by Cathryn Cade
Malu woke to find himself on a luxurious sleeping platform in a chamber glowing with red-gold light. Awe filled him as he saw the woman who emanated the same light, her long, ebony waves of hair crackling about her.
He looked down at himself. His wounds were healed, his body unmarred by scars. He wore the traditional kapa cloth, and he could feel a crown on his head. He had come through another trial and triumphed.
Sitting up, he slipped to the floor and knelt before her, bowing his head. “Madame Pele.”
“My young Ho’omalu,” she said in a voice as liquid and mysterious as live lava. “You have served me well. Those who would exploit my island, my people, have been extinguished in my fires.”
He acknowledged her praise with a respectful nod, but then he froze, unable to speak. Memories burst in his mind like the lava exploding in the fissure. His heart swelled in his chest, not from the agony of the bullets that had passed through him but that of his heart breaking.
His ku’u ipo was dead. Even while losing consciousness after being mortally wounded, he’d heard her screams, felt her tugging on his arm at the edge of the abyss. Felt her pain and terror as he dragged her down.
She’d fallen into the fire with him. Because of him.
Because he had failed to protect her, she was gone. She wasn’t Ho’omalu like him. She couldn’t heal and rise again.
“I will reward you,” Pele said. “What will you ask of me, David Ho’omalu?”
“Nothing,” he said dully. “There is nothing I want.” How could even Pele bring back his love from the dead? Surely that was only for the Creator to do.
“Nothing?” Her long skirts swished as she stepped aside. For a moment, he didn’t even notice, lost in icy misery. Then something in her waiting stillness nudged him, and he looked up incuriously. His breath froze in his throat, his eyes widened, and his heart gave a great thump of incredulous joy.
Melia lay there in a heap on the floor of the chamber. She was nude, her long silky hair her only covering. From her tanned arms and legs to the white swell of her round bottom and breasts, she was perfect, only freckles dotting her soft skin.
With a choked cry, he scrambled forward on his knees, reaching out one hand to her. Was she real or a vision? She’d fallen after him—should have been burnt to a crisp. But her skin was warm, her heart beat under his palm, the sweetest syncopation he’d ever felt.
He looked up at Pele in agonized entreaty.
“She is real,” Pele assured him. “Because her heart is true, because she is your ku’u ipo, I healed her. Now, tell me, Ho’omalu, what would you give to have her as your reward?”
He tore his gaze away from Melia and looked up at her. His jaw hardened with absolute determination.
“Spare her life, O Pele, and I will give anything you ask of me,” he swore. “Anything. Only let her live.”
She reached out and caressed the side of his face, her fingers hot as fire. “Ah,” she sighed. “Will you stay with me and be my companion here, for the rest of my days?”
He looked into the dark fires in her eyes and shuddered, but his gaze did not waver. “Yes. And gladly, Mother Pele.”
With a hiss of anger, she drew back from him. He knelt there silently, his heart in his throat, as she strode back and forth across the chamber. His eyes went back to his Melia, so still, so pale.
“You call me mother?” She seemed to swell, her grandeur filling the room. “I am ageless. I am more woman than any mortal should ever hope to have.”
He bowed his head. “Yes.”
Finally, she sighed and subsided. She even chuckled, the rich sound vibrating off the walls of the cave.
“I suppose you do see me as a mother,” she said. “Both of you. Generations of your ancestors have come and gone, while I remain the same. Well, you are loyal to me, as they have been. And the two of you are well matched, for she uses clever words as you do.”
Turning with a great swish of her fiery cloak, she gestured regally to the woman lying on the floor.
“I will give you what you desire, Ho’omalu. Take your woman and child, and continue to watch over my island.”
Malu bowed deeply, touching his forehead to the floor. “Mahalo,” he said. “Mahalo, my patroness.” His gamble had worked.
He gathered Melia’s sweet, warm weight carefully into his arms. Then he straightened and turned back to Pele, his eyes wide.
“A child?”
She nodded, still amused. “Oh, yes. You Ho’omalu are a virile clan. I have seen to that. I need you to continue, do I not?”
“Mahalo,” he whispered. He looked down into his ku’u ipo’s face. A keiki. She carried his child in her womb already. He could hardly wait to see her round with it, to have their children toddling around his feet, laughing as he swept them up into his arms.
“Go,” said Pele with a wave of her hand. “You mortals, so excited about such swiftly passing things.”
Malu heard a rumble, and he turned to follow her pointing finger to the long, black passageway that had opened in the earth. The tunnel was black as cooled a’a, but that didn’t bother him. He carried his future, his family in his arms. He drew on her power, setting loose his own glow.
With one last respectful bow to his patroness, he turned and strode up the passageway, through the heart of her mountain. Lighting his way with Pele’s fire.
Melia woke slowly, sliding up through layers of dreams. Flashes of violence interspersed with cries of terror, aching loss, then fiery agony…and then the soft black velvet of rest. Visions of a woman with flaming hair, offering her a terrible choice. Then being carried, cradled in powerful, loving arms.
Those that held her now. Ah, she was awake. It had been only a terrible nightmare.
She opened her eyes and looked into the dark, liquid gaze of David Ho’omalu. They lay in a huge bed, on sheets soft as fine cotton, with only a sheet over them.
Behind him, a ceiling fan turned lazily, and gauzy white curtains stirred at the open french doors. The walls of the big room were sand hued, with richly colored paintings hung at intervals. A dolphin, carved from wood, leapt joyously in one corner.
Through the window, lush green trees and foliage waved slowly in a breeze, the sea visible far beyond them. She’d never seen the place before.
Her heart thumped. “Where are we?”
“My home,” he answered. He stroked her hair back with his fingertips and smiled at her, his eyes crinkling, deep creases in his cheeks. Oh, that smile.
But she frowned at him, and her breath caught in her throat. The nightmarish images flashed again, like terrible snapshots, now in sequence.
“You—you died,” she whispered, the horror of the moment flooding back. “I saw the bullets…rip through you. Blood—everywhere. I tried to grab you…and then we fell. Burning—it burned so badly. How…? Oh, Malu, was it—real…?” She was shaking now, her breath caught in her throat.
“Sh-shhh.” He gathered her close, against his broad chest, where his heart beat steadily under her cheek. She slipped her arms around him, and wriggled as close as she could get, wrapping one leg over his hip, pressing her body against his as if he might be ripped away from her.
He groaned, his arms tightening around her, his big hand flat on her bottom, pressing her to his groin. “It wasn’t a dream, pua. I’ll explain; I’ll explain it all—there are things you need to know, and I need to tell you what it meant to me when Pele told me that you jumped in, tried to save me. But now—ah, ku’u ipo, I need you.”
He arched his hips into her, and his penis raked the tender furrow of her labia. He was massively erect, rigid under silken skin. Yes. He was life and strength and now.
Melia whimpered inarticulately, and he reached between them to open her with a swift slick of his fingers, then guided the head of his cock and thrust. He forged into her, hot and hard, and began to move his hips in swift lunges, pulling her up hard against him so she was open for his thrusts, helpless to do anything but accept
what he gave her and experience it.
She was impaled on him, full of him, a vessel for his pleasure. Yet as he thrust, echoes of that power awoke in her, elemental as the forces that shaped the islands. He was hers, shaped to fill her, given strength to please her, stamina to carry her on until the pleasure built like magma inside her and broke, flooding out through her in waves of ecstasy.
She cried out her joy to him and to the quiet air. An answering rumble began low in his chest and surged upward until he threw back his head and gave a roar of male triumph. Heat flooded her.
Slowly, he relaxed, and they lay, still joined, hearts thundering together. He buried his face in her hair and inhaled deeply.
“I lost you and got you back,” he whispered. “I’ll never let you go now, Melia a’u.”
He tipped up her face enough to press a kiss to her forehead. “Ko ‘u—mine.”
She opened pleasure-drugged eyes enough to focus on his face. “Yours. I love you.”
“And I am yours. Ma k’u poli mai ‘oe e ku’u ipo aloha. Here in my arms, you are cherished.”
She smiled mistily. “It sounds so much more beautiful when you say it in Hawaiian.”
“Yeah, so you gotta learn to talk mushy to me too, yeah?”
“Yeah.” They lay for a moment, looking into each other’s eyes.
A shadow intruded on her warm glow of happiness. “Malu, what happened to everyone? Your friend Keone—is he…dead?”
His face tightened grimly. “No, he’s alive. If I know Leilani, she’s by his bed at the hospital, waiting to cuss him out as soon as he wakes up. Then I’m gonna beef his ass.”
“The others—Dane and his horrible boss, and those other men. They’re dead, aren’t they?”
He nodded, his face implacable. “As far as anyone knows, there was a climbing accident. There are places where the lava flows cover up hollow tubes in the flow, some bottomless crevices. Dane, Helman and their party all fell through. Happens to arrogant tourists once in a while.”
“Will Keone be arrested, or anything?”
“No. Why would they arrest him? He saw the accident, and tried to fire his gun to signal for help. Shot himself instead.”
“Oh. You can just…whitewash it like that?”
He shrugged, a slight movement of his big shoulders. “He’s not gonna talk. He’d be facing drug charges if he did. He mek ass, but he’s not stupid. He won’t be trying any more stupid stunts.”
“No one will blame you?”
“No, pua. The story will make the papers, but there will be no evidence to suggest foul play on anyone’s part but theirs. The Helman brothers are into some very shady dealings on the mainland. Cops have been after them for years, but they have expensive lawyers. Stefan avoided prison. Both of his brothers did time for murder and drug charges. He won’t be missed by anyone else.”
She stroked his chest. “None of them will be missed,” she agreed fiercely. “They wanted to use your island to make themselves rich while people suffered. You are a protector of Hawaii, David Ho’omalu. I’m sorry you have to bear the burden of their deaths, but I’m not sorry they’re dead.”
He lifted her hand to kiss her palm. “Pele took them. And I’m not alone, pua. We Ho’omalu, we support each other.” He looked at her. “And now I have you beside me. I remember everything, pua. I know what you did. Pupule wahine, trying to keep me from falling into the rift. I weigh twice what you do.”
“I…didn’t exactly have time to plan, you know. But I couldn’t let you go.”
“You are the bravest wahine I know,” he said. “And the most stubborn. Took you long enough to admit I was the kāne for you.”
She looked into his eyes. “Malu…I think I…met Pele. Either that or I had the most amazing dream ever. I…bargained with her for you.”
His dark gaze, liquid with emotion, drank in her face. “Like I said, the bravest wahine I know.”
“I didn’t believe in love at first sight,” she mused, lifting her hand to touch his face, enjoying the smooth skin over his high cheekbones and the sandpapery feel of his wide jaw. “Until I walked onto that boat and there you were, scowling like a Hawaiian war god, only much, much more handsome. Come to think of it, it was more like lust at first sight. But I didn’t want to admit it, because you already had two wahines hanging on you.”
He grinned slowly, and her eyes widened as she felt him begin to swell inside her again. “And there you were, like a delectable sacrifice to a war god. And I had to wait to claim you, as well, so now”—he moved his hips slightly, and his fingers dipped wickedly between her ass cheeks—“I’m gonna make up for lost time. We can talk more later.”
As his big fingertip, slicked with their come, probed her ass, she opened her mouth to scold him, but then bit her lip uncertainly, instead, as naughty pleasure made her pussy contract sharply around him.
“Let me have you here, too, pua,” he whispered against her mouth.
“I don’t know.”
He smiled slowly, caressing her. “Oh, my shy little wahine. I’m gonna teach you so many things.”
“You’ve been with lots of women,” she accused him, pouting a little even as she arched her back, moving on his hard shaft.
“Yes,” he said, kissing her mouth. “But now I’m yours. Think you can handle me?” His dark gaze dared her as his finger teased her.
“Malu…” She hung on the cusp of submission. But his dark eyes held not only a dare; they held love. “Yes,” she said. “Teach me all the ways to love you, David Ho’omalu.”
And then she moaned again as he showed her that surrender was sweet triumph. He held her there and fucked her with piston-like precision until she was whimpering his name, begging him for more, and then giving it to her until pleasure took her again, shivering around him in sheer ecstasy.
He waited until she could focus on him and then drew her hand to his own flank, flattening her smaller hand on the hard swell of his ass and pushing her fingertips gently into the crevice there.
“My turn now.” Shyly, loving the hoarse groan of pleasure and how his big body quivered as she delicately wriggled her fingertip into the tight ring of muscle, Melia caressed him as he had her. Then she arched her back and began to move on him, fucking him in short, sinuous movements.
He held himself perfectly still, rigid in her grasp, until with a rumble that began deep in his chest and rose to an aching groan, he climaxed. This time, she felt his come, hot and wet, leaking out, spilling down her thighs.
Her eyes opened wide, and she stared at his rapt, sweat-soaked face.
His lashes fluttered, and he opened one eye, peering at her. “What?” he grunted.
“N-no condom,” she managed.
He eyed her warily. “Uh, ku’u ipo, we need to talk.”
Chapter Nineteen
Recipe for keiki—take one virile Ho’omalu, one chosen wahine, and unwrap. Leave alone together.
Note: condoms do not work with this recipe.
“Pregnant? What do you mean, Pele told you I’m pregnant?”
Malu winced. His ku’u ipo could shriek like a steam whistle. She was not happy—the understatement of the century.
He sat naked on the end of the big bed, elbows on his knees, watching as Melia stomped around the room, as much as a barefoot little woman wearing a sheet draped around her ankles could stomp. Her face was tearstained, her cheeks bright red, her soft mouth drawn into a straight line. Her tumbled curls hung in a sexy tangle.
She turned on him again. “This is not fair,” she wailed. “I should have gotten to choose whether I wanted to—to have a—a…”
“Keiki?” he supplied helpfully. “Baby?”
With an inarticulate growl, she whirled away, kicking the sheet viciously as it got in her way again. He bit back a grin.
“You tricked me, you big—big Ho’omalu,” she accused. “Probably used your powers or something.”
He pointed a finger at her. “Hey. We used a condom every time, ev
en though I hate the damn things. This wasn’t my choice, either.”
She turned and tripped on the sheet. Ah, Pele, she was going to hurt herself. Springing off the bed, he caught her by the waist just before she went down.
“You let me go,” she demanded, yanking away. Her hair fell over her face, and he let loose a chuckle just as she tossed her head angrily.
She glared at him. “Are you laughing at me?” He winced as her voice rose dangerously again.
Well, yes, he was. He could no longer contain it. She was so pretty, and he loved every freckled inch of her. He wanted to cuddle her on his lap and kiss the tears from her face…and then let things take their natural course again.
“Stop laughing, you big handsome, arrogant, fertile…Hawaiian!” She shoved him, and he let her push him onto the bed, grinning like a fool as he was attacked by a naked female, the sheet left in a drift over the edge of the bed.
She smacked him on the shoulder, and he lifted his hands to protect himself from her fists, laughing. The next thing he knew, she was on top of him, straddling him, her eyes slitted as she grabbed his wrists. She could only reach halfway around them, but he let her pin them back to the bed.
She leaned over him, her face close to his. “I—didn’t—get—to—choose!” she repeated, rocking on him for emphasis.
“I know, ku’u ipo,” he said. “I know. Neither did I. Believe me, I would have liked to wait ’til you were ready.”
She squeezed him with her knees, plopping down on top of him with a little growl. She was soft and warm, her center sleek and hot. Arousal seized him, stiffening his cock underneath her.
Following her incredulous gaze to where the broad head poked out, dark and engorged against her damp blonde curls, he stared raptly at the contrast between his golden skin and the narrow trail of black hair on his belly, framed by her lightly tanned thighs, spangled with freckles, and the little triangle of whiter skin and blonde curls.
“You,” she gasped, her eyes widening. “This is the whole problem. You’ve had a hard-on practically since I met you.”