Brenda Jackson - Westmoreland Desires - Riding the Storm / Jared's Counterfeit Fiancée / The Chase Is On

Placing the letter in the drawer, she laughed, feeling elated, happy beyond words. She anxiously awaited that day—after the procedure was done—when a doctor would confirm she was pregnant. Although Lisa didn’t totally agreed with what she planned to do, at least her friend would be there to support her. And, of course, Lisa had agreed to be her child’s godmother.

In her heart, Jayla believed things would work out. She had a good friend who would stand by her and she had a good job. And as she had told Lisa, if the artificial insemination didn’t work the first time around, she would try a second and, if need be, a third time. She would repeat the procedure as many times as it took to get pregnant whatever the cost. Thanks to the trust fund her father had left for her, as well as the insurance funds that had been left after all the burial expenses had been taken care of, she could afford making her dream of having a baby come true.

She decided to take a shower and relax before fixing dinner. Later, she would find a comfortable spot on her sofa to sit and prop her feet up on her coffee table and enjoy a good book. She tried shaking off the lonely feeling that she suddenly felt. Lisa had a date with her boyfriend Andrew tonight, which meant she wasn’t available for a chat.

She tried not to recall that this time nearly a week and a half ago, she had been in New Orleans with Storm. Nor did she want to think about how much she had enjoyed his company. Of course, the time they had spent in bed had been great, but there had been more than that. She had discovered a fun side to Storm. Before New Orleans, she’d always assumed that he was a really serious sort of guy.

She had enjoyed laughing with him, talking to him, dancing with him, sharing food with him and going sightseeing with him. He had been full of surprises in more ways than one. She couldn’t help but compare him to the last guy she had dated, Erik Turner. Erik had turned out to be an A-number-one bore and had expected they’d go straight to her bedroom when he’d brought her home from their first date. He had actually gotten pissed off when she’d turned him down.

Frowning, she headed for her bedroom as she remembered how angry she had gotten, too, that night. Angry for having such high expectations that most men would treat a woman like a lady, decently respectable and not assume anything—especially on the first date. Erik had been included in a long line of disappointments for her, but he had definitely been the last straw and had been an eye-opener. That night Jayla realized that she didn’t want to be one of those women who were in such a frenzy to be involved in a relationship that they failed to look at the signs that said, “This may not be the best person for me.”

Another pitfall she had avoided, which was the main reason she had remained a virgin for so long, was the mistake some women made of equating sex with love. She’d learned from listening to the women she worked with, that some women still believed that if a man slept with her, it meant he loved her. She definitely hadn’t assumed such a thing with her and Storm. It had been her hormones and not her heart that had been raging out of control. Storm didn’t love her and she didn’t love him. She hadn’t expected anything from him and he hadn’t expected anything from her. They had communicated well both in and out of bed, and the one thing they understood and agreed upon was that their affair would be one that led nowhere.

Sighing, she began removing her clothes for her shower. But as much as she didn’t want to think about it, she couldn’t get the memory of Storm and the way he had looked at her today out of her mind.

Drawing in a deep breath, Storm raised his hand to knock, then pulled back as he asked himself, for the umpteenth time, why he was standing in front of Jayla’s front door. And no matter how many times he asked the question, the answer always came up the same.

He still wanted her.

Seeing her today had done more harm than good and what Chase had said hadn’t helped matters. The notion that Jayla had hooked him was preposterous. Okay, he would admit she was still in his system. He had discovered that a man didn’t have sex with a woman at the magnitude that he’d had with Jayla and not have some lingering effects. Lingering effects he could handle; the notion of some woman reeling him in, he could not.

Tonight, and only tonight, he would break his rule of not performing repeats after an affair ended. But he had to make sure that the only thing that was pulling him back to her was the incredible sex they’d shared. Physical he could handle, but anything that bordered on emotional he could not.

Taking another deep breath, he finally raised his hand and knocked on the door. As he waited for her to answer it, he hoped to God that he wasn’t making a huge mistake.

He was about to knock again when he heard the sound of her voice on the other side. “Who is it?”

“It’s me, Jayla. Storm.”

She slowly opened the door and the anticipation of the removal of the solid piece of wood that stood between them sent a shiver of desire up his spine and down to his midsection. When she opened the door enough for him to see her, the sight of her nearly knocked him to his knees like a gale-force wind. It was obvious that she had just gotten out of the shower. Her hair was loose, flowing around her shoulders, and there were certain parts of her, not covered by her short bathrobe, that were still wet. He itched to take the robe off her to see what, if anything, she was wearing underneath it.

“Storm, what are you doing here?”

Her voice, low in pitch yet high in sensuality, rapidly joined forces with desire that had already taken over his body. He was almost afraid to stand there and look at her. Too much longer and he might be driven to topple her to the floor and make love to her then and there.

“Storm?”

Claiming that he just happened to be in the neighborhood would sound pretty lame when she lived in North Atlanta and he resided in the southern part of town. Believing that honesty was the best policy, he decided to tell her the truth as his gaze locked on hers. “Seeing you today made me realize something,” he murmured softly as he leaned in her doorway.

He watched her throat move when she swallowed. “What?”

“That I didn’t get enough of you in New Orleans. I want you again.”

He heard her inhale sharply and the sound triggered the memory of how her voice would catch just seconds before she came. His mind was remembering and his body was, too. He was tempted to pull her close and let her feel just how hard she was making him. “May I come in?” he decided to ask when she didn’t say anything.

“Storm…”

“I know I shouldn’t have come and I’m just as confused about showing up here as you are,” he quickly said. “But seeing you today really did do something to me, Jayla, and it’s something that’s never happened to me before. It was as if my body went on overload and you’re the only person who can shut it down. Since returning from New Orleans, I’ve been constantly reminded of the best sex I’ve ever had, and tonight I couldn’t handle things any longer.”

He sighed deeply. There. He’d said it. He’d been honest and upfront with her, although it had nearly killed him to admit such a thing. Even to his ears his predicament sounded almost like an addiction. His blood was pumped up a notch. Every muscle in his body ached at the thought of making love to her again and a part of him knew the look in his eyes was just shy of pleading. He might even go so far as to follow the Temptations’ lead and sing out loud, “Ain’t Too Proud To Beg.”

It was all rather pathetic, but at the moment there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. Jayla Cole was under his skin…at least temporarily. Just one more time with her should obliterate this madness. At least, that’s what he hoped.