Steve was also doing his best to keep pace. Even though they were moving slow, his knee was fighting him all the way. Had he not been injured, they’d’ve already made it to Ferg’s place. Instead, he was hobbling along like an old man and the marine in him hated it. Knights in shining armor weren’t supposed to limp. He glanced over at his companion. She looked whipped. He could see her trying to warm herself against the damp chill by rubbing her hands up and down her bare arms, but he knew it wasn’t helping much. He’d’ve offered her the shirt tied around his waist, but it was as damp and wet as the rest of him. After she returned home to L.A., she’d probably never want to return to the islands again, and that would be too bad, because there was so much more he wanted her to see. “Think you’ll ever come back here once you get home to L.A.?”
“Nope. Not going to lie. I can’t wait to leave this place.”
“That’s too bad. There’s still a lot I’d like to show you.”
Anita slowed and stopped. “Like what?”
“The sunsets at Polihale Beach, the whales and seals at Port Allen. The thousand-foot cliffs overlooking the water at Na Pali. The lagoon at Wailua River where we’d go snorkeling.”
The tone of his voice and the intensity in his gaze had her heart racing.
“I’d even teach you to surf.”
Once again, she found herself overwhelmed by his larger-than-life presence. Everything about him was so tantalizing and seductive, she bet very few women told him no. In an effort to save herself from succumbing to the spell he seemed to be weaving, she tossed back as nonchalantly as she could, “Are you hitting on me, Blair?”
“I think so, but I’m blaming it on the pain and the concussion.”
She shook her head and smiled.
“How long were you engaged to the dummy?”
“A year, but we started dating when I was in high school.”
“That’s a long time.”
“Yes, it is, especially when it ends up like this.”
“Did you love him?”
She shrugged. “Yes, I guess. There weren’t any sparks or fireworks like in one of those romance novels but I was okay with it.”
“Wrong answer.”
She stopped. “What do you mean, wrong answer?”
“I’m no expert on love but, judging by my parents and the marriages of my aunts and uncles, there’s supposed to be fireworks and sparks. My folks are in their sixties and they can’t keep their hands off each other. Embarrassed me to no end when I was in my teens and I’d walk in the kitchen to find them kissing. Yes, if I ever do get married, that’s what I’ll be looking for.”
“Real life isn’t a romance novel.”
“Tell my parents that and, if I had been your fiancé, the wedding would’ve taken place the day after I put that big fat rock on your hand.”
She felt as though she was drowning. All she could manage in response was, “That’s not how it works.”
“Maybe in your world, Counselor.”
“Can we change the subject?”
“Sure.”
“Thank you, Mr. Blair.”
“My pleasure.”
There was that word again. Pleasure. For an unguarded moment, she found herself wondering how he might put the word into action. Appalled at the turn in her thoughts, she ignored them or at least tried to and set out walking again. It occurred to her that her growing attraction to him might be shock. After all, in addition to Greg’s email, she’d been in a helicopter crash and she’d bumped her head. Were she in her right mind, she’d be running from him like her panties were on fire—one, he’d didn’t have a proper job and apparently no aspirations to secure one; two, he was content to spend his days flying, hiking and occasionally surfing; and three, he needed a shave.
If she were to bring him home to meet her folks, her father would die of happiness and her mother would faint away like an old-school movie heroine. Yet and still, she found herself unable to stop taking peeks at the cut of his beard-shrouded jaw, the strength in his build and the lines of his bare arms and shoulders in the thin sleeveless tank. Add to that the camouflage pants and boots, and even with the crutch, he looked like a man of action and purpose; one perfectly capable of catching a woman jumping from a tree at forty feet. A female of lesser morals would’ve already stripped and offered herself to him just to get a taste of that. Appalled again, she prayed they’d get to the cabin soon, because yes, she’d lost her mind.
Steve wondered how she really felt about her fiancé’s text. He assumed she still had feelings for the man. Would his text keep her from looking for love in the future the way his own Dear John letter from Yvette had left him gun-shy? He didn’t have an answer, and since it wasn’t really any of his business, and because her plan was to go back to L.A. and never return, he thought it best to put the wondering away and concentrate on reaching their destination—but looking over at her made that hard to do.
Finally, the cabin came into view. “There it is.”
Anita was a bit taken aback not only by the size, but by beauty of the place gleaming at the top of a hill. The entire front was glass, probably to take advantage of the outstanding view, and for some reason it reminded her of the house from the dream she’d had the morning she had overslept and missed the meeting at work. The roof was flat and dark. “When you said cabin, I was expecting Abraham Lincoln, not something out of Architectural Digest.”
“Nice, isn’t it? Made of steel and glass. The entire place runs on solar power. From the stove and the washer and dryer to the flat screen.”
She was impressed.
On the front of the huge steel entrance door was a relief of a large wave rising up out the sea. She swore she’d seen something similar to the image before but wasn’t sure where. “Why’s this drawing or whatever it is look so familiar?”
While he punched in a code in the lock beside the frame, she ran her hand over the raised lines.
“It’s a copy of The Great Wave by Katsushika. It’s pretty famous.”
“But this is a metal door. How was all this etching done?”
“Welding torch.”
Anita had never seen anything like it. She was impressed by the detail and beauty and that he knew the name of the work and the artist.
Inside she looked around. The silent interior could have easily belonged to any house in California. The furnishings were sparse but modern. A long hallway led to the kitchen at the back of the place where the entire wall, also glass, looked out on a cascading waterfall. Her jaw dropped. She turned back to Blair and met his grin.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
She agreed. “It looks close enough to touch.”
“The waterfall was the reason the place was built here. Took a year just to get the site cleared and another few to complete the house. Every beam, steel panel and pane of glass had to be flown in by chopper.”
She glanced around at the modern kitchen but the waterfall kept drawing her eyes back to its flow. “Is he an architect?”
“In a way. His dad owns a construction company. Ferg made a lot of connections with building and tech guys when we were in the service. A lot of the cutting-edge stuff here are products being tested by the military, NASA and other agencies.”
She wondered how much money had gone into the construction of the place but she was too well brought up to ask.
“Tell you what,” he said. “You go look around. I’ll get on the sat phone and see if I can’t raise somebody at the airport. Bathroom’s down that hall.”
In the bathroom, Anita took one look at herself in the mirror and shuddered. With the goose egg on her forehead, her dirt-streaked face and wild hair, she could be the winner in a Halloween fright contest. But she was alive. Her headache had subsided and she was alone in the wilds of Hawaii with a man whose v
oice alone made her want to take off her clothes. She shook her head. Turning away from her scary face, she did a quick assessment of the bathroom and saw all the conveniences of home. The glistening black tiles in the shower’s walls were reminiscent of the black sand she’d viewed near Kilauea. She dearly wanted to jump into it and get clean, but she needed to ask Blair if his absent friend might mind first.
She found him outside talking on a phone hooked up to a contraption that looked like a flat square piece of beige plastic.
“Damn!” she heard him say into the headset. “Okay. Good to know. I’ll call back in the morning.”
She wondered why he looked so grim. “What’s up?”
He ran a hand over his face. He looked as bone weary as she had in the mirror. “Apparently the storm that made us crash, also hit Lihue. The airport’s shut down.”
“Oh, no.”
“Wind blew around everything not tied down—small planes, choppers.”
It was as if the gods were conspiring to keep her on the island. “What about the resort?”
“Extensive damage. Phones and electricity out for now.”
“Wow,” she said softly. “I need to call my parents. Can I use that?”
“Sure, here.”
He handed off the headset and showed her how to dial.
“What’s this big square thing?” she asked.
“Antenna. I’m going to hobble inside. Be back in a few, talk as long as you need to.”
Watching him grimace as he moved made her concern rise. She wondered if he was more injured than he’d admitted.
She called her father and the first thing he asked was how she was handling the breakup with Greg. “I’m okay. It’s not every day you get dumped by text.”
“He did it by text!” he yelled. “He didn’t have the balls to tell you to your face? What the hell’s the matter with him?”
She really didn’t want to talk about this but had no choice. “I don’t know, Daddy.”
She let him rant and rave for a few more moments before cutting in. “The tour helicopter I was in this morning crashed.”
“What!”
After telling him about the chopper crash and how she lost her phone, she repeatedly assured him that she was okay. Over the next ten minutes, she answered all of his questions about where she was, the identity of the pilot and whether she was worried about being alone with him. Truthfully, she was, but not in the sense her father meant, and of course she kept that to herself. They also discussed the storm’s effects on the airport and resort, and how soon she might be able to make it back to civilization. She gave him her best estimate based on what Blair had learned from talking to the airport people. Her father wasn’t pleased with the non-definitive answer, forcing her to assure him yet again that she was safe and would remain so.
“Will you call Mom and tell her about the crash and that I’m okay?” For Diane, news of the crash would be secondary. Her main focus would be the breakup with Greg. Anita was sure she’d be accused of being the cause behind his decision and she was in no mood to try and convince her mother otherwise.
“I’ll call her and I expect you to call me at least twice a day until you get back to the resort so I’ll know you’re okay.”
“I will.”
“Promise me.”
“I promise.”
“Holding you to that, baby girl.”
They spoke for a few more minutes and she ended the call.
Sitting in the silence afterward, she was suddenly overcome by how much Greg and then the crash had taken out of her. As a result, she was so morose, she wanted to have a pity party, but knowing that would only make things worse, she shook it off, pulled herself together and went inside.
Chapter 8
He had the nerve to be coming down the hall with a towel wrapped around his bare waist and another in his hand he was using to dry his hair. He’d taken a shower! But Anita’s shock played second fiddle to the sight of his glistening-clean gladiator body. She’d already been mesmerized by the sculpted arms and shoulders. This was her first look at his lean, powerful legs. He was so gorgeously made he left her breathless.
“You talk to your parents?”
Anita realized she’d been staring and from the knowing look on his face, he knew it, too.
“Uhm, yes. Talked to my dad. He’s going to call my mom and maybe hire a hit man to take care of Greg.”
“I like your dad. Help yourself to the shower. Water should be still hot.”
The thought of basking in hot water until she was clean again was like being told she’d just hit the California lottery. “Your friend wouldn’t have any female clothing around that I can put on when I’m done, would he? These are shot.” She looked down at the stained and no longer white capris.
“No female clothing for sure, but go wash up and I’ll see what I can find. You can toss your stuff into the washer later if you like.”
Nodding her thanks and trying not to think about the effects the gladiator body was having on her senses, she slipped by him and hurried down the hall.
Making use of the available shampoo and soap, she showered quickly because she didn’t know how long the hot water would last. When she was done, she swore she’d never felt so clean. She dried off with the clean towel apparently left by him for her on a hook on the door and when she finished, she wrapped it around herself before leaving the steam-filled room.
Steve, wearing a clean tank and shorts borrowed from Ferg’s closet, was seated at the kitchen table winding a long bandage around his bum knee when she returned. Wrapped in the towel with her arms and legs bare, she looked fresh as morning dew. Hot, too. At the sight of her, his body reacted in typical male fashion and he was glad to be sitting down so the evidence of his desire stayed hidden. The thought that it wouldn’t take more than a slight tug on the towel to let him feast on her in a slow unhurried fashion added to the hardness between his thighs. Refocusing his attention on wrapping his knee, he asked without looking up, “How was the shower?”
“Wonderful. How’s your knee?”
“Be better after I get it wrapped. Headache’s mostly gone, too.”
“So’s mine. Wish I could say the same thing about this ostrich egg on my forehead.”
He gave the lump a visual assessment. “Makes you look very Klingon-ish.”
Anita rolled her eyes. “Did you find me some clothes?”
“A T-shirt and some shorts that’ll be way too big, but I found a tie you can use for a belt. They’re in the bedroom on the bed.”
“Thanks.” The quiet intensity in his gaze hypnotized her so thoroughly and so well, she couldn’t move and admittedly, didn’t want to.
He asked softly, “You hungry?”
She was, but for more than food. The erotic thought shook her because she’d never considered herself to be that kind of woman before. “Are you cooking?”
He didn’t respond at first, but the heat flowing between them didn’t need words. “I can, if that’s what you want. You know we’re talking about more than food. Right, Counselor?”
“I do.”
She watched him rise to his feet and walk to where she stood. Looking up into his burning gaze, she admitted softly, “I’ve never done anything like this before…I mean with someone I barely know.”
A small smile crept free. “Just think of it as part of the adventure.” He reached up and traced a finger over her lips. She felt herself shaking.
“If this isn’t what you want, just say so,” he whispered. “Yes, I’ll be disappointed but I’d never force you into something you don’t want to do.”
He bent and slid a kiss over her earlobe. “But know this, if it is what you want, I plan to make love to you in every room in this house, Counselor. Outside, too.”
&nb
sp; Anita almost came then and there. His lips were meandering slowly over the side of her throat and jawline. The small sparks of desire they kindled and left in their wake made her close her eyes and remind herself to breathe.
“So, yes, or no?”
Her knees were weak as butter and her will, gone. She’d only been with one man in her life. Greg. And he had never started their lovemaking this way. Blair’s slow lingering kisses coaxed her senses into life gently, sweetly. He seemed to be inviting her, wooing her, letting her bloom and warm herself like a sunflower in the sunshine. Greg had always seemed to be in a rush to get her undressed and into bed. He’d never taken the time to bring her to ready like this wild man of Kauai seemed intent upon doing and, as a result, she was more ready than she’d ever been before. His traveling hands were equally languid. The tail of the towel around her body was moving scandalously over the under curve of her hip. She felt the heat from his hand singeing her skin.
Steve wanted to touch and taste every inch of her. Concentrating for the moment on her sassy mouth, he teased his tongue over the corner of her lips until she took it in and let him savor the sweetness within. His hand moving the towel over her equally sassy behind slid beneath to make contact with her still-damp skin and his manhood tightened appreciatively. He could kiss her until the end of time and it would never be enough. The initial shyness he had sensed in her at the outset had given way to willing participation. Her soft gasps, the way she purred when his hand captured the soft weight of her hips—and offered him the small hollow of her throat so he could place hot flicks from the tip of his tongue against it—added more fire to his growing need.