Free Storm Surge by Celia Ashley Page B

stay locked in the car all night, Paige removed the keys from the ignition, steeling herself to get out. In one movement, she removed her seatbelt and threw open the door, scrambling out and upright beside the car, purse in hand, heart beating in her ears.
    Inhale. Exhale. Close door. Lock it. Move.
    Years ago, she’d seen a movie in the theater about dinosaurs in a park who had escaped to rampage, stalk, and try to eat the few people on an island. She’d only been seven or eight years old, but still mature enough to recognize the people were actors and the dinosaurs not real. But that night, coming home, walking up to the front door beside her parents, the bushes had rattled, from the wind, perhaps, or a small animal. The fear she’d experienced, no matter how irrational, had been genuine. She felt that way now, standing beside her car with the cottage door key in her hand. Exposed and vulnerable and filled with the certain knowledge something far beyond the realm of reality was about to gobble her whole.
    In short bursts, like a mismanaged puppet, Paige sped across the open expanse toward Liam’s front door. She faltered on the walkway. With the clarity of the immediate, she recalled the night of flight more than sixteen years ago in every detail, seeing herself and her mother stumbling with the weight of the suitcase between them toward the car. The urgency, the devastating confusion, mingled with her fear in the present. Overwhelmed, she sat down hard on the huge white rock beside the walkway—the one her father had placed there long ago as a centerpiece for Debra Waters’ planned garden that had never come to fruition—and wept.
    A hand dropped gently on her shoulder blade. Paige rocketed up and away.
    “Paige? What is it?”
    Paige spun to face Liam on the other side of the rock. “Nothing. I’m sick and tired of crying.”
    “Paige.”
    “What?”
    “Your… your friend, Dan Stauffer. He called me.”
    “Why would he do that?” Paige demanded, beginning to pace on the walkway. “And he’s not my friend. Not really. I suppose he is. I don’t know what he is! Does he think I can’t handle this on my own?”
    “You shouldn’t have to. And you did call him. You must have decided you needed something from somebody.”
    She stopped, fists clenched, staring at him in challenge. “I would have called you if I’d had your number.”
    “I’m not the police.”
    “I don’t care. You’re the one I would have called.”
    “Paige.”
    Paige Waters, you always charge in before thinking.
    I know, Mom. I know.
    “Do you have someone in your life, Liam?”
    As she spoke, her nipples hardened within her thin bra. All he needed to do was look and he would see. But he held his gaze steady on hers.
    “I don’t. Not anymore.”
    Paige marched across the walkway and onto the white boulder glistening in the dying day. This is how she would reach his mouth. Just like this.
     
     

Chapter 9
     
    Liam opened in shocked but eager willingness to the heat and hunger of her questing tongue. She had unexpected strength in her arms, pulling him solidly against her body. He lost his breath and clear thought as blood plunged into his groin. Inside his boxers, his penis sprang up hard against the rough denim of his jeans.
    He slid his hands beneath her blouse, wanting skin, naked and warm and responsive, against his palms. Yanking down a soft bra cup, he grasped her stiffened nipple between his fingers. She moaned. He maneuvered his other hand past her waistband, cupping her buttocks, pressing her against his straining cock. A shock ran though him, like a static charge. He wanted in. Now. He shoved her pants down farther, the waistband expanding to accommodate his search, and slid his hand into her underwear, fingering the soft, slick places, feeling her shudder.
    Conscience and self-preservation took his libido in a strangle hold. He released her, backing away. “Paige, I’m sorry.”
    “I—what?” Paige stepped down