Aloha, page 16
“You’re trespassing on my beach,” a gruff voice said.
She yelped with surprise, dropped the paddle she’d been hanging on to, and scrambled up on her hands. Above her, a man stood on the levee outlined by the sun like Poseidon risen up from the water. He was a solid shadow, but the perimeter of him showed turquoise board shorts, well-defined biceps, broad brown shoulders, a trim black scruff over a square jaw, and a thick swoop of black hair as he looked down at her.
She should be inoculated to shocks by now, but she still felt little spots around the edge of her vision. There was no way it was him. But it was him. She knew that outline like the back of her hand.
She saw she had bobbed further over to the other beach house’s side of the cove than she’d realized. “Sorry,” she coughed out through her shock, pushing herself fully up and straddling the board. She began to pull the paddle back to her with the line strapped to it, anything to avoid looking up at him and full-on freaking out. “We were told the other house was empty.”
“It isn’t,” he said, low and growly. Her toes curled in the warm water. “I’m gonna have to call security.”
“What?!” Now she did look up at him. “Why?”
She wanted to point out that there were no private beaches in Hawaii, but she swallowed that along with her crushing disappointment. He wasn’t a sexy, avenging sea god. The man whose picture was her screensaver and whose hit show she’d bought Blu-Rays of every season, even though she didn’t have a Blu-Ray player, was an asshole. “I’ll just go back to the house and let Aish and Sofia know—”
“You’re with Aish and Sofia? Shit. Well now I’m going to have to kick all of y’all out.”
“What?!” she screeched. Javier Campos wasn’t a good guy or a laidback Texan, no matter what all the co-stars and charitable event organizers and the head of his foundation said. He was a big stupid jerk she’d spent way too much of the last five years adoring. He was no better than the farmer who’d called the cops on her and her cousins for picking blackberries out of the thorny ditch on the edge of his property. “That’s ridiculous. You’re going to evict us because I touched your side of the ocean?” God, how would Aish and Sofia take it when they discovered their intern got them kicked out of their summer house? Javier Campos was screwing with her life. “There has to be something I can do!”
He stayed quiet as he continued to lord over her. She’d jammed her paddle against the levee to keep from scraping against it; the only sound was the lap of the water against her board and the black, sharp rocks. He slid his hands into his shorts as he watched her. Prickles rippled over Marina’s skin.
Without warning, he squatted down. Now she could see his face fully. She was a yard away from Javier Campos, staring up into the face she’d spent hours staring at, and helplessly her eyes wandered over his dark summer scruff, his bossy nose with that slight ding to the left, his overlong black hair moving in the breeze, until they looked into hazel-gold eyes as unreal as the ocean and as bright as seaglass. Those eyes, as intent as an oncoming storm, were looking right back into hers.
She prayed he didn’t notice what was happening in her bikini top.
“You could sing me a song,” he said without a hint of a smile.
The easy waves rolled beneath her, sending her closer to the rocks. “You heard me?” she asked, like a girl responding to a voice in a seashell.
There was a deck across the road from the beach house, and every night since she’d arrived, after spending the whole day surrounded by people, Marina had taken her guitar to the deck and sung to the sea and the endless stars and the dark outline of the Mokes. She’d minored in music because she wanted to go into music journalism. But the music, her music, was only for her.
He nodded, making his straight black hair fall across those golden eyes as he squatted there. “I’ve started drinking my whiskey outside to listen.” The slight drawl that never showed in his voice when he played a 32nd-century space detective, the drawl of a 26-year-old man from the oil fields of West Texas, sounded weirdly familiar. He sounded like the boys she’d grown up with. “I woke up on the porch this morning. You lullabied me right to sleep.” He pushed his hair back, showing off that incredible face. “You could be a mermaid lurin’ me into the ocean. I should kick you out just for that.”
He was as bad as her cousins or the boys on the playground who’d chase her, pull her ponytail, then wonder why she didn’t chase them back.
She shook her head, trying to make what was happening align with a world that made sense, but didn’t look away from him. “I can’t believe you were just screwing with me,” she said as the board rolled on a wave and her bikini-ed body rolled with it. His eyes flicked down before they met hers again. “You should know better than to screw with people with less power than you.”
She couldn’t believe that was what made him smile. It was a big smile, as bright-white as the sun and crinkling his cheeks, and it made him look less hot and so much sweeter. He seldom smiled in pictures.
“Want to call my mama and tell on me?” He pushed to standing and, without warning, dove over the front end of her board into the water. Astonished, she watched the ripple and eel of him in the perfectly clear Pacific water as he swam away then back. He popped up at her knee.
“She’d like you,” he said, sleeking his hair back from his broad, strong forehead as he floated there. “Want to talk to my mama?”
TV star Javier Campos—his face wet and strong and handsome, his shoulders brown and sleek and muscular, his body naked except for turquoise shorts—bobbed in the Pacific Ocean half a foot from her left knee. Every centimeter of skin from her knee to the edge of her black bikini felt like it was sizzling like a sparkler.
She tucked her drying, short, brown curls behind her ear so she could look her fill. “Your mom should know that her son who owns fancy beach houses and fights book banning and has two Emmys is still a big jerk.”
He smiled at her like she’d pull down her black bikini top. He smiled at her like he was about to pull down her bikini top. “Oh yeah,” he said on a drawly laugh. “Now I’m starting to like you. What’s your story, Ms. Mermaid?”
“No way,” she said. “You first. Aish and Sofia said the other house was empty.”
Although he still smiled, the tease in his face went down by a lot. He gave a huff like nothing was funny. His eyes wandered away then settled back on her. She wondered what could make him look that way in the middle of paradise.
Finally, as he tread in the teal-blue water, he said, “I walked off set a week ago. That’s where I was supposed to be for the summer.”
She couldn’t believe it. The big-budget film, with its acclaimed director, amazing co-stars, and super-cool mystery-noir plot, was going to be Javier Campos’s launch into movie fame. He’d had offers before, but had always said in interviews that, as the highest-paid Latino in television, the role had to be just right. That he’d walked away from such a well-publicized moment was actually harder to believe than the reality that she was sleeping in a beach house he owned.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “Here…” She leaned carefully back on the board. “Grab onto the nose.” When he did, she adjusted her weight so the paddle board was balanced as it carried them both. She was glad to see his shoulders relax as he watched her curiously, the sun gleaming in his sleek, black hair.
“I thought mermaids wanted to drown their vics,” he said.
“That’s one way to make sure you don’t kick us out.”
They floated quietly and Marina marveled that the same water moving over his naked body flowed over her calves and between her toes.
He ran his teeth over his bottom lip. It made her lick hers.
“You’re the first person I’ve talked to who hasn’t asked why I quit,” he said.
Marina thought of NDAs and lawsuits and unnamed sources. She thought of the noise of his phone and email and social media, and his beach house on the tip of Oahu that was so quiet a woman could be heard singing down the road.
She wondered if this wealthy, much-watched man felt as small as she did in this big ocean. “Although you’re a jerk in person, you’ve always seemed like a pretty decent guy on paper,” she said. “I’m sure you had your reasons.”
His face as he stared at her stole the rest of her words.
Marina’s parents had divorced when she was young and they’d both married again quickly into okay relationships. Still, she’d always felt the only benefit of coupling up was that it made it easier to raise kids and buy a house. That was until she’d gone home post-graduation and visited the family’s bar on Milagro Street to see her favorite cousin Alex, who was back in town. When Marina walked in, there’d been a huge white guy sitting at the bar with floppy dark hair and glasses and a button-up shirt tucked into jeans that were ironed. The way he was looking at Alex…Marina felt like she’d walked into their bedroom. She would have snuck back out if the cowbells over the door hadn’t given her away.
Javier Campos had just looked at her with a hint of the way that professor had looked at her cousin. It made Marina feel like a miracle and a gift and puzzle all at the same time.
Just as quickly, Javier Campos shifted to stare at the Mokes. Marina heard the caw of island birds above them.
“I didn’t know they were gonna expect me to speak with an accent,” he said, his voice coming out from way down deep in his chest. “They insisted it was more ‘realistic.’ I didn’t know they were going to have me eat salsa and give me a throw-away line about my sister’s quinceañera without any respectful Latinidad in the rest of the story.” His knuckles flexed where they gripped her board. “It’s so easy for them to look through white. But they behave like melanin is a fucking force field—the more there is, the harder it is for them to see the person and the actor.” He sounded exhausted by battle. “I couldn’t…” He shook his head then looked cautiously back at her. “When we get it right, they pat us on the head. But when we get it wrong…. Man, do they remember.” He ran his hand over his eyes then scrubbed it over his head, making his black hair stand in wet peaks. “I wasn’t going to fuck this up for every Latine actor who comes after me.”
With no other person in sight and without a peep from civilization—no planes roared overhead, no boat sped across the water—they could have been the last two people on earth. It gave her the strength, the imperative, to do what she was about to do.
She leaned forward on one arm, reached out her hand, and touched Javier Campos. She combed her fingers through his thick hair, settling it down where he’d made it wild, smoothing it as she gently raked her fingernails over his scalp, then combed her fingers around his ear. When she ran her palm across the scruff of his cheek, the sandpaper shush of it lit up her arm. “It’s okay to take a break so you can keep fighting,” she said softly. “You’ll remind us all to fight.”
He looked at her like she’d shoved him under the waves. “Fuck,” he said, grabbing her hand and dragging it to his mouth. Staring at her like she was keeping him from drowning, Javier Campos kissed her palm then pressed the hot tip of his tongue to the exact center of it, tasting her.
Her hand spasmed around his hard jaw as her pussy squeezed. He lifted his chin and freed his mouth. “Why does your sweetness make me want to take a bite out of you?” he asked, his eyes like lightening.
“That’s my job,” she said, running her thumb over the divot in his chin, now that she had free rein of it. “I lured you into the water. Now I get to eat you up.”
Was that her talking?
“Fuck,” he spat again, his black brows scrunching together. “Let me up there with you.”
She nodded fast and desperate because if this was all a dream, she wanted to get to the good part before she woke up. “Just…” She leaned far back onto her elbows as he pushed down on the nose, tested it, then popped himself up and straddled the board, never taking his eyes off of her. Sunlight sparkled in the water dripping down his brown skin and taut muscles and she started to push up so she could grab him before he disappeared.
“Wait,” he rushed out, stopping her. His eyes raced over her and she saw herself through them—girl stretched back on the board, skin just as brown as his, thighs and tummy and breasts offered up with only little scraps of black bikini to interrupt the view. He reached out then hesitated, squeezing his hand into a fist before he stretched it back out and pressed it to her stomach. “You’re real,” he said, like there’d been a doubt.
She sucked in at the sensation of his hot hand covering her from waist dip to waist dip.
“I can’t believe you’re real,” he said, and they both stared as his hand moved with her breath.
This was a fantasy, but not a dream.
Still back on an elbow, she pushed his hand down until his palm held the heart of her. “I’m real,” she said. “I want you.”
He groaned like she was electrocuting the water and he pressed his palm between her thighs, shoving just right, and Marina’s head fell back on a moan-gasp as she widened her thighs and rolled her hips to meet the pressure, the board helping her as the water lapped over her thighs. An orgasm usually took intense mental concentration and half an hour and enough friction on her clitoris to start a fire, but since it also usually involved Javier Campos’s face, she was already half there.
When he growled, “Pretty girl,” deep and low, Marina whimpered and that was before she felt him tug her bikini bottom to one side and stroke two fingers between her folds, grunt at how juicy she was for him, then twist his hand to pet her clit with his thumb. Her stomach jumped at the sensation. “Jesus, you’re pretty.”
He gently pushed those two fingers inside and Marina gritted her teeth and whined through them at the pleasure.
She forced her head up on her neck so she could watch. This brown, sun-soaked man had his hands between her legs, was staring where he was holding her suit to one side while his fingers pulsed inside of her and his thumb thrummed over her clit. Her thighs were trembling against the water, and his cock was a thick rod in his turquoise swim trunks.
He looked up and caught her staring at it with open-mouthed pleasure on her face. Trapping her in his gaze, he let go of her suit and gripped his cock through his shorts. He stroked it slowly. Then he gently pulled his fingers out of her body, raised them to his lips, and slid them into his mouth. His eyes closed and he clenched the head of his dick as he sucked them clean.
“Oh my God,” she cried, feeling the want of her rush out, a tidal wave of welcome. None of this could be happening. “Oh my God, I need you inside me.”
She shoved up as he grabbed for her and the board beneath them rocked dangerously but then he lifted her and slung her thighs over his and she clung to his biceps and he shifted to the center of the board, steadying it even as her brain exploded into a million stars as she realized she was pressed skin to skin, pussy to cock, to this beautiful man. Javier Campos met her eyes then bit her chin then her bottom lip then, eyes still open, pushed his tongue into her mouth and Marina drowned in him.
He tasted like the whiskey he’d talked about. He tasted like seawater and man. She never wanted anything else in her mouth as Javier Campos squeezed her ass and ran his hands over her naked back and shoved down a bikini cup so her nipple pressed against his chest then clenched her head so he could fully own her mouth. The whole time, she was grinding and grinding and grinding against his hard, hard—
“I’m gonna—”
“Like hell you are.” He lifted her up, off the ridge of his cock, and leaned slightly back to keep them steady on the paddle board as she trembled. When she saw the tensed muscles of his abs, however, she gave up restraint and eagerly rubbed her pussy against that washboard. He smacked her ass, so loud it echoed over the water, and she squealed as the board tilted precariously and they were almost tossed into the drink.
She laughed as he squeezed his thighs around the board to steady them then moaned when he slipped his hand between her legs from behind to pull her bottoms to one side.
Below and above, he teased her lips. “How much are you going to hate me if I tell you I brought a condom?” he asked against her mouth.
She sighed in relief as he pushed a finger inside. “How could I hate you?” she breathed. “Who wouldn’t want to have sex with a mermaid?”
She wasn’t a mermaid. A week ago, she’d never even been in the ocean. She was just Marina Torres from Freedom, Kansas, a newly-minted college graduate who was in the middle of a fever dream, but when Javier Campos growled, “Get my cock out,” before he sucked on her tongue, she felt like a mythical creature as she reached into his suit, stroked her hand down hard, hot skin before she pulled him out, long and thick in her hand, then snatched from him the condom packet he'd taken out from the back pocket of his trunks. She ripped it open with her teeth, pulled the latex out, then, as he kissed her and got her ready with his fingers, she slid the condom over his cock.
She bit his nose when he chuckled at her for sliding the torn wrapper in the bikini cup still covering her right boob. “No one’s littering in my ocean,” she said.
He stopped laughing when his mouth wandered over to her left nipple, heaving there right in front of his face, and she stopped chiding when he lifted her and slowly lowered her down onto his cock. She rocked her hips to ease the way, but being filled with him felt like the inevitability of the water meeting the sand.
When she was fully settled against him, when he was fully inside her, they both stilled. He panted against her breast. Her lips pressed into his hair. She could feel the wet bunch of his swimsuit beneath her, the corded muscles of his hips against the give of her thighs, the sculpted body his job demanded supporting hers. Floating in the Pacific Ocean with a man inside her shouldn’t have felt like coming home.
“Sweetheart,” he whispered against her skin. She heard him swallow, and then he kissed her nipple. “Sweetheart, you feel so good.” He rubbed his thumb over the small of her back like he already knew that was one of her most sensitive spots and she full-body shivered and he deep-belly groaned then she squeezed him inside her.
