But she was injured, alone, and needed help. And I liked her. I liked her fire and her wit.
My gaze darted to Faith, where her face was relaxed and free of pain and worry for the first time since I’d met her.
I liked that I’d done that for her, too.
That’s a lot of liking.
As Faith dozed, I drove, warning myself against entangling myself with this woman any more than I already had.
I’ll just get her cleaned up and situated, make sure she has food, water, and a TV remote. Then I’m outta here.
That was the plan I made, anyway, as I pulled into the Pono Kai parking lot. I woke Faith up and carried her to her condo’s front door, but my plan was crumbling already. My arms were growing used to holding her; she fit perfectly against me, and I could definitely get used to having her delicate arm draped around my shoulders.
Stop.
Faith keyed the door unlocked and turned the handle, and I kicked it open.
“Ooh, that felt very firefighter-y,” she said, and she wiggled her ass a little in my arms.
Her face was inches from my mine and it took all I had to keep my gaze on her clear green eyes and not let it drop to her mouth. But her gaze was just as bad, glinting with humor but more than a little heat, too.
“Where?” I asked gruffly, tearing my gaze away.
“Couch.”
The condo was huge, lush, modern. Sunlight streamed in from large windows, and the beach was steps away from her lanai.
See? Rich, spoiled tourist. The worst kind.
Or so I told myself as I pulled the coffee table over so that Faith could rest her foot on it.
“Now what do I do?” she asked.
“Ice.” I went to the freezer in her chrome-and-marble kitchen.
“They just wrapped up my foot, all cozy-like.”
“I can rewrap,” I said, putting ice cubes in a Ziploc. “Besides, don’t you want to get cleaned up?”
Faith arched a perfect eyebrow. “Are you heroically offering to bathe me?”
I brought the kitchen mallet hard on a bag of ice cubes to distract from the image her words wanted to conjure in my brain. “I’m a professional. I cut the clothes off of people every day.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’ll bet.”
“I’ll call a nurse friend,” I said, returning to the couch. Carefully, I unwrapped the boot from her ankle and set the bag of crushed ice over it. The swelling was bad but had subsided since the waterfall.
“Hurts,” she whispered.
“Already looks better than earlier.”
Her gaze darted to me hopefully. “You think so?”
“Definitely. I’ll bet you’re walking by the end of the week.”
“A week.” She shook her head. “I’m not staying a week. I’m done.”
“Giving up already?”
“What can I do? Crutching over beach sand feels like a bad idea. And if I managed it, I’d be lopsided.”
“Lopsided?”
“I can’t sunbathe on my stomach. I’ll only have a tan on my front half.”
“I thought you were here for a reset?”
She frowned. “I don’t remember saying that.”
“Personal growth,” I amended quickly.
“I am, but need I remind you that I live in Seattle? We get that thing you call ‘sunshine’ for ten minutes every other June.”
I smiled, and she smiled back, and the air between us seemed to warm.
I jumped to my feet. “Water. You need to stay hydrated.”
“You’re a teddy bear, aren’t you? Tell me about Wall Street,” she said when I returned with a glass of water.
“It was chaos. Lots of booze, drugs, sex—”
“Where do I sign up?” She offered a brazen smile. This woman was anything but shy.
I chuckled. “It was high-pressure. The booze, drugs, and sex were to combat the stress, but it never worked. There was always more. I felt like stress was our main commodity. I never built anything. Nothing tangible, anyway. Just moved money around to make more money.” I shrugged. “It wasn’t enough.”
Faith settled back on the couch cushion. “Not enough how?”
“Mentally,” I said. “Spiritually, I guess, if you want to call it that.”
“So you came here for personal growth too.” Her smile was coy as she sipped her water. “A reset?”
I shrugged. “Hawaii’s a good place for that.”
“I knew there was something deeper going on with you behind your perfect manly physique and less-than-perfect bedside manner. We have a lot in common. Don’t we, Asher…?”
“Mackey,” I said. “And I wouldn’t go that far. I didn’t quit after one day.”
Faith’s arch look returned. “You also didn’t blow out your ankle and require a private helicopter tour to the hospital, now did you?”
“True.” I sniffed a laugh. “When I arrived, I had no job. I started island hopping and blowing through my 401k. Trying to find where I belonged.”
“And it was Kauai.”
I nodded. “It felt like where I needed to be. So, I went through EMT training in Oahu, applied here, and—”
“Now you spend your days rescuing damsels in distress.”
“Not a bad gig. Better than buying securities or building investment portfolios.”
Faith laughed and then winced.
“How’s the pain level?”
“Better now,” she said, a small smile on her lips. “I’ve kept you longer than I should. There are probably other damsels out there, waiting for you.”
I heard a twinge of disappointment in her voice that matched the twinge in my heart at the idea of leaving her.
“They can wait.”
“I’m glad,” she said, smiling softly now. “I have you all to myself for a little while longer.” She sighed. “It’s ironic, isn’t it?”
“What is?”
“I came here to rescue myself.” She leaned her elbow on the back of the couch, her head on the back of her hand, watching me. “But I needed rescuing. Again. From another man.”
I frowned. “Another man?”
She set her water glass on the table. “In Seattle, I work for an advertising agency. In theory. I take a lot of time off because I can. Because I find guys who want to take care of me. They bankroll my life of leisure, and I take full advantage. Unapologetically. I hit the jackpot with one guy, literally. That was a wild ride, but…”
Faith caught my dark look and glanced away.
“I know. I get it. I’m a shallow gold digger, right? But that’s just the point. It’s why I’m here. Silas—the jackpot—he and I are best friends now, and I’m done taking his money. Now I’m just trying to figure out…”
“What?”
“Who I am without all… that.” She flapped her hand in the general geographical direction of Seattle. “But my voyage of self-discovery is over.”
I said nothing aloud while thoughts warred in my mind. Don’t let her go fought the hardest.
I have to.
Nothing was going to come of this. Not even sex, given Faith’s injury, though I realized I’d be happy just to sit on the couch with her and talk.
This is ridiculous. Get out of here before you lose your damn mind.
I got to my feet and fished for my phone out of my uniform back pocket. “You need to get cleaned up. I’ll call Paula. She’s a nurse friend.”
“Thanks, Asher. I appreciate it. Really.”
“Yep.”
I stepped out to call Paula, who lived in Kapa’a and arrived within fifteen minutes. I could have left while Paula helped bathe Faith and get her changed into clean clothes. But I got as far as my Jeep and then leaned against the hood, scrolling through my phone.
Paula came out forty-five minutes later. “That Faith is a hoot,” she said, beaming. “She’s got spunk. It’s a shame about her foot. She had her whole trip ahead of her.”
“Yeah, well, shit happens.”
> “Indeed.” Paula was a mom of four teenage boys. Consequently, not much bullshit got past her. “But her ankle’s not all that bad, I think. Grade one, maybe. Give her a week and she’ll be hobbling around like a champ and can enjoy the rest of her trip.” She tapped a finger to her chin thoughtfully. “If only someone were around to help her get through it.”
I smirked. “Subtle.”
“Well?” She laughed and moved to her black Camry, parked next to my white Jeep. “Do I have to spell it out for you?”
“Goodbye, Paula.”
“See ya, you big lunkhead.”
She drove away, and I should’ve too. Instead, my brain went back to its Wall Street days, where I had to assess multiple pieces of information all at once to make split-second decisions.
I have four days off on my rotation starting today.
She’s sexy as hell.
She’s trying for a reset, like I did all those years ago.
Great sense of humor.
She’s sexy as hell.
“You said that already,” I muttered, and went up back to Faith’s place. I knocked then opened the door a crack. “You decent?”
“Never,” purred a voice from the couch. “I’m distinctly indecent.”
I’m a dead man.
Faith, dressed only in a bathrobe, lounged on the couch with her foot up. Her blond hair was slick from the shower and brushed off her face. No makeup, bronzed skin, green eyes like gems…
Stunning.
“You should lock your door,” I said.
“Then you wouldn’t be able to come back to me.”
I sat down on the chair opposite, rested my elbows on my knees. “Are you flirting with me, Miss Benson?”
“Of course I am. Have you seen you?”
I chuckled, but my blood heated at the sight of her in only a silky robe and nothing else.
“But unfortunately for both of us,” she continued, “part of my personal development is that I’ve sworn off men for the foreseeable future. Then you walked in to my life, Asher Mackey.” Her tongue touched the top of her parted lips and her eyes darkened as they grazed over every inch of me. “The universe is testing me. Hard.”
My groin tightened at the word hard coming out of her mouth, and the heated scrutiny of her gaze, drinking me in. Christ, everything about her begged me to take her down on the couch, kiss her hard, rip the robe out of the way and slip my hand between her legs where I’d feel how badly she wanted me. Her eyes flared, as if she’d read my heated thoughts, and a faint pink touched her cheeks.
“It’s testing the hell out of me too,” I said, and dragged my gaze away from the bronzed skin of her thigh.
“Asher…”
“Go out to dinner with me.”
“The state of my ankle thwarts me from going out.”
“Then we’ll order in.”
She bit her lip. “I just told you—”
“I know,” I said. “You’re doing a lifestyle spring-cleaning. I get that. And it’s not in my personal protocol to involve myself with tourists. But I’d like to help keep you from losing your entire time in Kauai.”
“How?”
“I have a few days off. I’ll show you around. Help you get to some of the places you want to see, then show you the places you need to see.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Because you were right. I came here for the same reasons you did, only I wasn’t immediately smacked down by a tough trail and poor choices in footwear.”
Faith’s brassy, nothing-fazes-me demeanor relaxed, and a real smile touched her scrubbed face.
“That’s very sweet of you, Asher. But I was just about to call the airline and hire some people to pack me up.”
“That doesn’t seem like you.”
She pursed her lips. “And you know this because…?”
“I don’t,” I said. “Something about you. I think you’d have crawled out of that trail if you had to.”
She seemed genuinely surprised. “You do?”
“Am I wrong?”
Faith sat back against the couch. “No.”
“Prove it.”
Her eyebrows went up again. Thoughts flashed behind her green eyes. “Fine. I’ll stick around for a few days. But I’m not going to sleep with you, firefighter.”
“I don’t expect you to,” I said, and added with a wink, “but let’s leave that door open.”
“Closed,” Faith corrected, with a sly smile. “But I’ll leave it unlocked.”
THREE
ASHER MACKEY MADE good on his promise to show me as much of Kauai in four days as my sprained ankle would allow.
He drove me to the Waimea canyons and carried me up the three flights of stairs to the top of the lookout.
He took me to Hanalei Bay for the best shave ice on the island, and when I grew tired of crutching around the cute little town, he ringed my arms around his neck and lifted me as if I were nothing and put me on his back. My breasts pressed against his hard muscles, my arms held him tight. More than once, I let my cheek rest on his shoulder, closed my eyes, and was inundated with his cologne, his soap, the masculine essence of him.
Like sunbathing on a warm rock…
And on the fourth day, when I was able to put weight on my foot for the first time, he took me snorkeling off a rocky beach in the south of the island. Wearing fins and swimming wasn’t possible for me, so Asher rented a boogie board and I lay on top of it. He then swam for me, dragging me on the board so I could put my face in the water and experience the underwater world too.
Every night, he took me back to my place and took care of me, bringing me ice or food or anything I needed, and we talked. Oh my God, we talked for hours, over lunches and dinners, on boat rides, while waiting in line for smoothies. He told me about his life in NYC and his life now, and how before he left the Mainland, he’d made sure he made enough money on Wall Street to fund his parents’ retirement, pay off their house in upstate New York, and give his brother the seed money he needed to start his own business.
And then he chose a new career, saving lives.
Asher Mackey was a goddamn saint compared to me. I gave him all the dirty details of my life in advertising and how I’d begun to leave the business behind when it became obvious it was easier to let men take care of me instead of doing actual work.
“Kind of like how you’re doing now,” I muttered under my breath, as we sat in a cozy, dimly-lit restaurant in Hanalei, candles flickering in small cups between us on the tiny table.
“What did you say?” Asher asked.
“Nothing.”
I sipped my wine but drank him in instead. He looked devastating in a black T-shirt, his muscles straining against the material as he rested his large forearms on the table. Dark hair, dark eyes, his chin grazed with dark stubble…
Jesus, he’s a beautiful beast of a man. How have I not seen him naked?
Because Asher had been true to his word. We flirted as if it were an Olympic sport and we were honing our routine for the pairs event. But he respected my flimsy boundaries—boundaries that I was mentally tearing down every second I spent with him. Because depriving myself of his body wasn’t working—my stupid heart was stripping itself bare for Asher, whether I touched him or not.
And there was nothing I could do about it.
I muttered a curse into my glass and he looked up. “Talk to me, Faith. What’s up?”
“I was just thinking about how I came here to break my bad habits with men, and yet here I am, letting you take care of me, twenty-four seven.”
He shrugged over his pasta. “You don’t give yourself enough credit. You pay for more than half of our activities—despite my best efforts—and it’s not about money anyway.”
“Then what’s it about?”
“Give and take,” he said. “Sounds like when you were with those other guys, you did all the taking. That’s not the case here.”
“It’s not? We’re not even sleeping togeth
er. What are you getting out of this deal?”
“You.”
I sat back in my chair. “Me.”
“Yep.” His gaze grazed over me in my white sundress—light to his dark—and then met my eyes with an intensity that was full of depth and heat. “I get you.”
Damn him.
Worse than the no-sex, he was always saying stuff like that. Things that made my heart feel strange. As if I’d been starving it for years, and now it was gorging on Asher Mackey. It felt warm and satisfied in a way it hadn’t felt before.
This is bad. Real bad.
My fork clattered to my plate. “I can’t take it anymore.”
Asher blinked. “Sorry?”
“What are we doing? This. You. Me. What are we doing?”
“Having dinner.”
“Stop that,” I said. “Stop being so… unflappable. You can’t just say the incredible things you say to me and then eat your scampi as if we’re discussing the weather.”
“Faith—”
“I’m supposed to be here fixing myself, remember? Not falling—” I huffed a breath and took a sip of wine. “Never mind. Forget it. I’m fine. I’m just sugar-buzzed from all the shave ices we’ve been having.”
Calmly, Asher wiped his lips on a napkin and rested his elbows on the table, fingers laced together. “I’ve never spent this much time with a woman and not slept with her.”
“Same.”
“Spending time with you. Talking to you…” His eyes met mine over the table. “I don’t want to stop. I have two ten-hour shifts and a twelve coming up, and I’m already thinking about how I can see you as much as possible in between.” A soft smile I’d never seen him wear touched his lips and his hand reached across the table to hold mine. “I don’t know where this is going to end up, but the last fucking thing I want to think about is saying goodbye.”
Oh shit.
No man had ever said something like that to me before. No man had looked at me the way Asher Mackey looked at me, with fire in his eyes but something deeper too. And I wanted to live in that reflection. Bask in it. Drown in it…
So I did the logical thing: I snatched my hand away, stood up, and limped out of the restaurant.
Outside, the air was warm and did nothing to snap me out of my emotional freefall. Asher emerged from inside, hands in his pockets, brows raised in cautious curiosity.
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