Lana (16 page)

 
She looked a little surprised, but not unhappy, that she’d been followed.
 

 
As though he couldn’t help himself, James moved to her, crushing her against him as he said something into her ear that had her blushing profusely as he pulled back.
 

 
“And how are you, Lana?” James asked, looking towards me with a grin.

 
I grinned back, knowing the part he’d played in my own personal bliss.
 
“As well as you could expect, considering that I have the best friends in the world.”
   

 
Jackie and Camden, and Parker and Sophia all showed up two days later, my parents a day after that.
 
Watching my father with Akira did something very good for my soul, especially with everything on the table as it now was.
 

 
My father greeted Akira before he even gave me, his favorite little girl, so much as a glance.
 
I didn’t feel slighted, and I wasn’t the least bit worried about his approval.
 
He, like me, had only ever seen the good in Akira.
 

 
The two men embraced, and I saw that my father said something into Akira’s ear that had the huge man looking suspiciously watery eyed.
 

 
I hadn’t heard my father’s words, but I did hear Akira’s clear, quiet response.
 
“Thank you, sir.
 
That means the world to me.”

 
My dad was in his fifties, but still a very handsome man.
 
Camden and I both took after our mother in looks, but I thought that we’d both have been fine taking after him, too.
 
Our dad was tall and elegantly built, with silver hair and warm brown eyes that at that moment somehow reminded me of Akira.
 
He had the warmest, most enchanting smile, and it enchanted me more than ever when he turned it on Akira.
 

 
“Call me Dad,” I heard him say quietly to Akira, and I just about lost it.
 
I had to fight not to burst into sappy tears, at the dumbfounded, grateful look on Akira’s face.

 
I asked Akira later what my father had said into his ear.
 
He clenched his jaw, and I could see that he had to struggle not to get choked up at just the memory.

 
“He told me, ‘About damn time, son.’
 
I didn’t expect him to approve.”

 
“I know,” I told him, giving him a tight hug.
 
“Which is silly.
 
He thinks the world of you, you know.
 
He always has.”

 
“I don’t feel worthy.
 
Of either of you.”
 

 
I squeezed him tighter.
 
“Well, you’re just going to have to get over that.
 
We’re all family now.
 
All we can hope is that Tutu doesn’t try to box my dad’s ears at the wedding.”
 

 
I wasn’t
really
worried about that possibility, but if I
was
just a touch worried, I needn’t have been.
 
When Tutu and my father finally met again, face to face, they embraced for so long, whispering into each other’s ears, that my ravishingly beautiful mother had begun to shoot them some rather disgruntled looks.
 
That was ridiculous, of course, because when they pulled back I saw the tears in Tutu’s eyes.
 
After all these years, she had finally thanked him for all he had done to mentor her son.
 
I could tell by the look on my dad’s face that it had been worth the wait.
 

 
As Tutu had predicted, the day of the wedding dawned sunny and picture perfect, and she took full credit for it.

 
Tutu wore light blue to match the bridesmaids for pictures, and she fussed over me as I dressed for the beach ceremony.
 
I couldn’t help taunting her a little as she worked on straightening the lei around my neck, her lips pursed.

 
“I told you so, Tutu,” I told her quietly, with a smug little grin.
 
It felt smug, but a happy kind of smug.

 
Her eyes shot up to mine, one sassy brow shooting straight for the sky.
 
“What do you mean by that?”
 

 
“I told you years ago that I would marry Akira, and you told me it would never happen.”

 
She snorted.
 
“Silly girl.
 
This was all my idea, the whole time.
 
I was using reverse psychology on you, and you fell for it.
 
You’re welcome.”
 

 
I laughed so hard that I had to have my eye makeup redone.

 
We had a short ceremony on the beach at sunset, with less than a hundred guests in attendance.
 
We watched each other as we said our vows.
 
Akira’s face was stoic, but I could see the strong emotion in his eyes, and I was certain that he could read the adoration in mine.
 

 
I’d spent a little time regretting all of the years we could have been together, if I had just been brave enough to come back sooner, or if he had just been bold enough to contact me, but I felt at peace even with that, as I looked with clarity at the good years ahead of us.
 
I knew that we would never take each other for granted, or fail to appreciate what we had.
 
Our time apart had been painful, but it had forever assured us of that.
 

 
Akira gave me the biggest grin as we were announced man and wife.
 
He looked breathtaking, his hair pulled back to show off his starkly handsome face, dressed in white, with a maile lei draped over his strong shoulders.
 

 
We had only invited about one hundred close friends and family to the beach ceremony, but the reception/wild party was a whole different story.
 
There was only a short list of people on the island that
weren’t
invited.
 
The family estate was opened up and equipped for a hell of a party.
 

 
In a completely uncharacteristic move for me, I made no attempts to be a good hostess.
 
I didn’t greet all the guests, and I didn’t make the rounds to mingle, or to share my time.
 
I left that to…whoever.
 
I knew my mother, father, my devilish brother, Camden, or hell, even Jackie, could take over those duties.
 
This was supposed to be my day, and so I took that literally, doing the only thing I wanted to do.
 
Akira and I danced, for hours and hours.
 
We completely monopolized each other, stopping occasionally to chat and catch up with friends and family, but my goal was to spend as much of the magical night in Akira’s arms, and I thought I succeeded admirably.

 
We weren’t the only love-struck couple I caught mooning over each other that night.
 
James and Bianca did much the same, dancing and sharing positively indecent looks for most of the night.
 

 
The party lasted into the next day, and we were dancing barefoot on the beach, out of sight from our guests, as streaks of dawn light began to color the sky.
 

 
Music from the party drifted to us.
 
We were far enough away that we only caught bits and pieces of it, barely enough to keep rhythm.
 

 
Akira sprawled out on the sand at my feet suddenly, smiling up at me, as happy and carefree as I’d ever seen him.
 
“Have you heard of the Hawaiian custom of wedding night beach sex?”

 
I gave him a rueful smile.
 
I was long past the days of falling for all of the local custom shenanigans.
 
Generally, any sentence that began with, ‘Have you heard of the Hawaiian custom?’ ended with a prank.
 

 
“No, I haven’t.
 
And it’s past the wedding night.
 
I’d say it’s officially morning now.”

 
“That’s what I meant.
 
Wedding morning beach sex.
 
It’s a well-known fact in these parts that if you have wedding morning beach sex you’ll both live to be a hundred, at least.”

 
“Technically, yesterday was our wedding morning.
 
Today is the next morning.”
 
I broke off, giggling, as he tickled me until I fell on top of him.

 
“I think you’re missing my point,” he told me with a grin, still tickling me mercilessly.
 

 
“What’s your point?” I gasped, trying in vain to tickle him back.

 
“We need to make love on this beach right now if we want to grow really, really old together.”
 
He let up tickling my waist, burying his hands in my hair to kiss me.
 
I was straddling him by the end of that long kiss.
 

 
I pulled back to smile into his eyes.
 
“Well, as long as it’s really, really old,” I murmured, resealing my lips over his.

Bad Things Chapter One

 
DANIKA

 
I had the strangest shiver of premonition rock my body the first time I heard Tristan’s voice.
 
I heard it from a room away, as he said something offhanded to my boss, Jerry, and still I knew somehow that he would change my life.

 
I had an unruly armful of clean laundry and four dogs crowding my legs in my boss’s cramped laundry room, when I heard the front door open, two men chatting as they entered the house.
 
I wasn’t alarmed.
 
It was a chaotic sort of house, with all sorts of people coming and going at all hours of the day,
and
I recognized the sound of Jerry’s voice instantly.
 

 
The other man that spoke was a stranger, but his voice was deep and it sort of rumbled through the house until it reached me.
 
I had an instant and positive reaction to it.
 
I had mixed feelings about men in general, having a rather sordid past with them as a whole,
and
having recently gone through a nasty breakup with a real piece of work.
 
My ex had been an out of work, pothead loser, and he hadn’t been the first loser that I’d wasted my time on.
 
Still, I knew right away that I adored the sound of that deep, masculine voice.
 

 
I dropped the pile of clothes into the clean laundry pile in the clean corner of the room.
 
My laundry skills were negligible, to put it nicely.
 
I worked for Jerry and his ex-wife Beverley, as a live in nanny/housekeeper/dog walker/pool girl/gardener/whatever they needed me to do.
 
It was well understood that I pretty much sucked at the housekeeper part of that arrangement, but it seemed to work for us all.
 
I’d been working for them for two years, and we were going strong.
 
Beverley and Jerry, dysfunctional exes, and awesome co-parents that they were, had become my closest friends and two of my favorite people on the planet.

 
I was dressed like a slob in too short black cheer shorts and a washed out gray UNLV sweatshirt, my straight black hair pulled into a rough ponytail, and not wearing a scrap of makeup, but I went to meet the newcomer anyway.
 
My four favorite animals on the planet dogged my steps as I padded down the hallway.
 

 
Jerry’s back was to me as I turned the corner from the hallway and into the black, stone-lined entryway, the stranger facing me.
 
I saw at a glance that the stranger was young, sexy as hell, and straight-up Trouble with a capital T.
 

 
I knew trouble when I saw it, it being a very old friend of mine.
 
Trouble for me was this nasty little self-destructive streak that I’d never quite been able to shake.
 
A theme song even played in my head when I felt the big T getting close.
 
Four Kicks
was that song, and it cranked up to full volume with my first glance at him.

 
He was tall, and built like a linebacker, both muscular and massive.
 
He wore a tight black T-shirt that showcased every starkly muscled inch of his chest.
 
His tattooed arms were folded across his chest in a casually attentive stance, but his presence commanded the room.
 

 
His face was handsome, with clean, even features that were dominated by pale golden eyes.
 
He had a straight slash of a nose, with a rounded tip that would have brought him from handsome to pretty boy if he wasn’t so damned big, and full lips on a wide mouth that popped killer dimples at me as it hitched up playfully.
 
Those dimples were pure big T.
 
His pitch-black hair was cropped short, with dark stubble lining his jaw.
 
His easy smile was playful, but still managed to be sinister.
 
It was a heady combination for someone who was on a first name basis with the big T.

 
Jerry turned to see what the other man was smiling about.
 
He was a middle-aged man, short and balding, with a slight build.
 
His
face was far from handsome, with close-set eyes and a big nose, but I thought he had one of the best smiles in the world.