Storm by Aria Ray

Chapter Eleven

Storm

Iwoke up alone and in my own bed the next morning. From the moment I was up, I was thinking of Zoe again. I needed to see her, but I needed to have a legitimate reason to do so. Besides, relying on others to find information on missing people hadn’t gotten us anywhere.

It was time to take matters into my own hands.

Zoe had given me information on where she found Alison’s phone. She’d tracked it to a dumpster near the airport, and that was where I drove.

It was highly likely that she didn’t know what to look for and might have missed some key evidence.

I parked the car exactly where she’d said she parked and then I headed toward the dumpster.

It was in a field on the side of the road but there was grass everywhere. In fact, it looked like nobody had come to empty the dumpster in a few days. Not that this dumpster would have gotten used much. But this was good. It was possible that the scene hadn’t been disturbed since Zoe found the phone.

I saw the tracks in the muddy grass almost immediately. It looked like someone had been dragged. Zoe had missed this.

Just like she hadn’t noticed the airport security cameras that were angled in this direction. She would have mentioned it if there was a possibility of seeing some footage. Her mind was on her missing sister, though, and getting her to safety. I’d had a front-row seat, watched Zoe’s thoughts fly in all directions at dinner when her dad dropped in drunk. Thanks to him, keeping her mother from sliding into a pit of despair was a full-time commitment. I’d seen first-hand how badly she needed our help.

And potential footage from those cameras. Those were damned solid reasons to see her. I pulled out my phone and dialed Hacker’s number.

“Need you to look into some security footage,” I said.

“One of our cameras?”

“No. I’ll text you the address now. Do you think you can get into the system?”

“I think I can manage it.”

The call ended, and I sent him the text. If there was even a slight possibility of success, Hacker was the man to find it. Was there anything of interest in it?

Even though it looked like someone had been dragged in the grass, there could be a different explanation.

I needed to tell Zoe. This was the kind of news she had been waiting to hear.

“Storm?”

My name. She’d spoken my name all calm and soft over the phone. Something deep inside me relaxed. I liked hearing her say my name, hearing her speak. A lot. My mind got hung up in that thought for a second.

“Storm?” Her serious edge was back.

“Yeah, hey…” I shook my head, denying how soft my own voice sounded to my own damn ears. I cleared my throat. “I have some information to go over with you.”

“About my sister?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me where to meet you and when.”

“We can’t do this in public,” I said. My mind hopped to the potential hours of footage we might have to go through.

“Okay, you can come over to my place if you prefer.”

“I’ll be there in half an hour.”

The call ended. An excitement like I’d never felt before now sang in my veins. I wished I knew how to control whatever this was before it got worse.

∞∞∞

But then I saw Zoe.

She opened the door and my libido roared to life like it had been tased. My resolve to control anything went out of the window. My gaze dropped to her long legs, crawled up to a pair of damn-sexy denim shorts that begged to be ripped off her slender thighs. She was just standing there, watching me check her out while our vibes crackled Hot. Sex. Now.

I finally made eye contact with her. Our vibes weren’t the only things sending out invitations. Before my fantasy of rearranging that messy bun she’d poked a pen through could fully bloom, she checked herself.

Her mood changing from ready to rock your cock to Stop was scary fast.

“What do you have?”

It was nice knowing that, at the very least, she’d been anticipating my arrival. Shit, what the hell am I thinking? I need to get my head right. Find Daniel.

“Can I come in first?” I asked, clamping down on my libido.

Zoe blushed, her neck growing red, too, and stepped aside so I could enter. Her apartment was small but cozy. It had a lot of thoughtful little touches with fairy lights on the walls and framed sketches. It wasn’t as polished and opulent as her mother’s home, but somehow, this suited her better. She looked more comfortable here. Relaxed.

I had my laptop with me, and I carried it to the couch in the living room area while I told her some details.

“There were security cameras at the airport. They were in a location to catch the area around the dumpsters.”

“The dumpster where I found Alison’s phone?” She asked after shutting her door.

“Yeah. I got one of my guys to acquire the footage.” I was typing into my computer. Hacker had already sent me a file, so I accessed it.

Zoe came over and sat down with a thump beside me. Her leg grazed mine. I tried not to stare at the deliciousness of her thighs. All I needed to focus on was keeping my hands to myself.

“There’s over five hours of footage?” she asked.

“Looks like it.” She’s so close, her thighs inches from my…

“So, there’s a chance we might see Alison on this, right? See how the phone got in the dumpster?”

“The two things might not be connected, but…”

Zoe bit down on her lip. The same lip I’d nibbled. I tore my gaze off her mouth and forced it onto the laptop’s screen.

“Well,” she said, and stood from her place beside me. “This is the closest I’ve come to finding any additional information on her. It’s more than worth a shot.”

I started playing the video as I nodded while still tracking every move she made.

“If this is going to take over five hours to watch, I better make us some coffee and snacks.”

That sounded nice, so I nodded. The video played, and I stared at the screen, seeing practically no movement. My attention shifted to Zoe. In her kitchen. Making coffee. The way her ass moved in those tight denim jeans. How her hair fell untidily over her face. The way her breasts rose and fell.

I wanted to push away the laptop and pull her to me. Overpower her. Pin her to the couch. And feel the softness of her thighs against my cheek.

But we had important work to do. Zoe moved around with her mind on finding information on her sister.

We exchanged polite smiles again, when she brought over the coffees and a tray of cookies and chips.

“I’m keeping my fingers crossed,” she murmured, and sat beside me.

Close beside me.

Three hours went by. All we ever saw were vehicles driving by. A few employees, who worked at the airport, walked over to the dumpster with empty soda cans and cigarette butts. Zoe and I sat glued to the screen. We’d already gone through two cups of coffee each and several cookies.

I could have sat there for many more hours without feeling the urge to leave. Even in our lapses of silence, when neither of us had an observation to make or anything to say to the other, it felt oddly comfortable there beside her.

My mind was spinning but nothing happened on the video screen. I was thinking about spending every day on the couch with her. I fantasized about her hair on my face, her mouth on mine, our tongues exploring. That kiss in the car from last night had kept me awake. She didn’t look tired.

Zoe looked over at me. I caught her looking from the corner of my eye but didn’t turn to her. She continued staring, examining me.

When our eyes eventually met, neither of us turned away. I could only hope that she was thinking the same thing.

How crazy was this?

“I have never been in a fake relationship with someone before,” she said.

“I have never been in any relationship before.”

Her eyes grew wide, and laughter burst out of her. “I don’t know why I’m surprised.”

“You have me pegged as that kinda guy?”

“Yeah, as the kind of guy who is too afraid to commit.”

“You think I’m afraid?” I asked, looking her up and down.

“Not of the things us other mortal humans are afraid of. But yeah, I do think you’d run away from committing your life to someone. To a woman.”

I clenched my teeth, feeling hot and telling myself that it was the heat coming off her body. Did she know she was reading me like a book?

“I know I told you I don’t want to pry, but my theory is that you were unhappy as a child, and you don’t want to go through that feeling again. The feeling of being helpless around someone because you love them.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “For some reason, you think you have me all figured out.”

“Am I wrong?”

We’d been staring at each other, not paying attention to the screen. Footsteps from the video caught our attention at the same time. We turned back as two men appeared near the dumpster. The camera was only picking up shadows and silhouettes since it wasn’t located very close to the dumpster.

There was a woman between them, being carried by a man on either side of her. The tracks she left in the grass was what I had seen that morning. It looked like she was unconscious and had to be pulled.

Beside me, Zoe gasped. “Ali…that’s her. I recognize her. What are they doing to her?”

She covered her mouth with a hand, as we watched them fling something into the dumpster. It had to be her sister’s phone.

They moved out of the camera range, but we could see parts of a car. It backed up a little, then pulled away. The footage was too distant and dark for me to catch the numbers on the license plate.

“We have to find that car. Oh my God!” Zoe jumped up, pointed at the laptop screen, and appeared ready to scream. “How will we find that car?”

“Take a deep breath and calm down. I’ll call Hacker. He’ll be able to figure it out. He’s good at this shit.”

Zoe paced around her apartment, mumbling something to herself while I made the call to Hacker. I had the timestamp for when the car appeared in the video, and Hacker said he would try his best to track down the vehicle.

Zoe rushed up to me, chewing on her nails as soon as I ended the call.

“He’s going to try. I don’t have an answer for you yet,” I said.

She looked a little disheartened, but her eyes were hopping everywhere. I could sense her mind was racing. Now that she’d seen a video of her sister being dragged into a car, she was having trouble calming down.

Zoe covered her face with her hands, and it looked like she was about to explode. I was the only person in the room. The only person there to calm her, even though I didn’t feel equipped.

I placed a hand on each of her shoulders. She dropped her hand from her face. I was able to look into her eyes again. Her lips were quivering, and her eyes were filling with tears. She seemed to have forgotten about my hands being on her shoulders.

“Should we go to the police, Storm?”

My thumbs brushed along the top of her shoulders. She was so slender and petite in my hands.

“Zoe, you need to think. Remember all the reasons you gave me for why you didn’t want to go to the cops in the first place?”

She gulped, blinking wildly.

“I don’t know if we have much time left. I mean…it’s taken us forever to stumble upon this little piece of footage. And we wouldn’t even have come across it if you hadn’t thought of it. How are we going to do this alone?”

“You’re not doing this alone. I’m helping, and so is Breaker and the rest of my MC.”

“What do they know about Alison? We don’t even know who did this to her, who is involved.”

“I trust my brothers. I live and eat with them. These are probably the only men I would trust my life with.”

Zoe clutched her neck and seemed to dissolve a little. I slid my hand over hers and then pulled her hand away.

“We’re making progress here,” I said.

She moved closer to me and breathed in deeply, like she was breathing in my scent.

“Storm, I’m scared,” she murmured.

That was all I needed to hear. I would do anything for her in that moment. Anything to keep her safe. Anything to bring her sister back. I had never felt protective of someone like this, nobody except my little brother. Right now, I was like a lone wolf hunting for prey.

Whoever made her feel like this… I would find those motherfuckers and make them pay.

I grabbed Zoe by her waist and pulled her to me. Her bun came undone, and her hair spilled everywhere. I held her face by her chin, tilting it into position so I could kiss her.

Zoe’s lips parted just as mine touched hers. She sucked me in like a vortex. I was spinning out of control, losing myself in her. My tongue wanted to taste every inch of her. My palms needed to feel the weight of her tits and the curve of her ass. She rubbed her hips against me, pressed herself between my legs.

She knew how hard I was. How much I wanted her. It wasn’t just because of my rock-hard cock against her thigh. I kissed her to possess her completely. To stamp out all her memories of past kisses. To rob her breath and seal this moment in her mind.

My fingers were in her hair. Down her back. I finally grabbed her ass, gripping her tightly to keep her pressed to me. I needed those clothes to come off so I could be inside her. I had to feel the warmth of her pussy around my cock. That was the only way I was going to survive this.

She pulled away from the kiss but then pressed her lips to the bottom of my neck. She was pushing my cut off my shoulders. Her fingers danced underneath my t-shirt to feel my abs.

Be my guest.

Zoe slid down on her knees in front of me. She tugged at my belt, quickly unbuckling it to reach my jeans. The thought of her lips around my cock almost did me in. She was attempting to unbutton my jeans and push them out of her way when her phone rang.

She jumped away from me like she had been burned and snatched her phone off the table. I cursed silently under my breath.

“It’s…it’s my mom.” Her voice was shaky, as she fumbled with her phone.

She finally answered it, but her face and neck told me everything I needed to know. She was embarrassed. Her mother had approved of me without knowing who I really was. Zoe didn’t want her to know. I embarrassed her too much.

“Mom? Okay. Calm down. What happened? Mom, please… Okay. I’ll be right there.”

Before she had even hung up, I had my cut back on again. I knew it was over. This had lasted way too long anyway.

“They’ve received another photograph of Alison. Mom’s breaking apart. I need to…I need…”

“To go there,” I said for her. “Yeah, you should.”

Zoe brushed a hand through her hair, as I made my way to the door.

“Storm.” She had whispered my name soft enough that I almost didn’t hear it.

“We’re having a meeting at the clubhouse tonight about the disappearances. You should be there,” I said before she could say anything else. We didn’t need to drag this out.

Things had gotten out of hand for a few minutes, but I was back in control now. We both knew it was just a fantasy anyway.

“Okay,” she said.

I shrugged and left her apartment. I needed to put some distance between us.