Storm Watch Read online

  What if…

  She’d gotten a lot of mileage out of it all, especially in the deep dark of the night. But in the face of his calm, steady assertiveness, all those what-ifs seemed so very long ago and so very childish. She had only one what-if right now, and that was what if Cece wasn’t okay? “You’re really going to take me over there.”

  “As opposed to sitting on my ass when I know you’re worried? Yes, Lizzy, I am.”

  Okay, now she’d insulted him. Interesting that she could.

  She really wished Dustin had been here, Dustin who was so easygoing and laid-back and sweet… “Cristina said your brother’s at work.”

  “Then you really are stuck with me, aren’t you.” Rising with a pair of jeans in his hand, he settled his calm, quiet eyes on her as his long fingers pulled up the denim. The act seemed shockingly intimate.

  Ridiculously so, given that he’d just been standing there in far less. The jeans were loose and clearly beloved old friends, sinking low on his hips as he began to button them up. Stopping halfway, he slid his hand inside to…adjust, and as she watched, she felt her face heat. “I’ll just…” What? She had no idea so she stood there like an idiot, tongue practically hanging out.

  “You’ll…?”

  “No idea,” she whispered, giving up.

  Seeming amused as he finished buttoning, he gave her a glimpse of the younger Jason she’d once known.

  Again the house shuddered, and she braced. The sound of the driving rain was relentless as he pulled a T-shirt on over that torso, which could have been on the cover of any fitness magazine. He added an old hooded sweatshirt to his ensemble, then crouched again to dig through his bag for socks.

  Then he turned and eyed her scrubs.

  She knew they were unflattering, not to mention wet from her dash from the car, and clinging to her. “Those won’t work,” he said, and tossed her some clothes. “These are dry.”

  She caught them to her. “I’m not going to take your things.”

  “Yes, you are,” he said in the quiet authoritative voice he probably used on the job and had people jumping to obey him.

  But it didn’t move her to follow his order as much as it…excited her. Yes, she was that badly off that a quiet, confident, masculine voice could excite her.

  She really needed to get sex more often. Too bad she tended to self-destruct her relationships. She looked out the window. Daylight was trying valiantly to break through. The rain was still coming down so thickly it looked like a virtual sheet of water pouring from the sky. “Changing isn’t going to help for long.”

  “You’re shivering.” He also tossed over a set of rain gear. “You won’t be any good to me out there if you’re not at least warm.”

  She wouldn’t be any good to him? “Okay, now just a minute. I—”

  “Your sister isn’t the only one who might be in trouble, Lizzy. I can guarantee it. We might run into people out there who need our help. You’re going to want to be able to give it. Where exactly does Cece live?”

  “Third and Cove. Problem is they’re evacuating Eastside because the flooding is already bad.”

  “Then we need to hurry.” He straightened and looked at her. Waiting.

  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.

  3

  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 t