Beyond the Storm (9780758276995) Read online

She broke the kiss and looked up at him, her green eyes leading them down to the blanket he’d set for their earlier picnic, soup bowls pushed away, the space cleared for them and them alone. As her head rested against the pillow, Adam lay beside her, his fingers tracing a line first on her upper lip, her lower lip, and then lower still, against her chin and down her elegant neck. He felt her shiver from his touch.

  As they kissed again, Adam’s fingers toyed with the buttons of the blue dress shirt she’d discovered in the closet upstairs. There was nothing sexier than a woman in a man’s shirt. And he told her so, his whispering lips so close she reacted with an arch of her body to the stubble on his cheek. Buttons slipped through holes, and Adam drew back both flaps of the shirt, revealing Vanessa’s slim frame, her supple breasts. She wore no bra. She breathed deeply as he hesitantly touched the crook of her neck with his fingers.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Perfect.”

  “Nervous.”

  “No.”

  “You?”

  “Incredibly.”

  “Okay, good. Me too.”

  He shifted his body over hers, his lips again finding her neck. She arched her back as she again felt his unshaven face, scruffy and rough. He heard her react, heard her groan with desire. Felt her fingers clutch at him through his shirt, digging into the muscles of his back. Kissing her with a new, enveloping passion, he tasted salt and sweet on her neck, in the deep crevice between her round breasts. As his tongue encircled her jutting, enticing nipples, one, the other, he again tasted heat, an electric sizzle they had spontaneously ignited between them. As he took her left nipple in his mouth, his fingers gently rubbed and toyed with the other.

  “Adam, oh, oh,” she whispered, “the way you touch me . . .”

  He could feel her hands caressing his back, foraging upward and running them through his hair. Her words, her touch, both and so much more fed his growing energy. He rose up on his knees, his body straddling her sides. They grinned at each other, but neither said anything and such nothing spoke volumes. They wanted more, they wanted each other.

  Vanessa reached up, grabbing at the buttons of his shirt. She started from the bottom and Adam started from the top and at last they met in the middle, and together, fingers entwined, undid the final button, peeling it off his shoulders, and letting the shirt fall against the floor. She drew her fingers across his chest, ruffling the dark hair that covered it, following an equally dark trail down his flat belly until it teasingly disappeared beneath the waistline. Turning him on his back, Vanessa took control, kissing his neck and his ears. Adam felt warm sensations take command of his system, sending rippling messages to his synapses. My God, she knew just how to touch him, just where to stroke him. Her mouth found his nipples. She slid her hand over his chest, grazing her fingers through the thick mat of hair.

  “So sexy, so surprising,” she said as she pulled away.

  He reached for her, kissing her again as their bodies switched positions. Blue eyes met green, they connected again, and both knew what was still to come as an impactful decision loomed before them. Were they really going to give in to their passion? Was this the smartest thing for them to be doing right now? But what was to stop them? Why should they? Not one soul had come to their rescue and no one was going to be coming for them, not for the remainder of tonight. So should they limit themselves to talk long into the night, deny the deep connection they were experiencing now? No, this moment in time was theirs, not like when they were foolish teenagers, not like that awful night in New York eleven years ago, the two of them exerting power over the other. No, this was here, now, and it was urgency taking hold of them. An undeniable attraction had been unleashed, one either to be doused by the storm or quenched by the fire. The difference today was how they felt. Knowing . . . believing this was meant to be. Time finally catching up to them.

  Adam snuggled in beside her, his body tight against hers. He kissed her earlobe, tasted it.

  “Are you sure?”

  “More than ever. You?”

  “Yes, me too.”

  “I can tell,” she said, trying to suppress a laugh but failing.

  Just then Vanessa popped up from the blanket. A sly grin crossed her face, an appealing look that drew Adam to her every action. She slid the loose-fitting jeans down her legs, kicked them to the sofa. Adam just stared, at her alluring smile and the curves of her body, the way the former seemed to enhance the latter. Whatever had possessed her to run out into the storm a short while ago, she’d either released it or buried it, but no matter, her mood had deepened. The playful girl transformed into a wanting tigress. And as if to prove that there was no going back, she slid off the last of her clothing, the pale, delicate panties, revealing her most sacred self.

  He gulped, stared. Reached out.

  “Well?” she asked.

  “Well?” she repeated.

  Adam’s body appeared locked, his mouth open but his words hidden inside. Vanessa was thankful to be given a moment to truly consider what they were doing. Was this what she had envisioned when she’d accepted the invitation to attend the reunion? Point-blank, had she come all this way expecting to have sex with Adam Blackburn? Was it really that simple? Had she not grown up at all after twenty years? And just where was that romp supposed to take place, certainly not in the coach’s office of the school’s gymnasium, so maybe on the grassy hill by the water tower where once upon a time they’d agreed to attend the dance together? In a hotel room, with her secretly passing him the key card to her room during one of the evening’s boring toasts? Each scenario was ridiculous, tinged with the impossible. She knew she wouldn’t have had the guts to go through with any of it, not there. Because she promised herself this time when she saw him, it wasn’t going to be about sex. It was going to be about telling the truth.

  Which, she reminded herself, she still hadn’t done.

  Not even close.

  But there was no going back now. She’d revealed her complete self to Adam. She gazed at his handsome face and strong jaw. She loved how strangely secure the touch of his chest hair made her feel, like she could roll herself up within him, feel his warmth. She stole a glance at the obvious rise in his pants, which, moments from now, she knew would no longer be held captive inside. Again, she liked what she saw. There was a long night ahead of them, and she doubted sleep held much interest for either of them. Sex, sex, sex, that was fine, and when they had exhausted themselves, talk, talk, talk they would, long into the night and into the waking hours of the dawn. That was when all would be revealed. So she promised herself. The physical would come now, emotions later. Yes, she would give herself now, indulging her body’s physical needs, but later, she would go someplace even deeper. Vanessa Massey would attempt to give him her heart by revealing her secrets. Revealing her betrayals.

  For now, she just wanted to feel alive.

  “Take me, Adam,” she said.

  He held her, kissed her fiercely. His tongue felt like fire suddenly, dipped in the embers that crackled near them. She gripped him, her fingers digging into the nape of his neck. Her legs she curled around his waist. With her whole body she pressed tight against him. Adam pulled away, reaching for the button of his pants. He ripped it open, slid the zipper down, and tossed the pants aside, the shorts quickly following. Lying down on the blanket, fully revealed, his erection pressed hard against her.

  “Do we need . . . ?” he started to ask.

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know . . . I mean, I do . . . we don’t . . . trust me . . .”

  An actual tear slid from her eye, and Adam bent down, absorbed it with his kiss.

  “It’s okay . . .” he said.

  She nodded, stared deep into the windows of his eyes, and saw only comfort. And that’s when she opened herself up. She could feel the urgency inside now, her desire for him, his for her. Heat giving way to desperation, desperation to desire. True moments like this, they were few and far b
etween in the messed-up life of Vanessa Massey, that much she knew and she remembered a series of incidents with bright clarity, as though a catalog of wrong choices and bad men were flipping wildly through her mind. Those images, rather than kill the moment, only made her want this one even more, because it was with Adam, with a nice man, a sweet man, a sexy one, and a giving one, and a . . .

  “Ooohh,” she said, thoughts gone, the past released to now and only now.

  She felt all of him, sliding inside and filling her, resting inside her to allow her body the chance to adapt to this newfound presence. She squeezed her eyes shut, waiting a fast beat of her heart while taking a breath, exhaling sharply. As she opened her eyes, she saw his beautiful ocean of irises seeking hers, peering in, at the soul she seldom let out.

  The connection held, their eyes locked, he pushed more, going further. He slid back, slid in, slid back, again, more still. She was so ready, so moist, she welcomed him and she urged him to not slip out, to not deny her the passion. He kissed her, surprising her with the touch of his lips. She had known men at this point who knew what they wanted and tended to remain focused on their own pleasure. Adam, though, let her know this was more than physical release, this was unrelenting truth. An ache inside her, inside him, that had been waiting . . . for how long? Again, the kiss of the ocean wafted around her, enveloping her, a sensation unlike any she’d ever felt. Adam kissed her once more like a wave washing over her, and then he thrust, he pushed, more, each time with building energy and passion. Each eager motion built upon the last, and before long he was panting, hard, fast, an engine’s fuel powering him. Vanessa took each thrust easily, with a wanton desire matched only by his thrilling, unleashed actions. Words were spoken to the quiet walls, emotions revealed, energy was expounded by grunts and groans, the bodies nearly shaking the long-set foundation of the old farmhouse, chasing away those lingering shadows.

  She was lost in the moment; nothing else mattered. Not yesterday, not tomorrow, not the regrets that lived within her. She barely knew where she was or who she was, she just gave in to the swarming passion stinging at her body. Tiny, rolling orgasms pinged through her as Adam kept pumping, thrusting. Kept loving her, kept looking at her. She urged him more, her fingers grabbing at his back, nipples rubbed red by the springy mat of his chest hair hovering just over. Another wave of blistering heat swallowed her, and she arched her back in anticipation. She knew this one was bigger, better, an explosion that threatened to send her to the other side of the world. She urged him, faster, deeper, hungrier . . .

  Adam drew breath, filling his lungs for the final push. And he did, again thrusting deep inside her. She screamed again, her mouth biting into his shoulder, her nails scraping his back. She could hold back no further, no longer, and suddenly the room was filled with her voice, her inner self revealed and exposed, left open for the world to hear and to know and to wonder why such color is so often drenched in black and white. Her tightly controlled self, she left it behind, perhaps as far behind as her home in Europe or inside the wrecked car sinking into the wet cornfields, or maybe some other place to be found in some faraway land she didn’t even know existed. She unleashed the power and just let it drift away on the electric currents of the wind.

  She felt Adam grow thicker inside her. She knew he was climaxing soon, she could read it in his eyes and feel it in his breath, taste it on her tongue. And then in an amazing rush that had him crying out with that otherworldly combination of pain and shock and surprise and heat, he released himself. He thrust, more, more, and she urged him on, tightening her legs against his backside, not letting him slip out, not just yet.

  At last his body came to rest atop her, his breathing labored. Her chest heaved against his. Sweat dripped from her brow, off her chest, pooling between her breasts. Adam lifted his body, his body slick with sweat, chest hair matted. With her tongue she teased his nipple.

  “Oh my God, enough, enough, let me catch my breath . . .” he said, rolling off her and landing with a satisfying thud against the blanket.

  And Vanessa, seeing his reaction, did something she hadn’t done in quite some time. She giggled, like an impish schoolgirl who just spotted from afar the cutest boy in the class and he’d caught her secretly gazing in his direction. Well, she wasn’t going to look away, not this time, she wouldn’t let this newly invigorated woman who felt more alive now than she had just an hour ago, a day ago, for some time, taste fear. This was about opening up, body, perhaps more. She felt like water had washed over her, threatening to take her in its wake. She had fought back, though. She had reclaimed herself, and by doing so, reclaimed him.

  “Uh, okay, wow,” Adam finally said after minutes of silence.

  “You could say that again,” she said, sidling up beside him, resting her chin on his chest.

  “Actually, I couldn’t,” he said, still catching his breath.

  She laughed while playfully hitting his arm.

  “So, Adam Blackburn, is that how you show all the girls a good time?”

  “You know, usually it’s the moment. This time it’s the woman.”

  “Sweet.”

  “Honest,” he said.

  “Ooh, I like that. Brave man.”

  “What? For being honest? What do you call what we did?”

  “You mean the sex?”

  “It was more than sex, Vanessa, and you know it.”

  Her eyes softened, and she kissed his shoulder. “Yeah, I know it.”

  Neither spoke a word for quite a while, even while it appeared time didn’t move. They just enjoyed the crackle of the fire, the silence of the house. Not even the steady breeze outside was making shutters creak or curtains flap. She realized Adam was right, sometimes it was the moment that took the ordinary and made it extraordinary, and now, this time and this moment, when all the world existed beyond them, leaving them alone, she knew they had redefined their lives, the ones they had shared, the ones they had lived apart.

  Suddenly she bounded up from the floor, looking all around her.

  “What’d you lose?”

  “Not my virginity, that’s for sure,” she said, offering him a quick, surprising laugh and hoping he would follow suit. Quick check of him showed that he was grinning and not making her feel like an idiot for such a dumb thing to say. That was a good sign, they understood each other, their quirks and fallows. “Have you seen the wine bottle? Don’t tell me we finished it.”

  “It’s on the porch, with our glasses. Fear not, there’s still half a bottle.”

  “Perfect,” Vanessa said, “I’ll be right back. And then I want to hear all about her.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Adam Blackburn, don’t think you’ve landed yourself in the arms of a foolish woman. A giving man like you, you can’t have lived without at least having fallen in love once. I’d like to hear about her. How you met, what was good, and why you’re no longer together.”

  “Now? You want to hear about her now?”

  “See, I was right.”

  “Vanessa, after what we just experienced, you want to hear about another woman?”

  She kissed him once, then said, “With what we did, and with such intensity behind our actions, I would hardly think there could remain any secrets between us. Certainly not a little old story about finding the wrong woman.”

  Rising up, resting on his elbows and forearms, Adam said, “Fine, have it your way. But definitely fetch the wine, because I’ll need some reinforcement if I’m going to tell you my sad woes. Oh, and when I’m done, it’s your turn.”

  Vanessa’s back was turned to him at this point as she, gathering up a sheet from an old recliner and wrapping it around her naked self, headed toward the porch, and that was a good thing. Her confidence suddenly wavered, and she felt a bit of wind dip out of her sail. But as nervous as she suddenly was over that prospect, she knew one thing: Adam was right. Hearing his story would be easier—mostly because it didn’t involve her in the least. He’d gone on without her
. As for her own story, now that was really quite the opposite. What happened to her had everything to do with Adam.

  She thought they might need a case of wine to get through that one.

  Still, she pulled herself together by setting aside her problems. She wanted to know more about the life Adam Blackburn had lived, and when she returned from the porch with the wine and those silly jelly glasses and an eager expression on her face, she said, “I’m not going to interrupt. Like you said, my turn will come later. For now, Blackburn, you have the floor . . .”

  “Yes, with you all covered up,” he said.

  Vanessa instinctively tightened her hold on the sheet, all while Adam remained naked.

  Exposed.

  He didn’t see her eyes darken, her pupils hiding as the light from the fire died down. Adam laughed nervously as he made his way to the fireplace, tossing on another log, lighting another match.

  “It always starts with a spark, doesn’t it,” he said. “Her name was . . .”

  CHAPTER 8

  THEN

  “. . . Sarah Jane Stockdale. Blond, tan, athletic, the apple of her father’s discerning eye, a woman who struggled to please everyone around her, all while failing at her own hopes. But that’s what you get when you lived in such a world. Sarah Jane was the youngest daughter of the lead golfing partner of one of my firm’s senior management staff. Had all those connections, all those high-powered labels, he was envied by many to his face and disliked by most behind his back. It all comes down to money, and lots of it. In a world where everything was for sale, I suddenly found myself being put up as the latest commodity. I was dragged in, hardly kicking and screaming, but before it was all over and done with, my name had been dragged through the mud as well. The kind that stains. The kind you can’t easily shower off.”

  From the moment he first heard her name, Adam knew he would hate her. Okay, not her personally, he had nothing against the woman; heck, he didn’t even know anything about her and had to assume she was well-mannered and well-bred, the scion of a family who actually knew what that word meant. The exclusive, pampered world she belonged to was quite another matter. Probably had a cousin named Buffy or Muffy, Adam surmised over drinks one night with his friend Patch, who offered up “poor you” remarks as he poured down tequila shots. No doubt the Stockdales summered in the Hamptons and wintered in St. Moritz and groaned about not being at either during the spring and fall. Bracing from the lime and the salt, Adam asked Patch, “When did the seasons become verbs?”