Wednesday Words: STORMING HIS HEART

A Westlake Enterprises Story

Storm Buchanan’s talent for mind control comes in handy as an investigator for a private agency, but it’s hell on her love life. Men bow to her every whim, so there’s no challenge. Where’s the fun in that?

Maybe that’s why she can’t trust herself around Rafe Savage. The smug, sexy, annoying investigator for a rival firm is the one man who seems impervious to her power. Worse, when he kisses her, she all-too-willingly slips under his control.

Rafe’s gift for seeing into the future doesn’t usually blindside him…until it comes to Storm. The beautiful seductress assaults his control on all fronts, and the spontaneous flashes of her life in danger have his every instinct on alert.

When attempts on both their lives escalate, Storm and Rafe must stick together to find a madman bent on vengeance. While it’s no surprise that their enforced proximity has their bodies going up in flames, neither expects lust to melt into love. Or that they’ll need every ounce of their combined skills to fight for a future that could die before it’s born.

Warning: Beware a heroine with mind control, a sexy hero with attitude, annoying siblings, smug psychics, sexualized danger, and a psychotic villain who can’t be caught

An excerpt from Storming His Heart, the second in the Westlake Enterprises series.

“What’s for breakfast?” Rafe asked, all the while skimming her features. She didn’t look any the worse for wear, so perhaps last night’s odd happenstance had just been a dream. But dreams didn’t leave him feeling sick and dizzy. He normally controlled his visions though, and last night had hit him squarely between the eyes.

“Wh—what…why…?” Storm continued to stare, obviously thrown by his untimely appearance. “What are you doing here?” She crossed her arms over her chest and glared.

“Storm Buchanan, I’m Rafe Savage. It’s a pleasure to officially meet you.” He turned on the charm and she blinked in bewilderment. Without asking, he reached for her limp hand and brought it to his lips.

Touching her made him hard as a rock. Thankfully, she continued to stare into his eyes, as if searching for answers there. He smiled, and her eyes widened. Her ripe lips parted on a breathy gasp.

He wondered if he’d gone overboard on the charm when she continued to say nothing. Then he noticed the rough abrasion on her palm. He turned her hand over, his heart racing.

“Where’d you get this?”

She pulled her hand away and moved to her sofa. Her movements were slow and clumsy, and he watched with suspicion as she carefully lowered herself to sit.

“I don’t know. Must have happened when I tripped the other day.” She settled into the cushions and gave him a wary look.

Not believing her in the slightest, Rafe followed her. He scooped her up into his arms, ignoring her protests, and moved as gently and quickly as he could.

“What the hell are you doing?” She didn’t try to leave his hold, conscious of her injury, no doubt.

“Where’s the bedroom?”

“The bedroom?” Her eyes flickered to the left. “Are you on drugs?”

He walked with her down the bright corridor to a bedroom that had to be hers. Done in soft blues, the room had feminine touches but wasn’t overly frilly. Her queen-size bed, to his disappointment, sported rumpled cotton, not silk sheets. He lowered her to the mattress and waited for her to try to escape.

She didn’t disappoint him.

He stopped her awkward attempt, pulled her to the edge of the bed and opened her robe.

Ignoring her stunned silence and his own heated reaction to her short nightshirt, he examined her first with his eyes, then his hands, conscious of her sudden stillness. Rafe felt the same curves he’d touched just Thursday night and shifted to relieve the building ache in his groin.

She flinched and he froze. A glance at the flesh under his hand told him the unfortunate truth. A large, purplish bruise covered her upper left thigh.

“We should get you to a hospital,” he murmured, still looking at the bruise. A surprising anger filled him. Storm had been hurt, and he was taking it personally, which made little sense. Conscious of what had to be extreme pain, he wanted to take it away, maybe kiss it better. His cock throbbed and he swore to himself, trying to get a handle on his suddenly whacked-out libido. This was no time to be lusting after the woman.

He wondered if she’d broken anything.

Storm wondered if she’d been hit on the head, or worse, maybe suffered from some strange delusion. She hadn’t moved a muscle while a near stranger—albeit a darkly handsome one—groped her. She wanted to attribute most of her response to shock, to deny the fact she actually liked the sensual pleasure of his touch.

She swallowed as his large, callused hands left trails of heat in their wake. She prayed he hadn’t noticed she wasn’t wearing any underwear. But if he inched her shirt up any more, he’d see an eyeful.

“What are you doing?” she asked, wishing she didn’t sound so breathless. He crouched beside the bed, on the floor between her thighs, and studied her bruised leg. “And who gave you my address?”

Rafe ignored her. He grasped her leg at the knee and slowly pushed her thighs apart. Her hip protested, but the pain wasn’t so bad if nothing directly touched her skin. He ran a hand over her leg to the bruise. The sensation gave her goose bumps until he reached the injury. When she sucked in a breath, he stopped and trailed his hand back to her knee.

His gaze met hers. “I don’t think it’s broken, but I’m no doctor. You should see someone.”

Storm took a calming breath, trying to sound relaxed and not horny as hell for a Westlake agent. “First of all, my leg is fine. It’s a little bruised. Okay, a lot bruised,” she amended at his raised brow. “But who the heck do you think you are, busting into my house, issuing orders, touching me…” Her world centered on the large hand still covering her leg. His fingers stroked her knee and she had trouble breathing.

God, he is making me so hot.

He forestalled her next comment with a finger across her lips. It was all she could do not to taste him.

“I’m glad you’re all right.” He looked away from her face and examined her nearly naked body with burning interest.

Storm knew she was pretty but didn’t consider her looks anything out of the ordinary. Thanks to good genes and a steady exercise regimen, she had a slender build and long, toned legs. The thought of them wrapped around his waist made her wet, and she prayed Rafe wasn’t a mind reader. Talk about embarrassing.

His eyes darkened and he traced her lips with his thumb. “I’d love to know what you’re thinking right now.”

Thank God. Not a mind reader. But— She gasped when he slid his other hand to her uninjured leg.

“Hmm. Does it hurt here?”

“N-no.” Move, Storm. Tell this guy to take his grabby self and leave.

“How about here?” Rafe’s hand slid between her thighs. He teased closer and closer to her clit while subtly pushing her legs farther apart, careful not to hurt her. By now her lack of undergarments had to be apparent.

“I’m okay,” she rasped. Her nipples beaded under her shirt, needing to be touched.

Rafe glanced up at her face with a concentrated hunger. “Like I said, I’m no doctor. But I really think you need to be looked at.” He shoved her shirt up, exposing her from the waist down. She’d completely shaved for her date with Hank, on the off chance she got lucky. She couldn’t have imagined Rafe Savage’s indrawn breath would be her reward.

He eased his fingers along her folds, spreading her arousal over her responsive flesh.

“Does it ache?” he rumbled in a low voice.

Hell yes. She closed her eyes, unable to answer.

Then his finger found the heat of her. He pushed inside, knuckle-deep.

“Oh my God.”

“Damn, that’s hot,” he breathed and pulled his finger out, only to push it back in again. “You have to be really hurting here, hmm, Storm?”

She needed to tell him to stop, to demand this man that she didn’t know leave the house and never look back. But everything inside her told her that this was the man she’d been waiting for. Never before had she lost control from a man’s touch or been so ready to have sex.

He rubbed her clit with more and more pressure, manipulating her body as if he owned it. The ease with which he mastered her responses bothered her on a distant level. But she couldn’t think past the need to come hard all over him.

“This is insane,” he said, his voice thick. She opened her eyes to see him gazing between her legs. “Fuck me,” he swore, then removed his hand and covered her clit with his mouth.

She cried out and clenched his thick hair, holding on as desire burst through her in a torrential wave.

Rafe sucked and nipped, licking her like a starving man. He shoved one finger inside her pussy, then added another, thrusting them in a rhythmic pace that had her battling her climax all too soon.

“That’s it, baby. Come all over me. Let me eat it up,” he growled and resumed his course.

He drew harder on her clit and pushed deeper into her, sliding against a sweet spot that sparked stars behind her lids. She arched closer to his mouth and pumped her hips, needing what only Rafe could give her.

“Yes, yes,” she gasped as she came hard.

He devoured her response, licking and stroking with a tongue that wouldn’t quit. When the sensations became too much for her to bear, he eased off and planted kisses along her thighs.

Storm opened her eyes, sated, confused and helplessly caught in the rich brown gaze staring back at her with what looked like possession. “I, that, I—” She had no words to express the bewildered joy infusing her tired mind and body.

Rafe wiped his mouth and sucked the fingers that had been inside her, a gesture that had her licking her lips, wanting to know how he tasted. He stood and she unconsciously sought the erection straining his jeans.

In a thick voice, he said, “I’m going to make us some coffee. We need to talk.” He turned and walked stiffly from the room. She heard the hall bathroom door shut, then silence.

Storm didn’t know what to think and lay back on the bed in a daze. She wasn’t sure how much time had passed before she heard Rafe exit the bathroom. The sounds of the kitchen cabinets opening and closing penetrated while she stared blindly at the doorway, her legs wide open, her sex wetter than wet.

Embarrassed she could barely remember her own name, she rose from the bed, grabbed a change of clothes and limped to her adjoined bathroom to clean up. She emerged fresh but no less embarrassed in loose-fitting sweatpants and a T-shirt.

Rafe stood in her kitchen sipping a cup of coffee. He said nothing, but his eyes darkened as he watched her near. When she reached him, he pushed a cup her way.

Baffled by what to say, and more, what to think, she went through the mundane process of fixing her coffee. She poured a cup and stepped toward the refrigerator when he shook his head.

“I’ll get it. Cream? Sugar?”

“Yeah. Sugar’s in the—”

“Top cabinet. Go sit down. I’ll join you.”

Both annoyed at his arrogance yet glad of it, she huffed and left the kitchen for her dining table in the open living area. At least now she felt the same aggravation she normally felt for anything or anyone connected with Westlake Enterprises. For a minute there, she’d confused incredible sex with affection.

He joined her at the table with a tray carrying their drinks, cream and sugar.

She frowned. “Where’d you find that?” She nodded at the tray, which had been missing for weeks.

“Next to the fridge. Drink up.” He downed his coffee like a thirsting man, and she had the distinct notion he wished it was something a lot stronger.

She fixed her coffee the way she liked it and took a sip, then ran a hand through her hair. It didn’t escape her notice that he followed the movement with intensity. She wondered if he imagined running his own hands through it.

Storm stopped that train of thought and cleared her throat. “What are you doing here?” And why don’t I want you to leave?