Breaker's Passion

by Julie Cannon

  The butterflies in Elizabeth’s stomach settled as the aircraft rose from the ground. She was sandwiched between the Italian husband on her left and Colby on her right. The pilot had assigned their seats based on weight, and Colby was sitting next to the window. She had tried to get the pilot to switch her with Elizabeth, but he had politely refused.

  Fifteen minutes later they were flying over the strip of hotels on the Kaanapali side of the island. She saw her hotel and the familiar pink of the Embassy Villas next door. As the pilot identified various points of interest, Colby motioned for her to lean over her to get a better view out the window. Each time she did she caught a whiff of the scent that was uniquely Colby, and more than once she felt slightly dizzy. Several times during the flight Colby touched her arm or leg to get her attention while she pointed out something. Every touch was hot and left a mark that only she could feel.

  Halfway into the flight the pilot hovered over the green slopes of Mt. Haleakala. After a few minutes he descended to a remote landing site. Colby helped her out of the helicopter when the large blades completely stopped, again offering her hand.

  Colby didn’t release her hand as they walked in the lush grass. They strolled to the top of the slope, and with barely any wind it was absolutely silent. She didn’t say anything, unwilling to break the solitude. Colby seemed to take her job as tour guide seriously, and her voice was soft as she pointed out the West Maui Mountains, Lanai, Kahoolawe, Molokini Islet, and the small island of Molokai. Still holding Colby’s hand, she stood in awe until the pop of a champagne bottle behind her broke the quiet of Mother Nature.

  “Champagne?” Colby asked.

  “Seems perfect. I wouldn’t miss it,” she replied, and followed Colby back down the slope.

  As they drank, the pilot entertained them with amusing stories of other flights and a brief geography lesson of the 20,000 acre Ulupalakua Ranch where they had landed. The rolling green pastureland, forests, and mountain vistas were home to thousands of head of cattle, some of which Elizabeth saw grazing below.

  The pilot insisted they pose in front of the helicopter for several pictures, and Elizabeth’s knees went weak when Colby put her arm around her waist. The pilot assumed they were a couple and teased them into the same romantic poses the other passengers had assumed.

  The feel of Colby’s strong body pressed against her back, arms wrapped around her waist, almost undid her. She was on fire. Every nerve ending, one in particular, was ready to explode. When the pilot said they needed to head back, she didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed.

  The remainder of the flight was a blur. She remembered only the feel of soft, hot skin and the coiled energy of Colby sitting beside her. She was so on edge she could barely walk from where the helicopter landed to Colby’s truck.

  “Ready for some lunch?” Colby asked, rolling down her window and handing a five-dollar bill to the parking-lot attendant.

  With her stomach tied in knots, she was in no mood for food. “Sure,” she lied.

  The water splashed onto the stamped-cement patio just out of reach of her feet. Colby had let Elizabeth choose the table at Kimo’s, and now they were sitting outside and Colby was relishing the fresh air. She had no idea what had gotten into her this morning. First it was breakfast, then the helicopter ride, and now a lunch invitation. She hadn’t spent this much time with a woman in years. At least outside of a sexual liaison.

  She studied Elizabeth as she studied the menu. That same strand of hair was determined to remain free. Whether she wore a ball cap, a ponytail, or a bun like she had it in now, it simply refused to be tamed. Was Elizabeth the same?

  She was stunningly beautiful. A smattering of freckles across her nose made her look young, whereas the few laugh lines around her eyes made her appear sophisticated and womanly. And she was definitely all woman.

  Sitting beside her in the helicopter had been nothing but torture. The ride lasted only ninety minutes but had felt like forever. She hadn’t intended it to be anything other than the best way to show Elizabeth the wide variety of landscape on the island. She had been on this trip several times herself, but never with a woman. More specifically a woman she was interested in and for some odd reason wanted only the best for.

  When Elizabeth had stretched over her to get a better view of something out the window, Colby inhaled the smell of her shampoo or perfume or whatever it was that made up the fragrance that she remembered from that night. She couldn’t keep her hands to herself in the aircraft and thoroughly enjoyed their impromptu photo shoot.

  What was happening? Feeling this interested in someone or something other than surfing frightened her. She didn’t deserve this, whatever this was. She wasn’t worthy of the attention of an attractive woman. Sex was one thing, but this was altogether different.

  “Have you always been a surf instructor?”

  Elizabeth’s question caught her off guard. Her heart raced and panic threatened to overwhelm her. When she met someone new she hated for the small talk to turn to her and her past. Like the other times, she had a choice. Tell the truth as it had been or as it was now. She must have had an odd expression because Elizabeth quickly said, “Hey, I’m just making conversation here. I’m not trying to get your genealogy chart or your DNA.” Then she scooted her chair back a few inches.

  Colby forced herself to calm down and try to laugh it off. “Too late, you got my DNA the other night.” She had never slipped this badly in her story, even in the beginning.

  “I suppose you’re right,” Elizabeth replied warily.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten already?” Colby put her hand to her chest. “I’m crushed.” The tension disappeared with the sound of Elizabeth laughing across the table.

  “Bullshit. I don’t think your ego was even slightly bruised.” This time her eyes sparkled.

  She sagged against the back of her chair. “Ouch, another ding. What am I doing to deserve this treatment?” She had successfully erased the look of hurt from Elizabeth’s face.

  “Teasing me.” Elizabeth took a sip of her iced tea.

  “Teasing you. You’re the one who was practically sitting on my lap in the helicopter.” She hadn’t felt this good with a woman in longer than she could recall. She never thought she would again.

  Elizabeth cocked one eyebrow at her. “You invited me, remember?”

  “Details, details.” She laughed and waved her hand to indicate that details were far too petty to address.

  “So do you plan to answer my question or not?”

  Elizabeth was tenacious; she would give her that, no matter how uncomfortable it made her. Again she looked into the green eyes across from her. “No.”

  “No, you don’t plan to answer the question or no, you haven’t always been a surf instructor?”

  She was good. Very few women in Colby’s life could give as good as they got when it came to verbal sparring. Except her sisters. Used to drive her mother crazy the way they all had to have the last word.

  “No,” she answered, then raised her hand to stop Elizabeth’s next question. “No, I haven’t always been a surf instructor. And don’t ask me what I did before, because it doesn’t matter. I’ve never been in prison, jail, or court. I barely jaywalk.” The waitress brought their food, distracting them.

  “My mother will be pleased to hear that,” Elizabeth said, squirting a large dollop of ketchup on her plate.

  “Tell me about her.” She was more than a little frightened at the thought she actually wanted to meet her someday.

  Elizabeth bit into a ketchup-laden French fry before answering. “She and my dad live in San Diego.”

  “Is that home?”

  “Not anymore.” Elizabeth wasn’t much more specific in her answers than she was when she introduced herself yesterday.

  “Any siblings?” She continued asking questions that hadn’t come out of her mouth in years.

  Elizabeth chewed her bite of hamburger before answering. Colby was im
pressed that she was a hearty eater. The way she was chowing down on her burger and fries left no doubt she wasn’t a health-food nut. Her mouth still full, she held up two fingers.

  “Brothers or sisters?”

  This time Elizabeth nodded.

  “One of each?”

  Another nod. This was like twenty questions.

  “You?” Elizabeth asked, her mouth finally cleared of angus beef.

  “Five, all girls.”

  “Six girls. My God, that’s a sorority.”

  Even though she was surprised that she had answered the question honestly, Elizabeth’s reaction still made her laugh. “My mother used to say the same thing when she was trying to get us all ready for church.”

  “Is she still alive?” Elizabeth asked cautiously.

  “Boy, is she ever. She lives in Texas.” Okay, one truth and one lie.

  “I thought you said you grew up here?”

  She was impressed by Elizabeth’s deductive reasoning, even on such a trivial matter. “I did. She moved there ten years ago with her husband.” Colby didn’t need to explain that her mother’s husband wasn’t her father. That statement usually did the job.

  “Any of your sibs live here?” Elizabeth finished off her French fries and had nabbed one of Colby’s off her plate. This was more than a simple meet-and-greet meal.

  “No. They’re all over the country with their respective careers or husbands. It’s just me.” She felt a pang of loneliness, which surprised her. She was alone on the island but never thought of herself as lonely.

  “So that’s my story. What’s yours?” Colby sat back in her chair, her complete attention on Elizabeth.

  “Nothing special. I’m the president of a college in Essington, a small town in eastern New Hampshire.” Elizabeth always added the location of her school, as most people had never heard of it.

  “Madam President,” Colby said admiringly, tipping her glass in her direction.

  “Not today. Today, I’m just Elizabeth.”

  “So tell me about your school.”

  She gave Colby the three-minute elevator speech about Embers College. With an enrollment of only twelve thousand students and several hundred faculty, it was small enough that she knew all the ins, outs, and goings-on there. She regaled Colby with several stories of college shenanigans and soon they were both laughing.

  “So why the helicopter ride?” she asked, finishing her tea and wiping her mouth.

  The waitress refilled their glasses and cleared the table, but not before Elizabeth grabbed two more fries off Colby’s plate.

  “Why not?”

  “Because that was an expensive way to impress me,” she said calmly, looking directly at her.

  “Who said anything about trying to impress you?”

  “Who drops three hundred dollars for a ninety-minute helicopter ride with a complete stranger?”

  This woman definitely kept her on her toes, which was exciting. “We’re not complete strangers. We shared breakfast, exchanged a few words in the grocery store…” She knew Elizabeth would pick up her dangling statement.

  “And had sex on the beach.”

  She put her hands up in defense. “Now that’s where you’re wrong. We didn’t have sex on the beach.” She revised her comment at the look of disbelief on Elizabeth’s face. “Okay, we were almost having sex on the beach. That qualifies us as something other than complete strangers.” She sat back, confident she had made her case.

  “Then what would you call us?” Elizabeth asked, clearly expecting an answer.

  “Well, we’re not friends, not lovers…yet, so how about budding acquaintances. Jeez, that sounded lame.” She grimaced.

  “Hmm.” Elizabeth had her arms crossed over her chest, hand on her chin. She was too cute in that pose. “I guess it’ll do. For now at least. But I’m still uncomfortable with how much money you spent. I’ll get lunch,” she said, grabbing the bill before the waitress could even set the black folder on the table.

  She knew Elizabeth had no clue how much money she had and that she used to spend more on a pair of shoes than she’d paid for the helicopter ride. She had held her breath when the clerk at the heliport swiped her Visa card, which had more dust on it from lack of use than the pots and pans in her kitchen.

  They sat in comfortable silence watching the waves roll in. A small black crab crawled across the top of the wall in front of them. She was comfortable with the peacefulness, and Elizabeth didn’t seem to need to fill it with idle chitchat either. Several sailboats and a catamaran raced across the water. A cruise ship docked at the pier was unloading passengers for a day of exploration and shopping. The waitress refilled their glasses several more times before Elizabeth excused herself to go to the ladies’ room.

  As Colby watched her retreat she wondered what was next. Should she ask her if she needed to do some shopping, walk on the boardwalk, maybe stop and get a tattoo? Each option was equally absurd as far as she was concerned, but she wanted to do them all and more, as long as it was with her. Maybe she could simply ask if they could go back to Elizabeth’s room and find a mutually satisfying way to spend the afternoon. That too would be more than okay with her. It surprised her that it hadn’t been her first choice.

  “Ready?” Elizabeth asked.

  Ready for what, she thought but didn’t ask. “Sure.” Even though Elizabeth had picked up the check and the tip, she dropped two twenties on the table to compensate the waitress for monopolizing the table for three hours.

  Outside on the bustling street, she took Elizabeth’s arm, pulling her against her chest before a group of blue-haired tourists could mow over her. They all wore badges on lanyards stating the name of the cruise ship she had seen docked at the pier.

  Elizabeth stiffened, then relaxed as the crowd passed. Colby’s nipples hardened and she knew Elizabeth felt them too. Was it her imagination or did Elizabeth lean into her more than was necessary to evade the tourists? Who cares, she thought, savoring the feel of Elizabeth’s body against her. She bent forward, her lips close to Elizabeth’s ear.

  “What next?”

  Colby’s breath on her neck sent shivers down Elizabeth’s back that landed directly in her crotch. All day she had been in a state of arousal just by a look, a gesture, and definitely a touch. Colby was the perfect gentleman, so to speak, but Elizabeth wished she’d make a move.

  When it came to women Elizabeth was aggressive, going after exactly what she wanted, but in the case of this Hawaiian beauty, she was shy. It was ridiculous. They had practically swallowed each other’s tongues, and Colby’s hand was halfway down her pants, for God’s sake, so shy was definitely not a word she would associate with this scenario. What was it about Colby that made her need to be taken? More important, how could she let her know?

  “I’ve got some work to do,” Elizabeth said, to answer Colby’s recent query. Reluctantly she stepped out of the safety of Colby’s arms. It had felt good, too good, but she had an appointment at four she couldn’t miss.

  “Work? I thought you were here on vacation.”

  “What gave you that idea?” she asked as they walked down the crowded sidewalk toward Colby’s truck. They had talked about many things this morning, but not about why she was on the island.

  Colby answered as they passed a chocolate shop. “Hmm, let’s see. Maui, in my opinion, is the most beautiful of the islands, you’re a guest at the Carlyle, you’ve been on the beach three days in the middle of the week. I’m not a rocket scientist, but one plus one plus one equals vacation.”

  “Close, but my math answer is one sublet villa plus one publishing deadline divided by one exhausted college president equals two months in Maui.”

  “You don’t look exhausted.” Colby dragged her eyes over her body, paying special attention to her bare legs.

  “Don’t believe everything you see, surfer girl.” She surprised herself by calling Colby by the nickname she’d given her before she knew the real one.

  “I coul
d say the same thing, Madam President.”

  “That’s Doctor to you,” she tossed back, referring to her PhD that she had worked years to attain.

  “Oh, man, I love it when a woman talks all official to me.” Colby gently took her arm and led her across the street, avoiding another throng of people. “What are you working on?”

  “I’m writing a book.”

  “Fiction or academic?” Colby asked.

  “Fiction.”

  “Genre?”

  “Guess,” Elizabeth tossed back. She was midway through her first foray into the world of lesbian romance and was hesitant to discuss it with anyone but Diane.

  Colby stopped walking, turned, and looked at her, then crossed her arms across her chest and appeared thoughtful. “Hmm, this sounds like a trick question.” Elizabeth’s body burned where Colby’s eyes roamed over it. “It’s either sappy romance or hard-core whodunit?”

  “Why not both?”

  “Both?” Colby’s eyes narrowed in confusion.

  “Yeah, hard-core romance. You know, who did what specifically and to whom?” Her body flushed as she remembered a particular scene in the soon-to-be-published erotic collection she had finished edits on just before she left for this vacation. It was so hot she had to take care of business, very personal business, before she could sleep that night. It took a few moments for Colby to catch on.

  “Will you talk dirty to me?”

  She couldn’t help but laugh. Colby was not only stunningly gorgeous but had a quick wit and a contagious smile.

  She slipped her arm into Colby’s and they started walking again. “I don’t do readings.”

  “If I ask nicely?”

  “No.”

  “What if I beg?”

  She stumbled, the image of Colby under her begging for release overwhelming her. “We’ll see. Where did all these people come from?” She needed to change the subject and somehow managed to speak above the rapid beating of the pulse point between her legs.