Blooming in the Wild Page 0,81
spot on his throat, looking at hers, and she touched the spot, wincing at the sore, puffy place where Li had pricked her with his knife.
Joel moved to kneel before her, the tube of antibiotic ointment from the first aid kit in his hand. He squeezed out a blob and gently smoothed it over the scratch. “There. All better.” At least it would be when he got a few moments alone with that little scumbag. He was going to turn the dude’s smirking face into mincemeat.
“Mahalo.”
He looked up into her eyes, as pretty as sooty blooms, and he wanted to sweep her into his arms and promise that no one would ever be able to hurt her again. But he couldn’t promise that, and what the hell was he doing, even thinking it? So instead he rose and walked to the edge of the pool.
“How about a quick bath?” he suggested and dropped his shorts on the bank and walked into the water. The pool was hip-deep in the middle, the water chilly at the bottom but warmed by the sun at the surface. “I want the blood off of you and the salt water off of both of us.”
He turned to Bella and found her watching him. The look on her face sent arousal shooting straight to his groin. His cock stiffened even as the cool water washed at his sac, tightening it up. The contrast of heat and chill was erotic as hell, as was the idea of her heat surrounding him.
He smiled at her, wincing as the motion pulled at his swollen cheek.
“Come on in, nani girl,” he suggested, his voice deep in the sudden hush that seemed to grip the surrounding forest.
“Shouldn’t we be doing something?”
“The most important thing we can do right now is keep you safe,” he said. “And happy. Why don’t you come on in here and let me make you real happy?”
She gave him that disgusted look he guessed women had been giving men since the beginning of time, the one that said he had a one-track mind. But it changed to speculation, and as he watched, fascinated, a rosy blush chased the last of the paleness from her cheeks, and she bit her lower lip, letting it slide through her white teeth, wet and pink in the sunshine pouring over her.
“How about if I make you even happier?” she replied in that way she had, like it was a contest between them. That was okay with him. They’d both win.
When she pulled her tank over her head and let it fall aside, Joel forgot the question. And when she reached down and hitched her thumbs in the strings of her little bikini bottoms and shoved them down her pretty legs, revealing her small triangle of sooty curls, he forgot everything except the heat roaring through him.
As she walked daintily into the water, he was surprised the water of the pool didn’t begin to boil. She was the prettiest, hottest wahine he’d ever seen.
He told her so, his voice hoarse. She waded into his arms, one eyebrow lifting in a feminine challenge. “Prove it, hotshot.”
His brain went up in smoke. Like a man in an erotic dream, Joel lifted her up in his arms, one arm around her back and the other under her sweet ass, warm and round in his hand. Her hot center landed against his cock, pressing her wet heat directly along the length of his shaft as she wrapped her slender arms around him and held on.
With a deep groan of the most intense desire he’d ever felt, Joel cocked his head and kissed her, pressing his mouth to hers, soft and damp. Her lips parted, and he slipped his tongue into her mouth, finding hers and tangling with it in a sweet battle. She tasted like barbecue and the sweetest of nectars. But he recognized the taste as if he’d been waiting for it all his life—her special taste.
She moved, tightening her legs around him, and he groaned into her mouth as she caressed his cock in sweet, wet torture. Damn, he loved foreplay, but right now all he could focus on was getting inside her.
He dragged his mouth from hers. “Condom,” he gasped, already heading for the bank.
“Hurry,” she pleaded, kissing him again as he carried her out of the pool. He had to stop walking for a moment or kill both of them on the wet rocks.
He managed to lift his head one more time.