Kona Winds (20 page)

"Because I didn't think I could face you, so I ran," she admitted. "I didn't run very far from you. I didn't want to, not until I'd made up my mind."

"About what?" He molded his hand to her breast and seemed enchanted with its shape. His erotic touch was building the flames again, the heat spreading to other areas.

"Until I'd made up my mind whether I could handle it when you became bored with me."

"Bored with you!" Ruel leaned his head back against the seat and laughed at the ceiling. "That's been the problem since the beginning. I've never been bored with you. Not from the moment you came down the stairs that first morning, looking as if you owned the place. You walked across the room to me, as bold as you pleased, and looked me right straight in the eye."

"You'd been talking about the Kona winds." Julie remembered it as vividly as he obviously did that precious first meeting. "And you knew who I was immediately."

"You weren't a bit impressed with my deductive prowess," Ruel accused. "In fact, you prodded me into telling you who I was, blithely admitted you were lost and asked directions. You were the most fascinating and intelligent creature I'd met in years."

"Was I?" she marveled.

"As if you didn't know," he mocked. "Running around with flowers in your hair, chasing after fires, and dangling your surfer under my nose."

"I didn't do that," Julie denied the last.

"Whether it was deliberate or not, you succeeded in first arousing my envy and finally my jealousy." A light lurking in the depths of his eyes warned Julie not to do it again.

"Were you really jealous of Frank?" She knew he had never had any reason to be.

"A lot of females get turned on by those young, muscled bodies balanced on a surfboard," Ruel answered.

Her hand spread over the solid muscles of his chest to the firmness of his stomach. "I haven't found anything wrong with your body. It's tanned and hard and warm."

"Damn you, Julie!" He closed his fingers over her hand. "You keep that up and you'll find out just how warm and hard it is. This car isn't designed for making love."

"No?" She felt a sense of power in being able to arouse him and exercised a little of it now.

"No," he repeated firmly, but his gaze wandered down to the swelling curves of her breasts, exposed by the cut of her bikini top. Julie felt the shallowness of his breathing. "I want to make my intimate discoveries of you at a more leisurely pace and in a more comfortable place. So don't you wave temptation in my face."

"No?" Provocatively Julie peered at him through her lashes.

Roughly he twined his fingers into her hair, holding her head still while he punished her lips. The hard, shattering kiss went of control. Ruel was parting her lips, deeply exploring and engulfing her mouth.

A horn honked, loudly, as a truck rumbled to a squealing halt. It honked again in blaring demand as Ruel surfaced with shuddering effort. Shaken, Julie could only lean weakly against him.

"Hey, boss! It mo' betta if you move dat car!" a male voice shouted in local pidgin. "We gonna fire dis field wikiwiki."

With a saluting wave of his hand, Ruel acknowledged the advice and information. He set Julie completely in her own seat and reached behind it for her beach bag.

"Here." He put it in her lap. "Get some clothes on before you lose those you've got."

The cane truck squeezed past them as Ruel started the car. Fighting the cramped quarters of the front seat, Julie managed to pull her jeans on and shrug into her blouse. When the truck was behind them. Ruel reversed the car and maneuvered it back the way they had come.

"Was this where we were going to come when we went riding?" Julie asked as they emerged from the dirt road to the drive. "Here to watch the cane field burn?"

"Probably." He slowed the car to a crawl. "I just wanted to get you away from the house where we could talk. Which reminds me. . . ." He reached out to take her hand.

"What does?" Julie asked.

Ruel turned to study her. "I've been the one who's done all the talking."

"And?" She was puzzled by the intensity of his gaze.

"And I think it's about time you did some talking," he challenged.

"About what?" she frowned.

A truck rumbled up behind them, its horn blaring. There wasn't enough room for it to pass. Ruel swore under his breath and waved his arm out the window for the truck to wait.

"Hey, boss! Have you gone pupule? You can't park dat car in da road." It was the same driver as before.

"Dammit, Al!" Ruel leaned his head out the window to shout at the man. "I'm not moving until this woman admits she loves me! So lay off that damned horn!" Impatience was in his expression when he looked at her. "Well?"

That was what he had been waiting for her to say. Julie laughed in delight. She thought she had told him a hundred times—a thousand times.

"I love you, Ruel Chandler," she declared in a buoyant voice.

"It's about time you said it." His gruffness was the most beautiful sound she had ever heard, as his hand cupped the back of her head to draw her mouth to his.

In the truck behind them, the driver laid on the horn, announcing to the world the answer she had given. It became the second most beautiful sound she'd heard.