Heat of the Storm

.

Give a SEAL an inch, and he’ll take your heart.

An
Out of Uniform
story.

Lieutenant Wil Charleston has waited fifteen long years to show up as anything other than a one-pixel blip on Mackenzie Wade’s romantic radar. If a powerful storm is what he needs to send her into his arms, he’l take it. Once the hot sex is over, though, she seems determined to kick him right back into the friend zone.

Not this time. This time, he’s going to teach her the meaning of tenacious.

Mackenzie has always had feelings for Wil , feelings she fights with al her strength. He’s her best friend, her safety net. The one man who’s not scared of her accursed psychic gift. No doubt he drives her wild in bed, but their night of passion was more than a mistake. It generated a tragic vision of the future, one that leaves her more confused—and afraid—than ever.

Problem is, Wil knows her too wel . Plus he’s a SEAL to the bone. And they don’t like to lose…

Warning: This title contains a Navy SEAL who knows exactly what he wants—ridiculously hot and dirty sex with the woman he’s been fantasizing about for years. Stormy sex and graphic language await you.

eBooks are
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transferable.

They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an
infringement on the copyright of this work.

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

Samhain Publishing, Ltd.

577 Mulberry Street, Suite 1520

Macon GA 31201

Heat of the Storm

Copyright © 2009 by Elle Kennedy

ISBN: 978-1-60504-633-4

Edited by Laurie Rauch

Cover by Natalie Winters

All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: July 2009

www.samhainpublishing.com

Heat of the Storm

Elle Kennedy

This one’s for my two L’s—Lori and Laurie.

Wicked hands.

Wet tongue.

Body aching, pulsing, throbbing.

The erotic images jolted Mackenzie Wade out of an already agitated sleep. Outside her rambling old ranch house, the wind howled, slapped against the shingles of the ancient roof and shook the wal s with a ferocity that had her heart pounding faster. Rain slid over the windowpanes, leaving wet streaks on the glass, and the ominous rumbling of thunder and white flashes of lightning were a startling combination of light and dark, silence and chaos.

She hated storms. When she was a kid, the arrival of a thunderstorm would send her running into her older sister’s bedroom, where she’d burrow under the covers with Alice, shut her eyes and wait for the powerful display of nature to subside.

Nowadays she didn’t cower. Tonight’s storm was violent, but it wasn’t what woke her. Oh no. The carnal vision was responsible for that.

It wasn’t a vision.

She said the words in her head a few times, hoping the repetition would convince her wired brain the images that had just flashed through it were not of the psychic variety. But both mind and body refused to accept it.

The physical symptoms were there—dizziness, numbness in her fingers and toes, the burning in her temples that was neither painful nor pleasant. Her brain also showed signs of extrasensory activity. She could practical y feel it humming, synapses and neurotransmitters crackling and hissing.

It wasn’t a vision.

With a sigh, she hopped out of bed and headed for the door. The hardwood floor under her bare feet was icy, prompting her to slip into a pair of thick wool socks before descending the stairs and heading for the kitchen.

She brewed herself a cup of herbal tea and leaned against the large cedar work island in the middle of the country-style room.

Warm lips dragging over fevered flesh…

“No,” she whispered.

It was too late. Her body reacted instantly. Nipples hardened into tight peaks, thighs trembled, stomach clenched. For God’s sake. It wasn’t like she was hard up for sex or anything. She’d only broken up with Dan a couple of weeks ago. Her body shouldn’t be this hungry.

Just a dream, she told herself. Because no way would she have had a vision about Wil Charleston.

Will
, for God’s sake. Her best friend. The one man in her life she’d always been able to count on. He was the broad shoulder she leaned on, the ear she whispered her secrets into, the arms that caught her when she fel . He wasn’t the man she’d envisioned having wild animal sex with. He couldn’t be.

Even after years of living with this gift—and she used the term loosely—she stil wasn’t entirely sure how it worked. The images came and went.

Sometimes a mundane detail, like the image of Amy, the owner of the bakery, burning a rack of brownies.

Other times the images were more troubling. A car accident, her neighbor Mrs. Harrison breaking her back, a death. Visions of the future and always the future of others—she’d never seen herself in a vision.

Which meant that it had al been a dream. A figment of her imagination. She’d only imagined her naked body sprawled across cool white sheets, devoured by Wil ’s talented mouth and eager hands.

Only imagined the delicious stretching of her body as his thick cock penetrated her, thrust into her, drove her over the edge.

A dream.

A wicked dream that wasn’t going to come true.

Especial y not tonight.

She sipped her tea, the hot liquid warming her insides. The storm continued to rage, the wind shrieked, the rain pounded.

The pounding grew louder. It took a moment to realize that it wasn’t the rain after al . Someone was knocking on the door.

Wariness climbed up her throat like a vine. She’d taken two steps toward the kitchen doorway when her eyesight blurred. Temples throbbed. Light-headed.

Numb.

Long fingers gripping her ass, digging into her
flesh.

Hot mouth clasping over a rigid nipple.

I want you, Mackenzie. Now. Always.

She swal owed hard. What was happening? She couldn’t shut out the mental assault, the seductive images prickling at her mind like dozens of little bee stings.

The knocking grew incessant.

Sucking in a breath, she walked to the front door and reached for the knob. Her fingers froze over the metal as a rush of heat suddenly torpedoed into her and settled between her legs.

“Who’s there?” she cal ed shakily.

“Mac, open up. I’m getting drenched out here.”
Droplets of rain sprinkling onto her lips.

Tongues tangling.

No. Oh God, no.

“Let me in, Mackenzie.”

She slowly opened the door then stepped aside as a very wet Wil Charleston pushed his way inside.

“What are you doing here?” she blurted. “It’s past midnight. And in case you hadn’t noticed, there’s a hurricane out there.”

“Thunderstorm,” he corrected. “It was a bitch driving al the way out here from Coronado in this rain, but I needed to see you.”

Her mouth grew dry. “Why? What’s so important that you risked getting into a car accident over?”

“I think you know.”

Four words. Smoky with seduction and shrouded with erotic promise.

This couldn’t be happening.

And yet everything about the situation, everything about
him
, spoke otherwise.

His dark eyes glimmered with passion. His sensual mouth was set in a firm line, his defined jaw tight, as if he’d come here prepared for her to fight him. She’d never seen Wil like this before. Raw masculinity seemed to ooze out of his pores. It teased her, taunted at her, wrapped around her like a lover’s touch and caused every nerve in her body to tingle.

He shrugged out of his navy blue windbreaker and tossed it on the wooden bench next to the front door.

Next he kicked off his boots. Drops of rain slid from his dark hair, down his rugged face and dripped onto the floor.

He strode into the living room without invitation. Not that he needed one. Wil had always been welcome in her home and he was there often, fil ing the house with his comforting presence.

Tonight she wasn’t comforted. Tonight his presence was…different. Masculine. Passionate. Dangerous.

“It’s time we talked about what happened last week,” he said in that rough voice of his.

She gulped. “Nothing happened last week.” Darn it, why did he have to bring it up? She’d hoped that during the past seven days, while he’d been traipsing around in the jungle, he might have forgotten about it.

He tilted his head, those bottomless dark eyes piercing right through the lie and glittering with piercing right through the lie and glittering with chal enge. “I beg to differ.”

He moved closer and the spicy scent of his aftershave wafted into her nostrils. She inhaled it, nearly keeling over backwards as the sexy aroma surrounded her and grasped her senses. God, he smel ed good.

“You kissed me,” he said gruffly.

“It was a mistake.”

“We both know that’s not true.” Another step toward her. “Do you know that this past week has been torture for me? You
kissed
me, Mac, and the next morning I had to get on a chopper, without getting the chance to talk to you about it.” He visibly swal owed.