Free Tame the Storm: 2 (Cinder Mated) by Ella Drake Page A

himself into a sweat and empty his mind for a while.
    After a quick change to work clothes, he climbed into his truck. He’d grab takeout and then head to one of his regular customers’ place.
    Getting away from here was the best idea he’d had in two days.
    And that’s what he did. He called Ray. And he stayed away. All the long day.
    Later, as the sun set over the landscaping job site where he’d pruned and hauled limbs for hours, he climbed back into his truck.
    The big vehicle started with a smooth rumble. He pointed it toward home but then sat idling.
    “Fuck,” he muttered and stared out the windshield. Staying at a hotel would be a good idea. After a day of working, he’d gotten his wits back and needed to keep them. He’d only thought of her about a few dozen times.
    “Ah, damn.” His mind might have calmed, but an anxious need had built over him through the day and it was making him jumpy. If nothing else, it was time to help figure out what had gone down in those mountains. He couldn’t keep hiding.
    The ride home didn’t take long.
    At the end of the driveway, outside the Cinder five-car garage, Griffin took a swig of water and brushed a hand over his forehead. It didn’t quench the thirst he’d had all day. The landscape truck rolled into its spot. He climbed out and strolled around the garage to the potting shed. There’d been a special plant he’d spliced and if he didn’t make sure it stayed in the perfect conditions, it wouldn’t take. It wasn’t much of a delay from the real concerns he needed to get back to, but he had to admit the few minutes of respite helped him to regain his cool.
    After a quick check, he rolled his hand over the pot. A small cloud formed and misted the leaves. The effort to create the small precipitation furrowed across his forehead. It shouldn’t have taken any effort.
    A movement caught at him and he glanced to the sky. A cloud several feet wide—and definitely with his name practically written on it—huddled over the mansion. What the hell? He hadn’t put that there, but there it was, visual proof his powers were fritzing. And proof that he couldn’t ignore.
    In a streak of insight, he remembered that trim above the pussy he wanted above all others. It’d been blonde. Not brown. How hadn’t he noticed or remembered something that vital until now?
    The frustrating woman had dyed her hair. He’d been talking himself out of this mess, this damnable attraction, by telling himself he knew his talent-partner was blonde, from a fucking dream. But now he couldn’t hold onto that fragile excuse. All this meant one thing.
    It’d finally happened to him. To the worst woman possible. Now he had to figure out how to get out of this clusterfuck.
    He had to figure out just what it meant to mate a syphon.
    “Fuck me.”

Chapter Five
     
    She’d just taken off her shirt on the mansion grounds and humped a freaking twister. How could she get off on a swirl of air?
    Astrid stumbled through the wide patio doors and into the house, nearly running to escape Griffin and what he’d done to her body. What she’d let happen.
    She’d righted her clothes best she could, but she was missing a button on her pants, one of the ones with her new signature icon. Tugging them up, she took a breath and tried to place where she’d ended up when she’d been nearly blind with panic.
    She was in a posh living room. Along one wall a gilt-edged mirror reflected the outside, balancing a showy wealth with a reminder of the beauty outside. The antiques were quite real, and costly. The fabrics, well chosen.
    Her mother had always been purposeful with everything from being choosy over Astrid’s private school to pre-approving all of her friends—all proper young para-talents of a non-excitable nature. Their house reflected that meticulous construction. Conventional. Precisely decorated. Nothing ornate or showy.
    All of Astrid’s boyfriends had been arranged, which meant, they’d all been