CHAPTER FOUR #3
“If I am,” he said softly, each word a sin, “why are you still standing there, staring at me like you wish it was you instead of her?”
Because I couldn’t move.
Because I was caught.
Because some part of me wanted exactly what he promised.
“I just wanted quiet,” I said, my voice low and brittle with a mix of lingering shame and a rising tide of anger I didn’t quite understand.
I looked at him. Really looked.
“And clearly, this isn’t it.”
He laughed.
A short, sharp bark of sound that didn’t match the lazy lines of his body. It sliced through the hush of the beach like a knife through silk, too loud in the night air, too confident.
“Quiet?” he echoed, dragging the word out like it tasted good on his tongue. “On Kaua’i?” He shook his head, dark hair falling across his forehead, wild and beautiful. “This island hums with activity. Especially after dark.”
His eyes slanted toward the girl beside him. She was fully dressed now, arms wrapped tight around herself, her expression carved from awkwardness and retreat. She looked like she wanted to disappear into the sand. I didn’t blame her.
“Isn’t that right, Anna?”
The girl mumbled something that didn’t quite reach me. Her voice was thin, her body language shrinking.
But he wasn’t looking at her anymore.
His gaze turned back to me, and something in it sharpened. A narrowing. A shift.
“So,” he said, eyes dragging over me like a slow burn. “What’s your story, little Aussie? Lose your way from the land of kangaroos and polite smiles?”
He made it sound like a joke. But it wasn’t. It was a jab, veiled in silk, designed to sting.
The way he said little Aussie… it shouldn’t have affected me. But it did. The words were spoken in that same low murmur, brushed with something intimate, almost reverent. Like he was trying on the sound of it. Like he’d already decided he’d be saying it again.
My stomach clenched.
“I’m Luna,” I said, forcing my voice steady, lifting my chin just enough to match the weight of his stare. “And I’m not lost. I’m staying at the resort.”
My fingers curled into fists at my sides. “And I’m leaving.”
His smirk twisted, a dangerous curve of lips that felt like the first line of a trap being set.
“Luna,” he repeated, drawing it out like he was tasting the syllables. “Pretty name. Suits a moonlit encounter.”
The air between us tightened.
It was like the world shrank, the sound of the ocean fading beneath the thrum in my ears. The girl beside him faded, too, forgotten, ignored. There was only his voice, his eyes, his presence… stretching around me like a net I hadn’t seen until it was too late.
He took a step forward.
I instinctively moved back.
The sand was cool beneath my bare feet, but the heat from his gaze chased across my skin, crawling over me like it had fingers.
“You know what I liked best about you catching us?” His voice was soft, unhurried, the kind of tone that didn’t need to raise itself to command attention. “You could’ve looked away. But you didn’t. You stayed frozen. Staring.”
He smiled then, slow and terrible.
“There’s something dangerous about a girl who can’t look away. Something that begs to be tested.”
My cheeks flamed. I could feel the heat rise up my neck, pricking under my skin. “I was shocked,“ I said, my voice a little too fast, too defensive. “I didn’t know what to do. I don’t make a habit of—of walking in on strangers.”
I stopped.
Because it sounded stupid. Because he was still watching me like I’d handed him a confession instead of a defense.
He smiled again, slow and deliberate.
“No,” he said softly. “of course you don’t.”
There was something indulgent in his tone, like he was picturing it. Unraveling me.
“But,” he continued, stepping just close enough for me to feel it, his presence, his heat, his intention, “not everyone gets front-row seats to me, Luna. You should consider yourself lucky. Most girls only get to dream about watching.”
I bristled. “I don’t consider myself lucky,” I snapped, voice sharper now, splintering with indignation. “I consider myself mortified. And I’d like to go.”
The moment stretched.
Then his eyes flicked away. Finally. He turned toward Anna, who now tugged on his arm, her face flushed and impatient.
He glanced back at me one last time. A flick of those eyes, dark and unreadable, that held me still even as his body began to walk away. There was something in that look, amusement, yes, but also something else. A challenge. A dare. A quiet promise.
“You better hope there is no next time.” he said, voice low and silk-smooth, “Otherwise I’ll make sure you don’t just watch.”
Then he turned fully, slipping his arm around Anna’s waist, and they walked down the curve of the beach, swallowed by the night and the shadows of the resort’s palm-lined paths.
I stood there, heart pounding in my chest, still breathing the air he’d left behind.
Still burning with everything I didn’t understand.
I watched them go.
His arm draped over her waist, hers limp at her side, as if the thrill of it all had already faded.
Their silhouettes slipped into the shadows, swallowed by the palms and crooked pathways of the resort, as if the whole thing had been nothing but a hallucination brought on by too much moonlight and not enough sleep.
But my heart didn’t get the memo.
It still thundered, wild and uneven, like it didn’t know whether to race from fear or fascination. My breath, shallow and tight, scraped against my ribs. My mind spun, trying to make sense of what had just happened. Five minutes. Ten, maybe. That’s all it had been.
And yet it felt like I’d been caught in some kind of emotional undertow. Dragged down. Drowned. Disoriented.
His voice still clung to me like ocean salt on skin. Low, smooth. That mocking American accent, lazy and sharp all at once. The kind that sounded like he didn’t care whether he was flirting or threatening. As if both were the same thing to him.
“If you stare that hard, I’ll start thinking you want a turn.”
“Curiosity’s addictive. First you watch. Then you wonder what it feels like.”
“Why are you still standing there, staring at me like you wish it was you instead of her?”
Each word replayed itself. I hated how they had burned themselves into my thoughts. My name… he way he’d said it, slow and almost reverent, like he’d peeled it from me without permission and now carried it in his pocket.
I turned away from the sea, dragging in a breath that stuck in my throat.
The beach that had felt tranquil now buzzed with an energy I couldn’t shake. The crash of waves, once soothing, now echoed like a cruel reminder of how unbalanced I suddenly felt. My feet sank into the warm, grainy sand as I retraced my steps. But the peace I’d come looking for was gone.
Replaced by him.
By the weight of his gaze. The deliberate smirk. The way he’d moved, so unapologetic, so effortless, like he owned the night and everything that dared move within it.
I didn’t even know his name.
But I knew his hands had just been on someone else. I’d seen the aftermath, the wrinkled dress, the tension in the girl’s spine, the quick flick of her eyes.
And yet… I couldn’t stop thinking about him.
I walked the winding path through the gardens, lit in soft amber glows from the torches half-buried in the ground. Thick foliage hemmed me in, hibiscus, frangipani, lush green leaves heavy with dew. The night was warm, but the humidity clung to me like guilt, like shame. Like memory.
Each footstep brought his image back to me in sharper, crueler clarity.
The way he’d looked at me, like I wasn’t real. Or maybe like I was too real. The only thing in focus while the rest of the world blurred behind me.
He hadn’t flinched.
He hadn’t apologized.
He’d just… watched.
Mocked.
Played.
I reached my door without remembering the steps it had taken to get there. My fingers fumbled with the keycard, slippery against my palm. It took three tries before the lock clicked and the door sighed open.
I slipped inside, shut it fast, and leaned against it, like the wood could hold me up better than my own legs could.
The air conditioning slapped against my overheated skin, raising goosebumps along my arms. The room was cool, crisp, a perfect contrast to the sticky, suffocating night. It smelled faintly of lavender and ocean linen, a natural kind of comfort.
But there was no comfort in me.
I slid down until I was crouched on the floor, back against the door, knees drawn up, arms wrapped around myself. I didn’t cry. I wasn’t sad.
I was… shaken.
As if something had been stirred in me, something I didn’t recognize. Not attraction. Not exactly. It was darker than that. More primitive. It wasn’t about wanting him.
It was about the way he made me feel… seen. Inconveniently, obscenely seen. And then discarded just as fast. As if my emotions were a toy he could pick up, examine, then toss back onto the sand.
I hated that he’d gotten under my skin.
I hated that I still wanted to know who he was.
And worse, I hated that I had a feeling I’d be seeing him again.
Because nothing about that boy screamed one-time encounter.
He was a warning dressed up like a promise.
I scrambled to my feet and crept out onto the lanai.
The night swallowed me whole.
Thick, humid air clung to my skin like regret.
The wooden boards beneath my bare feet were still warm from the sun, creaking softly as I moved.
Beyond the railing, the ocean stretched out into oblivion, a black, endless maw where sky and sea became one.
The waves murmured low and steady in the distance, a rhythmic hush that should’ve comforted me.
But it didn’t.
Because I didn’t see the stars.
I didn’t see the ocean.
I saw him.
His face, carved from moonlight and shadow. That arrogant tilt of his jaw. The way he’d smirked like he knew something I didn’t, something I’d never be allowed to know. And those eyes... dark, inscrutable, heavy with some secret language only he spoke. They haunted me.
I leaned on the railing, the wood rough against my palms, the night clinging to me like wet silk. My breath came uneven. Slow, then sharp. He’d gotten under my skin, like a sliver of glass, invisible until I moved, and then all I could feel was the ache.
Who the hell was he?
Just some guy?
No. Not just anything.
He had that look, boy still on the edge of becoming man, shoulders built from sports or fighting or both, the kind of physical ease that came with being worshipped or feared.
He spoke with every word soaked in cocky indifference.
He wore confidence like a second skin, wrinkled and dangerous.
It wasn’t the kind you earned. It was the kind you inherited, like blood money or privilege.
The kind of guy who’d never been told no and wouldn’t have listened if he had.
I hated guys like that.
I also couldn’t stop thinking about him.
A hot prickle rose up my neck. Embarrassment. Mortification. But under it, coiled and unwelcome, was fascination. I didn’t want it. I didn’t invite it. But it stirred, anyway.
The way he’d looked at me. Not just at my face. Not just at my body.
At me.
Like he saw something. Something I didn’t even know I was showing. Like I was a puzzle he’d already solved.
And that voice...
Rough velvet. A sin dressed in silk. He’d called me princess with that mocking grin, and somehow it had landed like a kiss and a slap at the same time. And when he said my name it had dripped from his lips like a secret he’d stolen.
I gripped the railing harder, knuckles whitening. My mind was a cyclone of questions I didn’t want answers to.
What was his name?
Why had he looked at me like I was the most interesting thing he’d ever seen?
Would I see him again?
The last question curled like smoke inside me, seductive and sharp. I hated that part of myself, the part that leaned in instead of backing away. The part that wondered what he’d say if we were alone again. What he’d do. How far he’d push.
“You better hope there is no next time. Otherwise I’ll make sure you don’t just watch.”
I shook my head, trying to dislodge the storm.
This was insane.
I was in paradise. My mother was getting married tomorrow, and I was supposed to be focused on family, on blending into this new life she was building. I was supposed to be calm, open, grateful.
Instead, I was obsessing over a stranger I’d caught mid-sin on a beach. A stranger who had turned my humiliation into his playground.
I turned away from the sea.
The room was cool when I stepped back in, the air conditioning brushing goosebumps along my arms. Sheer curtains danced in the breeze, casting moving shadows on the floor like ghost hands. I climbed into bed, sheets crisp and cold against my skin.
Sleep didn’t come.
I stared at the ceiling, my thoughts looping, the images replaying like a scene from a film I hadn’t agreed to watch.
Him.
The low drag of his voice.
The way he’d buttoned his pants without a hint of shame.
The girl with him, forgotten, discarded, a prop in a performance I hadn’t asked to witness.
“Consider yourself lucky.”
Was I?
Because I didn’t feel lucky.
I felt… marked.
Like he’d branded me with his attention and walked away with a piece of me I didn’t know I’d offered.
Eventually, exhaustion pulled at me, heavy and cloying. The edges of my mind blurred, thoughts softening, smoothing out like silk over skin. My last conscious image wasn’t my mother’s smiling face or the wedding dress hanging in her room.
It was his.
That smirk. That voice. That unreadable look in his eyes just before he vanished into the dark.
A look that promised chaos.
And possibly, something worse.
Or something better.
I didn’t know yet which scared me more.