Hurricane Hearts (Storm MC Reloaded 1)

“I don’t need one.” Again, clipped. And I caught a whiff of whisky.

My heart dived into my stomach.

“Winter, you do—”

“I don’t.” He walked to the bed, sat, and removed his boots.

I watched him silently while my tummy cramped, my heart gasped for air, and my mind tangled with a million thoughts that all clamoured to be spoken.

When he’d taken his boots off, he looked up at me. He didn’t say a word, completely throwing me off while his eyes bored into mine.

My breaths came faster. Shallower.

The seconds ticked by.

My head roared with anxiety.

What is he thinking?

I tried to wait for him, but when my nerves had me like they did, words always tumbled from my mouth all over the damn place.

“Winter—”

That was all I got out this time, though, because as soon as his name left my lips, he stood and said, “I need a shower.”

The sound of the bathroom door closing, not with a slam but with definite force, drew all my insecurities to the surface. It had been a long time since I’d handed my heart over to anyone and given them the ability to rip it from my chest and shatter it. But that’s exactly what Winter had given me, too, and I’d hacked his from his chest and shredded it. That killed me more than anything.

I could take his anger.

I could take his silence.

I could take whatever words he hurled at me.

But I struggled to live with myself over his pain.

I spent the ten minutes he was in the shower talking myself off the ledge of leaving. A part of me still believed Winter was better off without me. If I wasn’t in the picture, he could find someone else to love and have a family with. However, his response to what I’d done had left me with some small hope that we could somehow fix this.

He’d told me he wasn’t done.

He’d come back to the hotel.

And while his anger was a living, breathing thing, he hadn’t told me to leave or given me any indication he intended to leave.

Ten minutes of back-and-forth inner conflict felt like the longest ten minutes of my life. When I heard him turn the shower off, I was done with waiting. I couldn’t keep myself from him another second.

I opened the bathroom door and with my heart beating faster than it ever had, I took the step to bring me closer to him.

“Birdie,” he cautioned, issuing a warning I refused to acknowledge.

“Winter, we need to talk.”

He stood in front of the mirror, steam filling the air, but not so much that I couldn’t see him watching me. His masculine energy blazed between us with such ferocity I faltered. Maybe I should have given him more time. Waited for him to come to me. But I’d made this choice, so I stuck with it and hoped it would help move us forward.

When his face twisted with anger, I flinched, but I didn’t leave. I needed to let him experience that anger and I needed to take it all. Our relationship wouldn’t survive if he didn’t feel it all and let it all out.

Gripping the edge of the vanity with both hands, he glued his eyes to mine in the mirror. “What do you want to talk about first? The fact you took matters into your own hands? The fact you lost a baby I didn’t even know we’d made? The fact you lost the ability to have children? The fact you walked away from me without giving me the chance to tell you I’d live with your choice and still love you? Or the fact we wasted five fucking years?”

When I didn’t respond except to recoil at his fury, he smacked his hands down on the vanity and threw out, “Yeah, I don’t want to talk about any of that either.” With that, he stalked out of the bathroom.