by Kat Bastion
“Okay.” She slowly nodded as the rigid muscles in her arms and legs began to relax. “Just a ray.”
“You surf some, right?”
A long pause stretched out. Then she pulled slightly away from my chest. “Yeah.” Her warm breath fogged over my lips. The tart scent of tequila reminded me of how drunk she was. “I surf some.”
I had a good buzz going myself, but the faint warning bell firing in my head did nothing to stop me. I tightened my hold, quieting my voice. “Don’t you have sharks in Hawai‘i?”
Things were getting real. Fast. The volatile girl who’d dropped from the sky and stood so independently on my towel earlier today clung to me. Soft, yet strong. Sexy.
And my body began to harden for her.
“Yeah, we do. Tigers, mostly. They’re the ones that attack the…”
Her pause then soft gasp told me she’d felt the pulse of my growing erection against her hip. Yet she made no move to pull away.
And I refused to loosen my grip. Instead, I softened my voice further, like I’d found a young doe in the forest and didn’t want to startle her into bounding off. “The ones that attack what?”
Our bodies rocked up and down with a larger wave, unusual for the protected bay.
When the action pulled us apart, she settled back against me, as if comfortable there. “The tourists.”
Her comment, though funny, came out matter-of-fact. Like it was perfectly acceptable that residents there looked at their prime source of income as shark bait.
But I didn’t laugh. Because the conversation had turned surreal. Paramount in my head—the one above my shoulders with brain cells quickly being deprived of oxygen-rich blood flow—was the incredible creature nestled in my arms. And still, I didn’t want to stop talking with her, I wanted to stay with the true Leilani, the one under all those earlier posturing layers. She’d stripped herself literally and figuratively. Naked. Real.
“Why tourists?” I had to ask.
“Tan lines. Slapping the water.” She gave a half-shrug.
Then she shifted, adjusting her body higher.
I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth from the friction of her movement; every nerve ending at the tip of my cock throbbed.
“Do you?” The question whispered over my ear.
Totally confused, I dipped my head toward her and rested my chin on her head. “Do I what?”
“Slap.”
Her voice had gotten a whole lot throatier. Like she wasn’t talking about water.
“No.” I ran my hand over her hip, then stopped it to rest on the tantalizing curve of her ass. “Slapping is for sissies and cowards. So is smacking.” I pulled my hand away from her skin, letting water rush in under my hand. “Spanking?” Her gasp wisped over my neck as I shoved my palm back through the water, then cupped it over her flesh, barely touching her skin, taunting her. “Entirely different issue.”
“Spanking.” Her question came out flat, on a breathy exhalation.
“Yes.”
“How so?”
So many words, totally wrong timing to thoroughly explain. “You’ll see.”
She turned her head, facing me in the darkness. “I will?”
“Yeah.” Our lips almost touched, the barest sliver of air between them.
Somewhere in the far reaches of my brain, that warning bell pinged again, and I huffed out a frustrated breath. It would be so easy to let go, pull her down into a wild session of carnal sex.
I felt her body relax, then tighten. Like indecision warred within her too.
“Not now.”
“No spanking now?” Disappointment tinged her tone.
Fuck. “No.”
Softness brushed over my lips. “What about a kiss?”
Innocent. One small taste. So fucking tempting.
My brain fuzzed. Every beat of my heart throbbed heat to my cock.
But I’d never stop with a single kiss. Never. Not with her.
“No.” I pulled away, dropped my forehead to hers. “Neither of us is thinking straight now.”
“What about getting up my skirt?” Her words softened, slurring. Body settling further, she pulled her head away from mine and rested it into the crook of my shoulder with a sigh.
Yeah. What about that? What my body rioted about. “That was before.”
“Before?” Her voice lowered as her grip on my upper arms loosened.
I didn’t answer her. Didn’t really know the reason for the change myself. “No more questions tonight.”
“Because the game is over,” she murmured.
“Yeah.” Long before the drinking had ended.
The gentle push and pull of the ocean, the late hour, the drinking…all had lulled her. I lifted her higher, cradling her to my chest as silence fell between us. But all around, the night played a soothing song: distant crashing waves, rustling palm fronds, the occasional splash of a jumping fish—probably our night-bump culprit.
Tired from a long day myself, I made for shore. As I lifted her out of the water, she stirred, lifting her head, drowsy eyes blinking open. After a dozen steps, she wrapped her arms around my neck and leaned to the side, glancing over my shoulder. “What about our clothes?”
“We won’t be needing them for what we’re doing.”
“We won’t?”
“No.”
“What will we be doing?”
“Sleeping.”
A soft laugh. “Oh.”
Assuming I could sleep.
“But my dress…”
“I’ll get it after we get you get tucked in.”
“Oh.”
Curving a wide path toward the doorway, I stretched out my fingers and grabbed a towel off the stack. With care, I perched her on the edge of the bed, wrapped the towel around her, and gently dried her off. Then I guided her down and pulled the thin sheet over her body, but its threadbare fabric hid nothing of the tempting curves beneath it.
“What about you?”
“I can sleep in the hammock.”
“You don’t have to.” She patted the tiny space between her body and the edge. “Sleep with me.”
“No fucking way.”
“Why not?” Her eyelids drifted closed again, head nestling into the pillow. Her breathing grew deep and regular.
I pressed my lips to her forehead, brushing a gentle kiss to her skin. “Because we won’t fit in that bed. Not without you on top of me.” And me inside of you.
Later.
As promised, I picked up her dress, shook out the sand, then hung it over a roped end of the hammock outside to let the wind air it out overnight. Then I grabbed a dry towel and a square pillow from a wicker chair and went outside to catch a few z’s before sunup.
On an exhausted twisting lunge, I dropped into the fraying hammock, tucking the pillow under my head as I fell back. A couple of creaky swings followed. Then the only sounds became the soothing lap of waves in the bay and occasional booms of larger surf in the distance.
Tequila still buzzed in my head.
But nothing quieted thoughts of her, the girl who slept a few short steps away. Not a girl, a woman, who wrestled with finding her own path too.
And as I drifted off, memories of Leilani’s soft laughter wove together with the best moments of my past with my brother—deeper belly laughs among two other young souls who sought their way on a deserted beach too long ago.
Leilani…
A forced swallow finally made it past my sandpaper throat.
Needle-sharp agony pierced my temples with every punishing heartbeat.
My stomach growled, empty and clearly angry about it.
After a deep inhale of stale putrid air, I crinkled my nose and held my breath. Then I cracked my eyelids open.
Shadowy darkness greeted me, the only traces of light glimmering down through slits in a thatched roof. An unfamiliar coolness seeped into my bare legs, the side of my shin, knee, thigh resting on…hard concrete?
Disoriented, I slid a hand
along its dusty surface, leaning toward my left.
A solid wall of warm bare skin stopped my shoulder. Mase.
Images from last night flashed into my head: surfing, game-playing, tequila—explained the fuzzy memories of hugging the porcelain bowl a couple of feet in front of me. Annnd my naked state.
I glanced left to confirm his also naked state.
What happened last night?
Fragments of dreamlike moments drifted in, then faded away. But other than my throbbing head and an aching hipbone from the hard floor, I felt no other soreness. And I vaguely remembered him ditchin’ on the kissin’.
He slumbered peacefully, the slow but steady rise and fall of his chest evidence of how deeply he’d fallen under.
Exhausted from all the hangover thinking, I settled back against his warmth, tucking neatly under his shoulder. Not in any hurry—my phone would’ve trilled up a storm if I’d been a no-show with the chartered pilot—I soaked in my last minutes of freedom.
Mase had no clue how precious a gift he’d given me last night.
To offer him the temptation of sex…and for him to clearly want me but turn me down? A first.
Yet I didn’t feel rejected. Strangely, the interesting turn of events empowered me.
Without much thought, I skated a flattened palm down his forearm, then threaded my fingers together with his, my tiny hand to his larger one. His long fingers stretched, curled tightly around mine for a beat, then relaxed.
On a long sigh, I soaked it all in for the last bit of time I had left, so far away from real life. Right here in the palm of my hand, existed something different, sacred. To be wanted. Cared for—for me. Not for who I was…or wasn’t. Just that girl from last night on a beach.
A chime sounded, muffled but distinct above the ocean waves and rustling palm fronds. Seconds later, another chime prodded: the phone alarm, my ten-minute warning before the pickup I’d arranged for my flight. My time away—my escape from life—had ended.
Reluctant to leave, I stayed motionless for two more chimes…as long as I dared.
Finally, I released his hand and turned toward him, watching his peaceful expression. Then I leaned forward and brushed a kiss over his cheek.
He stirred and his eyes fluttered opened. “Hey. You feeling better?” The murmured words were barely audible. His eyelids drooped half-closed waiting for my answer.
“Yeah.” I brushed his messy bangs out of his eyes. “Go back to sleep.”
And he did. My phone chimed once more, but he didn’t stir.
With only a few minutes left, I got up, dug out my phone, then swiped the alarm off. Outside, I found my dress tangled around the end of the hammock, the one Mase had said he would sleep in. Only he hadn’t. While I pulled the gauzy fabric over my head, I eyed a folded pillow on one end of the hammock and a towel crumpled into a ball in the middle. Back inside, the bed had no further story to tell, its top sheet tossed aside to reveal a slight impression from my body.
A horn honked. I ran outside to the corner of the hut and saw a beat-up blue pickup truck with its back fender crunched in. I waved to the same driver who’d dropped me off at the beach café yesterday, held up a finger, then dashed back in to gather my bag and shoes.
I paused, halfway to the open doorway. No time for a note. Nothing to write it with or on anyway. I settled for checking his phone by the bed. Tracking farther backward, I leaned sideways to see him one more time.
All the incredible moments of the past sixteen hours fluttered through my mind. An unexpected obligation had turned into an adventure—a surprising gift.
“Good-bye, surfer boy.”
All he could ever be to me. A surfer boy I’d once met.
Because once he came to my home?
Everything would be different.
A turbulent bump jerked me up so hard the plane’s lap belt dug into my thighs.
“Should’ve slammed the rest of Mase’s tequila,” I muttered.
My second tin-can plane ride in two days. Not much better than the previous flight which had taken me from Tahiti to the tiny island.
Same pilot, for sure. Except then, I’d been heavily buzzin’, thanks to the Hawai‘i -to-Tahiti business-class seat Makani had bribed me with and Air Tahiti Nui’s complimentary mixed drinks. But the puddle-jumper flight on the flip side with a nails-on-chalkboard hangover? I’d rather have sunburned nipples barbed by jellyfish.
Trying to distract myself, I grabbed my phone. Without getting too stuck in my head about reaching out to Mase, I ignored the airplane-mode rule—not even knowing if a message would go through till we landed—and sent him a text:
Can you make it by Memorial Day?
The timeframe Makani had requested.
Of course, no reply happened during the rest of the short flight. Nothing came during the hour I waited in a red plastic chair near the gate at Tahiti’s airport. Bored as hell, I got up and stalked the gift shop filled with tacky tourist items and snacks.
For some reason, restless energy tingled under my skin. I blew out a slow breath, trying to calm my thumping heart. It’s just a place, Lani. He’s just a guy.
Then why did I feel like the plane leaving in about an hour was taking me farther away from everything I’d been aching for? Freedom. Foreign lands. New people. And a very sexy new person—with a smile that made my heart skip a beat and eyes the color of the clearest wave right as it crests toward the sky.
A shoulder-bump knocked me back into the present when a male customer reached beyond me for a bag of David’s Pumpkin Seeds.
Damn, Lani. Focus on where you can go…not where you can’t.
A half an hour later, after I’d looped through the open-air walkways twice, my phone vibrated. A text appeared from Mase:
Uh...who is this?
I smiled.
Too many girlfriends to count, surfer boy?
The clock at the departure board showed I had about twenty minutes left before my flight.
Ohhh...smartass. You must be the cute Hawaiian chick.
Shaking my head, I typed:
Not cute.
An immediate reply:
Pretty?
I scoffed.
You’re not sure? *points lost*
When more than a few seconds went by, I glanced at the clock again. Finally, my phone vibrated again.
Not texting you how beautiful I think you are. Need to see you blush in person.
“Damn, surfer boy,” I muttered as I typed.
*blushes*
Seconds later, he volleyed back.
Fucking hell.{takes it back}
“Uh-uhhh…” Not even.
You can’t take it back.
A loudspeaker blared a boarding announcement for my flight when he replied.
How did you get my number, anyway?
After slinging my bag over my shoulder, I typed as I walked to the back of the forming line.
Bumped phones with yours.
The attendants were moving faster than our messages. Another reply made it through.
Lucky phones.
One passenger remained ahead of me as I furiously typed.
Memorial Day?
No reply came as I entered the gangway. During the next fifteen minutes, all the passengers boarded, and then the doors were closed. After the tenth time of checking my phone reception with no message, I sighed, angry at myself for getting worked up about something…someone…I couldn’t even have. By the time the plane pushed back from the gate, I stopped wishing for the impossible and finally shut off my phone.
A hard bump woke me up from a dead sleep: We had landed. I shifted back against my seat while the plane quickly slowed then taxied toward its gate. Back home. Where make-believe fun had to come to an end. Where responsibilities and generations of attitude existed. Aloha, but only so far.
To keep my emotions under control, I deliberately kept my phone turned off in the airport. Didn’t reach for it once on the drive home. Refused to grab it from my ba
g when I remembered—all three times. Well, actually thirty, if I was being honest with myself.
On the thirty-first time, I growled in frustration and retrieved the damn thing, grumbling out, “You’re making too big of a deal over a stupid text.”
When I turned it on, his reply flashed brightly on the screen.
I can do better than that. How’s next Friday?
A thrill ran through me, imagining him saying the words aloud while his blue eyes sparked with playfulness. Then I scowled at myself, tamping down my foolish excitement, and replied:
Sure.
Good. Basic. Unemotional.
To my surprise, he instantly fired back another reply.
Pick me up at the airport?
Great. No excitement came with his last reply. Only dread. That I would want too much. Hope too much. Better to kill it now.
Sure.
Mase…
Excitement buzzed through my body.
And shockingly, it wasn’t from the thrill of a wave.
A beautiful island girl with a fierce gaze, sharp tongue, and secrets in her heart had promised to pick me up at the airport.
After grabbing my bags, I scanned the faces in the crowd. But no one looked familiar.
Instead, beyond baggage claim in the middle of an open-air walkway leading to the curb, an older Hawaiian man in a red tropical shirt with salt-and-pepper hair held a placard below his double chin with one word on it: PRICE.
Thrown by the change in plans, I made my way over to him.
As soon as I made eye contact, he broke into a wide smile and held out an arm, reaching for one of my bags. “You Price?”
