Mai Tai Marriage Read online

  * * *

  At first she didn’t realize what she was looking at. Well, that wasn’t totally true. Someone had sent Jim a stack of orgy photos. That is if three people could be considered an orgy. What she had no idea of was why a stack of porn had been addressed to Jim at her house. And then she saw it.

  “Oh, my God,” she cried, snatching the pictures from his grasp. Fingers trembling, she looked carefully at the photo on top, then the next, another, and the last one. “I don’t understand? How—”

  “I’m sorry.” Jim pulled the pictures from her crushing grip. “It’s not you.” He took the photos from her shaky hands. His voice was so sharp, so sure, her head snapped up to look at him at the same moment her father came walking up the hall.

  “Your mother wants a cup of tea.” He shuffled past them to the kitchen. “You two want a cup?”

  “No,” Lexie snapped.

  Holding the envelope and photos against his chest with one arm, he reached out to steady Lexie with the other. “Thanks, Alex. We’re going to hit the sack.”

  Alex Hale nodded at the two and began filling the empty kettle.

  With his hand on her lower back now, Jim eased her down the hall, ushered her into the bedroom, and closed the door. “I’m sorry you had to see that. You’d better sit down.”

  He kept his hand on her back until she was seated on the edge of the bed. Who was this man really? A man who risked his life for his country and his friends. She’d known that from the stories. He’d saved Billy and had come to Kona to protect Maggie and the Deluca kids. He’d been charming, and polite, and funny, and no matter what life seemed to throw at them, he’d stood by her side. Had her back. Even now.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” He dipped his chin at her.

  “You sound so sure that the woman isn’t me, and yet, on that last photo, that’s my face. But I wouldn’t…never…” The heat of embarrassment warring with sheer fury rose up and warmed her cheeks. Why would somebody do this to her? Send these to Jim, the man everyone thought was her husband? For a brief second she felt a surge of relief that the photos hadn’t been made public, turning her into the sex bomb joke of the island.

  Seething in her own worst thoughts, everything around her blurred. Humiliation had tears burning the back of her eyes. Damn it. The need to hide like an ostrich burying its head in the sand grew with each horrible photo image flashing through her mind.

  Jim’s hand closed over hers. “It’s okay. I know those aren’t you.” He tossed the envelope aside.

  She didn’t understand how he could be so sure. Was he merely offering placating words of comfort? Could he be that good of a liar?

  Her doubt and confusion must have shone clearly in her face, her eyes, somewhere. Because his hand squeezed hers, and his voice lowered to a near whisper, “Anyone who really knows you will realize they can’t be you. But I’ve seen you in a swimsuit. I’ve held you in my arms. That is not you.”

  When she’d gotten to the shot clearly showing her face looking straight at the camera, one man underneath her and the other behind her, she’d almost lost the contents of her stomach. Knowing better and yet even she believed the photo. “But how—”

  “For one thing.” Jim tapped a finger on the closed envelope. “That woman, whoever she is, did not inherit her boobs from her grandmother.”

  He remembered.

  “Any man can tell the difference between Mother Nature and silicon implants. Those assets were surgically enhanced.”

  The nauseous churning in her stomach eased slightly.

  “Also, whoever that woman is, she has a birthmark on her left hip. It’s covered with makeup so I didn’t notice it on the first two photos. It’s slightly more visible on the third, but you can’t miss it in the last one. You don’t have a birthmark. At least not there.”

  He wrapped his fingers in the hem of her top, lifted it to her navel and with his other hand tugged the elastic of her shorts to her tan line in so fast a synchronized motion that she gasped at the sudden chill.

  Gently, he flattened his hand over the bare unadorned spot. When she managed something akin to a nod, he let go of her clothes and pulled his hand back. “It has to be Graham.”

  And then she remembered. Jim telling her Graham had said something about her that made him threaten to rearrange Graham’s teeth. “But why?”

  “Well, it’s been established already he’s an idiot. First for letting you get away. Second for running his generations old family business into the ground. And now for thinking something as ridiculous as these obviously doctored photos would scare me away.”

  “You’re saying if he can convince you to leave me he still thinks he can have me back?”

  Jim opened his palms and shrugged. “Apparently. Unless you can think of someone else who has a reason to do this?”

  She shook her head.

  “The man is obviously willing to go to any length to get you back.”

  “No,” she corrected. “He’ll go to any length for my father’s patent.”

  The stinging admission was the only part of this insanity that made any sense. Graham’s willingness to tarnish her reputation and put her through the pain and anguish of breaking up what he thought was a happy marriage, was mind boggling. But the thing that scared the crap out of her was contemplating what the hell would Graham have done to her if Jim hadn’t been in her life right now. If they hadn’t accidentally married. And what might he do after Jim was gone.

  The horror of possibilities had the tears she’d managed to hold back trickling down her face.

  Strong arms folded around her, pulling her close against him. Gentle hands patted her back and ran fingers through her hair sending waves of comforting warmth everywhere. Gulping in a breath, she blinked back the tears. Crying her eyes out changed nothing. That hard lesson had been learned thanks to one cheating ex fiancé.

  “He doesn’t deserve your tears.” Jim’s lips pressed light tender kisses on the top of her head. Delicate yet firm, they sent those familiar tingles down her spine and ricocheting throughout her body.

  In the last twenty-four hours they’d shared three kisses. Each one hotter than the one before. And right now she knew if she raised her head, looked into his eyes, and saw the same hunger she felt staring back at her, they’d kiss again. Only this time Emily wouldn’t be on the phone or standing behind them to bring them to their senses.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Jim knew holding Lexie could very well be the biggest mistake of his life. What he needed to do was put the brakes on his attraction to her. Keeping her in his arms only hastened the flow of heat steadily rising inside him. Any doubt he might have had over how much he wanted this woman evaporated the moment her curves molded exquisitely against him. He tried to still his racing heart. To stem the need. Squelch the desire.

  Maybe if he counted backwards from one hundred or walked through the steps of disarming a bomb or recited the Gettysburg Address, he could be just a shoulder to cry on. The friend she needed. Not the man who ached to make her his. Except every effort at distraction gave way to thoughts of the woman curled against him.

  Afraid if he dared utter a single word, she’d hear the raw need in his voice, he thumbed a tear from her cheek and dared a glance at her face. Expecting to see the shock and hurt from only minutes before, he was robbed of what little oxygen his lungs held when he found only need and desire staring up at him.

  The draw was irresistible. In a heartbeat, his lips found hers. Soft and moist, a tender caress, a sweet connection that he could no longer deny. His hands slowly brushed down her back, gently cupping her bottom with just enough pressure for her to feel just how much he wanted her. His promises to another stopped him from having her now, but he needed for her to truly believe she was special. That no matter what had happened in her past, there was at least one man on this island who desperately wanted her.

  Pulling back, he meant to stop kissing her, to put space between them, catch his
breath, get control of himself. But her head lolled back and he could no more resist tasting the nape of her neck any more than a magnet could ignore true north. His tongue dipped below her chin, swirling moist circles, nipping at the pulse point at her throat.

  Her fingers inched up his chest and weaved into his hair. In a breathy voice she murmured his name, making him even harder.

  “Lexie,” he groaned before capturing her lips again. One more kiss. Just one. But he used his lips and tongue and hands to pour out everything inside of him.

  Lost in the fireworks of sensations pulsing in every direction, he slid his hand around her waist and under her blouse. The heat of her bare skin against his fingertips had him in a near frenzy, ignoring the small voice in the back of his mind warning him to back off, take a breath. Almost with a mind of its own, his hand drew lazy circles along her side and up under the swell of her breast. Growing harder and more daring, he spread his fingers across the lacey covering on the fleshy mound and squeezed.

  Lexie’s gasp of pleasure nearly sent him over the edge. Never had he been so aroused by so little. Being with Lexie was different from being with any other woman he’d ever known and deep down he knew if he didn’t stop things soon, nothing in his life would ever be the same.

  * * *

  Oh sweet lord. Just as his thumb flicked over the tip of her nipple, Lexie’s hips bucked up against him. She could feel every long hard inch of him and, heaven help her, she wanted it all.

  His hand froze at the extra contact. She could hear the pant of his breath. See his eyes squeezed shut. “Lexie,” her name sounded husky and low. “We can’t.”

  An honorable man. Her eyes fell shut. Her breath caught in her throat. She wanted this. Wanted him. Even if just for one night. One time. In only a few minutes with this man she’d already had the most passionate experience of her life. She had to know what it would be like to be his, even if it was only pretend. Opening her eyes, her gaze locked with his.

  “Just this once,” she murmured.

  Her arms twined around his neck, she pulled him in close and hard, toppling them over to lie flat on the bed. Lips pressed against his, her tongue dancing along the edges, taunting, teasing, and begging for entrance. She could feel desire and honor at war in his tight muscles. But she wanted this. Sliding one hand under and up his shirt, between two fingers she worked the nipple into a hardened pebble and delighted at how he sucked in a breath without relinquishing contact with her mouth.

  Shifting his weight, he rolled them over. She on her back, him holding himself over her. “If we don’t stop. If we go through with this, I can’t make any promises.”

  “No promises. No tomorrows.” She told herself one stolen night would somehow have to be enough.

  Through a tangle of arms and legs, they rolled and shifted, pulling apart only long enough for her to jerk her top over her head. Straddling him, she reached behind her and undid her bra. Tempted to slowly slip out from the constraint one arm at a time, she gave in to the need for his hands on her once again and tossed the garment aside with a hurried flick of her wrist.

  “You are so beautiful.” Jim reached around her, turning onto her back again, and with the care of a connoisseur enjoying a fine wine, settled his lips around her aching nipple and drank her in.

  The need for skin against skin drove her to curl her fingers around the edge of his shirt and tug upward. His head shot up and his hand slapped around her wrist, stilling her movement. “I should leave the shirt on.”

  Dazed from all the pleasurable sensations shooting to the one place that wanted him most, her mind stuttered to understand his words. And then for a single fog-free moment she remembered. The explosion. The burns. The scars. “I don’t care.”

  “Lexie—”

  “I want to feel all of you.” Pulling him down for another long, languid kiss that tugged at every spine tingling nerve, with her free hand she yanked his shirt up and eased away only long enough to shove it over his head and send it flying across the room.

  Moving her same hand up his side along the one scar and around to his back, her mouth tipped up to one side in an impish grin. “I want all of you.”

  Leaning forward, he hovered only a breath away. “God, you’re beautiful.” His voice, raspy with lust, wrapped around her. Like aged whiskey, it warmed her from the inside out.

  Tonight would be special. A night like no other. Just him and her and no one else. No past and no future. Only this one glorious night in time.

  Once again, the need to have and have now took over the efforts to go slow and easy. Her fingers hurried to undo Jim’s belt, dipping below the waistband, overjoyed at his gasps for breath at her touch. His shorts landed on the floor. Next his briefs. Then her panties followed. Fingers strayed and stroked and lips tasted and teased, all sending fiery flashes of heat and need low in her belly.

  When Jim pulled away to go rummage through his medicine bag on the bathroom sink, she thought she would turn inside out with the aching need. Desperate to feel all of him deep inside her, she almost screamed forget the damn condom, but knew she couldn’t afford a mistake like that. Tearing the foiled packet open as he walked back to bed, he was sheathed and as ready as she was by the time he was once again straddling over her.

  A brief hesitation, a steady gaze into her eyes. Her honorable man was back. Even now. Even having come this far. The choice was still hers.

  She answered with a curt nod and pulled him in close. Her legs quivered as he pushed in one inch, sliding out and then doing it again and again, one torturous thrust at a time until he was finally all the way inside her. This is what she’d craved. Two bodies, joining, merging, spiraling to a fevered pitch. She rocked and bucked with every stroke until he reached between them and with a single flick of his finger and one more thrust sent her flying over the edge.

  No one had ever brought her to such heights. His movements slowed, eased, giving her a moment to recover. And then just when she thought she’d never move again, he slid out and in. The slow slide of wet heat had her hips rocking again until they shared a rhythm, going faster, harder, and faster still and then he pushed one last time hard and deep into her, hitting that one spot that sent a kaleidoscope of colors flashing across her line of vision.

  Jim collapsed to one side of her, his arm curled tightly across her waist, his head resting in the curve of her shoulder. She wanted to make sure she would always remember tonight. Every moment. Every touch. Every moan. Every surge of pleasure. And commit them all to memory for when Jim was gone, the pretense was over, and she was once again left all alone.

  * * *

  Jim woke to Lexie’s warmth curled around him. Her long blonde hair draped over his chest. The soft wisps of her breath tickling the hairs on his chest. Not sure what to do or say or how to escape the fact that he wanted her all over again. He shifted out from under her and turned toward the window.

  Standing he spun about to face her and almost lost his breath. Even sound asleep she was beautiful. Seeing her pink cheeks flushed from his loving and her lips swollen from his kisses brought back vivid reminders of the intense pleasure of the night before. For a brief moment he wondered what it would be like to wake up to her every morning. And just as quickly reminded himself he had no business daydreaming of a future with Lexie.

  Having pulled out clean clothes for the day, he stole one last look at her on his way to the shower. A cold shower.

  When he exited the bathroom, showered, shaved, and dressed, Lexie was just waking up. Eyes still droopy with sleep, she smiled up at him then shoved off the bed. Naked. Not even an ice cold shower would be enough to dampen his response to just the sight of her.

  She moved to the closet door and grabbed a robe he hadn’t noticed before. As each arm slid into the silky fabric and she wrapped it around her, cinching the belt at her waist, it occurred to him how lucky that robe was.

  Jim cleared his mind and his throat. “We should talk about last night.”

  “Th
ere’s nothing to talk about.” She tied a knot on the belt and moved closer. “We agreed. One night. No promises. No regrets.” She inched up on the tip of her toes and kissed his cheek with almost a sisterly peck. “I just need a few minutes for a quick shower and then we can head into the shop and see what to do next about my cheating no good pervert of an ex.”

  And just like that, no morning after awkwardness. They were back on even footing. Everything the same as before. Though somehow, he doubted after last night if anything in his life would ever be the same again.

  While Lexie showered and dressed, Jim went to the kitchen and pulled up a chair at the table with her father. “Mind if I join you?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Where’s Mrs. Hale?”

  “On the phone. Some committee member is bending her ear on all that’s gone wrong since she left.”

  “Will that change her plans?”

  Alex Hale smiled and shifted his head from side to side. “Nah, just makes her feel useful when things fall to pieces without her.”

  “More tea?” Jim lifted the warm kettle in the air.

  “Hell no. That’s my wife. I’m a coffee man. Always have been, always will be.” He pointed to the Keurig coffee maker with his chin. “Best invention man ever made. Only sorry someone in my company didn’t come up with it first.”

  Jim had to agree with the man. Instant coffee that didn’t taste anything close to instant. Now all he had to do was gather a little information before Lexie and her mom joined them. “Lexie mentioned your company is in R and D.”

  “Almost entirely high tech now. My grandfather started out in manufacturing like so many others from Boston. By the time I was ready to replace my father, he’d taken the company largely in the direction of Research and Development. Under my watch we’ve drifted to mostly electronics.”

  “Just for the military?” Jim took the seat beside Lexie’s father.

  The man glanced up from his cup, taking a long measuring look at Jim. “Some.”

  Jim had to consider his next words and playing his hand. “I understand you work with Graham’s company.”