Storm Kissed Read Free

know you’re working to get us someplace better, and I want that too. But don’t you understand? We’re safest when we’re staying sharp and watching each other’s backs. And if you think ignoring what’s going on between us isn’t a distraction, then you’re a bigger idiot than I thought . . . unless you’re not distracted, in which case I’m the idiot.”
    His answering laugh was part groan. “You’re not an idiot.” He got a hand on the back of her neck and pressed her face into the crook of his neck, though she wasn’t sure if he was trying to hold her close or stop her from kissing him again. Beneath her ear, his words rumbled hollowly as he said, “But you know what happens when people pair off around here. They fucking stay here.”
    “Not us,” she said firmly. “We’re better than that. We won’t let ourselves stall.” But she would do her damnedest to slow him down a little before he crashed and burned. “We can be together and still have our dreams.” She might not want a wide-open prairie anymore, but she hadn’t stopped picturing tomorrow, didn’t ever plan to.
    He held himself still and silent for a long moment as thunder rumbled beneath the rattling raindrops. Then, softly, he said, “Do you really think so?”
    For a second she thought that she had to have imagined the question. But there was no mistaking the way one of his hands slid from the back of her head to her nape, the other from her shoulder to her waist. Suddenly, he wasn’t holding her captive against him anymore. He was simply holding her.
    Holy shit. The air left her lungs in a rush as she realized that she was getting through to him. Or maybe he’d finally gotten to the end of his self-control—maybe, probably, a combination of the two. She didn’t know, didn’t care. Putting all her certainty into it, she said, “I know so. We’re better together than apart, and that’s a fact.”
    Together, they had waged war on the Cobras, had helped Detective Fallon’s task force weaken the powerful gang and its reign of terror. They had watched each other ’s backs, watched each other grow up. And if he had been the boss of their joint ventures more often than not, she had been okay with following his lead . . . at least until now.
    Now, she was taking the lead. And he’d better catch up.
    “I don’t want to get this wrong,” he rasped. “It’s too damn important.” But his hand dropped to her hip and his fingers curved in a warm, possessive grip.
    Her pulse hammered. A gust rattled the windows, making her feel as if the storm was inside her, inside him, racing between them. The beat of the rain was the rush of blood in her veins; the lightning was the searing electricity she saw in his eyes. “I don’t want to make a mistake either,” she said softly. “But I’m tired of waiting to start our lives. I want to live them instead.”
    Thunder rumbled as he tightened his grip on her. “Reese, there’s something else I need to—”
    “Love me,” she interrupted, forcing the words past the weight of nerves because her gut said it was time to stop talking. “Please love me, because . . . Hell, because I love you.”
    She had never said the words before; neither of them had. Not, she suspected, to anyone. And the moment she did, lightning flashed hard, something went zzzt outside, and the electricity died.
    Holy. Crap.
    It wasn’t the first time they had lost power during a storm—far from it—but it was the first time she’d been in Dez’s arms when it happened, the first time the darkness had made her so vividly aware of her other senses. She smelled the newness of his leather and the stormy air that still clung to him. And when he said, “Damn it, Reese,” she heard loud and clear the too-serious tone that meant a lecture was coming.
    She tightened her grip on the collar. “Don’t even think—”
    He cut her off with a kiss that made her senses spin even as the reality froze her in place.
    Dez. Was