Chasing Storm (10 page)

I hold him by the root, mewing and pressing him against the soft surface of my cheek before I open my mouth and drop down until I can take no more, the flat of his pelvis pressed to my nose, his cock filling my throat completely.

He lets out a string of expletives, bucking against me before he moves himself away.

I’m breathing hard, panting and soaking wet. “Did I do something wrong?”

He strips his shirt off until all that’s left are two stony squares and a tessellated series of abs below. He kicks his pants off, takes me by the hips and spins me around, bending me violently over the breakfast table. Utensils clatter to the floor. I stretch my arms out and breathe out.

He presses my face down into the tablecloth. I’m forced to stand on tippy toes, my feet barely touching the floor. My heart thuds like a heavy hammer, pounding against my ribs and the hard surface of the tabletop as I wait.

There’s a long groan when Storm thrusts forward to impale me with his cock. I cry out, halfway between a scream and moan as he pulls back and punches forward again, the thought of his cock inside me so hot I release a fresh torrent of milky desire around him. I grow wetter and wetter with every stroke, the table legs crying out in protest, the table is shifting across the floor.

His dick pulls out saturated before he plunges it back inside me, crashing into my body so that the globes of my ass oscillate with every grunt. He smashes into my behind, trying desperately to push as deep as he can into the hot space of my pussy.

“You’re so tight,” he’s huffing over my back, bent and redoubling his efforts. My breath comes out in short gasps. He holds onto my shoulders to pummel away at my body. I grind my hips back against him, squeezing and churning myself around his cock until his thrusting becomes frantic.

“I’m going - to come,” he gets out, struggling with the words. He reaches down and fingers my clit right at the edge of the table, a hot heat soaring through me.

His orgasm arrives. He slams into my backside, yelling obscenities as he pumps his load deep inside me. My head snaps up and my climax follows, his balls pumping against me as I step from the precipice and allow pure sensation to carry me away. I convulse there, my pussy squeezing and milking him out with strong contractions.

I can’t close my mouth. It’s open as wide as it will go, soundless as I lift from the table. My breasts bounce as he thrusts forward one final time.

A word finally escapes my mouth, nonsensical, but a sound all the same. I collapse onto the table and shake through the last dregs of my orgasm, Storm’s cock and cum inside me.

I can’t move, Storm’s flaccid member eventually birthed from my pussy like a baby seal, slipping away to slap against his thigh. My heart just won’t stop. It’s still galloping away from me. My hair is matted around my face, my mouth dry from the labored effort of breathing.

Storm lifts me up, scooping me into his arms and moving us quickly down the hall, casting me onto the bed. His lips crush me, our bodies entwined as, slowly, I coax him back to attention.

It’s the middle of the night. I snap upright in Storm’s bed. The house is dead quiet.

I go to shake Storm, but he’s missing, only an indentation in the mattress to mark his presence. The sheets are still warm.

“Storm?” I whisper, standing up and trying to make my way around the room.

As I come into the living room I see him naked, rifle poised on his shoulder.

“Storm?”

“Alice, get down!”

There’s a crack in the distance and the living room window explodes.

I scream and dive to the ground.

Gunfire rips out from the open, bullets impacting the wall to my right and casting debris over the living room as Storm fires.

“The bathroom!” he shouts at me. “Run!”

I can’t just leave him defenseless like this.

“Go!” he screams. My legs kick into gear. They lift me up as bullets punch into the plaster and tattered remains of the window frame.

I race into the bedroom bathroom and lock the door, sitting in a ball in the corner with my hands over my ears and my heart beating so hard it feels like it will burst right out of my body.

God, Storm.

There’s silence. The gunfire has stopped.

I wait, my panting echoing against the tiles as the door bursts open. Storm stands before me. “Come on!”

I take his hand and he pulls me low through the house. Lights sweep through the windows as Storm pauses by the back door. His eyes are wide and alert. “I go out first and you follow right behind, got it?”

I nod, terrified.

He counts down. “One, two, three.” He kicks the door open and runs out into the night with rifle raised.

I come up behind him just in time to hear a shot and a shadowy figure slump forward in the distance.

Oh god.

I run right behind him into the barn. He locks the door behind us and points to the Chevy.

I head to the passenger’s door and get in.

Storm slides naked into the driver’s seat and kicks the engine over. It roars into life.

“Hang on,” he says, before planting the accelerator. The car leaps forward. Storm pulls the steering wheel hard left and we head straight for the barn doors.

“Storm!” I cry, just as the car blows through the doors, splintered timber flying over the windscreen as we tear out into the open.

“Get down!”

I hunker into the passenger foot well as bullets slam into the car’s body, the windscreen shattering and tiny fragments of glass tumbling over my back.

The car turns hard right and we’re headed towards the road, a
twang
as we cut through the wire fence and onto the gravel.

Storm looks down at me. “You okay?”

My voice is tiny. “Yes.”

He drives at full speed.

I see lights in the distance, red and blue. Two police cars fly past us, another swerves to a stop ahead, forcing Storm to slam on the brakes.

The car comes to a stop, rattling like a spray can as glass slides off me.

Shouting.

Voices.

A prevailing ringing sound in my ears.

“It’s alright, Alice.”

I know that voice.

I look up to find Dan outside, one hand on his pistol and the other using a touch to shine into the interior of the car. He comes to the side of the Chevy and opens the door. It falls away onto the road and I step out, shaking from head to toe.

Storm goes to speak, but Dan cuts him off. “I know, I know. We’ll head them off. Good thing your neighbor was down at your dam doing a spot of night fishing. He raised the alarm, saw the whole thing.”

I can hear gunshots ringing in the distance again.

Dan’s radio is going crazy.

He runs back to his patrol car, talking quickly into his receiver.

Storm takes the opportunity to get out of the car and find a blanket to wrap himself in.

Dan comes back to us. “It’s over. Two dead, one of my men with a flesh wound to the thigh, but all accounted for.”

“What’ll happen to them?” Storm asks.

“Attempted murder, trespassing… who knows? We’ve been after them for a while.”

Storm steps forward. “We could have been killed!”

“Hey, hey,” both men stand chest to chest. I’ve never seen Dan so agitated. “I’m not the one hiding the drug money.”

Storm wants to punch him. I know he does.

“Go on,” Dan taunts, “Do it, live up to your family name.”

“Please!” I cry. “I just want to go home.”

Dan comes over, hands around my shoulders. “Come on, Alice. Let’s go. You don’t belong here.”

Barely able to comprehend what is happening, I let him guide me to his car and press me into the passenger seat.

Another patrol car pulls up and Dan steps up to the window, pointing at Storm and nodding.

Dan comes back to the patrol car and hops in, smiling at me from behind the steering wheel. “I’m glad you’re safe, Alice. That’s all. I couldn’t live with myself if you were hurt caught up in the middle of this mess.”

“What’s going to happen to Storm?”

“He’ll be taken to the station, questioned. It’s standard procedure.”

“He shot that guy in self-defense.”

“I know. We’ll deal with it.”

“He won’t go to jail?”

“I doubt it. The neighbor saw it all. He’s a witness.”

“Who were they? Bikers?”

“Yeah, nasty motorcycle club from down south. Been on the hunt for that money for years. Guess it’s finally reached a boiling point of sorts.”

Dan turns in his seat. “Look, I understand the attraction, but if you play with fire, sooner or later you are going to be burnt.”

I don’t have any reply. I agree.

He starts the car and we drive off.

I turn and watch as the blue and red lights flicker over the scene – the busted Chevy and Storm watching me go.

I make my way to the station in the morning. Prior to my return to Rosie I barely even knew where the police station was. Now here I am a regular visitor.

“What do you mean he’s gone?”

The deputy behind the desk scratches behind his ear, pressing another pencil into the electric sharpener before him. “Gave his statement and left.”

I can’t believe Storm would just up and leave without calling me, letting me know he is okay.

I head out front and call him, but his cell is off. I call again, and again, desperate to hear his voice.

Nothing.

I’m driving back home when I receive a message. I pick up my cell from the passenger seat and swipe up.

It’s him:

Forget me, Alice. I’m no good for you.

I pull over and call him again, but he’s switched the phone off.

“Fuck you!” I scream, hurling the phone across the dash.

I almost can’t believe it when it rings. I pick it up. “If you think for one second-”

“Alice?”

It’s Jemma.

I let out a long sigh “Shit, sorry, Jem. I thought it was-”

“Storm?”

“Yeah.”

“I heard what happened. You okay?”

My hands are still shaking. “Not really.”

“Want to talk about it?”

“With you?”

“Who else, stupid? Your dad? Tell him all about your slutty little sex life?”

Even pissed off as I am, I laugh. Jemma always knows how to bring a smile to my face. “Fine. Coffee?”

“In fifteen.”

*

The local diner’s going off when I enter. The place is packed for a weekday.

I take a seat by the window and wait for Jemma.

Looking in the reflection, I see Lisa and friends are seated in the back of the restaurant.

Fuck.

I watch in the glass. She’s pointing at me, the bitch. They all laugh together. I wait.
Come on, Jem.

They laugh again and Lisa’s nasally voice enunciates the word ‘cunt’. She makes it real clear as she looks in my direction.

It’s getting to me. My temper rises, skin prickling.

I don’t know how much more I can take.

“I heard she
pushed
him in front of that bus.”

That’s it. Before I realize it I’ve stood up and I’m marching over there. My legs just move, my head blanketed in white-hot anger.

Lisa’s friends shift back in their chairs. They look scared, but Lisa holds firm, crossing her arms in front of herself and tilting her head in that irritating way that says ‘got something to say?’.

I place my hands on the table and lean down to her. “Okay,” I start, “what’s your problem?”

“No problem.”

“You think I can’t hear you?”

“That was a private conversation.”

“My ass!”

She stands up, pointing at me. “I can’t help it that you’re still a bad person, Alice.”

I laugh. “A bad person! Are you kidding me?”

“You didn’t even go to his funeral.”

“Who, Tim?”

“Yes, Tim.”

“And why should you care? All you and your Mean Girl gang ever did was bully us and give him a hard time.”

“Only because we knew he could do better.”

“Why the sudden interest when he was dead then?”

“Hey, we care, okay.”

I know the real reason – jealousy.

A tear runs down my cheek and I feel weak. I’m giving into this bitch. “You wouldn’t know a thing about it, all ‘oh we’re so fucking sad you’re dead, Tim, we didn’t know you but so so sorry, wah-wah’.

A flicker of anger runs through Lisa’s eyes. “You don’t deserve anyone, Alice. No wonder that footballer had to beat you.”

I snap. I reach down and slap Lisa hard across the face with the flat of my hand.

Everything stops. My palm’s ringing as she brings a tentative finger to her cheek, mouth caught open in horror.

No one makes a move, a sound. Even the waitress is frozen.

A second later she launches across the table at me, cups and saucers crashing to the ground. She grips me hard by the hair, rolling me down to the ground. Porcelain crunches under my back as I try and throw her off, but the bitch is strong.

I heave a knee up between her legs, but without a dick to connect with, it doesn’t have the desired effect. She keeps gripping, gnashing her teeth together in front of me. “I’m going to fucking kill you, Everett!”

I roll to the side and manage to get her off. She slides across the tiles and comes back up, charging. I step aside and she skewers into the side of a table, going down like a sack of shit, winded and looking for breath.

I spit on her, right into her perfect fucking face, and leave.

My temples are beating as I come outside. I slam the door of the car closed and burn away, cutting off another car in the process, the horn blasting behind me.

Fresh tears stream down my face. All the hurt and pain comes pouring back. I drown in it.

It starts to rain.

Fucking perfect.

At home I pack, throwing things together, gathering what I can. I wipe the tears away with the back of my hand.

Dad comes into the room, slanted against the doorframe. “Everything alright, baby?”

I sniff and try to look together. “Fine, Dad.”

The rain grows louder outside.

“Have you been crying?”

He comes closer. “Was it that Millertown boy? Dan told me all about it.”

I throw my hands down on a pile of socks. “Jesus, can’t anyone in this god-damn town just mind their own business?”

Dad puts his hands up. “Look, I understand, Alice, but you’ve got to admit, it hasn’t been a good run with him. You’ve been shot at, almost arrested… You know I’m right.”

I do. If I was to look at it all in a logical manner it makes perfect sense, but I’m not logical. I am all emotion. That’s what makes me such a good writer, a writer people can identify with. I can pull it out of people, make others empathize. Reason alone doesn’t change minds, or policy. You need a groundswell. You need heart.

I turn to my father with red, panda eyes. I am eighteen again. “Dad, I just need to get away for a while.”

“But you just got back. You can’t keep running from everything.”

“Please, Dad.”

“Okay, okay.”

He heads down the hall and returns with a wad of Benjamins, pressing it into my hand. “Take it.”

“Dad, I can’t-”

“You can and you will. Stay safe. That’s all I ask.”

Hot tears spill down my cheeks as I hug my father. “I just need to clear my head. I’ll come right back, I promise.”

“I know you will, baby.”

“You’ll tell Mom?”

“She won’t be happy, but yes, I’ll tell her. Better I take the brunt of it, kiddo.”