by Cathryn Cade
Daisy groaned. “And I drove by just then and assumed the worst. Dack’s a hero, and me? I am so screwed.”
With a smirk at Sara, Carlie handed Daisy a small shopping bag with metallic red lips on the side. “Here’s how you’re going to fix that.”
Daisy took the bag, her eyes going wide when she saw the contents. Then she leapt to her feet and hugged both of them. “Thank you so much,” she said. “I have to go take a shower now and get to Dack’s. Wearing this.”
She raced away, leaving Sara and Carlie on the sofa. They exchanged a look of mutual satisfaction, tinged with envy.
“That’s one couple that’s going to have a great night,” Sara said.
Carlie regarded her with a sweet but penetrating gaze. “So, are you still scared of Trace?”
Sara shook her head. “Oh, um, no. I mean, kind of, but…” She sighed. “Not of him as a man, but of him as a dom. I’m afraid of how he makes me feel. As if he could get me to do anything.”
“Wow,” Carlie agreed. “That’s powerful. And Dack has sure gotten Daisy to bust some moves that are off-the-charts wild.”
“Yeah. What about you?” she asked. “Do you think you’ll ever…you know?”
“Come to the club?” Carlie asked. Now it was her turn to blush. “I’ve thought about it—a lot, since Daisy has had such a great time. And since my latest date turned into yet another disaster.”
Sara nodded. “Well, at least you’re out there trying. I jumped in at the deep end—and nearly drowned.”
Carlie giggled. “Maybe next time you just need the right lifeguard. Like Trace.”
Daisy rushed out, clad in a short black raincoat belted at her waist, her hair still damp but her eyes made up. “Okay, wish me luck,” she said breathlessly. “Here I go.”
“Good luck,” Sara said and meant it. Not that she thought Daisy was going to need it.
She drove home carefully, because she’d had two glasses of wine. Daisy was on her way to a happy beginning. It sounded as if Carlie would soon be venturing into Club 3 after her—and Sara hoped Jake got his act together and stepped up to claim her, because despite Carlie’s conviction that he was not into her, Sara had seen the way his gaze followed her statuesque friend.
But even the wine and the heat of the summer evening couldn’t quell the chill she felt at the thought of following her friends back to the club.
Maybe she should stick with nice guys like Kai. He was sweet and hot, and he thought she was pretty and funny, she could tell by the way he looked at her, and the way he laughed at her jokes. She didn’t know much about him yet, but she could find out, right?
A few evenings later, after yet another warm summer day, this one cloudy and humid, Sara found herself at loose ends. She’d worked out, she’d bought groceries for the week ahead, she’d watered her one houseplant and she’d called her mother, checking in and making plans to drive out for supper the next evening. She’d texted Trace, only to find out he was away for a few days, playing golf at the famed Bandon golf resort for business. She’d spoken with Daisy, who was busy cramming for her Realtor exam, and with Carlie, who was on her way to a baby shower for an old school friend.
Now Sara wandered out onto her patio, hoping that Kai might be home. She didn’t have a new book to read and she’d rather watch him than any actor on TV, she admitted with a guilty grin. He was just so darn gorgeous. He was, she decided, as hot as Trace, just in a different way. The two of them side by side would send the female population into a sexual daze.
When she saw movement inside his condo, she waved. “Kai, that you?”
“Sara, hi.” He jogged through the kitchen to the open slider He wore another tank, this one white with a stylized surfer on the front riding a shark, and blue shorts. He was beaming. “Hey, glad to see you. I was just pouring myself a mai tai. You want one? Or three?”
They laughed together. “Love one,” she answered. “Maybe two, but three—no-oo.”
“Great. Whatchu been up to today?” he asked as he took another glass from the cupboard and dumped ice cubes into it before pouring from a tall bottle.
“Kind of winding down before school starts,” she said. “Summer’s about over for me. How about you?”
He handed her a glass and gestured at the back lawn. “At loose ends too,” he said, a shadow on his face.
They sat on the wrought iron chairs, and Sara wriggled to get comfortable. Kai watched her. “Hey, I’ll go get a blanket,” he offered. “We can sit on the grass. I hate these chairs too.”
“Deal.” Sara took a long drink of her mai tai and went into her condo to grab some cushions from her sofa. They were all old, so she didn’t mind bringing them outside.
Both of them sat on the blanket, and Kai set the bottle in the grass nearby. They chatted about bicycling, and other sports. Their glasses empty, Kai refilled them. They talked some more, getting comfortable.
Sara lay back with her head on two cushions, her glass propped on her stomach and her legs crossed, staring at the soft gray clouds overhead. “Did you ever connect with the friend you came to find?” she asked.
Kai rolled toward her, propping his head on his elbow, and moved his glass slowly along the angle of her arm, chuckling when she flinched at the cold. Then his expression turned sober. “Not yet.” He sighed heavily. “You ever look inside yourself and realize you’re just a fucking coward?”
She turned her head, staring at him. “Well, I don’t know that I used quite those words,” she said. “But, yeah.” Recently too, when she realized she’d missed her chance with Trace. Oh, they were friendly, and he always made a point of chatting with her and checking in, but she had the sinking feeling this was just his conscientious dom at work.
Kai winced, lashes brushing his cheeks as he closed his eyes. “Ah, shit. Sorry, wahine. I was, as I’m sure you’ve figured out, talking about me, not you.”
She waved this away. “Why do you think you’re such a coward?”
He sighed, his damp breath gusting over her cheek. “I came here to try to reconnect with someone that…that I was in love with. Head over heels, you know? I think I still am. I can’t stop thinking about him.”
She froze, shock compressing her lungs. “Uh—him?”
He stared at her. “Yeah. Is that disgusting to you? Since we both know I’m attracted to you too.”
Shock number two pressed harder. “We do? I—I mean, you are?”
His gaze warmed, softened on her face. “Yeah, wahine. I am. Don’t tell me you couldn’t feel it.”
“Well…” She gulped. “I kind of…thought so, but I’m not great with that whole thing, so—” She shrugged and then took another drink, although her head was already spinning.
Wow and double wow. After a couple of years of feeling sexually worthless, she had two gorgeous guys interested in her—both of whom melted her panties. And both of them kinked, in their own way.
“You like guys too?” she asked, rolling her head on the pillow to look at him. “What’s that like?” Her move brought them close, so close she could smell his warm, male scent. Different from Trace’s scent, but nice.
“First you gotta answer my question,” he said. She realized he was tense, his face a shade paler under that native tan, his gaze guarded.
“No,” she said instantly, instinctively. “It doesn’t disgust me.” She snickered. “You should probably know, I was not brought up in the normal manner.”
“What?” he asked quizzically. “They plucked you from a seashell?”
“No, my parents were hippies. I grew up around lots of people in, erm, alternative lifestyles.”
“Cool,” he said. “I wish I’d grown up like that.”
“Your family is more traditional?”
He snorted. “My family has money, but after my dad died, my mother joined the Church of Jesus and Pele Triumphant in the Islands. Pastor Herman Ha’alemu presiding. The moke is a charismatic bastard, gotta give him that. Tells his parishioners what t
o think, how to behave, and how to react to children who come home from college and confide that they’re…different.”
“Oh,” she sighed. “I’m sorry, Kai. So you came here, to Portland?”
He nodded. “Went to Portland State U, met my new roommate and fell head over heels. A tall blond with a big smile and a twinkle in his eye. Thought I was falling apart, you know? The way he made me feel.” He shook his head and poured the last of the mai tai mix into his glass. “I knew I was into girls but that occasionally I had evil thoughts about another guy having a nice ass or smile, or that I wanted to know what it would be like to suck his cock. But I just pushed it down. Then I met him and kaboom—I was in love.”
Part of Sara knew darn well that if they were sober, he wouldn’t be confiding these deeply personal things, and she wouldn’t be listening so sanguinely.
But it felt right. Sara watched him wistfully. The look in his eyes said he was remembering something hot and powerful. “And he felt the same way?”
Kai nodded. “We got drunk and ended up in bed, humping each other, slept in each other’s arms. Spent the rest of the winter discovering each other and things about ourselves.” He grinned into his drink. “He didn’t mind that I still liked girls too. So did he. One time we even brought a girl home, had a threesome. That was hot.”
Sara made a noise, a kind of moan. Kai looked up, straight into her eyes. He grinned at her. “You think that’s hot, Sara?”
Heat spread over her face, but it was curling lower down too, deep inside her. “Maybe.”
“Maybe,” he repeated. He touched her face, his fingertip warm as he traced the angle of her cheek. “Your bruise is almost gone. Back to your smokin’ redheaded self. That’s good, ’cause then I can finally stop wanting to kill the moke who did it every time I look at your bruises.”
“Thanks,” she said, not wanting to be distracted from his revelations. “So, what did you do with two other people?”
His fingers trailed into her hair, and he played with a long curl lying over her shoulder. “I went down on her and ate her pussy while she sucked his cock. Then, I took her in the ass while he fucked her pussy.”
“Oh my God,” she breathed. She could imagine that all too well.
He watched her carefully, and then he went on, his gaze holding hers. “When I was inside her, I felt her, and I felt him too. We kissed her, and we kissed each other. It was like we were all connected. I came so hard I almost passed out.”
Sara pressed her thighs together to quell the pulse beating there hard and fast.
Kai smiled at her. “You like that.”
She nodded. “I—yeah. And that’s the mai tais talking, not me.”
He chuckled. “I don’t think so, Sara. I think it’s you. Your hair’s not all that’s lava hot.”
She looked away, at the oak tree swaying in the slight breeze. “So if you loved him, why aren’t you still together?” she asked.
Kai took her hand and entwined his fingers with hers. His hand was warm and strong. He sighed.
“I spent Christmas break at his home, under protest from my mother. Then I went home for spring break and confessed my feelings to her. I thought her love for me, her youngest son, would trump the sin and retribution trumpeted by the pastor every Sunday. I was wrong.” He gave her a crooked smile. “A Hawaiian mama packs a wallop like a prizefighter. I had two black eyes and a swollen nose.”
“Oh, Kai.” Her mother didn’t believe in physical punishment. Sara held on to his hand more tightly. “So then what happened?”
“Then I caved,” he said. “I never came back here. Stayed home on the island, went to U of Hawaii, eventually came into my share of my family’s estate and opened my own surf shop. Lived and breathed surfing for a while.”
“So you never saw your—him again?”
He shook his head. “He offered to fly me back here and told me he had enough money for both of us, but I just…couldn’t turn my back on my mother and all my brothers and sisters. They loved me, they expected me to stay there and be Hawaiian, so I did.”
Sara sighed. “Poor you. Poor him. I wonder what he’s doing now?”
He shot her an odd look under his lashes. “He’s doing okay. He’s doing good. I just gotta get the courage up to try again with him.”
“Go for it,” she said. “Really, I mean it, Kai. How do you know this guy isn’t feeling the same way, wondering about you?”
He smiled at her. “Thanks, Sara. You’re just what I needed.”
“A kick in the ass?” she asked and then giggled at her own wit. “I’m a kick in the ass.”
He laughed with her. “Yeah, you got that right. And so much more, wahine.”
He leaned over her, his gaze searching. “Sara…can I kiss you?”
Her heart skipped pleasurably. She nodded. His warm mouth settled on hers, soft and plush and gentle. And the dusk dissolved into a long, seeking kiss, full of slow exploration and heat. He tasted of mai tais and something uniquely male. Then he shifted to take her mouth harder, deeper. Something bumped between them, and cold liquid dripped down her chest and onto her neck.
He lifted his head, his reluctance clear. “Spilled your mai tai.”
“Yeah.”
He looked down, his warm hand cupping her shoulder. “I’d love to lick every drop off you, but…probably shouldn’t.”
“Probably not.” But oh, at this moment she wanted him to.
He kissed her again and then groaned, his hand tightening before letting her go. He rolled away and sat up.
Sara forced herself to sit up too, and then blinked as the four neighbors having a drink on the next patio down waved at them, grinning.
“Oh my God,” she muttered. “Good thing we stopped.”
“Yeah,” Kai said. “Good thing.”
But he gave her a look that said he meant exactly the opposite. And this had her smiling as he pulled her to her feet so they could gather up their things.
Chapter Seven
“You want me to do what?” Phone to her ear, Sara stared blankly at the bulletin board in her tiny office. The last week in August, and Portland-area schools were back in session.
Outside her door, the slap of basketballs and screech of soft-soled shoes echoed in the cavernous River Oaks Middle School gym, along with shouted commands from the overflow PE teacher, an energetic man just out of the navy who taught the extra classes Sara didn’t have time for. But her focus was on the deep, smooth voice emanating from her phone.
“I want you to come down to my mother and stepfather’s place in the Willamette Valley,” Trace repeated patiently. “Barbecue supper Friday evening, spend the night, and drive back Saturday midday. Beautiful drive. About thirty minutes south on I-5.”
“Yes, but… Why me?” She reached up to twirl her ponytail with her finger and thumb. “You want me to meet your folks?” This was weird.
“Honestly? I want you to have my back. I need someone pretty, smart and quiet who can keep her eyes open and step in when she sees I need that.”
“You want me to be quiet?” She made a face at her computer monitor, in which the fluorescent lights reflected her face. “Hire a professional escort, Bowen. You can pay her to stand there and smile.”
“Sara,” he said in that warning tone that said while he liked her sense of humor, this time she’d gone too far.
“Well, I don’t get it.” She rose and closed the door all the way. She leaned against it, one foot up behind her. “What is it that you’re asking, Trace?”
“I’m asking you as a friend,” he said. “The situation is…complicated. There’ll be a big crowd, with some people I’d much rather avoid. Easiest way to do that is come with a date, one I trust.”
“By complications, I presume you mean women? As in, ex-girlfriends?” Jealousy scratched at her. She shook it off. That was ridiculous. They weren’t dating or anything. Just because he’d rescued her, spent the night and called her the next evening, something which turned
into a fairly regular occurrence, along with meetings at the gym and even a couple of morning runs, that didn’t mean he owed her any accountability for other women in his life.
At the Club 3 Pink Night fundraiser and during her one night there as a member, she’d seen how the women at the club hung on him. Why should it be any different in his life outside the club?
“Yes,” he said, his voice guarded. “That’s part of it.”
Her sense of humor asserted itself. “Men too, hmm? You are a player.”
Strangely, he didn’t laugh. Oops. Nothing like accusing a guy of playing both ways. Way to go, Sara. Just because Kai had admitted to being bi-sexual, didn’t mean every other man was too.
“So, um, what should I wear?” Wait a minute. Had she just tacitly agreed to go?
“You’ll come, great,” he said instantly. “Thanks, Red. I appreciate this, more than you know. I’ve been putting this off for weeks, but I can’t keep coming up with excuses.”
Oh no, now she couldn’t back out. Not after he’d been all sincerely grateful. She made a face at her reflection. Sucker.
“And,” he said, a smile in his voice, “there’s something in it for you. Besides the pleasure of my company, that is.”
“What? Are you helping me with my golf swing?” There were a multitude of courses in the valley south of Portland Metro, and she knew he played a lot. She’d played several times, enough to know she wanted to get better so she could enjoy playing instead of being frustrated by her lack of ability.
There was a short silence. “I’d love to teach you to play. Especially to swing.”
She snorted with laughter. He did not mean her golf swing. “What else is in it for me, Bowen?”
“Well, don’t take this the wrong way, Red, but your fashion style is a little…casual for my mother and stepfather’s crowd. So how about if I take you shopping before we go?”
Her mouth dropped open. “What? No.” He was so not buying her clothes. “I have clothes, even a few dresses. Unless you want me in kink wear, in which case I can borrow something from Daisy.”