Caught in the Surf (6 page)

Powerful didn’t begin to describe him, she realized. She was short but stacked and fit, and not feather-light by any means. Yet Casey had lifted her easily, and the way his hands were sliding across her backside…she squeezed with her legs, and his hands explored her ass more thoroughly.

He hadn’t shaved, so his jaw was stubbled with golden-red fuzz. Before she knew what was happening, her palm was smoothing along his cheek, across his jawline and back up to his cheek. His face was getting closer, closer, and her heart was stuttering, hammering one moment and stopping the other. His eyes, palest blue and mesmerizing, held hers, waiting for her to demur.
 

Yet Lani knew she wasn’t about to put a halt to this; she’d never felt so alive, so safe. She’d always had to be strong, had to survive, had to protect herself. Even with Rafael she hadn’t felt safe. Provided for, yes. Not alone, yes. Protected? Safe? Able to be vulnerable? No.

Augments against? She barely knew Casey; she didn’t even know his last name. But somehow, for some unfathomable reason, she instinctively trusted him, and that was good enough. She’d learned early on to trust her judgement when it came to people. Her gut told her when someone was shady, untrustworthy, or dangerous. And, except for the one glaring except of Rafe, her instincts had never led her astray. Perhaps that was why this thing with Casey was so scary. She wanted him, and wanted to trust her instincts, which were telling her Casey was the real deal, kind, generous, compassionate, and trustworthy. But now, after Rafe’s sudden and surprising betrayal, she was gun-shy. She no longer completely trusted her instincts.
 

If she was to let whatever was happening with Casey just…happen, what would it be like? Maybe it would be momentary, a once or twice thing, a one-night stand. That wasn’t how Lani normally did things, but then, for her, it had been Rafe for her entire adult life, so there was no “normally” for her. This was uncharted territory for her. Was it moving too fast? Should she feel the kind of all-consuming desire for Casey that she did?

The desire was overwhelming. She was lost in it, drowning in it, subsumed by it. If he carried her back into the inn and to her room right now, she wouldn’t stop him.
 

On cue, however, her stomach gurgled so loudly Casey laughed and set her down, somewhat reluctantly, perhaps. She forced her own disappointment away and let him lead her on foot across the island to a beach-side café.
 

After they’d ordered, Casey leaned back in his chair and dug his lighter out of his pocket, spinning the wheel idly with his thumb. “So, Lani. You feel better about the future?”

She gave a half-laugh, a sighing huff. “I feel better, but not about the future. Unfortunately, surfing doesn’t actually solve problems. I still have no idea where I’m going to live or how, but I suppose I
am
more hopeful that something will work out.”

“You want to know what I think you should do?” Casey flicked the wheel so a spurt of flame pierced the early evening golden glow.

“Sure,” Lani said, expecting a smart-ass answer. “Enlighten me.”

He pocketed the lighter and leaned forward, covering her hands with his. “I think you should stay on Seeker’s Island and give surfing lessons. Locals and tourists alike would pay good money to be taught how to surf by a world champion.” His thumb rubbed circles around her knuckles. “I’d be your first customer.”

“I thought you were broke.”
 

He smirked. “I am. But I’ve got a shipment of supplies to ferry tomorrow, and that’ll put me in a pretty good spot for a while. Plus, I’ve got some sky tours set up for the weekend.”

“Sky tours?”

“Yeah, nothing crazy, just some flyovers of the island, things like that. Gonna take one guy out and let him fish off the floats for a bit.”

At that moment, a parcel delivery man, decked out in too-short shorts and a too-tight shirt, emerged from the main dining room, glancing around the outdoor patio with a stack of letters in his hand.
 

“Kelly Connelly?” The delivery man’s voice was loud and brash. “Lookin’ for Kelly Connelly. She here?”

Casey shifted in his seat and scratched his forehead with his index finger. If Lani didn’t know better, she’d think he was flushing either from embarrassment or from anger, perhaps a bit of both.

“Goddamn Henry Sykes,” Casey muttered.

“What?” Lani asked, not sure if she’d heard him right.

Casey just shook his head and waved at the delivery man, who came over and handed the stack of letters to Lani. “Here you go, Miss Connelly. I just need a signature here—”

Lani frowned in confusion. “I’m not Kelly Connelly. I don’t know her.”

Casey growled. “I’m Kelly Connelly,” he rumbled, snatching the letters and the signature pad and scrawling his name. “Now fuck off, Jack.”

The delivery guy, Jack, frowned at Casey. “Wait a sec, Casey.
You’re
Kelly Connelly? I’ve had these damn letters for a week, thinking Kelly was a girl and she’d come in for them. I been looking over the whole damn island for—well, for you, I guess.”

Casey shot Jack a glare that had the short, overweight, older man stumbling backward. “Yeah, Kelly Connelly, K-C…Casey. Now fuck off. Please.”

“No problem—”

“If you call me Kelly, you’ll be shitting teeth for a week.”

Lani stifled a snicker behind her hand, and then had to cover her laughter with a sip of ice water.

Casey glared at her. “What the hell is so funny?”

Lani let her laughter out. “You. You’re funny. You’re threatening that poor man for no reason.”

Jack had taken the interruption to scurry away, so now Casey’s ire was directed at her. “I hate that name. It’s why I go by Casey.”

Lani laughed again. “There’s nothing wrong with your name. I like it. I think I’ll call you Kelly from now on.”

His nostrils flared. “You’d better not. I’m serious. I
hate
that name. I ain’t a bloody fuckin’ girl.”

“Come on, Kelly. It’s just a name. I think it’s cute.”

Casey let out a stream of curse words under his breath. “Fuckin’ Henry Goddamn Sykes.”

Lani cocked an eyebrow at him. “Why do you keep saying that?”

“Henry Sykes is my buddy in Ireland. He thinks, like you, apparently, that I should just own my name, so he makes a point of sending me letters addressed to my real, full name wherever I go. For this exact reason, I think, since people always seem to find out one way or another, usually because of fuckin’ Henry’s fuckin’ stupid-ass letters.” Casey slugged back his ice water as if wishing it was something stronger, crunching ice and glaring out at the ocean.

Lani reached out and took one of his hands in both of hers. “I’m kidding, Casey. I won’t call you Kelly if you really don’t like it. Especially if you agree to stop referring to me as a pixie.”

Casey relented, grinning at her. “I don’t know. I might be willing to let you call me Kelly if that’s the deal.”

Lani just huffed in irritation. “You’re incorrigible.”

He winked at her. “You have no idea.”

Their food came then, and they enjoyed a relaxed dinner together, their conversation wandering from their histories to life on an island, to some of Casey’s milder and funnier stories of his time as a Ranger.

Eventually, long after the sun had set, Casey paid the bill, and they strolled through the lowering twilight gloom. Somehow she found herself leaning into Casey’s side as they walked, his hand draped down her side to rest easily on her hip. She let her arm snake around his waist, let her hands slip up under the trailing hem of his shirt. Her fingers skated up and down the hot skin of his side, around the waist of his jeans.
 

Then they were standing in the hallway between their rooms, an awkward silence descending between them.

“Look, Lani. I’d invite you in to my room, but…” Casey shifted his weight from foot to foot, staring at Lani’s hand cradled in one of his. “I just don’t want you to think I’m pressuring you to move on before you’re ready, or…something like that.”
 

Lani frowned up at him. “Did I act like I thought you were pressuring me earlier?”

He shrugged. “No, I just want you to be…sure.”

Lani stepped closer to him, close enough that her breasts brushed his chest. “Sure about what, Casey?”
 

“This. You and me.”

“Why wouldn’t I be sure about it?”

Casey sighed. “You’re probably gonna take this the wrong way, but try not to. From what you’ve told me, you’ve only ever been with that Rafael guy. You just met me. I don’t want you to do this with me as a rebound and then regret it. I’m not saying you would, I’m just…I guess I’m trying to protect you from maybe making a decision you’re not sure about.”

“Is this what you want?” Lani asked. “Is this usual for you?”

Casey looked away, then back. “How about you come in and have a drink with me, and we’ll talk about this.” He opened his door, and Lani followed him in.

He poured them each a tumbler of whiskey from a square bottle and added a few ice cubes, handing Lani her glass and leaning back against the refrigerator.

Lani took a sip, then set it down, moving toward Casey. “I don’t think I need to talk about it. I know I just asked you some questions, but the answers don’t really matter, honestly. I know you want this, and I don’t care if this is a normal thing for you. I don’t know where this is going for us, but I’m willing to take this one day at a time. I know I want this with you. I really do. It’s not a rebound. If this had been a few months ago, maybe it would have been. Now? It’s me moving on.”

Casey took a long drink from his glass, then set it down on top of the fridge and wrapped his arms around Lani. “Just to be clear, what is the ‘this’ we’re talking about, here?”

She stared up at him, need coiling low in her belly. “Kiss me and find out.”

Casey hesitated for a heartbeat, his pale eyes searching hers, then slid his hands down her back to cup her backside, lifted her up slowly, easily. His lips touched hers, gently at first. Just lips, initially, just his mouth on hers, tasting her lips, discovering. She wrapped her arms around his neck, exploring his nape and shoulders, holding him against her mouth, her legs tight around his waist.
 

She’d never liked being held like this before, but now…she couldn’t imagine it any other way.
 

It was a long, delving first kiss. His tongue slipped between her lips and touched her teeth, found her tongue and tasted it. His hands roamed her backside, spurring the trembling heat in her belly into waves of wracking desire.
 

When the kiss broke, she leaned back and let him support her weight as she unbuttoned his shirt, pulled the sleeves off. She smiled greedily at the sight of his body, of the hard slabs and furrowed ridges of muscle. She smoothed her palms over his shoulders, down his chest to his stomach, turning her hands fingertips-down.
 

They were moving, suddenly, as Casey strode toward the bed with Lani still wrapped around him. He twisted in place, sat down on the edge of the bed with Lani now sitting on his knees. His fingers brushed up her knees to her thighs, tugging the hem of her dress up as he went. She lifted slightly so the hem slid from beneath her butt, and then he was lifting the fabric over her head and tossing it to the floor.
 

He leaned back, propping his hands on the bed, and stared at her. His chest was rising and falling as he sucked in deep breaths, his eyes going heavy and hot as he gazed at her.
 

Lani blushed under his scrutiny. “I didn’t have any sexy lingerie, so I went with a bikini. Best I could do under short notice.”

Casey sat forward, running his hands from knees to hips to ribs, and then his hands paused there, hesitating. “Lani, you’re the sexiest woman I’ve ever seen. You don’t need lingerie to turn me on. You do that just by being, just by breathing and being who you are.”

His hands slid around her back, down her spine, then back up her sides, pausing at her ribs again. Lani reached up to the middle of her back where the skimpy bikini top was tied. She tugged at the knot, felt the weight of her breasts do the work of untying the top the rest of the way. The triangular bits of fabric fell away, and Lani had to fight her nerves, her instinct to cover herself with her arms. She kept her hands on her thighs, waiting. Casey wasn’t breathing, and his hands tensed on her ribs. Lani reached up once more, this time to pull the bobby pins out of her hair, then arched her back and shook her hair out.
 

This time, Casey reacted. He growled in his chest, and as Lani was running her fingers through her hair she felt a hot wet touch on the side of her breast. She moaned high in her throat, and her hand shot out to cup the back of Casey’s head as he laved kisses around the circumference of her breast, then finally, finally, ran his tongue over her nipple. His fingers found her other breast, and then she was the one barely breathing, gasping as he pinched and kissed, thumbed and licked.
 

Lani scooted back on his knees, seeking access to his belt. She unbuckled it slowly, peeled it out of the loops, and set it aside. Her fingers found the snap of his jeans, then the zipper, and then she was rising in the air as he lifted up to slide the pants off, kicking them free, and he was naked beneath her.
 

Her breath hitched in her throat as her fingers closed around his erection. Judging by the feel of him in her hands alone, the unbelievable size of the man was consistent, that was for damn sure. She forced her eyes open and looked down. The sight of him, pink and rigid and veined and huge, made her whimper with hunger for him. Her eyes were locked wide open, and her fingers were skimming over him, up and down his length, around his incredible thickness.
 

Then she met his eyes, and her hand froze on him as she saw the worry in his eyes.

“What is it, Casey?” she asked.

“You’re just so tiny, Pixie. I don’t want to hurt you.” His voice was thick, rough.

Lani smiled at him and resumed her stroking of his erection. “I know I’m short, Casey, but I’m all woman, and I’m not fragile.”