Sun Kissed

by JoAnn Ross

  “He’s a local contractor; he built all our houses—my parents’, this one, mine. I’m certainly not in his league, but he taught me everything I know. He’s seventy-one years old. And still working.”

  “That’s admirable,” he said. “Seems island time leads to long lives.”

  “It does.”

  They fell silent again. Donovan leaned against the doorframe, his hands jammed into the pockets of his gray dress slacks.

  “You know what I said about your suit?”

  “You said a lot. None of it very positive.”

  “I take it back.” She’d begun fiddling with the razor knife she’d been working with when he’d suddenly arrived. Which, now that she thought of it, was more than a little annoying since she would have liked to have had advance warning so she could’ve bathed, buffed, and polished for him. “You look pretty damn good, Detective.”

  “Not as good as you.” His gaze swept over her in that slow, assessing way he had, not like a detective checking out a suspect but like a hot guy checking out a woman he wanted to bang.

  And boy, was Lani beyond ready to be banged.

  Her mind, which was already clouded with hormones, had been fantasizing about tying him to Nate’s bed with that tie he’d loosened, when the blade slipped in her nerve-and-lust-dampened hand, leaving a gash across the tip of her index finger.

  “Damn.” She immediately stuck her finger in her mouth, which caused his eyes to flare. Then, his cop instincts set in as he was by her side in seconds, lifting her off her feet. But instead of carrying her into the bedroom, Rhett Butler style, and having his wicked way with her as she’d fantasized, he sat her down on the toilet and retrieved a Band-Aid from the medicine cabinet she’d recessed into the wall. Then he wrapped the wound, which thankfully hadn’t taken off the tip of her finger because then he’d probably insist on taking her to the hospital, which was more of a clinic her father had established years ago.

  When he appeared in no hurry to release her hand, Lani wondered if he could feel her trembling.

  “Did you learn anything while you were on Oahu?”

  “Yeah. But nothing we need to talk about now. I’d rather talk about you. And all the things I decided while flying to Kauai, then taking the ferry to here that I want to do to you. With you.”

  “About time.” She traced his lips with her fingertip. The SpongeBob SquarePants Band-Aid she’d bought as a joke for Nate took a bit away from the sexiness of the gesture, but when he cupped her face in his hands and kissed her, really kissed her (and wow, could Donovan kiss!), hot and hard and deep, with a lot of tongue tangling, as every part of her body began belting out “The Hallelujah Chorus,” she forgot all about Bikini Bottom’s most popular yellow resident.

  The stiff scrape of Donovan’s afternoon stubble was like the finest grade of sandpaper. No. She used a lot of sandpaper while working on this beach house, and none of it had felt as erotic as his face on his way down her neck, nipping at a spot right above her collarbone that Lani had never realized was an erogenous zone.

  He lifted her, just as she’d fantasized, and this time carried her into the adjoining room and laid her on the bed. The fake fur was soft and lush against the backs of her legs.

  “Damn.”

  His frown carved deep furrows in his brow. “What’s the matter?”

  “I hate it when my brother’s right.”

  Donovan’s answering chuckle came from deep in his throat, hitting her heart like an arrow. “You had me scared there for a minute,” he said as he nuzzled her ear. “I thought you’d changed your mind.”

  “I have,” she admitted, weakening as his fingers trailed lazily up the exposed length of her thigh. “Too many times to count.”

  “And?”

  “And I keep coming back to the fact that I want you.”

  Donovan looked down into green eyes darkened with such open desire and felt the now-familiar movement in his chest. Over the years, he had come to think of himself as a rock—unemotional, immovable. Somehow, during their short time together, he’d discovered that he was a hell of a long way away from being the self-controlled, impervious man he had worked so hard to become.

  Go with your instincts.

  “That’s convenient. Because I’ve wanted you from the beginning. You’ve been all I could think about from the first moment I saw you, with the sun striking sparks in your hair. I felt as if I’d been hit by lightning.”

  Lani stroked his cheek. “I felt the same way.”

  “And now?”

  “As hot as you look, we need to get you out of those city clothes, Detective.” After pulling the tie over his head, she grabbed a fistful of his shirt, ripped it open and raced her lips over his chest, causing him to groan deep in his throat before she was forced to stop when she hit the barrier of his damn belt.

  Because his hands were steadier than hers, he unfastened it and yanked down his zipper, displaying a pair of crimson knit boxer briefs that confirmed what Lani had already figured out for herself. Donovan might be city detective cool on the outside, but he had a red-hot volcanic core.

  Once they were finally skin to skin, she continued to plant wet kisses down the happy trail leading below his navel, but before she could create an eruption, he’d regained control and turned the tables, using his hands and mouth to burn heat everywhere on her body, until she was writhing beneath him, wishing she’d never taught him the concept of island time.

  Then finally, just when she didn’t think she could take any more, Donovan covered her with his beautiful body, and yes, she did grasp his very fine ass as he slid into her, fitting so perfectly, filling all those spaces inside her she hadn’t even realized had been so empty, that tears came to her eyes.

  And then, as he buried his face in her damp neck, and she wrapped her arms and legs even more tightly around him, there were no more thoughts.

  * * *

  Had it been hours or only minutes? Days or an eternity? Lani lay in Donovan’s arms as she struggled to orient herself. The fiery glow of sunset had melted into yawning shadows that created deep blue silhouettes on the walls.

  Outside the open window, all was quiet as the birds settled down for the night. The only sounds were the rustle of palm fronds disturbed by the gentle trade winds and the soft sigh of the tide as it washed onto the beach.

  “Okay,” she purred, arching her back like a lithe, pampered cat, “I surrender.”

  Donovan ran a hand that had created such havoc to her body lazily down her side. “I thought you already had.” There was no mistaking the satisfied smile in his voice.

  “I was talking about the fact that any man who can make me feel the way you do could probably make me confess to anything. No wonder you’re so good at your work, Detective.”

  He brushed a few strands of still-damp hair off her forehead and pressed his lips against her temple. “It’s only been that way with you, Lani,” he said truthfully.

  Lani laughed as she turned in the circle of his arms and tangled her legs with his. “And isn’t that exactly what you’re supposed to say?”

  “Seriously.” His lips nibbled at hers as he punctuated his words with kisses that had her wanting him again. And again. “I’ve never met a woman who can make me lose control the way you do.”

  “I like the idea of being able to make you lose control,” she decided as she trailed a slow, lazy finger up his inner thigh.

  “If you needed any more proof…” Donovan took her hand and held it against the straining evidence of his renewed arousal. “You’ve been making me crazy from the beginning.”

  “You’ve got no idea how happy I am to hear that,” she said, as she wrapped her fingers around him and drew him inside her. Where he belonged. “Let’s be crazy together.”

  15

  The entire eastern arc of the horizon danced with fire as Donovan rose to greet the new day. A day
, he had considered on first awakening, filled with possibilities. After the previous night, he felt himself imbued with almost mystical powers; whatever he wished for would be his. Whatever he sought, he’d find. Life was his oyster, Lani his pearl, and everything was coming up roses.

  He laughed as he realized that he’d slipped from waxing philosophical into mixing metaphors. Both might be uncommon behavior for him, but this was a remarkably uncommon day. Even waking to an empty bed couldn’t diminish his optimistic mood, because he had a good hunch where Lani was.

  Wandering out onto the lanai, a cup of coffee in his hand, he saw her. She was strolling along the slender crescent of glistening sand, picking up the shells that littered the shoreline. The sea, illuminated by the rising sun, gleamed like molten metal almost too bright to look at.

  Ah, but Lani was a different matter entirely, Donovan thought, his lips curving in an instinctive smile as he watched her pick up a shell, turn it over in her hand to study it intently, only to discard it. He could happily spend the rest of his life watching her do anything. Or nothing.

  During the long and mostly sleepless night, she’d treated him to the massage her grandmother recommended.

  While treated him to what turned out to be an incredibly sensual experience, Lani had explained that while technique was an important part of a Lomi Lomi massage, especially when used for healing as she was doing for his ankle, much of the practitioner’s focus was on using loving hands and a loving heart.

  Both of which Lani had in spades.

  “People tend to think of memory and beliefs as stores in our head. In our brains,” she’d said as her hands had moved over his body, spreading warmed coconut oil in long, continuously flowing strokes. “But Lomi Lomi belief contends that memory is stored in all the cells of our bodies, and that things like negative thoughts can block energy flow the same way as muscle tension can. And even if you don’t buy into that belief, physically the massage relieves tension and stress and increases blood flow, which aids in the elimination of toxins.”

  Donovan had never been into woo-woo, although his partner had talked him into using psychics during the Cascades Killer hunt. None of whom had provided any helpful information. But he couldn’t deny that his ankle felt better this morning.

  As if sensing his gaze, Lani glanced up and smiled in a way that had him feeling he’d just swallowed the sun.

  “Hi,” she said a little breathlessly as she came up the wooden steps. “I couldn’t sleep. But I didn’t want to wake you.”

  “I wouldn’t have minded.”

  Scattering her seashells on a nearby table, she framed his smiling face in her palms. “Ah, but I didn’t want to wear you out.”

  He pulled her against him with one arm. “Do you think that’s possible?”

  “If last night was any indication, I’d say that was a no. In fact, if word of your stamina ever leaks out, you can say good-bye to your police career, Detective.”

  She glanced down at the cup he still held in his free hand. Steam rose invitingly into the tropical morning air, and the rich fragrance of the dark Kona coffee was enticing. “What are my chances of getting a cup of that?”

  “After last night, you can have anything your warm little heart desires,” he said, releasing her to return to the kitchen. “What do you mean, my career would be shot?” he asked as he made her a cup from the Keurig he’d opted for instead of digging out her French press.

  “Thanks.” She took a sip of coffee. “I was referring to all those scientists who’d track you down and lock you away in some laboratory while they sought to find the secret of your amazing virility.”

  Her eyes danced as she grinned at him over the rim of the mug. “If we could find a way to bottle whatever keeps you going, we’d make a fortune.”

  “No problem. The answer is simple.” As his gaze turned suddenly dark, the way it had last night, when they’d been making love, Lani felt an answering warmth curling outward to her fingertips.

  “It’s you, Lani,” he said with unnerving solemnity. “Only you.”

  Wouldn’t it be lovely if it were that simple? Lani might have given up sex for Lent, but she was experienced enough to realize that something as rare as it was beautiful had passed between them last night. Something that if their circumstances were only different would have her shouting her love to the rooftops.

  Simple? Hardly.

  “Did you mean what you said? About not being in the market for a wife?”

  Under normal circumstances, especially after last night, Donovan would have automatically taken Lani’s surprising question as expecting some promise of commitment or permanency. But observing her strangely pale face, he had to wonder if she wanted assurance that their relationship was nothing more than a one-night stand. No, not that, he corrected thoughtfully. A vacation fling. A brief affair that would last only as long as his stay here on the island.

  And why wasn’t he relieved by that idea?

  When he realized she was still waiting for an answer, Donovan did what any prudent man would do under the circumstances. He hedged.

  “I didn’t come down here looking for a wife, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Great,” she said with another of those dazzling sun-bright smiles. “I mean, that’s good to know, because it occurred to me, as I was walking on the beach, that it’d be best to clear up any possible misunderstandings. That as amazing as last night was, I mean, I actually lost count of my orgasms, and believe me, that never happens, I’m certainly not expecting you to put a ring on it.”

  “Okay.” Taking the mug from her hand, he put it next to the coffee pot, lifted her onto the counter, and proceeded to add to her orgasm count.

  * * *

  “Hungry?” he asked.

  “Not as much as I was a few minutes ago,” she said with a smile that only wobbled slightly. She’d always prided herself on not lying. Wasn’t that why she’d had to leave Los Angeles? Truth, in her business especially, had been relative. But she’d definitely lied to Donovan when she’d led him to believe that she considered this time together merely a vacation fling. “But I could eat something.”

  Then minutes later, they were sitting out on the lanai, eating a breakfast of banana bread and fresh fruit.

  “What did you find out at the FBI?” she asked.

  “Nothing officially. But whatever your friend’s fiancé is involved in, they know about it.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Believe me, I never kid about the FBI.”

  “They told you that?”

  “No. Because I was acting as a civilian on non-official business. But the agent I spoke with would neither confirm nor deny.”

  “And that told you they know?”

  “It’s cop speak. Like ‘a person of interest.’”

  She shook her head. “It has to be a mistake.”

  “It’s not.”

  He sounded so sure of himself Lani had no other choice but to believe him. She also wondered if there was something he wasn’t telling her, but suspected that if she pushed, he’d probably just give her that same line the FBI agent had given him.

  She sipped her coffee, basking in the memory of being so thoroughly, expertly, loved. Donovan’s lovemaking had been every bit as intense as the young man she remembered him to be before he had begun his successful series of career advancements. Which brought up something else she’d been thinking about on her morning walk.

  “Why do you want to join the FBI?”

  “Because they’re the best.”

  His eyes were gleaming with the same light Lani had seen in Nate’s eyes when her brother discussed his latest novel. Or when her father was in the planning stages of a painting. And her mother had taken on that same avid look while chiseling away on a piece of virgin stone. Able to recognize obsession when she saw it, Lani frowned as she spread orange marmalade on a thin slice of the war
m, dark bread.

  “What, exactly, do they do that you don’t do now?”

  “It’s not that different,” he admitted. “But at a national level. While I have to go through hoops to follow a trail outside Portland… Have I told you how beautiful you are this morning?”

  “You have. Several times.” She jerked her head back. “And you’re dodging the issue. Damn it, Donovan, I’m trying to have a serious conversation with you.”

  He regarded her with that serious look he’d had when he’d first arrived. “I can see you are,” he said calmly. “So, carry on.”

  “Thank you,” Lani said. “Why did you want to become a policeman in the first place?”

  It had been so long since anyone had asked him that question that Donovan had to stop and remember what had made him turn down an acceptance to medical school to enter the police academy.

  He leaned forward, bracing his elbows on the chair arms as he considered her words.

  “It’s going to sound like bragging,” he warned after a moment.

  “Try me.”

  “I believed I could make a difference. That I could make the world, or at least my little corner of it, a better place for people to live.”

  “And, according to Nate, you’ve certainly succeeded.” She sipped her coffee.

  “If I haven’t, it hasn’t been for lack of trying.”

  Lani believed him. There was still one little point she didn’t understand. “When was the last time you actually talked one-on-one with one of those people you wanted to help?” she asked quietly. “Unless it involved the crime you were working on?”

  A puzzled frown darkened his brow. “I don’t understand what you’re getting at.”

  “I just was wondering if you’ve ever had time to mingle with the masses once you became a detective.”

  He studied her thoughtfully. “Why am I getting the feeling that you disapprove of my wanting to improve myself?”

  Lani shrugged. “It’s not for me to disapprove, Donovan. I have nothing to say about what you do with your life.”