Chapter 21
TWENTY-ONE
SHAE
T he first thing I register is I’m horizontal, and the surface beneath me is more comfortable than my bed at home.
But then there’s the second thing I realize: It’s dark, and with the way my ears pop, I know I’m in the air.
The unmistakable hum of airplane engines and how my body feels as I lie here tell me I’m on an aircraft.
The critical issue, however, is that I’m not on the plane I’m supposed to be on. I know that much by the lush bedding that’s completely different from the crisp yet expensive sheets on King’s plane.
“Shit,” I hiss, pressing my face into the pillow which holds a familiar scent just like….
“Storm?” I whisper, my voice sounding too loud in the room. I feel alone, but somehow, I instinctively know I’m not.
It all rushes back. Storm showing up at Versailles. Our face-off outside my suite. My loss of sanity inside his suite. Sending the kids with Yennifer, fleeing from the hotel, and….
I sit up quickly, grabbing the side of my head and putting all my strength into lifting my eyelids. I’m grateful the room is dark, but I get a sense that the dull headache in my temple should be much worse.
“Tempest? Raiden?” My voice sounds weird in the relative quiet. Squinting, I feel around the space next to the bed for a light switch.
“Leave the lights off.”
I freeze with my fingers pressed to the built-in nightstand. Storm is in the room with me, and when I breathe in a bit more deeply, I smell his cologne. His energy is all around me.
“The twins. Where are they?” Besides the mechanical noises, the plane is silent, too silent, and I strain to hear any movement from the space beyond the sliding bedroom door.
Instead of responding, there’s a flick-flick sound, and then the scent of marijuana smoke.
While he audibly inhales, I exhale, trying to lower my blood pressure so my head doesn’t pop off.
“Tempest and Raiden,” I press. “ Where are they ?”
Shifting on the bed, I finally spot his silhouette in the corner where he sits in a chair. The only reason I can identify him is because of the cherry on the end of the blunt.
“They’re safe,” he says, his voice so low.
“Okay, I want to see them,” I reply, standing, but Storm cuts me off.
“Sit the fuck down,” he grinds out, and I freeze. Part of me wants to collapse at the power in his voice, but the other part—the louder, enraged part of me—demands I stand up to him.
I straighten my spine.
“You have five seconds to tell me where my kids are, or I’m going apeshit on this plane.”
Storm releases an amused huff, and I stare at the lit end of his joint as he sucks in more smoke.
“They’re with Yennifer on King’s plane,” he says. I give him a hard look.
“And we’re not on King’s plane,” I confirm. Storm takes another hit.
“No,” he grinds out. “We’re not. We’re on my plane.”
Terror and anxiety make the sore vein in my temple throb, and I suck in a breath.
What is he—oh, fuck no.
“You’re separating me from my children,” I hiss, all my emotions morphing into rage. “You won’t get away with this, Storm Sandoval. I’ll kill you before I let you take my babies away from me.”
My hands shake as I start contemplating how to disarm Storm and get the cabin crew and pilots to take me…away from wherever the fuck Storm’s taking me.
I follow the burning blunt as he moves it from somewhere near his mouth toward where I imagine his armrest would be. There must be a table there, because he flicks some of the ash.
“ I wouldn’t separate children from their parent,” he says, and I want to smack him for his holier-than-thou attitude. “And you can relax. We’re heading back to Chicago, and so are they.”
I won’t give him the satisfaction of hearing the relief in my voice, so I suppress the emotion and cover it with a grunt.
“So why not put me on King’s plane?” I snap, completely over this conversation. All I want is to hug my babies, especially after….
“Did those people have something to do with you?” My throat hurts again, this time from unshed tears and the spike of adrenaline that comes with thinking about how I just faced certain death.
“I told you. This Keystone business is dangerous shit. But now that I know about the children, I’m sure our enemies do, too.”
“ Our enemies? I don’t have any enemies,” I say, scoffing.
“You think so? Well, sorry to be the one to break the news, but you do now.”
Well, if that doesn’t have me wanting to shit a brick.
“You’re welcome for saving your ass, by the way,” he sneers, and I can tell he’s pissed.
Why wouldn’t he be?
I feel almost guilty about everything that happened. If I’d stayed my ass in the hotel, I wouldn’t have been chased down by murderous heathens. But what other choice could I make? Storm’s words and actions sent me running.
I can’t trust him not to hurt me, or Tempest and Raiden. I’ll never trust him again.
“So, this is your fault? My children are terrified and wondering where the fuck their mommy is as they fly across the Atlantic, and I nearly got shot to death because you’re connected to some fuck-shit?”
“ Our children,” he barks, shifting so suddenly that I rock back on the bed. He moves toward one side of the room, and I squint when he turns on a light in a small hall that leads to what looks like a bathroom.
“You forget, you’re not the Virgin Mary anymore. They have a living father,” Storm says, facing me. Backlit by the soft glow radiating from the space behind him, he looks like an avenging angel coming to tear my shit up.
“Storm, can you just…be normal for five minutes? How long until we land?”
Storm walks toward me with slow, measured steps, and I find myself scooting back on the mattress. Not that it helps. Storm leans over me, trapping my legs at the edge of the bed, and his arms bracket my hips.
We’re face-to-face in a few heartbeats.
“We have about five hours until we land, Sweetness,” he says, his words cold, but his eyes… Goddamn him for always setting me on fire.
“And the reason for the two planes is simple: I don’t want the kids to worry about how long you’d be asleep…and I don’t want them to hear what happens between us during this flight.”
Those words cause a bolt of lust to shoot right to my southern parts, and I have no clue how to stop it.
“I’m not having sex with you,” I blurt out, probably more to enforce the words to my damn self than to him.
Storm grins, the side of his mouth lifting.
“Well, I can tell where your mind is,” he replies, and my face heats. “But sorry, Sweetness, no matter how much you beg for my dick, you’re not getting it tonight.”
I almost want to blurt out, “Why?” but I restrain myself.
“Sure,” I say instead. Storm stares at me hard for a long moment, his eyes tracking all over my face. The action makes me want to cry or melt into a puddle right here in the middle of his bed.
I bite my lip instead and look down at my lap.
“What do you want, Storm?” I whisper, and it takes him a second to answer.
“Want? Let me go down the list,” he replies, and straightens. Reaching into his back pocket, he pulls out a folded piece of paper and drops it in my lap. I scan the sheet, my brows coming together.
“What’s this?” I reply, a little bewildered as I look at the lab logo at the top of the page.
“My test results. Taken by my on-call doctor after you left last night and fast-tracked to get the results this morning. As you can see, I don’t have anything.”
My mouth drops open, my hands shaking. He’d only give me this if he expected us to be having sex, which is the exact thing we should not do again.
“I don’t know why you’re giving me this,” I say after clearing my throat. “Like I said, we’re not fucking.”
I sit up primly, swinging my leg over the other and placing my hands in my lap as if I were being interviewed by Oprah.
Storm tsks .
“Yeah, we’re going to be fucking a lot, Shae. And pending your results, we’ll be fucking raw. Often.” He says this as if it’s a foregone conclusion, as if what we’re discussing isn’t completely preposterous.
“Storm, what happened last night was a mistake. Our emotions were high, and… What we need to do is focus on how to be effective co-parents from here. I understand you want to be in Tempest and Raiden’s lives, but we have so many details to work out.
And there’s the simple fact that I don’t trust you as far as I can throw you, and I’m not leaving my babies alone with a stranger. ”
Storm stares at me, tilting his head to the side with a flat expression. Then, like a psychopath, he laughs.
“I don’t know what the fuck you think is so funny,” I grumble, folding my arms over my chest.
“You. You’re funny, Shae,” he replies.
“How so?” I tack on a smile as a fuck you .
“You’re funny because you still think you’re running shit here.”
I’m gonna murder him.
“Oh? Please tell me who’s in charge. I’m assuming you?” I bare my teeth this time, the ability to smile completely beyond me.
“Actually, yes,” he says, the words light. “And you’re not gonna say shit about it.”
I laugh this time.
“Oh, I’m not? You really don’t know me then,” I shoot back.
Clearly over our parrying back and forth, Storm sighs and moves to hover over me again. This time, he grabs my chin—a move he used to do all the time before kissing me.
Memories rush forward, and I punch them back like I’m fighting for my life.
“Despite all that’s happened, Shae, I don’t want you to die. And I won’t tolerate my children being in danger. And as you’ve clearly deduced, seeing as you were just in a car chase and nearly gunned down, my family is in danger.”
I don’t miss the possessive way he says, “my family.”
“So, Sweetness,” he moves his thumb over my chin, caressing the flesh there. “Here’s what’s gonna happen. You ready to hear?”
I can’t look away from his eyes if I wanted to. They’ve always drawn me in, making me drunk off the power and intensity there.
So, it must be the effects of his gaze on mine that causes me to nod.