Rolling in the Deep: Hawaiian Heroes, Book 2 (13 page)

His hand tightened involuntarily on her waist, and she looked up at him. “Why did you change your mind about dancing with me?”

Now how the hell was he supposed to answer that? If he told her the truth, she’d probably storm off the dance floor.

He hesitated too long.

Her eyes narrowed suspiciously, and she stiffened in his grasp. “Your mother probably made you, didn’t she?” she demanded.

“Can’t you just dance and call it good?” he growled.

Twin spots of color flagged her cheeks, and she sucked in a breath, her breasts swelling over her tight dress. “Why, you big, conceited—”

The music ended with a flourish of ukulele, and the rest of her words were lost. He glared back at her, anger boiling up to match hers. There was only one way to keep her from coming on to him again—he was gonna have to scare the hell out of her.

“Fine,” he gritted through his teeth. “You think you want more? C’mon.”

His hand in the middle of her back, he propelled her off the nearest edge of the dance floor, down the steps and into the inky shadows of a large clump of shrubbery. Hauling her with him, he strode along the hedge to the place where it met the sea wall. Then he swung her around, hard against him. She landed with a warm, lissome
thump
, her breath whooshing out, her breasts pillowing his chest, his erection hard against her belly. She felt so much better than his fantasy that he nearly groaned.

“You want me? This is the real me,” he growled and kissed her the way he’d been fantasizing about.

Daniel’s powerful arms closed around Claire, holding her tight against his hard torso. One huge hand clamped on her ass as he bent over her, enveloping her in his embrace, his other hand closing on the back of her neck, tipping her head back for his kiss.

And oh, what a kiss. In the inky shadows behind the hedge, Claire couldn’t see his face, could only experience. He enveloped her in heat and strength. His mouth, hot and wet, opened over hers, their teeth clashing as he demanded that she give him entry, let him thrust his tongue into her mouth and taste her, his beard tickling and abrading the tender skin of her face as his lips crushed hers.

She nearly whimpered with pleasure. There was just something about kissing a guy with a beard, especially this one… He felt so foreign, so other, so male. He smelled and tasted of the tropical sea, warm and a little salty.

His sudden embrace was shocking, a little frightening, and the most exciting one she’d ever received…as well as the fastest.

He rolled over her in a bewildering, earth-shattering tsunami of a kiss, and then, when she was about to melt in his arms and wrap her own around him, he reared back, muttering something savage under his breath. It was in Hawaiian, but she was pretty sure he was cussing her or himself.

“Wait a minute,” she protested breathlessly, her hands already sliding up his silk-clad chest to recapture him. “Where are you going?”

She hadn’t meant to say that. She blushed fierily, her face and even her bare chest hot. But his arms tightened.

“Haven’t had enough yet?” He kissed her again, but this time she was ready for him. She kissed him back, opening her mouth under his, using her lips and her tongue to taste him, devour him the way he was devouring her.

One hand still on her ass, he delved between them with the other to find one of her breasts. She arched her back, pressing herself into his hand. He squeezed her roughly, molding the soft flesh and pinning her nipple between his thumb and forefinger. She moaned, and he pulled her up against him so that her legs, even in the tight dress, parted around his.

Then he rocked into her, and she gasped in shock, pulling back from his kiss. His shirt and shorts were silk, and not much separated her from the erect penis grinding against her mons. It was as big as everything else about him.

At the soft sound of her gasp, he froze.

Claire opened her mouth. “Uh…” she managed. Her brain seemed to be in a vapor lock.

“Changed your mind?” he growled. “Thought you would.”

And as suddenly as he’d grabbed her, he let her go. Claire stumbled slightly, her body still pliant from hanging in his embrace.

She reached for him to steady herself, but he stepped back, a rigid shadow against the lights of the pavilion.

“No more,” he said. “I don’t play games, wahine. You let me kiss you again, and we’re taking this all the way—now.”

“W-we can’t.” They were at Melia and David’s wedding, for Pete’s sake.

“I told you—I’m not one of your tame haole boys.” His voice was as cold as an ice cube down her cleavage. “You wanna play with me, you play by my rules.”

And then he turned and walked away, leaving her there alone.

Like it had all been her idea, like he hadn’t wanted any part of it or her. Though that erection of his had told a different story. Standing alone in the darkness, Claire shivered again, barely restraining a moan of longing.

Laughter sounded just beyond the hedge, and Claire jumped, remembering that she was surrounded by people and a celebration. She ran her hands down over her dress, making sure nothing was hanging out—because after that embrace, she wasn’t sure. Avoiding a group of strolling guests, she hurried across the lawn to the ladies’ room to check her hair and makeup.

Inside, she opened her little purse and grabbed her lip gloss. Her hand shook as she stroked it over her lips. Reaching inside herself for composure, she smiled at the two women who came up beside her at the mirror, and reached up to tuck a curl back into her hairdo, as if that was why she was here. She was shocked to see that she looked okay, just a little flushed—not as if she’d been mauled in the shrubbery. Willingly.

“You girls look so lovely,” one of the women said, her eyes drifting over Claire’s dress and jewelry. “What a perfect evening.”

“Perfect,” Claire agreed. “Just perfect.”

Claire tried, she really did, to take the big, blond guy, Jack—who was handsome, a good dancer, and more than willing—up to her room and make him the second luckiest guy at the wedding. The groom being the luckiest, of course. But her heart just wasn’t in it. Neither was her body.

Not after what Daniel had done to her, with her, in the shadows behind the pavilion. Why, oh why couldn’t he have asked her to take him up to her hotel room, instead of—of doing it right there in the bushes? It was almost as if he’d been trying to scare her off. But why would he want to do that? She was willing, wasn’t she? And he was attracted to her, or he wouldn’t have been sporting that giant hard-on.

Her mood having plummeted from the celebration high with a jarring thump, she hugged Melia and David, kissed Jack good night and then went up to her room, alone.

The coup de grâce was stepping out onto her tiny lanai in the moonlight, the music from the reception still wafting out on the damp, flower-scented air, and seeing Daniel Ho’omalu walk out into the parking lot with the tall, plump Hawaiian woman at his side. She hung on his arm, laughing raucously. Claire watched through the flowering branches of a plumeria tree as Daniel put the other woman in his big silver truck and stepped in after her. The engine rumbled to life, the taillights winking red through the sifting shadows of the plumeria blooms.

A deep, hot ache clawed its way up from Claire’s chest to her throat as the truck rolled out of the parking lot onto the street. It was clear from their body language that the two were intimate. They had that charged air about them. So, he wanted sex tonight, just not with Claire.

She recognized the ache—envy. She wasn’t used to suffering it. There hadn’t been all
that
many guys, but the ones she really wanted, she usually got. Men responded to the straightforward approach. But not this one. Daniel Ho’omalu had a wall up around him, high and hard as his stubborn jaw.

She took a deep breath and set her own jaw. Oh, man, she was
not
going to waste any more time mooning over a big, ornery Hawaiian—especially not at Melia’s wedding.

Daniel drove out to Honok
ō
hau in the wee hours of the morning, his body relaxed and sated with physical pleasure. His brother was married, and they’d both gotten laid. Soon it would be dawn, and he’d be able to resume the hunt. With the help of the nai’a, he would find the Helmans’ kula, and destroy it. Time for action. What more could he want?

Unbidden came the memory of handing Kahni into his truck and then feeling a sudden prickle on the back of his shoulders. He’d looked up and seen
her
, on a third-floor lanai. Leaning on the railing, that gorgeous figure outlined against the lights of her room, that yellow dress like a beacon.

Although he couldn’t see her eyes or even her face at that distance in the dusk, he knew from the rigidity of her stance that she was watching him with Kahni.

And he also knew he could’ve been up there with her, rolling in her big hotel bed. Of course that wasn’t the only way he wanted her—up against the wall, over the back of the sofa, even on the floor, her hands pinned over her head while he rammed into her.

He’d taken Kahni with something like desperation, but despite her enthusiastic cooperation, he’d felt, for the first time in their relationship, ashamed. Because as he fucked her hard enough to leave bruises on both of them, it was not her face, her body he pictured or her mouth he tasted.

He scowled, taking the turn into the harbor road fast enough that his truck tires protested with a screech.

He needed to get in the water.

Chapter Eight

Saturday, June 15
^th

The ride to Nawea Bay the next morning was accomplished not by road, as Claire had expected, but in a boat. A shining, white catamaran with a jaunty striped sail piercing the sunlit sky. She grinned as she accepted Jack’s proffered hand to climb aboard.

“Woo-hoo! This is so cool.”

The short, wiry Hawaiian balanced on the upper deck smiled down at her, his gray-streaked hair lifting in the breeze. She’d seen him at the luau and wedding. “Welcome aboard. I’m Frank. You like my boat?”

“You bet I do,” she enthused. “I’ve never been on a cat. How many horses does she have?”

“Claire, you can talk boats later,” Bella said, giving her a gentle push from behind. “The rest of us want to board too.”

“Oh, sorry.” Claire followed Jack along the rail to the open-seating area on the aft deck and knelt on the cushioned seat to drink in the harbor scene, the other boats shining, white against the turquoise bay, the palm trees swaying over the buildings clustered along the shore, and the mountain looming behind it all. “It’s gorgeous.”

Jack grunted noncommittally, and Claire leaned over to peer under the brim of his baseball cap. Behind his designer sunglasses, his eyes were closed. Hangover, she deduced. She’d awakened with difficulty herself, but she felt fine now that she’d had breakfast. Nothing got her down for long, not even Daniel Ho’omalu. And now she was getting away from him and on with her vacation, so everything was great.

Bella sat down on the cushioned seat beside her, and Gabe and Sara Paalani sat across from them, Gabe’s arm on the rail behind his wife’s shoulders. Like Jack, he wore a T-shirt and shorts, but his wife wore a short sundress of bright coral and a large straw hat, both with the simplicity of the truly expensive.

Grace joined them, clad in pale green with a matching straw hat, her long red hair in a loose braid over one shoulder.

“Water and sodas in the cooler,” Frank Lelua called. “Help yourself, folks. We’ll take off in a few minutes. Just waiting for da boys.”

A cold soda sounded wonderful. Claire rose and fished a Coke from the melting ice in the big cooler and popped the top to take a long drink. It slid down her throat, cold and sweet and prickly. She watched the boat ahead of them pull away from the pier, engines rumbling. As the wake rocked the boat under her feet, she braced her feet, knees bent slightly, smiling with the sheer pleasure of being afloat again.

“Anyone else want a drink?” she asked.

“Yes, please.” Jack held out one long arm. Claire handed him a Coke, and he chugged it steadily.

The motor rumbled to life, shuddering through the deck under her feet, and Claire turned to look. Frank Lelua stood at the helm, and Zane and another equally dark-haired man were bent over the mooring cleats, undoing the lines.

Her heart stuttered and then began to pound faster as the other man straightened, huge frame, golden skin and raven hair visible. Daniel Ho’omalu, clad in blue swim trunks and a gray tank that did little more than highlight his incredible physique. His sunglasses were tucked on the back of his head. He held the boat for Zane and then leapt aboard after him.

Turning, he met Claire’s gaze, his own enigmatic, his tattoos vivid and barbaric in the bright sun, his beard and mustache emphasizing the sculpted angles of his broad face.

She flinched at the visceral slap of memory—the rasp of that beard against her face as he kissed her. The taste of that mouth opening over hers, and those powerful arms holding her in a sensual vise. Heat curled in her middle, her nipples tightened in her bikini top.

Realizing she was staring like a fool, she turned away sharply, her cheeks burning. Zane had taken her seat beside Bella, so she stepped past Jack to sit on his other side.

Daniel Ho’omalu sat down directly across from her. He leaned back, his shoulders covering a wide expanse of rail. His long legs stretched out before him, his bare feet brown against the white deck. He looked at her, his gaze trailing over her bare legs. Her toes curled in her flip-flops, and his mouth twitched up at one corner.

With a huff of disgust, Claire turned her shoulder to him, leaning on the rail to watch over Jack’s shoulder as the pier receded behind them. It didn’t help. She was still aware of Daniel, as if he were sitting beside her instead of across an expanse of deck.

“You’re joining us, Daniel?” asked Gabe Paalani, raising his voice over the twin engines as Frank sped up at the mouth of the harbor. Claire watched the buildings of Kona Town recede into dollhouse size. The mountain loomed behind them. She took a deep breath of the air, full of the scent of the sea, tinged with the ever-present smell of heavy vegetation, and listened in spite of her determination not to.