After the Rain (The Twisted Fate Series Book 1) (10 page)

He watched her as she swept her hands over the dress and swayed from left to right. She smiled up at him again, and Marcus felt his heart melt just a little bit. She was suddenly stirring feelings of a very different sort in his gut.

He was in serious trouble.

Red, flashing warning sign trouble.

11

Faith in Sammy

Marcus was reminded of the story of the Ugly Duckling that turns into a beautiful swan. The duckling had no idea it would turn into a swan. And he’d just watched a similar transformation take place in front of his eyes. He wondered ifStormy knew how beautiful she really was, especially when she removed all the “stuff” that seemed to disguise and distract.

He walked out of the airport thinking about this, and watched her closely as she went. She stopped and picked a single flower that was growing through a small crack in the concrete and tucked it into her ponytail. Even like this – a down-played version of herself – she was still totally unique, different in every way. She certainly didn’t need all those other adornments. There was something so innocent and childlike about her demeanor, in one respect; and then in another, she was an absolute demon in bed… He quickly pushed those thoughts out of his mind.

Yet another disaster was awaiting them at the car rental place.
Great!
The only car available was an old, manual Merc from the 80s – perhaps even older. No aircon, no electric windows, and a missing hubcap.

But it was all they had. Marcus felt his sense of control slipping again; he was not used to this kind of transportation. At least he’d managed to get himself a new phone with GPS, so there was no getting lost.

He watched Stormy walking around the car curiously, her hand trailing over the roof and then down onto the bonnet. For a split second, he found himself enthralled by her once again. By the way she moved and the way her fingertips left a trail across the car’s dusty bonnet…

Stormy dusted off her hands and stood beside the car, nodding approvingly. “Good car. It has a good vibe.”

“And how do you get that?”

“Mmmm,” she intoned, patting the car’s bonnet as if it were a dog that had just done a good trick. “Six-and-a-half sense kind of thing-thang.”

Yet again, she was demonstrating her unusual talent for leaving him completely speechless and bewildered. “You know, Stormy,” he said as he loaded the bags into the car, “I just don’t know what to say to that.”

Stormy looked confused. “Why not?”

“I feel obligated to point out to you that cars don’t give off
vibes
.”

“How do you know?”

Marcus opened his mouth to respond sarcastically, when he remembered – whenever they argued, she landed up naked and pinned underneath him. It was safer not to argue! “You’re right. I don’t know. Maybe they do give off vibes,” he conceded.

Stormy turned and pointed at him enthusiastically. “See! You’re coming around to the many impossible possibilities of life!”

“Mmm-hmm,” he responded vaguely. What he really wanted to say was “NO”. But he just couldn’t afford to argue with her, or he might be compelled to jump her again. He knew it was weird and totally illogical, but that seemed to be how things worked between them. Weird and illogical. Once again, he reflected that no one had ever challenged him like Stormy did. It was frustrating and irritating and infuriating – and inexplicably, irresistibly sexy. And to make matter worse, she really did look beautiful today.

“I’ll drive,” Stormy said, holding out her hand for the keys.

“I don’t think so. I’ll drive,” he retorted rather sharply as he tried to imagine Stormy behind the wheel of a car. Not an image he could reconcile. Not one he was comfortable with, either.

“But I love driving!” she cooed.

Marcus looked her up and down, trying to figure out how someone like her could possibly like driving. He pictured her more as a bicycle kind of girl.

“And I never get a chance to, since I don’t have a car,” she continued.

“You don’t have a car?” Marcus was shocked for a second or two before thinking…
of course she doesn’t have a car.
“So when last did you drive?”

“Um…” Stormy thought about this for a moment. “A few years ago, maybe.”

“And how do you get around?”

“I catch taxis.”

“
Taxis
? In South Africa? Are you crazy? Do you know how dangerous that is?” He didn’t know why, but he was suddenly overcome with great concern for her safety.

“They’re not
that
bad, I’ve only had my bag stolen once.”

“What! How can you keep catching taxis when your bag has been stolen? What next?” He threw his hands up in exasperation. He knew he was coming across as way too firm, but he couldn’t help it. His protective instincts had kicked into overdrive.

“Why are you so angry? It’s not like it was your bag.” It was obvious that Stormy was confused by his sudden outburst. Not that he blamed her – he was confused too.

Why was he so angry?
Why had the image of Stormy in possible danger made him so mad? He couldn’t quite work it out, but then, there were a lot of things about his and Stormy’s ‘relationship’ that he couldn’t work out.

“I’m driving. End of story,” he insisted, pushing all other thoughts firmly out of his mind.

Marcus climbed into the car and turned on the ignition. The old car chugged to life with a puff of smoke from the exhaust pipe, a strange creek from the undercarriage and a loud humming sound from the bonnet.

“Great, let’s hope we get there in one piece.” He suddenly imagined them marooned on the side of the road with smoke pouring from this rusty tin can masquerading as a car.

Stormy patted the dashboard as she climbed into the passenger seat. “Don’t worry. I have faith in Sammy.”

“Sammy?”

“It’s her name.”

“You’ve named this hunk of junk
Sammy
?”

“Shhhh,” Stormy hissed at him. “Cars have feelings, too.”

Marcus turned and looked at Stormy mockingly. True to his new resolution not to argue with her, though, he simply raised a brow and sighed. “I’m going to refrain from pointing out how absolutely ridiculous that statement is.”

“Fine,” Stormy shrugged. “But if she breaks down, it will be all your fault because of all the negative vibrations you’re giving off.”

Stormy put her feet up on the dashboard. Her skirt slipped down, exposing a good portion of her thighs. Marcus had to force himself to tear his eyes away from her legs in order to concentrate again. She was driving his hormones crazy, but simultaneously irritating the hell out of him. He would never allow feet on a dashboard – but this was not his car, and at least her feet were cleaning off a thick layer of dust from the windscreen that was threatening to make him sneeze again.

Stormy plucked the flower out her hair and attached it to the car’s review mirror with a hair clip.

“What’s that for?” Marcus asked.

“Just brightening up Sammy.” She paused. “Yes, yes, I know what you’re going to say –”

“No, you don’t,” Marcus cut her off.

“Oh really?”

“I was going to say it looks nice.” His response surprised even himself.

Stormy turned and smiled at him, and something in him softened.

Oh God, what was happening?

Was he coming around to the “quirky Stormy charm”, as Damien had described it?

Her enthusiasm was contagious, he had to admit that.

12

Be sure
to wear some leaves in your hair

Stormy wiggled her toes together. They were dusty from the dashboard, but a bit of dust never killed anyone. It certainly didn’t bother her. But Marcus, on the other hand… She could imagine him as one of those people who disinfected
everything
. He probably used anti-bacterial soap and freaked out when his shoes got dirty or a splash of coffee landed on his table.

His house was probably the picture of order. Clean. Organized and perfect. He probably had scatter cushions, which in Stormy’s opinion were the most pointless things that had ever been invented. He probably had one of those vibrating chairs that massaged you too, and a flat screen TV the size of an island and all the other things that she disapproved of. He was by far one of the most uptight people she had ever met – but also one of the most contradictory, too.

The way he had – for lack of a better, less crude word – fucked her, was anything but clean, organized and orderly. It had been downright dirty. Vertical, horizontal and sometimes at an odd angle kind of dirty.

She caught a glimpse of him out of the corner of her eye as he was fiddling with his new phone. Nothing irritated her more than phone-fiddling. These days, you couldn’t go out with friends without them sitting on their phones almost constantly instead of interacting with the people who were actually there in front of them. She’d just never understood it, this need that people had to exist in a cyber-computer world.

“What are you doing?” Stormy pointed at the glowing screen with disgust, as if it were some foreign creature – which to her, it was. She would never own a phone like that; where were the buttons, even?

“Just sending an email to someone at work,” Marcus replied distractedly, his fingers quickly gliding over the touch screen.

Stormy huffed loudly, unable to hide her contempt. “An email! Is that really necessary, Marcus?”

Marcus turned his head and met her eyes. He looked completely shocked and put out by her comment.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Look around, Marcus. We’re on holiday! We’re in a beautiful, exciting new country, and you’re being all business-y business-y and sending emails.”

“Business-y business-y?” he repeated.

“Yes!”

“Don’t you mean business
like
?”

“Whatever,” Stormy waved her hand dismissively. “The point is that you’re missing out on what’s in front of you in the real world, with your face buried in your phone like that. Plus you’ll get square eyes.”

“Isn’t that an old wives’ tale about watching TV?” He sounded irritated, and he wasn’t doing a very good job of hiding it. “Besides, what else am I supposed to do to keep busy? We have a long drive ahead of us.”

“You shouldn’t fiddle with a phone while driving,” Stormy scolded. “Besides, we could use the time to get to know each other. Have a real conversation. Use our mouths to make real spoken words with our vocal cords… or have you forgotten how that works?”

Stormy wasn’t sure her attempt at a joke had gone down well, because there was a sudden, long lull in the conversation. Maybe they had nothing to say when they weren’t at each other’s throats – or screaming out each other’s names, drenched in sweat.

“Why is it that whenever we try to have a normal conversation, we argue?” Stormy asked, finally breaking the silence.

“I don’t know,” Marcus sighed, his tone much softer now, any signs of irritation gone.

“I never argue with people.” Stormy took her feet off the dashboard and turned in her seat so that she was facing him. “People usually like me. Well, most people.”

Marcus turned to look at her momentarily, and to Stormy’s utter amazement, he smiled at her. “I guess we’re just very different people, with very different ideas.”

Their eyes locked for a second before Marcus turned his attention back to the road, but it had been long enough for Stormy to feel a little tug in her gut. It was not like before, not that insatiable sexual attraction she normally felt around him, but something else entirely. She kind of wanted to rest her head on his shoulder… which was a ridiculous thought, of course.

Why would she want to rest her head on a guy like Marcus’s shoulder (his tight, knotted shoulder, she might add)?

Even her toes were ludicrous, Marcus noticed: each one was painted a different color, and not normal toe colors like red or pink. Where the hell did you even get green and blue nail polish from anyway? Hang on, this was not the first time he’d seen her toes; an image of them on his shoulders suddenly popped into his head. How had they gotten on his shoulders?

She was good in bed.
Too
good. Her technique suggested a lot of practice, which implied frequency and multiple partners. He shuddered at the thought and couldn’t help but wonder how many sexual partners she’d had, and when the last one was. The idea of her sleeping with someone else made him suddenly furious. He didn’t want her to sleep with anyone but him. But she wasn’t his; why was he even thinking like this?

The road ahead was long and fairly straight. His phone didn’t indicate that they would be driving past anything particularly significant. They would be going through the Tsavo West National Park, which was meant to be beautiful, but there was no time for stopping and admiring the view. He hoped Stormy understood that.

“
If you’re going to San Francisco, be sure
to wear some leaves in your hair.
”

Marcus turned as Stormy started singing.

“What are you doing?” he asked her warily.

“Singing! Join me?”

“No thanks.”

“Why not?”

“Firstly, do you know any songs that were written in this millennium? And secondly, it’s flowers, not leaves.”

Stormy paused and looked like she was taking this piece of information in. “Oh, that makes so much more sense. Thanks!” she smiled at him. That big, open, beautiful smile that was starting to get on his nerves – because it was getting under his skin.

“
Be sure to wear some flowers in
your hair,
” she warbled again, “
some
flowers
in your
hair…
”

He let her sing. They’d probably argue if he asked her to stop, which might lead to her being pinned under him on the back seat or bent over the bonnet… Oh God, he shouldn’t be picturing that. Unfortunately, the image had already crept into his mind…

Bonnet. Dress hiked up. Pinned. Hot.

Shit!

“Stop, stop!” Stormy suddenly said as they approached what looked like a roadside market of sorts.

“No time,” he replied firmly. They had left the airport much later than he would have liked them too already.

Stormy swiveled in her seat and glared at him angrily. “Marcus, I command you to stop!”

“We are going to be late. We can’t.”

“What difference will ten minutes make? Look at it. We should absorb the wonderful, colorful Kenyan culture while we’re here.”

Kenyan culture was the last thing he wanted to absorb right now, or any culture for that matter. They were on a schedule. They had a deadline. They needed to stick to it.

“I insist!” Stormy leaned over him and grabbed the steering wheel, threatening to steer the car herself. The problem was that when she did, the close proximity made his body instantly react. Stormy obviously felt it too. Marcus couldn’t help it; his fingers moved down, and involuntarily, he touched the back of her neck.

She let out a breathy whisper in response. “Marcus…”

His fingers moved down, tracing her exposed back, until…

“Fine, I’ll stop the car.” He skidded to a stop, pulled off his seatbelt and threw himself out of the car at the speed of light. He moved away quickly, leaving Stormy to stare after him.

He
knew
this road trip was a bad idea. There was no way that they were going to get all the way to Mombasa without something happening between them. It was so inevitable. The prospect both excited him, and scared the shit out of him.

He turned and looked at Stormy, who was still in the car, staring after him. She had a twinkle in her eyes – those big green doe eyes – and she was biting down on her bottom lip in a way that was making him crazy.

Yes, this was bound to happen again, sooner rather than later. Much, much sooner.