He sprang to attention, and she realized he was much bigger than Jason as she wrapped her hands around him. He stood before her as she sat on her knees on the bed running her hands up and down the length of him. He groaned, leaning into her touch.
“Allie,” he growled, his pupils wide and hungry.
She teased him until he begged for mercy, exploring his body in the same way he’d explored hers at the pond, with her hands and her mouth.
“Allie, God...you’re going to make me...” He didn’t get to finish his sentence as he wound his hands tightly in her hair. “Allie...”
Just when she knew he couldn’t take much more, she pulled away, reaching for the condom, ripping open the package and freeing the thin circle of latex. Expertly, she put it on him, and then she stripped, wiggling out of her underwear.
His eyes swept her body with appreciation. “You’re so damn sexy,” he murmured, and then he crawled on the bed, kissing her as she dragged him down on top of her. Allie spread her legs beneath him eagerly, and he dived in, filling her in ways she never imagined. She gasped at the sheer force of him as he pushed deeper inside her. Explosions of sensation rattled her as he worked, managing to hit every one of her pleasure centers. Just when she thought she couldn’t take it anymore, he switched their positions, and she took over the rhythm as he gently cupped her breasts. He met her gaze as she sat on top of him, grinding against him, his eyes hot with need.
She dipped forward, and he put one of her nipples in his mouth, sending her into another universe of sensation. He let that one go and concentrated on the other one, gently, deliberately, and all she could think of was his kisses again at the pond, and the memory of that sent her body completely over the edge. The climax came before she could stop it, her body shuddering in delight as she cried out. He grabbed her hips, pushing himself deeper as she came, making her ecstasy all the more intense.
“Oh, God, Allie,” he murmured, as her series of tight contractions had their effect on him. She squeezed him harder, unable to stop herself, and he groaned, his breath quickening. “You feel so damn good,” he exclaimed as he intensified his thrusts, coming just after her with a low shout. Allie collapsed on top of him, sweaty and spent, listening to the sound of Dallas’s frantic heartbeat in his chest.
“Wow,” he murmured.
“Uh-huh.” Allie still felt rocked by her own orgasm, her brain abuzz in endorphins, her body all but exhausted. Her tired muscles protested the extra work, but she ignored them. It was well worth it. She rolled off him, exhaling. Dallas wrapped his muscled arms around her and cuddled her to his chest. He happened to glance at the floor.
“What’s that?” he asked, pointing to the tiki statue on the floor that had rolled out of Allie’s pocket.
“Kaimana gave it to me for good luck,” Allie said, reaching for it. Dallas took it from her hand and studied it, and then burst out laughing.
“Not for good luck, more like to get lucky,” Dallas said. “That’s Lono. The Hawaiian god of sex and fertility.”
“No!” Allie cried, swiping the little figure from Dallas’s hands and staring at it as if she could disprove it by looking. “Kaimana did it again! She fooled me. That woman...”
“Has a wicked sense of humor,” Dallas agreed, laughter rumbling in his chest as he placed the little tiki on the bedside table. It stared at them, big mouth open, as if laughing, too.
“Honestly,” Allie fumed. Although she couldn’t be too mad. Sex with Dallas had been amazing. If that was Lono’s doing, she’d be fine with it.
“Hey, I think it’s working again,” Dallas said, nudging her, already ready for round two.
“It would be a shame to waste that second condom,” Allie said.
“Who said anything about wasting?”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE NEXT TWO weeks were filled with tsunami cleanup in the day and amazing, white-hot sex at night. Allie had never gotten so little sleep and not cared a bit. Dallas made her feel anything but bland, and after the amazing positions they tried that week, Allie realized something astounding: she wasn’t the boring one in bed at all. Jason had been.
The thought made her giggle. It was true: Jason stuck to mostly two positions, and hardly ever altered his strategy. With Dallas, Allie realized that she’d been missing out on all kinds of fun. She almost wanted to call Jason and let him know that there was life beyond missionary, but she decided just to gloat from afar.
A bulldozer came to level what was left of Dallas’s house. He put his arm around her as the construction crews did their work, but that night, she distracted him in bed, easily taking his mind off the worry. She didn’t have time to think about what might happen in the future, or if Dallas might run off one day or find a way to disappoint her. She was too busy with all the work: helping Teri when she could, figuring out what coffee plants could be saved for the harvest. She’d also taken on another project: cleaning out her grandmother’s closet. She’d been inspired to do it after calls had come out for gently used clothes for tsunami victims who’d lost everything. She’d managed to clean out all of her grandmother’s closets and drop off several bags of clothes to the Red Cross. She kept some of her grandmother’s jewelry, and of course, her grandmother’s prized book of recipes.
Of course, after the major clean out of her grandmother’s house, she realized that it was quickly becoming their house, with her things hanging in the closet next to Dallas’s. For once, she ignored that little voice in her head that said, Dallas is too good to be true. Dallas will disappoint you just like Jason.
If she ignored the voice long enough, she was sure one of these days it would go away. Dallas, for his part, started talking about weeks and months later: what they’d do for the festival. At least she didn’t have to worry about him leaving before then, she reasoned. She was safe for a couple of months.
And besides, she hadn’t decided to stay. She still had the land to sell, she reasoned. She still had an escape plan.
* * *
ONE MORNING, ALLIE came awake to the sound of voices in the kitchen and the smell of bacon sizzling in the pan. She threw on a pair of yoga pants and a T-shirt and wandered out, curious about the visitor. When she got there, she saw an older man, heavyset with mostly gray hair, a mix, Allie guessed, of Hawaiian and Asian descent. He and Dallas were talking seriously, while Dallas tended to breakfast at the stove and the man drank coffee from a white mug.
“Good morning, Allie. I’d like you to meet Henry Leong. He and his workers have been helping us harvest coffee for years.”
Henry removed his worn baseball cap and shook Allie’s hand. “Nice to meet you,” he said. “I knew your grandmother well. She was a wonderful person.” A slight blush crept up the side of Henry’s cheek, and Allie wondered if this man might have just had a crush on Grandma Misu. “I was very sorry to lose her.” He fiddled with the brim of his hat, his wrinkled and age-spotted hands running over the edge of it. Allie patted his shoulder, glad to know that her grandmother had had a man like him to support her on the farm and maybe in her life.
“I promised her we’d win the competition this year,” Henry said. “I’m hoping the tsunami didn’t hurt our chances.”
“We didn’t lose many trees,” Allie offered, taking a seat at her grandmother’s small kitchen table. Dallas poured her a cup of coffee.
“But we lost some of our best,” Dallas explained as he handed her a full cup. She took it gratefully. “Henry agrees, it might be tough finding the right harvest this year.”
Allie thought of Kaimana and her paper. “But we have to win the competition.”
Dallas looked surprised. Henry did, as well.
“Isn’t that what Grandma Misu wanted?” she amended quickly, finding some bit of lint on her shirt to focus her attention on.
“Yes, it’s true.” Henry nodded. “But we will have at least three rounds of harvest and roasting to get the perfect combination.”
“That’s a lot,” Allie said, just li
ke Kaimana had said. “Why can’t we get them all at once?”
“The beans don’t ripen all at the same time,” Henry said. “That’s why we need to pick them by hand.”
Allie nodded, remembering again her dad standing on a ladder, reaching the cherries at the top of the tree. “When do we start?”
“How about today?” Dallas said as he served up a plate of bacon and eggs. “Eat up. You’ll need the energy.”
* * *
ALLIE HAD NEVER worked so hard in her life, and that included hauling trash from tsunami-wrecked parking lots. The basket she wore around her neck was full of red coffee cherries, her back ached, and her fingers felt raw and sweaty, blisters popping up even through the work gloves she wore. Her neck felt stiff, and sweat dripped down her back. The straw hat she wore kept the sun off her face, but her hair was a matted, damp mess beneath it.
She reached up to grab one last red cherry from one of the low-lying branches and then decided the basket had become too heavy and full, and took it over to Dallas’s waiting pickup truck to add to the collection of full baskets there. Henry and his workers crowded the lines of trees, expertly and efficiently picking berries from the trees. They could pick far more than Allie could in a day. She was still learning how to best twist and pull the small coffee fruit from the vine.
“Tired yet?” Dallas asked, offering her a cool drink of water.
“Exhausted,” Allie admitted, taking a deep dreg.
“Well, you’ll appreciate a good cup of coffee even more now,” he promised.
As the last of the day’s pickers put full bushels of cherries into the back of Dallas’s pickup, he drove them to the pulper at the barn, the big metal machine that took the red skin and pulp off the cherries, revealing the bean, or seed beneath. After pulping, the beans went into a fermentation tank.
“This is where the bright, clear flavor comes from,” Dallas told her as he showed her the wet beans in the huge fermenting bin.
Allie felt intrigued by the whole process, each new step both exhausting and thrilling at the same time. She could also see Dallas come alive throughout the process. She could see the thrill in his eyes, the absolute joy of doing what he loved to do. The joy was infectious, and she felt she could learn to love this, too.
The new roaster was delivered during this time, and Dallas eagerly fired it up, the gleaming piece of equipment everyone’s hope for a winning batch of Kona. Dallas lit the gas burner beneath the huge contraption, and he fed dried beans into the giant metal drum. They popped and cracked, and Allie watched, fascinated as the cherry pits turned into the darkened coffee beans she knew so well. The roasting barn filled with the smell of fresh coffee, and Allie felt the presence of her dad and grandmother nearby, approving of each step. Dallas made clear there was an art to roasting the perfect Kona coffee: it was all about a delicate balance of heat and time, and lots of careful stirring.
“A lot like love,” he said, and gave her a meaningful glance. At the very word, Allie felt a tingle in her toes. Love could not be what was happening here, could it? She could not even remotely allow herself to think about the possibility of love. That was inviting disaster.
Dallas went about taking out the first batch and then feeding it into the grinder. Allie put the warm, freshly ground coffee into individual bags, each with its own special hula girl label. Allie couldn’t help feel a special kind of pride as the crates of newly packed beans began to stack up in the barn. There was a certain kind of satisfaction from growing something and harvesting it with your own hands. She could see why both her father and grandmother had dedicated their lives to this, and why Dallas did, too.
After grueling work, the roasting and harvest was nearly done. The helpers had all gone home with enthusiastic thanks from Allie. Hula Coffee would be saved the problem of having to find a new house roast, at least in the interim.
“Moment of truth,” Dallas declared, as he took a bag of beans and ground them up, ready to pour into their coffeemaker. Allie waited anxiously, eager to taste the fruits of her first coffee harvest. She watched anxiously as the coffee dripped into the clear glass pitcher, the rich black liquid slowly filling the carafe. Allie inhaled the beautiful smell of 100 percent pure Kona coffee, and realized there wasn’t anything as delicious to her as that smell.
Dallas poured a small mug for himself and for Allie.
“Cheers,” he said, and they clinked glasses. Allie giggled, as she took a sip of the brew. It was rich, yet not bitter. She swallowed her first taste as she watched Dallas take his time with his. He smelled the cup first, a deep inhale, and then gently took the first mouthful, as if he were sipping a fine wine.
He swallowed and then frowned.
“What’s wrong?” Allie asked, immediately sensing something was off.
“It’s good, but not good enough.”
Allie took another sip. Her taste buds weren’t as refined to the nuances of the perfect cup of coffee. It seemed good to her. “It’s not?”
“No.” Dallas put down the cup, frustration on his face. “It won’t win the competition. It’s not as bright as it should be.”
“Bright? I don’t understand.”
Dallas tried to explain the certain zing a winning cup of Kona needed, but to Allie, it felt like trying to understand a foreign language. Then he pulled out a packet of Queen’s Best.
“This farm won last year,” he said. “It’s won five years in a row.”
Dallas set it brewing in a separate coffee machine and, when it was done, handed Allie a small cup. “Taste the difference.”
Allie went about sipping the new cup and the old one. “Ours is more bitter,” she said.
“Exactly,” Dallas exclaimed. “And?”
“More acidic,” Allie said, closing her eyes and letting the full taste of the coffee roll over her tongue.
“Right.” Dallas nodded. “We need to be less of both.”
“How do we do that?” Allie wondered aloud, as she stared at both half-drunk cups, still thinking a bit of magic was involved to make one taste so much better.
“We’ll have to harvest another round of beans, roast them up and hope they’re better,” Dallas said, tossing the dregs of his own coffee cup in the sink of the kitchen. “It’s all in the bean. How it grows, how it’s picked and the way it responds to the roast.”
Allie felt the enormity of the task ahead of them and sighed. “How many more chances do we get?”
“Two more,” Dallas promised.
* * *
THE NEXT SEVERAL months passed in a blur of work. Allie had never gotten so tan, picking coffee cherries in the Hawaiian sun. Dallas divided his time between the harvests and overseeing the rebuild of his house. As each new piece went up, Allie tried not to think about what that meant: one day soon he’d move out. Of course, there’d be the Kona Coffee Festival and competition before that. And if they won, Kaimana would give her what she wanted: the ability to sell her share of the land. Why should she be upset if Dallas planned to move out, if she did, too?
What did she want, she wondered? A grand gesture? A marriage proposal on one knee? Surely, she’d seen enough disappointment in her life to know that none of those things came without a price. She felt herself brimming with uneasiness, waiting for the bubble to pop. It had to soon, didn’t it?
She brewed a fresh pot of amazing Kona coffee in her kitchen, and she looked out the back window and watched Dallas stride purposefully toward the barn. Every morning, he’d gotten up before her. Living together the past few months, she’d learned he was a morning person, rising just after dawn, working hard to get that perfect batch. He’d been obsessed about roasting the best coffee. After the past two rounds, Allie could hardly tell the difference. Her palate had gotten a little better with tasting differences between coffee brews, but they were all so good, she didn’t know why Dallas seemed so sure they’d lose.
She took a sip of the rich coffee and sighed, wondering if there were worse things than losing the
contest. Would staying here be so bad? she thought as she looked out across the bright green coffee trees, laden with red cherries. She set her coffee cup down on the counter and grabbed a new yogurt from the fridge for breakfast. Unlike Dallas, Allie needed some wake-up time and a little food before she could go charging into the day.
Besides, he’d made sure she hadn’t gotten much sleep. They didn’t do much of that in bed, especially not last night. She thought of his hands on her the night before and felt warm all over.
As she opened the lid of her yogurt, a bit of strawberry pink splashed onto the counter. When she moved to grab a paper towel to wipe up the mess, she knocked over the coffee bag, spilling black Kona grounds into the mess.
“Great,” she muttered, as she went about wiping the spill. Guess that proved she wasn’t quite awake yet. As she wiped the yogurt and coffee grounds together, she got some on her hand, and noticed that it felt like some expensive exfoliate the Chicago spa she used to work for had charged customers hundreds of dollars for.
The caffeine facial had involved high doses of caffeine and vitamin C, designed to brighten skin and erase puffiness. The facial cream had been little more than yogurt and caffeine, which made Allie wonder: Would the coffee grounds work the same way? She glanced at her reflection in the smooth glass of the kitchen window and noticed the puffiness around her eyes.
What the hell, she thought. Might as well try it.
She mixed up a bowl of coffee grounds and yogurt, swirling it together, and then she went in the bathroom and lathered it on half of her face. She wanted a before and after effect, and wanted to know if the mask would be as rejuvenating for her skin as she predicted it would be. After a few minutes, she washed the mask off, and instantly noticed a difference: the puffiness was all but gone, and the left side, the side that had the yogurt coffee mask, was brighter, fresher looking.
“I’ll be damned,” she thought, glancing at her reflection. “It worked.”
She lathered up the other side of her face, and just then heard the back door open and slap shut, and Dallas’s boots on the wooden floor. He walked by the open door. “Morning, darlin’,” he murmured, nuzzling the back of her neck. He smelled like hard work and the open air of the coffee fields. He looked at her reflection in the mirror and nearly jumped. “Whoa, what is that?”
Her Hawaiian Homecoming (Mills & Boon Superromance) Page 21
