Firestorm by Brenda Joyce Page A

eyes—looked down her aristocratic nose at him, and called him “bastard” in glee, knowing he could not hit her the way he wanted to. She loved taunting him. Just thinking about her now made him turn rigid with anger.
    And then, of course, there was Tía Elena.
    He had to smile. Exactly what had Tío Emmanuel meant when he said Tía Elena, his wife, had not changed? Certainly he didn’t know she was a whore, like Brett’s mother?
    It had happened when he was almost sixteen. Brett had begun to be interested in girls the year before, to the point where several of the serving wenches had begun to infatuate him. He was starting to dream about them…One afternoon he had stumbled cross his aunt and a companion in a hidden spot in one of the gardens.
    He was fascinated as he watched his aunt coupling with a stableboy. Neither of them had removed their clothes, which he regretted, but her skirts were pulled up to her waist and her legs were long and white. Brett watched the stableboy pumping into her until he himself lost all control and made the ultimate faux pas by crying out.
    In a flash Elena had pushed off the boy, who was actually twenty or so, and pulled her skirts down and her bodice together. “Who’s there?” she called.
    Mesmerized, unable to speak, Brett stepped into view.
    At first she was startled, and then she looked at him, deliberately studied him, and he began to get hard and hot all over again. She smiled. “Pablo, go now. I’ll see you another time. Come here, querida .”
    Brett’s heart was pounding wildly as he walked toward her. He didn’t know what to expect, but he did know one thing—Tía Elena would be in terrible trouble if anyone found out what she had been doing. She stood, releasing her bodice, and Brett gasped when her full, blue-veined, hard-tipped breasts fell out.
    â€œSuch a handsome young man,” Elena murmured, taking his hand and placing it on her breast.
    Brett was lost. He knew it was wrong because the only person he liked at all was his Tío Emmanuel, but he was sixteen and his blood was raging. His mouth soon followed his hands, and he was wildly suckling her large, hard nipples, making Elena laugh throatily. “You have all the right instincts, Brett.”
    Soon he was deep inside her, thrusting wildly, mindlessly…He had never experienced anything like it before.
    In the month before he left, she taught him a lot. Brett was consumed with guilt, but his appetites controlled him. And then Doña Theresa, his father’s new wife, bore a son—Manuel—and there was no longer any need for Brett to remain…
    Brett dismissed his uncle’s letter. Don Felipe was still a cold bastard, Sophia still a bitch. Elena was surely still a whore…and he didn’t give a damn about any of them. He crumpled the letter and tossed it into the fireplace.
    Â 
    â€œDamn Brett D’Archand!”
    Storm paced furiously across her bedroom, still clad in her riding habit. She couldn’t stop thinking about him. She couldn’t wipe the image of his dark, handsome face from her mind. She couldn’t forget how his face lit up when hesmiled, or how small lines radiated from his eyes in moments of rare good humor. Damn!
    She couldn’t forget how his lips felt on hers—how firm and gentle, then savage and brutal. She sank into a chair and covered her face with her hands.
    Her body had betrayed her. While her mind had been stunned with surprise as he kissed her, her body had yielded, becoming soft, pliant, warm, eager. She had liked his kisses.
    Even now, just remembering provoked a similar reaction, one of warmth and racing heat.
    She had been kissed only once before, and she had hated it. She had never even liked boys, except as companions with whom to hunt, ride, and wrestle. At the last few social events her family had attended, Storm had felt alienated from all the other girls her age, who