Chapter 13 #3
Ace kisses the way he surfs, steady and sure, as if he already knows where this is going and isn’t in any hurry to get there.
One hand settles at my waist, broad and warm, and the other cups my jaw.
Heat spills through me fast, from my mouth, down my throat, and across my chest, and I make the smallest sound against him before I can swallow it back.
He deepens the kiss slowly, giving me time to stop him.
I don’t.
I lean in further instead, tasting salt and him, and when his tongue brushes mine, my whole body answers.
A low, aching heat opens in my belly and spreads, my skin suddenly too tight, every nerve awake.
I press closer without meaning to, and he lets out a rough sound against my mouth that nearly takes my knees out from under me.
His hand tightens at my rear, pulling me in against him even more so that I feel the full length of him, and that sends my thoughts scattering.
God.
This is bad.
Not because I don’t want it. That’s the problem. I want it too much, more of him, of that careful mouth turning reckless on mine. And underneath that craving is the harder truth, the one that makes me pull back before I drown in it.
It isn’t just him—that’s what makes this risky. So I break the kiss. We’re both breathing harder now, my lips tingling, his eyes darker than they were thirty seconds ago.
“We shouldn’t,” I say, and the words come out thin with want.
Ace’s mouth curves, but there’s strain in it now too. “Strongly disagree.”
“Ace, you know—”
He leans in half an inch, forehead nearly touching mine, stealing my words, saying, “Tell me you didn’t want that.”
I can’t, which is answer enough.
The back door to the main house opens.
I jump away from him so fast I nearly tangle my own feet. North steps out of the house and stands on the veranda as if he’s been carved into the frame. His gaze moves from Ace to me, taking in everything in one quiet sweep—my swollen mouth, Ace too close, the charged air between us.
His face gives away almost nothing.
“Adelaide,” he says evenly. “Koa dropped some of your things off. Luca got to the box first.”
I blink at him. “Wait… what does that mean?”
North’s mouth shifts, just slightly. “It means you should come inside.”
I snatch my towel off the railing and wrap it around my waist like that somehow restores dignity to the situation.
“Right. Great. Very normal. Thank you.”
I walk up the path, trying not to look like I’ve just been kissed senseless in broad daylight. I rinse the sand off my feet at the little tap between the buildings, and I’m past North and almost at the door when I hear him say something low behind me.
I don’t catch the words, but I glance back anyway.
North is grinning now, properly. Ace is rubbing the back of his neck with the expression of a man who has been caught and is not remotely sorry about it. They look entirely too pleased with themselves, and the worst part is the sudden, wild awareness that these men share everything.
Absolutely everything. My face grows hotter, and I push open the door and disappear inside before I can make it worse.
Luca is on the couch, wearing nothing but shorts, and for one completely unhelpful second, all I can do is stare.
Bare chest. Muscles, a thin line of hair rushing down and under the front of his shorts.
Abs cut hard in the morning light coming through the glass.
He looks so sinful and happy about it, with zero shame.
And to make the situation somehow worse, he’s holding my purple lace bra over his chest with both hands, adjusting it with the kind of concentration usually reserved for bomb disposal.
He glances up. “It doesn’t fit me.”
I just stare at him harder, because my body is still halfway stuck on the fact that he’s shirtless and built like that, and now I’m apparently expected to process the bra too.
“I tried,” he says, and somehow he sounds genuinely disappointed by this outcome.
“Why,” I ask slowly, dragging my eyes up from his chest with actual effort, “did you try?”
“It was on top of the box.” He holds it out to me, and I take it, only to realize the underwire has snapped clean through the middle.
The cups are barely hanging on. And he has fixed this with a staple gun.
Four staples, neat little silver teeth across the center.
I hold it up. The staples catch the light.
“If I wore this,” I say, “I would be stabbed.”
“You’d be supported.”
“By office supplies.”
Luca leans back into the couch, completely unrepentant. “Engineering is about compromise.”
“It is not.”
“It absolutely is.”
I set the bra down very carefully, because I don’t need to lose an eye on top of everything else, and start going through the box.
Most of my stuff from the van is here. Folded roughly, but here.
Clothes. Books. My good dry shampoo. A random sock that I honestly thought had died.
My chest loosens a little at the sight of it all.
“Why is this here?” I ask.
“Koa figured it made more sense to get your things out of the van while it’s being worked on,” Luca says. “North sorted it.”
From somewhere deeper in the house, Ace’s voice carries out, “Luca.”
“I didn’t say anything.” He raises his voice without moving.
“You were about to.”
“That’s not a crime,” Luca shouts back.
I bite back a smile and keep digging through the box, and there it is again, that warm, dangerous little feeling that keeps catching me off guard in this house. The one that says these men have already made space for me without asking me to explain myself first.
Which is probably why it feels so risky.
North appears in the doorway from the deck a second later, and, absurdly, the room changes just because he’s in it. My lungs, traitors that they are, decide one deeper breath is necessary to try to reach his scent.
“Tires are taking longer,” he says, leaning against the frame, arms crossed. “Parts still need to come in from the mainland. Koa’s fixing a few other things while he waits.”
“He doesn’t have to do that.”
“He wants to.” North’s eyes stay on mine when he says it, as if this isn’t negotiable. “The sooner your van is done, the sooner you leave,” he says sarcastically.
I blink at him. “But he’ll get it done in this century, right?”
He chuckles as he crosses the room and stops beside me, close enough that the heat from his skin reaches mine. I’m still holding the box like a woman with complete control over herself, which is a fiction everyone here is politely allowing.
“How did you sleep?” he asks. Normal question.
“Fine,” I answer. “Actually… really well. The ocean helped.”
His hand comes to rest lightly on my arm. Just that, barely anything, yet a buzz rushes down my back and right to between my thighs as I remember how desperately I wanted to kiss him last night.
“You look better than yesterday,” he adds.
“Thanks.”
His thumb brushes once against my skin, and my whole body reacts. Heat rushes low and fast, sharp enough that I have to press my thighs together. One thumb. One slow stroke over my arm. That should not be enough to make my pulse kick and my skin feel too tight.
And yet…
North seems entirely aware of what he’s doing to me, which is probably why he waits a second before saying, “Luca’s taking you into town in a bit. You probably want to pick up some things for yourself.”
I clear my throat. “Right. Yes. That would be good.”
“You’ll be fine with him.”
“I know.”
His hand stays where it is for one second longer than it has to, teasing me, reminding me how little control I have around these Alphas.
“No one is going to hurt you around us,” he says calmly.
I nod. “Yeah, I’m getting that impression, so thank you.”
He lets go and steps back, and the loss of his touch is ridiculously missed. I nearly sway after him, catch myself, and turn it into a very fake, very deliberate pivot toward the box I’m next to.
Luca appears right then. “Right,” he says, far too cheerfully. “You, me, shopping. Try not to faint if I take my shorts off in a changing room.”
I’m laughing already. “You’re never allowed to say things like that before I’ve had coffee.”
He grins. “Noted. Still saying them.”
I grab the box and whatever scraps of dignity are still lying around.
Three giant Alphas, one house and a guest house, and the entire place saturated in their combined scent. My bikini bottoms are in a state I am choosing to blame entirely on the ocean.
I need at least six feet of distance. Instead, I push out the back door into the sunlight—with my goods—breathe in salt and heat and sea breeze, and remind myself that I am a woman with a plan, a problem, and absolutely no control over what my body has decided to do in this house.
Hawaii, frankly, has a lot to answer for.