Hot-Blooded (7 page)

He waited for the punch line. It didn’t come.

Oh. She was serious.

He nodded. “Bow to the wave. Got it.” Was she one of those militant Native nut jobs?

Did it really matter?

He slid his gaze from the curves of her breasts to the flat abs, then deeper south. No, it most certainly did
not
matter.

“You ready?” Her voice softened and warmth bloomed in her cheeks. The sun caught her eyes and sparked something akin to pride. She lowered her gaze before the seascape as if submitting to a master.

Much as she proclaimed she didn’t want to be here, she absolutely did. Maybe not with him, or working, but her reverence for the sea was obvious. Keahilani was a true wave rider.

And in a few hours, he’d convert her into a Blake rider.

Chapter Six

This guy was full of shit.

At the end of Blake’s two-hour surfing lesson, Keahilani trudged up the shore, board under her arm. He was no more a
kook
than Bane was. Yeah, he ate it about twenty times and appeared to have trouble getting on the board for the first hour, but she saw through the act to the talent hidden beneath.

He had totally surfed before, and she was willing to bet her bikini he was almost as good at it as she was.

Exhausted, she tossed her board to the sand and sat on it. Blake joined her. Normally, the closeness of working with people in the water unnerved her. She had to touch them sometimes to demonstrate how to position the right way or to drag them to the surface after a wipeout. But this guy? He was a walking magnet, luring her iron willpower closer with nothing more than a look. She had to snag a mental life jacket more than once to keep from going under.

He made no bones about staring at her. Not a hint of shyness or modesty. The attraction was mutual, though strictly casual. She kept it professional on the waves, but when they took breaks, she let her body language do the talking.

Now was no exception. She made a show of squeezing out her hair, giving him plenty of female real estate to consider.

Blake snapped out a wicked smile that released an adorable dimple trapped in his left cheek. “You’re a bangin’
Betty
, Kea.”

She would have laughed if not for the involuntary wince at the nickname. “It’s Keahilani. Nobody calls me Kea.” Mahina had always told her to be proud of her name and the heritage behind it.
Fire from heaven
suited both of her personalities well.

“I’ll be the first, then.” His cocky attitude both annoyed her and wore down her defenses.

She looked away. “I prefer Keahilani.”

“Okay, Kea.”

A smile cracked her lips, and she threw a handful of sand at his legs. He laughed.

“So, when were you planning on telling me you knew how to surf? Sooner? Later? Or not at all?”

A hint of red diffused his face, and the block of ice in her chest melted a little. Blake was a damn fine specimen. A few loose locks whipped his face as the wind picked up. His hair knotted on the top of his head, she couldn’t tell how long it was, but it was obvious he spent a lot of time outdoors. His
haole
skin was tanned, though not as dark as hers, and the yellow rivers scattered throughout his light brown hair were soft and sun-kissed rather than straw-like and processed.

And then there was his body. She ventured to guess he did physical work for a living. Maybe construction or something with boats. He took to the water like a fish, and those muscles had to come from somewhere.

“How’d you know?”

“Sixth sense.” Or maybe his too-quick reactions and failed attempts at covering them gave him away.

“I actually came into your shop to buy some fins for a snorkeling jag over on Molokini. When you walked out, I changed my mind.”

“Oh?” Heat trickled through the cavern of her chest to the crux between her legs and pulsed in a steady thrum. She crossed her feet at the ankles and leaned back on her palms, giving him full visual access to her slowly drying body. Blake might make a nice stress reliever before tonight’s meeting.

He made no attempt to hide his blatant fixation with her breasts. She ran a hand between them to mop up a stray droplet and brought it to her mouth. Closing her lips slowly around two fingers, she shut her eyes and inhaled deeply as she sucked the salt from the digits.

He swallowed. “I might have planned to seduce you.”

A laugh erupted from her. Like he could. But that was Pele’s laughter. Not Keahilani’s. She not so coyly covered her mouth. “If anyone’s doing the seducing, it’s me.”

The air between them steamed. His lids snapped wide, fast as a camera’s aperture sneaking a photo on the sly, and he lurched forward. Half a second before his lips hit hers, the crisp sting of her crack across his face stopped him. Her shoulders heaved and her hand burned, but he deserved it.

He worked his loose jaw between a thumb and finger, grinned, and dove right back into her personal space for round two. “Let’s try that again. This time without the slap.”

Gut tripping over itself for more of his smug, disgustingly hot attitude, she fired off another strike. The first one was designed to warn him. The second was meant to cause pain. He shook his head hard. Now it was her turn to grin.

Bracing a hand on the sand beside her, he dipped in, two inches shy of her lips. Though he didn’t touch her, she flinched, expecting retaliation. He held the pose, stealing her air, focused intently on her. Too long. Too damn close. Too tempting.

Her motor revved.

Determination flared his nostrils. “You keep hitting me like that, and this’ll be over before we even start.” She followed his gaze downward to the thick outline of the cock pressing against the inside of his swim trunks.

Wild blood hissing and spitting in her veins, Keahilani grabbed a handful and squeezed. She shouldn’t take advantage of a client. It was wrong. Yet, at the same time,
this
was what she craved that her lackluster lays of late couldn’t give. This raging, sudden, totally inappropriate intimacy. With an unpredictable kick. His racing breath, defiant eyes … He was a sex-starved beast in bad need of mating. Like a stallion that refused to submit under the whip of a merciless horse breaker. Oh, the things she could do to break him. Blake’s proximity staged a hormone riot in her honor. She released him.

“Where to, lover?” she purred against his mouth. Heat bounced back at her on the crest of his exhalation.

He invaded her space so completely, she could almost taste the salt on his stubble. “I’d take you right here if I thought I could get away with it.” His words slit her lips with the sharpness of obsidian. “But you seem to enjoy your privacy, so I’ll do you the courtesy of buying you a hotel room for a couple hours.”

“Perfect.” She hopped to her feet. When he stood in front of her, she continued. “But, the only way you win me is if you can hold that erection from now until we get there.”

“Honey, that won’t be a problem.”

With her back to the beach bums lounging on the sand about thirty feet away, she clasped his dick through the trunks, pumped it a couple of times, and led him a few steps away by the flesh-leash. He stumbled after her.

“Pick up the boards. Keep them on either side of us.” That would keep nosy tourists from noticing they were up to no good as she dragged him around by his other head.

She let him go long enough to pick up his cargo, then resumed her position in front—right where she liked to be—and steered him away from the beach. As the sights, sounds, and smells of civilization loomed within the arms of the majestic West Maui Mountains, she turned and gave silent thanks to the ocean as Mahina had taught her.

That was when Blake pounced. Maintaining the boards in either hand, he crashed into her chest, swindling a kiss from her. She tightened her grip on him as the connection deepened, and he remained glued to her mouth. No tongue. No hands. His expert lips bumped while his pelvis ground to the tune of nearby breaking waves.

Blood roared in her ears. She disengaged, depriving herself of the sudden, intense desire that had holed up in her loins. “Not here,” she whispered against his mouth. If anyone recognized her—either as Keahilani or Pele—she’d be in big trouble.

“How much farther, baby?” His voice tightened, and his cock thickened under her command. “I need to get inside you. Now.” Leaning over, a welcome shadow protecting her from the harsh sun, he subtly lunged deeper into her hand.

She liked this guy. A lot.

Once they got to the nearest, overpriced resort hotel, she released him but kept a close watch on his erection out of the corner of her eye. Such a good boy. They trudged around the stone pool, snagged some neglected towels off abandoned lounge chairs to wrap up in, and headed to the open-air hotel check-in. Blake strategically placed the boards on his side as he talked to the attendant. Keahilani’s boy shorts grew wetter by the minute, and it had nothing to do with their earlier surfing lesson.

A few minutes later, they had a key, an elevator, and finally a door. The second it unlocked, she towed him in behind her by the dick, shoved the boards out of his hands into a loud clatter on the carpet, and clamped a leg around his hip. He didn’t bother kissing her this time. His hand tore down the front of her bottoms when their chests crashed.

A stab of irritation flared in her gut.
She
wanted control. He had no business dictating how this liaison would roll. Anger crested, but when his eager fingers rallied to get inside and his intention to pleasure her became evident, desire quickly soothed the bite of wrath’s poison. She melted. Good job too. The glut of natural lube would come in handy in about fifteen seconds.

Keahilani mauled his swim shorts—clawed at them until they came loose and lost their fight to gravity. Flip-flops launched into the air. Sand scattered around their bare feet and dug into overlapping skin. He snatched the mass of her damp hair, twisted it into a knot on the back of her head, and herded her to the balcony window. She laughed at his attempt to subdue her. Yanking back control, she pressed her bare breasts against the glass and waggled her ass at him. This tug-of-war promised to be the most fun she’d had in ages.

The shock of a slap on her backside rallied her lust to new heights. A bead of wetness took its time surfing down the inside of her thigh and paused above her knee. She swept up the liquid with an index finger and waved it between them, jerking it away when he tried to lick it. Instead, she swirled her tongue around the finger and rubbed her legs together, smearing the remains of the trail.

Another crack on the ass, this time on the other cheek. “You like it rough, Kea?” His hard, gravelly voice beside her ear loosened the dam and released another drop.

Why wouldn’t he fuck her? The anticipation was too much. Enough with the waiting.

“Probably more than you do.” She spun to face him, and pushed him onto the bed. His feet flew up. She crawled the length of his body and settled on his thighs for a quick tease. Then she shot forward and pinned him on all fours. “Here’s where we find out how badly you want it.”

She snatched the rubber band from his head and let the blondish-brown locks fall around his face. He thrust his hips up and rammed open her door. Because she wasn’t expecting it, the jolt produced an exquisite elixir of pain and pleasure, naughty and very nice, bitter and sweet. She cried out. The sound of her bellow was frightening at first, but it faded into a guttural moan as she commandeered the reins and surfed him like an untamed twenty-foot wave.

He knowingly stared up at her as if he had planned this all along. She should punch him for being a smug shit.

CRACK!

He laughed and spit blood on the white coverlet beside him as she shook out her fist. The coil inside her tightened to the brink of snapping. Blake sat up and threw her off him. She rolled off the bed to the floor. She stared up at him, furious, turned on beyond belief, seething. He hooked an arm under hers, dragged her to her feet and pushed her toward the window.

She resisted. With brute strength, he heaved her harder into the glass. Bones creaked. Muscles pulled. Inhibitions protested. He posed her without further resistance—only because she
allowed
him to—with arms and legs spread, breasts bared and flattened for the world to see. He grabbed her thighs, parted, and tugged them toward him. Naked ass tilted up, tits and hair-covered face to glass, she maintained the position. With a hip twist, she dared him to dive inside again. As long as she kept her identity hidden from the gawkers outside, why the hell not live dangerously?

He jabbed her open with his shaft once and pulled out. She inclined her head toward him and moaned. “You better fuck me now and finish me off within thirty seconds, or I’m gonna scream bloody murder and have everyone on this floor calling the cops to haul your ass away.”

His rough palm butted her mouth, cutting off her air supply. For a moment, she choked on the glut of fear and struggled violently against him. He was much bigger and stronger. He easily subdued her. The oxygen in her lungs dwindling and her questionable trust in him growing, she relaxed against him.