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  “Do you need assistance throwing them out?” Pretty boy didn’t waste time jumping on that golden opportunity. More accurately, motioning his minions to do so.

  “No.” Lani’s protest sliced the air, desperate and harsh. “No, damn it. You’re not getting onto the property in any way, Gunter. Wave your dogs off or I’m calling the police!”

  Benson’s boys reacted like that was the best punch line of the week. With matching chortles, they barely broke their strides toward the stairs. Tait didn’t waste energy on an answering laugh but indulged himself inwardly.

  Bring it on, fashion plates.

  As soon as the first henchman dared a boot on the bottom stair, he stepped down. “The woman’s made herself clear, dude. Back off.” He kept his tone conversational. No need to let these tarts think they were worth anything more.

  Kellan moved down to flank Tait on the step. All Gunter’s minions tensed. After taking half a second to fully size Kell up, the henchman in front of him made the first move. Though the guy wasn’t packing a gun, his chest was as wide as a C-130, his neck as big as the plane’s loading bay. Kell was smart enough to recognize a lucky break. As soon as the guy cleared two steps, Kell shoved the heel of his palm into that broad target of an Adam’s apple.

  The C-130 crumpled so quietly that Kell had time to roll his eyes at Tait before the blow was noticed—and Benson ordered the rest of his posse forward with a snarl.

  Tait grinned. The boy on his side of the stairs now raced up higher, enraged by watching his friend get toppled by Kellan. “Come and get some candy, sweet thing.”

  The boy turned up the speed. Tait smiled wider. The faster the velocity, the better the punch. Sure enough, the guy ran into his fist hard enough to cause an audible crack of flesh to bone—until the guy’s wail drowned it. He stumbled back, clutching his bloody nose.

  “What the hell?” Benson screeched it like they’d taken out his whole pack of Twinkies instead of the two. “Who do you two meatheads think you are?”

  Tait snickered. It had to be the vodka at play, but he couldn’t help himself. “Meatheads. That’s a new one. I kind of like it.”

  “Says the flank steak,” Kellan drawled while centering himself on the steps with a wide stance, now directly guarding Lani. Tait had to hand it to the guy. Looking that daunting in nothing but khakis and an open beach shirt required significant balls. “Sergeant Kellan Rush at your service, Mr. Benson,” he stated. “This is my brother-in-arms, Sergeant Tait Bommer. We’re honored to be assisting Miss Kail tonight on behalf of the US Army.”

  “Oh, my God,” Lani whispered. “Are you a couple of Franz’s guys?”

  “Would that be a bad thing?” Tait murmured.

  She didn’t take her stare off Benson. “I’m not sure yet.”

  “Nice to meet you, Sergeant.” The new information didn’t shake Benson. The man folded his arms and advanced by another smug step. “Under different circumstances, I’d offer to take you boys out for a beer to thank you for your service. But as they say, this situation is what it is—and I’m sure that my friends at PACOM would be interested to learn how a couple of their boys pulled my men into this dustup without provocation or—”

  This time Kellan joined Tait in his laugh, sharp enough to cut off the bastard. “First, I don’t see a spec of ‘dust,’ man—though that can be arranged if you’re disappointed. Secondly, go right ahead and call your fancy mucks in Honolulu. I’m sure they’ll also be eager to know how the local businessmen of their islands are showing up at private residences where they’re not wanted and demanding entrance anyway.”

  Benson was still unfazed. Tait snorted and shook his head. Some idiots didn’t get the message. Times like these were when it came in handy to let the vodka fairies fly away with a guy’s inhibitions.

  “Hey, Slash? You’re being nice, aren’t you?” He stepped down to the same level as Kellan and backhanded his partner’s chest. “This is strange. He’s not usually the nice one. But that means we can’t have fun, because I don’t feel like being so pleasant right now. Not when a beautiful new friend of mine has been barged in on like this, slapped with threats thinner than rubbers from a truck stop bathroom, and then told she might as well not fight the asswads who made them, because it’s for her own good.” As he lowered his hand, he cracked his knuckles. “Shit like that makes my blood hot, especially when I’ve been drinking. And fuuuck, have I been drinking.”

  Kellan emitted a tight groan. “Goddamnit, T-Bomb. You that determined to live up to the call sign tonight?”

  Near the bottom of the steps, there was a man giggle. Tait glanced over to watch the jeer spilling from one of Benson’s goon boys. The dude had a lanky build, eyes like a rat, and a layer of stubble of which he was clearly proud, complete with styling product worked into the scruff.

  C’mon, Benson. Let this pup off his leash. Let them all off. The itch to rumble with these posers was a fire in Tait’s blood. Okay, so it was displaced fire. He wasn’t so drunk that he didn’t recognize that truth. What his body really craved was friction of a different kind, learning every incredible curve of his beach goddess’s body. Yeeaahh, that was happening sometime…never. The woman already protected her land like a wrathful divinity, which made her person a no-fly zone. And studying her bikini—for pure recon purposes of course—made him note a snug custom fit along with snap-lock closures instead of string ties. The garment was made for utility, not intimacy. Not that he couldn’t get her out of it in less than a minute, with the proper invitation…

  Goddamnit, he needed to pummel something.

  “Casey.” Benson’s clipped command didn’t bode well for that cause. “Don’t waste your time on the nice soldiers. They’re likely getting ready for a trip to Lihue, hoping they’ll be able to buy some entertainment for the night. It’s sad, but some people need to do that.”

  “And some just name theirs Casey and keep it on a pretty leash.”

  All really wasn’t lost. The crack did the trick. Casey’s lips curled before he pounded up the steps toward Tait. Adrenaline rushed Tait’s blood, mixing with the alcohol, sending him into a weird kind of high. Yeah, this was good. The euphoria he’d been seeking for six months. The nirvana of not giving a fuck whether he lived or died. Finally.

  When the kid reached him, Tait stayed open long enough to let the boy land a solid fist to his gut. To any outsider, the blow became Tait’s justification for retaliation. He took the punch with pleasure, curling his arm under and thrusting up with a satisfied grunt. The pup had washboard abs, but they were conditioned by weight machines, not battle drills. Damn. That meant the kid would only last one or two more whacks before slinking off in tears like his friend. Where were some serious warriors when a guy needed to taste blood?

  Luckily, Casey’s buddies surged up, eager to help answer that question. Tait eyed them with a feral grin. “Let’s have some fun, boys. I love playing with puppies.”

  “Holy fuck.” Kellan’s mutter was lined with anger.

  “Oh, my God!” Lani’s gasp was filled with fear.

  His reaction to both was a smile he felt from ear to ear—just before he was tackled, rolled over, and pinned to the steps with his arms spread wide. Casey’s victory scream filled his ears, piercing his I-don’t-give-a-shit bliss, before he looked up—into the kid’s fist.

  Make it good, Fido.

  He vaguely remembered the words actually tumbling past his lips before the blow descended. Pain exploded through his head. Then at last, a bottomless blackness sucked him into its thick perfection.

  Chapter Four

  “Hupos o na hupos.” Lani spat it for the hundredth time in the last half hour. For the sake of emphasizing how high her fury soared, she repeated it for Sergeant Rush in words he could understand. “Morons. All of you damn men. You’re half-brained morons.”

  She pushed harder on the ice pack against Bommer’s face. The man groaned from where he lay on the chaise upon which Rush had dumped him. A second later, he
flung out a drunken arm. “Garrhh! Unnnggh! Stop!” His arm went lax as his fingers found her thigh. “Mmmm. Ahhh. Don’t stop.”

  “Shit.” She shoved his hand away. Well, tried to. “Yep. Morons.”

  From his position under the doorframe, Rush rolled his shoulders a little. In a less formidable man, the motion probably resembled a squirm. “I think you’ve got the win on this one, sweetheart.”

  The man needed another glare hurled his direction for the slip on the endearment, but damn it, the words soothed her nerves in at least ten ways. Still she seethed, “What the hell possessed him to goad Gunter’s pack like that? What would he have done if you weren’t there to peel them away and convince pansy-man to call them back? Does your friend have a damn death wish?”

  “It’s beginning to look that way.”

  The dismal certainty of his statement caused her to stare back to Bommer. She tried to ease up on the pack, but the unconscious man reached up, clutching her wrist like his torch in an abyss. “Don’t go. Please don’t let go of me, Luna.”

  Her breath clutched. The plea wasn’t like his other ramblings. Every syllable of it was clear, pronounced—and desperate. She stretched a finger out from the edge of the ice pack, trailed it across his forehead. With every inch she covered, his tension ebbed a little more. Was he relieved? Grateful? Lost to a dream? If so, of whom? Or what? She suddenly burned for the answers as if she’d been awaiting them for months instead of minutes—and from the looks of things, she’d be waiting longer. Bommer began pulling in longer breaths, forcing her to call on an old friend called patience.

  “I think he’s sleeping.”

  Her gentle tone caused visible surprise in Sergeant Rush. She shared his curiosity. How had her anger turned to tenderness so fast?

  Don’t go there, Hokulani. Don’t even start.

  But she’d already done so, hadn’t she? It didn’t take thousands in psychotherapy bills to figure out why. She’d felt out of control for so long. She’d been out of control. She was not and never would be a victim, but Gunter’s scheming with Hales Anelas was becoming harder to fight. Now, blood had been spilled because of her resistance to the man. Gods be thanked that nobody’s injuries were lethal, but in those moments after Gunter’s men had swarmed over Bommer like a pack of pissed-off apes, she hadn’t been so certain. Her screams had been shrill with real terror.

  But this moment gave her some empowerment again. This stranger, so impossibly foolish and lost, gave her a moment of importance. Even if he was obliterated and had her confused for someone named Luna, she’d finally done something productive in this world again.

  “I think you’re right.” The soft concurrence came from the gray-eyed man in the doorway. Correction: gray-eyed hunk. Aue ka nani. Such beauty. Sergeant Kellan Rush really was a magnificently made man. His shoulders, chest, and torso gleamed like wild honey spread over a marble statue. The shorts did little to hide the matching muscles of his long legs, which were dusted with more of his dark hair. He affected her in raw, animal kinds of ways. Her skin tingled, her heartbeat sped…and her sex thrummed in demand. She swallowed to hide her reaction, lucking out on the timing. Rush sighed heavily at the same time. “Sleeping is good,” he stated. “That’ll make it easier to hump him back over to Franz’s place.”

  “What? The hell you will.” She balanced the ice so it would stay on Bommer’s forehead before rising to square off against Rush. “We’ll put him in the back seat of my jeep, and I’ll drive you two back over. It may be a bit bumpy, but I don’t think he’ll notice.”

  “Out of the question.” He folded his beautifully muscled arms. “That’d leave you to drive back here on that two-lane thing that barely calls itself a road. I wouldn’t put it past Gunter to be parked somewhere nearby, figuring we’ll have exactly this conversation, waiting for you to cruise back here by yourself. With his boys already whiffing blood, the man won’t toss aside that kind of an opportunity.”

  No matter how deeply the words seared into her as the terrifying truth, Lani defaulted to her usual reaction: completely faked defiance. “He wouldn’t try anything with Leo around.”

  Once more, the man barely moved, though his pewter gaze drilled into her. “Yes. Leo. The one who’s expecting to find you here in one piece when he returns from fencing practice.”

  She sprinkled the bravado with sarcasm. “You were listening in class, Sergeant.”

  “That’s my job, Miss Kail.” He intensified his scrutiny, almost sending a vibe of discomfort, but Lani wrote off her perception as silly. These guys worked for Johnny Franzen, who barely suffered fools in his civilian life, let alone what he demanded of his Spec Ops team. Despite how Bommer had pulled the jackass move of the decade, Franz wouldn’t have turned over the keys to his place to any half-brained joes. Not that Rush helped correct her perception, with his semistammered follow-up. “So…Leo? He’s…errmm…your son?”

  “My brother.” She smiled, not seeing any point in prolonging the man’s stress. “I was my parents’ college surprise, and he was their ten-year anniversary gift.” She pressed her lips a little tighter to keep the smile fixed, despite the hit of sorrow that came—as it always did. “The age spread turned out to be a good thing, though. Mom and Dad died together two years ago, but I was twenty-three, old enough to file for legal guardianship of Leo. He’s fifteen now and surpassed me on height about four months back. But inside, he’s still processing the loss in a shitload of ways.”

  He tilted his head a little. “And you’re not?”

  “In my own way, each and every day,” she countered. “Only I’m not doing it with a teenage boy’s hormones screaming through my veins.”

  “You get the win on that one too.”

  She joined him in his good-natured chuckle but cut hers short when she sensed he had more to say. “What?” she prodded.

  The man stunned her by shifting from his position in the doorway. She wasn’t sure whether to be unnerved or thrilled by the way he moved toward her across the wood floor, every step quiet but deliberate, until he stood only two feet away.

  Lani’s breath snagged. She lifted her gaze to meet his. In this softer light, his gray eyes resembled sea-foam in a storm. Apt comparison, considering what his nearness did to every vital organ in her body.

  He took a step closer. “What happened?” His voice was a murmur between them alone. “To your parents?”

  His interest, issued with somber sincerity, touched her. “My mom and dad did a lot of volunteer guidance work with at-risk teens on the island. One of the kids they’d been working with sneaked away for a Saturday night rave in Honolulu with some college boys and got himself arrested for possession. My parents insisted on flying over to post his bail. There was a pilot with a bird parked on this side of the island—”

  “At the strip at the Barking Sands missile base?” he interjected.

  Lani nodded. “He’d just dropped a couple of guys at the base as a favor to the base’s CO. There was a storm coming in pretty hard and fast, but my parents begged him for the ride. The kid in Honolulu had anger issues, to the point that he took meds to keep it all in check. He’d been off the meds for nearly twenty-four hours, and—”

  A rock of grief stopped her from speaking for a moment. The next moment, she gulped it down. “They finally got clearance to take off, and…the pilot lost control.” She tilted her head the direction of the shore. “We heard the bird go down from here. By the time Leo and I got to the beach, all we could see was wreckage. That’s all they found, as well.”

  “Fuck.” His mutter was vicious but oddly comforting. He finished it by lifting a hand to her arm, wrapping firm, long fingers just above her elbow. Though he gripped her lightly, instant heat spread through her from the contact…and something more. So much more. A release yet a tension. A surrender yet a power. A piercing consciousness of all this man’s strength yet every shred of his vulnerability. “That’s rough.” Coming from him, the words weren’t empty. His empathy was thick in
every syllable. “I’m sorry.”

  “Thanks.”

  She curved a little smile, trying to convey she meant it too. The look froze on her face as her gaze tangled with his again. His fingers tightened on her skin.

  Gods, she was in trouble.

  His fingers spread over her arm in a boggling mix of pressure. Sweet concern…curious question…sensual searching. Every corner of her body responded to all of it, especially her most tender core. If her clit had just been dropping hints before, it clicked to full demand mode now. She wondered if he’d use the hold to pull her closer—and knew if he did, she wouldn’t resist. It had been a long, long time since male body contact meant anything besides Leo and his bear hugs. The abstinence took its revenge on her body now in hot, ravenous ways…

  Suddenly, Rush pulled back like she really had caught fire. At the same time, a hard shell clamped back over his features. She recognized the expression all too well, having seen it on Franz’s face before. A soldier clicking into protective mode. She turned and straightened pillows on the easy chairs in an effort to loosen the tension squeezing the air. But damn it, the man didn’t help. The weight of his stare, following every move she made, assured that every nerve ending in her system remained on high alert.

  “So what about the dickwad?” he finally asked.

  She froze, gripping a pillow. “Excuse me?”

  “Benson.”

  “Oh.” She dropped the pillow and laughed. “That dickwad.”

  He returned to propping up a doorway, this time the portal that connected the living and dining rooms. “I take it he’s a developer of some kind. But you said several other properties are openly up for sale. Why does he want this place so badly for his project?”

  Like Franz, the guy didn’t miss much. “He’s not disclosed that for certain.” She let half a smile play at her lips. “But I have a few theories.”

  “Like?”

  She let another thick moment pass by. Rush kept his features neutral, careful. Maybe he thought she’d brandish the Bowie at him again. The thought made her chuckle, to which he reacted with a curious smirk. The moonlight sifted in through the dining room’s big window, highlighting his mouth. He had such fascinating lips. The top one was nearly bisected by the deep dip in its center. The lower was an elegant sweep of flesh, set against his nearly square jaw. Aue. Mouths like that belonged on pirates, rakes, and highwaymen, the kind of men who dragged women off to the bushes so nobody could hear them being ravaged and pleasured…