Rolling in the Deep: Hawaiian Heroes, Book 2 (34 page)

She scowled back at him. “For being such a dumb-ass! I am your tough tita, and don’t you forget it. And this is for making me wait!” She grabbed his club of braids and yanked it. “We could have been together all this time if you hadn’t been lurking in your cave like a wounded shark!”

He threw his arms around her hips and rolled, tossing her onto the bed and vaulting up over her. She found herself pinned under a huge Hawaiian with vengeance in his slitted eyes, his broad jaw clenched.

“Well, I’m here now. You do that again and I’ll spank your ass for you,” he rumbled.

“I dare you.”

She shouldn’t have. But then again, it ended most satisfactorily for both of them. A month of deprivation led to a coupling that was fast and frantic and furious, the big hotel bed thudding against the wall and Daniel’s shout of completion echoing under her own high, wild cries.

When they were resting in a tangle of bare limbs, Claire showed him her new tattoo, which had been hidden under the sleeve of her dress.

“Even though your father healed the wound from the spear, I had a scar,” she said, rubbing her upper arm. “So I figured, why not do as the Ho’omalus do and cover it with some ink?”

He leaned up on one elbow and inspected the delicate, multicolored tattoo on her satiny skin. “Is that…?”

“Yup. A wave, a big roller. I figured tattooing a guy’s name on my body was just tacky, but this…” She shrugged, blushing under his heated regard.

“Tita, you are one in a million,” he said. “I don’t know how to tell you how much that means to me. Well, yeah, I do.” And he did.

Of course, they had to tumble out of bed eventually and hurry to meet everyone at the riverfront restaurant for her graduation dinner. Luckily, Claire’s mother had suggested she bring her makeup bag in her purse, so after a quick shower, Claire was able to dry her hair with the hotel hair dryer and then redo her makeup while Daniel showered.

And if anyone noticed that her hair had strangely lost all its curl, no one said anything.

Dinner was wonderful. Daniel could be every bit as much of a charmer as his brother when he tried. Perhaps even more, because when his hard face lit up with one of his rare smiles, it felt momentous.

Her grandfather got past his tattoos after the third round of drinks and the umpteenth fishing story. Claire’s mother and father watched Daniel with the fascination of small-town people whose daughter has brought home an exotic prince, and Bella and Grace beamed affectionately at both her and Daniel.

They lingered at the restaurant over drinks, and Claire opened her cards. Bella’s contained a gift card to one of the Kona shops. Bella merely shrugged, her eyes twinkling, and a strange chill ran over Claire’s skin. Bella was, after all, a Ho’omalu. Had she somehow known that Claire would end up with Daniel?

Finally it was time to go, and Claire hugged everyone good-bye, and then got into Daniel’s truck with him. He leaned over to kiss her, tasting of the chocolate dessert they’d shared. She kissed him back, toes curling in her dressy sandals.

“Come back to my apartment,” she murmured, stroking his beard with her fingertips. “Your hotel room is nice, but…I want you to see my place.”

He kissed her again. “All I wanna see is your bed. Is it big enough for me?”

“It’s old, but it’ll work.”

It did, but only the first time. The second time, they broke it. Daniel Ho’omalu’s brand of loving was just too much for it.

Claire let out a shriek when the bed gave way beneath them. The box springs hit the floor, nearly dumping them off the mattress. Daniel clamped his arms around her, swearing as they were jerked sideways. Then the other end of the box springs fell, and they were once again on a flat surface.

Claire lifted her head, looking down at him. “You okay?” she asked breathlessly.

He grimaced. “My ule took a good yank, but…” He flexed his hips under her and smiled slowly. “Still working.”

She caught her breath as he moved inside her. “Yes, it sure is. Oh…keep doing that, Daniel.”

“Your turn.” He grasped her hips, and lifted her, then pulled her back down onto him. “Ride me, tita.”

“Mmm.” Smiling at him, she straightened and began to move. She braced her hands on his chest and flexed her hips, letting his penis slide nearly out and then taking him in again.

He groaned deep in his chest. “Faster. Ah, tita.” Clamping his hands on her hips, he began to thrust up inside her in time with her movements.

Claire rode him like a mermaid on a man
ō
’s back, until they broke together, crying out their joy with one voice.

Later, when she lay on his chest, trying to catch her breath, he moved just enough to reach over the edge and fumble in his bag, which he’d dropped by her nightstand. She opened her eyes to see a strange look in his eyes. If he’d been anyone else, she would have said he was shy, but this was Daniel.

“I brought you something,” he said. “If you want it.”

“Whatever you bring me, I want it,” she told him. They both knew she was speaking of more than the gift.

He swallowed, his eyes bright. Then he picked up her left hand and pushed something onto her finger. Claire found herself staring at a huge blue sapphire with two smoky diamonds in a free-form platinum setting. Emotion—happiness and the terror of how they’d nearly managed to miss this—welled up inside her, and the ring blurred before her eyes.

“Don’t cry, tita,” he pleaded. “Ah, Pele, your tears rip my guts out.”

He kissed her. “
No keia La, no keia po, a mau loa
,
na’u `oe
. From this day, from this night, forever more, you’re mine.”

“Oh, Daniel,” she sobbed. “That’s so beautiful. I love you, so much it scares me.”

She kissed him back frantically, tangling her tongue with his, absorbing his unique, salty tang, his powerful response. Her chin and cheeks were raw from his beard, her body was pummeled from their stormy coupling, but she was like a starving woman gorging herself on his nourishment.

“As long as I don’t scare you,” he said into her ear, following his words with his tongue.

She laughed breathlessly, arching her neck to allow him to rake his teeth down her throat, and bite the place that made her shudder, made her wild.

“You can try, Ho’omalu.”

That night, Claire smiled to herself as she settled into the curve of Daniel’s arm, her head on his shoulder. Damp from their loving, his skin smelled of sex and the sea.

In her dreams, she woke to find herself lying on a wooden divan, with nothing but the warm, night breezes to cover her. She looked over and saw Daniel asleep at her side, but outside the sea glimmered silver in the moonlight, the waves beckoning.

She rose and walked out into the warm, humid night, perfumed with the sea and the lush vegetation. She looked around her in wonder. This was Daniel’s cove, but as it had been long ago. The trail to Nawea was only a narrow shadow through the trees, and there was no house, no garage. Only the small grass-thatched hut, and the waves lapping gently down on the shore.

As for her, she wore only a sarong tied about her hips. Her hair was longer, hanging down to her elbows in tousled waves.

“Come, wahine.” She looked out to sea and saw a figure moving toward her over the waves. Kanaloa rode on two huge
manō
, his feet braced on their backs. They swam into the cove, and he stepped from their backs and walked through the lapping surf to the beach. “Come,” he repeated imperiously.

Her heart pounding with fear and resentment, Claire did as he said, picking her way down to the beach. Realizing her breasts were completely bare, she shook her hair forward, covering them as best she could.

Kanaloa gestured at the two sharks, lingering in the shallows with their dorsal fins protruding. “Will you ride with me?”

Claire had to bite back a smile. The rascal—even through her nerves , she had to admit he was a charmer. “Mahalo, but no.”

He smiled wickedly at her. “If Daniele were here, you would ride, hmm?”

“‘Ae. I trust him to protect me.”

His smile slipped away, and he seemed to grow taller, casting a dark shadow across the sand and pebbles between them. “And I trust him to protect my preserve, my moana, my seas.” He lifted one arm and pointed at her. “He is mine, wahine. My ho’omalu, and my sister’s.”

She nodded respectfully. “I know this, Kanaloa.”

“Then you will know this—if he takes you for his ku’u ipo, his bride, much will be expected of you.”

Her heart thumped. Then she looked back toward the hut where her lover slept, and her heart soared, certainty lifting it high like the crest of a mighty wave. “I accept whatever it is,” she told him. “He is a hero, and I want to be a wife worthy of him.”

“Ah,” Kanaloa sighed and subsided once again to a beautiful man. “‘Ae, I see that you speak truly.” He smiled at her, his teeth flashing with pure mischief. “Well, then, you will not mind paying the price to become a ho’omalu wahine, will you?”

She shook her head. He turned, and sauntered back into the surf, where he leapt lightly onto the back of his
manō. They swished their mighty tails, surging away from the shore.

“But…what is the price?” Claire called after him, bewildered.

His laughter drifted over his shoulder as the sharks sped away, following the trail of moonlight. “Ask Daniele. He will explain it to you.”

Scowling after him, Claire set her hands on her hips. Finally, however, she shook her head and turned to pad back up to the hut and Daniel.

Daniel woke her the next morning with his mouth on her breast and his fingers probing between her thighs. With a sleepy murmur of pleasure, she opened her arms to him.

“Good morning.”

“It will be in a minute,” he muttered, and surged inside her.

After a few hard thrusts, she opened her eyes, clutching his shoulders.

“About time you woke up,” he said roughly. “Thought I was gonna be soloing this time.”

She laughed breathlessly. “Hard to sleep through your hana ai’, Nalu.”

He slid his arms under the backs of her knees, lifting her legs up and back so that she was completely open to him. “Glad to hear it.”

Then he braced his legs on the old mattress and began to move, hard and fast, hitting that special spot inside her with every thrust.

Claire moaned, a soft sound that built in her throat until it escaped, only to be followed by another, and another, each one higher and longer as pleasure built inside her.

“Oh God, Daniel,” she pleaded, bracing her hands on the wall behind her.

“Whatchu want?”

“You—you, oh don’t stop, oh Daniel, I love you!”

At her words, or perhaps the rhythmic squeeze of her pussy around him as she came, Daniel let out a shout of release and stiffened in her arms. Then he slowly collapsed on the mattress, rolling to land on his side so he wouldn’t crush her, and pulling her with him.

She laid her head on his damp, sweaty shoulder, feeling his heart thundering beneath her cheek. She closed her eyes, tenderness swelling inside her.

“Now, it’s a good morning,” he murmured, stroking his hand down her back to pat her bottom. He shifted beneath her. “Tonight we’re sleeping at my hotel, though.”

At the mention of sleep, Claire sat up abruptly. “I had the strangest dream last night. Only…I’m not sure it was a dream.”

He sat up with her. “Tell me.”

As she described what had happened, Daniel tensed, his jaw tightening. She looked into his eyes. “It wasn’t a dream, was it?”

He shook his head. “No, wahine. Vision, more like. It’s how Pele and Kanaloa come to us when they have something to say.”

“What did he mean?” she asked, foreboding tightening in her middle. “That you’ll explain the price to be with you?”

To her shock, his face reddened above his beard, and his gaze flickered away from hers. He almost looked…guilty.

“Daniel,” she warned, her hands clamped on his shoulders.

He cleared his throat. Muttered something under his breath. Then he looked her in the eye, and along with regret she saw a kind of cautious joy.

“You know I love you, right?” he asked.

“Yes, but if you’re going to tell me I have to share you with another woman, forget it!”

That surprised a laugh out of him. “Oh, hell no. Ah, at least, not with another woman.”

“Huh? I’m not following you here, Nalu.”

He lifted one hand to cup the side of her face in calloused warmth. “Wahine, you may have to put your plans to travel the world on hold, for a few years at least.”

She stared at him, and he stroked her cheek with his thumb. “The ho’omalu line must go on, ku’u ipo. That means, we have to have children.”

“Holy crap,” she breathed, dismay slapping her like a cold, wet sneaker wave. “Now?”

He grimaced. “Not…right now. Soon. But, tita…” He looked her in the eye, leaning close so that his warm breath fanned her lips. “I want you to have my keikis. I wanna watch you grow round with my seed. I want them playing around my feet. I want a little ohana of our own.”

“Oh.” She blinked away the hot tears that sprang to her eyes, and leaned her face against his. “That’s not fair. I had plans, you know. I was gonna travel to every beach I could find as fast as I could and expand my career. And then just when I’m about to work up a good mad about having my plans washed away in a big breaker, you just…sweep in and—and make me love you even more.”

He smiled at her. “You can still have your career the way you wanted. You just might have to settle for Hawaiian beaches when the keikis are tiny.”

“Oh, well, I suppose that will have to do.” She pouted and then smiled back at him. “Paradise, with you. Not so tough.”

His brows drew together, his gaze troubled. “There will be tough times, tita. Times when I have to go, and you have to let me. You know that, right?”