Linda Gayle

by Surrender to Paradise

  The dolphins leapt from the sea in perfect unison, almost as if they were trying to get her to see them.

  Suddenly, she sat up and shouted, “Stop! Maria, stop!”

  Chapter Eleven

  The path seemed clearer in the morning when Rahiti and Moana hurried back toward Lyric’s hut. They’d slept tangled in each other’s arms on the forest floor all night, but after waking and a quick wash in the pool, they both felt an urgent need to find her and set things right. As he trailed half a step behind Rahiti, Moana’s body hummed with satisfaction, and his steps felt light with hope. He could hardly wait to find Lyric and explain all that had been happening. Perhaps because she had gone through so much herself, with her previous mate betraying her, she would understand what emotions he and Rahiti struggled with. So much change, so quickly, would confuse anyone.

  His body felt stronger than ever. The occasional twinge in his ass reminded him of the strength of their joining. Their fucking last night had washed away any last resentment between him and Rahiti like a powerful storm sweeping clean a beach. Now he looked forward to them being with Lyric the way they should have been from the beginning. With honesty and trust between all of them.

  The gods had shown their wisdom again in guiding her to them. He could tell watching him and Rahiti touch each other only drove her own passions higher, just as watching Rahiti fuck Lyric while she sucked Moana’s cock had driven him crazy with lust. Yes, they belonged together. Three as one.

  When they reached the edge of the forest, though, it wasn’t Lyric waiting for them, but the old fisherman, Henri.

  “What is he doing here?” Rahiti muttered as they slowed to a walk.

  “I don’t know. Where is Lyric?”

  “I have a bad feeling…”

  Moana touched Rahiti’s arm for reassurance, and they stopped in front of the strangely smiling old man. Something about him seemed familiar and…ominous.

  “So, Rahiti and Moana”—he clasped his hands behind his back as he inspected them—“back again, I see.”

  “How do you know who we are?” Rahiti asked, eyes narrowing.

  “I know all about you.”

  Rahiti glanced at Moana then said, “We are going to find Lyric.” He lifted his hand toward the hut, temptingly close but so far away.

  “She is gone.”

  A chill raced up Moana’s spine, and he stepped forward. “Where is she? What have you done with her?”

  “I didn’t have to do anything. You did it all yourself. Again.”

  He spoke in English with a thick French accent, and Moana answered him in French. “There is a dark cloud around you, old grandfather. I do not know who you are, but I do not think you are the harmless fisherman you appear.”

  The bright brown eyes gleamed, and he switched to Tonga. “And neither are you who you appear.” He pointed a finger toward the ocean. “But soon, you will be back where you belong. My warrior dolphins, for eternity.”

  “No!” Rahiti came forward quickly. “Never again. You…” He clenched his fists and his jaw. “Kanaloa.” He uttered the name with venom, and suddenly, Moana could see the power of the god glowing around the deceptively frail form of the fisherman, as if the speaking of his name unleashed it.

  The old brown eyes took on an unearthly glow. “You did not learn your lesson. Your lover is betrayed, brokenhearted. You were given a second chance and wasted it again, fighting between yourselves. You have destroyed another innocent heart. She is cursed and will never love again.”

  The earth seemed to drop from beneath Moana’s feet. He clutched Rahiti’s arm then slid to his knees. “Kanaloa, I beg you. Mohea’s death is my fault. Rahiti is a good man. He wanted only to make her happy, and I–I ruined it for him. And for Lyric. You cannot condemn her to a life without love. None of this is her fault.”

  The old god cackled. “She, too, was given a second chance.” He waved his hand at Rahiti and Moana. “She could not see you for who you are. Instead, she listens to her eyes, not her heart. Her feet do not stray from the path of regret. She closes herself away and is undeserving of what the gods have offered her.”

  Rahiti sank to his knees beside Moana in the sand. Beneath his bronze skin, he’d gone deathly pale, and to see the great warrior humbled, begging, was almost more than Moana could bear. “Great Kanaloa,” Rahiti said, his voice gruff, “last night I asked you to take me as payment for the mistakes my friends have made. I plead the same again.”

  “No,” the god answered, baring teeth that were far too large for his human face. “No third chance.” He thrust out his arms and began to chant.

  The sand started to circle and swirl around them, and the air burned with power. His heart pounding, Moana grabbed Rahiti’s arm, and the other warrior drew him close. “I am sorry, my friend,” he said.

  Rahiti put his arm around him and held on tight. “As am I. Moana, you will always be part of me.”

  Moana wanted to reply, to tell him his world meant nothing without Rahiti, but his throat had closed up, and the terrible twisting agony of change consumed him. He focused on their still-human hands, clasped together, but knew in seconds, they would find themselves plunged into the heartless sea in some animal form. His stomach knotted when he realized Kanaloa did not have to return them as dolphins—they could end up as something awful, like eels or turtles. Creatures unable even to communicate with each other.

  If not for Rahiti’s strength holding him together, he would have screamed.

  Lyric paced the beach along the strip of ocean outside her hut. “Where are they? Where did they go?”

  The dolphins she’d seen from the golf cart had disappeared. Had her hopeful imagination only conjured them? Or had they given up and returned to the ocean without her.

  Beside her, old Maria, that unhelpful smile back on her lips, leaned on her staff and nodded. “Who you talk about?”

  “You know who.” She turned on Maria. “I have a feeling you know a lot more than you’re saying.”

  She lifted a bony shoulder. “What you care where they are? They not real. You say so yourself.”

  “They are real. They were real. Oh, fuck my life.” She kicked off her flip-flops and walked shin-deep into the water. “Rahiti! Moana!” Maybe if she got into the water again, as she had when she’d first arrived, she could bring them back. The glare off the water made it nearly impossible to tell the difference between a rising wave and a cresting dolphin’s back even when she shaded her eyes with her hand. What if she never saw them again? What if she never had the chance to tell them she was wrong? What if she never got the opportunity to convince them that she’d fight for them, that she wouldn’t let her past blind her to the future, the future they offered?

  “You have been dreaming a long, dark dream, and now you have awoken here with us.”

  “We will give you strong sons…”

  “You will never fight alone again.”

  Driving back with Maria, she’d realized what she was leaving behind. It took a big leap of faith. A huge one, a jumping-over-the-Grand-Canyon leap, but God dammit, she finally admitted to herself that she did believe. She knew Rahiti and Moana for what they really were—two loving men who wanted to share that love with her. What an ass she’d been to reject it, not to wait. Especially knowing they’d be cursed again because of her.

  She sank to her knees in the waves, and the water soaked through her shorts and shirt, lapping under her breasts. Wrapping her arms around herself, she hung her head. Was this what Mohea had felt? Had she known she’d made a terrible mistake and tried her whole life to fix it?

  “What is this now?”

  The voice behind her startled her into turning. “Henri!”

  “As you see,” Maria said. “She come back for her men.”

  The old fisherman stood next to his wife, scowling. “Too late,” he said. “She had already left, and they are cursed again!”

  Maria patted his arm. “She never put foot off the island. She come back,
for them. Look at her.” She pointed with her staff toward Lyric. “Her heart pure. Open. Ready to believe.”

  Henri stubbornly crossed his arms over his chest, and that dark energy she’d felt when she’d run into him in the forest rippled around him like a living shadow. “I cannot undo the curse this time.”

  “Why not? You no powerful?”

  “I am plenty powerful, woman. They do not deserve forgiveness.” He pointed to Lyric. “She will do the same as Mohea. Walk the sands forever, waste her life.”

  “Oh no I won’t.” Lyric stood, dripping, to face them, fists clenched. Whoever these two were, they were definitely not just a couple of AARP members. Spooky energy surrounded them both. “You’re—you’re Kanaloa, aren’t you?”

  Henri sniffed and looked away. Maria nudged him with her staff. “Face it,” she said in her musical voice. “You have lost.”

  “No. I gave her all that she asked for, and she walked away. Now”—he jabbed his fingers toward the open ocean—“it is as it should be. She is here. They are there. We are where we started.”

  Lyric heard splashing and turned around. Two gray dolphins surged in the waves, just where the water was deep enough to swim. One lighter and leaner than the other, one dark and strong. She pressed her hands to her face to smother a cry.

  “You bastard!” She whirled on Henri then remembered she was addressing a god when the shadow flickered around him and a scary hint of flame showed in his eyes. There was no point. She couldn’t win against a god. She shook her fist at him instead. “You think I’m going to waste away like Mohea? No. I’m going to be with them, one way or another.” She flung her arm back toward the dolphins. “I don’t know if I love them, or if I can love them, or if they can love me. But I know there’s something between us. Something between them that they want me to be part of. And I want it. I want it more—more than life.”

  Henri and Maria listened to her rant, wide-eyed. Even the old crone seemed impressed and nodded sagely. While she had their attention, Lyric turned and started stomping toward into the deeper waters. As her stomps turned into hops and the waves licked over her thighs and then her hips, she stripped off her T-shirt, her shorts. Her heart hammered, and if she’d been standing on land, anyone would’ve seen her shaking from head to toe. Now, though, courage suffused her veins, and she knew she had to do this. For them. For all of them.

  The dolphins must have seen her coming because they began to whistle and chirp, leaping out of the water. Warning or welcome? She couldn’t tell. Over the thumping of her pulse, she heard Henri behind her say, “She’s bluffing.”

  “I no think so,” Maria mused.

  “Let her drown,” Henri scoffed.

  “Then her death be curse on your head.”

  “They defied me!” he roared. A shiver of primal fear rode over Lyric’s nerves, making her fingers go cold and her lips tremble, but she sloshed ahead, the water breast-deep now. Please let this work.

  “Leastwise turn her into dolphin, too,” Maria wheedled.

  Oh shit. Well, that would be a new experience. I’m coming, guys…

  She dived under when her toes barely touched the sand and swam toward her lovers.

  Chapter Twelve

  Lyric rolled on the shore, her lungs burning. The sun beat down on her skin, drying it, and she struggled to gasp in a breath.

  Moana flopped down on her right, and Rahiti fell to the sand on her left.

  “It was not that funny,” Rahiti groused.

  A fresh wave of laughter squeezed the air from her lungs. Her sides aching, Lyric held up her hand in surrender. “Stop, oh my God…”

  “I had forgotten how big—and scary—coconut crabs are.” His face set in stern lines, Rahiti sulked.

  Grinning, Moana shook his head. “Never have I seen you run so fast. Maybe when you were racing, you should have thought one of them was chasing you. Then even I couldn’t catch you.”

  Rahiti reached across Lyric’s stomach to grab his friend, who slipped agilely away, and before she knew it, they were chasing each other across the beach. Two glorious, naked men, muscles glistening with sea water, grappling, wrestling. Oh God, yeah. Life was good.

  She rolled to her side to watch as Rahiti took Moana down, straddling his hips and pinning his arms above his head. “Now, say you are sorry!”

  “For laughing at you? Never!”

  Rahiti bore his weight down on him, snarling. “Soon you will be crying.”

  “Crying, moaning, sighing…” He wriggled his hips beneath Rahiti. “Your mouth lies, but your body speaks the truth.”

  “You are impossible.”

  But it was true. Lyric could see Rahiti’s cock getting nice and thick, and she didn’t doubt that Moana’s was, too, pinned underneath his friend. Her mouth watered. Mmm, it would be nice to suck them off again as she’d done that morning, or go down on one while the other tongued her clit, but her pussy ached to be filled, and blowjobs and oral just weren’t going to do it for her much longer. It’d been three days since her reckless bravery had convinced Kanaloa to change them all back. Well, with some urging from Maria, who was some sort of god, too. Pele or maybe Kane. The guys weren’t sure, but they were happy to teach her all the legends of their amazing culture. All the more amazing because apparently some legends still walked the islands, still meddled in human lives. Even though she’d lived through it, Lyric could hardly believe she was part of it all and would be for as long as she breathed. She’d already called her family, told them she’d be staying indefinitely. They thought she’d gone crazy, of course. Maybe she had. The best kind of crazy. She and the guys had started to build their own hut on an isolated stretch of beach, far from prying eyes. The gods had promised they would be allowed to live there. With their aptitude for language and their incomparable knowledge of the islands, they thought they’d get jobs in the tourist trade, and she could do the same. Somehow, they’d make it work.

  Moana turned his head toward her, his black hair tossed over his forehead. “Lyric, come and get this monster off of me. He weighs as much as a whale!”

  “Yes, come see this small fish I caught,” Rahiti said, his tattooed biceps flexing as he held Moana’s wrists to the sand. “And I think there’s a very little eel under my balls.”

  “Little! We’ll see how little you think that eel is when it is exploring the cave of your ass.”

  Rahiti scoffed, but his bronzed skin turned shades darker, and he squirmed on top of Moana. Lyric’s nipples hardened, the tips drawing tight and needy, as she got to her feet and strolled over to her men. Their sex talk totally turned her on, hotter and faster than she’d ever believed possible. She hardly had a chance to worry she’d be a third wheel in their relationship before they’d showed her she was an equal to either of them. While they hadn’t fucked again—yet—they’d touched and sucked and caressed each other to sweet insanity the past two nights. Mostly they’d just been grateful to be together again, safe, whole, the gods appeased and retreated back to the other side of the island. Now that the shock had worn off, she knew what she wanted. Both of them.

  Slipping off the bikini bottoms she wore to protect herself from the sand, she eyed them both. “Well, look what the tide washed in.”

  She bent to kiss Rahiti’s firm, stern lips then felt him melting as their tongues slipped over each other. She knelt and kissed Moana, bringing him Rahiti’s flavor. Moana strained against Rahiti’s grasp. “Rahiti, let me touch her breasts. Her nipples…look at them. Like ripe berries.”

  Tormenting his friend, Rahiti trapped Moana’s wrists in one hand then used the other to pinch and squeeze one of Lyric’s nipples. Oh, gods. She bit her lip and cupped her breasts, holding them for his clever fingers. “Rahiti, that’s so good.”

  “So close…” Moana strained to lift his head to reach them. “You are evil, Rahiti.”

  “Hold him down,” she said, smiling slyly then bending to free Moana’s erection from beneath Rahiti’s thigh. With Rahiti kneeling
astride Moana, both their delicious cocks were within reach, and she tucked herself underneath Rahiti’s arm to lick the fat crowns.

  Their pre-cum mingled on her tongue, and her pussy contracted sharply. She needed these cocks inside her. They couldn’t both fit in her mouth. She sucked Rahiti down to the base, relaxing her throat to take him, while she slid her hand around and up Moana’s shaft. She inhaled their musk deeply—salt and sun and raw, primal man. They rocked their hips with her movements, and soon hands stroked her thighs and back and hair.

  “Lyric,” Rahiti groaned.

  “Come here.” Moana pulled at her until her pussy hovered over his face, and she felt the strong strokes of his tongue slipping along her pussy and drinking in her cream.

  At this angle, she couldn’t continue the blowjob, so she settled for kissing Rahiti instead as his friend devoured her, and he rolled her nipples between his thumbs and fingers. Her cunt swelled and clenched, and she wriggled against Moana’s devilish tongue. “I need you…inside me,” she panted.

  Moana’s long fingers slid between her folds and into her pussy then slid out to coat the moisture around her anus. Lyric stiffened, but Rahiti pulled at her nipples, and the sharp pleasure-pain combined into a fiery glow low in her belly. She could do this. She wanted it.

  “Tell me what he’s doing.” Rahiti growled against her ear.

  “He’s…” She sucked in a breath. “He’s licking me.”

  “Where?”

  She twined her fist around Rahiti’s cock. If she was going to be on the brink, she wasn’t going to be there alone. “My butt…hole. My ass. God…”

  “More. Tell me.”

  He wanted her to talk now? Now, when a new, intense pleasure made her press her forehead into Rahiti’s broad shoulder. “His fingers…he’s pushing inside. Oh…”

  Rahiti kissed her sweaty cheek, and she could feel his smile. “I know it’s good.”

  She picked up her head to see his gleaming eyes that shared a secret knowledge. “I never…” she confessed in a whisper. “No one…ahh.” She twisted down on the pressure of two spit-slicked fingers probing her opening. A slight edge of pain, then pressure, then bliss, and oh my God, Rahiti reached down to stroke her clit. Her flooded pussy soaked the insides of her thighs, and the first tremors of an orgasm pulsed deep inside her. At this rate, she’d be over the edge before they got their cocks out. Well, they were out, but not in her, where they belonged. “Now, please.”