Riding the Storm (2 page)

The
appreciation in his gaze made her swallow. Made her hot and tingly and feeling
the need to shower again, but with cold water.

She
stepped out of the tub, and this time, when she reached for the towel, he held
it out to her. Her fingers closed on the fabric; his fingers closed around her
wrist. The man moved like a striking snake, and her heart stopped as though
she'd been bitten.

She
lifted her chin, met his intense gaze. He looked down at her from his
considerable height of at least six-foot-three and drew her a step closer to
him, so close she could feel heat rolling off his large body. Her dad had
always told her how her impulsive nature and utter lack of fear would get her
into trouble someday, even as he encouraged those qualities.

Now,
as her stomach flip-flopped, she made a conscious effort not to tremble.
Stepping out of a shower naked in front of a complete stranger wasn't the
smartest thing she'd ever done. Then again, after several weeks of studying the
man right down to the name of his childhood dog, she probably knew him better
than she knew the people she'd worked with for months.

"You've
got five minutes to dry off and get dressed, and then you'll talk," he said,
his voice rougher than it had been a minute ago.

The
lights flickered, matching the quick-pounding of her pulse. Then they came on
fully, leaving her standing bare-assed naked mere inches away from one of the
best-looking men she'd seen in her life, with only a corner of the towel and a
thin, swirling veil of steam between them.

She
tried to wrench free of his grip, but he held her for a moment longer, as
though to prove he could, his gaze traveling slowly from her face, down to her
breasts, to her belly, her pelvis. Her skin tightened and prickled, her nipples
puckered and heat spread in a languid wave from her cheeks to the juncture of
her thighs.

His
half-lidded, blue eyes smoldered, but a vein throbbed at his temple, just below
his hairline, and she sensed more than saw the battle that raged within him,
even if she didn't completely understand it. And she felt certain he had no
idea his thumb was stroking the sensitive underside of her wrist any more than
he knew his fingers were digging painfully into that same wrist.

Thunder
sounded in the distance, and he flinched, snapped his gaze back up to hers.
"Like I said, five minutes. And you can get dressed now." With that,
he released her wrist, pivoted with military crispness and stalked out of the
bathroom.

Cursing,
she slammed the door shut.

What.
An. Ass.

It
didn't help that her fingers shook as she held the towel to her chest as though
Remy were still in the room, watching her with those intense, intelligent eyes
that flashed even without the lightning.

She
waited until her heartbeat slowed, until the storm outside had ebbed—the outer
bands of a hurricane moved out as suddenly as they came in—and then she dried
off and, with the exception of her underwear, dressed in the clothing she'd
worn into the bathroom before her shower. She hadn't expected Remy to show up
tonight, after all.

She'd
been here in his house for forty-eight hours now, and she'd figured she'd have
at least twelve more to review the files her agency had given her one last
time, the ones containing his military records and an impossibly detailed
account of Remy's entire life—including obscure information obtained by the
agency psychics.

Since
accepting the assignment five weeks ago, she'd unearthed personal statistics,
like how he ate anything with shrimp, had an allergy to chocolate and that he
shared her May third birthday, though he was three years younger. The most
fascinating details, though, the weather details, came from the recordings she'd
covertly obtained while talking to Remy's father.

In
any case, she'd expected more time to prepare tonight, and then, tomorrow, to
have met the man who supposedly drew weather phenomenon like trailer parks drew
tornadoes. Which was a myth, but a popular joke in her profession.

She'd
rented the place for a month, had a cover story worked out, and if all went as
planned, T-Remy Begnaud would never know he was the subject of a scientific
study sanctioned by the government but funded almost entirely through private
sources.

Unless
the allegations against the man proved to be true, and then all bets were off.
Her job would veer from research to recruitment, because the enemy could be
knocking on his doorstep within days.

Except
Itor Corp didn't knock. They forced their way inside, took what they wanted and
destroyed what remained.

Of
course, she fully expected her investigation to quickly reveal that the stories
were nothing more than fantastical rumors, or that Mr. Begnaud—junior
or
senior—was a charlatan. Either way, she'd have enjoyed the opportunity to
observe a late season hurricane before moving on to her next assignment as a
parameteorologist, something far more interesting—the possible existence of a
weather machine.

She'd
balked when orders to investigate the seemingly nutty ramblings of a television
weatherman had come down the pipe, but really, the military had been trying to
control the weather for decades. Cloud seeding, Project Cirrus… so if the thing
existed and could cause violent weather, ACRO needed to get their hands on it
before the enemy did.

First,
though, she had to make it through the coming days with a man who, people
claimed, could summon lightning at will. Who had emerged unscathed from the
center of an F5 tornado. Who had supposedly screwed a woman insane during a
storm that had made him insatiable.

Naturally,
none of those claims could be substantiated, but as she reached for the
doorknob and the power went out again, she swore she'd get to the bottom of the
tales. If anyone knew about extraordinary weather phenomenon, it was Haley. And
after taking one look at her subject, she was more than willing to go wherever
she needed to go to get the information she required.

Even
if that meant testing out Remy's power in bed.

Remy's
ribs began to ache in tandem with his head, and his balls, as another storm
cell moved in and the evening hurtled rapidly downhill. He'd always appreciated
the unexpected—didn't like it, but appreciated it the way he did a bag of
gris-gris or the spell-casting voodoo queens he'd grown up around; yet this was
beyond what he'd been prepared to handle.

Of
course, he
could
handle Haley all right, palm the curve of her hips and
push her thighs apart with one of his while the wind shook the world around
them, breathe in the scent of soap and woman while he found her core with his
fingers, his tongue.

She
wasn't afraid of you
. His cock
twitched, and he looked toward the bathroom. She didn't look like she'd break
easily.

Get
a fucking grip
. He wheeled around and
pressed his forehead against the window that faced the backyard, closed his
eyes and let the cool feel of the glass calm him a bit.

He
should never have touched her. Just seeing her had been enough to push him
close to the edge, but once his hand closed around her wrist and the quick tick
of her pulse slammed into his palm, he knew it was going to be next to
impossible to spend any length of time near her without having her. One of them
was going to have to go.

One
more second in the small confines of that bathroom and he would've taken her
right there against the tile wall. He could barely control himself with a woman
during normal storm conditions, and the way this one was intensifying, Haley
Holmes had better run for her damned life.

As
the storm's fervor rose, so did his, and it bound to him like a fever he
couldn't shake. He wouldn't be able to until he got laid or jerked off a few
times to ease the pressure, and even then, it wouldn't erase the longing, the
need, until the storm died down and released him from her grip.

Unfortunately,
his arousal would increase the duration of the storm, feeding off the other
until both just burned out in a frenzy of hot, destructive need.

His
fingers gripped the windowsill as his balls tightened—every nerve was on edge
and screaming for some kind of sweet relief he hadn't completely found since
all this began with the giant testosterone surge when he'd turned fourteen.

When
he found himself near a woman during a time like this he'd force himself to
hold back, afraid of hurting her, which wasn't satisfying to either party. The
one time he did let loose, way back when, before he'd learned to get out of
those situations fast when a storm was approaching and restraint was limited,
things hadn't turned out well. He'd regained control before he hurt her, but
shit, she'd been terrified. And she'd told all her friends.

His
sexual tie to the storms didn't get easier as he got older, but with effort and
planning and praying, he was able to keep himself in check. Still, it
effectively killed any hope for a love life. He was so tired of scaring people,
tired of being a freak and tired of being alone, even though that was the
easiest way for him to live.

At
twenty-five, he was pretty sure things couldn't get much worse, but over the
past six months his needs had been increasing to such a degree that he could
barely contain himself during a storm period. And he knew that the current need
he was experiencing had never been this bad or lasted this long. Something
different had happened in just the past forty-eight hours to shift the already
skewed balance of power.

He
ripped the knife off his arm, stuffed it into his bag and turned, seconds
before Haley emerged from the bathroom, and watched her saunter into the living
room wearing shorts and a T-shirt, her long hair, still damp, pulled back into
a low ponytail. When the lights blew again after he left Haley in the bathroom,
he'd only bothered to light one of the hurricane oil lamps by the kitchen, even
though she'd scattered at least ten of them throughout the house. The less he
saw of her, the better, even though the image of her wet, naked curves was
burned into his brain.

The
wind howled with a force that shook the walls as he watched Haley's long-legged
strides. She didn't seem to notice the sudden surge, and he didn't bother
telling her that three of his paychecks had gone to reinforcing the structure
to withstand the brunt of most hurricane-force winds that threatened Louisiana
and her precious bayous.

Mother
Nature could be a real bitch when she was trying to make a point.

"So,
you're Little Remy," she said over her shoulder, as she entered the
kitchen.

"T-Remy,"
he said, teeth on edge.

She
shrugged. "Same difference." She yanked open the door to the ancient
fridge and bent at the waist, giving him a view of her ass hanging out of Daisy
Dukes that should be illegal. She plucked out a Miller Lite, which was not his
father's first choice of beer, and turned back to him.

She'd
been here long enough to buy groceries.

"Actually,
it's not the same difference," he said. "But since you didn't grow up
around here, you wouldn't know any better."

"So
how do I know you are who you say you are? I mean, I don't see any
pictures."

"I'm
half, owner of this shithole—
tonnere m'ecrase si j'sus pas apres dire la
verite
," he muttered.

"Translation,
please."

Shit,
he'd lapsed back into Cajun French without thinking. Never a good sign.
"It means, may lightning strike me dead if I'm lying," he said with a
smile, because she had no idea. She did, however, give him a strange look,
probably wondering what kind of idiot dared Mother Nature during a storm. If
she only knew. "And I'm starting to lose my patience with you."

"And
I wasn't expecting you," she shot back.

"But
my father did mention me to you. You know my name."

"He
said he had a son in the Navy, but didn't say you'd be coming home
tonight," she said, and as much as he wanted to believe that was the
truth, he couldn't.

Remy
Senior had always struggled to keep his son's freak weather ways out of the
public eye, but that didn't mean he wouldn't try to make money off of it any
way he could. Especially as the old man got older, drank more heavily and
continued losing his hard-earned money, and T-Remy's too, on the ridiculous
inventions Remy Senior thought would make him a millionaire.

Someone
had loved his father once. Her death had taken away a piece of Remy Senior's
heart that no one else had been able to fill. And Remy himself got that,
understood what it was like to always feel that something was missing.

He
gazed at Haley, with her smooth skin and tight, toned body as his own began to
ache. "My father called me," he said. "He sounded upset. In
trouble. Asked me to come home."

"Well,
as you can see, he's not here."

"And
what—you're his newest girlfriend or something?"

Her
slightly upturned nose wrinkled in disgust she didn't bother to hide.
"Hardly. I'm renting the house from him for the next month, and the last
time I saw him, he was perfectly fine."