Her Hawaiian Homecoming (Mills & Boon Superromance) (26 page)

“This is delicious,” she murmured, taking another sip of wine, the combination of steak and wine on her tongue divine.

“I’m glad you like it,” Dallas said. As they finished the meal, Allie glanced up at the sky. It was so crowded with stars, she could hardly tell where the constellations were. Stars she’d never seen before, living in the big city, popped up in and around the Big and Little Dippers.

“So many stars,” she exclaimed. “They look brighter here on the island than the mainland. Almost as though they’re closer to us.”

“I’ve thought that, too,” Dallas mused, looking up. “There’s Orion. He’s my favorite.”

“Where?” Allie glanced up. Dallas leaned over, his shoulder nearly touching hers.

“There,” he said. “See those three stars? That’s his belt.”

“Oh, yes!”

“He was a famous hunter, you know. He boasted he could kill any living thing on earth, that nothing could beat him. Of course, then he was killed by the bite of a tiny scorpion.”

“Ouch. That was a blow to the ego.”

“It just goes to show that you should never get too cocky,” Dallas said.

“Oh, a philosophy you live by, do you?” Allie teased.

“Most of the time.”

Allie finished her last sip of wine and put her glass down on the table. She stood and stretched, reaching for her plate to take it back to the kitchen. Quick as lightning, Dallas grabbed her wrist.

“Hey,” he said, and she turned back to see him studying her.

“What?” she asked, half afraid she had some remnant of dinner on her face.

“You’re beautiful,” he said, his eyes looking dark in the moonlight as he pulled her closer, tugging her down on his lap. She collapsed there, a giggle on her lips, even as his hand caressed her cheek, and she went very still. Before she knew it, his lips were on hers. Allie felt her body respond, as if he’d flipped a switch. She pressed into him as he pulled her to his chest. She tangled her hands in his thick blond hair, and he groaned into her mouth. Allie, sitting on his lap, felt she couldn’t get enough of him. He broke the seal of the kiss first, panting.

“Should we take this inside?” he asked her, and all she could do was nod, a million hormones flooding her brain at once, lighting it up like a Christmas tree. He stood, picking her up and carrying her easily back inside the house, the porch screen door flipping out and then slapping back against the door frame. He laid her down on the bed in her room and deepened the kiss, his body on top of hers, the weight of it delicious. He slid his hands up the length of her dress, running his fingers beneath to her bare skin, and she gasped, breaking free of his kiss and arching into him. He ran kisses down her neck to the low-lying cleavage of her neckline, and all rational thought fled. She tugged on his shirt, and then it was off, revealing miles of taut muscle. She slid her hands down the ridges of muscles, his smooth hardness driving her wild. Distantly, alarm bells went off. She ignored them as long as she could, but as her hands slid to his waistband, she realized what she was forgetting.

“Wait,” she murmured, gasping. Her body felt as if it was on fire, but she had to call a time-out. “I...uh...don’t have a...condom.” Allie felt her face burn a little, embarrassed at saying it out loud. There was something about saying the word that just brought her straight back to her sixth-grade sex ed class.

“Condom!” Dallas exclaimed, as if he’d only just thought of it, and maybe he had. “I have one. I mean, I
think
I have one.” He looked stricken for a moment. “Hang on one second.” Dallas jumped up and ran to the bag near the kitchen. He dug through it, cursing. “I thought I saw one.” He dumped out the contents of a shave kit, but nothing but razors and shaving cream and a toothbrush fell out. “Damn.”

“Dallas...” Allie began, but he cut her off.

“One more second! Don’t move a muscle!” he called, still rooting through his bag. She rolled over on the bed.

The urgency with which he was searching made her giggle a little. He
really
wanted to seal the deal. He cursed and slammed down the bag.

“Did the tsunami wash away your supply?” she asked half teasing, half not.

“I don’t
have
a supply. I haven’t even had sex in a nearly a year!” he admitted.

“A
year
?” Allie echoed.

“Wait! I know where one might be!” Dallas sprinted out of the house wearing only his shorts, and Allie watched him through the small slit of a window run to his pickup truck and tear open the driver’s-side door. After frantic searching in the glove compartment, he came up with a thin square in triumph. He clambered through the door holding on to two linked packages with a goofy grin on his face.

“I found two,” he breathed, exhaling.

“It’s really been a
year
?” Allie still couldn’t get over it. “So you really don’t hook up with tourists.”

“I’ve only had one hookup since I broke up with Jennifer a year ago.
One
tourist. Not
tourists
.”

So he
didn’t
need a new woman’s attention every ten minutes. Teri had been wrong. And that made Allie secretly ecstatic. She jumped up from the bed and threw her arms around him, dragging him down on top of her.

“I’ve never seen a woman so excited about an old Trojan,” he teased, as she kissed his neck. “Where
were
you when I was eighteen and carried one of these around in my wallet for a year?”

“Ha. Ha,” she said. She glanced at the worn packaging. “You sure this isn’t that same one?”

“No,” he said, pretending to be indignant. “I
eventually
used that one, thank you very much. This one is probably just, you know, a year old. Do they go bad? Should I smell it and see if it’s off?”

Allie giggled. Something about Dallas made everything
comfortable.
She felt as if she could talk to him about anything. “Give me that,” she demanded.

“Most of the lettering is still on the package. I say, let’s give it a whirl,” Dallas drawled, kissing Allie’s lips once more. It wasn’t long before the playful kisses turned serious. He whisked Allie’s dress over her head and, wearing only her lacy underwear, she undid the button on his linen shorts and slid them and his boxers down with them.

He sprang to attention, and she realized he
was
much bigger than Jason as she wrapped her hands around him. He stood before her as she sat on her knees on the bed running her hands up and down the length of him. He groaned, leaning into her touch.

“Allie,” he growled, his pupils wide and hungry.

She teased him until he begged for mercy, exploring his body in the same way he’d explored hers at the pond, with her hands and her mouth.

“Allie, God...you’re going to make me...” He didn’t get to finish his sentence as he wound his hands tightly in her hair. “Allie...”

Just when she knew he couldn’t take much more, she pulled away, reaching for the condom, ripping open the package and freeing the thin circle of latex. Expertly, she put it on him, and then she stripped, wiggling out of her underwear.

His eyes swept her body with appreciation. “You’re so damn sexy,” he murmured, and then he crawled on the bed, kissing her as she dragged him down on top of her. Allie spread her legs beneath him eagerly, and he dived in, filling her in ways she never imagined. She gasped at the sheer force of him as he pushed deeper inside her. Explosions of sensation rattled her as he worked, managing to hit every one of her pleasure centers. Just when she thought she couldn’t take it anymore, he switched their positions, and she took over the rhythm as he gently cupped her breasts. He met her gaze as she sat on top of him, grinding against him, his eyes hot with need.

She dipped forward, and he put one of her nipples in his mouth, sending her into another universe of sensation. He let that one go and concentrated on the other one, gently, deliberately, and all she could think of was his kisses again at the pond, and the memory of that sent her body completely over the edge. The climax came before she could stop it, her body shuddering in delight as she cried out. He grabbed her hips, pushing himself deeper as she came, making her ecstasy all the more intense.

“Oh, God, Allie,” he murmured, as her series of tight contractions had their effect on him. She squeezed him harder, unable to stop herself, and he groaned, his breath quickening. “You feel so damn good,” he exclaimed as he intensified his thrusts, coming just after her with a low shout. Allie collapsed on top of him, sweaty and spent, listening to the sound of Dallas’s frantic heartbeat in his chest.

“Wow,” he murmured.

“Uh-huh.” Allie still felt rocked by her own orgasm, her brain abuzz in endorphins, her body all but exhausted. Her tired muscles protested the extra work, but she ignored them. It was well worth it. She rolled off him, exhaling. Dallas wrapped his muscled arms around her and cuddled her to his chest. He happened to glance at the floor.

“What’s that?” he asked, pointing to the tiki statue on the floor that had rolled out of Allie’s pocket.

“Kaimana gave it to me for good luck,” Allie said, reaching for it. Dallas took it from her hand and studied it, and then burst out laughing.

“Not for good luck, more like to
get
lucky,” Dallas said. “That’s Lono. The Hawaiian god of sex and fertility.”

“No!” Allie cried, swiping the little figure from Dallas’s hands and staring at it as if she could disprove it by looking. “Kaimana did it again! She fooled me. That woman...”

“Has a wicked sense of humor,” Dallas agreed, laughter rumbling in his chest as he placed the little tiki on the bedside table. It stared at them, big mouth open, as if laughing, too.

“Honestly,” Allie fumed. Although she couldn’t be too mad. Sex with Dallas had been amazing. If that was Lono’s doing, she’d be fine with it.

“Hey, I think it’s working again,” Dallas said, nudging her, already ready for round two.

“It would be a shame to waste that second condom,” Allie said.

“Who said anything about wasting?”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

T
HE
N
EXT
TWO
weeks were filled with tsunami cleanup in the day and amazing, white-hot sex at night. Allie had never gotten so little sleep and not cared a bit. Dallas made her feel anything but bland, and after the amazing positions they tried that week, Allie realized something astounding: she wasn’t the boring one in bed at all. Jason had been.

The thought made her giggle. It was true: Jason stuck to mostly two positions, and hardly ever altered his strategy. With Dallas, Allie realized that she’d been missing out on all kinds of fun. She almost wanted to call Jason and let him know that there was life beyond missionary, but she decided just to gloat from afar.

A bulldozer came to level what was left of Dallas’s house. He put his arm around her as the construction crews did their work, but that night, she distracted him in bed, easily taking his mind off the worry. She didn’t have time to think about what might happen in the future, or if Dallas might run off one day or find a way to disappoint her. She was too busy with all the work: helping Teri when she could, figuring out what coffee plants could be saved for the harvest. She’d also taken on another project: cleaning out her grandmother’s closet. She’d been inspired to do it after calls had come out for gently used clothes for tsunami victims who’d lost everything. She’d managed to clean out all of her grandmother’s closets and drop off several bags of clothes to the Red Cross. She kept some of her grandmother’s jewelry, and of course, her grandmother’s prized book of recipes.

Of course, after the major clean out of her grandmother’s house, she realized that it was quickly becoming their house, with her things hanging in the closet next to Dallas’s. For once, she ignored that little voice in her head that said,
Dallas is too good to be true. Dallas will disappoint you just like Jason.

If she ignored the voice long enough, she was sure one of these days it would go away. Dallas, for his part, started talking about weeks and months later: what they’d do for the festival. At least she didn’t have to worry about him leaving before then, she reasoned. She was safe for a couple of months.

And besides, she hadn’t decided to stay. She still had the land to sell, she reasoned. She still had an escape plan.

* * *

O
NE
M
ORNING,
ALLIE
came awake to the sound of voices in the kitchen and the smell of bacon sizzling in the pan. She threw on a pair of yoga pants and a T-shirt and wandered out, curious about the visitor. When she got there, she saw an older man, heavyset with mostly gray hair, a mix, Allie guessed, of Hawaiian and Asian descent. He and Dallas were talking seriously, while Dallas tended to breakfast at the stove and the man drank coffee from a white mug.

“Good morning, Allie. I’d like you to meet Henry Leong. He and his workers have been helping us harvest coffee for years.”

Henry removed his worn baseball cap and shook Allie’s hand. “Nice to meet you,” he said. “I knew your grandmother well. She was a wonderful person.” A slight blush crept up the side of Henry’s cheek, and Allie wondered if this man might have just had a crush on Grandma Misu. “I was very sorry to lose her.” He fiddled with the brim of his hat, his wrinkled and age-spotted hands running over the edge of it. Allie patted his shoulder, glad to know that her grandmother had had a man like him to support her on the farm and maybe in her life.

“I promised her we’d win the competition this year,” Henry said. “I’m hoping the tsunami didn’t hurt our chances.”

“We didn’t lose many trees,” Allie offered, taking a seat at her grandmother’s small kitchen table. Dallas poured her a cup of coffee.

“But we lost some of our best,” Dallas explained as he handed her a full cup. She took it gratefully. “Henry agrees, it might be tough finding the right harvest this year.”

Allie thought of Kaimana and her paper. “But we have to win the competition.”