After the Rain (The Twisted Fate Series Book 1) (8 page)

“I doubt that, Stormy,” he sighed. “You can turn around now.”

But as she turned around, he saw that she was striking her signature pose, hands on her hips and looking like she was ready for an argument – which she clearly was.

“I bet you think you’re right a lot,” she accused.

“I usually am, actually.”

“Well I
actually
bet it’s not as often as you
actually
think it is
actually
, Marcus!” She seemed to be putting a lot of emphasis on the word ‘actually’, and it wasn’t really making much sense. But still, Marcus felt a bolt of something penetrate him as she spat her words at him. The attraction was back. She looked utterly adorable in his rugby jersey, waggling her angry little finger at him with that disapproving look on her face, and all he could think about was ripping that shirt off.

They stared at each other, communicating silently through their looks and dilated pupils.

They both knew what was going on here.

They both wanted the same thing, and there was no stopping them now.

8

The gentle flower whisper

“Oops,” Stormy said when they finally got their bearings and caught their breath. She was naked and bent over the bed, and Marcus was lying on top of her, his breath coming rapidly.

“Big oops,” she said again, with a huge sigh.

Marcus shifted against her. Her hair was wet and strands were sticking to his face and chest. He was almost in shock from the sex they’d just had – it had been mind-blowing. It had all happened so quickly that the details were a blur, but he could see flashes of it.

At one stage she’d been dangling off him – literally. One minute, he was standing and she was wrapped around him, and the next she’d bent over backwards and hanging. She was so light and flexible that he’d been able to do exactly what he wanted with her – and he had. No woman had been so uninhibited. Mind you, no woman had hung from him upside down like a bat, either. Thank God this pay-by-the-hour dive
did
have condoms next to the bed.

She was small and delicate-looking. But her fragile build was deceptive – she was a fucking wild demon-woman. That thing she did with her leg twisted like that – he’d never seen it before. Perhaps she’d just invented it.

They lay there. Not moving. Not talking. Just catching their breaths.

Marcus eventually got up. He didn’t know quite what to do now – most women wanted to be held and cuddled at this stage, but Stormy was not like most women. And despite their sexual gymnastics, they didn’t
really
know each other. There’d been nothing emotional or intimate about what had just happed – it had been nothing more than lust. Pure, unadulterated lust.

He got it now – why it hadn’t happened earlier when she’d offered herself to him on a virtual platter. They had to be arguing. They’d been arguing or irritated with each other when it had happened on the other two occasions, too.

He got off and walked away. He wasn’t really sure what else to do. He needed a moment alone to think. Hopefully his rational brain would soon return from the time-out it seemed to be on.

Stormy was shaking from head to toe and finding it hard to breathe under the weight of his body, but she didn’t care.She was still shell-shocked. It had been the wildest sex she’d ever had. Crazy-manic. Normally she was into burning candles and incense, listening to Malayan chanting, setting out crystals and doing some slow tantric breathing vibes, followed by intricate poses called “The gentle flower whisper” and “Two lilies blow in the warm breeze”. But this had not been like that at all. He’d been like an animal;
she’d
been like an animal.

And when he’d thrown her onto the bed face first and grabbed her hair, she’d nearly died.

To tell you the truth, she wasn’t exactly sure how it had happened. There had been some intense staring across the hotel room and then all of a sudden she had been on the floor, against the wall and bent over the bed. She remembered ripping his clothes off as quickly as possible and tearing the neck of his shirt as she had tugged at it. He’d thrown her rugby jersey across the room and he’d taken charge. And it had been amazing – the best sex of her entire life.

The stars were right – they were
very
sexually compatible. Oh yes indeedio.

Now what? What the hell were they meant to do after sex like that? Cuddling was out of the question. Some pillow talk and bedroom chatter seemed totally inappropriate. Maybe she should bite his head off and eat him – praying mantis style. She heard the bathroom door shut and Marcus disappeared from the room.

She got up and looked for her clothes, eventually finding them strewn on opposite sides of the room. She rubbed her hip and looked down, seeing a red mark. It looked like it was going to leave a bruise. How had she gotten that?

Oh yes, when he’d pushed her against the wall…

She bit her lip thinking about it. The wall. The hard, cold wall against her hot, sweaty body, against his hard, hot, big sweaty body…

She sat down on the bed and waited for Marcus to come out of the bathroom. They needed to talk about this. But the minutes passed and he didn’t reappear. It felt like he’d been in their for ages. Eventually, she got up and approached the closed door.

“Marcus,” Stormy called softly, knocking on the door.

“Mmm,” a quiet moan of acknowledgement issued from the tiny bathroom.

“Are you okay in there?”

A pause.

“I’m not sure… are you okay?”

“Ummm, I think so.”

Another long pause. Stormy tentatively opened the door and peeked round. Marcus was sitting naked and morose on the floor, looking like some kind of abuse victim.

Stormy sat down on the other side of the door and peered at him through the crack.

“What was that?” he finally asked, looking at her.

She shook her head. “I don’t quite know.”

“Did I hurt you, with the wall and all that…?” he sounded agitated.

“A little bit.”

Marcus sighed loudly and put his head in his hands. “Shit. Sorry!”

“No, no!” Stormy pushed the door open wider. “In a good way…
a very good
way
.”

An awkward silence fell over them as they both thought about how good it had actually been.

“It can’t happen again, though,” Marcus finally said. “I mean, you and I… it would never work.”

“Goddess, Mary and Joseph, no!” Stormy exclaimed. “Never. Remember what the stars said. Sexually compatible, but not good in relationships.”

“So we agree this should never happen again, and we should just try and forget about it?”

“Absolutely!” Stormy said loudly.

“Shake on it?” Marcus stuck his hand out.

Stormy took it and they started shaking.

BAD IDEA…

...because next thing, he was pulling her into the bathroom and onto his lap.

9

Maybe
there’s a self-help group for it

“Double oops,” Stormy said, this time with her back pressed up against a hard metal towel rail on the bathroom wall.

They peeled themselves off each other with a squeaky sound, once again both reeling from what had just happened.
AGAIN
!

Stormy was almost positive she remembered doing something that might have resembled an actual cartwheel at some stage. Possibly even a headstand and a pirouette.

“I don’t think
double oops
quite cuts it, Stormy,” Marcus said, wrapping a towel around himself and looking positively sheepish.

“Okay, well, triple-to-the-max-oops,” Stormy countered.

“We’ve got a serious problem here,” Marcus replied crisply, walking out of the bathroom briskly.

“Maybe there’s a self-help group for it. We could get a sponsor and a key ring,” Stormy joked flippantly as she followed him out.

“Sex addicts anonymous?” Marcus suggested in jest.

Stormy shook her head. “This only happens when I’m around you.”

“Really? I doubt that.” The sarcasm in his tone instantly rubbed Stormy up the wrong way, and – still naked – she assumed her hand-on-hip pose.

“What are you trying to say? That I’m some kind of slutty-slut-slut who randomly sleeps with strange men at the drop of a cap?”

“Hat.”

“What?”

“Drop of a hat.”

“Same thing!” she said, stamping her foot and feeling utterly exacerbated by his irritating habit of correcting almost everything that came out of her mouth.

“
Not
the same thing. Crap, put some clothes on, why don’t you.”

“Fine!” she huffed. She turned back into the bathroom and found the rugby jersey dangling from the light fixture…
how the hell had it gotten there?

“You wear both on your head. Caps and hats. Same thing,” she called out from the bathroom as she pulled the dress on.

“Fine,” Marcus conceded. “I don’t want to argue about head apparel. Can we just talk about this thing that keeps happeningbetween us?”

“What is there to say? We keep having sex. Clearly there’s an attraction between us and it’s very powerful and we can’t seem to control it. It’s in our stars.”

Marcus sat on the bed and held his head in his hands. “You seriously never do this with other guys?”

Stormy shook her head as she emerged from the bathroom again, this time fully dressed. “Never. And never like
that
!”

“Like what?”

“Well, it wasn’t exactly very calm sex, was it?”

“No. I guess not,” Marcus responded, smiling a little.

“I mean, it wasn’t exactly
gentle
.”

“No.”

“It was hot and wild and hard and fast and –”

“
Okay
, okay, you can stop now! I was there too, I know what kind it was.”

There was a pause as they both thought about their options.

“Me too,” Marcus finally spoke. “I never do this either, I mean. And not like
that
.”

The wind outside had gotten louder and the sound of the rain pelting against the window forced them to raise their voices over it. “Why is it such a bad thing?” Stormy eventually asked. It was something she’d been thinking about. They were two consenting adults, after all – what was so wrong with them having sex?

Marcus looked up at her. “Well, you and I… We just wouldn’t… I mean…”

Stormy suddenly saw where this was going and interrupted him quickly before he got the wrong idea about her. “Hey, I’m not looking for a relationship with you, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“No, no, of course…”

“What I’m trying to say is that we’re not going to fall in love with each other. That’s ridiculous.”

Marcus laughed out loud. “No. We could never fall in love with each other.”

Stormy nodded in agreement. “Never. Imagine you and me in a relationship…”

“I can’t even imagine it,” Marcus said.

“Me neither!” Stormy plonked herself onto the bed and nudged him playfully with her shoulder. “Anyway, remember what the stars said:
not good in relationships
.”

“So… are you saying we just keep having sex with each other?” Marcus asked.

“Maybe – what’s the harm?” Stormy shrugged. “It would be completely unemotional. No strings. No feelings. No one would get hurt because neither of us wants to get involved with each other.”

“Definitely not – I can’t imagine introducing you to my friends or work colleagues, they would all think I’d gone mad!” Marcus laughed a little too loudly. “Or that it was an April Fool’s joke or something.”

Stormy’s stomach dropped. Something in that statement really hurt her. Was she so bad that the idea of introducing her to his friends was a complete joke? Was she somehow beneath him? Did he think he was better than her? “Why, am I a circus freak or something? Beneath you and your kind?” she asked sardonically, folding her arms across her chest defensively.

Marcus turned to her. “No, I don’t mean that at all. I just mean that you’re… different. You’re not really from my world.”

“Oh, right, because I’m from planet Zorg.”

“There is no planet Zorg.”

“There
could
be, maybe we just haven’t discovered it yet,” she countered.

“Whatever, Stormy,” Marcus sighed loudly. “I’m tired. I’m going to sleep on the floor, before we say things that we both regret. We can talk about this in the morning.” With that, he grabbed a pillow and lay down on the stained carpet. There was nothing else Stormy could do but retreat to the bed, even though she wasn’t even vaguely tired.

The atmosphere in the room was so tense, you could feel it crackling in the air, and Stormy desperately wanted some kind of a distraction from the thoughts disrupting her usually happy ones…

She was thinking about him: the sex, the way he drove her crazy and how they argued all the time. How he’d insulted her. It had hurt, but it was not completely unfamiliar to her. People often made the wrong assumptions about her. She’d had a tough life, she didn’t earn a lot of money, sometimes she’d had nowhere else to stay but on friends’ couches – some people saw that as weakness. She saw it as freedom.

“A-choo!” Marcus sneezed loudly over the howling wind outside. “A-choo! A-choo! A-choo! A-choo!” It sounded like he was having a full-blown sneezing fit now.

“Are you okay?” Stormy asked, leaning over the edge of the bed and looking at him.

“I have…
A-choo!
… dust…
A-
choo!
… allergies, the carpet…
A-choo!
... it’s…
A-
choo!
”

Of course Marcus had allergies, it made perfect sense. “Fine, I’ll take the floor, you take the bed.”

“I could never do that…
A-choo!
… still a gentlemen…
A-choo!
”

Stormy sat in silence, contemplating the solution. The bathroom floor was too hard for someone to lie on. There was only one small bed…

“Get up here, we’ll sleep head to foot.”

Marcus squinted up at her through red-rimmed, puffy eyes that were starting to water. It was clear that it would only get worse if he stayed on the carpet all night.

“Fine,” he sighed.

The bed was tiny, and trying to fit both of them on it head-to-foot was proving impossible. She practically had a toe up her nose, and every time either of them moved, they were assaulted by a heel in the head.

“This isn’t working,” Stormy finally said after feeling his foot grinding up against her forehead. “Just get up here.”

“I’ll sleep on top of the blanket,” he said as he shifted.

“Fine.”

Marcus turned around and lay next to her. The bed was so tiny that their bodies were pushing up against each other, but at least she was under the blanket. They lay there in silence, listening to each other’s breathing and the rain whipping against the window. Eventually, he heard Stormy’s breathing getting longer and softer as she fell asleep. He couldn’t seem to drift off, though, and found himself lying in the darkness, staring at the ceiling. He didn’t know how long he’d been lying there like that when suddenly Stormy turned over and her arm flopped across his chest.

He squirmed uncomfortably, trying to shift it without waking her, but when she stirred she only tightened her grip and her head came to rest on his chest.

He froze, stiff as a board, as she cuddled into his side.

But then Marcus surprised himself as his arm came around her. He surprised himself even more when he stuck his face into her hair and inhaled her smell. And he was positively astounded when he found himself maneuvering into a position that allowed him to wrap himself around her. She let out a small sigh and moved even closer to him.

What the crap was
he doing?
He had absolutely no idea. But for some reason, she felt so warm and comforting.

Without thinking, he planted a tiny, soft kiss on her forehead and closed his eyes.