Keoni had saved her. He was her hero.
A shiver of longing raced down Lou’s spine, and before she could change her mind, she lifted her face and brushed her lips over Keoni’s injured mouth.
The contact was brief but electrifying.
Lou started to pull away, but Keoni didn’t let her. His hand tightened at the back of Lou’s neck, and he lowered his mouth to hers. Lou froze for a moment as a burst of white stars exploded behind her eyes. Then she kissed him back.
Heroes Die Hard
Keoni
* * *
Raw lust pulsed through Keoni as his mouth closed over Lou’s. He had been holding back for days, and now that they were kissing, he didn’t want to stop. He shifted his mouth, slanting his lips across hers.
Lou’s hands slid into Keoni’s hair, and she pulled him closer, deepening the kiss. It was the signal Keoni had been waiting for. The tenuous control Keoni had on his desire snapped, and he took over the kiss.
In less time than it took to drop in on a wave, the kiss went from exploratory to explosive.
Lou gasped, and her lips parted. Keoni licked the inside of her bottom lip, and she licked him back. He rolled onto the sand, taking Lou with him.
The sudden movement made a riot of pain shoot through his ribs, but Keoni didn’t care. He finally had Lou’s mouth pressed to his. He’d been wanting to do this since that brief kiss they’d shared at the graveyard.
Her lips were soft and firm, and her tongue slid against his in an inviting dance. Their mouths fit together as if they’d been made to kiss.
Keoni felt a satisfaction deep inside his soul, and he knew they had been born to find each other. He hadn’t thought he believed in soul mates, but kissing Lou convinced him otherwise.
Keoni tasted the metallic tang of blood and realized his mouth was bleeding. He pulled back, pressing his hand to his mouth.
He rolled onto his back. The moment was ruined.
“Sorry,” he said.
Lou was silent, and he could hear her gasping for air. He was such a jerk. She’d nearly died, and he’d taken advantage of her vulnerability. He pinched the bridge of his nose between his finger and thumb, sighing deeply.
“Are you okay?” she asked in a shaky voice.
Keoni dropped his hand from his face and looked up at Lou. She was bent over him, staring at the blood on his mouth.
“I’m awrite,” he said, touched that she was concerned for him when she’d almost drowned. “Are you okay?”
Lou nodded, her eyes hazy and heavy-lidded with desire. A blast of lust shot through Keoni. Their eyes met and held.
“You saved my life,” she said, pulling in a deep breath. “I owe you my life.”
Keoni was startled and then disappointed. Is that why she’d let him kiss her like that? She thought she owed it to him? He felt the hot rush of lust turn to ice in his veins. He sat up so quickly that he felt lightheaded.
“Keoni?” Lou sat up beside him and put her hand on his back. “What’s wrong? I was just trying to thank you,” she said. “You’re a hero.”
Keoni squeezed his eyes shut. He pinched the bridge of his nose so hard he saw stars. “Don’t call me that,” he said.
“Why not?” Lou asked. “It’s true. Bones told me you’ve saved dozens of people. You’re famous for your dramatic rescues.”
Keoni tried to block the memory of Eddie’s body, floating in the ocean facedown, but it crept past his defenses and played out in his mind. He flinched when Lou’s hand slid over his shoulder.
“Keoni? What is it?”
“Nothing.”
“You have that look on your face.”
“What look?”
“The one you get before you go away for a little while,” she said.
The care in her voice made his heart ache. He softened and turned to her. “It’s nothing,” he said.
Keoni wouldn’t talk about Eddie’s death. The events of the day were burned on his brain for himself only. It was his punishment to remember them in silence. If he shared them with someone else, even someone like Lou, then the pain might lessen. Keoni didn’t want the pain of losing Eddie to lessen. He needed the grief. He needed to remember his failure.
Lou seemed to sense his resistance, and she leaned her head on his shoulder, giving him the same advice he’d given her when he’d pulled her from the ocean’s grasp: “Just breathe,” she said.
Keoni felt himself smile, and he tipped his head to rest against hers.
“I’m trying,” he said.
They were quiet for a long time, resting their heads together and watching the waves. After a while, Keoni felt calmer. He turned to Lou and pressed a soft kiss to her lips. It was feather-light and meant to soothe, but it relit the fire that hadn’t been extinguished from their first kiss.
Lou pulled away too soon, and turned her face to look up at him. “What have we started?” she asked.
“Something that’s bound to end,” Keoni answered.
There was an edge to his voice, and a bitter taste in his mouth. He’d gone and fallen for her, he realized. He’d fallen for a tourist. It was something he’d promised himself he’d never do again.
He stared out at the ocean. The waves looked calm now. That was Makaha for you—the waves were some of the most unpredictable on the island. A few minutes ago, they’d tried to suck Lou out to sea, but now they looked as calm as glass.
“I guess we should just quit now,” Lou said.
“K’den.”
“It’s for the best,” she said, getting to her feet.
“K’den.”
Keoni stood up, clenching his hands into fists to keep from touching her.
“Is that it, then?” Lou asked, looking up at him. There was fire in her gaze.
“Yeah,” Keoni said. He narrowed his eyes at her. “I’ll never understand women. I just told you what you wanted to hear, and now you’re angry.”
Lou’s jaw clenched. “You’re right. It is what I wanted to hear. Maybe I should just stay away from you. I only have a few more days anyway,” she said.
“Four days.”
“You’re counting,” she said, her lips twitching into a knowing smile.
Keoni raised one eyebrow. “Yeah.”
She came forward and put her hand on his chest. At first, he thought it was to push him away, but then her hand softened on his bare skin. She fingered the necklaces at his throat and said, “I don’t think I can stay away from you, Keoni. I’ve been trying that all week. I do have a favor to ask,” she said.
Keoni would have done anything for her. “I already saved your life, remember?”
“I do.” Her throat worked as she stared up at him. “I don’t want to be scared of the ocean,” she said. “Do you think you can give me that surf lesson now?”
Keoni’s gaze snapped from Lou to the ocean. He’d completely forgotten about his surfboard during the rescue. He scanned the waves, and saw a flash of bright red floating in the waves.
Keoni realized at that moment that he was probably in love with Lou. How else could he have forgotten about his most-prized possession?
The Surf Lesson
Keoni
* * *
Everybody who knew Keoni knew that he never let anyone touch his surfboard. Other than his guitar, Keoni's surfboard was his most-prized possession. The 10-foot-long big wave gun had been specially crafted to handle the monster waves of the North Shore. It was called "the Himalaya" in honor of the 14,000-meter mountain. Of all the boards Keoni had ridden in his life, the Himalaya was his favorite. Once the Himalaya was on a wave, it sang over the surface of the water. The board responded to him like an extension of his body. He only had to think where he wanted to go and the board read his mind.
"You ready?" Keoni asked Lou.
She was still dripping wet. Her hair clung to her shoulders and back in thick snaking tendrils. Her golden skin was covered with a layer of chills. She wet her lips and nodded at him.
&nbs
p; Keoni wanted to fold Lou in his arms and keep her safe, but it was better that she get back in the ocean as soon as possible. She needed to face her fears. It was the only way to get rid of them. There was no disease more debilitating than fear.
Keoni laid his board down on the sand and told Lou to lie on top of it. He stepped back and held his breath as she lowered herself onto the Himalaya. Keoni had never allowed anyone to get this close to his board before. Lou lay on top of it with her belly flush to the slick surface and Keoni felt his heart stop.
She looked perfect.
Lou pushed up on her elbows and looked at him over her shoulder.
"Is this right?" she asked.
Keoni nodded, not trusting himself to speak.
"I feel funny doing this in the sand," she said. "Shouldn't we be in the water?"
Hiking up his shorts, Keoni squatted down beside her. “Try listen,” he said. "This is the best way to learn."
He'd given hundreds of surf lessons over the years, and he always started everyone off the same way. They learned the mechanics of paddling and popping up on the sand first. When they had that down, they graduated to the water.
Keoni showed Lou how to paddle. "This is the most important part," Keoni said. "You have to pull through the water with the right amount of caress and force."
Lou looked over her shoulder at Keoni, her eyebrows drawn together in concentration. She was giving it her all, taking the lesson seriously. When she could paddle to satisfaction, Keoni told her to stand aside so he could demonstrate popping up.
Lou's eyes went wide. "I'm never going to be able to do that," she said. "I told you I'm horrible at anything that requires coordination. I almost drowned just walking on the beach."
"That's because you turned your back on the ocean. You never turn your back on the ocean," he said.
"You were watching me?" Lou asked.
Keoni nodded. He always kept one eye out for a dangerous situation, but he'd been watching Lou because she was wearing the smallest bikini he'd ever seen. As soon as she'd peeled off her dress, Keoni had spotted her and decided it was time to take a break from surfing.
Keoni showed her how to pop up again, this time breaking it into four motions. After a few tries, Lou got the hang of it. She was proving to be a quick learner.
"You said you weren't athletic," Keoni teased.
She shook her head. "I'm not."
Keoni lifted the Himalaya up from the sand, and tucked it under his arm. “You look like a dancer when you take pictures,” he said.
Lou stopped walking and stared up at him. “What?”
“You look like a dancer,” he said. “The way you move. It’s like a sensual dance.”
Lou’s cheeks turned red. “You think so?”
Keoni swallowed and nodded. She couldn’t have been more beautiful than she was right now. He wanted to grab her again and kiss her, but he restrained himself.
“Time to see if you can do that on the water,” he said.
He led her into the waves. Her teeth chattered as they waded into the water. The waves were calm, but both of them knew how quickly that could change.
"I'm scared," Lou said.
"That's okay," Keoni said. "You should be."
Lou glanced sharply at him to see if he was teasing, but Keoni was dead serious.
"The ocean is dangerous. Don't forget that. A little bit of fear is good," he said. "Now get on the board."
Keoni held the Himalaya steady while Lou climbed on. Once she had her belly pressed to the board and was floating, Keoni showed Lou how to balance her weight on the board, and how to turn. He stretched over her so that his front was pressed to her back, and he went over the paddling motions once again.
"The key is paddling," Keoni said. "You have to paddle hard. Get ahead of the wave so it can lift you. Let the ocean do the work."
"What do you mean?" she asked, turning to look at him over her shoulder.
Their faces were close enough to kiss, but Keoni was all business. He took Lou's hand and let it hover over the surface of the water. The warm waves pushed against their palms.
"You feel that?" he asked.
"The water?"
"No, I mean the energy. The power."
They were both quiet as the ocean undulated beneath their joined hands. The only sound was their breath and the crash of the waves.
After a moment, Lou nodded. "I feel it," she said.
Keoni heard it in her voice that she did. She was almost ready.
"Wait for the right wave," he instructed.
"How will I know?"
"You just will. Trust the ocean to tell you," he said. "If you fail, try again. But, don't try hard. Try easy."
"What does that mean?" Lou asked.
"Sometimes you gotta let go," he said. "Don't try so hard. Instead, you gotta try easy."
Keoni gave the Himalaya a little push to start Lou off, and then stepped back. He crossed his arms and watched as she paddled over the shore break into the open water.
His heart was in his throat as he watched her form (perfect) and her technique (not bad). He'd taught her all that could be taught in a first lesson. Now the waves of Makaha needed to cooperate. This wasn't the ideal place to give a surf lesson. Makaha was too unpredictable. There were four sections where the waves broke, and Keoni had steered Lou into the easiest one, but that didn't mean she would stay there.
It would have been much easier to teach Lou how to surf at Queen's Beach in Waikiki, where the waves were long and gentle, but he didn't have the luxury of choice. She'd been scared half to death by the ocean, and she needed to face it as quickly as possible, before it paralyzed her forever.
Keoni was a good teacher, but he had quit giving lessons years ago. Surfing was too personal to Keoni. To him, it wasn't a sport – it was his culture. Surfing was the one thing that no one could take away from Hawaiians. Keoni felt like he was selling a little piece of his soul every time he taught someone how to stand up on a wave.
He didn’t feel that way watching Lou. Looking at her wet body pressed against the slick surface of his surfboard, Keoni was jealous. He wished he was the Himalaya and Lou’s luscious body was flattened against him. He wanted to feel the heaviness of her breasts lying on his chest. He wanted to slide his hands over her wet skin.
Keoni’s blood began to rush through his veins as his heart thumped in his chest.
Jesus, he thought. He had it so bad for Lou that he was getting a hard-on just watching her paddle through the waves. Then, she crouched over the board and slid her right foot forward, and Keoni felt himself stiffen even more. She looked so damn sexy with the sun gleaming on her tanned skin and the wind blowing back her thick hair.
She popped up on the board, and Keoni sighed. He tried to get control of himself, thinking the most unsexy thoughts he could muster up, but nothing worked. He felt ready to explode just watching Lou guide the Himalaya over the water.
She was doing it. She’d learned to surf, and she was a natural, just like Keoni had known she would be. It broke his heart to watch the smile spread across her face, knowing he would never see her again.
Fuck that, Keoni thought. Fuck never seeing her again.
He couldn’t let that happen.
Lou hopped off the board and ran to Keoni. She threw her arms around him. Keoni pulled her close, burying his face in her neck and lifting her off her feet.
"That was amazing!" she said.
“You were amazing,” he said.
He leaned back and kissed her on the mouth the way he’d wanted to do for a week. When she moaned and pulled him closer, Keoni pressed against her, letting her feel what watching her surf had done to him.
Lou gasped when she felt how hard he was. Keoni took advantage of her open mouth and plunged his tongue into her mouth. Lou’s arms tightened around his back and she kissed him back, greedily sucking his tongue into her mouth.
Keoni pulled back for a breath, glancing around, he remembered they were at a fa
mily beach.
“Let’s get outta here,” he said.
Lou stared up at him, her eyes dazed. “Where?”
“Bones lives just up the street,” he said, reaching down to grab his board.
When he stood up, Lou was looking at him with tear-filled eyes. She had changed her mind.
“I can’t,” she said.
Keoni stared down into her eyes. They were a brilliant shade of turquoise, deeper and more complex than the blue of the sea.
"Do you love him?" he asked.
Every breath was torture as Keoni waited for Lou to answer. Finally, she shook her head.
"I don't know," she said. She took a cleansing breath and then let it go. "I have my whole life planned out. We have a future together." She groaned in frustration, pushing Keoni gently in the chest. "This wasn't supposed to happen. You weren't supposed to happen. But when I thought I was going to die the only face I wanted to see was yours."
Keoni leaned down and touched his forehead to Lou's. In Hawaiian culture, touching faces and sharing breath was the essence of life, the purest way to show aloha.
Keoni drew in a breath, and as he exhaled, Lou breathed him in. It was too late – they were connected. Keoni had started falling for Lou the moment he'd slipped the lei around her neck at the airport.
He was going to be a mess when she left, and it was going to be sweet torture to be around her in the meantime. Keoni took a step back, releasing Lou.
"I'm starving," he said. "Let's go eat, and not worry about this for a while."
Lou looked as if she would protest, but then she decided it was best to follow Keoni down the beach.
Change of Plans
Lou
* * *
They spent the rest of the afternoon eating fish that Bones had pulled out of the ocean, drinking beers, and playing music.
As night fell, Bones and Keoni went up to Bones’s place and got blankets. They spread them out in the sand, stoked the fire, and played music.
Try Easy: A Slow-Burn Vacation Fling Love Story (Aloha Series Book 1) Page 10