“Good.” Fingertips grazed my clit and then were gone. I angled my shoulders to lo
ok up at him, stunned that he’d stopped. Joseph wore an evil, sexy smile. “Did you need something, little girl?”
“I liked what you were doing, Sir.”
A noise of satisfaction rolled out of him. “Me too, but my parents are waiting for us to have dinner, and I know you want me to stop being rude.”
He’d turned me on in a heartbeat, and I could see the pleasure he took in leaving me unfulfilled. “You suck.”
He smirked. “Think carefully about what you say next. I can give you orgasms, baby girl, which means I can also withhold them.”
I kept my mouth shut, and later that night, he didn’t have to.
chapter
TWENTY-SIX
JOSEPH
It was hot in the large airplane hangar, and they had the doors wide open. We sat in the uncomfortable metal folding chairs that had been set up for the ceremony and faced the plane my brother flew on training exercises.
It wasn’t a huge event, maybe one hundred and fifty people in all. The pilots in Conner’s squadron and their extended families, plus a few commanders and captains who had come in for the ceremony. I watched my brother in his spotless dress-white uniform accept the plaque and smile while he shook hands and posed for photographs. Something swelled in me at this. I was insanely proud of him, and as soon as I got a moment to tell him, I would.
We mingled with the lieutenants and ate the catered lunch at white linen covered tables as jets took off from a nearby airstrip. At one point, I curled my hand around Noemi’s. I’d never been much of a hand holding guy, but there were far too many men wearing what my brother called the “panty-dropping suit” at the event. They gazed at Noemi like she was the most beautiful thing they’d seen.
Not that I could blame them, but she was mine.
We’d taken a family picture beside the airplane, only to have my mother call Noemi into the next shot. She’d been a huge hit with the folks, beating my father at pinochle and cooking dinner with my mother. Mom was notoriously hard on the women my brother brought home, and yet she let Noemi help. If anything, she seemed grateful.
It was insanity being with Noemi. Insanity I enjoyed, like the out of control feeling when she smiled at me, or her desperate pleas for more, late at night when I was inside her.
We woke up together in the big bed, and sometimes I’d pin her wrists behind her back while I fucked her hard, whispering what a dirty girl she was, while my other hand covered her mouth. “Don’t get too loud, filthy girl,” I’d say. “Don’t want my parents to hear what a slut you are.”
She stole the markets section out of my newspaper every morning at breakfast, even though we had Wi-Fi. In the afternoons, we’d walk to the beach to go snorkeling, or swim in the pool in the back of the house, and holy fucking God, Noemi in a bikini. The best was when the bikini came off and the tan lines remained, her pale and contrasting golden skin that only I got to see.
Our time flew by, and I wanted everything to slow the fuck down. Suddenly it was Friday and we were back at the airport, saying goodbye to my parents and brother, getting ready to board a puddle-jumper to Hilo on the Big Island.
Once again my mother threatened waterworks and it got to me like it always did, twisting me up in an uncomfortable way. She’d fought me so hard when I’d wanted to give up on the darkest days of my cancer. She’d fought for me, and I would forever be indebted.
“I have a serious question for you,” Noemi said when we were seated on the tiny, cramped plane. “Would your brother let you borrow his uniform?”
I laughed, enjoying the gleam in her eye. “It’s doubtful. Why? You like a man in uniform?”
“God, you would look so sexy.” She shivered at the thought. “We know how much you like giving orders.” But her expression soured. “I can’t believe it’s Friday already. It feels like we just got here.”
“Our trip’s not over yet, though.” We’d planned to go to the active eruption site in Volcanoes National Park. We’d both been to Hawaii before, but never to the volcanoes.
It had been a good idea, but the execution failed miserably. The caldera of the volcano had retreated back inside the crater, so we could see the steam from the lava flow, but no actual lava. Impressive, but still disappointing.
As we stood at the railing of the visitor’s center overlooking the massive crater, my phone rang. The restaurant I’d booked for dinner had had a kitchen fire during lunch, and was now closed for repairs. So our final dinner in Hawaii was fast food that we had to drive thirty fucking minutes to get to and back, because I’d booked a cabin in the forested part of the park. We weren’t ready for it to be so unseasonably cold, nor were we prepared for the drenching thunderstorm that began right before check-in.
The tiny A-frame cabin was referred to as a yurt. It had electricity, meaning one outlet high on the wall over the bed and a single dim bulb at the apex of the roof. No running water—the bathrooms were six cabins down the path from ours.
We’d made it inside the cabin with our suitcases and managed to stay somewhat dry, but it was sixty degrees in the yurt without heat, and the temperature was dropping. Noemi stared at the lumpy, ancient-looking bed, which was the only thing in the room, and back to me.
She laughed, a deep throaty sound. I could barely hear her over the rain pounding against the roof and the triangle-shaped windows at the eaves. “What is it?”
“I kind of have to pee.”