Blooming in the Wild (25 page)

Grace beamed, and Bella smiled shyly at the big man.

During lunch, which Joel pretended to eat to please Bella, he and Bella gave a heavily edited version of their adventure. With Grace there, they left out the paranormal aspects of the event. And they sure as hell left out their sexual adventures. But from the little smiles on the faces of Bella’s girlfriends, they had that part figured out.

“How are the models and the stylist that were with you?” asked Melia.

“They’re fine,” Bella said, a smile of relief lighting up her face. “Matt has some bruised ribs, and Cassie won’t be modeling for a month or so, until her sunburn and knife wound on the side of her throat heal. She was pretty, um, frightened by the storm too. Tanah is trying to find a lawyer to help her sue the Helmans’ CalTrend Corporation. But DelRay is paying all their medical costs, as well as a bonus for each of them.”

“They paying for Frank’s boat?” Joel asked.

Hilo nodded. “It’s in dry dock right now, getting new pontoons. I had ’em add some fancy new tech equipment and plush seating too.” His eyes twinkled.

As they came to the end of the recitation, Daniel Ho’omalu took a last drink from his glass and then rattled the ice in it, an angry sound. “The law is gonna have to dismantle that family’s corporation to the ground this time,” he said, his voice a deep rumble.

“We’ll help,” David added with a look at his uncle.

Joel frowned. “That guy, Decker, who was on her boat. He said something to her before he left. ‘If this deal doesn’t go through, we stand to lose billions’. Something like that. You guys think he meant drug money?”

Daniel shook his head, his scowl even more fearsome. “No way. Money of that kind, to do with Hawaii? That’s land.”

“Oh no,” Melia said, her blue eyes wide. “A real estate deal of some kind. David, we have to tell someone.”

“Already took care of it,” Joel said. “Talked to the police at the hospital and a couple of suits. FBI, I think. They were real interested in his name.”

The Ho’omalus shared a look, and Joel realized with a shock that whatever deal the Helmans had been trying to broker, it would probably not be left only to the state of Hawaii to bring it down.

Well, this was, after all, a pretty special family.

To Do: A good tour director knows when to hang it up, and do whatever the heck she wants with the rest of her life
.

Bella was delighted that evening, when Daro and Jason got out their guitar and ukulele after dinner and announced that they had a new song to share.

“It’s called ‘Ka Nani Girl’,” Jason said with a glinting smile at Bella. “Daro wrote the words, I wrote the music.”

Everyone turned to look at Bella, and she pressed a hand to her heart, a nearly painful pleasure swelling inside her. It was about her?

Then they began to play, the soft liquid notes lilting through the evening. Jason closed his eyes, and sang, his voice flowing like Hawaiian honey.

“My ka nani girl, every night she comes to me,

Dancing through my dreams, to climb upon my knee.

Smiling that sweet smile, her laugh a melody.

She calls me her papa, and gives her love so free.

“My ka nani girl, as I look at her now,

I’m hungry for the years that she was far away from me.

But I know she’ll be here, for the rest of my days,

Here in my Hawaii, and that’s enough for me.

“My ka nani girl, every night she comes to me,

Dancing through my dreams, to climb upon my knee.

Smiling that sweet smile, her laugh a melody.

She calls me her papa, and gives her love so free.

“And someday she will have a daughter of her own,

I’ll hold that little girl, and the years will fall away.

It will be the way I dreamed, but even better still,

For my ka nani girl will be sharing her with me.”

As the two men began the chorus, their voices softer, Bella heard an odd noise beside her. She looked over to see that her mother was weeping, one hand over her face as she tried to be quiet.

Bella leaned over, and gave her mother a fierce hug. “Shh-shh, Mama. It’s okay.” And it was, she knew now. She was a part of her new family and of this island, with no more room for resentment or anger.

“I’m sorry,” Grace choked. “So sorry, for both of you.”

“There’s one more verse, Grace,” Daro said, looking up and continuing to play his ukulele. “This part’s for you.”

Jason smiled at Grace, and began to sing again.

“My ka nani girl, you raised her fine and true,

And when I look at her, I see the best of you.

She’s finer than I ever was, more than I could hope,

Mahalo from my heart, I’ll share the rest with you.”

As the last notes of the chorus died away, Grace rose from her chair, and Daro did the same.

“I did do the best I could,” she said to him, her voice trembling. “But if I-I could go back and change that, oh, I would.”

“I could have been a braver man too, Grace,” he said. “I accepted my family’s shame for my own, for several years. It took me a long time, with Jason’s help, to see that I can be a father too.”

“Well, thank God for Jason, then,” she said and reached out to hug Daro. He hugged her back, patting her back and smiling at Bella with tears in his eyes. “That song is going to be your next big hit,” David said appreciatively. “You going to share it with the world?”

“If it’s okay with Bella and Grace,” Jason said.

Bella nodded, wiping her own tears away. “It’s a beautiful gift. Thank you.”

Joel held her that night as she cried again, carefully, and on his uninjured side.

“I’m sorry,” she sniffled. “I guess I just have a lot of years of missing out on being part of a family.”

“You’ve got a great mom,” he said. “Little overprotective, maybe.”

She snorted. “Ya think? You know, she’s the reason I was so set on being a ‘corporate drone’, as you so nicely put it. I remember eating tuna and crackers for supper when I was a little girl, and watching her write and write on her old computer. She’s successful now, but it wasn’t easy. I guess I decided I wasn’t going to live a risky life.”

“That sounds like past tense. Does this mean I don’t have to talk you out of going back to DelRay?” he asked, amazed. “When did that happen?”

She shrugged. “Just something about dying and coming back to life to find a goddess glaring at you, I guess. Made me rethink my priorities.”

He yawned. “Well, I’m damned glad.”

They spent the next several days at Nawea. Joel looked better every day, and when Bella drove him to the doctor for his next checkup, the specialist shook his head as he stepped back to allow Joel to pull his shirt down.

“I’ve never seen anyone heal this quickly from a gunshot wound,” he said. “Point-blank range with a bullet that size—you should be dead. You’re a fortunate man, Joel.”

Joel exchanged a look with Bella. “Yes, I am,” he agreed.

Bella told Joel about the farm that Hilo and Tina had offered her. She was surprised when he laughed. “Is this what that cryptic text message about dating a farmer was all about?” he asked.

She blushed. “Oh. Yes.”

“Well, I’ve got a little surprise for you too,” he told her. “My contract’s been renewed, for
The Wild Zone.
Got another year out of them.”

She smiled and congratulated him, but he frowned into her hair. Something was off. Oh well, time enough to show her everything would work out.

Joel put up with Bella’s cosseting for four days, and then he’d had it. One night, Bella stepped out of her bathroom, rubbing lotion into her hands, to find Joel lying in her bed, naked. He smiled at her and reached down to stroke his penis, palming its turgid length. He was aroused, and the sight of him, filling her bed with his heavy muscles and all that bare, smooth skin made her mouth water.

The stark white bandage low on his ribs made her heart hurt, though. She had almost lost him. Would have, if Hilo had not laid hands on him, and used his kupua to stop the bleeding.

“We can’t.” She scowled at him. “Stop teasing me.”

“
I
can’t,” Joel said. “But you can.”

Bella stared at him, at his position on the bed, and at his penis, which jerked under her gaze as if she’d stroked it. Her mouth watered. “You mean you want me to…suck you?”

“Nah,” he said. “I want you to hop up here and ride me like a cowgirl.”

Her pussy clenched, and she took a step toward the bed, drawn to him. “Only if you promise to lie still.”

“Scout’s honor.”

She sighed and shook her head doubtfully at him as she caught the bottom of her tank to draw it over her head.

He held up his free hand. “Hey, could you do that a little slower?”

She looked at him. “Oh, you mean like a striptease?”

His eyes lit up, and he nodded, stroking himself again. “Exactly like a striptease.”

He watched every move as she began to sway in place, and then slowly pulled her tank up just beneath her breasts. Then she turned her back on him, and pulled it the rest of the way off and looked at him over her shoulder. He was riveted, a little smile playing about his mouth.

Tossing her tank over her shoulder at him, Bella swayed a little more and then did a bump and grind. She hooked her fingers in her panties, and began to push them slowly down. Then she changed her mind, and pulled them up tight into the crevice of her ass, and waggled it at him, arching her back to push it out at him.

Joel groaned. “Oh, Jesus, that’s hot. If I buy you a thong, will you wear it for me?”

She turned to face him, triumph sizzling in her veins, and pulled her panties tighter, into the folds of her labia. Then she parted her legs and rolled her hips, giving him a glimpse of her pussy. “Yes,” she agreed in a husky voice.

Then she wriggled out of the panties and crawled up onto the bed. “Come here,” he urged, but she evaded him.

“Not yet. Want a taste of you.”

She let her hair fall across his thighs, and pressed her face to his belly, inhaling his musky scent and pressing a trail of kisses across the hard plain of his abdomen toward his penis. It bumped her in the chin, and she rubbed her cheek against him, reveling in the satiny heat of his skin, the way he quivered when she touched her tongue to him.

“Oh God, that’s good,” he groaned. “Yeah, like that, baby.” His big hand slid into her hair, cupping her head as she closed her mouth around the broad head of his penis, swirling her tongue over the slit and tasting the saltiness of the glistening drop there.

She pulled him deep into her mouth, reveling in the freedom to do what she wanted, stroking her palms over his lean flanks while she sucked him.

Her fingertips struck the edge of the bandage, and they both flinched. Bella raised her head, stricken, but Joel grasped her hand and pulled her up over him.

“’S okay, Nani,” he said. “Or it will be, as soon as I’m inside you.”

“I don’t know,” she fretted, even as her arousal grew at the sight of his cock, glistening from her mouth.

“I do. Come here, wahine. You can do all the work, and I’ll just lie here. Here.”

He reached over to the bedside table, picked up a small square package and handed it to her.

Carefully, Bella swung her leg over him, making sure her knee did not contact his wounded side. He was breathing hard, but he lay still as she fitted the condom over him, and then rose up over him and wrapped her fingers around him, placing him at the entrance to her body.

She watched him watching her as she slid back and forth, wetting him with her arousal. Then she moved her hips, working her way down around him, taking him into her. She moaned as he filled her, stroking sensitive nerves that knew his touch, and waited greedily for more.

He held up his hands and she laid her own in them, their fingers interlocking. Her hands clasped in his, Bella began to move.

It was all her this time, and in a way, it was incredibly erotic, as if she were using this strong, vital male for her own enjoyment. Her pleasure grew and grew, until all she could do was move, faster and faster on his perfect shaft. The heady scent of clean sweat and their arousal rose around her in the damp air, and the succulent sounds of her pussy clasping at him combined with their breathing.

His skin gleamed with a dew of sweat in the lamplight, his face hard with lust, his eyes gleaming like amber in his face, but he held himself quiet, letting her pleasure him.

“Oh,” she moaned. “I can’t—”

He let go of her hand and reached between her legs, the calloused pad of his thumb finding her swollen clitoris and circling it, hard. “Yes, you can,” he urged. “Ah, you’re so gorgeous, baby. Your face, those little papaya breasts, nipples hard, your tight, hot pussy, swallowing me up.”

His graphic praise and his caress sent her over the edge, and she came, the pleasure imploding inside her, around him, and then outward, through her body, quaking and shivering in waves of intense pleasure.

“Bella,” he groaned, stiffening like a living board under her. “Ah, yeah. God, I love you. Love…you.”

She moved sinuously, riding him more slowly, until at last his eyes opened, and he gave a last, shuddering sigh, his hands lax on her thighs.

He smiled slowly at her, teeth gleaming. “That was almost worth getting shot for. C’mere.”

She leaned over, careful not to touch his midsection, and kissed him. Her hair fell down around their faces in a black curtain. “I love you too,” she whispered, so happy she could scarcely contain it. He’d said the words. That meant something, didn’t it?

He slid his hands up to cup her breasts and kissed her back. “That makes me the luckiest moke on da island, wahine.”

She giggled at his bad accent. “Is dat Idaho Pidgin, moke?”

“Mm-hmm.” He kissed her again, and then yawned, wincing as the movement stretched his side.

Bella moved off of him, contrite. “Oh, you need to rest. Here.” She handed him a tissue, and he dealt with the condom, and she dropped the wad of damp tissue into the wastebasket.

“You should get back to your own bed. Or I can sleep there, and you can have my bed.”

He scowled. “Or both of us can sleep here.”

They argued for a moment, but Bella realized that if she wanted him to relax, she’d better give in. She helped him scoot over so that she could climb into bed on his uninjured side, made sure he was covered with the sheet and turned off the light.

Joel turned his face toward her, gave an exhausted sigh and fell instantly asleep.

She lay in the darkness, listening to him breathe, enjoying his closeness, and imagining sleeping with him, like this, in a home of their own.

He’d said he loved her, and he definitely wanted her. In fact, he couldn’t keep his hands off her, and the look in his eyes when he looked at her—she could live off that alone.

But would he stay? If she took him up to the farm, would he fall in love with it as she had a few days before, when Homu and David drove her there to see it?

She was going to find out, she decided. As soon as he felt better.

It took days of getting better acquainted, of sharing past experiences, favorites and pet peeves, for Bella to work up her courage. She and Joel spent a week at Nawea as he got acquainted with her family and her. The two of them talked and talked while they swam, strolled the grounds, and while they lay in bed after making love.

As soon as Grace left for home, Bella moved Joel into her room. She slept beside him, ate with him and fell deeper in love every moment.

She tried not to gush over him, restraining herself. He told her he loved her again, several times, but usually right after he came, so she was just a teensy bit cautious of his pronouncement.

Finally, on a warm, humid evening, she drove him up the mountain and up the winding road to the meadows above South Kona. Melia’s little SUV nosed into the plumeria-bordered lane and rolled into the open area by the small, sunfaded house.

Bella hopped out of the vehicle and walked around to join Joel as he stepped out. She looked around, trying to see with his eyes. The house was small, painted white, the roof and window trim a dark green. A deep lanai ran around the house, with a few empty plant pots and an old table and chairs.