Jill Shalvis - Storm Watch

Oh, no. No, no, no. Hell to the no was she was going to change right here in front of him. Sure, there’d been all those times when she’d secretly-very secretly-dreamed about such things, but those days were long gone.

So long gone.

This man, with his steely, unreadable eyes and grim mouth, with his big, tough body braced for whatever came his way, wasn’t the stuff of girlhood dreams.

He was all man.

Complicated, edgy man, and no longer someone she fantasized about.

And maybe if she kept saying that, she’d believe it. “Fine. I’ll change.”

At that, he gave her his full attention, his entire body emitting so much testosterone she could hardly lock her knees. “Not right here, of course,” she corrected coolly, and stiffening her traitorous knees, she stepped around him, heading down the hall to his bathroom, shutting the door behind her.

She forced herself to shake off the sensual haze and turned to stare at herself in the mirror, sucking in a breath at the sight that greeted her.

Flushed cheeks.

Glassy eyes.

“Stop it,” she whispered, and quickly locked the bathroom door, not letting herself wonder who exactly she was locking it against-her or him.

JASON WATCHED HER GO and let out a long breath. He couldn’t believe it. Shy, carefully controlled Lizzy Mann, with the sweet-smelling brunette hair, and those melting chocolate eyes, the ones that had once revealed everything she thought every time she thought it, here in his house.

When they’d been young, she’d been a danger to herself for no reason other than he always knew exactly how she felt about everything: school, life, him.

But she’d be a danger to him now, because they were adults, and incredibly enough there was something there between them, something undeniable. Actually, it’d always been there, and it had nothing at all to do with her sweet, curvy body.

Okay, it had a lot to do with that curvy body, but it was more, far more. Once upon a time she’d stimulated his brain, and she’d been the first girl to do so.

And now she was no girl.

Which was bad timing all around, because since Matt’s death, he’d been pretty screwed up and wasn’t ready for a relationship. Hell, he wasn’t ready for real life. He had no idea what he wanted anymore, or even what was important to him.

Not with the damn rug yanked out from beneath his feet.

A gust of wind hit the house with what felt like a battering ram, immediately followed by the sound of glass shattering, and a short, startled scream. He whipped down the hallway just as the lights flickered once and went out. “Lizzy?”

The bathroom door opened as he craned his neck to see the broken glass, which had come from the bedroom across the hall. The window directly over his bed had blown in.

“It just scared me,” she said, following his gaze. “Sorry.”

With the driving rain the only sound around them, he suddenly became aware he’d pulled her to his side.

It’d been instinctive to do so, simply about concern, but that was draining quickly, replaced by something else entirely as his hand slowly moved up and down her arm.

Adrenaline. It was churning inside him now because of the blown window. Hell, it was still in him from his last mission.

From coming home again.

From being awoken after his first deep sleep in…forever.

From losing Matt.

It’d been a long time since he’d touched a woman, held one. Since someone had touched him in return.

Too long.

Knowing it, knowing damn well he was treading on thin ice, he bent his head for the simple pleasure of rubbing his jaw against hers.

She swallowed hard and, against his chest, he felt her hand settle, then slowly fist into his sweatshirt, not to push him away but to pull him in even tighter as she shivered.

“You’re cold,” he whispered, skimming both hands up her slim spine now.

“No. Not cold.”

God. God, he wanted…

This.

Her.

More.

Then her focus dropped to his mouth, and her lips parted, and that was all he needed. The sign that she felt it, too, this crazy heat. She wanted him to kiss her.

With that his only thought, he leaned in and did just that, all coherent thought going out the broken window as she opened her mouth beneath his and tentatively, sweetly, hesitantly, met his tongue with hers. It made him groan in sheer pleasure because, God, her mouth. She might have grown up and toughened up on the outside, but on the inside she was still soft and sweet, still just a little shy.

He’d take that, he’d take all she wanted to give and to that end, he cupped her head in one palm, running his other hand down her back to nudge her even closer. She crawled right in, right up against him as if made for the spot, accompanying the movement with a little purr from deep in her throat. He loved the way she didn’t keep her hands to herself, loved how they ran up his arms, over his chest, around his neck and into his hair.

Loved.

It.

But then more glass fell from the bedroom windowpane, flying into the room, the hallway, hitting the floor around them with a musical tinkling sound that had them tearing free of each other.

Breathing almost harder than the wind outside, she stared up at him, mouth wet, eyes wide. “What was that?”

“A damn good kiss.” He expected her to pull clear, but she surprised him when instead, she leaned back in and pressed her face to his throat. Not breathing any more steadily than she, he wrapped her up in his arms again, cupping the bare nape of her neck. Indulging himself, he bent his head and inhaled her in.

“Are you…smelling my hair?”

“Yes.” He did it again, drawing in her scent. “God, you smell amazing. I’ve smelled nothing but dust and other guys for so long I just want to wrap myself up in you.” But the house was taking a beating. He needed to cover up the window openings to prevent more damage…

“Do you have a sheet of plywood for that window?”

“I hope so.” The tree just outside his bedroom was whipping back and forth, dangerously close to the blown-in window. Glass shards lay across the bed, on top of the sheets and blankets where he’d been only a few minutes ago. “Good thing you woke me up.”

“You were sleeping there?” Lizzy asked, sounding horrified as she pulled free.

“Yeah.” He shut the bedroom door, closing off the wind and rain freely flying in, and looked at her.

Her hair had been demurely pulled back into a low ponytail when she’d first arrived, but was loose now. The dark honey strands fell to her shoulders, with long side swept bangs framing her face.

Her mouth was still wet.

Which made him want to kiss her again. Forget the storm beating the shit out of his house, forget Cece out there in it-

Okay, he couldn’t forget that. He needed to get his mind off the fantasy currently running in high def in his head, the one that had him pushing Lizzy to the wall and kissing her again until she didn’t look so worried, and then taking that kiss to its natural course, which involved no clothes and her crying out his name as she came.

But life was rarely that good to him.

So he turned her back to the bathroom door, where the only window was narrow and high up inside the shower. “Change. I’m going to the garage to look for plywood.”

“The electricity is out.”

“Yeah, it’s probably going to stay out for a good long time, too.” What the hell. He slid his fingers into her hair again, smoothing it back off her face for the sheer pleasure of feeling her warm skin beneath his palm.

She caught his hand in hers. “Before,” she said. “When I screamed? You came running.”

He looked into her eyes, and there was a long beat between them, where the icy air didn’t seem cold at all but rather shimmering with heat.

The heat coming from them.

He’d survived the past two months by putting aside emotions and feelings. It was a tactic that had served him well.

But he was feeling now, big-time.

“I slay my own dragons these days, Jason,” she said softly, and went back into the bathroom.

At the sound of the lock hitting home, he smiled grimly. She didn’t need him. Message received.

He found no plywood in the garage, which meant that the room was going to be a wreck before this was over. Hoping that would be the extent of the damage, he came back into the kitchen and took another food foray. This time, in the dubious light of the morning, he found a box of crackers and Cheez Whiz.

Worked for him.

Loading up crackers and stuffing them into his mouth, he called his mom. She answered on the first ring, breathless and excited. “My baby! Honey, are you back?”

“Yeah.” At the sound of her love practically pouring through the phone line, he let out a breath and a reluctant smile. “You okay?”

“Oh, sweetheart, I’m fine. Tell me you’re coming here so I can fatten you up and see for myself you’re in one piece.”

“I’m in one piece.”

“Are you sure? Because the last time we talked, you were in such a bad place-”

That had been right after Matt’s death. He’d been a mess. “Mom.” He paused, his throat tightening. “I’m good.”

“I’ll be the judge of that. When will I see you?”

“Soon as this storm is over. Is Shelly okay? The house? You both safe?”

“We aren’t flooding, we’re both staying put, and we’re fine. I love you, Jason.”

“Love you, too, Mom.”

“Prove it and get up here as soon as you can.”

He promised to do that and shut his phone, resuming the stuffing of his face with the crackers and Cheez Whiz until Lizzy came into the room.

He still couldn’t wrap his brain around it. She’d once had a way of looking at him, of seeing things in him that had made him uncomfortable, to say the least. He hadn’t liked looking into those sweet orbs and seeing himself reflected back, because he’d never liked what he’d seen.