foreseeable future. Then you walked in to my life, Asher Mackey.” Her tongue touched the top of her parted lips and her eyes darkened as they grazed over every inch of me. “The universe is testing me. Hard.”
My groin tightened at the word hard coming out of her mouth, and the heated scrutiny of her gaze, drinking me in. Christ, everything about her begged me to take her down on the couch, kiss her hard, rip the robe out of the way and slip my hand between her legs where I’d feel how badly she wanted me. Her eyes flared, as if she’d read my heated thoughts, and a faint pink touched her cheeks.
“It’s testing the hell out of me too,” I said, and dragged my gaze away from the bronzed skin of her thigh.
“Asher…”
“Go out to dinner with me.”
“The state of my ankle thwarts me from going out.”
“Then we’ll order in.”
She bit her lip. “I just told you—”
“I know,” I said. “You’re doing a lifestyle spring-cleaning. I get that. And it’s not in my personal protocol to involve myself with tourists. But I’d like to help keep you from losing your entire time in Kauai.”
“How?”
“I have a few days off. I’ll show you around. Help you get to some of the places you want to see, then show you the places you need to see.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Because you were right. I came here for the same reasons you did, only I wasn’t immediately smacked down by a tough trail and poor choices in footwear.”
Faith’s brassy, nothing-fazes-me demeanor relaxed, and a real smile touched her scrubbed face.
“That’s very sweet of you, Asher. But I was just about to call the airline and hire some people to pack me up.”
“That doesn’t seem like you.”
She pursed her lips. “And you know this because…?”
“I don’t,” I said. “Something about you. I think you’d have crawled out of that trail if you had to.”
She seemed genuinely surprised. “You do?”
“Am I wrong?”
Faith sat back against the couch. “No.”
“Prove it.”
Her eyebrows went up again. Thoughts flashed behind her green eyes. “Fine. I’ll stick around for a few days. But I’m not going to sleep with you, firefighter.”
“I don’t expect you to,” I said, and added with a wink, “but let’s leave that door open.”
“Closed,” Faith corrected, with a sly smile. “But I’ll leave it unlocked.”
THREE
ASHER MACKEY MADE good on his promise to show me as much of Kauai in four days as my sprained ankle would allow.
He drove me to the Waimea canyons and carried me up the three flights of stairs to the top of the lookout.
He took me to Hanalei Bay for the best shave ice on the island, and when I grew tired of crutching around the cute little town, he ringed my arms around his neck and lifted me as if I were nothing and put me on his back. My breasts pressed against his hard muscles, my arms held him tight. More than once, I let my cheek rest on his shoulder, closed my eyes, and was inundated with his cologne, his soap, the masculine essence of him.
Like sunbathing on a warm rock…
And on the fourth day, when I was able to put weight on my foot for the first time, he took me snorkeling off a rocky beach in the south of the island. Wearing fins and swimming wasn’t possible for me, so Asher rented a boogie board and I lay on top of it. He then swam for me, dragging me on the board so I could put my face in the water and experience the underwater world too.
Every night, he took me back to my place and took care of me, bringing me ice or food or anything I needed, and we talked. Oh my God, we talked for hours, over lunches and dinners, on boat rides, while waiting in line for smoothies. He told me about his life in NYC and his life now, and how before he left the Mainland, he’d made sure he made enough money on Wall Street to fund his parents’ retirement, pay off their house in upstate New York, and give his brother the seed money he needed to start his own business.
And then he chose a new career, saving lives.
Asher Mackey was a goddamn saint compared to me. I gave him all the dirty details of my life in advertising and how I’d begun to leave the business behind when it became obvious it was easier to let men