Storm Ravaged (Storm Damages 2) (Storm Legacy) (7 page)

Storm Industries? I close my eyes and fire off a prayer to whoever might be listening up above. Please let it be anyone but
him.
I turn around.

“Gabriel Storm.” I breathe. My heart pounds at the sight of him. It’s only been a couple of weeks since we talked. Not long enough of an absence to cause this reaction. How can he affect me this much?

With the aid of his walking stick, Gabriel comes to his feet. As always, polite to a fault. “Ms. Watson, how very
nice
to see you again.”

The dark gray, three-piece business suit caresses Gabriel’s broad shoulders and hugs those powerful legs. But it’s the magnificent body within that takes my breath away. I’ve loved that body with singular intensity, licked it, tasted it, clutched it tightly in my arms. Hungered for it on countless nights when I couldn’t sleep. My boss might be only a foot away, but given half a chance I’d jump Gabriel right now.

When Mr. Carrey’s phone rings and he takes the call, I thank my lucky stars. Because I can’t stop my body from trembling.

Gabriel’s aquamarine eyes wrinkle at the ends. “Anything wrong?” His voice’s a study in innocence.

The bastard. He knows exactly what he does to me. I try hard to get my emotions under control. “No.” My hand flies to my belly. “The baby kicked, that’s all.”

“Oh.” That shifts his attention.

“Yes.
She
’s moving around a lot now.”

“She? So it’s a girl?” Is he disappointed? I can’t tell. And by now he knows the child is his. The doctor called yesterday with the result of the paternity test.

“Maybe. I have an appointment this afternoon to find out.”

“That’s splendid.” he says, all nonchalant politeness, like the sex of our baby is of no interest to him. But his eyes? They tell a different story. His concern is so strong, it’s almost a living, breathing thing between us.

Mr. Carrey interrupts to let us know lunch has been served in the Jefferson conference room. While we head in that direction, I fight to guard my emotions. I’ll need to stay far away from Gabriel during the lunch meeting.

But luck’s not on my side. Terry, Brian, and Mark are all ready in the conference room, seated around the table. By the time, I grab my sandwich, salad and drink, the only seat available is right next to Gabriel. Figures. Fate can be a hairy bitch at times. After we eat, he discusses the projects he’d like to develop. Wind and solar power projects to start. More down the road.

After the Q&A winds down, Mr. Carrey takes over. “Storm Industries will be opening a New York branch to manage its North American projects. The office will be operational by December 1.”

“Who’ll be heading the New York office?” Brian asks.

A pause. “Officially, Miranda Stone will be in charge,” Gabriel says.

What?
That’s not what he said two weeks before. Did he lie to me then or is he lying now?

“You’ll need to keep that information confidential until we issue a press release. It shouldn’t be long. Maybe another week or two,” he says.

While everyone’s busy taking notes, he rubs his leg against mine. Not an incidental contact, going by the slow insistence of it. I swallow back the hot need that rises within me. Why does he always do this to me? I can’t be in a room with him, without falling apart.

Mercifully, the presentation concludes and he shakes hands all around, with everyone except me. Why does he do that?

But I don’t have time to ponder that question when I catch the time on my watch. Two o’clock and my appointment is at three. “Sorry, but I have to run. Doctor’s appointment.” l stick out my hand forcing the issue. “So glad to see you again, Mr. Storm.”

“Please call me Gabriel.” The words he used that night in The Brighton penthouse when he insisted I call him by his first name. Afraid it would slip out during a business meeting, I initially declined. Ironic, given our present circumstances.

“Gabriel.” When he clasps my hand between both of his, I realize the colossal mistake I’ve made. I can’t touch him without every one of my senses reeling from the heat of him.

“Where’s your doctor’s appointment?” he asks, not letting go.

“M Street, close to Georgetown.”

“I’m staying at the Four Seasons, not far from there. Unless you’ve already arranged transportation, I can drop you off if yon wish. It’s quite nasty outside.” He points out the window toward Pennsylvania Avenue where a blustery wind and a hard, pounding rain has people scurrying for cover.

Get into his limo with him? No. I’m barely holding it together as it is. “I’ll take a taxi.”

“You might find it difficult to find one in this weather.”

“He’s right, Liz.” Mr. Carrey says. “Might as well take Storm up on his offer.”

I sigh. If I refuse Gabriel again, Mr. Carrey will wonder why. I have no choice but to accept. “Thank you, Gabriel. That’s very gracious of you.”

“My pleasure,” he says with that devastating smile, the one that makes my nipples hard.

“I’ll go get my things and meet you back here.”

On our ride down on the elevator, we don’t exchange a word. Hard to carry on a conversation with other people drifting in and out.

Outside he pops open his umbrella. Somehow he manages to juggle that and his briefcase while leaning on the cane.

“Come near so you don’t get wet.” His umbrella could shelter a Shetland pony. Yeah, it’s that big.

When I lean in, his yummy scent hits me like a semi, and I grow wet in an instant. No surprise since I’ve fantasized about being this close to him every night in my dreams.

As I expected, Samuel’s waiting by the limo.

“Hi, Samuel.”

“Ms. Watson.” He nods.

I slide in ahead of Gabriel.

“Where to, Mr. Storm?” Samuel asks after getting behind the wheel.

“We’re driving Ms. Watson to her physician.”

“23rd and M, please.” My law office is located at 17th and Pennsylvania so my doctor’s office is not that far. If the day had been fair, I would have walked. But with the weather today? Not a chance.

Gabriel pushes a button and the window between the front seat and the back rolls up, isolating us.

“Thank you for—”

He hauls me into his lap and his lips find mine. No preliminaries, no teasing. His tongue sinks into my mouth, to plunder, mark me as his own, like he can’t get enough of me.

I don’t struggle but give him full access. It’s after all what I’ve dreamed of for the last few months. I’m parched for the taste, the smell, the feel of him. I nibble on his mouth, suckle his tongue. He threads his hand through my hair and tugs my head back so he can get to my throat. Hot, insistent. His need’s greater than mine, so I let him do what he will.

I’m wearing a scoop-necked blouse, one which fastens on the front. He loosens the buttons, exposing my lace-bra covered breasts. His mouth feasts on me, licking, nibbling, suckling my exposed flesh. He roams down to my hardened nipples. Right through the bra, he sucks in the tip of my breast. When he bites down, I let out a moan.

“You wet?”

“Yes,” I say in a shaky voice.

“I’m about to make you wetter.”

Yes, please.
His hand drifts to my ass and he urges me close to him. And we’re right back where we were so many months before. He’s hard beneath me, just like he was during that ride on his limo a lifetime ago. His hand slides beneath my dress, up my thigh, skirts the edge of my thong and he thumbs my hot button. His finger sinks deep into my pussy. Parched as I am, his lust, my passion are all too much and just like that I fall apart.

“Liz?” He moans my name while I convulse into a mind-blowing climax, the likes of which I haven’t experienced in a long time.

It’s only when I come down from my high, I realize his moans are ones of pain. Oh, god, I’ve been trashing on his legs, one of which suffered a serious injury only a few months ago. How much pain he must be in.

“I’m sorry.” I start to scramble off, but he holds me tight to him.

“No, don’t go. Just”—he gulps—”Bloody hell, I can’t believe I’m saying this. Don’t move. Give me a moment to get my pain under control.” Breathing hard, he leans his forehead against mine.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I don’t know what came over me.”

He chuckles followed by another moan. Sweat beads his brow. “Fucking leg.”

I cradle his cheek in my hand. “How did the accident happen?”

“I wrapped my car around a tree. I was drunk as the proverbial lord, love.” His breaths saw in and out of him as he fights for mastery over his agony. “Not one of my finest moments, I know.”

“Why on earth would you drink and drive, Gabriel?”

“Can’t remember. The accident stole my memory of the accident.”

Before I can ask more questions, Samuel’s voice drifts in. “We’re here, Mr. Storm.”

I look out the window and spot the medical building where my doctor’s office is located. I don’t want to leave him, but I must go. Goodbye trembles on my lips.

But I don’t get a chance to say anything. “Let me go with you,” he says. “Be with you when we find out our baby’s sex.”

My heart bleeds for him, for his pain. But the examination is an intimate thing and I always find it so difficult to control my emotions. Today will be especially hard. Would his presence help or hurt? “I don’t know, Storm.”

“Please, Liz. Don’t deny me this joy.”

And suddenly I feel infinitely small for refusing him something every father to be has the right to experience. Even if it tears my heart out. “Okay. But we can’t be seen together.”

“You go in first and I will follow. No one will know, you’ll see.”

Except for the doctor and the medical staff. I’ll make it clear his presence is to be kept confidential. Surely, we’re not the first couple to require such secrecy. “Give me ten minutes. I’ll tell the front desk to show you into my examining room. Don’t give them your name.”

“Thank you. You’ve made me very happy.” He takes my hand, kisses the palm.

And, as always, I melt.

Chapter 8

______________

Gabriel

TEN MINUTES AFTER LIZ LEAVES THE LIMO, I walk into her doctor’s office. The results of the paternity test she took earlier in the week irrevocably prove I'm the father of the child she carries which gives me the legal right to demand custody. But I want more than that. If the child is a boy, he can inherit the title of the Earl of Winterleagh, but only if we marry before the babe is born.

The first time I proposed, Liz turned me down. Her objection stemmed from the deal my mother forced upon her. She would keep mum about my father’s role in my tutor’s death in exchange for Liz breaking up with me. But now with Tilly, the only witness to the crime, retired to a Caribbean island cottage, my mother’s blackmailing scheme no longer holds.

But was that the only reason Liz broke up with me? Her goal is to become a corporate attorney. She’s doing everything right to get there—pursuing a law degree at a top law school, working at a premier law firm in Washington, D.C. Apparently, our liaison was a covert affair. If anyone had found out, she could have lost her job. Did my mother’s scheme give her the excuse she needed to bow out?

Whatever happened in London, she’s still drawn to me, going by the way she fell apart in my arms. And I’ll use that attraction, and whatever else I can devise, to bend her to my will.

Not only do I have a responsibility to this child we created, but something about her stirs my body in ways no other woman has since I wrapped my Jag around a tree. For the last several months, I’ve lived the life of a monk. Not by choice, but by circumstances. At first I notched my impotence to the medications coursing through my system, but once most of the drugs were discontinued, I could no longer assign the blame to them. No matter how many beautiful women came on to me, nothing stirred below.

Until the day Liz came to the hotel.

A mere whiff of her scent, a bare taste of her lips and my cock hardened into iron. It took everything I had in me not to take her right then and there against the wall, like a common trollop. But this woman who carries my child and, with any luck, the future Earl of Winterleagh deserves to be treated better than that. I’m not letting her get away. No matter what I have to do.

Ten minutes after she exits the limo, I walk into her doctor’s office. Once I tell them I’m here for Liz, I’m shown past the door to the inner sanctum of the surgery. The place has a clean citrus scent to it, rather than the hospital disinfectant one encounters at too many doctor's offices. A knock on a door later, Liz answers “Come in.”

When I walk into the room, a no-nonsense nurse is taking Liz’s blood pressure and temperature. After she weighs Liz and measures the girth of her waist, she enters the information into a computer.

“The doctor will be here in a few minutes, Ms. Watson. You’ll need to change.” She points to a paper gown just before she leaves.

“Thank you,” Liz says.

“Efficient little thing, isn’t she?” I say just to have something to say.

The examining room fails to impress me; it's the size of a postage stamp. But I withhold judgment about the quality of the care. After all, it's not the smell of the place or the size of the room that's important, but the competence of the medical staff.