White Ginger (21 page)

As the shape surfaced, she cried and hit out at it. Warm hands closed over her fists and Arne pulled her into his arms.

“It’s me. It’s okay.” He stroked her hair, and she calmed.

“I thought you were… Oh, you wretched man. Where were you?”

He rested his forehead against hers. “You were so quick changing. And for some reason, I didn’t expect you to be in the water without me. I didn’t mean to frighten you like that. What were you imagining I was? A shark?” He stroked her back. “Though
I do
want to eat you up.”

He grabbed her waist and pulled her in close again so he could nibble on her ear and neck and shoulders.

She couldn’t suppress a giggle. “I could shoot you!”

“Wouldn’t you rather kiss me?” In the moonlight, his eyebrows rose suggestively before he lowered his mouth to hers.

Lazily treading water, they turned full circle, lips clinging together. She tangled her legs with his, winding her legs around his hips. Floating against him, his arousal pressed into her and she rocked over him. Wavelets lapped against her breasts, pebbling her nipples as his tongue probed her mouth. Mmm…making love in the water offered a different appeal.

He rolled her around onto his back and breaststroked toward the candlelit beach. Water lapped his broad shoulders. She squirmed in anticipation with each ripple of his muscles against her breasts as he pulled through the water. Surrounded by water, she burned for him. Deep within her, an ache throbbed at the juncture of her thighs.

Wrapping her legs around his hips, she rode him like a sea nymph, running her hands over his beautiful satiny skin.

In hip-deep water, he eased her off his back then swept her into his arms. Twining her arms round his neck, she buried her face against his chest, licking salt off his skin.

He lowered her to the cleared picnic rug and stopped.

There it was. The bright flame of desire in his eyes. How could she have doubted he wanted her?

The tips of his fingers trailed down her body and across her thighs. Nerve endings leaped under his touch. When he reached her bikini bottom, she licked her lips and held her breath.

Please keep going
.

Following her instincts, she raised her mouth, flicked her tongue along the whorl of his ear and blew gently.

“That’s how you want to play, is it?” He leaned over her stomach. Following the line of her bikini, he traced a pattern on her skin, his tongue dipping into her navel on the return journey. Muscles she’d not used in too long clenched in anticipation. He stretched alongside her, matching their bodies to one another. Thigh against thigh, breast to breast, she felt the hard thrust of his arousal against her belly, raised in man’s age-old homage to woman. The longing to take him inside grew.

His lips brushed her closed eyes. Kissing his way down her cheek to her mouth, he feathered more kisses down her neck and back up the other side. His breath tickled her ear, delicately erotic in its invitation. She tightened her hold around his neck while his tongue traced the shape of her lips, probed her mouth, running along the sensitive inside of her lips, teasing, tasting.

Fingers played along the soft skin of her collarbone, the inside of her elbow, and she reacted to erotic spots she hadn’t guessed she possessed. Like an instrument sweetly played in tune, her body thrummed under his touch.

Wanting to gift him the same pleasure he’d given her, she began a slow trail of soft kisses along his jaw, over his face and eyelids. While she moved over him, his hands roved up and down the length of her body. Everywhere he touched, her body sang. Finally, one hand cupped her breast. His thumb circled the erect tip and she arched back, a breathy moan wrenched from deep within.

A sense of urgency filled her and she bent to meet his lips. They rolled, changing places, and he leaned in to kiss her breast. His teeth closed over the edge of her bikini top and pulled it down, exposing her breast. First his mouth trailed across her sensitive skin, followed by his tongue, flicking, licking. A spasm of lust shafted through her. Nothing existed beyond his arms, his mouth. She lifted her hips in invitation.

He stilled, stroking her cheek until she met his gaze. She opened her eyes wide.

“Amelie, my darling, are you sure this is what you want?” His voice was husky with passion and the effort of holding back. Finally he was saying the words she longed to hear.

“I love you. I can’t live without you. But am I the man you want?”

She looked deep into his soul. What she saw took her breath away. This beautiful man who had saved her, loved her. He was offering her all that he was. She could do no less.

“I love you, Arne, now and forever. Only you.” She pulled his head down to lock their lips together again.

One long male leg slid between hers. She ran her foot ran up its outside length until her knee met his hip. His hand slid down her back, her bottom, along the silky skin of her thigh to her knee, pulling it round his hips. Pressing against his body, she was intensely aware of just how much she loved him and wanted him.

Her hand played over his well-muscled chest, teased his dark nipples, then wandered over his flat stomach to the band of his swimming trunks. Sliding a finger under the band, she touched the tip of his manhood, then eased her hand inside. His hot, hard erection sprang toward her touch.

At some point, the snaps of her bikini top came undone. As the scrap of blue and white material vanished, his mouth and hands replaced it. Her name sounded on his lips like a man at prayer.

Returning kiss for kiss, she gave free rein to all that she’d kept under tight control these past weeks. Her body sought closer communion with his, hungry for his touch everywhere. Lips, tongue, mouth teased their way down over the curve of her stomach toward her wet, warm secret core. Kneeling beside her, he slipped his hand between her legs, kissing the silken skin above her bikini. She arched up hard against his hand, seeking that fierce, frantic release. She matched the rhythm of his hand on her, knowing instinctively and absolutely what she wanted.

Him.

Somewhere in their frenzied pleasuring of each other’s bodies, they lost the last scraps of material until they wore nothing but each other. Resting on his elbows, he looked into her eyes as he slipped a finger inside her, his thumb massaging her mound until she trembled on the brink of total abandon. Tossing her head from side to side she soared, higher and higher.

She wanted to watch him as he entered her.

She whispered, “I love you,” and guided him into her body. He thrust slowly at first. Wrapping her legs more tightly around his hips she matched him, stroke for stroke. Together, they soared to the heavens, their cries mingling as their bodies promised a love to last forever.

Somewhere out in the sea beyond the bar, a pair of dolphins gamboled together. Overhead, stars and planets and suns and moons looked on at the age-old dance of love so beloved by the gods, the union of one man and his woman.

Chapter 21

When Amelie woke in the dawn light, she knew she had come home. Vaguely she remembered driving back to her cabin and falling into her bed, only to make love again. Her head rested on Arne’s shoulder, his heart beating strong and slow beneath her cheek. In sleep, his arm lay heavily across her hip, his hand warm on her bare thigh. Such a night of exquisite passion they had shared. Together they had soared to the stars.

As she marveled at the wonder of lying here with him, he opened one eye, then the other. Tenderly, a look of wonder in his eyes, he stroked her hair, her cheek. She turned her head to kiss his palm.

“I love you,” she told him again.

“You are mine,” he whispered into her ear. “
A`ohe mea `imi a ka maka
.”

“What does that mean?” She kissed his neck, then pulled back to look into his eyes. She doubted she’d ever get enough of looking at him like this.

“It means we belong together. I need nothing more than you. Marry me? Let me love you forever.”

“Yes, with all my heart.” She kissed him as promise of her word then forgot everything as they pleasured one another again.

More than an hour later, they got up to a lazy breakfast. Sitting on her little veranda, she poured milk over her cereal. The use-by date on the container glared at her like a malevolent spell. It couldn’t be right. On legs that barely supported her, she raced to the bedroom to check her diary.

“What’s wrong? For God’s sake, sit down. You’re white.”

“My visa expires in two weeks. I’ll have to leave. When can we be married? I can’t leave you.”

His smile was almost smug as he pulled her onto his lap and wrapped his arms around her.

“How can you sit there so calmly? It’s no laughing matter. We have to arrange blood tests and get a license and I don’t know what else–”

His lips stopped her words, stopped her panic, and the need for him built again.

“But I do. It’s all taken care of.” He twined his fingers in hers and raised her arm, kissing along the soft inner length from her wrist to the faint needle mark at her elbow.

“We’ve had our blood test.” He kissed the needle mark. “While you were in hospital I arranged for them to do both of us.”

He kissed along her upper arm. “Rex has the special license”– he kissed along her collarbone– “and Madeline is flying in from Australia this Thursday so…”

She couldn’t think as his lips trailed up her neck and along her jaw.

“You’ll have to wait until Friday to marry me.” He claimed her mouth with such passion she had no breath to protest. Not that she wanted to.

They were going to be married–in less than a week she would be his forever. Nothing else mattered. “About time, Arne Keloki, because I don’t think I’ll ever get enough of you.”

“Do you want to test that?”

Several minutes later, they came up for air. Arne lifted Amelie onto his seat and dropped a light kiss on her nose. “Wait there.”

When he returned from the bedroom, he looked at her with an expression that revealed the depth of his need for her. “I want to do this properly.”

He went down on one knee in front of her and took her hands in his. “Amelie, my love, will you marry me?”

Joy filled her as she contemplated the rest of her life with the man she loved. “Yes please, Arne. I want to be your wife and share all the pleasures of life with you.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out an engagement ring which he slipped onto her third finger.

“It’s beautiful, Arne.” She turned her hand so the ring caught the light. Created with a central sapphire with diamonds either side, it was the color of the sea on a sunlit day.

“It was my mother’s. She never wore it when they went out on the boat. It’s been in her jewelry box since she died.” He caught her left hand in his and kissed her knuckle just above the ring. “I promise to cherish you all the days of our lives.”

Chapter 22

Lili and Lani drove to the city with her, and they met Lucy for a quick lunch before searching the bridal boutiques. Lili was to be her matron of honor and Lani was, of course, going to be a bridesmaid, a fact she was quick to point out she had known would happen weeks ago.
 

“I knew it the night of the luau, Melie!”
 

Frills, lace, and lots of netting greeted the women as they entered each of the bridal stores.

“I’ll look like a wedding cake doll in any of these,” she exclaimed.

Amelie began to despair of ever finding what she wanted, almost ready to cry “
Enough!”
when Lucy spotted another, much smaller shop tucked away down a side street.

“Let’s try down here.”

Amelie sighed. “But this is the last one. I can always wear the dress I wore to the dance.”

Wandering between models of dresses quite different in design from those they had seen everywhere else, a ray of hope rose. As soon as she saw the dress, she knew it would fit her. It was exactly what she would have chosen if she’d had time to have it made.

With mounting excitement, she modeled the gown. Slim-fitting ivory flared from just below her thighs, its one shoulder design leading into an unusual gossamer train that swept down from the shoulder and floated out regally behind her. It was classical in its styling, and simply stunning.

She glided out of the changing room, and Lucy cried. Lili gave a loud sniff, unable to say more than “That’s the one,” before turning to hunt in her bag for a tissue.

It was late afternoon when they dropped Lucy and young Joe home, and dark by the time they dropped Amelie at her cabin. Lucy and Jimi were going to meet Madeline at the airport and drive up the coast with her the following afternoon.

Everything was ready, for which Amelie was silently thanking their friends. In a matter of days they had organized their whole wedding. Kevin was going to give her away, while Jimi would stand by Arne’s side as best man.

As Amelie luxuriated in the first spell of quiet time since Arne proposed, thoughts of her mother resurfaced. How happy she would be, knowing Amelie had found the man who would love her all her life. And how sad Amelie was that her mother wasn’t here to share her joy. Tears welled in her eyes, spilling over her fingers. Lost in her memories, she missed hearing Arne and Marie arrive.