Page 3 of Braving the Storm

But it’s her eyes.

Eyes that stare back at me, wide like a doe’s in the mirror.

Dark eyes that seem somehow familiar. More than familiar.

I was sure I didn’t recognize this girl, but now I’m ransacking my mind, trying to place her.

“What the fuck?” She croaks, sounding panicked and strained. Her voice finally breaks free as she braces herself against the sink with one hand and tries to claw my fingers away from her neck with the other.

“Uncle Stôrmand?”

I go still.

Jesus.

Fuck. Fuck my life.

My hand is on my rigid, leaking cock, and I’m staring at my niece’s nipples.

Chapter 2

I’m trembling like a fragile leaf about to blow away in the wind. With wobbly fingers, I make several clumsy attempts to knot the sash around the waist of my silk robe. One that is far too thin, too short, too slinky, and is made for LA temperatures.

In fact, my entire hastily packed suitcase is stuffed full of expensive clothes suited to a blue-skied day in the mid-eighties.

Clothes that he bought, because they were the type of thing I should be seen in whenever I was on his arm.

Not because I actually liked them.

Certainly not the kind of wardrobe suited to mountain survival in some back-of-beyond, snow-covered, frozen cabin. I’m almost positive there are rats in the walls based on the scurrying I heard when I first stepped foot inside.

Yanking the pink sash to make sure it’s secure, I quickly tie my hair up in a bun and do a final check to ensure I’m something approaching half decent before venturing into the living area.

Before I figure out what the fuck is going on.

In twenty-six years, I always assumed I’d be at the greatest risk of a home invasion while living in the Palisades. Not barely half an hour after arriving in bum fuck nowhere Crimson Ridge, and notat the hands of the giant, tattooed man who nearly left a hole in the wall trying to get out of this bathroom as fast as humanly possible.

My uncle.

Technically, adopted uncle. My father’s estranged adopted brother from when they were fostered together. But still… Uncle Stôrmand is the last person I expected to ever see again.

And now? Now I know. I know what it felt like to have his hands on my naked body, and shame coats me in a rapid, clammy sweep down to my cold, bare toes… because I froze.

When he grabbed me, I froze.

When he growled in my ear, I froze.

And up until the moment I finally recognized the man I hadn’t seen in over ten years, I liked what I saw.

Jesus, the fucking mess made by my exploding life over the past forty-eight hours must have taken more of a toll than I realized.

For the briefest moment, all I felt was relief and anticipation colliding with an addictive hit of adrenaline. A temporary moment of insanity fisted my every last brain cell just like his hands grabbed hold and took command of my body.

Guaranteed, a man likethatwould know exactly how to fuck a woman.

Relief, that even if a purely carnal experience came at the hands of a stranger, I might know what it feels like to give my body what she craves… something I’ve desired for so long, and yet I’ve never had a clue how, or what, that might even feel like.

Oh, god, if I’m evencloseto allowing those sorts of deranged thoughts to grow roots, then I am most definitely a sleep-deprived, strung-out head case.