Rain pelted the windows of Autumn’s rented beach house as the storm pushed the black surging tide up the beach to crash within the long grasses whipping about in the extreme winds. A kitchen light il uminated her from behind as she stood in front of an entire wal of windows in the A-frame house. Lightning flashed within the black clouds, and white cracks splintered the night sky a second before thunder boomed. She felt it through the hardwood beneath her bare feet.
Upstairs, in one of the two bedrooms, Conner slept, blissful y unaware of Nature’s chaos. He’d passed out about an hour before, after a ful day of beachcombing in his rubber boots and raincoat. The weather had been fairly tame until the storm had rol ed in three hours ago. Autumn loved a good storm, and this one was proving to be spectacular.
She folded her arms across the thin top of her wiener-dog pajamas. If she hadn’t been alone with only an exhausted five-year-old, it might have been nice to crack open the bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon she’d bought to take back to Shiloh. It might be nice to turn up the fire and listen to the thunder as she laid her cheek on a big shoulder and enjoyed a glass of wine with a man.
Yesterday had been tense, from the moment Sam had arrived until the moment he’d left. Beyond the general tension she usual y felt near Sam, he and Vince had been at each other’s throats, and both took it to a whole new level.
She hunched her shoulders against the air that chil ed her skin and tightened her breasts beneath the T-shirt material. There had been a few brief moments yesterday when her tension had eased. When Sam had smoothed it away with his hands. Then he’d kissed her neck and fil ed the void with a whole different kind of tension. And in those few moments, when he’d kissed her and she’d kissed him back like she was starving, he’d woken every cel in her body. He’d reminded her that she was thirty. That she wanted to be touched and held. She wanted to be wanted. He’d reminded her that she wanted more at night than the battery-operated boyfriend she had to hide in a box on her closet shelf, away from a snoopy five-year-old. He’d reminded her that dragging a chair to her closet and uncovering her special toy boy, was an empty substitute for a real flesh-and-blood boy toy. And she wanted a boy toy. A hot, pretty one. Like Sam.
Thunder rol ed across the sky and boomed beneath her feet. Lightning flashed like a strobe within the clouds. No. Not Sam. The fact that his name had even entered her head was horrifying. Proof that she needed some skin-on-skin time. That it had been waaay too long since she’d rol ed around naked in a man’s sheets.
The thunder boomed again, and she waited for the lightning. It didn’t happen. Just a steady boom boom boom until she realized it was the front door. A frown creased her forehead as she moved across the carpeted living room, past the stairs to the entry. The storm wasn’t bad enough for evacuation, and she made sure the chain was latched before she opened the door. She flipped on the lights, and through the crack, Sam stood in the downpour, his hair plastered to his head.
“What are you doing here?” she yel ed to him above the sound of the rain.
“I don’t know.”
She closed the door just long enough to unlatch the chain before she opened it again. “There’s a travel advisory.”
Water dripped down his forehead and stuck his eyelashes together, but he didn’t move. He just stood there staring at her like he was lost. She flipped her watch over and looked at the face. “It’s ten o’clock, Sam.”
Droplets ran down his cheeks as his gaze lowered from her eyes to her mouth. “Is it?”
“Why are you here?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know why one minute I was sitting at Benihana with Ty and Darby and some of the scouts, and I just got up and left.” The shoulders of his thick hooded sweatshirt were soaked, and his gaze continued lower, down her throat to her cold, hard breasts. “I don’t know why I got in my truck and drove two hours through this god-awful storm.” He looked back up into her eyes. “I don’t know why I’ve been standing outside this house for ten minutes before knocking on the fucking door.”
She wasn’t going to ask why again. He clearly wasn’t making sense. Maybe not playing hockey made him crazy. “Sam, I’m confused.”
“That only seems fair.” He reached for her and grabbed a big handful of her shirt just below her breasts. “You confuse the hel out of me.” He pul ed her across the threshold. Outside into the rain.
Cold droplets hit her face and neck. She lifted her face to tel him he was crazy, but his mouth silenced hers. Hot, slick, and demanding. She stood perfectly stil while he kissed her, waiting for him to stop. Waiting for her hands to creep up his chest so she could shove him away and slam the door in his face. But the kiss was too hot, too delicious, and he must have slipped her some of his craziness because she rose onto the bal s of her feet and kissed him back. Her tongue touched his, swirled and tangled. Heat radiated from his hand and mouth and warmed up places deep in her bel y and between her thighs. Cold rain soaked her hair and arms. Thunder boomed, and rain slid past their sealed lips. She slid her fingers into his wet hair and sucked the air from his lungs.
He pul ed back first, and the black night cast a shadow across his eyes and nose. Her heart pounded like the chaotic sky, and she fought for breath, sucking in cold air and water and him. She couldn’t see him clearly, but she didn’t need to see him to know that his eyes burned with his desire. It surrounded them both in hot waves. Pressing in and demanding satisfaction. The kind that could only be sated with hot skin against hot skin.
“Come inside, Sam.” She’d felt it once before. Years ago. Big. Forceful. Dominating. Like the man himself.
“Where’s Conner?”
“Asleep.” This was dangerous. A dangerous game she’d lost in the past, but she was older. Wise enough to feed her lust while her heart remained detached.
“You know what I want.”
Yes. She knew. She knew she was probably going to regret it in the morning. But that was hours away, and she wanted to spend those hours satisfying the ache pounding her like the thunder overhead.
She took his hand and pul ed him across the threshold. She closed the door behind him and leaned back against it as he reached down his back, grabbed a fistful of his sweatshirt, and pul ed it over his head. The bottom of the thick shirt lifted from the waistband of a pair of worn Levi’s resting low on his hips. It rose from the five buttons and up the narrow blond line of hair on his flat bel y. His happy trail circled his navel, then climbed up the ridges of his abdomen. He wiped his face and dropped the sweatshirt on the floor. Then stood before her in wet jeans and damp skin and his figure-eight splint. He shook his head like a dog, sending droplets everywhere.
Droplets landed on her cheek and top lip. She took a deep breath in an effort to slow her racing pulse. “How’s your shoulder?”
“My shoulder’s fine. Your shirt’s wet.”
She dragged her gaze from the short blond hair on his big defined chest and pecs that looked like they’d been chisel
ed by a Nordic god. She glanced down at the wiener dog on the shirt clinging to her chil ed skin. In the middle of his long dog body, her nipples made two very hard points.