“Did Marua share her sister’s heated charms?”
“Actually, she was like the soft moon to Kealehai’s blazing sun. Having always lived in her older sister’s much brighter shadow, she’d never had an opportunity to know love. Until they were returning from Taranga’s village, when suddenly, on impulse, the young prince grabbed her and planted a deep, hot kiss on her. From the way it’s described in the various versions of the legend, he would have kissed the socks right off her. If she’d been wearing any at the time.”
Donovan so didn’t need to be talking about impulsive kissing right now. Especially since Lani was also barefoot. Although he was totally a leg guy, he’d never been into women’s feet. Until this moment. “And thus the eternal love triangle,” he said.
“It didn’t happen right away,” Lani said. “And it wasn’t as if she invited the kiss. Marua was not only sweet, and a virgin, she was truly loyal to her sister.”
“And undoubtedly afraid of her sister’s temper,” Donovan suggested, having seen more than a few romantic triangles turn deadly.
“Probably so,” Lani conceded. “At any rate, Marua insisted that they both remember that he’d already pledged himself to Kealehai. And that should have been that.”
“Yet there wouldn’t be a legend if the plot hadn’t thickened.” Donovan didn’t need his detective skills to tell that this story was going to end badly.
“You’re getting ahead of me,” Lani complained. “Having been tempted by her first kiss, Marua hesitantly allowed another. And, as the story goes, being cast under the spell of the prince’s magical charm, she even initiated a few kisses herself as they traveled from the beach through the valley.
“Unfortunately, Kealehai had been watching out for the couple from her peak on Mt. Waipanukai high over the island. She became more and more enraged with each kiss she witnessed and literally blew her top just as poor, bewitched Marua arrived back with Taranga.
“When he saw the fiery display of passion, the man-whore of a prince forgot all about poor sweet Marua, swept Kealehai into his arms, and made mad, passionate love to her on the edge of the erupting volcano. Unfortunately, instead of enjoying a lovely afterglow of postcoital bliss, Taranga was incinerated by the flames… And that’s the painting you’re going to have gracing your wall.”
“That’s fine with me.”
Lani stopped again to stare up at him. “You’ve got to be kidding. It’s one of the ugliest things Daddy’s ever done.”
Unable to resist touching, he ran his knuckles down her cheek. “Ah, but whenever I look at it, I’ll think of you.”
In turn, Lani dropped her sandals on the beach and placed her hands on his shoulders. “Are you accusing me of having a temper?”
“No,” he murmured, tracing the exquisite planes and hollows of her face with his fingertips, “I’m accusing you of making things very, very warm around here.”
“Is that a complaint?” she asked in a soft, breathless voice.
“I don’t know.”
They stared at each other, both searching for answers as the soft rain continued to fall. Finally, Donovan lifted a few heavy strands of wet hair off her face, bent his head, and brushed her cheek with his lips.
“You taste like rain.”
“Liquid sunshine,” she said, closing her eyes as his mouth skimmed over her face. “It never rains in paradise, Donovan. Didn’t Nate tell you that when he was sending you down here to seduce me?”
“I didn’t come here to seduce you.”
“Newsflash, Detective.” Eyes wide open now, she trailed a fingernail down the front of his T-shirt. “You really wouldn’t have to.”
“Now who’s seducing whom?”
“Does it matter?”
“I think it does.” He was drowning here. Drowning in her huge mermaid eyes and warm silky lips he knew he’d be tasting in his sleep. The breeze from the sea was pressing the flowered silk against her body in a way that left very little to his imagination. An imagination that kicked into overdrive as he fantasized about those mile-long legs wrapped around his hips.
“Anyone ever tell you that perhaps, just maybe, you think too much?” she asked. “Not everything has to be so complicated.”
She wasn’t the first person to tell him that. Most recently her brother and Tess. “It’s late,” he said quietly as he dropped his hand and took a step back. Literally and figuratively. “And you’re getting wet.”
“So are you.”
He glanced down, surprised to find his own clothing soaked. “It looks better on you.”
Her laugh was as silvery as the moonlight streaming over them. Then she flashed him an unaffected smile that jolted him to the core. “We have a saying around here, Donovan: The faster you go, the more you miss along the way.”