The End
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HEAT OF THE STORM
CHAPTER ONE
Wicked hands.
Wet tongue.
Body aching, pulsing, throbbing.
The erotic images jolted Mackenzie Ward out of an already agitated sleep. Outside her rambling old ranch house, the wind howled, slapped against the shingles of the ancient roof and shook the walls with a ferocity that had her heart pounding faster. Rain slid over the windowpanes, leaving wet streaks on the glass, and the ominous rumbling of thunder and white flashes of lightning were a startling combination of light and dark, silence and chaos.
She hated storms. When she was a kid, the arrival of a thunderstorm would send her running into her older sister’s bedroom, where she’d burrow under the covers with Alice, shut her eyes and wait for the powerful display of nature to subside.
Nowadays she didn’t cower. Tonight’s storm was violent, but it wasn’t what woke her. Oh no. The carnal vision was responsible for that.
It wasn’t a vision.
She said the words in her head a few times, hoping the repetition would convince her brain the images that had just flashed through it were not of the psychic variety. But both mind and body refused to accept it.
The physical symptoms were there—dizziness, numbness in her fingers and toes, the burning in her temples that was neither painful nor pleasant. Her brain also showed signs of extrasensory activity. She could practically feel it humming.
It wasn’t a vision.
With a sigh, she hopped out of bed and headed for the door. The hardwood floor under her bare feet was icy, prompting her to slip into a pair of thick wool socks before descending the stairs and heading for the kitchen.
She brewed herself a cup of herbal tea and leaned against the large cedar work island in the middle of the country-style room.
Warm lips dragging over fevered flesh…
“No,” she whispered.
It was too late. Her body reacted instantly. Nipples hardened into tight peaks, thighs trembled, stomach clenched. Damn it. It wasn’t like she was hard up for sex or anything. She’d only broken up with Dan a couple of weeks ago. Her body shouldn’t be this hungry.
Just a dream, she told herself. Because no way would she have had a vision about Will Charleston. Will, for God’s sake. Her best friend. The one man in her life she’d always been able to count on. He was the broad shoulder she leaned on, the ear she whispered her secrets into, the arms that caught her when she fell. He wasn’t the man she’d envisioned having wild animal sex with. He couldn’t be.
Even after years of living with this gift—and she used the term loosely—she still wasn’t entirely sure how it worked. The images came and went. Sometimes a mundane detail, like the image of Amy, the owner of the bakery, burning a rack of brownies. Other times the images were more troubling. A car accident, her neighbor Mrs. Harrison breaking her back, a death. Visions of the future and always the future of others—she’d never seen herself in a vision.
Which meant that this had all been a dream. A figment of her imagination. She’d only imagined her naked body sprawled across cool white sheets, devoured by Will’s talented mouth and eager hands. Only imagined the delicious stretching of her body as his thick cock penetrated her.
A dream.
A wicked dream that wasn’t going to come true. Especially not tonight.
She sipped her tea, the hot liquid warming her insides. The storm continued to rage, the wind shrieked, and the rain pounded and pounded and—
The pounding grew louder. It took a moment to realize that it wasn’t the rain after all. Someone was knocking on the door.
A vine of wariness climbed up her throat. She’d taken two steps toward the kitchen doorway when her eyesight blurred. Temples throbbed.
Long fingers gripping her ass, digging into her flesh.
Hot mouth clasping over a rigid nipple.
I want you, Mackenzie. Now. Always.
She swallowed hard. What was happening? She couldn’t shut out the mental assault, the seductive images prickling her mind like dozens of little bee stings.
The knocking grew incessant.
Sucking in a breath, she walked to the front door and reached for the knob. Her fingers froze over the metal as a rush of heat suddenly torpedoed into her and settled between her legs.
“Who’s there?” she called shakily.
“Mac, open up. I’m getting drenched out here.”
No. Oh God, no.
“Let me in, Mackenzie.”
She slowly opened the door, then stepped aside as a very wet Will Charleston pushed his way inside.
“What are you doing here?” she blurted out. “It’s past midnight. And in case you hadn’t noticed, there’s a hurricane out there.”
“Thunderstorm,” he corrected. “It was a bitch driving all the way out here from Coronado in this rain, but I needed to see you.”
Her mouth grew dry. “Why? What’s so important that you risked getting into a car accident over?”
“I think you know.”
Four words. Smoky with seduction and shrouded with sinful promise.
This couldn’t be happening.
And yet everything about the situation, everything about him, spoke otherwise.
His dark eyes glimmered with passion. His sensual mouth was set in a firm line, his defined jaw tight, as if he’d come here prepared for her to fight him. She’d never seen Will like this before. Raw masculinity oozed out of his pores. It teased her, taunted at her, caused every nerve in her body to tingle.
He shrugged out of his navy-blue windbreaker and tossed it on the wooden bench next to the door. Next he kicked off his boots. Drops of rain slid from his dark hair, down his rugged face and dripped onto the floor.
He strode into the living room without invitation. Not that he needed one. Will had always been welcome in her home and he was there often, filling the house with his comforting presence.
Tonight she wasn’t comforted. Tonight his presence was…different. Masculine. Dangerous.
“It’s time we talked about what happened last week,” he said in that rough voice of his.
She gulped. “Nothing happened last week.” Fuck, why did he have to bring it up? She’d hoped that during the past seven days, while he’d been traipsing around in the jungle, he might have forgotten about it.
He tilted his head, those bottomless dark eyes piercing right through the lie and glittering with challenge. “I beg to differ.”
He moved closer and the spicy scent of his aftershave wafted into her nostrils. She inhaled it, nearly keeling over backwards as the sexy aroma surrounded her and grasped her senses. God, he smelled good.
“You kissed me,” he said gruffly.
“It was a mistake.”
“We both know that’s not true.” Another step toward her. “Do you know that this past week has been torture for me? You kissed me, Mac, and the next morning I had to get on a chopper, without getting the chance to talk to you about it.” He visibly swallowed. “The entire time I was gone, I was thinking about you. Aching for you. So don’t try to shrug it off or call it a mistake. Because we both know it wasn’t.”
Warm hands cupping her breasts.
A pinch to her nipples.
Pain.
Pleasure.
Her thighs squeezed together and a gasp escaped her lips.
He was at her side in an instant, stroking her temples with his long fingers. “Hey, you all right?”
“I’m fine,” she squeezed out.
“What did you see?”
Damn it, why did he have to know her so well? She wished she’d never confided in him about the visions. Past experience told her that most people didn’t understand them. Hell, she didn’t understand them, either.
What she did understand was that it scared people. Men, especially. Her previous boyfriends couldn’t handle the visions. They fled the mo
ment a particularly upsetting one hit her, like she was the angel of death or something. Though they vehemently denied it, claiming they were dumping her for an entirely different reason, she knew they considered her a freak.
And hell, sometimes she didn’t blame them. Sometimes, usually after seeing something she really didn’t want to see, she felt like a freak.
“What did you see?” Will repeated.
Their gazes collided and the fire she saw in his eyes stole her breath. He was so sexy. Magnetic eyes, chiseled features, and a sexy body that looked way too good in a pair of faded jeans and a snug T-shirt. His job as a SEAL assured that he always stayed in shape—hard, sleek, and muscled.
Will was the best-looking man she’d ever known, and the one man she’d never allowed herself to get involved with. Her lovers never stayed in her life long. Her best friend? He was always by her side.
But would he remain there if he knew her intimately? If they shared a bed, if she woke him up from sleep with her gasps and tears after a nasty vision? Not to mention her complete inability to lose control in the bedroom. Mackenzie wasn’t one to give in to self-pity, but when it came to relationships, she was a mess. A total mess.
And it would crush her, losing her best friend just because she’d been stupid enough to fuck him.
“Either we talk about what you saw, or we talk about the kiss.” Will’s brows were drawn together in a frown. “Your choice, Mac.”
Neither. She wanted to talk about neither.
She edged toward the oversized leather sofa, hoping he’d take her silence and attempt at creating distance between them as a sign to back off. But the words back off were not part of his vocabulary and he only stepped closer, so that she was trapped between his big, hard body and the arm of the couch.
“Why did you kiss me?” he asked roughly.
She found the courage to meet his gaze. “I was upset about the break-up with Dan. And drunk. Very, very drunk. I…wasn’t thinking.”
He didn’t answer for a long while. So long that she didn’t think he would even reply. She was right. He didn’t reply. Instead, he grasped her chin with his hands and covered her mouth with his.
The kiss was scarier than the vision. The kiss was real.
She was helpless to fight it, though the ache between her legs wouldn’t have let her fight anyway. Will’s hot mouth rubbed over hers in a slow kiss, his lips firm but deliciously soft, his fingers warm against her cheeks. He deepened the kiss, thrusting his tongue between her lips. He sought out her tongue and swirled over it, the taste of him making her knees wobble.
He immediately slid one hand to her waist to hold her steady. His fingers curled over her hip, his touch searing through the cotton material of her nightshirt and scorching her skin.
She couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. All she was capable of doing was sagging into his hard chest and drowning in his intoxicating lips.
The kiss grew harder, greedy, almost frantic. He licked her bottom lip, then sucked it hard into his mouth, eliciting a whimper from deep in her chest. And his tongue…it was too demanding, too precise as it flicked over hers, thrust in and out of her mouth, mimicking what she knew he wanted to do to her with his cock.
Fire consumed her body, growing hotter and stronger when he shoved one hard thigh between her legs and ground against her throbbing core. The long ridge of his cock pressed into her mound. The thought of having all that hard, male flesh deep inside her made her gasp with pleasure.
“I want you, Mackenzie,” he murmured against her trembling lips. “Now. Always.”
The words jolted her back to reality.
She stumbled back, nearly tripping over the couch before regaining her equilibrium. She blinked wildly, trying not to look at his flushed face, the wild lust glimmering in his black eyes. This was Will. Her best friend since she was fifteen years old. For God’s sake, she couldn’t fall into bed with him, no matter how incredible a kisser he was, no matter how much her body shouted for her to do it.
“We can’t,” she managed, her voice sounding too desperate to her ears.
“We can,” he corrected.
Before she could move farther away, he pulled her against him again and cupped her ass, pushing his pelvis against her so she could feel his unmistakable erection. He dipped his head, his lips hovering over her ear, his hot breath fanning over her skin. “You’ve been doing this to me from the moment I met you, Mac.”
“Will—”
“Don’t.” His breath tickled her earlobe. “Don’t make excuses or give me reasons why we can’t do this. I’ve stood patiently on the sidelines for fifteen years, watched you date other men, waited for you to see what’s in front of you. I’m tired of waiting.”
She swallowed a moan as he took her earlobe into his mouth and sucked on it. Heart thudding against her ribcage, she wondered how it would feel having Will suckle other parts of her body. Her nipples instantly hardened. Her clit swelled.
“You opened the door to this when you kissed me,” he said huskily. “And if I didn’t think you wanted it, I’d turn around and walk out the door right now. But you want it, Mac. You want it very, very badly.”
She lifted her head and looked into his eyes. She’d never seen him like this, so damn sure of himself, so cocky. God help her, but she liked it. And from the look on his face, he knew it. She’d spilled so many secrets to this man. She didn’t have many girlfriends, and sharing her deepest darkest fantasies with Will, her closest friend, hadn’t seemed wrong at the time. Now it unnerved her, the knowledge that he knew exactly what she wanted from a lover.
He dragged his index finger along the seam of her lips and rotated his hips, his erection rubbing over the thin boxer shorts she’d worn to bed.
“You’re turned on, aren’t you?”
The word “yes” slipped out before she could stop it.
A faint smile tugged at his mouth. “Maybe we should do something about that.”
“You’re my best friend,” she whispered.
“Not tonight.” He gave a decisive nod, punctuated by another thrust of his groin. “Tonight I’m not your friend, Mac. Tonight I’m the man who’s going to fuck you senseless.”
She moaned.
He merely smiled again, before his eyes narrowed and his features grew taut. “Last chance, Mac. If you want me to leave, say the word. If not, then you can’t fight this any longer.” He cocked his head, dark eyes cloudy with both anticipation and challenge. “What’ll it be?”
She gulped. A part of her wanted to tell him to go, leave before things got out of hand. Another part of her realized that it was too late. This was already out of hand, and the only thing to do now was ride it out.
“Stay,” she murmured.
“Very good decision.”
He kissed her again, and this time she responded with fervor. As their tongues tangled, she couldn’t fight the wave of disbelief flooding through her, the voice that kept reminding her who she was playing tonsil hockey with at the moment. Kissing Will was surreal. Surreal and yet so incredible she didn’t think she’d ever get enough.
Outside, the rain continued to pour, slapping at the house. The sound of the pounding rain matched the pounding of her heart, the howl of the wind echoed the desire howling through her body.
She groaned in disappointment when Will broke the kiss, but he ignored the protest and lifted her into his arms. At five-eight, she could hardly be considered petite, but Will made her feel as light as a feather as he carried her up the stairs and across the dark hallway toward her bedroom.
He deposited her on the bed, placed her on the already tangled sheets and shot her a pointed look.
“W-what is it?” she stammered.
“You know what I want, Mac. Give it to me.”
Her pulse raced, the thump-thump of her heart reverberating in her ears. The taunting rasp of his voice told her exactly what he wanted. What she’d confessed to wanting herself.
She drew a breath and filled her lungs
with much-needed oxygen. Then, without breaking the gaze, she shimmied out of her boxers and threw them aside. Her pussy was exposed, smooth and bare from a recent visit to the salon, wet from the arousal Will elicited inside her.
Darkness bathed the bedroom, making it hard to decipher his expression.
“Turn over.”
His order coincided with a flash of lightning that illuminated his face and revealed the seductive glimmer in those piercing black eyes.
Without taking off her nightshirt, she rolled over and positioned herself so she was on her hands and knees. She lifted her ass into the air, stifling a moan when she heard him move closer. His clothing rustled, and then his hands caressed her bare bottom.
Shivers scurried down her spine. She waited.
“Will,” she murmured.
She flinched when she felt the sting of his palm against her ass.
“No talking.” His voice was gravelly. “I want you stay on your knees, stay quiet, while I do what I want with you.”
Moisture soaked her inner thighs. Who was this man? It couldn’t be Will, couldn’t be the man she’d confided in and depended on for so many years. He had become a different person. Demanding, bold, sexy. She ought to be angry at him for talking to her this way, commanding her as if she were nothing more than a warm body solely there for his pleasure, but she wasn’t angry. She was turned on. Hot. Aching.
“That’s the fantasy, isn’t it, baby?” She felt his warm breath on her cheeks, tickling her exposed slit. “You don’t want to be in control anymore. You want a man who’ll take what he pleases from you.”
He was reciting her own words back to her, and each one caused her to grow wetter.
Yes, it was what she wanted. What she’d always wanted. Living with the visions required holding on to every ounce of control and willpower she possessed. She constantly had to keep herself grounded, restrained, if only to preserve her sanity, sanity that was threatened with each new vision. The restraint followed her into the bedroom, caused her to take charge of her sexual encounters so she wouldn’t feel vulnerable.
That’s how she felt right now. Vulnerable. And with that unfamiliar emotion came a sense of liberation.