She wasn’t what he expected, but she was everything he wanted.
God help him.
* * *
Maybe she was going to embarrass herself. Maybe this was the last time she would have her hands on Ansel’s bare chest, kissing her way along his collarbone to taste the thrumming pulse in this throat. Maybe she’d be heartbroken again and spend a few months crying into her juggling beanbags.
She didn’t care. He felt so good. Warm and strong, smelling like seawater and sweat. She moved her tongue over his nipple and licked it until it hardened, smiling at the way he went rigid beneath her.
Oh, God, to be in the game again. She’d been on the sidelines too long, watching, waiting, wanting. He wasn’t her soul mate, but it wasn’t his soul she wanted right now.
“Take off your pants,” she said. “It’ll be easier if you do it.”
Smiling, he stretched his arms over his head. “Since when is the good stuff ever easy?”
She didn’t feel like laughing, so she bit down on his nipple.
“That’s the way you want to play, is it?” he growled, grabbing her shoulders.
To her surprise, she found herself on her back with the full length of him pinning her to the bed. He still had his shorts on. The fabric was rough against her bare thighs, her pelvis, her stomach.
She spread her legs, wrapped them around his hips, and caught his mouth in a kiss as she thrust upward.
His tongue tangled with hers as he groaned and fumbled with his fly. “God, Nicki,” he gasped. “I want you. I want you so much.”
She reached down and caught the waistband with her thumbs, slid the material, with his boxers, over his hips. Then she caught his ass in both hands and squeezed, driving another cry out of him.
He wasn’t smiling anymore, which she appreciated. His eyes were wild, his mouth frantically searching hers for another deep, hot kiss as he writhed out of the shorts and kicked them to the floor.
Now when she bucked up to him, his nakedness met hers, hard to soft, and she closed her eyes to feel more, to block out the blue hazy view around them, to forget about the future.
He slid his hand between her legs and stroked her until she was incapable of remembering her name, let alone next week. Just as she was on the verge of falling over the cliff, he touched her face.
“Now, Nicki?”
Chest heaving, she blinked up at him. Then she glanced down. He’d put the condom on. Nodding, she reached for him as she arched up to him. “God, yes.”
He stroked her with the head of his penis, teasing her.
“Now?”
“God!” she cried.
“You’re so beautiful.” He thrust into her. “You are so beautiful, Nicki. Nicki.”
When she fell, she brought him with her.
* * *
They slept for a ridiculously long time. When Nicki opened her eyes and saw the sun setting behind the curve of Ansel’s shoulder, she lifted her head with a start.
What time was it?
He must’ve felt her jerk awake, because he opened his eyes and stared back at her. “You okay?”
They weren’t touching. Perhaps because it was hot in the sunny sex alcove; perhaps because after the second time, they’d both needed to sleep more than they’d needed to cuddle. He slept facing her from one side of the bed; she woke on her stomach, using her arms as a pillow, at the other.
The magic’s gone, isn’t it? she asked herself. The air between them was thick, not at all like it had been an hour—four hours—earlier.
They’d slept too long, and now things were weird. Just as she’d expected.
He smiled. “Hi, beautiful.”
A nervous giggle threatened to break out of her throat. She bit her lip. “Hi.”
Grin deepening, he lifted himself up on to his elbow and leaned closer. Beads of sweat dotted his upper lip. “Are you as hot as I am?”
She raised an eyebrow. “You need more proof?”
He sprung up and came over to her on his hands and knees. “I always need more proof.” Then he wiped his upper lip with the back of his hand. “Maybe a little later, though. Seriously, I’m cooked. If you poked me with a fork, my juices would run clear. I need another shower.”
They’d shared one before falling asleep. She lifted a hand to her head to see how badly her hair had dried. She felt tufts flying parallel to her shoulders, as if an arrow had impaled her skull. “Oh, my.”
He kissed her quickly on the lips, leaped over her to the floor, and strode out of the room, his butt as bare as her own. Were all of those marks on his back really her doing?
When the naked man show was over, she sat up, patting her hair down, and looked around for her clothes.
Right. She hadn’t worn any, just the swimsuit. She got up, flinching a little when she sat up. It was like riding a bicycle: you didn’t forget how, but that first ride of the summer was a doozy.
She limped out into the main room. Her bag sat in a puddle of water by the front door, the fallen pitcher beside it. Trying not to get her feet wet, she bent over to clean up the mess, glad the pitcher was plastic, not glass, and shook out her bag. It, unfortunately, was cotton, and had absorbed much of the water.
No help for that. She pulled on the underwear first, which was synthetic, so would dry quickly; but her T-shirt and capris were as damp as a kitchen sponge.
The fading sunlight was turning the walls of the cabana a dark reddish-orange. The decor was a blend of 1950s Elvis and generic luxury hotel: garish Hawaiian print pillows over handcrafted leather furniture. The Jury-Jarskis’ place was much more her speed, and she wanted to return to it.
Because of her wet clothes, she arranged the colorful pillows in a pile on the leather couch and perched on them as if she weren’t nervous, not at all worried about whatever happened next, that she was confident and sophisticated because she had urgent, hot, uncommitted sex all the time.
By the time he came out of the shower, her back ached from holding herself in her oh-so-casual position.
“How about dinner?” he asked, leaning against the door frame. “I’m starving, aren’t you?”
“I could eat a moose.”
“Not native to the islands.”
“Neither was the lobster,” she said. “But I get your point. Would you mind heading back to the condo?”
His smile faltered. “You want to go back?”
“Is that a problem?”
“Of course not. I just figured…” He looked around, shook his head. “Sure. Whatever you think. Did you want to go now?”
Now she’d made things awkward. She crossed her legs, which, on her tower of pillows, used all of her core abdominal muscles. “No hurry.”
“It’s okay. We can go now. I shouldn’t have assumed, you know…”
She stood up. “It’s because my clothes are wet.” She patted her thighs and plucked at her T-shirt. “We knocked the pitcher over them.”
“I believe that was my doing.” He walked over and stroked the damp spot over her left nipple. “You could take them off. They’ll be dry by morning.” The corner of his mouth curved up.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. She’d prepared herself for chilly regret, not this.
The back of her throat constricted, reducing her airflow. Lungs that had, minutes ago, been pumping normally, turned into a matching pair of bricks in her ribcage. She began to shake.
No, not now. She wouldn’t let herself panic now, not here.
“Sure, good idea,” she said, reaching for the bottom hem of her T-shirt. “We’ll have…” Her tongue caught on her teeth. She couldn’t inhale deeply enough to force words out. Sex. We’ll have sex again.
Nnnggghh.
“You’re shivering.” He grabbed a pink-and-yellow floral throw blanket and wrapped it around her shoulders, forcing her arms and her shirt back down. “We’ll get you into fresh clothes back at the condo. We can pick up something to eat on the way.”
No, she wanted to say.
Let’s stay here. Let’s enjoy the moment.
Instead, she said, “That sounds great,” and the panic ebbed out to low tide.
Chapter 20
THE VALET WHO TOOK THEIR car at the front of the resort was a tall, future movie star kind of guy who made Ansel—not jealous, just curious—study Nicki’s face for signs of lust.
Nothing. She walked past Mr. Box Office into the resort without a glance.
Well, at least it wasn’t personal. For the last hour, as they’d driven back up the coast, eating chicken katsu and rice out of takeout containers in the car, he’d kept quiet to allow her a chance to explain. She was polite, even friendly, but the sex kitten of the tropics was gone. He started to wonder if he’d lied to himself about how good it had been, perhaps to justify taking it so far when he’d meant to keep it platonic.
He jogged through the resort doors to catch up to her near the elevators. The way she stood there, glaring at the glowing buttons, made him ask, “Would you rather take the stairs?”
Shaking her head, she hugged her tote bag to her chest. When the doors opened, she marched aboard, nearly steamrolling a middle-aged man in a tight Hawaiian shirt clutching three mai tais against his chest.
“Excuse me,” she said, giving the guy the phoniest smile Ansel had ever seen. She even sounded like somebody else, dumb and bubbly. When the car arrived at their floor, she twinkled at the drink guy as she sashayed out into the hall. But as soon as the doors shut, she returned to her rigid-limb march, which she maintained until they were inside the condo.
What was going on?
He dropped his bag on a barstool. “Nicki?”
She stood in the middle of the living room, staring out. The shades were drawn, the doors were closed, and the sun was long gone; they could’ve been in a motel in Bakersfield. “I’m not feeling well,” she said. Then she turned to face him. “Would it be weird—well, of course it is, this is me we’re talking about—but would you mind if I slept in my own bed tonight? Alone?”
“No, no,” he began, trying to be reasonable, but then he couldn’t stand it anymore. “Is it because I called you Mickey?”
A smile flashed across her face. “No. It’s not you. I’m just not feeling well.”
She did look kind of queasy. “Could’ve been the katsu. I’m feeling a little sick myself.”
“I think… I don’t want to guess. I might make things worse.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Let’s talk in the morning, okay?”
He walked over to kiss her good night but faltered when he was a few inches away. A woman didn’t clench her jaw when she felt like kissing. “It was a big day,” he said. “What with the near drowning and hot sex.”
“Maybe that’s it. I’m so sorry to be like this.” Then she was the one to lean over and kiss him. On the lips, but lightly. Quickly. And no tongue.
To hell with it. He caught her around the waist and gave her a proper kiss. She stiffened beneath him, but then she thawed. For a moment he thought everything was better, that this was the same woman he’d met in college, that afternoon, and his dreams; and then she was pulling away.
“Sorry,” she said, closing her eyes. “I’ll make us breakfast, okay?”
“I’m not hungry. How about in the morning?”
That earned a small laugh. “Deal.”
He wanted to kiss her again. She felt soft, strong, and real in his arms, even better than the afternoon in bed.
But then a chime rang out from the door, and she took another big step back, completing her escape, and he was left standing alone in his own personal space.
The bell rang again.
“We should get that,” she said.
“It’s probably the drunk guy next door getting confused again.” Reluctantly, he walked away from her to look out the door’s peephole.
But it wasn’t the drunk guy.
Diane?
* * *
Ansel opened the door a crack, assuming he just needed a better look.
No. It really was Diane. She stood in the hallway with a giant white flower in her hair, big as a baby’s head.
She was his best friend, and he loved her, but her timing was terrible. “What are you doing here?” he asked, opening the door the rest of the way.
“Hello to you, too.” She swatted him on the arm with her briefcase. “Where the hell have you been?”
“What?”
She wriggled past him into the condo. “You’re like my grandmother, never answering her phone. Did you forget to recharge it or something? Don’t tell me you got another number and didn’t tell me, because then I’ll have to kill you.” She strode into the kitchen and set her purse on the counter. “Hi, Nicki. Diane Gambau.” She held out her hand. “Nice to see you again.”
After a short pause, Nicki took her hand. “Hi.”
The three stared at each other.
“You should’ve seen the look on your face when you opened the door,” Diane said to him.
“It’s that flower,” he said, reaching out to poke it. “That sucker must weigh two pounds.”
Diane tilted her head and stuck her tongue out at him. “I bought it in the gift shop downstairs while I was waiting. And waiting. And waiting.”
“Ansel agreed to come with me on one of those boat tours, to go snorkeling,” Nicki said without looking at him. “I’d never done anything like that before.”
“Then we drove down to Wailea,” he added. Maybe because it was a Monday, a day he should’ve been working, he got a little defensive. Diane worked eighty-hour weeks, had slept at the office more often than she’d admit, and teased him ruthlessly about his casual lifestyle. “I wasn’t expecting company.”
“I did call,” Diane said.
“I left my phone in the car,” he said. “I don’t like to risk it on the beach, let alone on a boat—”
“I called days ago. More than once. But let’s move on. I decided it would be fun to surprise you. I wish I could’ve made it for your birthday, but I couldn’t get away until today.” She turned to Nicki. “I booked the ticket before I found out the second bedroom was occupied.”
He translated Diane’s implied question: Has it recently become available because you’ll be sharing his?
“The sofa bed’s pretty nice,” he said. “My parents say so, anyway.”
Diane laughed. “Your parents sleep in hammocks and tents with dirt floors all over the world,” she said. “I can’t compete with that. I’m a princess. You know that.”
“All right,” he said, clapping his hands together. He didn’t know why he was in such a hurry. Nicki would be in her room, alone, without him—by request.
“I’ll take the sofa,” he said with a sigh. “You can have my—”
“Don’t be silly,” Diane said. “I got my own place. I’m right down the hall.”
“Oh.” He ran his hand through his hair. Something odd was going on, but his brain wasn’t functioning at its best. Nicki had just tucked her hair behind her ear, which reminded him of how he’d licked, nibbled, and kissed that lobe just hours ago.
“You two probably want to catch up,” Nicki said. What must she be thinking? “I’m wiped out. Time for me to crash. Thanks for your help today, Ansel. Nice to meet you, Diane. See you both tomorrow, I suppose.” Then she waved at them both, as if they were a unit, and walked off to her room.
I suppose?
Diane kicked his bag off a chair and draped her sweater off the back of it, smiling at him over her shoulder. “How about some herbal tea?”
“Sure.” Rubbing his jaw, he went to the cupboard for a mug. How much was he going to tell Diane? He wasn’t a kiss-and-tell kind of guy, but he wasn’t a sneak, either. Deciding he’d figure it out tomorrow, he said, “Did you really come just for my birthday?”
“Not just any birthday. You’ve been freaking out for months. How’d it go?”
“It wasn’t so bad.” He wondered if Nicki would be willing to go back to that waterfall and finish the dri
ve.
“You’ve been dreading it all year,” she said. “How could I let my best friend suffer all by himself?”
He filled Diane’s mug with water and put it in the microwave. “I wasn’t by myself.”
Knowing him as well as she did, she read his look and smirked. “What’d you do?”
“Hana Highway.”
“Again?”
“She’s never been here before.”
“Ansel to the rescue.” She wagged her finger at him. “Hey, I got you something.” She marched over to her laptop bag, took out a package wrapped in silver paper, and held it out to him with a confident smile.
He took the mug out of the microwave and dunked the tea bag into it before taking the present from her. “Another book?”
“Be quiet. Just open it.”
“Your tea’s ready.”
Leaning against the counter, he tugged off the ribbon and tore apart the paper to reveal a best-selling book on executive mind control and world domination. A smooth-faced old man with gleaming eyes like laser beams was on the cover. Ansel looked up at her; she watched him eagerly. “Thanks,” he said.
“To help you with your business,” she said.
“Right. It looks great.”
“It really helped me. I know it looks cheesy, but there’s some really profound stuff in there. Promise me you’ll read it.” She poked him in the shoulder. “Promise.”
Diane was great, of course, but she was at it again. What did she want him to do now? Apply to law school? Run for Congress? It was always something. “I don’t promise you anything, you know that. You’re too pushy.”
Her smile tightened. “You love me and you know it.”
“I do. I’d probably be stoned and pregnant without you,” he said. “Like the day we met.”
“That’s better. Now where’s that tea?” She got it and found a chair in the living room. “This unit’s a lot smaller than I remember. You should upgrade, get your own place.”
“I’ll get right on that.” He reached into his back pocket, pulled out his wallet. “Let’s see… I’ve got about fifteen bucks. Guess I’ll have to give up the ocean view.” His dark, hot thoughts drifted to the cabana.
Diving In Page 20