It pissed Mick off.
So for that reason, and not because he could still smell Cara's scent all around him, he hung up the phone.
And he didn't answer it when Will called back thirty seconds later. Guilt lancing through his chest, he fired off a text message. Signal weak. Call later.
Then he threw his phone onto his cot and grabbed a towel. He needed a swim before dusk fell. And he didn't give a flying fuck how choppy the waves were. Anything would be calmer than the storm brewing between him and Cara.
NINE
CRASH. CARA WOKE UP WITH A START. It was pitch black. She heard the same slam of wood against wood, set against a backdrop of wind and hammering rain.
One of the shutters, she told herself, but it didn't ease the pounding of her heart. All of a sudden, her tent seemed claustrophobic. Cursing under her breath, she blindly reached around for her phone. Where the hell was it?
It was pitch black inside her little room within the larger cavernous room. She'd liked the tent at first but now it seemed weird and eerie. Calm down. She took a deep breath and tried to think about where she'd put it when she fell asleep.
She'd been reading on it. She'd rolled to her side … and yes. There it was. A relieved sob tore from her chest as she turned on the flashlight feature and pointed it at the zipper.
Then her battery died.
"Motherfu-" She cut herself off and tossed the phone back against her pillow with a growl. "Of course you're dead, you asshole jerk of a phone!"
Her fingers stiff, she found the zipper again and slid it open to only find more of the same inky darkness. Fantastic. She fell forward, resting on her hands and knees for a minute, half inside and half outside the tent.
She was all alone in a half-torn-apart mansion in the middle of nowhere. And her phone was dead. She'd bet any money that the power had gone out, too, since she couldn't hear the hum of the fridge, either.
It was deadly quiet.
Creak.
She screamed louder than she'd ever heard herself scream before and lunged for the rock that she knew was holding the door to the ballroom open.
Gripping the heavy weight in her hand, she huddled against the doorframe and tried to make out movement in the shadows.
Nothing.
She wanted to laugh at herself, but frankly, she was still petrified.
"Cara?"
She sagged with relief at the urgent shout. She knew that strong voice. Mick. "Yeah." She scrambled to her feet, and made her way down the hall and into the kitchen. He stood in the open hole where the door used to be-now it hung off the hinges at an alarming angle and bounced uselessly against the wall.
The rain lashed against his skin, but he didn't come inside. Instead he braced his arms on either side of the doorframe and raked his gaze up and down her body. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine."
"I heard a scream."
She pointed to the door. "That woke me up, I guess, when it blew open." She took a deep breath. "It scared me." And then I heard you on the stairs and thought you were a monster or something.
"You should've gone home for the night."
She frowned. He was lecturing her now? "You'd like that, wouldn't you?"
His mouth fell open. "I honestly wouldn't give a fuck, Cara."
If he'd said anything else, she'd maybe have continued to be polite, even grateful to see him, but what the hell had she done to him … at least tonight? "Great. Continue not giving a fuck somewhere else."
He glared at her, then pushed himself off the doorframe with a curse and turned, disappearing into the wind-churned downpour.
Well, shit. She hadn't meant that literally.
"Come back here, you idiot," she cried, shoving her feet into her sandals and running out onto the verandah.
He turned around as lightning cracked overhead, casting him momentarily in bright blue light. "Go back to bed," he called out as they were plunged back into stormy darkness.
"It's not safe!"
All of a sudden he was in front of her again, like he didn't care at all that he was running back and forth in a ticking time bomb of a storm. "You're perfectly safe inside the house."
"I didn't mean me."
"Don't worry about me."
"You couldn't hear my shouting from the servants' quarters," she whispered. Her pulse jacked up. "Were you coming to see me?"
"In the middle of a hurricane?" He gave her a long, hard look and shook his head. "That would be crazy."
Absolutely insane. She reached for him. His shirt was soaked right through to his skin. He felt warm for now, but he'd get cold soon. He needed a hot shower. "You strike me as only having a moderate claim on sanity anyway."
He laughed. "Sounds about right."
"I don't have a bed," she said, moving closer. Now the rain was whipping at her, too, but she didn't care. All she cared about was getting close enough so their barbed words didn't have any space to land between them.
"What?" His voice was rough and husky as she tipped her face up to his. Rain drops fell from his hair, plopping on her cheeks, her lips … trailing down her throat. He wiped them away with his fingertips.
"You said, go back to bed. I just have a sleeping bag inside a tent."
His hand stilled at the base of her throat, then his fingers curved and he collared her neck, lightly. Just for a second, then he let go. "Go back to it."
"I don't want to."
"I have a bed."
"And a hot shower, right?" She licked her lips. "You need that. You're soaked to the bone."
"You think I need a shower and a bed?"
She nodded.
"I only need one thing right now," he said, his words ragged and torn as he hauled her against him. "And it can happen in a bed, or in the shower. Hell, it can happen in the middle of a hurricane for all I care. You just need to say the word, Cara."
"What word?"
"Yes. Say yes, kitten."
"Yes," she breathed, and before he could kiss her, she launched herself into his arms.
MICK HAD BEEN LYING ON HIS BUNK, WIDE AWAKE WHEN THE STORM HIT. As the wind raged, all he could think of was Cara alone in the house. How fiercely attached to the plantation she was, that she wouldn't even leave during this vicious gale.
He'd gotten up and paced back and forth, looking at the manor house every time it was lit up by the crack of lightning. As it sat in the middle of the clearing, at the top of the rise, it was getting the worst of the winds. Shingles were peeling off the roof. Shutters were shaking.
Before he knew it, he was out the door, storming across the garden. He was only halfway aware that he was feeling panic-it pricked at the back of his mind, behind the rational thoughts he tried to order in front of it.
Perfectly reasonable to go and check on a woman alone in a big house.
They were neighbours of a sort.
He was strong and capable.
But while those were all true and valid thoughts, none of them were as true as the fact that he needed to see her in front on him.
And when she screamed, that worry slammed to the front of everything else.
You shouldn't be alone mixed with let me hold you-but then they were snapping at each other again.
His fear gave way to bitter frustration that they were going to go another few rounds of the push-me, pull-me game they'd been playing at, but Cara had surprised him.
"Go back to bed."
"I don't want to."
That was all he'd needed to hear. He'd just needed her to open herself up to him that little bit, enough to see that while yes, they were still at odds, and yes, they were still playing games … this attraction was real.
His need was echoed in a very real way in her own need.
Relief coursed through his veins as Cara threw herself at him.
The storm had all but disappeared from his awareness as her hands slicked over his shoulders and her mouth collided with his. Her lips were full and soft, and before he could fully process just how good they felt against his skin, her tongue got into the game and his mind stuttered.
The first taste of her was unexpectedly hot, like a lit match to dry, hungry tinder. A confession, of sorts, that she had wanted this as long as he had. Of course, for both of them that had only been three days.
Three days.
It felt like a lifetime. And her kiss-angry and sweet, desperate and still holding back, still tentative-said she felt that history as keenly as he did.
In three days, they'd packed in a lot. One kiss, one night if he was lucky, wouldn't erase all of it. Might even make it worse.
But he'd asked her to say yes. And she'd not only said it, but she'd given herself to him to underline how much she meant it.
He couldn't let them burn themselves down. Couldn't let them get too out of control. He cupped her cheeks in his hands and gave himself over to her kisses, the whole time thinking, we need to talk.
"You're soaking wet," she whispered against his mouth.
"Your tent?"