Chapter 6
CHAPTER 6
Storm parked his car and eagerly climbed out and headed for the lobby of Jane’s apartment. He’d been glad to see for himself that all of the SEALs on his team were alive and well when they’d arrived back into the country. He’d just spent two hours in a debrief meeting with them and was now clear to enjoy his forty-eight hours of leave.
He’d offered to cook for Jane, but she’d declined, saying there was no way she was going to make him cook after working late into the evening.
It was now seven-thirty, and he’d been at the office for over twelve hours. Storm was more than ready for a break. He walked down the hall to Jane’s apartment and knocked on the door. It took a few seconds, but then she was there, smiling and welcoming him into her home.
“You look tired,” she blurted, then wrinkled her nose. “Sorry, that was rude. Come in.”
Storm didn’t take offense. “I am tired,” he told her.
“Your guys are all right, though?”
He liked that she asked about them. “They are. The mission was tough, but they’re all back relatively unharmed.”
“Ugh, I hate that,” she said, more to herself than him. “I mean, I’m glad they’re home, but ‘relatively unharmed’ can have so much hidden meaning to it. It could mean they’ve all got bullet holes in them, but are still walking and talking, or it could mean they’ve got a few little bruises.”
Storm chuckled, and when she turned to face him after closing and locking her front door, he pulled her into him. She let out a small oof of surprise but recovered quickly. Her hands rested on his chest, and he could smell that she’d showered recently.
“Storm?” she asked.
“Sorry,” he told her. “The guys are all right. One got shot, but it was only a graze. The mission went a little sideways, but they got done what needed to be done.” Storm knew he was being vague, but he couldn’t talk about where his team had been or what they’d been doing. He tensed, waiting for her reaction, remembering too many other conversations like this with women that had also gone sideways.
“Well, good,” she said with a small nod. “I ordered from Leroy’s Kitchen and Lounge. They know me very well there, since I love me some fancy food. I got you the house-made bucatini…pork sausage, mushrooms, basil, pesto, and ricotta salad. I got myself the whole-fried branzino, which has basmati rice, red African curry, chili oil, and cilantro. It’s very spicy, but I love it. If you don’t want the bucatini, though, I’m happy to switch with you…or we can just order a pizza. I’ve got our meals warming in the oven because I wasn’t sure exactly when you were going to get here… Why are you looking at me like that?”
Storm didn’t have to ask her what she meant. He knew he was staring at her as if she had two heads. “You aren’t going to ask me for more details about the guys’ mission?”
She frowned as if confused. “No. I know you can’t tell me. I appreciate you saying as much as you did. Why…should I?”
“No,” he said quickly. “I just…most people aren’t as…accepting as you are when I can’t tell them details about my work.”
“Storm,” Jane said gently. “I get it. I might be only a mail chick, but I do understand confidentially and top-secret clearances.”
“Don’t do that,” he scolded.
“Do what?” she asked with a small tilt of her head, genuinely oblivious.
“Don’t belittle yourself. You aren’t ‘only’ a mail chick. You’ve worked hard to get to where you are. Own it. Be proud of it. You run a tight ship, and I, for one, am very thankful I don’t have to track down correspondence that I know I should’ve received, and I never worry about my reports and other documents getting to where they need to go safely and securely.”
“You’re right,” Jane said a little sheepishly. “I just…you’re larger than life to me, and I still have to pinch myself that you’re here. Sometimes my insecurities get the best of me.”
“Well, you have nothing to worry about. And…bucatini? You really got me bucatini?”
She smiled. “I did.”
“Damn,” he said on a sigh. “I could get used to you ‘cooking’ for me. But honestly, it’s too much. Leroy’s Kitchen isn’t cheap.”
“Can I tell you a secret?” she asked.
“Of course,” he told her immediately.
“Leroy feels sorry for me and gives me a kick-ass discount,” she told him with a grin. “I think I’ve put at least two of his kids through college with how much I eat there, so it’s only fair.”
Storm laughed and felt his muscles relaxing for the first time that day. “Red, I do believe you’re talking out of your ass,” he replied, quoting Shawshank .
Jane looked confused for a millisecond, then she threw her head back and laughed. “I’m not, I swear I’m not. And…good usage of the movie quote.”
Storm felt ten years younger just standing in her foyer bantering with her. Just the thought of how she could’ve been badly hurt if the bomb that had exploded in her hands had been anything other than tear gas physically hurt his heart.
And remembering how he’d decided he was going to take things slow, get to know her at work before attempting to ask her out, made him shake his head in disbelief. If he’d done that, he would’ve missed out on this right here. And missing out on one second of time with Jane Hamilton suddenly seemed like the stupidest decision ever.
“I needed this,” he said softly.
“What?” she asked.
“This. You. Preparing dinner, even if that preparation was ordering it from one of your favorite restaurants. Quoting Shawshank and having you know what the hell I’m talking about. Forgetting about work for a few hours and simply relaxing with a funny, beautiful, and charming woman who doesn’t get pissed when I can’t talk about my job.”
Her face gentled, and Storm could see how much his words meant to her. “Me too,” she said. “I mean, I didn’t have to deal with the aftermath of a mission like you did today, but NCIS came down to talk to me again after I was in your office—and they scared the shit out of me, giving me all sorts of dire warnings about how the bomber might come after me, that the news made it seem like I’d foiled his great plan of getting to the rear admiral. Basically saying the same thing as Dag.”
“Come ’ere,” Storm said, pulling her even closer into him, resting his hand on the back of her head as she rested her cheek against his chest.
They stood in each other’s embrace in her hallway for a long moment, taking solace and comfort from one another.
“I’m sorry,” he said after a while.
“Not your fault,” Jane returned immediately. “And it’s not that I don’t believe the investigators, it just doesn’t make sense that someone would get upset with me . I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, collateral damage.”
Storm pulled back and put his hands on her face. He was only a few inches taller than her, and so they were almost eye to eye. “Even so…be careful, okay?”
“Of course.”
“I’ll tell you if I find out anything else about who he might be.”
“Can you do that?” she asked.
“Yes,” Storm said, even though he wasn’t one hundred percent sure of his answer. If the person behind the mail bomb was a former SEAL, or one of Creasy’s sailors, he might not be at liberty to give her any details, but he could give her as much information as possible to keep her safe and still retain confidentiality.
For the first time in his career, Storm knew he would breach security and tell her what she needed to know to keep herself safe…even if that meant he would get in trouble.
And just like that, Storm had a better understanding of what Phantom had felt when he’d disobeyed a direct order to head overseas and rescue Kalee Solberg.
“Come on,” Jane said softly. “You need food.”
Storm smiled when his stomach chose that moment to growl.
“See?” she said with a smile. Then she grabbed hold of his hand still on her face and tugged him deeper into her apartment.
He couldn’t help but let his gaze drop to her ass as she led him to the small table next to her kitchen. Jane had what some people might call a bubble butt. It seemed like such a derogatory term when others said it, but as he stared at her gorgeous body, he couldn’t agree. His hands itched to get ahold of her. To watch the fleshy globes shimmy and shake as he took her from behind. It was a visceral image, and Storm felt like an ass for even thinking it.
He and Jane weren’t that far in their relationship. Hell, they hadn’t even kissed yet. Really kissed. He shouldn’t be thinking about fucking her…and yet he couldn’t stop his mind from fantasizing about how beautiful she’d be lying under him, her brown hair fanned out on his pillow, her back arched with her luscious tits thrust up for his mouth. How she’d spread her legs for him, and how amazing her heat would feel around his cock.
“Storm?” she asked, and he forced his mind out of the gutter. Jane deserved more from him than base urges. He needed to be better.
“Yeah?”
“You looked like you were a million miles away,” she said.
“You’re beautiful,” he blurted, and watched as she blushed. “I mean it.”
Jane shrugged. “I’m just me,” she told him. Something she’d said before.
“Yes, you are,” he agreed. Then, knowing he wouldn’t be able to sit across from her throughout dinner without thinking about touching her, kissing her, Storm tugged her toward him.
And once more she stumbled into him, her hands landing on his chest.
“This is our third date,” he reminded her.
And thank fuck she knew exactly what he was getting at.
“Looks like the world—and you—went and got itself in a big damn hurry,” she quipped.
Her quote from Brooks in Shawshank made him even harder. He raised an eyebrow, asking permission to kiss her.
In response, Jane went up on her tiptoes and put her hand on the back of his neck. She pulled him toward her, and the second their lips touched, Storm knew he was a goner.
He’d tried to tell himself that he should take things slow, but he’d been living in a fantasy world.
It seemed as if he’d been kissing this woman forever, but at the same time, he knew he’d never felt anything like this before in his life. Jane might do her best to fade into the background at work, but there was nothing timid about her actions at the moment. Her fingernails dug into the flesh at the back of his neck and made him shiver as he pulled her even closer.
Storm tilted his head in order to take her deeper, and at the same time he eased his tongue inside her mouth. She moaned, opening wider to let him in. He couldn’t help but imitate what he’d been fantasizing about earlier, kissing her harder, plunging his tongue in and out of her mouth in a crude facsimile of sex.
And Jane took everything he gave her. She sucked on his tongue and groaned when he nipped her lower lip before sinking inside her mouth once more.
How long they stood by her table making out Storm had no idea, but it wasn’t until he felt a little light-headed from lack of oxygen that he pulled back a fraction.
Jane immediately lowered her head. He felt her inhale deeply as if trying to take his essence inside her body…then her hot tongue licked the tendon at the side of his neck. Storm’s cock was rock hard and digging into her belly, but Jane didn’t flinch away from him. No, there was nothing shy about Jane at that point of time, and Storm fucking loved it.
Just when he felt her hands brushing down the sides of the polo shirt he’d changed into before heading to her house, his stomach once more made its emptiness known by growling long and loud.
Amazingly, Jane giggled against him, and Storm could feel every puff of air against the sensitive skin of his neck…which did nothing to cool his ardor.
“I need to feed you,” Jane said as she lifted her head.
Storm inhaled deeply through his nose when he got a look at her face. Her lips were pink and swollen, and she licked them as she stared back. He wanted nothing more than to push her against the table behind them and rip her jeans off and gorge himself on her essence, but that would’ve been going a bit too far.
She smiled as if she could read his mind. “Bucatini,” she said. “I also picked up a bottle of red wine. Meiomi…it’s a pinot noir that’s popular northeast of us. I think you’ll like it.”
“I’m sure I will,” Storm said, doing his best to bring his body under control.
Jane nodded and started to take a step back, but Storm stopped her. He liked her plastered up against him. Liked that he could see her hard nipples under her pink shirt. “I’ve never felt like that before,” he told her.
She tilted her head in question.
“Like if I didn’t get inside you in ten seconds, I’d lose my fucking mind,” he said. Storm knew he was being crude, but he couldn’t stop long enough to try to find more polite words. “I don’t know what it is about you, but you’ve crawled under my skin, and I don’t want you to leave,” he admitted.
“It’s been a long time for me,” Jane replied. “I’ve weathered a lot of storms in my personal life, but I honestly didn’t expect them to last as long as they have.”
He recognized the line from their favorite movie, but didn’t interrupt.
“But now that I’m finally seeing the light, that Rose and I have some semblance of a normal relationship again, I’m ready to see if I can be selfish and concentrate on me for a while.”
“So I’m what…some sort of liberation for you?” Storm asked, confused.
“No!” she said immediately. “That’s not what I meant. I had the thought that I’d date men who wouldn’t want anything serious. To experience a kind of sex I hadn’t ever had. But then I saw you…and that was that. I didn’t want anyone else. How could I when you were everything I’d ever wanted in my life? Handsome, considerate, successful, respected, funny… I told myself that you were out of my league. That you’d never notice someone like me. But then you did, and I was on top of the world. Though I’m worried I won’t live up to any expectations you have when it comes to the bedroom.”
Storm couldn’t help it—he laughed.
When Jane stiffened, he shook his head. “I’m not laughing at you, Jane, I’m laughing because there’s no way in hell you can let me down. That kiss we shared was the hottest thing I’ve ever experienced in my life. And for the record, I haven’t been with anyone in a really long time either. I have no doubt we’ll be combustible when we get together, but there’s no pressure. I didn’t come over here expecting you to sleep with me. I was looking forward to spending more time with you. To spending as much of my forty-eight hours’ downtime with you as possible. Talking, laughing, eating, watching TV. That’s it.”
“So you don’t want to sleep with me?” she asked, her brows furrowing.
“Oh, I want to,” he said quickly. “But I don’t expect to. How fast things go between us is up to you. But know this…when I do take you to bed, I’m going to want it all from you. No hiding in the dark under the covers. I want the lights on, you spread open for me so I can look my fill. You’re beautiful, and I have a feeling I’m never going to get enough.”
He loved the blush that formed on her face, but more than that, he loved that she obviously craved to be with him in the same way.
“Okay,” she said after a moment.
“Okay,” he agreed. “Now, how about we eat before my stomach makes its disapproval known again over how little I’ve fed it today.”
Jane nodded, and he allowed her to pull away. He followed her into the kitchen and helped her dish up their meals. When they sat down to eat, it was surprisingly comfortable. There was no uneasiness because of their conversation. She laughed with him and happily shared her branzino, just as she snuck pieces of his bucatini.
They talked about nothing and everything. How she liked to collect pretty shells she found on the beaches around the base, how he had a thing for comfortable socks…he hated wearing scratchy socks, or having the poorly placed seams rub his toes the wrong way.
By the time they did the dishes and settled on her couch to watch a Seinfeld rerun, Storm felt even more like he’d known Jane forever. Being with her felt right, as if his favorite old pair of socks had magically been restored to their fluffiness and newness once again.
He only wished he’d found her years earlier, so they’d have had more time to be together.