Life's a Beach Read online

  His fingers tangled in her hair, holding her head back so he could ravage her mouth. It had been so long since she had been kissed with such abandon. The logical part of her mind was tapping her on the shoulder, going, You just met the man and You’re making out with a guy called Dude. But she didn’t care. He cupped her ass, and Amelia retaliated by hugging him close so she could enjoy the muscles of his back.

  He was breathing heavily as he trailed kisses along her jaw. Tilting her head to give him access to her neck, she cried out when his teeth grazed the sensitive skin there. She hoped he’d give her a hickey, some proof when she woke up that this hadn’t been a dream. Curving her leg around his, she lightly bit his shoulder and he growled. The sound sent tingles straight down south, and she strained to get closer to the hard bulge in his shorts.

  “Hell,” he ground out. “Where’s a lanai when you need one?”

  Amelia choked on a giggle. “We can go to my room, but I’d have to kick my roommate out.”

  “I feel like I’m in college,” he said, and reluctantly guided her thigh down, but not before caressing the length of it.

  “Where did you go to college?” Amelia brushed her fingers down his chest.

  He caught them when they touched his waistband, and brought them up to his mouth for a chaste kiss. “NYU.”

  “Oh, so you’ve been to Manhattan?”

  “Why do you think I’m here in January?” he said, and tried to adjust himself. “Maybe I should go for a quick dip.”

  “I’d be happy to take care of that for you,” Amelia teased.

  “Tempting,” he said, looking around. “Are you up for a one-night stand?”

  Amelia sobered. It sounded less fun when he put it like that. “I hadn’t really thought about it,” she lied. “Does it have to be for just one night? I’m here for two weeks. Can it be a two-week stand?”

  Dude coughed. “Two weeks is a long time for me.”

  Amelia grabbed his hand. “Let’s go for a walk until your hard-on goes down.”

  “Sistah, if you keep talking like this, it’s not going to go down.” But he let her lead them for a walk around the resort.

  “I’m not usually like this. But I haven’t had sex in three months or so,” she said, swinging their joined hands.

  “Not helping the hard-on,” he told her.

  “And catching the jerk in bed with Titszilla the barista really screwed with my confidence.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, squeezing her hand.

  “I don’t want your pity,” she said, trying to pull out of his grip.

  “You don’t have it. He’s an asshole.”

  “Thanks,” Amelia said. “Quinn was just so pretty. And she’s sassy and owns her own business. I really feel like a loser. Especially now that I’m homeless and jobless.”

  “Wait, what?”

  “I lived with him. It was his apartment. And I got fired, so Quinn gets Jay and I get the shaft. But I’m not going to dwell on it. This is the last vacation I can take for a while, so I’m going to go all out. I’ve got to cram a whole lot of wonderful into the next two weeks to get me through a crappy rest of the year. I hadn’t planned on propositioning the first hot man I saw. Which was Kai, by the way.”

  “You think Kai is hot?” Dude drew himself up in affront.

  “Hell yeah,” she said. “But I kissed you.”

  He nodded. “That’s true. So if I turn you down for your two-week stand, you’re going to proposition the bell clerk?”

  Amelia laughed. “I haven’t really thought it all out yet. I haven’t even slept a full eight hours in two days. My system is all screwed up.”

  He went back to rubbing his thumb across her knuckles. “Maybe we should wait until you’re on a more even keel.”

  Amelia considered it. After all, she didn’t want to have any regrets in the morning. Or was this his way of extracting himself from the situation? “I really don’t want to hop in and out of beds. I’m looking for a two-weeker.” Is that even a thing? Amelia wondered, then decided it was now. “If you’re not interested, just say so.”

  Dude put her hand on his hard cock through his shorts. “What part of ‘raging hard-on’ makes you think I’m not interested?”

  Amelia gestured to herself. “I’m still upright. Not bent over a railing watching the waves crash into the beach while I come.”

  Dude groaned. “I don’t have a lanai.”

  “Hmmm,” Amelia said. “I suppose we can work around that. I’ll have to adjust the fantasy.”

  “You do that,” he said.

  Amelia looked up at him. “So are you up for two weeks?” Then she looked down.

  “I think so,” he said. “I might be able to be your rebound guy.”

  That also wasn’t a great term, but she had to admit it was honest. Now that she’d practically bullied herself into his bed, Amelia wondered if she could pull off a no-strings affair.

  When they walked into the buffet area, she saw Zarafina in the middle of a group of Japanese tourists. She had her tarot cards out. Amelia waved to her and gave a slight nod of her head toward Dude.

  “That’s my aunt Zarafina.” Amelia gestured over. “She’s my roommate.”

  Dude gave Zarafina the shaka. Zarafina winked and gave Amelia the okay sign with her fingers.

  “Huh,” Amelia said, handing a plate to Dude. “You just got the seal of approval.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Zarafina is a psychic. She’s never wrong. So our thing must be predestined.”

  “Our thing?” Dude pointed to the pulled pork. “You want to try that.”

  They filled up their plates and found a table by the stage, where a ukulele player was strumming his instrument.

  She put her hand on his leg and squeezed. “Two weeks of sex, sun, and fun.”

  “You want a drink?” he asked, taking her hand off his thigh and bringing it up to his lips to kiss. But he blew the romantic gesture by looking around to see if anyone was watching.

  Does he think I’m going to jump him in the middle of the buffet?

  “Ice water,” Amelia said, pulling her hand away. “Lots of it. I’m starting to get a headache. And I don’t want it to ruin our night.”

  Dude left for the bar. She almost felt sorry for him. He acted like he didn’t have women throwing themselves at him all day long. Sexy guy like that? Crap on toast. She hoped the gift shop was still open and that they had condoms. As she sat there enjoying the barbecue sauce on the pork, she shifted a bit as the sand in her suit irritated her. It might be a good idea to have a shower first. Amelia chewed on a taro root pancake and rethought her proposition. They could have a quickie in her room while Zarafina was chatting with her new friends. But that thought wasn’t so appealing. Perhaps they could go back to the beach. And what? Have sex in public?

  Amelia snorted. She wasn’t that Girls Gone Wild yet.

  She finished her potato salad, which the servers told her was ‘ono. And they were right, it was delicious.

  What if Dude didn’t come back? Her stomach twisted. She couldn’t take that rejection. Not now. Not after the last two days. Maybe she should just put sex fiend Amelia to bed alone after a shower. Her behavior was bordering on pathetic. And his was a little ridiculous. She wasn’t asking for a marriage proposal. She wasn’t even asking for a vacation boyfriend. Putting her fork down, she glanced around, but she didn’t see him.

  Shit. She’d come on too strong and scared him off. Just her luck.

  Staring down at her plate, she blinked back tears. Damn, she was tired. It had to be past midnight her time. Even with her nap in the hammock, her eyes felt gritty. She probably wouldn’t even enjoy having a night of wild sex, even if he did come back. Scraping her chair back, Amelia put her head down and hurried off the patio.

  Chalk this one up as another one of my bad ideas.

  Chapter 5

  It was still dark out when Amelia woke up. The red digits on the clock told her that it w
as 4:00 a.m. Which was—she screwed up her face to do the math pre-coffee—10:00 a.m. her time.

  No, she told herself. It’s four freaking o’clock. This was her time now. She rolled over and saw that Zarafina had finally come home and was sound asleep. At least one of them was resting peacefully. Amelia flopped onto her back and tried to go back to sleep. But her body was clamoring for one of Quinn’s specials.

  Great—she was having caffeine DTs.

  Putting the pillow over her face, she resisted the urge to scream into it. After another half hour of thinking thoughts like How do they cram the biscuit dough into the pressurized tube? and If Dude and I were the last people on earth, would we have kids right away to repopulate the world or would we travel the world first?, Amelia gave up.

  Flinging the covers to the floor, she grabbed her robe. Then she made the bed as best as she could. Joely was going to be pissed enough after seeing the sand castle that had fallen out of her bathing suit and was now all over the shower floor. Amelia had been afraid of clogging the drain, so she’d pushed it all into one corner.

  She went out on the lanai and collapsed into a lounge chair. She called her parents, but they had already gone to work, so she left a message telling them she was in Hawaii and she had broken up with Jay. No one else had texted or called. Amelia didn’t know what she’d been expecting. That Quinn missed her and wanted to talk coffee? Or maybe that Jay would be begging for forgiveness? Instead, nada. She tossed the phone on the table and laid her head back on the chair’s cushion.

  The sound of the waves crashing into the beach was satisfying. The tide came in and the tide went out. She wondered what Dude was doing now. Sleeping, like any other normal person, she figured. Amelia dozed fitfully until the sun came up. Then she put on a sundress over a new bathing suit—yesterday’s was still damp—and went to track down a cup of coffee.

  To her surprise, there was a busload of people about to head off on a trip. Amelia recognized Kai behind the desk doing a last-minute head count. She found a large coffee thermos on the counter next to some flyers and poured herself a cup. It smelled okay. Amelia forced away the comparison to Quinn’s coffee. That coffee was dead to her. After doctoring the hotel’s coffee with cream and sugar, she tasted it and decided it was passable.

  “Is there a problem?” the big man from yesterday with the sheets asked politely. His name tag said Makoa. “You’re scowling into your cup.”

  “I’m just wondering if I’ll ever find true love again.”

  “Can’t help you there.” He put on a humor-the-crazy-lady face and began to back away, but she reached out and grabbed his arm.

  “And by true love, I mean a great cup of joe. Do you know where to get the best coffee on the island?”

  “Sure,” he said. “You want to go to Maui Grindz. They got java cake and coffee jam.”

  Amelia hadn’t meant to grab him, and she released him. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me. Do you have the address?”

  Makoa rubbed his arm. “I think so. Let me look it up.”

  Amelia watched as he Googled it. Well, hell, she could have done that. “What type of coffee do you have here?”

  “I dunno. Whatever we can get on sale at the OfficeMax in Lahaina. Folgers, probably.”

  Luckily, her cup was almost empty, otherwise she would have spilled it all over him.

  “Why?”

  He rubbed his thumb and two fingers together. “The kahuna doesn’t want to spend any more than he has to.”

  She shook her head. “That’s barbaric.”

  He wrote down the address for her. “They ain’t going to be open for another couple of hours. But breakfast is out.” Makoa motioned to the buffet.

  “Thanks.” She wandered over to Kai. He had a look on his face that she recognized.

  “What’s wrong?” Amelia asked.

  “Nothing, Ms. Parker.”

  “Call me Amelia, and I used to do your job. You’ve got the I’m-so-screwed face going on. Did a tour provider cancel?”

  “How did you know?” He sighed. “Yeah. One of our bus drivers to Hana never showed up. So I was able to get the driver who was scheduled to do the lavender farm tour to take that crew. But I’ve got fourteen people booked to take the lavender farm tour in another two hours and I can’t find another driver.” Kai pulled at his hair. “I’m sorry to bother you with this.”

  “Can Hani or Makoa drive?”

  “They don’t have the right license. I do, but Hani and Makoa shouldn’t man the desk.” Kai grimaced.

  “No problem. Or wait…” Amelia tried to remember the phrase. “A’ole pilikia?” She gave him the shaka.

  Kai corrected her pronunciation a few times before she got it right.

  “I was a concierge in New York City.”

  “Wow,” he breathed out. “That sounds exciting.”

  “About as exciting as your job. Which brings me to my point. When does the lavender farm tour return here?”

  “About two-thirty island time, meaning whenever they get back.” He smiled and gave a little shrug.

  “I’ll watch the desk and keep an eye on the other excursions.” She looked at her watch. “You’ve got just enough time to train me.”

  “I can’t. The kahuna will kill me.”

  “Is the kahuna here?” Amelia countered, coming around the desk.

  “Um, no,” Kai said.

  “Then what he won’t know won’t hurt him. Look,” she said. “I won’t take any money. I’ll tell them it will be charged to their rooms. You can trust me.”

  “I do. It’s not that. Why would you do this? You’re on vacation.”

  Amelia smoothed a hand over the counter. “I got fired because my boss told me to cancel this vacation. I lost my apartment and my boyfriend.”

  “Whoa,” Kai said.

  “So this would be kind of normal for me. And I think I need a little normal. I almost slept with Dude last night.”

  “Whoa,” Makoa said.

  “I mean, he’s a nice guy, but I don’t sleep with men I just met.”

  A third staff member—Hani, judging by his name tag—joined the conversation. “Why not?”

  “Kulikuli,” Kai said.

  “You shut up,” Hani said.

  “Both of you.” Makoa swatted the two of them upside the head.

  “Anyway,” Amelia said, “it would help me ease into my vacation. And if you’re back by three, that’s nine a.m. my time. I think.” She frowned. “I might need another cup of coffee.”

  “Sistah, Kai will stop and get you some Kona beans for doing this,” Makoa said.

  “Is it as good as they say it is?” She narrowed her eyes at them.

  “Oh, yeah, you won’t be disappointed,” Hani said, nodding.

  “Deal.” She shook each of their hands.

  Kai was still quizzing her on situations when the last passenger finished boarding the bus. “Mahalo.” He kissed her on both cheeks and ran to help Makoa and Hani load up the food and drinks.

  It quieted down after that. Makoa introduced her to their security chief, Holt, and after some curt interrogatory questions, she must have passed muster, because the grim man moved along. She was glad she wasn’t a bad guy. Amelia ate her breakfast at the desk while setting Kai up with a database of vendors. She wouldn’t get rid of his index card box, but at least he had a backup copy on the computer now. The coffee still sucked, but the pineapple more than made up for it. It felt really good to be useful, and she greeted guests with a contented “Aloha” as they passed her to go to the beach. She was going to avoid the beach today. She didn’t think she could face Dude. Reading by the pool, however, seemed like a good idea. And once Kai got back, she would be taking a big mai tai with her. Her face hurt from grinning so hard. This was really fun.

  One of the maids, a voluptuous blonde who reminded her a bit of Quinn, sauntered up to her. She was almost busting out of her uniform. “Who you?” she said. Her name tag said Rosalie.

 
“Amelia.” She held out her hand, but Rosalie just looked her up and down.

  “I’m the head housekeeper. Are you going to be one of my girls?”

  “No. I’m working the desk.”

  “You’re not from around here,” she said.

  “What gave it away?” Amelia said. It was like dealing with the reception desk staff back at the Goldfish. Why can’t we all get along? she wondered.

  “Who hired you?”

  “Why do you care?”

  “I’m just wondering.” Rosalie gave her another once-over, then walked away, swaying her hips.

  A few hours later, Makoa handed her a name tag. It was ceramic with a big plumeria on it. Her name was written in black marker on a white leaf.

  “I love it,” she said, cradling it to her chest. “Thanks for this. Rosalie was giving me a hard time.”

  “Ignore her.” Makoa dismissed her with a wave of her hand. “That one loves drama, and if dere ain’t any, she creates it.”

  “I know the type.” Amelia ran her finger over the curves of the shaped name tag. “This is really beautiful.”

  “My sister makes them.”

  “You should have her come and set up a table and sell them. Maybe we can get a lot of local craftsmen to do that.” She pinned it on her sundress. It felt official.

  “We had that, but when the news came down that we were going to be sold, they all went to find a spot in another hotel.”

  “Well, we’re not closed yet. Do you think we can get them back?”

  “Not on the weekend.”

  “How about Thursday night?” she asked, checking the calendar.

  “Why Thursday?” Makoa leaned against the counter, crossing his arms.

  “Because the Hilton is having fireworks that night. If we set up some chairs on the beach, we can advertise it as a fireworks picnic or something.”

  “Pikiniki,” Makoa corrected.

  She snapped her fingers. “Exactly. Let’s do it.”

  “Well, Kai is the luna. And you’re the luna in his absence, so okay.”