Rolling in the Deep: Hawaiian Heroes, Book 2

by Cathryn Cade

  “Captain Lee tells us his officers have found two locals dead in the last week,” Homu told him quietly. “Drug overdose.”

  The hair on the back of Daniel’s neck stood up. This kind of thing happened over in Honolulu all the time, but on the Big Island they mostly stuck to drinking, maybe smoking a little Kona Gold now and then.

  “Meth?” he asked. Hell of a thing to be hoping, as meth was a drug straight from hell, but at least it was the devil they knew.

  Homu shook his head.

  “This is something new,” Captain Lee said. “A designer drug—a hallucinogen. Remarkably harmless looking, from the packets we found with the victims. Looks like some kind of dried herbs, but it’s laced with the real drug.”

  “Worst of all, the folks they found aren’t habitual drug users,” Hilo said. “One of them I know. Old Delores Koiliu, from that Native Traditions group trying to get the army kicked out of their training area up on the mountain. The other was a twenty-three-year-old from Ka’u, working on one of the coffee plantations up on Mamaloa Highway.”

  Daniel met his uncle’s eyes. Only a month ago, David had nearly died, along with one of their Nawea neighbors. Keone Halama had tried to help smuggle in a cache of what he believed to be herbs that would assist him and other Hawaiians in their traditional religious ceremonies, giving them visions of their ancestors.

  The cache was not herbs but Kona kula, coyly named Kona diamonds, a designer drug crafted by employees of the Helman brothers in some clandestine California lab. And this sounded like more of it.

  “Hard to keep drugs out of Hawaii,” the judge said, “with all of our ship and air traffic. I sentenced a fellow just last week who’d been carrying in cocaine on commercial flights, in his packages of muscle-development supplement.”

  The others nodded politely, but Daniel’s mind was racing. Was this kula from a shipment the Helmans already had brought in, or had it just been pulled from the sea? Whichever, it finished the job of shooting his mood straight to hell. He had to get out of this crowd before he exploded.

  “I’m going to head out,” he muttered to his father. “Go see if I can find anything.”

  Homu turned with him, raising a heavy silver eyebrow at him. “Daniel, it is night,” he replied just as quietly. “You can do little until morning, surely.”

  “I know, I know. But I can’t just…sit,” Daniel said. “David’s married. It’s done. I’ll talk to you in the morning.”

  And his plan worked fine until he turned to find his mother standing before him. “Daniel? Why are you not dancing with these lovely girls?”

  He groaned inwardly. “Ma, they’re fine without me.”

  She frowned up at him. “You must at least dance with the bridesmaids. You don’t want to be rude.”

  Daniel looked at his father for support, but Homu merely gave him a sympathetic look and cocked his head back toward the pavilion, where a dance was just ending in a flourish of drums.

  “All right,” he said, resigned. His mother rarely demanded anything of him, but when she did, his father expected him to go along. “I’ll go dance. Happy?”

  Smiling, his mother reached up to pat his cheek. “When you find a nice wahine like your brother has, that will make me happy. But for now, dance—and smile.”

  He bared his teeth at her, and she chuckled.

  Daniel approached the dance floor with mingled anticipation and dread. Maybe he’d dance with Bella—her he could touch without wanting to do more. But she was already taken.

  He surveyed the other partiers mingling on the big dance floor. This was a varied crowd. The governor was dancing with the owner of a Maui gallery. There were the new owners of the hotel, and a local banker with his girlfriend. Next to them, Keone Halama, a local moke, danced with Leilani, Frank’s sister. She ran the house at Nawea Bay for his family. He nodded at them as he passed, and Leilani smiled.

  And through the crowd he saw a familiar blonde head and a yellow dress. Claire, accepting a drink from the bartender at the flower-bedecked bar. His gaze locked on her, he cut through the couples chatting on the dance floor as the musicians tuned up for another number, barely beating another man to her side.

  She turned as he walked up to her, and her eyes widened. She lowered her glass and licked a drop of something from her lower lip. He followed the tip of her tongue as it disappeared, and shivered, imagining it on his skin.

  He held out his hand to her. “Dance?”

  She made him wait. She took another drink, a long one, and her eyes narrowed. He clenched his teeth, not sure if he wanted to laugh or curse. So be it. She’d say no, and then he could go back out into the shadows of the lawn, away from temptation.

  But then, as the mellow notes of a Hapa number filled the air, she set her glass down on the bar and turned back to him, shrugging. “Sure, why not?”

  And of course it was a slow dance, so he had to touch her. He set his hand on her waist as lightly as he could and held out his other hand for hers. The indentation of her waist fit his hand perfectly, the resilient curve of her hip moving beneath his fingers. Her hand curled into his, and she lifted her other hand to his shoulder, where it stroked over the wide slope of muscle. He could feel the heat of her through his shirt and her thin dress.

  He knew how to dance—his mother had insisted he and David suffer through haole-style dancing lessons along with the hula they both loved. Claire followed him with easy grace as he led her in and out of the other dancers, his hand tightening to keep her from colliding with another couple.

  Glancing down, he followed the intricate coils of her hairdo to the long curls that had been left to trail down the back of her neck and over one bare shoulder. He had a world-class view of her cleavage. If they were in a little bar somewhere, he would pull her against him and feel those breasts pressed against his chest while he smoothed his hand down over the full curve of her ass and squeezed, rubbing his erection into her belly, teasing them both until they couldn’t stand it and had to go outside.

  Damn! His cock, ever hopeful, was hard as ohia—its usual state around her. They weren’t speaking in words, but their bodies were communicating just fine. She smelled like heaven—woman and flowers—and felt like sex personified in his grasp.

  His hand tightened involuntarily on her waist, and she looked up at him. “Why did you change your mind about dancing with me?”

  Now how the hell was he supposed to answer that? If he told her the truth, she’d probably storm off the dance floor.

  He hesitated too long.

  Her eyes narrowed suspiciously, and she stiffened in his grasp. “Your mother probably made you, didn’t she?” she demanded.

  “Can’t you just dance and call it good?” he growled.

  Twin spots of color flagged her cheeks, and she sucked in a breath, her breasts swelling over her tight dress. “Why, you big, conceited—”

  The music ended with a flourish of ukulele, and the rest of her words were lost. He glared back at her, anger boiling up to match hers. There was only one way to keep her from coming on to him again—he was gonna have to scare the hell out of her.

  “Fine,” he gritted through his teeth. “You think you want more? C’mon.”

  His hand in the middle of her back, he propelled her off the nearest edge of the dance floor, down the steps and into the inky shadows of a large clump of shrubbery. Hauling her with him, he strode along the hedge to the place where it met the sea wall. Then he swung her around, hard against him. She landed with a warm, lissome thump, her breath whooshing out, her breasts pillowing his chest, his erection hard against her belly. She felt so much better than his fantasy that he nearly groaned.

  “You want me? This is the real me,” he growled and kissed her the way he’d been fantasizing about.

  Daniel’s powerful arms closed around Claire, holding her tight against his hard torso. One huge hand clamped on her ass as he bent over her, enveloping her in his embrace, his other hand closing on the back of her nec
k, tipping her head back for his kiss.

  And oh, what a kiss. In the inky shadows behind the hedge, Claire couldn’t see his face, could only experience. He enveloped her in heat and strength. His mouth, hot and wet, opened over hers, their teeth clashing as he demanded that she give him entry, let him thrust his tongue into her mouth and taste her, his beard tickling and abrading the tender skin of her face as his lips crushed hers.

  She nearly whimpered with pleasure. There was just something about kissing a guy with a beard, especially this one… He felt so foreign, so other, so male. He smelled and tasted of the tropical sea, warm and a little salty.

  His sudden embrace was shocking, a little frightening, and the most exciting one she’d ever received…as well as the fastest.

  He rolled over her in a bewildering, earth-shattering tsunami of a kiss, and then, when she was about to melt in his arms and wrap her own around him, he reared back, muttering something savage under his breath. It was in Hawaiian, but she was pretty sure he was cussing her or himself.

  “Wait a minute,” she protested breathlessly, her hands already sliding up his silk-clad chest to recapture him. “Where are you going?”

  She hadn’t meant to say that. She blushed fierily, her face and even her bare chest hot. But his arms tightened.

  “Haven’t had enough yet?” He kissed her again, but this time she was ready for him. She kissed him back, opening her mouth under his, using her lips and her tongue to taste him, devour him the way he was devouring her.

  One hand still on her ass, he delved between them with the other to find one of her breasts. She arched her back, pressing herself into his hand. He squeezed her roughly, molding the soft flesh and pinning her nipple between his thumb and forefinger. She moaned, and he pulled her up against him so that her legs, even in the tight dress, parted around his.

  Then he rocked into her, and she gasped in shock, pulling back from his kiss. His shirt and shorts were silk, and not much separated her from the erect penis grinding against her mons. It was as big as everything else about him.

  At the soft sound of her gasp, he froze.

  Claire opened her mouth. “Uh…” she managed. Her brain seemed to be in a vapor lock.

  “Changed your mind?” he growled. “Thought you would.”

  And as suddenly as he’d grabbed her, he let her go. Claire stumbled slightly, her body still pliant from hanging in his embrace.

  She reached for him to steady herself, but he stepped back, a rigid shadow against the lights of the pavilion.

  “No more,” he said. “I don’t play games, wahine. You let me kiss you again, and we’re taking this all the way—now.”

  “W-we can’t.” They were at Melia and David’s wedding, for Pete’s sake.

  “I told you—I’m not one of your tame haole boys.” His voice was as cold as an ice cube down her cleavage. “You wanna play with me, you play by my rules.”

  And then he turned and walked away, leaving her there alone.

  Like it had all been her idea, like he hadn’t wanted any part of it or her. Though that erection of his had told a different story. Standing alone in the darkness, Claire shivered again, barely restraining a moan of longing.

  Laughter sounded just beyond the hedge, and Claire jumped, remembering that she was surrounded by people and a celebration. She ran her hands down over her dress, making sure nothing was hanging out—because after that embrace, she wasn’t sure. Avoiding a group of strolling guests, she hurried across the lawn to the ladies’ room to check her hair and makeup.

  Inside, she opened her little purse and grabbed her lip gloss. Her hand shook as she stroked it over her lips. Reaching inside herself for composure, she smiled at the two women who came up beside her at the mirror, and reached up to tuck a curl back into her hairdo, as if that was why she was here. She was shocked to see that she looked okay, just a little flushed—not as if she’d been mauled in the shrubbery. Willingly.

  “You girls look so lovely,” one of the women said, her eyes drifting over Claire’s dress and jewelry. “What a perfect evening.”

  “Perfect,” Claire agreed. “Just perfect.”

  Claire tried, she really did, to take the big, blond guy, Jack—who was handsome, a good dancer, and more than willing—up to her room and make him the second luckiest guy at the wedding. The groom being the luckiest, of course. But her heart just wasn’t in it. Neither was her body.

  Not after what Daniel had done to her, with her, in the shadows behind the pavilion. Why, oh why couldn’t he have asked her to take him up to her hotel room, instead of—of doing it right there in the bushes? It was almost as if he’d been trying to scare her off. But why would he want to do that? She was willing, wasn’t she? And he was attracted to her, or he wouldn’t have been sporting that giant hard-on.

  Her mood having plummeted from the celebration high with a jarring thump, she hugged Melia and David, kissed Jack good night and then went up to her room, alone.

  The coup de grâce was stepping out onto her tiny lanai in the moonlight, the music from the reception still wafting out on the damp, flower-scented air, and seeing Daniel Ho’omalu walk out into the parking lot with the tall, plump Hawaiian woman at his side. She hung on his arm, laughing raucously. Claire watched through the flowering branches of a plumeria tree as Daniel put the other woman in his big silver truck and stepped in after her. The engine rumbled to life, the taillights winking red through the sifting shadows of the plumeria blooms.

  A deep, hot ache clawed its way up from Claire’s chest to her throat as the truck rolled out of the parking lot onto the street. It was clear from their body language that the two were intimate. They had that charged air about them. So, he wanted sex tonight, just not with Claire.

  She recognized the ache—envy. She wasn’t used to suffering it. There hadn’t been all that many guys, but the ones she really wanted, she usually got. Men responded to the straightforward approach. But not this one. Daniel Ho’omalu had a wall up around him, high and hard as his stubborn jaw.

  She took a deep breath and set her own jaw. Oh, man, she was not going to waste any more time mooning over a big, ornery Hawaiian—especially not at Melia’s wedding.

  Daniel drove out to Honokōhau in the wee hours of the morning, his body relaxed and sated with physical pleasure. His brother was married, and they’d both gotten laid. Soon it would be dawn, and he’d be able to resume the hunt. With the help of the nai’a, he would find the Helmans’ kula, and destroy it. Time for action. What more could he want?

  Unbidden came the memory of handing Kahni into his truck and then feeling a sudden prickle on the back of his shoulders. He’d looked up and seen her, on a third-floor lanai. Leaning on the railing, that gorgeous figure outlined against the lights of her room, that yellow dress like a beacon.

  Although he couldn’t see her eyes or even her face at that distance in the dusk, he knew from the rigidity of her stance that she was watching him with Kahni.

  And he also knew he could’ve been up there with her, rolling in her big hotel bed. Of course that wasn’t the only way he wanted her—up against the wall, over the back of the sofa, even on the floor, her hands pinned over her head while he rammed into her.

  He’d taken Kahni with something like desperation, but despite her enthusiastic cooperation, he’d felt, for the first time in their relationship, ashamed. Because as he fucked her hard enough to leave bruises on both of them, it was not her face, her body he pictured or her mouth he tasted.

  He scowled, taking the turn into the harbor road fast enough that his truck tires protested with a screech.

  He needed to get in the water.

  Chapter Eight

  Saturday, June 15th

  The ride to Nawea Bay the next morning was accomplished not by road, as Claire had expected, but in a boat. A shining, white catamaran with a jaunty striped sail piercing the sunlit sky. She grinned as she accepted Jack’s proffered hand to climb aboard.

  “Woo-hoo! Thi
s is so cool.”

  The short, wiry Hawaiian balanced on the upper deck smiled down at her, his gray-streaked hair lifting in the breeze. She’d seen him at the luau and wedding. “Welcome aboard. I’m Frank. You like my boat?”

  “You bet I do,” she enthused. “I’ve never been on a cat. How many horses does she have?”

  “Claire, you can talk boats later,” Bella said, giving her a gentle push from behind. “The rest of us want to board too.”

  “Oh, sorry.” Claire followed Jack along the rail to the open-seating area on the aft deck and knelt on the cushioned seat to drink in the harbor scene, the other boats shining, white against the turquoise bay, the palm trees swaying over the buildings clustered along the shore, and the mountain looming behind it all. “It’s gorgeous.”

  Jack grunted noncommittally, and Claire leaned over to peer under the brim of his baseball cap. Behind his designer sunglasses, his eyes were closed. Hangover, she deduced. She’d awakened with difficulty herself, but she felt fine now that she’d had breakfast. Nothing got her down for long, not even Daniel Ho’omalu. And now she was getting away from him and on with her vacation, so everything was great.

  Bella sat down on the cushioned seat beside her, and Gabe and Sara Paalani sat across from them, Gabe’s arm on the rail behind his wife’s shoulders. Like Jack, he wore a T-shirt and shorts, but his wife wore a short sundress of bright coral and a large straw hat, both with the simplicity of the truly expensive.

  Grace joined them, clad in pale green with a matching straw hat, her long red hair in a loose braid over one shoulder.

  “Water and sodas in the cooler,” Frank Lelua called. “Help yourself, folks. We’ll take off in a few minutes. Just waiting for da boys.”

  A cold soda sounded wonderful. Claire rose and fished a Coke from the melting ice in the big cooler and popped the top to take a long drink. It slid down her throat, cold and sweet and prickly. She watched the boat ahead of them pull away from the pier, engines rumbling. As the wake rocked the boat under her feet, she braced her feet, knees bent slightly, smiling with the sheer pleasure of being afloat again.