by Haymore, J.
“Celeste,” I gasped. “Ipo…”
The rhythm of her strokes didn’t falter. She made a little whimpering noise, and her mouth clamped tighter around me. I didn’t want to come in her mouth.
With a primal growl, I rose, drew her off me, and pushed her onto her back. In record time, I dove to the edge of the bed, took out a condom from the package I’d put in the bedside table, ripped it open, and rolled it over my cock.
Black spots swirled before my eyes as I spread her legs, moved over her, positioned myself. Then her face came into focus.
Her eyes were squeezed shut, swollen lips parted. Smudges of pink flared high on her cheekbones. Her chest lowered and rose rapidly, and her pulse flickered in her pale neck. For the first time, I saw the light smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose.
“Ku’u nani,” I murmured, and drove into her. She released a harsh breath, gripped my upper arms, and angled her pelvis up to meet me.
I lodged myself to the hilt and forced myself to savor the moment. If I took her as fast and hard as my body commanded me to, this would be over in ten seconds. I had to hold back. Make her feel it too.
“Open your eyes,” I ordered harshly.
It’s me inside you. Nobody else. Me.
Her eyelids fluttered open. I drew back slowly until I stroked her opening, then pushed back in.
“Do you feel that?”
“Yes,” she whispered. Her eyes shimmered, pleaded with me. Her legs wrapped around my waist, pushing me deeper inside.
Slowly out. Then in again, thrusting hard.
“You feel me inside you, ipo?”
“Yes, I feel you.”
Only me. Celeste quavered and trembled beneath me. Her eyes drifted shut. I froze.
“Open your eyes.”
She obeyed. Celeste covered every inch of me, encompassed me, clutched me tightly within her.
“That’s right. See me.”
Out and in. So agonizingly slow. My jaw ached from clenching my teeth.
“Kanoe…”
She whispered my name, not the asshole’s from the phone. Triumph soared through me, snapping my thin thread of control. Muscles flexed without guidance or thought. Only being inside her, deeper, harder, faster.
“Kanoe!”
Her body bowed beneath me. Fingernails scrabbled for purchase on my shoulders, breaking skin. Her sleek walls compressed me like a vise, milking me, demanding I follow her over the edge. Heat exploded, starting at my groin, then traveling to every nerve ending within my body, drowning me in pleasure.
Celeste
My body relaxed, and my heartbeat slowed. Why was it that every time we had sex, I experienced the most intense and powerful sensations of my life?
Kanoe slipped out of me. Turning aside, he dealt with the condom, then took me by the waist, tugged me to face him, and touched his lips to mine.
Was it good for you? I wanted to ask. What a cliché, though. What a stupid thing to say. Nevertheless, I was dying to know if he felt the same way.
These feelings could be the result of a variety of things. First, I could have chosen unskilled bed partners in the past. Mike, for example, was completely dull compared to Kanoe. In every way.
Maybe there was something special between me and Kanoe. Some magic ingredient making us work well together. Something that gave me this feeling of rightness, like one should feel this way after having sex with the man one loved.
I stiffened at that thought. I didn’t love him, of course. But maybe being in love felt something like this. Maybe that mysterious emotion was something worth pursuing in my life after all.
Someday. After I’d made partner.
“Why are you so responsive to me?” he asked, nuzzling my cheek, his voice soft.
“I don’t know.” I didn’t know why, but I did know that when he had me in that state, when I felt that hot, hot desire for him coiling within my body, I’d do anything for him. I’d answer the phone, spread my legs, open my eyes, probably jump off a cliff if he asked.
I frowned. Hmm, that wasn’t good. “Kanoe…”
His hand was on my hip, not stroking or gripping, just there, covering it possessively. “Yeah?”
“Those Hawaiian words you were saying, when you…when we…” I felt the flush coming on.
“When we were making love?”
My breath caught. “Yes. Then.”
“What about them?”
“Why do you use them so often? Why do you speak English, then Hawaiian, and mix it all up with pidgin English?”
“It’s how everyone speaks here.”
“But you can speak perfect English. You are right now.”
He shrugged. “Yeah. But sometimes pidgin feels better, is more comfortable, like when I’m talking to my family. Sometimes Hawaiian feels better.”
“Does everyone speak Hawaiian?”
He linked his hands behind his head. “No. Everyone who lives here knows some words, but I took lessons when I was a kid. My mom was pretty poor, but she scraped the money together so I could learn. Then she did it again for Kimo.”
I rested my head on his shoulder and snuggled against him. “Really? Why was it so important to her?”
“She wanted us to understand our culture, to have it embedded in us through our language.”
“Did it work?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
I put a hand on his chest and stroked down to his hard stomach. It felt so good, so right, to touch him.
“What about your dad?” He might consider the question prying—I certainly would have, but I took the risk.
“Died when I was eight. Kimo was a baby.”
The tone of his voice gave me a pang of grief. “Oh. I’m sorry.”
“He told me right before he died that his heart failed because he ate too much Spam. I haven’t touched it since.”
“Too much Spam? You mean the luncheon meat?”
“Yeah. I think he had it twice a day for most of his life. I ate it a lot before then too.” Kanoe paused. “What about your parents?”
“My parents?” I considered whether to give the standard answer or tell the truth. But he’d told me about his father, so he deserved the truth about mine.
“Well, my mother and I are close.” That wasn’t a lie. My mother had always been right behind me, nudging me along, sometimes over the phone when I was twelve years old and cooking canned soup for dinner and going to bed long before my mother got home from work. My mother had even nudged me along today…via Mike. As odd as that was.
“And your dad?” Kanoe prompted.
“I don’t have one.”
“You don’t have a father?”
“Well, technically speaking, of course I have a biological father. My mother found him at a sperm bank.”
“Your dad was a sperm donor?”
I rolled to my back and faced the ceiling. I didn’t want to see the inevitable look of astonishment on Kanoe’s face. Why was it that whenever I told someone I had a sperm-donor father, people reacted as if I’d just told them I came from Mars?
“That’s right,” I said stiffly. “Number three-eight-six-one from the Manhattan Fertility Group. I looked him up through an online search service a couple of years ago. He’s a doctor. Used the ‘sperm money’ to pay for medical school. Turns out he’s sired about two hundred children. I didn’t try to meet him. I imagine—no, I know I’m totally insignificant to him.”
Surprised at the bitter tone in my voice, I shut up. I was such an idiot for telling him this. I’d been with Mike for a few months and I’d never told him about my “dad.” And this was why I never mentioned it, because it brought to the surface all kinds of feelings I’d become adept at shutting away.
“Come here.” Kanoe put an arm around me, turning me toward him, and stroked my cheek with gentle fingers. “Did your mom raise you all alone?”
“Yes. Well,” I amended, “when she was around. First she put herself through college, and then s
he worked crazy hours. She still does that.”
He frowned, and I sighed.
“It all turned out different from what my mother had planned. When she was pregnant with me, her husband, the man she’d intended to be my real father, left her. She was all alone with a baby. She had to make a living. She struggled hard for a few years, but after she put herself through law school, she got back on her feet.”
“What does your mother do now?”
“She’s in family law. She worked her butt off when I was growing up and is now one of the most sought-after divorce lawyers in New York.”
“Sounds like you’re proud of her.”
“Of course. She drew herself up out of poverty using intelligence, sheer will, ambition, and perseverance. She has money, she’s the head partner at her firm, she’s admired by her peers.”
“And you want to be her.”
“Not really. My expertise is finance, not family law. I don’t have a law degree.”
He shook his head. “That’s not what I meant. I meant, you want a successful career like she has. You want the respect she gets.”
The smile slid from my face as I contemplated this. Nobody had ever suggested I might want to become my mother someday, but our paths had some similarities. My mother had gotten a late start on her career, though, while I had been all about getting a jump on everything. I’d skipped a grade and been the youngest in my graduating class in high school, the youngest swimmer to make the varsity team, the youngest freshman in my university class. I was currently the youngest associate at LBG, and I intended to be the youngest partner.
“Well,” I finally said, “I don’t want to be her, but I definitely admire her clearheadedness, her rational nature, her ability to approach any situation without allowing emotions to become involved—” I stopped. Kanoe’s body pressed against mine in all the right places. Enticingly soft and hard at the same time.
When had my mother last ventured on an exotic vacation, or made love under the stars, or experienced a comfortable conversation with a man like I was having with Kanoe right now? I couldn’t picture any of it. Not in a million years. Alexis McMillan lived for her career, she lived to eke out all the alimony she could from men who’d more often than not cheated on their wives in the vilest ways. When her husband had left her, she’d been driven to success by hatred, and over time, her disdain had extended to all men.
At times in the past, I’d wondered if my mother was a lesbian. But she wasn’t, I was sure of it. No way. Because Alexis McMillan disliked women too. The list of people she respected could be counted on one hand and consisted entirely of colleagues at her firm.
It was all suddenly, horrifyingly clear. I lurched up in the bed, pressing my hands to my roiling stomach.
Kanoe came up beside me. Tears pooled in my eyes as I turned to him. “Oh my God. My mother is a cold, unhappy woman. She’s been that way all my life. I never recognized it before.”
A niggling, annoying little voice in my head spoke up. And you’re probably going to become just like her.
No. I had adventures, I’d had great sex—as proof, I only had to look at the exotic naked man sitting beside me.
But this was the first time I’d had an adventure like this one, and sex like the sex I’d had with Kanoe. And I wouldn’t have had either of those things if Caleb hadn’t forced me to take a vacation.
I pressed my cheek to Kanoe’s. His mouth sought mine, stormy and smooth like the Hawaiian rain, making me forget everything besides being here with the best kisser I’d ever known and having the time of my life.
When I kissed him, everything felt right. I felt calm, happy. Perfect. I’d never realized how wonderfully relaxing sex and friendly companionship could be.
My stomach growled loudly.
He chuckled, a low, masculine rumble against my mouth. “Let’s go get some breakfast. Wear your bathing suit. I’ll take you jet-skiing after.”
“Sounds like fun.” But instead of getting up, I gazed at him. “Kanoe, those words you were using when we…made love. What did they mean?”
He hesitated. His chest rose as he took a deep breath before he spoke. “Ipo,” he said softly. “Term of endearment.” He gave me a sidelong glance. “Define it however you like: ‘sweetheart,’ ‘babe,’ ‘honey,’ ‘lover,’ whatever.”
I sighed.
“’Ono. Delicious. Nani. Beautiful.”
Heat flooded my cheeks. It was the second time he’d called me beautiful.
What must have been a full minute of silence passed. I climbed out of bed, gloriously uncovered and un-bashful this time, and began to search my suitcase for some clothes.
Finally, still lying on the bed behind me, he gave one last definition. “Ku’u. Belonging to me. Mine.”
Day Five
Celeste
On Sunday morning, Kanoe and I sat in one of the open-air cafés at the resort. I glanced up from my papaya and took my coffee in two hands, smiling across the table at him.
Yesterday had been amazing, from start to finish. I could hardly look at him without blushing. The way he made me feel—wow. I’d never felt so incredibly free. So protected. So…loved.
Loved? Mentally shaking my head, I sipped my coffee, and stepped backward to the protected part.
My mother had raised me to be independent, to take care of myself at all costs, to never depend on anyone. And I never had. Ever since I graduated from high school, I’d lived on my own, made my own way. I thought I was happy. But after a couple of days with Kanoe, my dedicated independence seemed to have flown out the window.
It was a shock to realize I loved being held, comforted, and cherished by a man. It was surprising that I enjoyed just being with him. Being beside him, being comfortably quiet, having any kind of conversation with him.
It threw me off balance and made me question the foundations of my life I’d always found so solid and secure.
But, I reasoned, studying him as he turned to chat in pidgin English with one of the waiters, this wasn’t real life. Once I returned home, I’d fall back into my comfort zone, into my work. There was nothing I loved better than success. Nothing that made me feel so confident and proud.
Except Kanoe. He made me feel desired. Desirable.
As he turned back to me, I glanced away to gaze at the calm ocean break, my cheeks heating.
“So you know the waiter, huh?” I asked, trying to keep the conversation light.
“Yeah. That was Israel. He’s the fire-breather at the weekday hula shows here.”
“Ah.” I slid my spoon into the papaya to dig out a small chunk of the sweet fruit, feeling Kanoe’s scorching gaze. “Doing double duty as a waiter, huh?”
“It pays the bills.” He paused, then asked, “What were you thinking about?”
I glanced up at him in surprise. “Me? Umm…nothing.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“No?” Picking up my coffee cup, I tried to hide my smile behind it.
“Nope.” His voice lowered to a seductive rumble. “In fact, I bet I can guess what you’re thinking. Because I was thinking about the same thing before Israel came by.”
“Oh really?”
He nodded sagely. “That’s right. You want to talk about it?”
My eyes widened as I swallowed down my coffee. “Here?”
Setting his elbows on the table, he leaned forward and spoke softly. “I was thinking about taking you from behind, watching your little ass as I drove into you. I can’t wait to be inside you again.”
I pushed the papaya away. “I’m sorry, you’re wrong. That wasn’t what I was thinking at all.”
One dark eyebrow arched. “Is that so?”
I slid my gaze from left to right to see if anyone was watching. Nope, the coast was clear. “I was thinking of you on top,” I whispered. “The look on your face when you’re about to come. How you feel inside me when you do.”
“Mmm…spreading your legs wide open, tasting you, sinking my fingers i
nto you. You taste so good, Celeste. I can’t stop thinking about it.”
“I was thinking about tasting you. Taking you in my mouth, grazing my teeth along your cock, feeling you grow hard under my lips.”
His eyes narrowed, he glanced down at my papaya. “You finished?”
“Yes,” I said breathlessly.
“Back up to the room, then. Now.”
Anticipation shuddered down my spine. “Okay,” I breathed.
“Wait for me.” He rose from his chair. “I’ll pay.”
I stood and went around the table, reaching for his hand and pulling him behind me. “Come on. They’ll charge it to the room.”
Kanoe
“We probably shouldn’t spend all day in bed.” I was lying on my back with Celeste tucked into my shoulder. This was a new room on the top floor of the hotel. Celeste had told me she knew it was illogical, but she felt less likely to encounter a cockroach in a room higher up. I didn’t mind. Whatever made her relax. And just now, she definitely seemed relaxed.
“Why not spend all day in bed?” she purred, stretching languidly.
I chuckled. She was such a sex kitten. “I wouldn’t mind staying in bed with you, ipo. I wouldn’t mind it at all. But we stayed here all day yesterday. Today you should see more of Kona.”
“Mmm.”
“I’ll drive you around. Do the tourist thing. There’s a lot to do here. Shopping, parasailing, snorkeling, glass-bottom boat, touring Hawaiian ruins—anything you want. We just have to make sure we’re back in time for the six o’clock hula show. I’m on around six thirty.” I stroked her arm slowly. I couldn’t get enough of her silky skin. “What sounds good?”
“Anything. All of it. Whatever, I don’t care. We could go pour cement or lie on a lava field. It really doesn’t matter. As long as I’m with you.”
I smiled up at the ceiling. “You really mean that?”
“Mm-hmm.”
Her satisfied tone of voice ignited a spark of hope within me. Maybe I meant more to her than a vacation fling. Maybe she was feeling the stirring of something stronger between us. Like I was.