For both our sakes, I need to change the subject, stat. Thinking about the weird sounds I’d heard earlier, I ask, “What were you getting in your bedroom?”
He blushes and tugs at his collar, quadrupling his charming quotient. “Joey always insisted we keep some local money in each of the houses, just in case it was needed. I don’t have a lot of dollars on me right now, considering when I left my apartment this morning, I didn’t know I was coming to Hawaii.”
My fork clinks against the plate. “You have a box of money in your house? Where anyone could get it?”
“Not anyone.” He refolds his napkin on his lap. “It’s hidden in a secret compartment. Only my brother and I know how to get into it. I’ll show you before we leave tonight, just in case the next time you decide to run away, you won’t starve like the last time.”
Ouch. “I’m too impulsive for my own good,” I joke.
“I know we agreed to live in the moment earlier,” he says much more seriously, “but I really hope if you decide to bolt again, you’ll let me know where you are.”
“I was stupid to run,” I admit. He doesn’t argue with me. I shove the chicken around my plate. Shave ice is one thing, poultry is another. Time for another subject changer. I’m on a roll tonight. “Did you like snorkeling? You said you and Callie snorkeled here?”
“It was fun.” He chuckles. “Cal freaked out, though. She thought she was going to drown the whole time.”
It’s seriously hard to imagine Callie freaking out over something as mundane as snorkeling, especially since she admitted to also being an adrenaline junkie recently. “Is that something you guys do a lot?”
“First and last time, I’m afraid.”
“And you excelled at it, right?” I give him a winning smile. “Is there anything you don’t automatically excel at?”
“I haven’t been particularly good at getting you to love me.”
My heart sinks. I hate that he thinks this. “That’s not true at all.”
It’s his turn to rearrange the chicken on his plate.
“Kellan.” I reach out and cover one his hands. “I love you. You know that.”
It’s heartfelt, but he pulls away so he can go lean against the railing. After a few minutes, he drops into one of the lounge chairs on the main deck. “We shouldn’t talk about this.”
I’m a fool. He gives me the perfect out, and yet, I still come over and sit on the arm of his chair. “Why not?”
“You know why.”
I do. And he’s absolutely right. But, as always when it comes to Kellan, I can’t think clearly for an extended amount of time. I love him, and I’ve missed him, and sometimes it’s too much of a struggle to stay away, especially when the pull to him feels as strongly as it does right now.
I wish I were as strong as he apparently is, but I’m not. Because, as I stare down at him, my heart squeezes hard, and all my willpower and decisions made over the last few weeks are hidden in the twilight around us.
When we give in and kiss, there’s nothing to indicate that just a few minutes earlier, he’d urged caution. I shift into the chair, bringing a leg on either side of him so that I’m straddling his torso. He slides back in the chair, bringing me down with him as we keep kissing. My heart is racing so fast that it’s hard to catch my breath, but I just don’t care, because each time we kiss, there’s always the belief it could be the last.
So I kiss him desperately, like my life depends on it. And it’s thrilling that he kisses me back the exact same way. His mouth is magic, his hands are bliss, and every inch of me that’s touching him is buzzing and humming with so much pleasure that it’s astounding my bones haven’t liquefied yet.
I want him so much that it feels like I’ll die if I don’t let him consume me.
There are a thousand things I want to tell him, about how he makes me feel when he touches me, what his kisses do to my insides, how I get woozy when I smell him, like right now, how I’m so lightheaded I feel like I’m flying. His hands and body are the only things grounding me. But I can’t say any of these things because I’m no longer capable of speech. So I show him, instead.
I love him, need him so much it hurts.
I’m working on the buttons to his shorts when he gasps, “Wait.”
Why do men have so many buttons on their pants? What happened to zippers?
“Maybe,” he murmurs, breath heavy against my mouth, “we . . . should . . . stop?”
My fingers pause. “Stop?”
He groans, his fingers gripping my sides underneath my dress. “Maybe . . . slow down?”
But then his mouth is against mine once more, his tongue stroking mine until I swear I see stars in my closed eyelids and hear bells around us. Slow down? Yeah, right. His hands slip under my sundress and up my back until they reach my bra.