Chapter 7 #2
I kept a secure hold on her, both on her body and her lips, as I got to my feet. Even with her recent weight gain, she weighed practically nothing. Then again, she could gain a hundred pounds, and she still would be small compared to me.
I coaxed her mouth open gently, showing her the joys of making our tongues dance against each other. The gasp she emitted was one of surprise, but also joy. Her legs were not long enough to wrap around my waist, her bare heels digging for purchase in my back as I walked us up the beach.
I’d practically grown up in these waters, crested my first waves alongside Kayl and Aloiki on these shores. I didn’t need to look to know where I was going, but I was also carrying precious cargo.
At the bottom of the cliff, before the path that led up to the house, was a boulder, eroded flat by water, sand, and storm over millennia. I pressed her back against it, shielding her head with the palm of my hand. Our kiss never faltered.
I practically preened like a damn peacock when her hands started to wander.
Like her kiss, her movements were tentative at first, cautious.
Her touch, while light, felt like a balm to my soul.
She stuck mainly to my neck, my shoulders, and my upper back, and I silently prayed she would continue her exploration further south.
I never wanted her scared to touch me, all of me. I wanted her hands, tongue, and eyes to know me as well as mine would know her. I did not want there to be an inch of skin on my body that she hadn’t laid claim to.
Some suppressed part of me heard the rumble of motorcycles in the distance, but I paid no heed. There was absolutely nothing in this world that mattered more than the woman in my arms.
I’d loved before, and been loved before, but not like this. This was soul shattering, and she was the glue that would put me back together.
Our tongues dueled as I hefted her up the path. We stopped several times along the dirt berm, and each time, her hands grew more and more in confidence. By the time we reached the backdoor, her fingers played with the back hem of my shorts.
I’d always been in such a rush in the past. The fast, rough fuck seeming like the ultimate pleasure. And while there was no denying my intense, growing need to be inside her, there was also something precious about the slow exploration. Like more than our bodies were connecting.
Maybe it was sappy, but I didn’t care. Whatever this was, I wanted it.
I carried her up the backstairs that avoided the open living room, dining room, and kitchen on the first floor. I made our way down the hall, passing my brothers’ rooms as well as ours, to make it to the communal bathroom. As soon as the door was closed, I pressed her back against it.
Slowly, I unbound her legs from my hips and lowered her feet to the floor. I practically had to bend in two with our lips still connected. I loathed breaking away from her, but I was covered in sand and seawater.
Moving my hands up to her cheeks, I pulled my lips away from hers. And fuck me, but that little noise of protest from her was the sweetest thing I’d never heard.
I crooked a smile at her swollen lips and dazed expression. I knew exactly how she felt. I pressed my lips to hers again in a quick kiss, unable to help myself. “Get yourself undressed,” I instructed. “I’m going to go start the shower.”
Like everything else in this fucking mansion of a house, the guest bathroom was extravagant.
There were his-and-her sinks, a large linen closet, a fancy shelf thing over the toilet, and a walk-in shower stall with luxury-hotel-level water pressure.
Rather than one shower head that angled from the side, it had a large, square head at the top that sprayed down the center and out the four sides of the square like a waterfall.
Personally, I didn’t need all that fancy-dancy shit. But what got my sack squeezing was the fact that I could stand under the spray without having to duck my head.
I turned on the water, steam immediately billowing out like volcano dust. I pushed my thumbs into the waistband of my shorts and shoved them down my long legs.
I no longer needed to hide my body’s reaction to her, which released a weight of tension off my shoulders I hadn’t even realized I’d been carrying.
Turning around, I paused when I found her exactly where I’d left her: pressed up against the door and fully clothed.
Shit! Was I going too fast? What if I’d misconstrued her words? What if she’d only wanted a kiss, and here I was dropping trou in front of her? Lolo! I chastised silently, calling myself all sorts of stupid.
This was the woman I loved, and I was scaring her.
“Ho’oponopono, o ku?u aloha no ?oe.” I quickly reached for my shorts again. Not because I was embarrassed to be naked, but because I never wanted to make her uncomfortable around me.
Caroline cocked her head at me. “What does that mean?” Her eyes lowered to my groin, and she frowned. “Why are you putting your shorts back on? Did I do something wrong?”
The innocence in her voice shook me. I’d been about to take a woman who had been raped and tortured for the better part of her formative life into the fucking shower with me.
I answered her last question before I got distracted with her others. “You did absolutely nothing wrong, Ku?u aloha.”
Her eyebrows went up. “What does that mean?”
I ran a hand down my face. Fuck. “What I originally said is roughly translated to ‘forgive me’ or ‘I’m sorry’, ‘you are indeed my love’.”
Her eyes lit up, more blue than green. “And what you said just now?” She finally stepped away from the door, coming closer to me.
“Caroline…”
She rapidly shook her head, her now mussy braid swaying behind her head. “Tell me, please.”
That word truly was becoming dangerous for my health. “I called you ‘my love’.”
She smiled so widely her lips looked broader than her cheeks. “I knew it. I knew you loved me,” she breathed out, almost reverently.
I couldn’t repeat the words to her, though. Not when I’d scared her so. “I still need to shower. I’ll join you in our room when I’m done.”
Her face fell, all that blazing happiness dying like I’d poured a bucket of ice water over her. I watched as her eyes flicked behind me to the steam-filled shower. “But you said I did nothing wrong. Why don’t you want to…?” She nodded toward the shower.
Anger sparked inside me at her doubt. “Don’t you dare ask me that. Of course I fucking want to.” I closed the distance between us, gathering her back up into my arms. “You’re perfect.”
“Then why can’t I shower with you?”
Fucking hell, Māui must be having a field day right now. “I didn’t mean to move so fast. I got caught up in the moment. I never want to scare you, Caroline.”
I felt her body jerk slightly, but with her pressed up to my front, I couldn’t see her expression. Had she winced?
Then she started shaking her head so quickly that I figured my assumption was wrong. “I wasn’t scared. I was hypnotized.”
I was suddenly very confused. Needing to see her face, I put her back down and took a step back. “Hypnotized? By what?”
Her cheeks flamed as she admitted, “By your butt.”
I blinked.
And blinked again.
And blinked once more, just for good measure.
Then a roar of laughter burst from me so loud that the glass shower door and mirror shook. I wrapped my arms around her middle and lifted her off her feet again as my lips claimed her mouth. Relief, love, devotion, all of it…flooded my veins like an enthralling drug.
Her chest quavered against mine, and it took me a moment to realize that she was laughing too. She pulled away, though she didn’t fight to be put back down on the floor. Covering her mouth, she continued to giggle. “I’m sorry… I just… Did I ruin this? I can’t seem to stop laughing…”
Shaking my head, I leaned my forehead against hers. “Never,” I vowed. “You couldn’t even if you tried.”
I felt her smile against my cheek. “Good. It is, by the way.”
“What is?”
“This.” Her hands trailed over my shoulders. “It’s different when you love the person you’re with.”
And it was official. I was hers. Totally, and completely.
I set her back down on the tiled floor. “Let’s get you undressed.”
I reached for her tank top, but waited for her permission before I pulled it over her head. She wore no bra. My eyes trailed slowly over her rounded tits and taut, pink nipples to her hourglass frame, and back up again.
“Beautiful,” I vowed when I saw the uncertainty on her face. It wasn’t just an appeasing word either, but the truth. I’d never seen a more breathtaking sight.
She practically beamed up at me, confidence clear in her eyes at my single word. When she put her hands to the waistband of her skirt, though, I put my hands on her wrists to stop her. “What is it?”
No part of me wanted to pause her getting undressed the rest of the way, but I also knew that this needed to be said.
“You have all the power here,” I told her, staring into her sea-green eyes.
“Doesn’t matter when, doesn’t matter what we’re doing.
All you have to do is say ‘stop’ or ‘no’ or ‘yogurt’, and we stop.
No pressure, no guilt. I need you to say you understand. ”
She nodded slowly, relief evident in her eyes. Then her lips twitched and she asked, “Yogurt?”
The sound that emitted from me was a mixture of a groan and a growl. “Get in the shower, minx.”
Now naked and her hair free of her braid, Caroline pulled me into the shower. In all honesty, though, and regardless of the overused cliché, I would have followed her anywhere.
Hot water cascaded over both of us, and I closed the shower door to lock us in together.
She turned to face me under the spray, confusion darkening her features when she saw me reaching for the shampoo.
I would have rather one of her scents, but thanks to fucking Saga, those were all now kept in our room, and I hadn’t thought to stop to grab them.