Wet

by Angel Payne

  The silence stretched on. It was broken by the blind woman’s prod. “And what did she say then? The last of her message?”

  Lani looked up and winced. “You heard that part, too?” She returned the woman’s nod with a shrug that edged on embarrassed. “I’m not sure that part was real. I mean, it sounded like a joke.” Were stress-induced head voices from on high even allowed to have a sense of humor? “I think I just overheard it from other people walking in the garden.”

  The woman turned, undeterred. “Just tell them what she said, dear one.”

  Lani opened her eyes. She pulled her hands free in order to swipe at her cheeks, an effort to hide her nervous laugh. “It was…stupid. I muttered something about how I really must have been crazy, with voices in my head so clearly not my own. And then she said—”

  “What?” The prompt came from Tait when she interrupted herself with another huff.

  “At first, I could’ve sworn she giggled. And then she said ‘Crazy is good, girlfriend. Don’t you know that the craziest witches snag the hottest wizards?’”

  * * *

  Ten minutes later, honestly wondering if her arm was being yanked out of its socket, she stumbled across the monastery’s parking lot in Tait’s wake, rushing three steps for every one of his urgent strides. Kellan had been following as rear sweep but jogged forward to unlock the jeep before opening the back-seat door. She stifled an urge to laugh, undoubtedly to play cover for her dread. The two of them moved with military precision, meaning her confession about the “visit from the voice” had been an unknowing revelation of national security secrets, a hypnotic trigger to kill her, or solid proof for thinking her one almond away from the nuthouse.

  No matter what, their goal was obvious. To get her out of here fast.

  Had she really been awash in tranquility just a half hour ago, walking with them beneath the trees, feeling a little balanced about life again? Had she truly thought it a stroke of genius to come and let the magic of this place push destiny’s reset button for the three of them?

  Way to go, mastermind. Look how well her “brilliance” had paid off. Prophecies from voices out of thin air, random Potter references, and now this fire drill ending to their field trip… Yeah, some picture-perfect day.

  The disaster’s lead-in had been no less weird. As long as she lived, she’d never forget the moments immediately after her bizarre gut spill. She’d prewritten a script filled with nervousness and discomfort from both of them but instead received a pair of unblinking stares, filled with tangible intensity. After that, they’d taken a pair of long breaths, Kellan pushing his out while Tait pulled his in. They were in complete sync—about honestly believing her.

  The icing on their astonishing cake was delivered by Tait, who raked her with a gaze that made her wonder if she’d sprouted horns or wings or both. Still, she hadn’t been able to turn away. His eyes. Gods, his eyes. Their golden fires contained both hell and heaven, searing her to the core with their depths of pain but blazing to her soul with the strength of their hope.

  Her confession had unraveled him. In return, he’d done the same to her.

  She’d been so consumed by his gaze, she barely noticed when he pulled her back up and started dragging her back to the car. The realization was astounding, considering the pace he set. That was when her confusion hit, pounding harder with every step they took, until now. Lani planted her feet, hesitant to climb into her own damn car with the man.

  “Hokulani.” Though his eyes still tore into her like spiritual blowtorches, the rest of his face was locked in tension. “Get in the car.”

  Instinctively, she stepped back—only to collide with the brick wall of Kellan’s chest. “It’s all right, Starshine.” His voice was steady, strong, and warm in her ear. “It’s going to be okay. It’s not our intent to freak you out any further—”

  “I’m not freaked out!”

  “You’re shaking like a soaked kitten.” His hands on her waist, as solid as his voice, proved his point with maddening clarity.

  “Fine,” she spat. “D-Do you blame me?”

  “Blame you? Sweetheart, we understand you.”

  “Huh?” She jerked her gaze up at Tait, which deepened her confusion. He was wrapped in more layers of strain than before, his chest taut, his shoulders coiled, his legs braced. “Okay,” she snapped, frantically trying to blink back tears, “I’m glad someone understands, because I sure as hell still don’t.”

  Damn it. How had things gone so sideways? Three hours ago, she swore to wean herself from these two. Now she was the filling in their hard-bodied soldier sandwich, wondering why she couldn’t turn off her body’s hot reaction to them, while her mind screamed orders to beat them away.

  Kellan grunted. “I’m really fucking this up.”

  Tait rolled his eyes. “Because you think feelings and talking shouldn’t be in the same sentence.”

  “Working on it, assmunch.”

  Surprisingly, Tait threw out a crooked smile. “I know, man.” He turned the expression down to her. “Just like I’ve been digging up more of my own shit lately, too—and ‘working on it.’” He raised his hands to her shoulders, pulling her a little closer with gentle command. “Amazing what a couple of stubborn dick-smacks will do when they have the proper motivation.”

  Heat rushed up her face. Lovely. Like she needed to feel like a sixteen-year-old being flirted out of her panties, on top of everything else her senses had been through today. “I just thought we could all come here for clarity,” she admitted. “And now…” She dropped her head. “That’s sure as hell not the case.”

  Tait ran a reassuring hand to her nape. “Clarity? About what?”

  “What do you mean, about what?” She jerked her head up, including Kellan in the scope of her scowl, as well. “About this. Us. Whatever it is. About both of you—and making sure that I don’t get attached to it.” She couldn’t hide a small wince. “To either of you.”

  Once again, their reaction didn’t throw her for a loop. It tossed her for two or three. Their chuckles came as a shock yet a reassurance. “Did you hear that, T? She doesn’t want to get too attached.”

  Tait skimmed his fingers to the side of her face. His gaze, capturing hers in its direct beam again, was more molten and brilliant than it’d been in the garden. “Too late, dreamgirl,” he whispered. “It’s so completely too late. If you don’t believe me, ask the crazy witch who visited your head.”

  His profession incited a wave of reactions. First, she laughed. He made everything sound so easy, so normal. After that, a sigh emerged. He did all that while channeling the beauty of an angel, the sun glinting in his hair and etching every bold line of his face. Finally, she swallowed on a throat thick with elation and gratitude before rasping, “Then you don’t think my mind is grilled cheese?”

  Tait’s stare dipped across her face. A heavy, hungry intent defined his gaze. Lani held her breath, horrified he was about to kiss her right here…knowing she’d die if he didn’t.

  It was time to die.

  He halted his lips less than an inch above hers. “Goddamn, could I go for some grilled cheese right now.”

  “Hmm.” Kellan’s voice brushed her ear at the same teasing proximity. “Isn’t that a coincidence? Me too.”

  “Hop in the car, babe, and we’ll show you how much.”

  It was suddenly the easiest feat in the world to follow Tait into the back seat of the jeep. And the hardest. As Kellan gunned the car’s engine to life and sped them back toward Kuamoˋo Road, effectively toppling her into Tait’s lap, that internal skirmish worsened. As she’d hoped—and dreaded—the man didn’t let her scramble back to her seat. With commanding sweeps of movement, he had her straddling his lap before Kellan made the left turn that marked their official exit from the monastery.

  “Sergeant Bommer.” It was a bitch to summon an incensed tone, especially as the man cupped both sides of her ass to seat her more fully against the apex of his body. As he did, she in
stantly felt his cock surging for her, pounding against his pants. “Listen to me! We have a seat belt law in this state, and if you think that just because we’re out in the middle of—”

  The fast thwick of the seat belt, yanked out by him then clicked into its holster, cut her short. She gasped as the belt retracted a little, locking into its new position—across her back. He’d belted both of them in. At once.

  “There.” He curled an utterly roguish grin. “Now we’re law-abiding citizens.”

  Gods. She really felt like grilled cheese now. The warmth of his eyes, the slow burn of his smile, and now the hot ribbons of his fingers, up the center of her ass and along her spine, turned her into compliant goo in his arms. The scenery sped by in reverse as she spread her hands along his broad shoulders, desperately fighting for any logic she had left. “I guess you want me to thank you now?”

  The sarcasm drifted from Tait’s lips. He slowly shook his head. “No, dreamgirl. This is the part where I thank you.”

  Logic, say buh-bye. The rest of the world joined the exodus from her senses as he wound a hand against the back of her head and dragged her mouth against his.

  Lani sighed, joyous from the instant explosion of him. There was no melodrama about the comparison. He breached her with brutal passion, filling her at once with his tongue, his taste, his heat. His growl detonated through her body, a perfect companion to the wild, tangled jungle that sped past the windows. She returned his eruption with a high-pitched moan, though she heard the sound as if someone else made it, another creature camped out in her body, made of pure, wanton desire.

  “Damn.” Kellan’s snarl was as rough as Tait’s, coaxing the savage need deeper through her blood. “You two look fucking hot.”

  “It’s because of her,” Tait said against her lips.

  “Well, it’s not because of you, brother.”

  Lani giggled. Though Tait responded with a smile, his gaze remained solemn. “It really is because of you.” He followed the murmur by bracketing her cheeks with his hands, forming a tunnel between his face and hers. “Your courage, back there in the garden…aiwaiwa, dreamgirl. Mahalo, Hokulani.”

  Fingers of emotion clutched the bottom of her throat as he raised his lips to hers once more. The offering of her native words, followed by his tender worship of a kiss, was like telling the creature in her blood to roll over and accept a long, luxurious caress. She returned his kiss with speechless wonder, finally seeing the depth of what she’d done for him in opening up about an experience she’d pushed off as a weird mind trick so many months ago. His adoration moved her. Humbled her.

  “Stop,” she finally chastised in a whisper. “Tait, I don’t need or deserve what you’re—”

  He vetoed her protest with another mouth-meshing kiss. This embrace was deeper than before. Hotter. Glutted with more intense sweeps of his tongue, with a new grip of his hand on her head. When they dragged apart, Tait used that hold to tug her head back, making her gasp from the illicit sting through her scalp. He groaned while redirecting his mouth to her throat, scraping her skin with his teeth before openly licking the burn away.

  “I’ll be making the calls on what you deserve,” he charged, “and, for that matter, on what you need.” He gently bit into the valley where her jaw met her neck. “And on the gratitude we’re both going to show you, once we get back to the house.”

  Kellan’s groan was an open sanction on that. “Damn straight,” he added.

  Lani shook her head, an action of new desperation. She pried her eyes open, hoping he saw the root of her protest. The she-beast in her bloodstream was hot, hungry, and impatient. It twisted urgent heat into the tips of her breasts, slunk fevered fire through her belly and thighs, and danced a demanding beat through every inch of her pussy, still riding the massive ridge between Tait’s thighs.

  He said he’d know what she needed. Well, she needed them both. Here. Now. Before she recalled her promise to last night’s midnight rain. Before reality reminded her of why she’d made the oath to fate, that giving in to her lust for their bodies and her need for their touches would only worsen the pain of saying goodbye to them next week. In exponential chunks.

  Regrets for another time.

  “Please,” she rasped, making her way toward the middle of his mouth. Tait’s gaze had been full of questions, but when she sneaked her tongue between his lips, touching the tip of her tongue to his, his vacillation ended on another impassioned hiss.

  When they emitted tandem moans, Kellan slowed the car. “What’s wrong?” he demanded.

  Tait tilted his head to meet his buddy’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “Do you have condoms on you?”

  Kell chuffed. “Does a Boy Scout know how to start a campfire?”

  “Thank fuck.”

  “Why?”

  “Pull over.”

  “What?”

  “She’s not going to last. And frankly, neither am I.”

  There was a long, torturous pause. “Lani?” Kellan finally called out.

  Tait groaned. She joined him though and laughed a little at the end. “Stop the damn car, Sergeant Rush. I need my yin—and my yang.”

  His husky laugh filled the air. “Willingly obeyed, goddess—but enjoy your time on the throne now. Once I get back there, you’re at my mercy.”

  “That’s my best friend talking,” Tait approved. Lani laughed, until he tucked his head and recaptured her lips in a fierce, plunging of a kiss. She surrendered with a long sigh, guessing her mouth would be wonderfully bruised tomorrow—and hoping many other body parts would be in the same basket.

  The second Kellan slowed the jeep and turned it off the road, Tait unclicked the seat belt too. He flung the restraint aside with a snarl then reset his voracious gaze on her. With his locked teeth showing between his parted lips, he jammed her skirt to her waist, clawed both hands to her hips, then thrust her body atop his with the raw strength in his long fingers. It was primal and brutal and wonderful, matched by the jeep’s rocking force as Kellan guided them beneath a copse of thick trees. Lani grabbed the back of the seat with one hand and his neck with the other, a move that jammed her cleavage directly in his face. He reacted with a long, pleasured growl.

  “Damn,” he uttered. “Opportunity knocks, dreamgirl.”

  He punctuated that by suckling the side of her right breast, sending a thousand shards of heat across her sensitive skin. That was only his opener. He used his nose to tunnel beneath her dress, inching his mouth over her bra until he teethed her nipple through the lace. Lani let him feel the all-over shiver he incited from the nasty little stab, throwing back her head in carnal bliss. Her eyes slid shut as both her areolas puckered, shoving her erect nipples against her clothes, bringing on a harder tremble. “H-How do you kn-know exactly how to d-do that?”

  “Ssshhh.” He issued it while sliding his mouth to her other breast, dropping enticing nips on her skin along the way, until he sucked in her waiting flesh with a groan of sensual hunger.

  “Kamahaˋo!” Gods, the man had a talented tongue. He circled her nipple over and over, abrading her skin with the lace he’d soaked, turning the treatment into an exquisite lesson in how to make a woman wet even before her panties came off. Both her breasts pulsed and throbbed. So did every inch of her sex. Trickles of arousal continued permeating her deepest tunnel, preparing her for the full pleasure promised by Tait’s mouth and hands. Her need became a deafening refrain when Kellan cut the engine and set the brake.

  In her periphery, she caught the lithe flash of his body as he rolled out of the driver’s door and then opened the one behind it, his moves as smooth as a hero from an action movie. Then he was there, filling the opening, dark and glorious and huge—and practically burning away her dress with the power of his thunder-gray eyes. Without veering his gaze by an inch, he fired, “Why is she still dressed?”

  Though Tait afforded his friend a little glance, his head barely budged from the valley between her breasts. “Did you want me to have all the
fun, dude?”

  “Looks like you already were.”

  “No way.” Tait rolled his hands under, fully encompassing both swells of her ass in order to spread her thighs a little wider. “We’re just starting things. Aren’t we, dreamgirl?”

  She had no idea how she managed her answering nod, especially when Kellan interrupted it to lift her face for his own conquering kiss. As he explored her mouth with his commanding tongue, Tait peeled back her dress and unhooked the front clasp of her bra, spilling her naked breasts toward his greedy mouth. Finally. She whined in gratitude as his lips explored her aching nipples once more, making her fists curl and her blood ignite. But Kellan’s mouth evoked the opposite effect, melting her muscles, reminding her it was okay to be soft and surrendering. They really were her yin and yang. The two halves of her desire. The accelerants of all her body’s fires…and the only saviors from those flames. They touched her like they’d been rehearsing for it, each knowing what need the other’s actions would instigate in her and then shifting to fill that need with a perfect kiss or touch.

  As if they’d both been prepared for her.

  She let out a stunned gasp. When her eyes flashed open, too, Tait was there, consuming her vision with his burnished beauty. He lifted a hand to her face, delving his gaze into hers. A smile spread across his lips. She was certain he’d not only read her thoughts but also understood them.

  “Baby.” His voice was thick with meaning. “It’s okay. Turn off the thoughts and simply open the feelings.”

  She ducked her face away. “But it’s…too much. So much.”

  Kellan was there too. His lips pressed the top of her head. “What is it, Starshine? What’s wrong?”

  Tait drew in a long breath. “It’s all coming together for her. Angel’s voices are one thing. The reality of destiny fulfilling them is another.”

  She swallowed. How could he be so damn calm about saying something like that? “I…I don’t know how to…” Feel about this. Or how to process it. Or what to do about it. Angel’s voices? Destiny? What happened to this being just a fun fling with a couple of hot soldiers, both of whom she’d sworn off for good not more than twelve hours ago? Now she clung to them like life rings in the storm they’d brought. And hated them for it. And needed them for it.