The Wrong Brother for Brooke (Hot Tide Book 3)

by Michele De Winton

  He paused. “Really?” he said.

  “Of course. You’re amazing at what you do. And so supportive of others.”

  “This is turning into quite the night,” Holo said. “If I wasn’t sitting right here, I wouldn’t believe it. Glorious creature like you, turning up coated by lady Mahina. You’re every man’s fantasy.”

  “Mahina?”

  “Moonlight,” he said and the way the word sounded on his lips made her wish she was a moonlight goddess so she could stroke his skin every night. She put a hand to his chest for a moment and felt the coils of muscles tighten under her fingers. “After today, I needed distracting. And this, you, it’s the perfect distraction.”

  “Glad to help, Mahina. Or maybe I should call you Mistress Mermaid?” He paused, was he hesitating? “Just checking I’ve got the right end of the driftwood. Is this the sort of distraction you were hoping to find when you slithered up the beach?” He placed his hand lightly onto her thigh. Holy Hot Damn. That was an invitation if ever there was one.

  “That and a chest full of gold,” she said, playing along. It had been impulsive, but she liked the idea of being a mermaid. At one with the ocean, able to get the hell out when dudes started being idiots. She slid closer. The steam swirled around them but Brooke’s temperature was rising without any help from the hot tub. “We should have done this a long time ago,” she managed.

  “And what is it that we’re doing, Mistress Mermaid?” His voice was lazy with lust, dark and so low it almost hummed in her ears.

  “This.” She put her hand back on his chest and ran it over his broad pec and up his neck until she found his jaw. Through the darkness she had to rely on instinct to find his lips but when she did, holy hot damn didn’t even cut it . The Lord of Lips had really come through. Holokai’s kiss shot through her as if someone had dropped a toaster in the hot tub and the volts were coursing direct through her body. His lips were the softest she’d ever kissed, but when they opened to encourage her deeper, she found it was her that was softening, melting, wanting to pour herself into him. Then his tongue nudged at hers and the softness was gone. She dragged her hands through his hair, pulling his head back and he responded by moving his hands to her waist and pulling her onto his lap.

  “You’re hungry, Mistress Mermaid.” It wasn’t a question and Brooke didn’t bother to answer, just raked her hands down his back and relished the feeling of his lips as they moved from her mouth down her neck. “I knew we’d be a good fit as soon as you showed up last year, but I had no idea it would be this good,” she managed.

  Holo paused and his fingers stilled on her waist. “Last year?”

  “Yeah,” she said, her whole body aching for him to move his hands further up her body and cup her breasts. “Matching tattoos, both relative newbies on the circuit, same attitude of go hard or go home in the water. But I was worried you might be too…I dunno, too nice. You know, like you wouldn’t want to lay it all out on the floor like I do waaaay too often. You hadn’t made a move on me, unlike the rest of this pack of dullards.”

  There was silence, and Holo’s hands left her body completely. All of a sudden Brooke could taste the bitterness of the beer she’d drunk coating her tongue. Something was wrong. She stilled herself.

  “Just so you know, I am the nice brother,” he said. “But I wasn’t on the circuit last year.”

  For a moment she didn’t say anything, just let the words sit on the air. Taunting her. Daring her to let their true meaning into her brain. But the pause couldn’t last forever. “Oh. Mygod.” It came out barely louder than a whisper.

  “And I like your tattoo, but it doesn’t match mine. Not at all.”

  Brooke stood up, the water rushing away from her body and leaving her breasts cold, even as she missed the sensation of the water across them. “You’re not Holokai.”

  “No.”

  “Who are you?”

  “His brother.”

  “Oh. Mygod.”

  “You said that already.” She felt him moving towards her in the darkness. “It’s okay. A moment of passion. The night demanded it. We fit, like you said,” the man said.

  She clambered out of the hot tub and stood dripping in the darkness. If she could have, Brooke would quite happily have turned into a real mermaid and slithered down the beach to the ocean and never surfaced again.

  “I’m Kainui. Kai to my friends.”

  “Right. Kainui.” She felt around in the darkness, desperate to find her clothes. You came on to his brother. You came on to his BROTHER. The refrain hammered in her head. But then her embarrassment turned to anger. The guy – Kainui – had been in his brother’s hot tub, kissing a stranger who came out of the dark. Who did that?

  “There’s a towel on the railing somewhere. If you feel along you’ll find it. I can grab another one later,” he said, staying seated in the tub.

  Transformed from elegant goddess to fumbling fool in the space of less than a minute, Brooke finally felt the soft edge of the towel and pulled it around herself like a protective shield.

  Despite the fact that he couldn’t see her anyway, being covered by the towel returned some of the confidence. She’d come on to a stranger, yes. But he hadn’t stopped her. “Why didn’t you say something? Anything. You must have known I thought you were Holo.”

  “How? Strangers in the night remember. And the way you were talking, it was like you knew me. That I supported people, that you’d been watching my work. And I did check in that you were comfortable with what we were doing. Don’t make me out to be the bad guy. Please.”

  “Yes, but—” She struggled for something that might diminish her embarrassment and put the blame all on him. “I’ve never even met you. Let alone watched you at work. But the things you said, they’re just what Holo would have said.”

  “Maybe. I’m sure he agrees with me that you do look great in a bikini. Hell, I’m sure everyone agrees with that.”

  “Not helping.”

  “Sorry.”

  “I just. Oh god, this is a disaster.”

  He paused. “Well it wasn’t from where I was sitting. But I hear you. Perhaps you better go. No hard feelings.”

  Oh shit. He sounded genuinely hurt. Good one. Come on to the brother of your crush and then be a total ass about it. “No, I’m sorry. I’m an idiot. You’re right. I’ll just leave and we shall never speak of this again.”

  “Go well, Mistress Mermaid.”

  Brooke didn’t wait for her body to turn to stone from embarrassment like it felt it might. She tucked the towel tighter around her, finally found her top and shorts when she almost tripped on them, and fumbled her way back in through the cottage and out into the resort gardens.

  The gardens didn’t smell like honey anymore, more like the over-sweetness of rotting fruit, and as she ran, still dripping, back to her hotel all she could think of was how badly she’d blown it with the man who had every chance of being the surfer of her dreams. You came on to his brother. You came on to his BROTHER! The refrain hammered in her head with every step.

  But by the time she was at her door she was out of breath. Out of breath and out of options. She’d screwed up her chance to make Holokai part of her surf world domination plan and she’d bombed out in her event today. Pushing into her room, she saw a bottle of water on the counter and felt the sandpapery texture of her tongue, a reminder that she was probably going to have the mother of all hangovers tomorrow. Dropping the towel and peeling off her bikini, Brooke fell onto her bed and stared at the ceiling. Thank god tomorrow was a day off. Only trouble was she wasn’t going to be able to hide from tonight’s mistake forever.

  Chapter Three

  Kainui Keahi rolled over in bed and thought about Brooke’s face when she’d opened the back door and looked back at him for a moment. In the light that had filtered out from the kitchen, her face had been a picture of dismay. Dismay, embarrassment, the whole gamut of disappointed expressions rippled across her features and settled in to hard lin
es around her mouth and eyes. “Way to make a brother feel great,” he muttered to his pillow. He hadn’t been feeding her a line when he’d said he liked what she looked like on a surf board. Or that he was a big fan. He followed the women’s surfing online as much as the men. There was something particularly graceful about the women out on the water this season. But the fact that he wasn’t part of the mad rush of the WSL circuit wasn’t something he’d ever felt the need to change. He was happy to leave it to his brother.

  Kainui swung his legs out of bed and stood, stretching his arms high above his head. Twisting, he let his arms move with their own weight and wrap around his body, exhaling as he kept up their movement. This was part of a stretching sequence he’d started his first year of training. Another physiotherapy student had shown him, and now he couldn’t head out into the day without first getting in touch with his body. Moving through the sequence till all his muscles were warm and he felt stretched and clear, Kai let out one last exhale. Better.

  But when he hit the shower, memories of the evening before came back to steal his clarity. Now it wasn’t the disappointment on Brooke’s face that flashed in his mind’s eye. It was the way she’d stood in front of him in that brief moment of moonlight, peeling off her clothes, the way her long dark hair moved in the faint breeze. It was the unaffected countenance of her; no makeup, no artifice, no pretending. It was a woman who was unafraid of being herself, unafraid of taking what she wanted. A woman he couldn’t shake. As the hot water streamed over his body, Kai shut his eyes and imagined Brooke in front of him. The way her hands had moved over his shoulders through the dark. The feeling of her lips on his, her skin pressed up against his... Every fiber of his body ached to touch her again. To hold her, to draw her closer.

  There was hammering on the door and Kai’s eyes flicked open.

  “Bro, come on.” Holo.

  Kai switched off the shower and toweled off quickly, throwing on boardshorts and a t-shirt before he opened the bathroom door. “Sorry. You ready?”

  His brother checked him out. “What gives. You sleep late? You never sleep late.”

  “Had a weird one last night bro, a weird one.”

  Holo just shrugged and walked to the front door. “Let’s eat.”

  They walked along the beachfront in silence, Kai still lost in his thoughts and Holo apparently watching the ocean. It wasn’t unusual for them. It had been just the two of them for a long time, long enough to have learned that silence wasn’t something that always needed to be filled. But today Holo must have sensed the churn that was going on in Kai’s mind.

  “You know, your face looks like a dog just took a shit in your bed. I didn’t mean to get you up before you’d finished your beauty sleep.”

  Kai looked up at the clear blue sky and took a deep breath. “Whatever. I told you, weird night.” He was thankful, every day, for having his brother in his life. But it didn’t mean he had to share everything with him. Especially not when it concerned him having his hands all over someone who quite clearly had a thing for his brother.

  Either not registering the growl in his voice or choosing to ignore it, Holo kept talking. “I did those exercises yesterday before my heat and smashed it. I should have brought you out here ages ago.”

  This was easier ground. “I know. You hold all your tension in your rhomboids. It’s hard to shift. But if we keep up that program of stretches and you let me do some work on you, you’ll get heaps more movement.”

  “Now we’re talking.” Holo gave him a grin. “I told a couple of people you were out here. Hope you don’t mind. Don’t want you to give all your secrets away to my competitors but, you know, good to share the love. And figured you could use some cash.”

  Kai smiled. “Sure.” His tension lifted slightly. He thought about the kahuna massage course he’d taken back home in Hawaii. The technique had become an integral part of his physiotherapy practice, but the seven tenants of the ancient Hawaiian Kahuna’s were more than part of his profession, they’d become part of his life. His younger brother sometimes teased him about his devotion to the principles, but they’d proved useful time and again. Especially when he’d suffered from depression some years earlier. Now the principle of manawa sprang to mind: the idea of freedom, of not being beholden to the mistakes of the past or fears of the future. “Thanks bro. For bringing me out here. Sharing your digs with me.”

  “Don’t even think about it,” Holo said, punching him on the arm. “I told you, it’s a win for me having you here. And not just because of your mad skills. You make me feel calm. Maybe you’re my lucky charm,” he said and wiggled his thick black eyebrows.

  Kai laughed, finally, and they continued on past the tents and temporary bars for the Bali Pro event, the Indonesian leg of the World Surfing League professional contest, and on to a small local restaurant he’d found during yesterday’s events.

  “Selamat pagi!” The enthusiastic welcome was yelled at them before they’d even sat down. “Selamat pagiiiiii,” Kai said, and the waitress who rushed up to them cackled and put a menu in his hands.

  After huge plates of fresh fruit, spicy eggs and rice had been delivered, Holo sat back in his chair and grinned at Kai. “What?”

  “Nothing. Just glad you’re having a good time over here. You needed a break. You work too hard, and you still don’t have anything to show for it.”

  “Says the guy who trains every morning from five am.”

  “In the water. And then on the beach surrounded by chicks in bikinis.”

  Kai couldn’t help it, he grinned. “Fair call.”

  “I know.” Holo stuffed a huge mouthful of egg and rice into his mouth and mimed extasy with his eyes raised to the ceiling. “What did you say this stuff is called again? It’s so fuckin’ good.”

  “Sambal Goreng Telor.”

  The waitress rushed over and Holo did his best impression of a man in love. “This stuff is amazing,” he said. “Tell the chef.”

  “You like it?” she said, beaming.

  “Love it,” he said. “I’m coming here every day I’m here.”

  She left, rushing straight into the kitchen and Kai smiled. “Thanks.”

  “What for?”

  “For being so positive. I mean, it’s annoying as heck sometimes, no one should be as shiny and damn nice as you, but still, thanks.”

  Holo laughed, a big, warm sound. “Whatever. This is all just dumb luck.”

  Kai stopped him. Suddenly needing to come clean with his warm, bright, brother. “None of it is dumb luck. You summon all this to you. Like a positivity magnet.” Just like he’d summoned Brooke. Kai took a breath. “Last night. A girl came over.”

  “I know.” Holo smiled. “I heard you guys in the hot tub and figured I’d leave you to it.”

  Kai’s heart sank. “Oh shit really? Man, I’m so sorry. I checked that she was into it.”

  “Woah.” Holo put a hand on Kai’s arm. “Okay, that wasn’t what I was expecting.” “But you said you heard her.”

  “I heard a woman. So, I went to bed and left you to it.”

  Kai grimaced and looked down at his breakfast. “It was Brooke. Brooke Evans.”

  Holo sucked in a breath. “Nice one. She’s sexy as hell, that’s for sure.”

  “She thought I was you.” There, he’d said it. Kai looked up at his brother. Holo had paused, a giant piece of mango speared on his fork heading for his open mouth. Then he snorted. “Oh shit.” The snort turned into a laugh. “You were naked in the hot tub and she thought you were me. Man, that sucks.” And he laughed again.

  “You’re laughing?”

  “Sorry. I shouldn’t, it’s just—” and he laughed again. “I’m stopping now. God what an asshole. Sorry bro. What did you do? Did you go along with it or something, is that why your face is filthy as a goat’s ass?”

  Kai’s mouth dropped open. “What? Of course not. I thought she knew who I was.”

  “Well then. No harm done. Not my end anyway.” And he pu
t the piece of mango into his mouth.

  Unsure of what else to do, Kai did the same and the two of them munched on mango in silence for a few seconds. “You’re not pissed?”

  “Pissed? Why would I be pissed?”

  “She was into you. And ended up squirming in my lap.”

  Holo grinned. “No wonder you said you had quite the night. Nah man, I’m not pissed. She’s not my type. Way too hard core. I like my ladies quiet and sweet. That Brooke has more rock in her than roll. And anyway, I don’t have time for women right now. The ocean is the only lady for me, at least for now.” He grinned.

  Suddenly Kai felt like a Hawaiian stone, some ancient detritus from the volcano, had been lifted from his shoulders. “She’s not your type. Of course she’s not.” He said it almost to himself but Holo heard him. “No. But I’m guessing she’s yours.” He tipped his head to the side. “She is, isn’t she?”

  Kai smiled, finally able to let go of his guilt about almost being with someone his brother might have had an interest in. “You said it, she’s sexy as hell.”

  Holo grinned again. “And I bet there’s some kahuna something that tells you to set your mind to what you want and go after it.”

  “Something like that,” Kai said with a laugh.

  “Sweet. Come on, eat up.” Then he looked at Kai as if he was challenging him. “You know she’s all about the circuit though, right? She’s serious and damn focused. I know you like to be a free spirit and all, but she’s not really like that. Don’t fuck it up for her by wooing her and then leaving her hanging, she needs someone solid.”

  Kai tried to laugh the comment off but his brother didn’t join in. “I’m serious bro. I don’t want her in my bed, but I like her. And she’s worked damn hard to get here, just like me.”

  “Sure, sure. I won’t love her and leave her, promise. But if she wants a bit of fun while were both here I’m not going to say no.”