Paradise Wild (23 page)

“No!”

“Then you had better stand back!”

She jumped away from the door quickly, and just in time. The bolt gave way under Jared’s kick and the door crashed open. He was silhouetted in the doorway with the light behind him, making it impossible for her to distinguish his features. Her own face was a mask of fright.

When he reached out for her, she gasped. He caught her arm and dragged her back into the bedroom, then swung her around to face him. He let her go and she felt a second of relief. She was unprepared for the stinging slap that followed, so forceful that it knocked her sideways. She fell against the coffee table, nearly tumbling over it.

Tears sprang to her eyes. She brought her hand up to cover the spot, while she kept her shocked eyes on Jared, still standing several feet from her.

“What in all damnation is the matter with you?” she shouted, her temper rising, despite the fear and shock.

His face was black with rage, and when he took a step toward her she panicked and scrambled around the coffee table, her eyes wide with fear.

“Stay away from me, Jared,” she warned, though her voice was too timorous to carry much weight. “I’m not going to take your abuse, especially when I don’t know what’s bothering you.”

“You’ll take whatever I give you,” he snarled, his fists clenched at his sides. “I should have taught you to keep your mouth shut a long time ago!”

“What am I supposed to have done?” she begged desperately.

“You drove my sister to tears again! You told her what a blackguard I am, didn’t you?”

Corinne struggled for breath. “Why should I take all the scorn when no one but you knows
why
I did what I did? She insisted on the truth and I gave it to her!”

“And you tried to paint a picture of innocence for yourself!”

“Not entirely,” she said through tight lips.

“Not entirely?” Jared repeated with a cold sneer. “You
lied
to Malia! Will you try to tell me that you’re not a whore?”

Corinne winced. “I’m not,” she said defiantly.

Jared’s eyes blazed even more. “I know half the men you’ve been seen with, and they are not the kind who will be shrugged off by a tease.”

“That’s all I did, Jared. I teased. I made promises to them that I didn’t keep,” Corinne said simply. “It wasn’t so difficult to put them off. I never saw the same man twice.”

“And of course Russell Drayton only pretended to be your lover?”

“Yes. He knew I wanted to get even with you and he helped me.”

“He just went along with your so-called sham, never touching you? Never asking for you, even though he knew you loved him and would be willing?”

“What?”

“You admitted to me once that you loved him,” Jared reminded her.

“I—I lied to you,” Corinne stammered, groaning inwardly that he should remember that. “You would have thought me callous if I told you the truth. After all, I was planning to marry Russell. I didn’t love him any
more than I did you when we married. Russell and I had an arrangement.”

“You’re incredible. You have an answer for everything, don’t you?” Jared’s eyes narrowed and he growled ominously, “I’m tired of your playing me for a fool! I hope you got your pleasure out of using that viperous tongue of yours on my sister, because now you’re going to pay for it!”

He started toward her, but the green fire that shot into her eyes stopped him. “What about my feelings, damn you? I didn’t mean to hurt Malia, but she wouldn’t leave well enough alone. And I have never been able to take insults without getting angry.”

“Your temper has caused trouble ever since I met you!” he stormed.

“If you strike me again, Jared, I’ll—”

“You’ll what?” he cut her off virulently. “An errant wife deserves a beating, and yours is long overdue.”

She ran for the door again. It was locked, and before she could throw the bolt, Jared’s fingers bit into her forearm and he pulled her to him. She saw him raise his hand to strike her again, his eyes without mercy. She couldn’t stand pain, and she couldn’t bear the realization that if he beat her, she would never be able to forgive him for it.

“Jared, no!”

Without hesitating another second, Corinne threw herself at him and wrapped her arms tightly about his chest. She could feel the sudden tensing of his muscles and knew he was about to push her away.

Jared was thoroughly jolted by Corinne’s unexpected reaction. But his fury didn’t lessen. It was not entirely rage over what had happened with Malia, it was also the lies she had just told him. He knew she wasn’t
innocent—he knew it! And for her to attempt to convince him otherwise showed her utter contempt for him.

“Let go, Corinne!” he breathed through clenched teeth, and started to pull her arms away.

Corinne tightened her hold on him, desperately locking her fingers together behind his back. She looked up at him, but could still read no mercy in his expression. And then she felt his hands in her hair, gripping the curls arranged in a high sweep, and he began to pull her away from him that way. She resisted, even when it became terribly painful, her eyes glistening with tears.

“Jared…please!” she cried, feeling her hair coming out by the roots. “Please…don’t…hurt…me!”

Corinne felt his grip slacken slowly. And then suddenly he let her go, and she buried her face against his chest. Her sobs came naturally, a mixture of pain, the humiliation of being forced to plead, and relief that Jared had mastered his fury. She held to him and sobbed.

When Jared released her hair, his arms remained outstretched, inches from her back. He didn’t know whether to drop them at his sides or put them around his wife. The terrified look he had seen in her eyes had unnerved him. He remembered his reason for coming home—to comfort her during the storm. The storm still raged outside, but Corinne wasn’t frightened of the storm. She was terrified of
him
.

What in God’s name had come over him? He had never struck a woman before, yet he had wanted to strangle this one, to throttle her senseless.

Jared felt her trembling against him and shrank from her heartbreaking sobs. His arms ached to hold her, and at last he did. He smoothed the silken hair that had tumbled down her back because of his cruelty, cursing himself for the pain he had caused. She cried and cried and the sound tore at his heart.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured. He cupped her face in his hands, but she wouldn’t look at him, and the tears still fell. “Please,
makamae
, don’t cry anymore. I swear I won’t hurt you again.”

He kissed her eyes, her cheeks, and then her lips, gently. Slowly he raised his head, waiting for some sign from her, a sign of relief, anger, anything. When she opened her eyes, they were sparkling green pools that still seemed to plead with him, but in a different way. And suddenly his own eyes blazed again. Not with anger, but with the fire of passion.

He brought his mouth back to hers, but this time his kiss was demanding, devouring. He couldn’t get enough of her. And her responses matched his. She did not resist. She was wholly his. She released his back in order to grasp his neck and draw him down to her. She raised herself up on tiptoe to press even closer. Their kiss became savage, even painful, and Jared finally broke away to bury his lips in the silken hollow of her neck.

“I want you, Kolina,” he breathed huskily. He raised his head to look down at her and started to unfasten her dress. “I’m going to make love to you.”

“I know,” she whispered, her eyes meeting his directly. “I want you to.”

Jared nearly ripped her gown in his urgency to remove it. At the same time she unbuttoned his wet shirt. But when he started to lift her shift she stopped him.

“Turn the lamp off first, Jared.”

“No,” he said forcefully. “I want to look at you.”

“Please, Jared.”

At that moment he couldn’t refuse her anything. As much as he wanted to gaze on her beauty, he did as she asked.

As soon as the lamp was extinguished, Corinne
quickly removed the rest of her underclothes and the binder on her breasts that she had been so afraid Jared would see. God, how he stirred her blood! She didn’t care what had happened earlier. None of that mattered anymore.

He wanted her, needed her. The knowledge made her own desire build to a warm ache, and she was the one who pulled him to the bed and pushed him down on it. She followed him and brazenly rubbed her body against his, then teasingly pushed him down when he tried to rise. On her knees, she touched him where he throbbed and heard his gasp. She revelled in his desire for her. Then she ran her hands up his chest, to his face, through his hair. Her lips found his.

Jared’s reaction was immediate. He couldn’t wait any longer, and neither could she. Their passions had been denied too long. He pushed her down on the bed and mounted her and she opened for him, her body starved for him. They moved together, wildly, savagely, as the climactic moment neared. And then it was upon them and Corinne cried his name as her thighs widened drawing him deeper into her, savoring the blissful throbbing he had caused.

It was over too soon, and the time for remembering returned. But Corinne thrust memory aside. She was too happy to let anything spoil this.

“Corinne—” Jared began.

“Jared, please, don’t say anything. Let us both keep silent,” she answered quickly. “Can’t we at least have this night?”

His answer was to draw her near to him. She fell asleep like that, her head cradled on his shoulder, a blissful smile on her lips.

Jared stopped in the doorway to the kitchen and stretched the sleep from his body. Akela was at the counter making poi, a morning ritual that dated as far back as Jared could remember. Poi was made from the taro plant, from the bulbous root which Akela cooked once a week and then pounded to a hard consistency so it wouldn’t spoil. Each morning she took what was needed for the day and mixed it with water and pounded it again, this time to a smooth paste. Jared thought the sticky gray starch rather bland, but Akela couldn’t live without it.

“How about some breakfast, Aunty? I haven’t eaten since yesterday morning.”

“
Auwe!
” She gave him a sharp look over her shoulder for startling her. “I no hear you come in, Ialeka.”

He laughed. “It’s a wonder you can hear anything, with all that noise you’re making.”

“You like poi?”

“Not for breakfast,” he groaned. “I’ll take some banana pancakes, though.”

“No more bananas,” she chuckled. “The
keiki
Mikáele think they
ono
. He eat one mashed every day. No more on our trees. You go up the mountain today, bring some stalks down, huh?”

“We’ll see. How about those papayas on the ledge? Are they ripe yet?”

“Go see. Kuliano bring them with some sausage. I fix you eggs, huh, with sausage?”

“Kuliano’s blood sausage?” Jared shook his head. “Just the eggs will do,” he said. He found one of the green and yellow papayas on the windowsill ripe enough. “And fruit. And maybe some toast with guava jelly.” He slit the papaya in half and took it to the table. “How is Kuliano?”

“My nephew just fine. That Japanee wife of his keep him jumping. But he complain he no see Leonaka long time. He say you work his boy too hard.”

Jared grinned. “I guess I’ll have to give Leo some time off to visit his father, or Kuliano will end up disinheriting me from the family. I’ll send for Leo today. The rain is going to slow the hotel job anyway.” He paused to take a large chunk of papaya in his mouth. “I haven’t seen Kuliano for ages. Maybe I will stop by when I go for those bananas.”

“Why you no take Kolina too?” Akela suggested, looking at Jared closely. “I think she like the view from up high.”

“Do you?” Jared said, his lips turning up slowly at the corners. “Maybe I will. Has she given you much trouble while I was gone?”

“Kolina? No!” Akela replied emphatically. “She all the time play with little Mikáele, take care him. She always stay with the
keiki
.”

Jared ignored the emphasis she put on her words. “She didn’t try to leave here?”

“Only few times. Kolina lonely, I think. Maybe she miss you, huh?”

“You can get that hopeful look off your face right
now, Aunty. Corinne and I may have reached a temporary peace, but I’m sure it won’t last.”

“
You
make it last,” she said sternly.

“Good morning, Mr. Burkett.” Jared turned to see a stiff-lipped Florence coming into the kitchen. “I didn’t hear Cori stirring about in her room,” she said in a manner that demanded reassurance.

He grinned. “Didn’t you go in to check on her?”

Florence squared her back, her hazel eyes glaring at him. “I didn’t want to disturb her if she was still sleeping.”

“She probably still is.” Suddenly Jared laughed. “Sit down, Mrs. Merrill, and have some breakfast. And stop looking at me as if I had committed some abominable crime. I haven’t. Your Cori is just fine.”

Florence relaxed and even smiled a little. “I didn’t really think she wouldn’t be all right.”

She joined him at the table, noting his good spirits. The hard lines were gone from his face, leaving him younger-looking and decidedly more handsome.

“Would you care for some papaya?” Jared offered. “This is the only one that’s ripe yet.”

Florence accepted a piece of the yellow-orange fruit, but set it aside. “I’ll just save it for Michael, if you don’t mind. He loves fruit.”

“And poi,” Akela added proudly.

Florence grimaced, wondering how anyone could like that moldy-looking starch. “Remarkably enough, he seems to thrive on it,” she conceded.

Jared laughed. “I’ve been told I was raised on it myself. If Akela has been stuffing poi into your baby, I imagine he’s fattened up some. He did seem awfully tiny when I first saw him.”

“You should have a good look at that
keiki
, Ialeka,” Akela said slyly. “Maybe you see what I see.”

Florence rose quickly to distract Jared’s attention. “You certainly have unusual weather conditions on this side of your island, Mr. Burkett,” she said as she crossed to the window overlooking the left side of the house. “I have never known such a violent storm as we had yesterday. But today the sun is shining and the winds are calm.”

“That’s not unusual weather for the islands, Mrs. Merrill. It’s not so bad here on the end of the island, but this is the rainy season and we do tend to get a few violent sea storms. On the windward side it generally rains at least once a day, every day, for a few months. But that’s further up the coast, where the mountain draws clouds to it.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad, compared to a gloomy winter in Boston,” Florence commented before she went to the other kitchen window. It was now just an opening onto the patio. “I see the waves didn’t reach the house, after all. I’m afraid I had visions of waking to find my bed floating in the sea.”

Jared chuckled. “A highly unlikely possibility. The ground level is high here, and the house is elevated for further protection. The patio serves as an added blockage, to cut the force of any waves that might reach the house.”

“You have such an unusual house, Mr. Burkett,” Florence said as she turned back to face him.

“I suppose it is,” he agreed. “My father built it as a summer retreat. It was only three rooms then, two bedrooms and the living area.”

“No kitchen?”

“The cooking was done outside, in the Hawaiian tradition,” he explained. “But my mother liked it so well here that she decided to stay. My father then set about
enlarging the house. A kitchen was added, and the dining room. Later the bedrooms were lengthened.”

“And the patio?”

“At first it was a garden area for my mother, enclosed with the three-foot lava rock wall. But she was more interested in cultivating the front yard, and so a roof and floor were put in there to make it a patio. Still later it was enclosed completely with windows and screens. With all the windows open, it still has the outdoor effect and is the coolest room in summer.”

“You like it best here too, don’t you?” Florence remarked.

“I suppose I do,” Jared replied. “I grew up in this house, and helped build some of it, once I was old enough. But I haven’t spent much time here in recent years. Taking over my father’s business has kept me quite busy.”

“Has your work slowed, then?” she asked. “I mean—well, you’re here now.” Jared frowned, and she quickly added, “Forgive me, Mr. Burkett. I didn’t mean to pry.”

Jared fell silent, thinking about his reason for coming back here so soon, and what it had led to. He had to admit to himself that ever since he had left Corinne here, he had done nothing but think about her. He had wanted so often to tell her how sorry he was, sorry about so many things. But he couldn’t bring himself to say the words.

He hated what she had done, but still he wanted her. The sight of her reminded him of all the men who had had her, but he still wanted her. The storm and wanting to comfort Corinne had only been an excuse to bring him back here. He knew that. And look what it had led to. He wanted her more than he had ever wanted a
woman. The mere touch of her made him forget what she had become.

He knew in his gut that he could never really forgive her for being with all those other men. But, after last night, he also knew that he didn’t want to let her go. It was crazy and could never work, yet he hoped the truce they had reached last night would continue, if only for a little while. He sighed. A lot would depend on Corinne, though. And Corinne could be very difficult.

Jared did not notice how carefully he was being watched by the Hawaiian nurse and the nurse from Boston.