“What utter crap.” She turned to stalk down the three wooden steps leading off the landing, but cool fingers cupped her elbow, stopping her in her tracks.
“I get it now,” he said. “Why you’re really here. You want a fight and I’m a convenient scapegoat.”
She twisted her arm out of his grip—which was more a caress than a grip—and spun to face him. “Don’t pretend to know anything about me. You have no idea what I want.”
“I know one thing you want.”
Hazel eyes flaring green sparks, his gaze settled on her lips as he closed the gap between them with one long stride. His mouth in a grim line, almost as if her manufactured irritation had spread to him and become real, he stood toe to toe with her.
For the first time since she’d met the man, she genuinely wanted to back away then run like hellhounds were on her tail. This wasn’t Rarotongan Kyle, or even grandson of an old enemy Kyle standing before her. This man wasn’t laid back and affable. He wasn’t reasonable and businesslike. He was an immovable wall of muscle and bone and ironclad will. He was a man who took what he needed and got what he wanted because he made you want to give it. He made a woman want to give him everything.
Then beg for more.
This Kyle didn’t touch her. This Kyle merely looked at her, confident enough in himself to let her see the desire intensifying the green of his gaze. A desire that somehow compelled her feet to remain rooted to the spot, no matter the danger she was in. Hypnotizing cobra eyes. And she, a willing victim of her own baser instincts, moved closer into striking distance.
Setting her palm on the broad expanse of his chest, Tui planned to shove him back a step. Except her fingers curled, dragging a handful of his sun-warmed T-shirt into her fist. Instead of shoving him backward, she pulled herself closer. Which had both pros and cons. The pro being she could no longer see his eyes and feel like they were stripping her naked. The con being her nose and mouth were temptingly close to the strong cords of this throat. Her nostrils flared at the woodsy scent of his cologne with subtle undernotes of irresistible male pheromones.
She wanted to joyfully roll in him like one of the farm dogs finding stinky dead roadkill—roll in him, roll around him, roll under him—and excuse the disgusting analogy, but, oh Lord, somehow in the past three seconds her lips had glued themselves to a spot under Kyle’s jaw. She heard his ragged inhale, felt his chest expand beneath her fist, traced the prickly line of stubble on his jaw with the tip of her tongue, and found his mouth with a needy shudder.
Lips, tongue, her very breath—she offered it all in one drugging kiss after another. He took her lips, teased her with his tongue, and stole her breath, raising the stakes in kisses that already threatened to burn her misgivings to the ground. Yes, she wanted him, and the smug bastard was holding it against her. Holding her against him—pressed to the long delicious length of him.
She twined her arms around his neck in an attempt to get even closer, moaning softly into his mouth as his hands skimmed down her waist and cupped her bottom. He squeezed and shifted her hips until she could feel just how much he wanted her in return.
Undeniable heat from the contact melted her internal organs to mush. Mushy lust. Lust that had her threading her fingers through his hair, clenching the surprisingly soft strands until she knew it must be painfully tight on his scalp. An urgent tear his clothes off lust that choked her with its intensity. A rasping, guttural right behind them lust.
Wait—what?
Tui tore her mouth from Kyle’s, met his confused gaze for a second, then turned toward the interior door. Beaker crouched on the other side of the glass, throat extended, sides heaving, as he barfed a combination of kibble and paper scraps onto the doormat.
Tui unthreaded her fingers from Kyle’s hair. He let go of her ass. And as they watched, Beaker sent them a slitted stare through the door and proceeded to vomit up something that Tui hoped wasn’t the animal’s liver.
“You had to come all the way into the kitchen to do that?” Kyle scrubbed his thumb along the V that’d formed between his eyes. “Damn. What a mood killer.”
The cat remained crouched in a fluffy loaf shape, glaring at them balefully. Tui used this feline scrutiny to move a half step away from Kyle. She could still feel the heat of his hands on her through the thin cotton of her dress and the taste of him sweet on her tongue. She lengthened the space between them before, puking cat or not, she lunged at him again to finish what they’d started.
She touched her mouth, her lips tingling where they’d grazed the beginning of his five-o’clock stubble. “I should go.”
The hesitation in her voice, coupled with the breathiness of a galloping pulse, caused an internal cringe. Did she want him to call her out on that hesitation and firefighter carry her up to his bed?
I know one thing you want.
Yeah, she kinda did.
And judging by the rigid length of him still straining against the front of his shorts, he wanted to, too—wanted her. Eyes the color of polished greenstone met hers. Were they silently taking note of the bubble of distance she’d wedged between them?
He dipped his chin, then tipped his head toward the door and the cat, now fastidiously washing his paws. “I should clean up before I end up standing in it.”
“Sensible,” she said, her voice coming a couple of notes higher than usual. “Nothing like cat barf between the toes. Been there, done that.” God. Someone staple her lips together already.
“Catch you round, then.” Kyle turned away and stooped down to gather up their discarded glasses.
Tui didn’t hang around or offer to help. She quickstepped it down the stairs and hurried toward the corner of the house.
A light breeze swept past her, ruffling the hem of her skirt around her knees and bringing with it Kyle’s muttered, “You suck as a wingman, cat.”
Chapter 10
“Best behavior, remember? You promised.” Tui kept her gaze locked on Sam as they waited for the Griffins to arrive on the neutral ground of Bounty Bay beach.
Mounted on their brother’s horse, Richie, Sam arranged his face into blank boredom. “If they behave, so will I. And I didn’t promise anything.”
She made a grunt of irritation, and Storm, already sensitive to the nerves galloping around in Tui’s stomach, danced a couple of steps sideways. Tui readjusted her too-tight grip on the reins and clicked her tongue. Being antsy about seeing Kyle again wasn’t helping anything.
“Then you shouldn’t have come today,” she said.
Sam turned his face toward her, his eyes covered with wraparound shades, a baseball cap pulled low on his forehead. “Neither of us should’ve come today, but I was outvoted.”
“Yeah, you were. So zip it and deal with it.”
After the meeting with the Griffins, Isaac had called an impromptu whānau meeting at his and Nat’s place. With Natalie and Vee considered just as important in making family decisions as the three siblings, it was a noisy affair. But in the end, Isaac was the swing vote, with Tui for and Sam wholly against the idea of working with the Griffins.
Isaac had waited patiently for everyone to have their say before he spoke in his usual quiet and authoritative voice.
“I know,” he’d said, “what it feels like to have your body fail to do what you want it to do.”
The room had fallen silent, each of them darting a glance toward the scar on Isaac’s leg. Caused by a traumatic accident, it’d cost him his career in professional rugby and he still walked with a limp.
“Perhaps more than any of you, I understand what Dad’s going through, how he feels his mana slipping away with each day that he can’t ride over his land. Tui’s right. This could help.”
He’d held up a hand when Sam started to interrupt. “It’s worth putting our differences aside for a short time to at least consider what it could mean for our family long term. We look at this trekking idea from all angles with an open mind, and meanwhile I’ll talk to our lawyer to make sure we
’re aware of any potential pitfalls.”
“Dealing with that family of vipers is pitfall enough,” Sam had muttered, but in the end he’d agreed to give the idea a chance.
Whānau first—always.
“There they are,” Sam said.
Two men on horseback came down the ramp of sand onto the beach and trotted toward them. Tui’s gaze immediately leaped to the broader of the men—Kyle—who sat tall and easy, moving with the rhythm of his horse’s gait. Beside him she recognized the chestnut gelding as Red, and a younger man with the same shade of dark hair as Kyle who must have been his younger brother, Matt. Both men wore dark wraparound shades and baseball caps, their eyes giving away nothing as they drew up alongside Tui and Sam.
All three men just needed earpieces and they could’ve been extras in a movie about undercover agents. Sam’s backbone couldn’t have gotten any straighter as he gave each Griffin a chin jerk of greeting. Matt returned it with a muttered, “Hey,” but he, too, sat up straighter in the saddle. Give them a few minutes without constraint and they’d be peeing against each other’s horses to mark territory.
Fortunately, her own sunglasses masked an eyeball roll of epic proportions. “Good morning, guys. Nice to meet you, Matt.”
She got a chin jerk and “Hey,” from Matt, who if he grew any stiffer would solidify and topple out of his saddle.
Her stomach gave a little dip. This was going to be a loooong day.
But then a whisper of a smile creased his lips. “Um. Sorry. We were out of coffee this morning.”
“Isn’t that illegal in the Far North?”
“If it isn’t, it should be. Kyle’s bloody cranky if he doesn’t get his fix.”
“Speak for yourself,” Kyle said with a grin. “And good morning, Tui. Sam.”
Sam grunted and pulled Richie’s head around. “Let’s get on with it.”
“Someone hasn’t had his morning caffeination transfusion either,” Tui said to her brother’s back—and Richie’s—as they walked away. One of them was being a bigger horse’s ass than the other.
She slanted a glance at Kyle, who didn’t appear to be perturbed by Sam’s obvious I don’t want to be here attitude. She almost apologized, then a memory popped into her brain. Sam, backed into a corner of Bounty Bay’s high school gym, shoved by a snarling Eric and his posse of friends. Firebug, they’d yelled at him. Fucking firebug.
Her blood cooled, the wash of hurt and helplessness and fury at Sam’s last year of school made hellish by rumors and bullying.
Without another word to the Griffins, she followed her brother, guiding Storm into a trot until she caught up. They walked side by side, a warm sea breeze tossing the horses’ manes and ruffling Tui’s ponytail.
At this time on a Saturday morning, with kids playing school sports and the Bounty Bay Farmers’ Market in full swing, only a few early-bird walkers and joggers were out and about on the sand. Ahead of them, a ute loaded up with fishing poles navigated slowly over the shelf of rocks exposed by low tide. The rocks were a like a skirt around hills of sand dunes and bush that ended at sea level. High tide would cover the rocks, cutting off foot and vehicle traffic to the beaches farther along the coast. She added a mental note of ‘take into account the tides’ to her list of things to think about.
The four horses picked their way over the rocks, unperturbed by the hiss and tumble of waves sweeping by them. Seagulls screeched overhead, circling above a lone fisherman trying his luck to land a snapper or kahawai. His little dog, some sort of terrier, raced up and down the rocks, barking madly at the birds and every now and then making a futile leap in the air.
Tui laughed and breathed deep, her body releasing some of the stored tension with every step Storm took. In front of them was the first of many stretches of empty sand, the ute’s tire tracks the only indication someone had previously passed by since low tide arrived. Storm, who loved to stretch her legs almost as much as she loved soaking them in the ocean, strained forward.
“Want to race, Sammy?” she asked.
Sam cut her a sharp smile and Tui was relieved to see the fresh sea air had chilled him out. He no longer gripped Richie’s reins like a terrified beginner or sat like he had a barbed-wire-wrapped stick up his butt.
“Richie’s younger and faster,” he said. “Wouldn’t be fair.”
“I’ll race,” Kyle said, suddenly on Tui’s other side. “Ranger needs a good run.”
“Leave him spitting out sand, Tu.”
Sam guided Richie off the rocks and back onto the beach, and he leaped forward in thunderous motion. Matt went second, Red snorting with impatience to get gone.
As soon as Matt was out of earshot, Kyle turned to her. “Are you okay?”
“Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?” Defensive, much? Sheesh. She tried again. “I’m great. It’s a gorgeous day and I’m not stuck inside working. Are you okay?”
Kyle’s nose crinkled. “I’d be better without your brother looking at me like he’s waiting for an opportunity to stick a chisel in my back.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that,” she said. “Sam would go for the heart or throat, not your back.”
“Comforting.” He tugged off his cap and raked fingers through his flattened hair. “Listen, can I get a contact number so I can talk to you without trespassing on Ngata land again?”
“Wow. A contact number. You smooth-talking trespasser, you.” But her belly gave a hot little squeeze because there’d been more times than she’d care to admit in the past couple of weeks that she’d wanted to hear his voice.
“Is that a no?”
“It’s a you have to earn it, city boy.” She tipped her head toward Sam and Matt in the distance, waiting by the next stretch of rocky outcrop. “Up for it?”
He chuckled. “I beat you to the rocks, you give me your number. Deal?”
“And if I win?”
He wriggled his eyebrows at her then jammed his cap back on. “Then I give you mine and you can decide whether or not you want to use it for a late-night booty call.”
“As if, you cocky bastard.” But, damn, if every erogenous zone from the neck down didn’t sizzle at the thought.
And because she’d been raised with two competitive older brothers and she just plain liked to win, Tui tapped Storm’s side. The mare didn’t need any further encouragement, exploding forward like a champagne cork from a shaken bottle.
An incoherent but amused shout came from behind her, then the heavier hoofbeats of Kyle’s horse. Tui didn’t look back. She’d the advantage of being lighter than Kyle, plus stealing a slight head start, but Ranger—and what a gorgeous creature he was—was young and strong and excited now he was asked to do what a horse did best.
Crouched low over Storm’s back, Tui sucked down gulp after gulp of crisp sea air, her heart thudding as fast as Storm’s hooves. Did she want to win? Or should she throw the race and lose?
The choice wasn’t hers to decide, as Ranger drew alongside them then inched ahead, wet sand from his hooves spitting up and splattering on her boots.
At the sight of the other horse pulling in front, Storm put on a final burst of speed and drew even as they approached the rocks. Teeth bared, heart pounding, Tui reined Storm into a canter then a fast trot before they reached Matt and Sam.
Storm did an equine version of a victory dance as Kyle and Ranger trotted over to the group.
“Too close to call it,” Kyle said.
Tui rubbed Storm’s damp neck. “Not from where I sat. We won. You ate my sand, right, Sam?”
Her brother smirked. “You got your ass handed to you, Griffin.”
Kyle chuckled. “She can ride, I’ll give her that. But no way she beat me.”
“Total way.” Matt clicked his tongue and Red turned in a tight circle. “Man up and pay up, ’cause I bet you two had some sort of wager going on.”
“Actually, we did make a little bet. And if the consensus is that I lost…” Kyle slid his sunglasses down his nose and met
her gaze.
The intensity of that gaze curled her toes inside her boots.
You can decide whether or not you want to use it for a late-night booty call.
Her hammering pulse sent a rush of blood into her cheeks. “Winning is the only payment I need.”
A smile ghosted Kyle’s lips as he pushed his sunglasses back in place and sat up straighter in the saddle. “I’m not a sore loser. I’ll pay up later.”
Then he turned Ranger toward the rocks and set off.
Sam waited for her to catch up. “How much is this going to cost him? Fifty bucks?”
“More or less.” Tui was thankful her brother couldn’t see the way her eyes tracked Kyle across the sand.
“Big-shot architect. He’ll be good for it.” With an eyebrow lift of affirmation, Sam rode after the Griffin brothers.
Tui gently squeezed Storm’s side and the mare walked sedately after him. “Knew you could do it, girl.”
Up ahead, Kyle twisted in the saddle, checking to see if she and Sam were coming. Her fingers white-knuckled the reins, butterflies going nuts in her stomach, stirring up a brief wave of nausea. She pushed it down and concentrated on the glorious blue horizon of Bounty Bay.
What was the real cost of their little bet? And who would end up paying it?
Kyle should’ve known things were going too smoothly to last.
They crossed Griffin land without fanfare, rode onto their private beach, and spent twenty minutes discussing potential options that could work for a tour, then headed up the hill to where Dave waited by the first group of hives.
Matty had mellowed from the first meeting with Sam and Tui, reverting to his usual good-humored self. He was still a little reserved around Sam, but Kyle noted that his younger brother had made him grin a couple of times. Progress.
Tui, on the other hand, did a brilliant job of avoiding eye contact with him. She listened to Dave’s spiel as if he were a lecturing professor and she was a student about to take an important exam. When they returned to the horses, she dogged her brother’s shadow as he brought up the rear.
Tame Your Heart: A Small Town Romance (Bounty Bay Book 6) Page 12
