Untamed Hawaiian Heat (Rift Hunters) (23 page)

In unison, they started the chant, continuing to slap their thighs and abs while stomping their feet.
“Ka mate! Ka mate! Ka ora’! Ka ora’! Ka mate! Ka mate! Ka ora’! Ka ora’!”

Kiana couldn’t take her gaze off Tiaki or Mateo. She was mesmerized by the sweat glistening on their bare chests as the muscles strained and flexed with their movements. Occasionally their gazes met, and a shock of awareness would crackle between them. The intensity with which they studied each other during those brief looks made heat pool between her legs. The magic sparking across the distance separating them seemed to simmer in the air.

The end of the haka was met with an uproar of applause and shouting. Some of the men accepted a drink of water while they waited for the
kumu hula
—hula instructor—to take his place before moving into formation for the dance.

Kumu Hula pounded his
ipu
gourd on the ground and began the
tü ‘oe
chant. The dancers clapped their hands and raised them to the sky.

Kiana squirmed. Watching the way Tiaki and Mateo’s muscles rippled with each precise twist, dip, and turn of the hula made her hands itch to touch their glistening skin, trace the contours of the hard bodies as they performed some more erotic movements.

The beat of the ipu slowed to a more sensual tattoo. The dancers’ hips undulated as they lowered their bodies to a reclining position, their hands and feet mimicking thrusting motions.

Kiana twisted in her seat every time one of them caught her gaze with a heated look, flooding her core with renewed desire.

The gathering motions of the dance had them placing their fists in front of their bodies as they came up onto their knees, bringing the focus of her attention to their groins. Shaking their hips, the dancers leaned back into a reclining position. The thought of straddling one of them while they performed made her pussy weep in anticipation.

The rest of the dance was a blur as she fought the urge to take a swim to cool her overheated body before her performance. Not that she believed it would help. She couldn’t keep the image from her vision out of her mind of the three of them entwined in an intimate embrace…stroking…licking…fucking…as the surf ebbed and flowed around them.

Loud cheers and hoots from the gathered crowd pulled her back to the present. Kiana looked up to find Mateo and Tiaki regarding her intently. She could feel every stormy emotion in them, including Mateo’s resistance to acknowledge what he felt for Tiaki.

No matter what Mateo wanted to believe, Tiaki was as much a part of them as they were of each other. Because of that, she refused to accept they wouldn’t be together.

After quickly hugging their companions, the men began shouting for the women to take their turn entertaining them. Many suggestions for how they could accomplish this were called out, each bolder than the last.

Kiana stood up and went with her friends as they filed into lines on the stage area. She barely noted the movements of the hula they performed, which were second nature to her after so long doing them. Instead she found herself reflecting on what had happened over the last few weeks.

Emotions crashed through her with dizzying intensity as she sorted through all that had occurred since Tiaki had arrived. Her magic swelled in her blood, hummed along every nerve ending as she sifted through the memories. Kissing Tiaki. Tiaki saving them. Making love to both of them. And what had happened between the two men this afternoon, despite their denial that anything had transpired. A smile touched her lips as her mind finally accepted what her heart had known from the first moment she’d laid eyes on Tiaki.

She loved them both. Equally and completely. They filled her soul to overflowing.

Just as quickly as the acknowledgement of her love had come, another thought slid through her mind and gripped her heart. What if her plan didn’t work? What if she lost one of them because of the other’s stubbornness to grasp what they could have?

Or worse…both.

She shook her head. No. She wouldn’t allow that to happen.

She needed them both like she needed air to breathe. The way her magic responded to them when they were near told her this. She would convince Mateo. She had to.

The hula came to an end, and she started to leave the stage. She had preparations to finish. Someone yelled from the back of the crowd and requested that she do a solo Tahitian dance. She opened her mouth to protest but stopped when Niki grabbed her arm.

Niki leaned in and whispered, “I asked Monte to request it, Kiana. It’s your sexiest dance. Just think of how crazy it would drive two certain men.” Niki didn’t wait for a reply before she turned and made her way into the crowd to find her husband.

Kiana looked out into the crowd and sought out her men.

Tiaki and Mateo sat near each other. Both watched her with hunger blazing in their eyes. The intensity of their perusal all but closed the distance separating them.

Niki was right. Yes, she’d dance, and she’d seduce them while she did it. She’d make sure they knew how much she wanted them to be together.

For Mateo and Tiaki. For them, she would do anything.

Her future happiness—and theirs—depended on it.

* * * *

Tiaki sat rigidly next to Mateo. Watching Kiana dance had made him acutely aware of the man beside him. Mateo sat close enough for him to savor the heat rolling off his skin. He fought the need to reach over and brush his fingers over his knee. The only way he’d been able to pacify the need was to focus on Kiana.

Kiana seduced his senses with the way she moved, twirling and swaying to the beat of the chant. She was poetry in motion.

He glanced at Mateo out of the corner of his eye.

Mateo sat with his spine ramrod straight. His muscles flexed as though he battled the urge to either move away or close the small gap between them.

Tiaki was startled from his thoughts by an intense drum rhythm. He glanced back to find Kiana kneeling in front of him and Mateo.

Rising slowly to her feet, she met each of their gazes. Her eyes burned with forbidden desires. Her magic glittered silver within their depths, speaking of the hungers clawing her inside, demanding to be sated.

Shifting her weight to the balls of her feet, Kiana thrust her hip first toward Mateo, then in Tiaki’s direction. Turning her back to the audience, she glanced over her shoulder, throwing them a seductive look. The drumbeat increased in tempo. Allowing her eyes to flutter closed, she seemed to lose herself in the music, shaking her hips to the rhythm. Her ass bounced with every movement.

Tiaki shifted his position, trying to ease the sudden ache in his cock. Hearing a small moan, he glanced at Mateo. He wasn’t the only one affected by Kiana’s blatantly seductive display. The link between their magic vibrated with the emotions as they fought to keep it from reaching out to the other.

Swallowing the intense desire to reach over and pull Mateo toward him for a kiss, Tiaki returned his attention to Kiana. Though forcing his magic back to a simmer took more effort than ever before.

Kiana twisted in circles, alternating between thrusting and shaking her hips suggestively. Tiaki recalled the morning they’d awakened after the battle where he’d saved his mates. The feel of her as she’d lain in his arms, pressing her hips forward while he’d fucked her with his fingers, her heat gripping them tight as he’d tormented her. The intense sex the three of them experienced when Mateo had come to confront them.

His balls drew up tight at the memory. He shifted again in discomfort and brushed Mateo’s knee, sending tiny lightning bolts fluttering over his skin at the contact. Glancing up, his gaze collided with Mateo’s. The look in his eyes brought the memory of being buried inside him to mind. Tiaki’s magic fluctuated, dissolving the image before coalescing into a new image. One of him with his cock buried in Kiana while Mateo pressed into him from behind. The thought of being sandwiched between them heated his magic to molten lava.

A gasp from someone nearby drew his attention, and Tiaki looked down to the hand he’d placed on the ground between him and Mateo. It glowed with golden light that snaked across the small distance separating them. He closed his eyes and called to his magic. It took all his willpower to gather it into his core and cage it again. He’d meant what he’d said to Mateo. He refused to force anything to happen between them.

He opened his eyes and returned his attention to Kiana. When Mateo shifted a little farther away, his magic cried out at the increase of the chasm created between them.

Kiana squatted down onto the balls of her feet, her hips undulating wildly to the beat of the drums. Each time she glanced over her shoulder, she met and fixed her gaze on one of them. The hunger shining in the depths of her eyes was almost palpable. Once or twice Tiaki thought he caught a glimpse of something else, but he shied away from figuring out what it was.

All but the deepest drum fell silent. Tiaki sat mesmerized by the way her abs rippled with her twisting movements. Kiana met his gaze and held it as she circled a hip in his direction. Turning her attention to Mateo, she did the same toward him.

There was no mistaking the invitation she’d issued to both of them.

Kiana twisted and turned across the stage, shaking her hips rapidly as the drumming started again and rose to a crescendo, then collapsed to the ground as they fell silent. What was left of the crowd gave a rousing cheer when she stood and bowed, breathing heavily from her exertions. The men and women began drifting away from the clearing as she approached him and Mateo. She opened her mouth to speak, but Mateo dragged her into his arms and crushed his mouth to hers.

Tiaki groaned when he saw Mateo’s tongue plunge into her mouth. A clear declaration of possession if he’d ever seen one.

Kiana leaned into Mateo. Her body went limp. Tiaki watched as she ran her hands up Mateo’s arms, caressing them as the muscles bunched beneath her touch. She paused when she reached the edge of the lightning tattoo on Mateo’s bicep. The jagged lines of electricity glowed with the glittering sapphire radiance of his magic.

Tiaki sucked in a sharp breath when she opened her eyes and met his gaze. They were burnished silver. He caught the movement as she let her fingertips flutter to the edge of Mateo’s tattoo. The barest brush over it, and he almost doubled over. It felt like he’d been struck in the chest by an energy bolt. It took all he had to not bend over from the intensity and give away how her touching Mateo’s magic through his tattoo affected him.

Mateo slipped his hands down her back, his fingers grazing the edge of the tattoo gracing her side to cup her ass and pull her more fully against his hips.

Tiaki shuddered. His magic shattered the cage he’d imprisoned it in, searing his genesis brand. His hand flew to the mark. It pulsed with a burning energy. He’d only heard of that happening when a Rift Hunter lost control of raw magic as he attempted to harness it from a planet’s core.

Tiaki fought the compulsion radiating from his magic that demanded he move in behind Kiana and press his body against hers. To feel his cock cradled against her ass while Mateo touched him…to feel those same hands graze his shaft and wrap around it through his pareo— Tiaki gasped for breath, his dick growing rock hard at the thought.

Mateo finally softened the kiss and whispered something in her ear.

She shook her head, dropping her hands from his body. “No, Mateo. The three of us need to talk about what lies between us and what we’re going to do about it.”

Mateo flicked his gaze to Tiaki. Anger burned in their depths. He returned his gaze to Kiana in his arms and stared at her so intently Tiaki knew he was communicating through their link. Clenching his jaw, Mateo released her and glared at Tiaki.

“There’s nothing to talk about, Kiana.” He turned his back on them and stalked away into the darkness that had descended during the dancing.

From the way his eyes had changed to burnished sapphire steel, Tiaki knew Mateo had felt the desire permeating the air around them.

And still he held back.

* * * *

Thanos watched the tableau between the lovers play out from his hiding place near the crest of the cliff. A devious smile split his features. “Now that’s an interesting development.”

“What’s interesting?”

He flinched at the sound of the deceptively sultry tone in the feminine voice. No matter how long he spent in their company, he would never get used to the icy chill that flooded his veins every time Proioxis and Palioxis were near.

Thanos faced the women standing beside him. He shook his head to clear away the confusion permeating his mind. He always had the urge to rush headlong into whatever he was doing or to run in the opposite direction. It was probably because they were spirits of battle and influenced the rush and retreat. Whatever the reason, he didn’t like it.

It didn’t help that they were also two of the most gorgeous women he’d ever laid eyes on. Unfortunately he knew from experience that acting on any lustful thoughts—at least with Proioxis—was a bad idea. He’d made the mistake of falling for her seductive voice once and had kissed her. He didn’t think he’d ever get rid of the chill that had suffused his bones. Never again, he’d told himself, even as the desire to do so pulled at him.

“My sister asked you a question,
ilithie
!”

Thanos snapped his gaze to Palioxis.

Palioxis stood beside her sister, as dark as Proioxis was light. The sound of her voice incited the intense eagerness to run away as fast and as far as he could.

It took all his willpower not to take a step back when she advanced on him.

“I said answer Proioxis, ilithie! Now, or I’ll make you. You won’t like it if I do.”

Thanos swallowed hard at the thought of what she’d do to pull the information from him. “I thought I saw something when I encountered my brother during the battle.”

Proioxis laid a hand on Palioxis’s shoulder and stepped around her. “And that would be?” she asked in a silky voice that always affected his body, despite his attempts to force it not to.