“I am impressed. Look at the size of that thing.”
“Sweetheart, you ain’t seen nothing yet.” Laughing, Kyle lowered her to her feet and backed her into one of the white marble vanities.
Her butt hit solid resistance behind, and even more solid resistance in front as he molded his big, hard body to hers. With gentle hands he unhooked her ponytail so her hair spilled in uncontrollable waves down her back. Sliding his fingers around her nape, he lightly massaged the back of her skull then tilted her face to his.
“I can’t decide which is more beautiful—your hair, your eyes, or your mouth that I can’t help kissing.”
Suddenly self-conscious, Tui dropped her gaze from his and focused on the dark line of stubble around his mouth. Kyle had an amazing mouth. She used to be called Juju-lips before the Angelina Jolie pout had become sexy.
“Lizzie?”
It took her a beat to realize he’d spoken her name. A moment in which part of her was tempted to tell him her real name—her real first name, at least. Because while Lizzie might play games with a man she wanted, Kyle had earned enough of her trust for them to be real with each other.
Only none of this internal debate would matter tomorrow when her vacation ended and she boarded the plane back to New Zealand. Tonight they would be Lizzie and Kyle, two consenting adults enjoying each other. Tui didn’t need to introduce herself as a third wheel and ruin what would hopefully turn out to be a pleasurably sexy memory for them both.
Tui met his gaze, reaching up to fist her hands in his hair. “Bath first, or bed?” She rose on tiptoe and drew his mouth down to hers. “My vote is bed, but for hygiene and water conservation purposes, I think we should share a shower.”
“I admire a woman who cares about the environment,” he said.
Then he kissed her until both Lizzie and Tui forgot their names.
The only thing more amazing than waking up next to a beautiful naked woman was finding the perfect solution to a client’s architectural parameters.
Just kidding. Nothing in his world beat waking up with Lizzie in his arms. Draped over him. Breasts pressed into his abs, head pillowed on his shoulder, wild hair tickling his nose. He’d lost sensation in his left arm, but she was totally worth it.
Last night had been the kind of amazing that made him expect to wake up and find it was all a dream. He flexed his hand experimentally and found silky smooth skin under his fingertips—likely the area between her waist and deliciously rounded ass, which he’d devoted an inordinate amount of attention to a few hours previous.
She shifted, yawned, and her bent knee, resting on his thigh, moved upward until it nudged against his morning wood. Where it remained, causing him to grow even harder. She spider-walked her fingernails up his arm and tucked them between his nape and his pillow, giving him a gentle squeeze and then returned to her boneless state.
“Morning. You awake?” He cupped her ass and returned the squeeze.
“If there’s food.” She yawned again. “And coffee. Lots ’n’ lots of coffee.”
“Sustenance can be arranged.”
“Good man,” she mumbled into his shoulder.
With his free hand, he patted around the nightstand until he located the phone, his movements hindered by the woman-shaped limpet attached to him. Not that he was complaining. Ordering coffee and a full cooked breakfast from room service, he requested it to be delivered in—some quick mental gymnastics—forty minutes.
After he hung up the phone, he glanced down to see Lizzie had propped herself up on an elbow, staring at him with slitted, sleepy eyes.
“Forty minutes? How’m I gonna wait that long for my morning pick-me-up?”
“I’ve an idea.” Kyle laughed at her prickly expression and gorgeous bed hair, then covered her body with his. She gasped, giggled, and got with the programme, wrapping her long legs around his hips and pulling him toward heaven.
An hour later and respectably dressed, they sat on the deck overlooking the ocean and devoured breakfast. Lizzie ate with gusto, making a small humming sound in the back of her throat as she finished up the last of the bacon and eyed the platter of fresh tropical fruit.
He offered her the platter. “The papaya looks juicy this morning. Try some.”
“Juicy, huh?” She speared a slice of the yellowy-orange fruit and, baring straight white teeth, neatly bit into it.
Droplets of juice did indeed squirt out of the fruit, and she ran the tip of her tongue over her lower lip before they could dribble down to her chin.
“Do that again and you won’t get another coffee.”
She twerked her eyebrows at him and snatched up her coffee cup, sniffing the contents like a wine connoisseur picking out flavor notes. “My eldest brother makes the best coffee. He’s a real caffeine snob, unlike me and my other brother. We’ll take our fix however we can get it.”
She sipped, a blissful smile curving her mouth as she gazed at the line of waves breaking out on the reef.
Tingles raced up and down his spine. It was the first time she’d mentioned anything about her family, about her real life, and he discovered he really wanted to know.
Everything.
Like: What caused the small scar just above her left kneecap? Who made her smile, just from thinking about them? How had she become such a disarming mix of confidence and vulnerability? When was the last time a man had shared her bed?
His stomach looped into ever-tightening knots. “Do you have to leave today? What if you…”
Her backbone straightened perceptibly, and the relaxed line of her jaw went taut. She slid him the side-eye before turning her head to meet his gaze.
“…caught a later flight?” he finished lamely.
Seconds felt like minutes before Lizzie replaced her cup into the saucer. The rattle of china sounded like plates smashing. Not even the constant hiss of little waves bubbling over the sand could mitigate the terse silence.
“I can’t.”
Can’t? Or won’t?
He wanted to believe it was a can’t, because won’t contradicted all that he thought they’d shared during these past two days. He fixed a smile onto his face, hoped it passed as sincere, and toasted her with his coffee cup. “Don’t blame a guy for trying. Last night was”—his tongue stumbled over the list of adjectives that wouldn’t make him sound like a gushing fool—“good.”
Good being a description only marginally less insulting than nice. Which wasn’t what he meant at all, but he’d some pride.
“It was. Really…good.” The smile she volleyed back at him looked every bit as authentic as the one he’d given her.
He lifted the stainless-steel coffeepot. “Another cup?”
Even though he hadn’t made a move to pour, Lizzie’s hand shot over to cover the cup. “No. Thank you.” She dragged the white linen napkin off her lap and dropped it beside her plate. “I should head back to my room and figure out a way to fit everything back in my suitcase.”
“Good luck with that.” He’d teased her earlier about how much stuff she’d bought at the market, but now his words didn’t come out in a teasing manner. He’d reverted to his default setting of guarded and emotionally distancing himself from those he cared about.
And, yeah, he’d already begun to care about Lizzie.
He scrubbed a hand over his chin, stubble sandpapering his palm. Found himself wondering if he’d left any signs of razor burn on Lizzie’s soft skin. Found himself kinda hoping he had. A small reminder of him that would fade, along with the memory of one long hot South Pacific night.
She rose, the deck chair scraping against the wooden planks. Before he could decide if he needed to apologize or not, she’d slipped inside the open bungalow doors and picked up her purse and shopping bags. She draped the purse’s long strap diagonally across her torso, like a thin strip of armor.
Kyle stood and walked to meet her. “Look, I’ll come with you and organize a shuttle to the airport. We can say our goodbyes there.”
> Lizzie shook her head, a sweet sad smile forming on her lips. “I think we should say our goodbyes now.”
She placed her palms either side of his face and leaned in. But instead of kissing him, she pressed her nose to his for a moment in the traditional Māori greeting of a hongi.
“E noho rā.”
Unexpectedly touched by the gesture, he captured her hands. “Isn’t the hongi used to greet people? To share the breath of life?”
“It is,” she said. “But I’m a little untraditional, so I’m using it to say goodbye.” She tilted her head. “And some people interpret the meaning of the hongi as the sharing of two souls. I kinda like that version.”
“I do, too.” He turned her captured wrist and kissed the small, perfectly rendered tattoo of a native New Zealand bird. She shivered, making the tattoo look as if its wings were about to beat frantically, lifting the tūī up and away from him.
Never to be seen again.
“Bye,” he said.
Then Lizzie, his sea witch, left him staring at the ocean while she walked out of his life.
Never to be seen again.
Chapter 4
Auckland, New Zealand.
“They’ve changed their minds. Again.” Bill Logan of Logan Construction scrunched up his face and tugged at a wiry gray hair sprouting out of his bushy eyebrow. “Don’t shoot the messenger.”
Kyle planted his scuffed work boots on the plywood path the builders were using to traverse the quagmire around the construction site and hooked his thumbs into the belt loops of his jeans. Mid-spring wasn’t the worst time of year to build a new architecturally designed two-thousand-square-foot luxury home, but it was close. And the Simpsons had been nothing but a pain in the rear to work with, having already switched out their enormous kitchen for a smaller one with attached butler’s pantry. For which he’d then had to redraw the plans.
“Not your fault, Bill. What’s up?”
Bill gave him the rundown of the Simpsons’ latest harebrained scheme.
Kyle listened, squinting up at the gray clouds scudding overhead. Sunshine was struggling to make an appearance on this blustery Auckland day, a monumental change from the balmy conditions of the Cook Islands. Not that he’d allowed himself any brain space to dwell on his Rarotongan vacation in the past three weeks.
Or the woman he couldn’t quite erase from his mind.
It would’ve been easier to erase the Simpsons’ blueprints than Lizzie the sea witch.
The phone in his hip pocket began to vibrate. He slipped it out and saw his brother’s name flashing on the screen. He frowned.
“Take it,” Bill said. “I’ll go let the boys know what’s happening.”
Kyle hit talk and put the phone to his ear. “Dave. What’s up?”
None of his three brothers called him on a regular basis, not unless they wanted something. And when they did call, they knew well enough not to bug him during business hours.
“Kyle.” His next youngest brother cleared his throat. It sounded like damp cardboard being torn. “It’s Granddad.”
Kyle’s gut free-fell into his boots. The four boys had never called their grandfather anything but his nickname, Griff. Now seventy-eight years old and as cranky as a bear woken from hibernation, but still as sharp as a pencil stabbed in your eye, he’d been the one consistency in Kyle’s life. Not necessarily a positive consistency, but a reliable one.
“What’s happened?” Possibilities flashed into his mind.
Griff finally keeping his promise to shoot on sight any of the Ngatas’ cattle that strayed onto his land? Griff falling off his horse—which he refused to stop riding regardless of his age—and breaking his hip? Griff forgetting a pot on the stove and nearly burning his house down, like he had a few years back?
“There’s no easy way to say—”
“Then just spit it out, Dave.”
His brother’s pent-up breath hissed down the line. “He’s dead. Matt found him this morning.”
For a moment Kyle’s brain went as blank as a fresh sheet of drafting paper. He swore and roughly pinched the bridge of his nose. “Matt found him?”
Their youngest brother was the one who spent the most time with Griff, having taken on most of the day-to-day work of running the cattle side of the family farm. Dave, their mum, and his next brother in line, Eric, were involved in the mānuka honey company Kyle’s father had also worked for before he died.
“Yeah. He went up early as usual, and there were lights on in the kitchen, so he went in. Griff was on the floor. He must’ve been making his morning cuppa. He was still in his pajamas.”
The scandal of Griff not being fully clothed in his daily uniform of shorts, grubby undershirt, and a holey woolen sweater was unimaginable to anyone who knew him. Come rain or shine, winter or summer, Al Griffin was a leopard whose spots never changed.
“How’s Matt?”
“He’s fine. A little shaken up, of course.”
“And Mum?”
“A mess. Eric stayed with her in the house while the doctor and funeral director did their thing. Heart attack, the doctor thinks.”
Griff. The ornery old bugger should’ve outlived them all. Too damn stubborn, too damn bitter, he would’ve been pissed to know he hadn’t outlived his archenemy, Pete Ngata.
Kyle shut his eyes and tilted his face to the sky and the first droplets of rain. “I’ll drive up tomorrow morning.”
“Mum’ll be happy you’re coming home. Give her something to do getting your old room ready. Expect you’ll only have to put up with her fussing for a few days—until after the funeral.”
“Yeah.” Only his room in the rambling farmhouse that belonged to Griff, and was his parents’ family home, never felt like his. Kyle didn’t belong there, and his brothers knew it. “See you soon.”
He disconnected and shoved his phone back into his pocket. Ready or not, looked like Bounty Bay was calling him back.
Bounty Bay, New Zealand
“…and to my grandson Kyle Alfred Griffin, I leave a quarter share of my twelve thousand acres.” Ed Smyth, the family lawyer, fussily shuffled the printed document in his hands.
Kyle slid a glance over at his mum’s self-medicated neutral expression, then to his three brothers who sat like a line of ducklings beside her. Inheriting a quarter share of Griff’s land was a surprise. He’d assumed he’d been cut from his grandfather’s will since, for the past seventeen years, he’d lived in Auckland, returning to the farm only on rare occasions of obligation.
None of his siblings seemed unduly put out by the announcement, so he allowed his stiff shoulders to relax fractionally inside his collared shirt.
While Ed made a small production over smoothing the document on his desk and adjusting his spectacles, Kyle caught Matt’s gaze. The twenty-seven-year old baby of the family hooked a finger in his knotted-too-tight tie and rolled his eyes. Like his older siblings, their mother had insisted they all wear “a decent shirt without stains or holes and a damn tie” for the Reading Of The Will.
That’s how Netta spoke of the afternoon’s meeting—capitalized for importance. Not as important on the scale of Keeping Up Appearances In Public as her father-in-law’s funeral the day before, where the brothers were forced to drag out their wedding-or-funeral suits for the occasion. Dave, Matt, and especially Eric had looked miserable out of their normal on-the-farm stains and holes be damned attire.
“And finally,” Ed said, peering over the rim of his spectacles. “The shares of Griffin’s Honey Limited will be bequeathed among my four grandsons thus: David Keith Griffin, 16.33 percent; Eric Michael Griffin, 16.33 percent; Matthew Douglas Griffin, 16.33 percent.”
Kyle, who’d always found mathematics a piece of cake, bolted upright in his chair.
“And Kyle Alfred Griffin, fifty-one percent.”
Shocked silence exploded all over the lawyer’s neat and tidy office. Kyle’s eyes widened to the point where he thought they were about to pop out of his skull.
“The bloody old bastard.” Eric leaped to his feet, the chair screeching backward. He slammed his palm down on Ed’s desk. “He can’t do that, can he?”
“I’m afraid your grandfather could do whatever he liked. This will was only drawn up last year, and Al was definitely of sound mind.”
Eric swore bitterly and whirled around to face Kyle. “Did you put him up to this? Isn’t being a stuck-up rich guy with a fancy job and fancy house in the city enough for you? You had to come up here and convince Griff to screw his family over? You don’t work the land like we do. You don’t deserve a damn thing.”
Eric made a move toward him, but Dave jumped up and put his bulk between them. “Chill, mate. Let’s discuss this at home.”
Kyle sought Dave’s gaze as it slid toward their mother, who continued to stare straight ahead, her fingers knotted around the straps of the purse in her lap. Kyle would bet his fancy house in the city that the plastic bottle he could see in her open bag contained a high ratio of vodka to soda water.
Kyle eased out of his chair and rose to his full height, a good couple of inches taller than Eric. His younger brother’s jaw was concrete, his muddy brown eyes full of righteous indignation.
He didn’t blame him, not for the fancy-job-fancy-house comment or his worthiness in inheriting any part of their grandfather’s property. Eric was right: he didn’t work the land. Hadn’t worked the land alongside his father and brothers since they were teenagers home from boarding school in the summer holidays.
“Come on, Mum. We’re taking you home now.” Kyle cupped her elbow and she stood, glancing around with a slight frown on her face as if she’d forgotten something.
“The homestead? Your dad’s home?” She asked the room, or maybe her comment was directed at the lawyer. Kyle couldn’t tell.
“It’s your home now, Mum. It belongs to you.” Matt ducked behind Eric and Dave to open the office door.
“Oh. That’s nice.” She allowed Kyle to turn her toward the exit. “But how will we all fit?” She stopped so suddenly that Kyle nearly bumped into her. “I guess Eric could have the top bunk in Matty’s room if they promised not to squabble, and David won’t mind sharing his room with Kyle. I made sure he picked up all his smelly gym socks off the floor last night…”
Tame Your Heart: A Small Town Romance (Bounty Bay Book 6) Page 4
