“What?”
“Nothing.”
Oh, there was something. He could feel it but he did not have to play into it. He let two full minutes pass with no noise but the sharp rain and wind outside.
Then he cracked.
“It’s been twenty-five years, Cassie.”
“But it still impacts your life.”
“Well, sure. Stuff like that doesn’t make sense to a kid.” Hell, it didn’t make sense to him as a grown-up, either.
“I mean that it affects how you deal with women.”
Here we go. “Did you get a psychology degree that I don’t know about?”
She propped her chin on top of her knees. “It doesn’t take a genius to figure out the fact your mother is in jail—”
“Was. She got out on appeal.”
“She did?” Cassie shook her head and raced on before he could talk. “Well, it doesn’t matter. What happened played a role in how you see women.”
“I like women just fine.”
“Hmmm.”
He wasn’t touching that sound a second time. The first time took him on a journey into his love life. Yeah, no thanks. But now she knew his secret. There were others, but one of the big ones was out there.
She didn’t seem repulsed. Also managed to keep the blame where it belonged—on his parents. He never accepted the idea of the catastrophe being his fault. His sister struggled with that. Not him. He put his energy elsewhere.
When quiet descended in the cave again, he turned to the noise outside. Ominous clouds raced up the valley as if someone had hit the FAST FORWARD button. He tried to imagine any poor bastard out on a boat in the middle of the ocean right now. Being in a cave was bad enough.
Cal knew from being stationed in Hawaii years earlier that when a storm settled on this part of Kauai, it hovered. In a matter of minutes, the sun disappeared and the wind kicked into full speed.
Their cover consisted of little more than a recess carved into the rocks. A slight overhang protected them from the worst of the rain. They would stay dry, but true comfort was not an option.
Then again, he had not experienced a moment of peace and calm since he met Cassie. The woman had his stomach tied in knots and his groin begging for relief. If the near monsoon didn’t let up quickly, he might crawl up the canyon walls, digging out with his bare hands, to get away from the temptation presented here.
“Does watching the rain help?” she asked.
Help what? was the question. “It looks like we’re stuck for a while.”
“At least we’re not outside.”
Yeah, because being alone in a cave with her was a better solution.
He glanced over his shoulder. She sat hunched in the far corner, her upper body curled over her bent knees. In the fading light, he could see she was trembling. The sexy shorts and thin T-shirt that distracted him during their hike and kept her cool despite the sun’s heat proved even less practical now.
He beat back the erotic images floating through his mind. Mental photographs emerged of skimpy wet clothing clinging to her trim frame, followed by visions of the same clothing strewn all over the cave floor. Cassie naked and backlit by the fierce storm.
Jesus, he was in trouble.
“You need to get out of those clothes.” He had no idea when the words formed in his head or how they escaped his mouth.
They must have surprised her, too, since her head shot up and a sharp gaze pinned him where he stood. “I’m fine.”
That made one of them. “This is serious, Cassie.”
“No, it’s not.”
“We could be here for a long time.”
“So?”
He knew many ways to talk a woman out of her clothes to get her into bed. Doing so for practical reasons clearly was not his strength. “You’ll get sick.”
“Figures you’d think about that now. After I’m drenched.”
He tried the less controlling route. “How about you slip out of those before you get cold.”
A smile crept across her lips. “Are you trying to sweet-talk me out of my clothes, flyboy?”
He had no idea what he was trying to do, except engage in a bit of self-torture. “I’m only trying to help.”
“How?”
How? “Huh?”
She leaned back, opening up her body to his view and balancing her upper body on her hands. “How would you help?”
What the hell was happening? “You need to get dry and warm.”
“You have any suggestions how I do that?”
Lots of them. They all involved her being naked and strapped to him. He could see the entire scene unfold in his head. Their positions changed, but the results stayed the same. He was making love to her, slipping deep inside her as the storm raged around them outside.
Cal closed his eyes, trying to block out the sexual fantasy spinning through his mind. Instead, the mental pictures seared right onto his brain, gnawing at him to abandon his control and take her.
Imagining her sexy body, all pink and ready, made him groan. To keep Cassie from seeing his growing erection, he turned his back and faced out into the storm. With his arms stretched above his head and his fingers digging into the cold rock, he watched the driving rain wash away layers of dirt around the canyon.
The evidence of how much he wanted her pressed against his zipper. His skin itched as if begging to get his clothes off.
He was in hell.
He tried to think of something witty to say, but his tongue jammed his throat closed. When words failed, he tried reciting the alphabet to gain his composure. He never got past the second letter, whatever the hell it was. He couldn’t remember.
Chapter Fourteen
Cassie noticed the look on Cal’s face right before he turned. Kind of a mixture of shock and desire. Then there was that green cast around his mouth. Cal was waging some kind of internal battle.
She had lost hers.
He might be the wrong man, but this was the right time. For all his faults and annoying behaviors, she wanted him. Knowing his background and how he rose above it appealed to her on a very basic level. Controlling behavior and all, he had her attention.
His strength. His loyalty to Dan. His willingness to fly across the country to help out without having any real information. On an emotional level, the guy was rock solid.
On a feminine level, his body and face made her throw away her anti-flyboy rules.
She chalked the desire up to the adrenaline-fueled haze of the past few days. She’d been so low and desperate after hearing the news about Dan. They lived an island hop apart and still saw each other rarely. The brother she admired and worshipped from her youth continued to fascinate her into adulthood. Now he was dead and all she could do for him was clear his name. She’d been shot at, had her insides shaken up in the helicopter ride from hell, and was now hiding out from what felt like a hurricane.
Not that she was being dramatic or anything. Whatever the reason was for her feelings, the result was the same. She. Wanted. Cal.
She could analyze it and turn it over a thousand times, but nothing would change. Even though she knew waiting would be smart, she wasn’t in the mood to do the smart thing. Not this time.
“What about you?” he asked in a strangled voice.
“No movies in my family.”
He shot her a smile over his shoulder. “How boring.”
“I think I preferred it that way.”
“True.” This time he turned around. One arm stretched across the cave’s opening, blocking out most of the view of the unleashing outside. “So, who is Cassie?”
“What you see is what you get.”
“That’s rarely how it works.”
“It is with me. There’s nothing very exciting to tell. I was the good kid. Dan took chances. I stayed at home and studied.” She did everything everyone expected her to do. She set a perfect path and never strayed.
“Nothing inappropriate? Shoplifting, drinking, hell-raising?”<
br />
“No, no, and no.”
“What about that pilot? What happened there?”
Her inclination was to lash out and ask him about all of his women. That would put an immediate halt to this line of conversation. But he had shared something painful. Seemed only fair she open up a bit, too.
“Han.”
“What the hell is a han?”
“Han is his name. Hanford Rodman the third.” She couldn’t say it without sneering, so she didn’t try.
“That name didn’t give you a hint he was a dick before you went out with him?” Cal shook his head. “This is what I was talking about earlier.”
“Please spare me a reprise of your theory on women.”
“I’m not wrong.”
“Besides, he didn’t pick the name.”
“His parents took one look at him in the hospital, hated him, and stuck him with it. They knew he was a dick from birth.”
“I didn’t say Han was a…” When Cal raised his eyebrows, she conceded. “Okay, he was.”
“What a shock.”
She could stop there. Just retreat to a safer topic. Instead, she pushed forward. For some reason she wanted to tell Cal about her life. “His name wasn’t the worst part about him.”
He snorted. “Hard to believe since that’s pretty damn bad.”
“He fooled around.” There, she said it. She never even gave Dan the details about the end of her relationship.
“He cheated?”
She decided the rest of the story would work better if she stared at the dirt, so she tried that. “He had a complete inability to keep his zipper up and hands to himself.”
Cal’s mouth twisted in distaste. “Like I said, a complete dick.”
“A guy’s guy.”
“Wrong. No matter what women think, a real man doesn’t have to prove his masculinity by sleeping around.”
The guy was rock solid. She had prejudged him as a typical flyboy. How wrong she was.
Now that she had lost everyone in her life—her parents, brother, and the man she thought would play the starring role in her future—she wondered if taking the safe route made sense. What had following the rules gotten her? She had outward stability, a job as a graphic artist that paid the bills, and…well, nothing else, really.
Just this once she wanted to take a walk on the naughty side. To do something she wanted without thinking about where her choices would take her or how they fit into her life plan. Being with Cal made sense. They were attracted to each other. He intrigued her. The sexual tension between them sizzled.
A steady roll of thunder echoed in the distance. The wind carried the scent of tropical flowers. They were alone and stuck in a dirt hole in the wall with wet clothes and not so much as a dry washcloth in sight. They were young and able and more than willing. There would never be a better time. There would never be a more electric setting.
Hell, even Kauai wanted them together. It was as if nature and need collided to provide her with the answer to what she should do next.
“How do you do that?” she asked.
“What?”
She stared up at him, seeing all of him for the first time. “Make me forget about all the horrible things happening in my life right now.”
“You deserve to think of something else.”
“What if all I’m thinking about is you?”
The irritating and immediate pull stretching between them interfered with their goal of finding Dan’s killer. The stray thoughts pulled them off message and filled her head with nonsense when she needed to concentrate on the reason her brother died at the bottom of a canyon.
“Then I’d consider my work a success.”
A wall of heat slammed into her, pushing out the chill. “We have nothing in common.”
“True.”
“We don’t even like each other.”
“You’re growing on me.”
The idea of being with him kept getting better. If they gave in, exorcised those demons, they could move ahead and focus on Dan’s death. An unhealthy dose of adrenaline and the informal investigation into Dan’s shocking death carried her through the weeks of loneliness and sadness.
Now she wanted to feel something. To savor a man’s touch without worrying about whether he would leave or cheat. Being with Cal would give her that. They did not expect anything from each other. She could fall into the sensations without thinking. That was what she needed.
A crack of thunder drew his attention outside. The distraction worked on her side. She scrambled to her feet and started across the small area to where he stood so still.
He did not turn around to face her, did not act as if he even heard her, but his shoulders tensed as she approached. He was aware of her, even if he was trying hard not to show it.
She vowed to hold nothing back. “Cal?”
“Hmmm.” His body was rigid.
“Is the storm dying down?”
“No.”
She stopped behind him until only inches separated their bodies and pressed her chest against his back. The sound of his sharp intake of breath was the green light she needed. The urge to touch him, to tour her fingertips over every inch of his body, overwhelmed her. She did not fight it.
Her palms grazed his shoulder blades, outlining every muscle and hollow before traveling down his back. And she was not the only one enjoying the tactile tour. His breath rushed out as she slid her hands around his trim waist and hugged his heated body close to hers. His body heat soaked through his wet clothes to touch her skin.
Their bodies met from chest to thigh, every inch of him against every inch of her. Still, the contact was not enough. She brushed her lips against the soft hair at the base of his neck as a fevered need raced through her. A rush of pure desire took over until she grew dizzy.
This made sense. This was right. Despite the pain and loss, the well inside her no longer remained empty. Something in him flowed through her, filling her. Spoke to her feminine core in a way that restored some of that power she thought she had lost when everything was taken away from her.
He whispered her name.
The soft, husky sound vibrated against her cheek and traveled down to her toes, awakening all those cells she feared had shriveled and died.
But she felt very much alive. Inhaling, she drew in a mixed scent of exotic flowers crushed by the rain and musky male in front of her.
She dropped a line of kisses along the top of his shoulder. He rewarded the gentle torment by dropping his head on her shoulder and rubbed their cheeks together in a gesture so sweet, she lost her breath.
“Cassie,” he whispered as if he were dreaming of her.
“Yes…”
The muscles pulling across his midsection jumped as she swept her hands lower over his sensitive skin. Her fingers traveled up and inside his damp shirt to caress him. Nothing but tight, hot skin.
“Be sure, because I won’t fight this.” His command echoed through the muggy afternoon.
“Yes.”
His fingers threaded through hers, trapping them against his flat belly. “Damn.”
Desire rumbled through her, shutting out the storm. “Come inside with me.”
“We probably shouldn’t.”
That was no longer the right answer. “But we are.”
Chapter Fifteen
Cal knew it would be hours and not days before he’d regret this move. Finding willing bed partners had never been a problem for him. He never paid much attention to his looks except to keep his body in shape, but he was not clueless to his appeal.
Some women even thrived on doing military men. They offered. If he was interested, he accepted. He was a guy after all.
But this was different. She was different. This would mean something. She was his friend’s baby sister. Worse, she was his former friend’s baby sister. The “former” part made all the difference.
Sleeping with a smart, sexy woman worked for him. The idea of being with Cassie had his lower h
alf begging for mercy. She was beautiful and available and sending every signal a woman could send to let a man know he should make a move. He just wondered if she would do the same thing if she had all the information, knew the facts about him.
If they both knew the score, he would go under without thinking. Take his shirt off, strip off her shorts, and never look back. Separate his head from his dick and keep them that way.
“I can hear you thinking,” she said with a chuckle against his shoulder.
“Hard to do anything with the upper part of my body when you’re using those fingers of yours.” He tightened his hold on her to keep her from backing away.
Talk about sending mixed signals. He won that award at the moment. He should have let go. Should have, at the very least, told her the truth. Let her make the decision to do this based on all the facts.
That is what a decent man would do. He knew in that second he was nowhere near the kind of man he thought he was because he had no intention of stopping. Instead, he guided her hands over his skin. Let her fingers learn every inch of his bare chest.
With each stroke, his resolve crumbled a little more. “Cassie—”
“You feel so good.” Her whisper carried through the cave, drowning out the roar of the storm outside and the faint words of warning in his head.
One final time. “This is your last chance to turn away.”
He said it and meant it. If she showed an ounce of interest after this, he would not hold back. Forget the intellectual arguments and the guilt that would eventually come, he was going to do it. She was a big girl. She could make up her mind and didn’t need him to protect her. Not about this.
Her hands traveled south, landing on his belt buckle. “I want you.”
There it was. The permission slip delivered with her fingers. “Thank God.”
No more warnings. She was offering. He was taking.
With a slight bit of pressure, he guided his hands where he wanted them to go. Even lower. She took the hint. Her fingers toured the waistband of his snug jeans and lingered there. Without any additional moves from him, she traced the bulge growing just below, brushing her hand back and forth until he had to bite his lip to keep from chanting her name.
It’s Hotter in Hawaii Page 9