Free Taken by Storm by Jezelle

Contemporary erotic romantic comedy…
     
    TAKEN BY STORM
    Bad Boys Do It Good, Volume 2
    (Rated NC-17)
     
    Jezelle
    <><>
     
    Copyright 2013 by Jezelle
    All rights reserved.
     
    [Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations, and incidents are products of the author's imagination, or have been used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, locales, or events is entirely coincidental.]
     
    <><><>
     
     
     
     
    Taken by Storm
     
    Cait Collier brushed the travel creases out of her suit while she stood on the marble stoop of her father’s mansion, waiting for Branston the butler to answer the damn doorbell and let her in. Cripes, the old fart was getting slow in his dotage.
    Vroom—
    She jumped as a pickup roared into the circular drive behind her. Big wheels ground to a sharp stop, a cab door opened and slammed shut, and a throaty bass-baritone chuckle—a sound like hot gravel—hit her square between the shoulder blades, stiffening her spine.
    Jackson Storm.
    “Well, if it isn’t Miss Fancy Pants. A surprise visit? Sorry, but it’s no surprise. I expected to see you this weekend.”
    No, he hadn’t, the liar. She lived in the city now and didn’t often leave it. Driving down to Daddy’s today had been a sudden wild whim. No one could have guessed she was coming; she hadn’t known it herself till the last minute. Cait had expected to see him , of course.
    But not this soon.
    Super. Just what I need.
    Jackson had been raised by his uncle and aunt, who’d been Cait’s widower father’s gardener and cook, respectively—the latter also being Cait’s babysitter. His uncle had been a sweetie-pie, and his aunt still was, but their nephew…
    Lord, give me strength.
    Cait and Jackson had shared a mutual animosity for each other since the days they’d also shared a playpen in the kitchen. They had shared too much for too long, thanks to Daddy’s annoying proletariat streak.
    No private academies for her, oh no. Granted, this was a posh community, so even in its public schools many of her classmates had been as upper crust as herself. But the rest of them were the children of the upper crust’s hired help—which meant she’d been stuck with this jerk from diaperdom all the way through high school graduation. She was still stuck with him whenever she came home, because he’d taken over the gardening duties when his uncle died.
    Cait gritted her teeth into a snarl of a grin as she turned to face him. “And why should you expect to see me any weekend, Mr. Jock Itch?”
    “Gee, I dunno. Because I’m a pessimist maybe?” His mouth curled up at one corner in the crooked smile he seemed to reserve for just her. Pure taunt. “I hope for the best, but I generally expect the worst.”
    “Eat shit.” She punctuated the suggestion by raising her right hand and flicking her middle finger at him.
    Amazing, wasn’t it, how quickly they fell into old patterns? She’d seen him only a few times in recent years, but already they were at it again. It never took more than two seconds in each other’s presence to regress them both into adolescent brats. Not that Jackson had ever looked much like an adolescent. Physically he’d jumped from boy to man almost overnight, had been six-foot in junior high and half a foot taller by the end of their senior year. And Cait had never been able to shake the feeling he’d done it deliberately to aggravate her.
    “Actually”—his gaze raked her up and down, sending a prickle of warning through her—“I kind of figured you might be whizzing by for one of your hit-and-run visits, seeing it’s our class reunion today.”
    It was? She did a quick mental calculation. Son of a bitch, he was right, they had graduated ten years ago this month.
    “The big banquet’s not till tonight though,” he added, “so we’ve got plenty of time to talk before then.”
    Why?
    “Shall we call a time-out so we can visit like normal people?”