Chapter 8
KAWEHI
The beach was a surprise to Kawehi. She’d been to Bellows Beach before, but never on a weekday. Looking over at Domenico as they easily passed through the gate she smiled. "It's so... empty."
He grinned back at her. "It's only open to the military on the weekdays."
"Wow... You'd think I’d know that, but I don't get to the beach all that often."
"That shouldn't surprise me," he chuckled, "but it does."
She reached out before she could stop herself and touched his arm. "Looks like we're surprising each other."
He nodded. "Looks like."
They pulled into the parking lot and found a spot near the front. "Not as surprised as my cousin was when you asked if she wanted to come."
He got out of the driver's side and got around to her side of the car when she was already stepping down. "One of the guys in my platoon was standing nearby when I made the reservation. Word spread through the group pretty quickly. A bunch of them wanted to come by. I didn't want you to feel alone. Even though I would have happily told them all to stay away."
She shook her head and leaned in to give him a kiss on his cheek. "It'll be nice to meet the guys you work with. Although I'm not sure how many you're talking about."
"Hey, Pallas!"
Domenico sighed softly. "You're about to meet one of them right now. But I think we're only expecting... six to show up."
"Six." She murmured the word, but it didn't sound all that scary.
"Hey, Pallas. I got your reservation checked in and your key."
Kawehi looked at Dom. Key?
"Kawehi, this is Kid."
The young man that reached out his hand to her was just a smidge taller than Dom and he was already tall. "Hi."
She took his hand to shake it and he blushed a little across his pale cheeks. "Tyler Stephens, Miss. They call me Kid because so far I'm the youngest in the group."
Kawehi looked back at Dom. "Really? That seems a little cruel."
Kid spoke up. "Not really. They could have given me a worse name, so I'm grateful. I think Pallas was lucky that he was born with a great name of his own."
"Born with it? Pallas. So it's not just like someone calling me Phillips for my last name?"
"No, Miss, he-" Kid seemed to hesitate and looked at Domenico for permission which he gave with a shrug. "Pallas is the Titan god of war. So it was an easy choice. At least that's the word around the team."
"Team?" Kawehi was a little confused. "Isn't it called a platoon?"
She almost missed the look between the two men, but Dom wrapped an arm around her and gave her a quick kiss. "Let me grab the stuff from the back and we'll go walk to the beach.
She turned to look at Kid, but he was following Dom around to the back as well.
Shaking her head, she moved around to help get out the food that she'd seen in the trunk area when Domenico had come to pick her up and almost caught them in conversation.
It wasn't that she was trying to hear anything, she hadn't even expected much of anything going on so she just put it in the back of her mind.
"I can carry something."
"We've got it." Kid's answer was a little too quick, but she tried to shrug it off.
"Hey, Kid. Why don't you let some of the big boys help out with that. "
Dom smiled and shook his head. "Another two of our guys." He looked over her shoulder and she turned around to see who he was talking about.
"Guys, this is Kawehi Phillips."
One of the men jogged forward, holding out his hand. "Miss? You can call me Twinkie. Everyone else does."
"Twinkie?" She smiled and caught Kid's sigh of relief out of the corner of her eye. "That's a sweet name."
He lifted her hand to place a kiss across her knuckles. "I like your sense of humor."
"And I think Pallas wants you to keep your lips to yourself, Twinkie."
"That," Dom grinned, "is Riptide."
"Riptide," she mused as she took his hand, "sounds like a TV show my parents used to watch."
Riptide smiled. "Yeah. I've heard that, too. They had a red-hot helicopter in that show."
She tilted her head a little to the side. "Are you Aussie?"
Riptide covered his heart with his hand. "You're good. Yeah. My mum is Aussie. My dad American. Sometimes the accent bleeds through."
She grinned at him. "I've always liked the accent."
Twinkie gave Riptide a little shove. "Hey, remember she's here with Pallas."
Riptide looked at Domenico and the two men smiled at each other before Riptide replied to Twinkie. "He knows I'm not the unit horndog."
A car pulled into the parking lot and Kawehi's attention turned to look at it because she saw her cousin Maile in the passenger seat.
"Speak of the devil himself." Twinkie gave a low whistle that Domenico cut off with a look.
"Don't listen to him."
She was already making her way to the other car and didn't quite hear what Dom had said.
All four doors swung open at the same time and Kawehi realized that there were four people in the car. She'd only seen her cousin clearly.
"Oh, thank god you're already here." Her cousin stepped out and then reached in to snatch out her beach bag. "I'll take that, thank you."
Her 'thank you' was more than a little chilly and Kawehi looked at the other men getting out of the car. The driver went straight to Domenico and the two had a few words as the men from the backseat moved around to greet her. "Miss? I'm Clay Jessop. The others call me Hoss."
"That's like a horse," the next man winked at her, "but he's smarter than one. I'm Chicago, on account that I'm from the Windy City."
"I'm Kawehi Phillips, I'm-"
"Pallas' woman." Chicago gave her a wink. "We know."
Kawehi wasn't sure what to make of his words or what to say about them. That's probably what it looked like to the others, and she was okay with that. She just wasn't sure what her cousin would say about it.
"See, Cuz? I told you he was basically your boyfriend."
Well, that answered her question.
"I'm all for him, and even these guys are sweet, but that asshole who drove? I'd like to kick him in the nuts."
Kawehi wanted to drop her face into her hands, but when she looked over at Dom, she saw the equally hard look on the other man's face. She leaned closer to her cousin. "I'm sure that whatever he said or did, it was just a misunderstanding."
"Oh there was no misunderstanding. He said I was just another typical woman." Maile's air quotes around 'typical woman' left little to Kawehi's imagination. "He's an ass!"
Kawehi looked back at Dom, worried that this was just going to ruin the whole day, but she saw the other man move first. He walked over to her, forcefully ignoring Maile at first. "Cameron Cox, Miss. You can call me Axl."
"Cox," Maile almost snorted with laughter, "more like dick."
"Maile!" Kawehi was horrified at her cousin's words, but the men surrounding them were laughing out loud. Even Dom's mouth had turned up in a smile.
"Wow. It's like she saw right through him!" That was from Chicago. "This is going to be fun."
"All right." Dom sighed and gestured for the others to come to the back and pick up something to carry.
Kawehi was about to go and help, but Maile snagged her wrist and held her there.
Axl turned to look at her cousin and Kawehi wondered what had gone on in the car because while the two of them looked at each other as if they wanted to fight, there was another kind of energy under it all. The kind that made Kawehi's cheeks burn with a different kind of heat.
"I didn't say that you were a typical woman," his words sounded like he was growling them out of his chest, "I said you were girlie."
Maile turned toward her, eyes wide and staring. "See?"
Kawehi looked at Axl and prayed for patience. "When you say 'girlie,'" she smiled at him, hoping to diffuse the situation, "is that a bad thing? A criticism?"
Axl recoiled as if she'd smacked him on the arm. "Hardly. I don't know what's crawled up your cousin's butt, but I wasn't complaining. She looked good and her bag... Well, shit. It was heavy enough that I was wondering what she was carrying in it. A frying pan or a bazooka. She said she'd brought stuff to wash up after the beach. I guessed she'd brought half of CVS with her, and I told her she was too girlie for me to understand."
Maile looked at her with a stiff-necked nod. "See?"
Kawehi wanted to get out from between the two before one or both of them combusted. "Axl?"
Maile gaped at her when she said the other man's name.
"Yes, Miss?"
"Call me Kawehi, please. Axl," she began again, "if my cousin leaps to another conclusion today, feel free to dunk her in the water so she gets to use the products she brought with her."
Axl's smile looked a little menacing, but she didn't think he'd hurt Maile, not for a moment.
"Sounds good to me, Kawehi."
"Cuz? Are you crazy? You're going to let him man-handle me?"
Maile's voice was loud enough to turn heads from their group and a couple crossing the street from the registration office. Still, Kawehi didn't believe her cousin's bluster. Maile had always been like this with guys she liked. She was too quick to jump to conclusions about simple phrases and thought that she was being judged. She only really cared when she liked someone and wanted to impress them.
Taking a quick look at Maile's outfit explained much of the 'girlie' designation. She had her bikini on and a rainbow colored coverup over her swimsuit. The skirt came down to mid-thigh and swished around her legs like a wave spilling onto the sand. She'd dressed to impress and wasn't sure how to interpret Axl's words.
Axl seemed like a guy who women gravitated toward because of his build and rough looks, but he didn't have the pretty words to back it up. In conjunction with Maile's own instincts to jump to conclusions, the two of them were likely to go together like lava and the ocean. Hissing steam.
This could be interesting or combustible in the wrong way.
She'd just have to see what happened at the end of the day and hope that Dom didn't see it as a problem.
"Axl, can you come and help me with the water?"
"Sure, brother." He turned and moved toward Dom. "Happy to help."
As the men walked away across the street, Maile fell into step beside Kawehi. "Really? You don't think he's being an ass?"
"No," Kawehi tried to keep her voice even, measured, "I don't. I think you're just protesting a little too much."
"Oh no. That is NOT what's happening right now."
They were halfway across the street when Kawehi saw Dom look back over his shoulder and smile at her.
She felt her heart kick against her ribs at just that one look.
"I think it is, Maile. I love you, like a sister-"
"Damn right you do."
Kawehi rolled her eyes and hooked her arm through her cousin's. "And I'm telling you that you're not just jumping to conclusions, you're cliff diving into them."
Maile didn't speak right away, but as they got to the other side of the street, Kawehi looked at her cousin and saw the sly smile on her lips, she braced herself for what she knew was coming.
"Just be glad there aren't any cliffs around here, cuz. If there were, I'm sure I could find a way to shove him off of one."
Kawehi knew that her cousin was joking, mostly. "Seriously, Maile. Remember that these guys are marines. They're more than capable of taking care of themselves."
"Yeah, but I'm girlie. He's not going to expect my surprise attack."
Kawehi sighed but she also had to laugh. Maile was as girlie as Axl had called her. While Kawehi could run a brush through her hair or her own fingers and not worry about what it looked like, Maile was a girl's girl. Or a woman's woman. She loved to look good and while she was gorgeous all on her own, she could really make people stand up and take notice when she used make-up and a curling iron and whatever else she had in her bag.
When they reached the beach area, Kawehi saw the guys setting up the food on a few picnic tables near to a barbecue. Dom looked up at her with another heart stopping grin and explained the set up. "I didn't realize that they had cabins like this for rent," he shrugged, apologizing. “They've got a reservation for this one but the officer using it isn't coming with his family until tomorrow morning. So they said we can use the grill outside and the picnic table, but not the cabin itself."
Kawehi waved off his apology. "There's a women's restroom nearby. We can change in there."
Kid stepped around the table. "We have a cabin a little way down the beach. It doesn't have a bathroom inside but if you're just changing you can go in there and change. And lock your bags in if you like."
Kawehi looked at Dom and smiled. "That was sweet of you."
"I doubt you'd be in any danger in the restroom, but there's a bed in there and bunks if you want to lie down later. Whatever makes you two the most comfortable."
Kawehi smiled at him, but Maile leaned in and gave her a big obvious wink. "A couple of beds, huh? And you've got that cabin for the night, Dom?"
Maile dragged her down the beach hand in hand. "See, Cuz? Your luck has completely turned around. A hot guy and a beach side cabin for the night? Damn lucky."
PALLAS
Dom wasn't sure what to make of Maile's teasing. He had a feeling he understood Axl's frustration. While Maile smiled a lot and gave her cousin some good-natured teasing, it wasn't exactly obvious what her aim was.
Luckily, when the two ladies got back from the cabin, they were already getting the grill heated up and some towels laid out near the line of ironwood trees at the edge of the grass and sand.
He had a feeling that Kawehi wasn't all that confident about her body, but he didn't have any kind of issue with her body. He was more than happy to see whatever she wanted to show him. And for that day on the beach it was a single piece black suit with a kind of skirt she'd made with brightly patterned fabric tied around her waist.
In a word she was, "Gorgeous."
She blushed prettily at his words. "Thanks. You look... pretty awesome yourself."
He looked down at this bare chest and his dark board shorts. He'd wanted to wear something a little more formfitting, but it was going to be hard enough trying not to let himself get hard with his friends around.
Kawehi leaned in and whispered something in his ear. "Are you going to be upset if Maile and Axl kill each other?"
He burst out laughing and saw the others look at him in confusion.
He wrapped his arms around her and drew her closer to him so he could kiss her in the shade of the cabin. When he broke off the kiss, he was happy to see that her eyes were a little dazed and her lips looked tender. "I'd feel sorry about it, but I guess we'll just have to make sure that they don't kill each other on our date, okay?"
She shook her head and lifted her hands up between them to touch his chest. "I'd rather they keep the drama to themselves," she sighed, "but it might be just enough of a distraction to keep our hands to ourselves."
He saw how her own words shook her slightly. He certainly didn't want her to feel bad about voicing her thoughts or feelings, so he tried to steer her thoughts away from that.
"Well, we have enough food for a big lunch and enough if you don't mind staying after the sun goes down. There's a picnic table near the cabin."
"I saw that," her smile deepened, and her cheeks flushed with color. "I don't think I'd mind staying after dark."
Dom lifted his hands and cupped her face gently so he could look into her eyes. "I'd like to see the stars with you if that's okay?"
As she looked back at him, her shoulders rising and falling with a deep in-drawn breath, he slid his fingers through her hair until it slipped free of his touch.
"I think," her voice was a little breathy as she spoke, "when I'm with you, seeing stars isn't going to be the problem."
He leaned in for another kiss because he found himself incapable of holding himself back.
Her lips met his and when he turned his head to create a little more friction between them, he felt his cock stir in his shorts.
Kissing her was its own erogenous experience, something that he'd never felt before.
When he realized that he'd have to stop the kiss there or risk carrying Kawehi off into that cabin before the sun went down, he settled his hands on her hips and leaned in to touch their foreheads together.
"Kissing you," he sighed, "it's just-"
"I know," she turned her head so that their noses brushed against each other, "it's amazing."
He lifted his hands and smoothed them down from her shoulders to her elbows. "Hey. We should get some sunscreen on you if you don't have it on already. It's going to be a hot day."
He saw her smile and shook his head.
"Not that I'm telling you anything you don't already know."
Her shoulders shook with laughter. "I do know it's hot here in Hawaii, but I wouldn't mind some help with sunscreen if you've got the time."
He had to hold back from pulling her into his embrace. It was only too easy to give into that instinct. "For you, 'Wehi, I've always got the time."