Fire and Rain, Season 2, Episode 5 (Rising Storm) (8 page)

“Lacey.” Mallory’s gaze collided with her ex-best friend’s and for a moment they all stood motionless—waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Lacey recovered first, smiling at Mallory and handing her a piece of paper. She did the same to Luis.

Mallory fought the urge to turn away. There was no point in dissing Lacey publicly.  Although Luis seemed to be perfectly willing to do so. His jaw tightened and he could barely look at her. Mallory forced herself to look Lacey in the eye.

Lacey sucked in a breath. “I’m raising money for a memorial bench for Jacob. There’s no pressure, but if you want to help, there’s a list of places where you can donate.” She said the words so fast that Mallory had to concentrate to make sense of them.

“A bench for your brother?” She shot a sideways glance at Luis. At least he wasn’t glaring at Lacey any more.  “That’s a nice thing to do, Lacey.”  She shifted awkwardly.

“Thanks. I just wanted to do
something
, and he loved this tree.” Her ex-friend looked at her hopefully.

“I remember that,” Mallory said. “It’s a great idea.”

“Yeah,” Luis said, already moving away, “Good luck.”

Lacey’s eyes glistened, but Mallory told herself she didn’t care. She turned away from her ex-best friend to follow Luis, ignoring the churning feeling in her gut.

But even as she did, she couldn’t help but wonder if maybe—just maybe—they’d just taken a tiny baby step in the right direction.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Brittany was unaccountably nervous about her date that night. More nervous than she’d been even when she’d first gone out with Marcus.

Things were more volatile than ever when it came to her family and her boyfriend, but tonight of all nights, Marcus had insisted on picking her up directly from her house.

She didn’t have to wonder why. He was clearly making a statement to her father and grandmother. And she understood why he needed to. Really, she did. She just wished he’d waited a bit. Patience was the key, in her opinion. Brittany thought that her family just needed more time to come to terms with her choice of boyfriend.

Or perhaps she was just being a coward by trying to delay the inevitable fallout.

Either way, she was waiting at the door when he arrived. She opened it before he could ring the doorbell, slipped outside, and closed the door behind her quietly.

His brow arched up, but he didn’t say anything about her obvious attempt to avoid a confrontation with her father.

“You look great,” she told him, because he did. His fitted black tee showed off his to-die-for build, and his jeans fit him so well it was distracting to her peace of mind.

That got a small smile out of him. “You look better.”

Her hands smoothed restlessly down the flared skirt of her dress. She felt warm all over from that one little sentence, but after he said it he became uncharacteristically quiet.

He was silent as he opened her car door and handed her in. She watched him round the front of the car, then head to the driver’s seat. He looked so serious, his jaw hard.

Even stern-faced, he was sexy as hell. Maybe even more so. When he folded himself into the car and started driving, all she could think about was how much she wanted to touch him, kiss him, press herself against him. They never had enough time alone together.

“Murphy’s Pub okay for dinner?” he asked her.

“Yeah, of course. Only…do you want to go for a drive first?”

“A drive?” he asked. “Where?”

“Anywhere. We could find a private place to park and watch the sunset.” She felt herself blushing in the dark. “And, you know, talk.”

He took her literally, when she hadn’t meant it that way. “It hasn’t been the best couple of days for me, and I’m not really in the mood to talk about it, but if you want to get anything off your chest, I’m all ears.”

She chewed on her lip, feeling suddenly shy. She didn’t want to talk any more than he did. She felt too uneasy with what had happened with his family to want to address it just yet.

When she’d said “talk,” what she’d really meant was “park somewhere so that we can touch each other as much as possible in the confines of this car,” but she wasn’t sure how to say that.

“Okay,” she said in a small voice.

“Okay, as in you want me to find a place to park and watch the sunset so you can talk?” he tried to clarify.

“Sure,” she said. She figured she’d show him what she really wanted when he had the car safely in park.

As Marcus drove to accommodate her, they both grew silent, lost in their own thoughts.

It was a gorgeous drive to the outskirts of town at this time of day, with a clear view of the sky changing color above the rolling green hills as the sun slowly sank into the horizon. The sky was quickly shifting from a soft lavender to a deep violet as sunset swiftly approached.

Brittany took in the view as they drove, her mind busy. She wondered how she could make up for the other day, when she’d essentially turned her back on him in the street. She’d done it to avoid further drama—none of them had needed that—but she felt she’d done something wrong, not in her intent, but in how it had come across. She hated that Marcus might think she doubted him or that she’d chosen her family over him, because that was not how she felt.

She almost brought up what had happened a dozen times on the short drive, but he’d stated very clearly that he didn’t want to talk about it, and the last thing she wanted to do was add to his burden.

That conversation could wait, she figured, because no matter what misunderstandings they had, she knew they’d figure them out eventually. And regardless of what her father and grandmother thought, she had no intention of letting Marcus go.

Marcus found one of the better park and view spots that dotted the side of the road closer to town. He stopped the car, setting his keys in the coin tray.

“Is this a good spot?” he asked her.

“Yes, thank you,” she replied.

They suffered through a small and unavoidable awkward moment. Neither knew where to start, either with action or words.

One thing became clear to Brittany after a while though. She’d have to be the one to make the first move.

She had her entire body turned to look at Marcus, who was staring straight ahead, determinedly giving her his uncompromising profile.

He seemed so unreachable to her tonight that she wondered why he hadn’t canceled their plans.

She opened her mouth to ask him if he was okay but closed it. That felt wrong. Her mind flitted from one thing to another, as she tried to decide if she could ask him about work, Ian, his family. She wanted to stick with neutral topics, but the problem was that when he was this clearly out of sorts, nothing felt neutral. Even asking him to take a drive with her had caused a bit of tension.

Finally, with a resigned sigh, she just came out and asked him. “Are you not in the mood for this? I won’t mind if you want to call it quits early tonight. I know it’s been hard, and I don’t want to add to your burdens.”

That got a head turn for her. His dark eyes met hers. “I’m sorry for my mood,” he said solemnly, “but no, I don’t want to call it quits early tonight. Unless you do?”

She shook her head in answer. In spite of his unapproachable demeanor, she still wanted nothing more than to crawl into his lap and make them both feel better for a while. “I don’t want to go home. But I also don’t want to talk.”

He grabbed his keys, starting the car again. “All right. You ready to go eat?”

She didn’t answer right away, but he froze when she placed her hand on his thigh, rubbing just above his knee.

He shut off the car again.

“No, I’m not ready to eat yet,” she finally answered quietly.

He didn’t seem to have a problem with that. And he certainly didn’t seem to have a problem when she unbuckled her seat belt and leaned in, her other hand reaching up to pull his head down to hers.

She pressed their lips together tentatively. There was a question in the kiss. She wasn’t sure if he would kiss her back.

With a sigh of pleasure he returned the kiss, his tongue thrusting into her mouth, stroking until he drew a moan out of her.

Without breaking the contact she climbed onto his lap, straddling him until their bodies were flush. She moved against him in small, tight, restless motions, building up a friction that had them both desperate and needy for more.

When she began to rub herself against him more boldly, he gasped, “Brittany,” his voice a shocked rasp.

But he didn’t stop her. Which was good, because she had no intention of stopping.

They couldn’t get enough of each other, lips feeding voraciously. One of his hands gripped her hip, guiding her movements, his other reaching up to fondle her, palming her breast.

His every touch sent pleasure chills across her skin. She could feel how aroused he was as she moved against him and it was intoxicating to rub their bodies together, but she quickly wanted more. More contact, more sensation.

He seemed to be of the opposite mindset as he suddenly wrenched his mouth away. “We need to slow this down. If we go much further, I’m not sure how I’ll stop.”

She didn’t want to stop, she decided impulsively. No. She couldn’t
stand
for it to stop.

“So don’t.”

He looked as confused as he did aroused. “What?”

“Don’t stop.”

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Here?”

She didn’t care where they were, only that they were alone, which was a too-rare occurrence. “Yes,” she breathed.

With a moan, he took her mouth again, his drugging kisses longer, deeper, their mouths grinding together as his lips consumed hers.

She couldn’t catch her breath. She loved kissing him, but something about the contact had changed when she’d told him not to stop.

His hands moved over her body with a new possessive intensity. His every touch seemed more desperate than it had before, every contact bolder with promise.

He cupped her bottom with both hands, fitting her sex closer to his hardness, and she moaned into his mouth as his hips moved to grind her against the jutting pressure of his hard-on.

She was flushed, every part of her body throbbing.

“I have a blanket,” he groaned into her lips.

She came out of her lustful stupor enough to try to decipher his words. “What?”

“Behind your seat. There’s a blanket. We could get in the back seat? It’s less cramped.”

She agreed eagerly.

He spread a blanket out over the seats and laid her back tenderly. “Is this all right?” he asked her softly.

She nodded. It wasn’t comfortable exactly, but it was pleasant enough for her, though she did feel sorry for him as he filled the small space.

He didn’t seem to notice, too intently focused on
her
. A shiver rocked through her body as he raised her skirt, spread her thighs, and settled his hips heavily between.

The sun had completely set, but the moon and stars were bright enough on their own in the beautiful Texas night sky. She could still make out enough of him in the dimness to decipher his face moving closer to hers.

“Brittany,” he said, voice thick with desire, and melded their lips back together.

His body tensed several beats later as he raised himself far enough off her to slide a hand between them, his fingers playing with her through the thin layer of her panties. “You’re wet.” He groaned.

She thought he would go fast then, but he didn’t. Instead, he spent what felt like an eternity teasing her from desire to madness, until she was begging him to take her.

By the time he pulled her dress up her body and off, followed quickly by her bra, then her panties, she was too far gone to feel any misgivings as the night air whispered through the open windows, touching her naked skin.

Her needy fingers grasped at his stomach as he shrugged out of his shirt. He was ripped with muscles, and she loved the feel of him. She tried to help him unbutton his jeans, but ended up being more of a hindrance in her eagerness, and finally just let her hands drop in an attempt to speed his efforts.

It worked. He had his jeans and boxers down, condom out of his wallet and rolled onto his thick length, and was back between her thighs with a few swift motions.

He entered her with one smooth, deep-rooted thrust, their mouths panting together as he set a tenderly passionate rhythm that drove Brittany quickly to the brink.

He took her with slow, sublime purpose, bringing her to a crashing climax before he let himself follow with her name on his lips.

One sane thought went through her mind as the aftereffects of her pleasure rocked through her: Marcus was as skilled at taking her body as he was at taking her heart.

“This probably wasn’t how you envisioned our first time together,” he eventually said, his lips at her neck. They’d been there for a while, inundating her tender flesh with affectionate kisses that made her shiver in sated delight. “I’m sorry we didn’t make it to a bed.”

“It was perfect,” she said. And it had been. She didn’t care about a bed. All that mattered was that she was here with Marcus.

They looked at each other, then smiled. For tonight at least, they could put their troubles aside and just bask in their newfound intimacy.

Brittany felt hopeful. Tomorrow might bring more troubles, but they would work through them together.

CHAPTER NINE

 “Please, Hector,” Joanne begged as he herded her into their bedroom yet again. Her voice grated on his nerves. This was the second time today she’d forced him to tighten the reins on the household. “Not again. Not now. I need to finish making dinner.”

Hector clenched his fists to keep from touching her, but it was an effort. He was sick and tired of her telling him what to do. She’d become dangerously willful in his absence. The woman honestly thought that every little thing had to go just the way she wanted. It was his job to show her otherwise. First she’d hurt Dakota. It was bad enough to have her panting after the damn sheriff. But now she was choosing Tate Johnson over him. Abandoning preparations for his dinner to answer the goddamned phone.