Sixteen
Iwoke up late the next morning. Sam was already up, having breakfast on the patio—which I had never even thought of doing—and reading the paper. When I staggered out of bed, I got a very amused chuckle.
“Good morning, sunshine.”
I scratched my balls and grunted at him.
“That’s attractive.”
After I sat down, he poured me coffee, and I had a really good piece of seared ahi and scrambled eggs and fresh papaya. The juice tasted amazing.
“So, what’s your plan for the day?”
“I don’t know,” I said after I ate, walking to the padded hammock I hadn’t ever been in before. “I want to take a drive around the island at some point, and Ipo—”
“Who?”
“New friend,” I answered, yawning. “She said I should go to the Polynesian Cultural Center.”
“Okay.” He was smiling at me as I fell into the hammock. “You planning to take a shower today, baby, since you smell like sweat and sex?”
I closed my eyes in answer.
His laughter was warm as I heard him turn the pages of the paper.
I was uncomfortable, so after a while, I pulled off my sleep shorts and lay naked in the hammock with the warm trade wind brushing over me, safe from the sun, cool in the shade under the awning of the porch.
Sam was there, and I was in heaven. I felt drugged and sluggish with happiness.
“Good morn— oh.”
“Good morning, Mr. Fisher,” Sam said, yawning. “How can I help you?”
Hayes must have come from the beach side, as no one had knocked on the door of our cottage. “I … wanted to speak to Jory.”
“Hold on,” he said, and seconds later, I felt what was probably Sam’s T-shirt fall down over my ass. I was now covered. “Okay, now you can focus.”
He cleared his throat. “I wanted to apologize to Jory for—is he asleep?”
“Yep, I wear him out.”
“That’s very crass.”
“The fuck do I care what you think?” he scoffed. “You’re the one who came to tell him, what, sorry for thinking he was full of shit when he was telling you about me? You thought I wasn’t in his life anymore, Mr. Fisher, when I am more than in it—I’m the whole fuckin’ thing.”
“That’s awfully conceited of you to think that you’re his whole world.”
“He’s mine too. It goes both ways. We have a life together that, yeah, I let get away from me a little, but don’t for a second think that he’s available because that man has been mine since the first time I saw him lying in the street nearly a lifetime ago.”
There was a throat clearing. “I didn’t mean to—”
“The fuck you didn’t. You want him.”
“He deserves better than the life you’re giving him.”
And I would have said something at that point, but Sam answered too fast.
“No, he doesn’t.”
“The hell he—”
“He deserves to be loved, Mr. Fisher, and he is. I can promise you that there’s no one alive who loves him more than me.”
“I—”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t around for you to see me so you wouldn’t get your hopes up that anyone could ever take my place. That’s my fault.”
“Detective—”
“Please don’t come around anymore. I’m asking nicely.”
There was silence, which had to be Hayes leaving, and then Sam’s T-shirt was gone, baring my ass before a strong hand squeezed tight. I whimpered as lips were pressed to my right cheek.
“You like that, me gettin’ all caveman on him?”
“You were much too eloquent to be compared to a Neanderthal.”
He bit down, and I hissed out a breath, my cock hardening fast.
“God, I love your ass,” he said, kneading it before he bit the other cheek, harder, and I shuddered. “Maybe I need to show you, huh?” he asked, yanking me up at the same time the hammock tilted, twisted, and finally turned, flipping me out of it and Sam over it as he fought to grab me.
We wound up tangled up together underneath it, Sam’s arm caught in it, along with my ankle. I was laughing so hard that my ribs hurt.
“Shit, that wasn’t sexy at all,” Sam groused, tugging at his wrist.
Tears rolled down my face.
“You’re really annoying—you know that?”
I nodded because, yeah, I knew.
I wanted to take him everywhere I had already seen and then go all over the island with him. My plans were huge, but after I took a shower and changed, I found him asleep on the righted hammock. I stretched out close on the chaise and just stared at the water.
“I let you lie for me.”
Turning my head, I found Sam’s heavy-lidded eyes. “What?”
“I did come see you, and I did put the entire investigation in jeopardy because of what I wanted and needed. I didn’t give a damn about anybody else, and then I let you dig me out of it.”
“That’s what married people do. They take care of each other.”
“Doesn’t make it right.”
“And what should I have done, Sam? Let you get caught? Let your reputation and your career go down the toilet because of something I was one hundred percent a part of?”
“Jory—”
“It’s like when the bad guy asks the cop who’s undercover, Are you a cop? The cop never says, Yeah, I’m a cop. He lies.”
He smiled at me, and the way his lips curled, the way he was looking at me—so full of adoration—sent that flutter of anticipation through me.
“If I had let Cristo Liron win, if I had said it was you, if I had done any of that, who would that have served, Sam?”
“I just never wanted you involved at all.”
“No, of course not. Why would you?”
“I just wanted you to be safe.”
“I know that.” I squinted at him.
“You have a question. I can tell,” he sighed, smiling at the same time.
“Why isn’t it entrapment when a guy asks if they’re a cop and the cop says no?” I asked, having thought about my example and realizing it had not really been a good one.
“It wouldn’t be much of an undercover operation if everyone knew who everybody was, now would it?”
“No.”
“I’m sorry though for that whole scene, J, and I’m sorry you had to have confession time—completely fabricated, I might add—in front of everybody.”
“When people miss the people they love, I’m sure they all get busy with their toys and stuff, Sam. I just stretched the truth a little bit.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning that I did my missing of you at home alone and not in a big, noisy club,” I told him.
“So, you had to take care of yourself while I was gone.”
“Countless times, yeah.”
“Well, c’mere,” he said, gesturing at me. “And I’ll kiss it and make it better.”
“Why don’t you get off the hammock that craves human blood and we’ll talk?”
He chuckled as his phone rang. It was sitting in front of me on the table, and when I read the display, I saw Z. Calhoun.
“Sam, I think it’s your new best friend,” I said as I tossed it to him.
He answered, and over the course of the next few seconds, his face fell. When he was done and clicked the phone off, he turned to me.
“What’s wrong?”
“Apparently, the case against Cristo Liron has fallen apart.”
“I don’t understand.”
He got up, and the sexy man with the hooded eyes that I had seen minutes before was replaced by an all-business Chicago police detective.
“There’s missing evidence, missing witnesses … and worst of all, he’s free on bond.”
“A judge let him out?”
“After the judge heard the case was weak, he put out a number, and Cristo paid it.”
“So, he could be anywhere.”
“Yes, he could.”
I looked at the wide, muscular back of the man I loved. “I’m not important enough for him to care about, Sam. Think big picture. He doesn’t give a shit.”
“I think he cares more than you think.”
“Look at me.”
He turned around to face me.
“Maybe we should go home, huh? At least you could protect me better there since you know everybody.”
He looked relieved. “Would that be okay with you?”
“Of course.” I smiled at him. “Just lemme call Mr. Awana and pick up the things for Moses.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“When I got saved the other day, I promised to carry things back.”
“Saved?”
I nodded.
“Carry what?”
“Just food, not guns and drugs.”
“Oh, I’m so relieved.”
I waggled my eyebrows at him. “It’s fun, living with me, right?”
“It’s always an adventure.” He chuckled, sitting down beside me, patting my leg. “So, you gonna walk me around this town or what?”
“I feel bad. You’re not seeing much of Hawai’i but this tiny patch of beach and the inside of this cottage.”
“I don’t care,” he said, leaning forward, his hand sliding around the back of my neck. “All I wanted was to see you. Everything else is just gravy.”
He enjoyed walking through town though, and he had a good time, meeting my new friends after I saw Ipo at the farmers market and she invited us for lunch on a Saturday afternoon that had gone from gray to cloudy to dumping down rain.
“I thought Hawai’i was supposed to be sunny all the time?”
“How you think everything stay green?” she asked him.
“Okay.” He smiled at her, and I watched her take a breath.
She liked me because I was cute and funny and she thought of me like one of her girlfriends.
Her reaction to Sam Kage was all woman. There was the breadth of his shoulders to consider, the muscles that bunched when he lifted the bags of dog food out of the back of the truck for her, the way he opened the door for her, and the laugh lines in the corner of his slate-blue eyes.
He took off his hiking boots at the front door because no one walked into anybody’s house in Hawai’i with shoes on—it simply wasn’t done.
When you had a party, there could be a pile of flip-flops (my word) or slippers (Ipo’s word) at the front door.
But Sam’s boots stood out in the corner, and my sneakers were next to his.
Everyone showed up for lunch. It was the weekend after all, and Sam sat at the table, surrounded by my new friends, and ate everything that was put down in front of him.
Because Sam fished and the patriarch of the family—my friend Tetsuo—fished, they had a lot to talk about.
My host even brought out several of his poles for Sam to look at, and when I seemed bored, Sam explained how expensive they were and how he had nothing that good at home.
I asked him what he would need it for since he didn’t fish on a boat but off a pier or in a stream. I had, apparently, missed the point.