She gave him a thumbs-up and dived beneath the crystalline surface, as sleek and graceful as an otter. Kyle jammed the mouthpiece between his lips and stuck his head under. A line of bubbles streamed behind the woman arrowing downward with smooth strokes. With his slightly fogged-up mask he couldn’t see much of her other than a glimpse of a red bikini bottom and her long, shapely legs kicking effortlessly.
He didn’t remember a woman in a red bikini from the crowded and noisy boat ride out into the lagoon. He’d been squeezed on a bench between an old guy in Speedos and a young couple whose hands appeared to be glued together, and spent most of the ride staring down at his snorkeling equipment rather than Grandpa’s hairy belly or the honeymooners cooing at each other.
Narrowing his eyes, Kyle squinted through the gloom and saw her swimming upward, his missing flipper clutched in her hand. He bobbed upright and ripped off his mask, gulping air like a man starved of oxygen. Which he was, and not only because he’d been breathing through a plastic tube for the past fifteen minutes.
The woman broke the surface next to him, water streaming from her long dark hair—a thick strand of it catching on the mask and obscuring her face. He resisted the impulse to peel the strand off because he required both hands to keep himself afloat and from losing his shorts. A task that was becoming more difficult with his lopsided one-flipper floundering.
She flicked her wayward hair off the mask and removed it to reveal dark brown eyes creased with laughter, killer cheekbones, and full rosy lips that were wasted wrapped around a mouthpiece. God—that mouth. If he was going to drown out here with his shorts floating around his ankles, it’d be worth it just to see this woman smile before he went under for the last time.
Then she did smile.
And he decided that today was not the day he was going to die with his shorts around his ankles. At least not out here in the ocean.
“Did you lose something, Cinderella?” she asked.
Her voice was pitched deeper than he’d expected, but silky and feminine all the same. It was the kind of voice you’d pick out of a crowded pub of single women, your ears transmitting ‘check her out’ signals to your brain.
If you still went to pubs. If you’d been officially divorced for one year and were the only single guy among your group of married friends. Which he didn’t. And he was.
Kyle didn’t trust himself to speak in full sentences, so he muttered, “Yeah.”
She held out his missing flipper—glass slipper—but unless he was prepared to go full-frontal, he couldn’t take it and remain buoyant. He cleared his throat. “Slight problem…”
The woman’s gaze dipped to his fist clutching the waistband of his shorts, and her smile spread wider.
“Ahh. A dilemma.” She pursed those bewitching lips of hers thoughtfully. “Hang on.”
She readjusted her mask and snorkel and slid beneath the waves. Warm lagoon water swirled around his chest as her movements displaced it. She dived down and strong fingers wrapped around his ankle, holding his foot still long enough to jam the flipper back on. While he kicked like a madman with his unhindered foot, she tightened the straps to secure the flipper and surfaced again.
“Thanks,” he managed to grind out as she removed her mouthpiece for the second time.
It was definitely easier to maintain buoyancy by treading water with two feet, and he quickly retied the cords of his swim shorts. Double knotted them this time.
“Wardrobe malfunction?” she asked with another killer smile.
Her smile was infectious, and he grinned back, previous annoyance at his predicament vanishing. “I’ll be writing the manufacturer a strongly worded email.”
“Good for you.” Her nose crinkled. “You might want to mention the eyeball-exploding shade of them, too. I think they’re scaring the little fish.”
He laughed. “You’re probably right.”
“I’m always right. You’re an eyesore.”
“And a danger to myself. Maybe you should stick around in case I need rescuing again, Ms. Mermaid.”
She snorted and kicked away from him a little, her eyes slitting behind the mask’s plastic lens. Deciding whether or not he was some weirdo hitting on her?
“Let’s stick to first names only,” she said after a moment. “Mine’s Elizabeth—like the Queen. But you can call me Lizzie.”
“I’m Kyle. Like the…” Brain fart. He couldn’t think of anything, so he paddled on the spot looking like a moron. He was so caught off-guard by her he couldn’t find words even if someone clubbed him over the head with a dictionary.
“Like the guy who’s going to buy me a drink once we reach dry land?”
Hell yeah was he going to buy her a drink. “Yeah, that guy.”
She readjusted the position of her mask. “Don’t drown in the meantime, then.”
Before he could even attempt a witty comeback other than the “unghhh” that caught in his throat, she popped in her mouthpiece and ducked under the water.
He stared after her, watching her long legs propel her smoothly past him. Even with the water distortion he could tell she was tall, closer to his height of six feet two than the average New Zealand woman—and there was no doubt from her slight accent that they were both Kiwis.
What resort was she staying at? Or perhaps she was one of the many ex-pats who lived here in the Cook Islands? His belly gave a little flip-flop. Was she married, divorced, in a relationship, or single? Only two out of those four options would lead to him buying her a drink. Bro-code aside, he didn’t screw around with other men’s women because he’d been the bro screwed around on pre his finalized divorce.
As if she’d read his whirling thoughts, her head popped out of the water. She twisted to face him, once again spitting out her mouthpiece.
“Well?” She cocked her head. “Are we snorkeling or what?”
Kyle wrenched his mask back on and jammed in his mouthpiece. He sank beneath the surface and kicked toward her. Damned if he paid much attention to the colorful little fish darting in and out of the coral below, but Lizzie in front of him—every amazing curve putting her bikini to the test—filled all his vision and focus.
He swam beside her and she grabbed his hand, pointing with the other to direct his gaze to a moray eel poking its snout out from its rocky home. At her touch, lust exploded through his veins torpedo fast.
This woman wasn’t so much of a mermaid as a sea witch, and he was already half under her spell.
Chapter 2
Drinks were at one of the island’s many beachside bars.
“What’ll you have?” Kyle asked as they strolled onto a covered deck positioned to catch the best views of the lagoon.
Tequila shots, one after another until the butterflies swooping around my stomach drown. Tui slid him a sideways glance and the butterflies looped the loop some more. On second thought, she’d better keep her wits about her. “A glass of house white, thanks.”
She excused herself to use the restroom while he went to the bar to order. One peek at her salt-encrusted curls in the restroom mirror made her want to rethink her drink order to something fruity and thick that she could use as a makeshift leave-in conditioner.
Helluva thing, naturally curly hair.
Ask any woman who battled with a hair straightener on a regular basis what happened in humid, tropical conditions.
Tui—aka Tui Elizabeth Ngata—wrinkled her nose at her reflection and bundled her hair up in a messy bun. She still looked like Medusa on steroids, but what the heck. Lizzie didn’t care if she came across as wanton and a little wild. Lizzie—because Tui was cautious enough not to give her name out to strange men anymore—liked the way Kyle’s gaze lingered on her mouth and the way she was almost eye level with him, instead of him being eye level with her boobs. As was sometimes the case with men, considering she was a smidgeon off six feet.
Yo! Amazon girl! What’s the weather like up there? You should be playing for the Tall Ferns. Not that basketball or netb
all were on her horizon. As a teenager, the Ngata whānau already had a rugby star in the making and her high school peers hadn’t called her butter-fingers in gym for no reason.
Whatever.
Her mirrored reflection gave a little shiver. Damn butterflies. It’d been a while since she’d accepted a man’s offer for a drink—and even longer since she’d been the one to suggest it. But something about Kyle made her bold.
Made Lizzie bold.
With one last brush of her palms down the sides of her bohemian-style cover-up, Tui left the restroom and headed onto the deck. A traffic-signal flash of orange from the corner alerted her to Kyle sliding into a seat. He’d told her on the return boat trip that he’d grabbed the swim shorts off an end-of-season sale rack and settled for a larger size with a typical male ‘she’ll be right’ attitude.
His words, not hers.
The view of bare butt she’d glimpsed before swimming over to the helpless guy floundering around was anything but typical. And the helpless guy persona only lasted as long as their remaining time in the lagoon. Once he’d hauled himself out of the water onto the tour boat and then reached down to help her up…wow. Being submerged in the water had seriously skewed her perception of how ripped Kyle was.
No wonder the man had problems staying afloat with almost no spare fat on his body.
She wove through the packed tables of laughing, chatting tourists, her gaze fixed on Kyle—who, yes, could only be the same man she’d spotted on the beach the day before. What were the odds of two guys wearing the same bargain-rack ugly orange shorts?
He’d slipped on a T-shirt since disembarking from the boat—one with a faded winged-creature logo that was probably something from Harry Potter—and it stretched tautly across his broad shoulders. His dark hair, drying out from a slick black to a mahogany brown a lot like her own, was styled professionally and trimmed neatly. His build and clothing said laborer. His haircut said suit-wearing professional. But his smile—which Tui got the full force of as she slid into the seat opposite him—said male stripper for hire.
A server appeared with their drinks, a cocktail umbrella poking out of the wineglass.
“I asked the bartender to add it,” he said as she plucked the hot-pink paper umbrella out and gave it a twirl between her thumb and forefinger. “Thought it might draw some attention away from my shorts.”
“Wishful thinking, I’m afraid. Those shorts are eye magnets.”
He leaned back in his seat and folded his arms. His hard muscled-by-laboring arms? Arms that a sculptor would spend hours trying to attain realism in each of the defined muscle groups.
He wriggled his eyebrows suggestively. “Or maybe all the grandmas on the tour liked looking at my butt.”
Tui certainly had. Biting down on her inner cheek to prevent a smile from appearing, she angled her head and tipped her chin down, as if examining the area in question. “Quite possible. The cheap fabric was almost transparent when you got out of the water.”
Kyle barked out a laugh then sat up straight, picking up his beer and offering the bottle to her in a toast.
“What are we drinking to?” she asked.
“Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift.”
“Amen to that.” She tapped her glass to the bottle then took a sip of her wine, gaze locked on the strong column of Kyle’s throat as he, too, drank.
“You’re a live-in-the-moment type of person?” she asked.
His mouth twisted to one side. “The plan is to be—at least while I’m here. You?”
“A little too much, or so I’ve been told.”
“By your friends?”
She’d mentioned earlier she’d been here vacationing with her friends, and he’d offered that he was here alone. It’d made her heart pitter-patter and her stomach somersault with a mixed bag of curiosity and excitement.
“More my family. I’m thirty-one years old and I’m still the irresponsible baby to be indulged.”
Tui took another sip, pressing her lips firmly to the glass. Stick to the ground rules of the deal she’d made with ‘Lizzie’ before agreeing to a drink with Kyle. One beverage only, a little feel-good flirting that would stroke both their egos, then back to the resort for a tepid shower and a date with her e-reader. No personal details, no oversharing, no shoving her tongue into the man’s mouth to see if he tasted as good as he looked.
“Tell me something about yourself.” She set down the glass and mustered up her Number 7 smile for men—known in her repertoire as I can’t wait to hear all about your guy stuff that’ll have my eyes glazing over in thirty seconds.
“You want my full name, occupation, current address, bank balance?”
She shook her head. “No. Tell me something you like. Something you want.”
He raised the beer bottle and she couldn’t look away as his lips settled on the glass. Watching her watching him, he drank deep, eyes communicating with her exactly what he liked. Exactly what he wanted.
Returning the bottle to the table, he used the thumb on his other hand to swipe a droplet of beer off his lower lip. Oh Lord, he had a really nice mouth.
He reached across the table and laid his hand lightly on top of hers. “I like you. And I want to have dinner with you tonight.”
And…the butterflies went nuts. “As in, a date?”
“Yeah. A date. Guess I’m a little old-school.”
Tui gracefully extracted her hand from beneath Kyle’s before he felt the trembles running through it. “You’re not that old, Grandpa.”
He laughed. And damn, he laughed with the works—crinkly eyes, thrown-back head, dazzlingly sexy smile. He’d hooked her like a mahi-mahi on a line.
“Is that a yes, Lizzie?”
And broke all the rules Tui had insisted on only a few moments ago. Sheesh.
Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift.
It was only dinner, and thanks to the Cook Islands being one of the most romantic spots in the world, she’d be one up already for Tori’s three-romantic-dates challenge.
“It’s a yes,” she said.
She was a mystery, wrapped in an enigma, bound with an unbreakable chain of sensuality that made Kyle forget he’d barely scratched the surface of who she was in the past several hours.
One drink down, he’d discovered she used to play the ukulele, hated movies with subtitles, and thought anyone who preferred Marmite over Vegemite needed their taste buds examined. Second drink arriving on their table led to travel spots worth visiting, why movie adaptions from books generally sucked, and touched on current events and New Zealand politics.
Over dinner he’d asked where she lived and what she did for a living and got a perfectly pronounced in Te Reo Māori, “Taumata Whakatangi Hangakoauau O Tamatea Turi Pukakapiki Maunga Horo Nuku Pokai Whenua Kitanatahu”—New Zealand’s longest place name—and “Digital overlord and part-time retail jedi” in response.
She didn’t want to take part in the conversational getting to know you dance. Noted. He was okay with that, because while she was reserved with actual data, he glimpsed the blueprint of what made Lizzie so fascinating.
Everyone she spoke to, from servers to an elderly couple celebrating their fortieth wedding anniversary at the table next to theirs, was treated to her infectious smile and genuine warm interest. She laughed easily and often at her own expense and had a finely honed wit but not an unkind one. She was a toucher when she talked—her gentle elbow nudge when he said something that made her roll her eyes, her hand squeezing his forearm to emphasize a point—and it wasn’t in the calculated way some women conducted a flirtation campaign.
So it felt completely natural for him to link their hands together as they left the restaurant and strolled through an incredible sunset to her resort. A wild rooster strutted his stuff ahead of them, leading the way past waving palm trees and the sound of that night’s entertainer drifting out of the resort’s bar. They left the rooster pecking in one of the manicu
red gardens either side of the pathways weaving among the blocks of rooms.
“What are your plans for your last full day in Raro?” he asked, knowing as he did so that he was stalling, hoping for more time with her.
She squeezed his fingers and bumped his upper arm with her shoulder. “Are you asking me on a second date?”
A second date? Yes. Yes, he was. She’d already told him she was leaving the day after tomorrow, while he was booked in for another three nights, but he couldn’t imagine not spending the day with her now he’d had a taste of her company.
“Interested?”
“What did you have in mind?”
“Know how to ride a moped?”
She stopped on a dime, swinging around to face him. “Dude, I own a Ducati that’d eat a moped for breakfast.”
She rode motorbikes? Hell, could she be any sexier?
“Putting aside your disdain for the practicality of a moped on Raro’s rough roads, feel like taking a spin around the island with me?” His heart pogoed around his chest as she pursed that amazing mouth of hers in consideration.
Say yes, say yes, say yes.
For the first time since he’d garnered up the courage to ask a woman out on a date his first year of university, Kyle was hit with a stab of insecurity. Thirteen years at an all-male boarding school hadn’t given him much experience in talking to women. It’d taken him ten minutes into a conversation—a mostly one-sided monologue about Gollum’s origin story—before he blurted out an invitation to see The Two Towers.
But the woman had dinner with her parents that night, band practice the next, and studying every night after that for the foreseeable future. Uh-huh. It’d taken him another three months before he was prepared to try again. Late bloomer, that was him. His confidence had grown since then; he wasn’t a lanky nineteen-year-old but a thirty-six-year-old successful businessman.
With a failed marriage and a cranky ginger cat for company back home.
Regardless, he wasn’t about to beg.
Tame Your Heart: A Small Town Romance (Bounty Bay Book 6) Page 2