Storm (Georgia Smoke #4)

• Twelve •

“She might just expire from the pain.”

Briar

When I was pushed into a corner, my acting abilities always rushed out to distract so I could fight back and dazzle. It was one of my best survival tools. I charmed the room, telling stories that had them laughing, and not once did I let my insecurities and fears manifest. The brighter I smiled and gave my performance, the less others looked for weaknesses. Even little Miss First Love seemed as if I’d thrown her for a loop too. She had no idea who she had messed with. I might shatter behind closed doors, but no one would ever get the satisfaction of seeing it.

By the time lunch ended, I was thriving off my silent win. Jupiter had invited me to her house soon for cocktails by her pool. Luella had mentioned wanting me to meet her future sister-in-law, Bay, and that she would set up something fun, like a shopping trip. Annette was currently telling me that I had to come play on her grand piano for them while everyone gathered in the foyer, saying their goodbyes.

I was just about to tell her I would love to when the door opened, and Storm came sauntering in with his cowboy hat tilted back on his head and a baby-blue pearl-snap shirt tucked into his jeans. The sight of him made my heart flutter, and I momentarily forgot what all I’d learned since he’d left me here. However, that happy feeling vanished the moment Lula Mae squealed and threw herself into Storm’s arms.

When he wrapped his arms around her and chuckled, my throat felt like I had just swallowed razors. He hadn’t even looked my way yet. He was too busy holding his first love and smiling like he was happy to do it. The razors made it to my chest, and I beamed brightly, as if I wasn’t in physical pain.

“Oh good, you two have more time to catch up. I’ll go get Dovie,” I said as if this were all just fantastic.

Storm’s eyes swung to me, and I held them only for a moment before I looked back at his mother.

“Whenever you want to have me over to play, I would love to. I can’t say I’ve ever played on a grand piano before. It’ll spoil me for sure,” I told her.

She seemed nervous as she glanced at Storm and Lula Mae, then back at me.

Wanting to make sure she had no idea that it affected me, I gave her arm a gentle squeeze. “And thank you for having me today. I had a wonderful time.”

“You’re always welcome here. I enjoyed getting to know you. This was the best time we’d had at a get-together in a long time. You brightened things up.”

Yes, I had. I didn’t agree with her though. Turning, I made my way back to the wide hallway, not dare looking at Storm. If I had to see him touching that blonde again, I wasn’t sure I could keep from going and ripping her out of his arms by her long, silky hair. The idea was appealing now that I thought about it.

I also had no idea where the heck I was going. How was I going to get Dovie when I didn’t know where Dovie had gone? I stopped, frustrated that I hadn’t thought that through.

A large hand wrapped around my arm, and I closed my eyes, recognizing the callous palm.

“Briar,” Storm’s concerned voice said, and I wanted to spin around and slap his gorgeous face.

“Hello, Storm,” I replied, opening my eyes and forcing myself to get ahold of my emotions before I looked at him.

He tugged my arm so I had to face him even if I didn’t want to. With him, keeping my act up was hard. Just looking at him was making me crack.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, moving until our chests were touching.

I let out a short, hard laugh. “Wrong? Why, nothing, Storm. I’m just fine,” I drawled.

He grabbed my chin. “No, it’s fucking not. Is this about Lula Mae hugging me?”

It was about so much more than that.

I said nothing.

He tilted his head and studied me. “Are you jealous?” he asked as his mouth curled up at the corners.

I was going to end up slapping the shit out of him in his momma’s house.

“No! I’m not jealous!” I spit at him.

He ran the pad of his thumb over my bottom lip. “Yeah, you are. You’re jealous.” He sounded so damn pleased.

The pain I’d been covering up was now morphing into something much more dangerous.

“Admit it,” he urged, his voice dropping to a husky whisper.

“You hugging her wouldn’t have bothered me if you hadn’t lied to me about where you were yesterday.”

His eyes narrowed then. “Lied about what?” he asked, no longer looking so damn happy.

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe that you spent the day with your first love. Catching up.”

“What?” he asked, but I saw the glimmer in his eyes that told me something else.

He had been caught, and he knew it.

I had asked for this. I had trusted a man, believed he loved me, and walked right into this. Even when I had found out he had already lied to me about something.

What else was there? How many lies?

“Don’t,” I said, shoving at his chest, but he didn’t move.

Instead, he backed me up against the wall, caging me in with his hands on the wall on either side of my head as he stared down at me.

“Yesterday, I had a meeting at Stellan’s. Thaddeus and Wayon Davidson were there. Thaddeus is over the Louisiana branch of the family. Wayon is his son, Lula Mae’s twin brother. When it was over, I went out to the pool with Wayon and Thatcher, and we had a drink. Lula Mae came out there when she returned from shopping.” He paused and leaned his face so close to me that our breaths mingled. “I talked about you. So much so that Thatcher begged me to shut up and leave because I was making him nauseous,” he said. “I left. Came home. Fucked you on the kitchen bar when I found you in one of my shirts, looking like an angel.”

That sounded … plausible … believable.

I let out a long breath as the razor blades started to disappear slowly.

“You never told me you had a first love.”

He grinned, and his gaze dropped back to my lips. “I had a first lust,” he replied. “Not love. But please keep on. I like you jealous. It’s hot as fuck.”

Okay, maybe I had been jealous. That was new for me. I had never reacted like that before, and the way it’d felt was not pleasant. It had been horrible. I felt raw from it all. Exposed and very vulnerable.

“She remembers it differently,” I told him.

His lips brushed against mine. “Keep on,” he urged. “You keep this jealous shit up, and I’m gonna fuck you against this wall. My momma might never recover, but it’ll be worth it.”

“I’m not being jealous. I am telling you that Lula Mae does not see things the same way you do. Her mother doesn’t like me at all. Why is that? Hmm? And the way she talked about you and told me about your first kiss among the peach trees … well, it ruined them for me. And I really liked those trees.”

Storm stopped kissing me and lifted his head to look down at me for a minute. Then, he straightened, and his fingers laced with mine. “Come on,” he said and began leading me back to the foyer.

“Where are we going? I need to get Dovie.”

“She’s fine,” he replied, not slowing down.

When we reached the foyer, everyone had cleared out. Annette was at the open door, waving to those getting in their cars. She glanced at us and opened her mouth, but Storm didn’t stop or even slow down. Her eyes widened as she saw he was going to keep going.

“Let Dovie know we will be back to get her later,” he said as we walked past her.

“Okay,” she replied.

“That was rude,” I told Storm, who was taking us to his Jeep.

“Don’t care,” he replied.

“Storm! We should have asked if Dovie could stay.”

“She can.”

He jerked open the passenger door to the Jeep and picked me up, then put me inside. When he closed the door and started to the driver’s side, I saw Lula Mae watching us as she stood in front of a silver Mercedes sedan. The frown on her face vanished when she realized I had caught her watching us, and she smiled, then waved.

I lifted my hand and returned the wave with my own smug smile. It was catty, but she had made yesterday sound like they had been alone and as if they talked all the time. That was on purpose. She was trying to mark her territory with a pretty smile and a pretend attempt at friendship. The entire thing had been premeditated. Starting with having me sit beside her. That sneaky little bitch.

Storm climbed behind the wheel and closed his door a little harder than necessary. Turning my attention back to him, I tried to figure out what was going on. Was he mad now? Because he sure as hell didn’t have a reason to be mad at me. I had done nothing wrong.

“Are you not gonna wave goodbye to Lula Mae?” I asked sarcastically.

He smirked and backed up the Jeep. “Nope.”

“I’m not sure her heart can handle it,” I told him. “She might just expire from the pain.”

He cut his eyes at me. “Keep it up.”

“What?”

“Acting jealous.”

I laughed. “I am not jealous.”

“Yeah, the fuck you are.”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “Well, she did run into your arms, and you sure looked happy about it. What if I hugged some man like that?”

“I’d kill him.”

I rolled my eyes. “No, you wouldn’t.”

He glanced from the road that headed back to his house and at me. “Yes, I would.”

When he turned his serious scowl back to watch where he was going, I sat there and realized that he really believed he would.

“That’s a little unfair. I didn’t kill Lula Mae,” I replied. But I’d have liked to pull her hair and thrown her to the ground.

“But you were jealous.”

“And you wouldn’t be? You are threatening to kill someone.”

He licked his lips, then flicked his gaze over to me. “That’s right. I’d kill them. You are jealous. I’m possessive, obsessed, whatever you want to label it. It’s a much stronger emotion.”

“I think the word you’re looking for is unhinged,” I said.

“Oh, it is. It’s also real.”

The thrill that coursed through me was wrong. I shouldn’t react that way. But I couldn’t help it. I chewed on my bottom lip as we approached the house. Storm didn’t go toward the garage, but veered to the right, and we started to drive around the house.

What the heck was he doing?

“Where are we going?” I asked as he reached the back side of the property in front of the peach trees. Seeing them reminded me of Lula Mae, and the image of Storm kissing her soured my mood again.

Storm turned off the Jeep, then climbed out. I watched him stalk around the Jeep like a man on a mission until he came to my door and opened it, then pulled me out, but didn’t put me down. Instead, he tossed me over his shoulder and slammed the door behind us.

“STORM!” I screamed, hitting his ass while I stared down at the ground as he began to walk.

He didn’t respond, even as I screeched and hit him again. The smell of peaches grew stronger, the farther he took us into the trees. I gave up and let my arms hang, along with the rest of me. The man was crazy. I had no other explanation for this.

When he finally stopped, he took my waist and slid me down the front of his body until my feet were back on the ground. I’d never been this deep inside the trees. I looked around, then back at him.

“Why are we here?” I asked, placing a hand on my hip.

Storm began unsnapping his shirt, and my eyes dropped to his chiseled chest as it was slowly revealed. When he shrugged out of it, I soaked in the sight of his corded arms with the sunshine beating down on him. He dropped it to the ground, then took his cowboy hat and tossed it on top of the shirt.

“Get naked,” he told me as his hands went to the buckle on his belt.

“What?” I asked, breathless, as I watched his tanned hands working his belt free.

“Briar,” he said, snapping me out of the striptease I was getting, and I looked back up at his face.

“Yeah?” I asked, slightly dazed.

“I need you naked, baby.”

“Naked?”

He grinned and nodded as he dropped his belt. “I’m gonna lay you down and eat that sweet pussy before I fuck you. I need you naked to do that.” He bent down and pulled off his boots.

“Out here?” I asked him, reaching for the hem of my sundress.

He stood up straight, then shoved his jeans down, then stepped out of them. The tight black boxer briefs were all he had left on.

Holy hell, would the sight of his body never get old? Would I always become a wet, panting mess when he was naked?

Storm took my dress from me and jerked it over my head, then discarded it before reaching behind me to unsnap my bra. “You love these trees. You sit out on the back porch and smile so damn sweet every morning with your coffee. And now, someone has tainted it for you. With a really sloppy, bad kiss, by the way. It wasn’t even good. But it still bothered you,” he said as my bra fell away. Then, he looked into my eyes as his hands slid over my bare breasts. “I won’t let that happen. No one takes something you enjoy away from you. I won’t allow it. So,” he said as he lowered himself to his knees and pressed a kiss to my stomach while his fingers slid into the sides of my panties, “I’m gonna fuck you out here. Bring you to orgasm over and over again. Until any thought of that shitty kiss is wiped from your mind. All you’ll see is the trees you love and know I ate you like my favorite dessert, filled you with my cum, and worshipped you out here.”

I watched him as he pulled my panties down my legs and left a trail of kisses as he did it.

We weren’t perfect, but in all the wrong, there was this intense perfection that would either save me or ruin me.