking fast because she wanted to get to this before her next contraction, needed to get to this. “Maybe you’re not hearing me. I’m going to need a flaw here, a biggie, Hunter. Preferably before I take off my panties for you.”

“What?”

“Hello, baby coming.”

He let out a shaky breath. “Right. A flaw…”

“Quick,” she gasped as the next contraction took her and the first urge to push came. “Oh, God. That’s not quick, Hunter!”

“I’m stubborn,” he said quickly. “Completely mule-headed if I think I’m right. I can be a complete ass.”

“Yeah? Do you throw things? Hit people?”

“God, no.”

“Then it’s not a fault. Jesus, I’m about to pass the equivalent of a football out my hoo-ha, think!”

“All right.” He clearly racked his brain. “I know. I like my forty-two-inch plasma more than I like half my co-workers.”

She laughed. “Okay, that’s a start. What else?”

“I’m a slob. I don’t do my laundry until I’m completely out of clothes, and even then I’m likely to just go buy more.”

“Serious?”

“Serious. And I don’t own dishes. I won’t wash them. My last girlfriend dumped my sorry ass because we tried living together. She made it one week and gave up on me. There. My deepest fault, exposed.” He spread his arms. “I’m not live-in material.”

She looked up into the steady gaze of the man kneeling at her side in the backseat of a Hummer, desperately trying to distract her, trying to keep her calm. The man who maybe was a badass, but at least he’d stepped up to the plate when she’d needed him, which was more than any other guy had ever done. “Her loss,” she whispered, mirroring his words back at him.

IT WAS SO BLACK THAT Lizzy could see nothing, not what time it was, not what she wore-which was nothing-and not what Jason was doing to her.

But, Lord almighty, could she feel. And what she felt was his hands on her in the dark bedroom, turning her to face him, pressing her to her back. He held her wrists, anchoring them on either side of her head as his mouth came down on hers in a soul-destroying kiss. Then, when she was breathless, heart and all the good parts revved, he slipped down her body, kissing a breast, then sucking the hardened tip into his mouth until she arched up for more.

Working his way down, he stroked his tongue over her ribs, her belly, swirled it into her belly button, and then nudged her legs open enough for his broad shoulders, where he proceeded to drive her right out of her ever-loving mind with a fierce intensity that left her sobbing for breath.

Before she recovered, he surged up and sank into her, burying himself deep, and just like that, she found herself hovering on the edge again.

Without even the faint slash of a streetlamp or moon, there was nothing but sensation, sensation as she’d never known. There in the dark, he pushed into her again and again, and she wrapped her legs around his waist, wanting it to never end. He whispered her name, touching her everywhere, his hands warm and sure, his mouth hot and talented, as he slowly, languidly moved inside her.

God. God, she could hardly stand it, and she slid her fingers up his hot, damp torso to fist them in his hair, dragging his mouth back to hers. She couldn’t see the flex and give of his muscles, but she could feel them, and she rocked up to meet him, feeling her toes curl at the wave after wave of pleasure crashing over her.

His hands slid up her throat to cup her face, their mouths only a fraction apart as she breathed out and he breathed in. It was shockingly intimate, erotic, sharing air as his body took hers higher than she’d ever been, straight to heaven.

She was going to come, come with his rock solid body buried deep in hers. He was close, too, she could hear it in his breathing, in the way he gripped her, in how his mouth opened on her shoulder. “Lizzy,” he murmured, and that was it, that was all she needed, the sound of her name on his lips, and her release rocked her.

Her pleasure triggered his, and afterward, they remained entangled like that, her swamped with emotions and the feel of his body covering hers, a part of her wishing they never had to move, because she didn’t want it to end.

“WHAT TIME IS IT?” she asked, slipping out of the bed, wrapping herself in the blanket to hold in his body heat.

He rolled over, and she looked back to see the glow from his watch as he brought it up to his face and blinked at it. “Almost five.” His voice was low and husky.

Sleepy.

Sexy.

God, so sexy. And everything he’d done to her in the deep, dark hours of the night came flying back, making her face heat and her good parts quiver.

She’d actually forgotten how much she liked sex. Hard to believe, and she had a feeling she wouldn’t be so lucky as to forget again anytime soon. “I want to go by my place.”

Even as she said it, dawn was breaking through the black night. One peek out the window told her nothing much had changed in terms of the weather, and she looked back at the bed.

As naked as she, Jason had rolled over again, the sheets snagged beneath him, leaving him sprawled on his back, arms and legs going taut as he stretched.

Just looking at him caused a little catch somewhere deep inside her. Hard and lean and tough, and then there were the tattoos.

And those abs.

And those long legs.

And what he had between them…

No doubt, he was rangy and built and gorgeous. And for one glorious night, he’d been hers. She could wish for more, but that was a waste of time.

She was finally free of the day-to-day grind of caring for someone, fully free to do something important to her for a long time. She owed it to herself to follow through.

Even if a very tiny part of her was no longer sure that was still her dream.

God. She just wanted to shove all that aside right now and climb back in bed. On top of Jason. She wanted to have her merry way with that body.

Again.

All day long.

He propped his head up on his hand and regarded her in the barely there light. “You look so pretty standing there, Lizzy. Pretty and cold. Come here, let me warm you up.”

She knew what she looked like in the morning. Bed-head hair. Pale face, probably lined from where she’d smashed it into her pillow as she tended to do. “I want to go.”

“I know. Come here first.”

He held out a hand to go with the request, and she stared at it. Big and callused, that hand had stroked and touched and revered every inch of her body, and just looking at it made her knees wobble.

Who’d have thought such a big, work-roughened hand could bring such pleasure? “Jase.”

He simply wriggled his fingers and waited patiently.

So damn patiently.

She had no idea what it was about him that had her feet taking her back to the bed until her knees touched the mattress.

Smiling up into her face, he reached out and wrapped his fingers in the blanket.

And tugged.

With a gasp she fell over him, minus the blanket, which he tossed aside. With an appreciative growl for what he’d unwrapped, he tucked her beneath him and rolled on top of her, pinning her to the bed. “Better,” he murmured, dipping his head to the spot on her throat that always drove her crazy. “You taste good.”

“We-” She broke off as his hand swept up her thigh, over her belly, her ribs, to cup a breast. “Have to-”

His thumb brushed over her nipple.

She licked her lips and closed her eyes, arching up into him. “Go.”

He bent his head and replaced his thumb with his tongue, making her gasp and arch up again. “Just want one more taste…”

When she was wriggling, panting, he kissed his way down her belly, pressed open her legs and kissed an inner thigh.

“Jase-”

The single word ended on a rough exhalation as he took his “one more taste,” and then, holding her thighs open with his warm palms, took another.

And another.

“Jason.”

“Love the way you say my name,” he said against her, and then he sighed, licked her one more time, and came up on his knees, pulling her to hers.

She was shuddering, quivering, and she stared at him as he rolled off the bed. “You-we-I…”

“I know.” He looked at her, his hair wild, his eyes hot. “We’ll finish later.”

Okay. Except that hadn’t been what she’d been about to say. She’d been trying to say how mindboggling it was that he could make her feel so beautiful, so turned-on, so blown away, without even trying.

She’d been about to say how unnerving it was to find herself realizing how much more than just a crush this was.

But some things, she realized, were better left unsaid.