by Cathryn Cade
He frowned down at her. “No more going off by yourself, right? And don’t go up the mountain again, either.”
Her arching brows shot together, and she scowled back at him. “I’m not a complete idiot, you know. Anyway, I went hiking with Dane—and at least he’s not chasing every woman here!”
Ah, she was jealous. “In case you haven’t noticed, wahine, I’m not the one doing the chasing.”
“Oh, and a big strong man like you can’t run fast enough to get away.”
He grinned at her, slow and wicked. “You wanna chase me, I promise I won’t try to get away.”
She gave a feminine huff of disgust, her eyes narrowing. “Do me a favor and hold your breath while you wait. I don’t like crowds.”
“Pua, I can make time just for you,” he assured her.
She tossed her head. “Oh, I wasn’t talking about the other women. I was referring to you and that enormous ego of yours.”
He chuckled. She had a wicked tongue. He liked that in a wahine. He’d like to teach her some other ways to use it too.
He settled for pointing a warning finger at her. “This is my island—you listen to me. You got an independent streak that will get you into trouble if you’re not careful.”
She rolled her eyes. “I know the dangers to a woman alone. I’ve taken self-defense classes, and I do watch the news.”
“Good. Stay with your friends anyway.”
“They’re not my friends, just some people I met,” she retorted. “And you’re nothing but a big pain in the ass. So just…butt out!”
And with that, she turned and stomped off across the grass. Yup, her ass was definitely heart-shaped. And he really, really liked the way her little bikini bottoms were riding up the crevice, leaving most of it bare. Her tan shaded into white, spangled with beige dots. He groaned, his hands cupping as if they held those full, white globes.
“Butt out?” he muttered wryly. “Oh, yeah. I’m all for that, wahine.”
He sighed and reached down to adjust himself in his shorts. Frank and Leilani had a sunset cruise planned, with supper on the boat. That should be fun, with the party girls hanging on him, Dane giving him smoldering looks and Melia glaring at him. Maybe he should start drinking now.
Not an option. He looked up the mountain for a few moments, soaking in its quiet power and waiting for his erection to subside. Then he went off to help Leilani load supper onto the catamaran.
Chapter Five
Recipe for heartbreak—take one hot Hawaiian, one other woman, and pour. Watch them disappear.
They motored out of the bay as the sun was hanging over the western sea, Maui rising to the northwest in a mist of clouds and the mountain looming over them, dark emerald. Frank had music playing as usual, the soft liquid sounds of ukulele and slack key guitar floating on the air.
Mai tais in hand, everyone was smiling, a warm, moist breeze blowing the women’s hair. Leilani had conjured plumeria leis, and Jacquie had her camera phone out, taking pictures. She and Cherie had on tiny sundresses and lots of makeup.
Somehow, the two were not nearly as enticing as Melia, who wore a more modest sundress of blue batik that turned her eyes the color of the sea, or maybe that was the hint of shadow she’d brushed on her lids. With her sun-kissed skin and mane of wavy blonde, she looked good enough to eat. Like the other men, Malu wore a loose Hawaiian shirt and shorts, his the shade of Kona coffee.
They ate kalua pork, coleslaw, fresh cornbread, rice dish and fruit as they motored slowly along, watching the sun sink in a wash of coral and lavender. The colors were reflected in the thickening bank of clouds forming over the south end of the island. There would be rain in the next day or two.
“Now, watch, everyone,” said Frank as the sun became a tiny sliver of molten gold on the edge of the sea. “Maybe you see the green flash.”
“What’s the green flash?” Melia asked dubiously.
“It’s caused by refraction of the sun’s rays at different wavelengths for different colors,” Clay said. “In the dense atmosphere at certain atmospheric conditions. So when the sun gets really low, only the green rays get through.”
As one, his friends turned to stare at him. He shrugged sheepishly. “I like science.”
Malu, for one, liked him better for it. The kid wasn’t as empty-headed as he’d seemed.
He relaxed as best he could with Jacquie plastered on his side. She’d already had three mai tais, by his count, and she was rubbing herself on him as uninhibitedly as a pretty cat. He tensed as her hand neared his lap, and firmly moved it away. His cock did its own thinking, and in a moment, he’d have a hard-on.
“Not here,” he murmured. He was beginning to wonder if Dane had invited the two girls precisely to keep him busy.
She pouted her glossy lips. “I can wait…a little while.”
Cherie glared at both of them. Dane shook his head and turned to say something to the twins that made the three of them laugh. Melia gave him a look of acute disgust and turned her back.
Ah, Pele, the things he did for his island.
Back in the bay, they all disembarked and trailed up the dock. Suddenly, Jacquie let out a yelp of surprise, staggered wildly and fell off the dock, landing in the water with a loud splash.
“Oh,” said Cherie in faux surprise, one hand over her mouth. Malu strongly suspected she was covering up a smile of triumph. He bit back a grin. She’d just solved one problem for him. He’d been wondering how to get rid of Jacquie without causing a cat fight.
“Oh, for chrissake,” said Dane disgustedly. The twins laughed.
Malu whipped off his shirt and tossed it to Frank, put one hand on the edge of the dock and leapt down into the water, which was only waist-deep here. He pulled Jacquie upright, gasping and choking, her long hair streaming over her face. Slowly, they made their way out of the water onto the beach. This was his day for pulling wahine from the sea. The first time had been much more satisfying.
“That bitch pushed me.” Jacquie wept, staggering onto the lawn.
“Yeah, you better go in and have a nice shower,” Malu said soothingly. “And sleep—that’s what you need. A good night’s sleep.”
Jacquie traipsed away, dripping and mumbling to herself.
Frank stopped beside Malu to hand him his shirt, his eyes twinkling in the dusk. “Well, that’s a new one,” he said under his breath. “Now they’re fighting over you. All except Melia. She’s more of a class act, eh?”
Malu gave vent to a growl of disgust as he jerked his shirt on over his wet skin. “How many more days of this group?”
“Well, you can leave anytime you want,” Frank said. “Leilani and I are stuck here with ’em.” He looked up at Malu. “Why are you here, exactly? Haven’t seen you working.”
“Just trying to get away from it all,” Malu said. “Thought it’d be peaceful out here, eh?”
Frank eyed him. “Uh-huh. Peaceful.”
“That’s right.” Malu tracked the progress of a white T-shirt and a brightly flowered sarong up the lawn and around the side lanai.
Gifford was headed up the mountain. Strange time for a hike. With a smoldering look over her shoulder, Cherie followed. Trying to make him jealous, no doubt. Too bad for her it wasn’t going to work. He was much more interested in Dane’s whereabouts than hers.
Or maybe she was after something else. In that case, he was interested in both her and Gifford. His shorts and sandals were wet, but he didn’t have time to change. His shirt was dark, so if he stayed back, he’d blend into the shadows.
When Melia turned from saying good night to Leilani, she saw Cherie look back, then disappear into the trees, and Malu stroll casually up the lawn. He stopped to pick up something pale from the ground and raised it to his nose as he stopped at the edge of the trees. Casting a swift look around, he disappeared after the redhead.
Melia’s stomach clenched, and she swallowed hard. So, he’d finally given in to Cherie’s moves. He was even bringing her a spray
of fragrant plumeria blossoms. Who said men weren’t romantic anymore?
Jealousy rose in a hot, prickly tide. She turned and stalked into the house. Jealous of Malu? That was ridiculous. He’d only come on to her today to pester her.
She’d have a nice cool shower and then read the new romance novel she’d loaded onto her ebook reader before she left. She’d started it on the plane. Just the thing to relax her and help her forget about…certain people.
Showered and clad in a pair of tiny boxers and a tank, she curled up on the bed and checked her phone messages. There was a message from her mother, hoping she was having fun, and a text message from Claire.
Met any hawt H’n hunks? She smiled wryly, made a mental note to call her mother soon and sent a text back to Claire.
2 hot 4 me. Want me 2 mail 2 u? Comforted, she put on her headset with some of her favorite Brandi Carlile tunes.
The sketch lay on the bedside table. She picked it up and looked at it for a moment. What was it about the quick, flowing lines that was so appealing? It was because whoever had drawn it found the woman sexually attractive, she realized. The pose, all the lines conveyed sensuality.
She looked from the paper in her hands to the plumeria painting on the wall. Had they been done by the same person? She snorted. That was ridiculous; as if an artist that good was one of their group.
She put the sketch back on the table and stretched out on the bed with her e-reader.
But, as good as it was, she found she couldn’t get into the story. She kept seeing Malu, lounging on the boat with Jacquie plastered on him, her hands on his bare skin. Malu, leaping into the water to rescue the drunken woman. And Malu following Cherie into the trees. It wasn’t hard to imagine him taking the other woman in his arms.
She knew exactly how powerful those arms were, how good those big hands felt holding her. Knew how smooth that golden skin was, how firm those muscles were. Knew that up close, he had a faint beard shadow on his jaw and tiny creases at the corners of his eyes and mouth. Knew that he smelled of the sea and his own delicious scent, and that he gave off heat like a big electric blanket. She groaned in frustration. Too bad he was such a man-slut.
She closed her eyes, shifting in the soft sheets as desire built again. Finally, after reaching over to turn out the light, she lay back in the bed. As she smoothed her hands down over her breasts, her pebbled nipples grazed her palms. She slid one hand into her little boxers and cupped her mons. The needy ache intensified. With a bluesy anthem playing in her ears, she stroked her fingertips into her labia and played the wetness there up over the swollen bud of her clitoris. Catching her breath at the burst of sensation, she imagined Malu watching her, those dark eyes brooding and intense. She came hard and fast. With a deep sigh, she relaxed into the soft bed.
This time she dreamed that she stood in the moonlight, on the edge of the little cove next to Nawea. Malu walked toward her through the palm trees at the edge of the sand, his face grim, his steps long and purposeful. He wore the crown and the kappa-cloth breechcloth again, and he carried a wicked-looking club in his hands. A warrior.
He held one hand up, palm out, in a fierce warning to stay where she was. Then he turned and headed up across the lava, running now in long, athletic strides, into the trees.
He disappeared into the darkness as she called out to him, pleading with him to come back.
Melia woke, her heart pounding, to the sound of loud voices in the hallway.
“She’s gone!” a woman wailed. “Oh my God, where is she?” She? They weren’t talking about Malu. No, that had been a dream. This was real.
A man answered sharply, and the female voice lowered. Melia sat up, peering at her travel alarm. Three thirty a.m. Rubbing her eyes, she slid her feet off the bed. When something yanked painfully at her hair, she remembered the headphones and stopped to untangle them before she tugged a T-shirt over her tank and hurried out into the hallway.
The lights were on. Frank and Leilani stood in the doorway of the next room, both in pajamas. They looked worried.
“What’s wrong?” Melia asked, her voice husky with sleep.
“Cherie’s gone, that’s what’s wrong,” Jacquie cried from inside the other bedroom. “She hasn’t even slept in her bed.”
Melia froze as a scene flashed through her mind. Cherie disappearing into the trees and Malu looking back cautiously before following her. Oh God, while she’d been fantasizing about him, he’d been off boinking Cherie somewhere. She leaned against the wall, a sick curl of shame and anger twisting in her middle.
“What the hell’s going on?” demanded an irritable voice from the stairs. They all turned to see Dane stalking down the stairs, clad only in a pair of dark knit boxers.
“Your friend Cherie seems to be missing,” said Frank. “You know where she might be?”
Dane ran his fingers through his tousled hair. “Well, she’s not in my room. Jacquie, honey, quit that crying, could you? Jesus, I can’t think.”
“I know where she is,” Jacquie said tearfully. “She’s with M-Malu, that’s where.”
Frank and Leilani looked at each other. Then, unaccountably, they both glanced at Melia and away.
“I don’t know,” Frank said. “I don’t think so.”
“I…I think Jacquie’s right,” Melia forced herself to say. “I saw him follow her into the trees.”
“I’ll go check his room.” Frank headed up the stairs, and they heard a door open. Melia wrapped her arms around her middle, wishing this was a bad dream. Guilt quickly followed—she should be worried. Jacquie certainly was. But was she upset because her friend was missing, or because she might have beaten Jacquie into Malu’s bed?
Frank came down the stairs, his face grim. “He’s not there.”
Melia curled her fingers into her T-shirt, her nails biting into her palms even through the soft fabric. She focused desperately on the faces around her to dispel the image in her mind of the two somewhere in the dark, Malu moving over Cherie, his powerful body straining as she cried out in ecstasy. She felt chilled in spite of the warmth of the night.
“Well, I think we should all go back to bed,” Dane said, stretching. “Those two will show up when they’re ready.”
“I’m going to check the boat,” Frank said to Leilani, ignoring Dane. She nodded.
Dane raised his eyebrows. “What? No little cottage or beach shelter where they might be?”
Leilani shook her head. “This is wild country here. Only Kau forest preserve above us. No cottages, except—”
“No,” Frank cut in decisively. “Malu would take no one there. There’s nowhere else.”
Jacquie began to weep harder, and Melia walked into her room and sat on the bed beside the tousled brunette, who was clad only in a tiny nightie, her hair in a tangle. She patted the other woman on her back. Her worry seemed to be genuine.
“What if they fell in the ocean and got swept away?” Jacquie asked tearfully. “What if a bear attacked them?”
“Um, they don’t have bears here, sweetie.” Melia’s gaze met Leilani’s, and the other woman rolled her eyes heavenward.
Frank was back in a few moments. He shook his head.
Melia’s heart sank. She’d rather he found Malu and Cherie in a torrid tangle on the boat than…what? That they were just gone, into the dark Hawaiian night, with a wild rain forest above them and the open sea below? Or to the mysterious place Leilani had mentioned. Why wouldn’t he go there? Was it a religious site, like an ancient heiau?
It was still very warm outside, the air heavy and damp, so she supposed they could be somewhere with a beach towel, or something, but why wouldn’t they just be in one of the bedrooms? They were consenting adults.
“I’m going up the trail,” Frank said, brandishing a huge flashlight.
“Are you serious?” Dane asked. He shook his head with the air of someone holding on to patience. “It’s pretty clear Malu and Cherie are off somewhere, doing the wild thang.”
; Frank gave him a look of disgust. “I don’t believe that. Your friend may have been hanging all over Malu, but he was not interested.”
Dane sighed. “All right, all right. We’ll help you look, then, since you’re so convinced they’re in trouble.”
He woke the twins, and the three men took flashlights and went to walk the shoreline. “I wish Keone was here,” Leilani said. “He knows Kau like the back of his hand.”
Frank snorted. “Well, you betta try calling him. Maybe he’ll answer his damn phone, maybe not.”
“We should call Daniel,” she said.
He shook his head. “He’s in Honolulu—they all are. Big show. Dunno why Malu didn’t go.” What kind of show? Melia wondered.
Frank left, and Leilani picked up her phone. But after listening, she frowned and then left a terse message to call her right away.
“Is Keone your friend that lives up the mountain?” Melia asked hesitantly. And who was Daniel?
Leilani nodded. “Mostly he’s a pain in my ass,” she muttered. “Thinks he’s so independent and tough. Men, you know?”
Melia nodded. Leilani left the room, and Melia sat with Jacquie, her thoughts outside in the dark, humid night. After several moments, Jacquie lay down again. Melia covered her with the sheet and brought her a glass of water.
When Jacquie closed her eyes, Melia followed Leilani into the kitchen, where the big pot of coffee was steaming quietly. Leilani handed her a cup, and they perched on bar stools at the island to drink it.
“Malu is a great guy,” Leilani said. “I agree with Frank. I don’t think he went with that wahine for hana ai. Maybe she’s hurt, and he’s waiting with her until daylight.”
She sounded as if she were trying to convince herself as much as Melia. Melia shrugged. “I just hope they’re safe.”
She looked cautiously at Leilani and saw a knowing look in the other woman’s gaze. Melia took a hasty sip of coffee and burned her tongue on the hot liquid.
“Hmm,” Leilani said. “Maybe I imagined the way you two look at each other.”