Chapter Two
Three human males in their natural habitat.
How could she refuse an offer like that? Especially since being around Hunter made her feel safe after that ugly encounter.
I told you so.
She could practically hear her mother’s voice saying those words. Dira Delaney prided herself on responding to every situation with cool logic, but a threat to her daughter would get her blood up like nothing else could.
I told you you’re not ready for the world out there. You need more time to heal, to get stronger. Let me keep you safe.
But the doctors had said she was fully healed. No restrictions—those had been their exact words. She was strong, she was healthy, and she was sick of feeling safe.
And yet, wasn’t that why she wanted to join Hunter for a drink? Because he made her feel safe?
Airin took his hand as she slid off the bar stool, and a jolt of electricity made her catch her breath.
“Are you all right?” he asked, his eyebrows drawing together.
“Yes, I’m fine,” she said quickly, withdrawing her hand from his and picking up her drink from the bar.
The ice had made water condense on the outside of the glass, and she tried to concentrate on the sensation of cool wetness against her fingers.
Hunter’s skin had been warm, his palm calloused, his grip strong and confident. And the touch of his hand had made her knees weak.
Was it possible for something . . . for someone . . . to feel safe and dangerous at the same time?
“I can carry your drink for you,” he said.
As inexperienced as she was, and in spite of her instinct that Hunter was a man she could trust, she knew better than that.
“I’ll carry it myself,” she said. “Just in case you have Rohypnol or something.”
A slow smile spread across his face. “Fair enough.”
The guitarist started to play as they made their way toward the back of the bar. As people began to crowd onto the floor in front of the stage, filling the tables and the spaces between them, Hunter took her elbow in a protective grasp.
Caleb grinned when she took a seat at the round wooden table in the corner, and he introduced her to his college friend.
“It’s very nice to meet you, Stu,” she said, leaning across the table to shake the large blond man’s hand.
All three of them were large, and even though Hunter was definitely the handsomest, they were all good-looking. She wasn’t doing too badly for her first night of real freedom. She was in a Waikiki bar with three good-looking guys, and slack-key guitar music was playing behind her.
She took a sip of her Blue Hawaii and discovered that it was delicious.
Caleb was sitting on her right. “So, Airin,” he said after a moment, “tell us what you—”
She shook her head. “You don’t have to do that.”
Caleb looked puzzled, and she elaborated. “It’s nice to be here after what happened with that tourist, but you don’t have to make polite conversation with me or anything. I’m very happy just to drink my drink and listen to the music. This is your bachelor party, and you’re here with your brother and your friend. You should drink and laugh and carouse. I can be just another part of the background.” She remembered what Hunter had said. “Think of me as an anthropologist, here to observe three human males in their natural habitat.”
Caleb threw back his head and laughed, and Stu almost choked on a piece of chicken. Hunter, sitting on her left, shook his head.
“I meant that as a joke,” he said, but he was smiling. Then he took one of the shot glasses from the table and held it up. “But Airin’s right about one thing. This is, first and foremost, my little brother’s bachelor party. To Caleb, who got hooked and hooked hard by one hell of a woman.”
Stu held up a glass. “To my old buddy for finding someone crazy enough to marry him, and to Hunter for having a job in Hawaii so we had to do the wedding here.” He winked across the table at Airin. “And to you, the hot chick who’s giving me something better to look at than either of them.”
In all her twenty-four years, nobody had ever called her a hot chick.
Caleb picked up the third glass. “To all of you. With this whiskey, I thee salute.”
He tossed his shot back, and the other two followed suit.
The waitress brought them another round. After downing their second shots, Hunter and Stu started trading stories about Caleb, which was perfect. She could listen without feeling like she had to contribute anything, and some of the stories were so funny she laughed until her stomach hurt. Her Blue Hawaii was wonderful, and she made it last until the men were on their fifth round of Jack Daniel’s.
She assumed because she had such a feminine, fruity drink—and was drinking it so slowly—she wouldn’t get intoxicated. But as she sipped her way to the bottom of her glass, she found herself feeling distinctly . . . happy.
Wait a minute. She wasn’t happy.
She was drunk!
Or possibly both.
She noted the symptoms as the three men decided to make use of the dartboard hanging on the wall behind them. A kind of light-headedness that felt good, not bad. A tingling in her fingers and toes. A general sense of well-being that suffused every cell in her body.
Then Hunter brushed against her as he got up from his chair, and the contact made something tighten deep in her belly. She put her hand over the spot.
“Do you want to play, Airin?” Caleb asked.
She shook her head. She’d never played darts in her life, and she would have more fun watching them play.
Especially Hunter.
The more she drank, the less self-conscious she felt about staring at him.
He’d taken off his bomber jacket and was playing darts in a navy-blue T-shirt and jeans. The shirt was old and faded, but she could still make out the NASA logo on the front, just over his heart.
NASA? Well, why not? He was probably a fan. Plenty of people were. Maybe he’d been to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida or the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
But as Hunter leaned forward to make a perfect throw, her attention was captured by something more compelling than his T-shirt.
His body.
A lifetime of medical care had given her an odd relationship with the human body, including her own. There were so many representations of it in hospitals and doctors’ offices—MRIs and X-rays and medical charts; model skeletons and model brains and model hearts; framed diagrams showing layers deconstructed, bones and muscles and skin. But here in this Waikiki bar, staring at a man she’d only met an hour ago, she was having a very different viewing experience.
All the muscles she’d seen illustrated in anatomy posters were perfectly defined in Hunter. His deltoids, pectorals, biceps, and triceps flexed and released in flawless harmony. Powerful bands of muscle slid over the bones beneath, and the whole incredible infrastructure was covered by smooth, tanned male skin.
Even the simple act of throwing a dart became poetry when Hunter did it. Caleb was fun to watch, too—his movements were deceptively lazy, like his smile. But there was nothing lazy—deceptive or otherwise—about Hunter.
His focus was intense. His energy and physicality were intense. His movements were powerful and graceful at the same time, and he seemed so darn healthy it was impossible to imagine him needing to see a doctor or take a pill or have an operation.
He radiated strength. She remembered how sure and fast he’d been at the bar, stepping between her and the tourist and getting him outside before she had a chance to feel truly afraid. Hunter was a man who trusted his instincts and acted on them, and who was used to taking responsibility for his decisions.
Stu had mentioned a job that kept Hunter in Hawaii. There were, she knew, a lot of military bases here. Could he be in the military? That would account for his haircut, his jacket, and the way he carried himself.
Or was it possible he really did work for NASA? They were partnering with the University of Hawaii for several projects, including the biosphere study that had brought her mother here this week.
But that wasn’t very likely. There were close to fifty thousand active-duty military personnel in Hawaii, compared to maybe five hundred people working with or for NASA.
Her glass was empty. She set it down on the wooden table beside the last round of shots and gave her whole attention to Hunter, leaning forward and staring at his broad, powerful back as he took careful aim with his last dart and let fly.
His throw—which was, apparently, enough to win the game—caused Caleb and Stu to groan in unison.
Caleb went to the board to gather the darts. Stu said something she didn’t catch and headed off in the direction of the restrooms. Hunter clapped Caleb on the shoulder, turned back toward the table, and met her eyes.
Whenever Hunter had glanced her way in the last half hour, she’d ducked her head briefly before meeting his gaze, hoping to hide the fact that she’d been staring at him. It was doubtful she’d fooled him, since his sharp eyes didn’t seem to miss much, but it had made her feel a little better.
This time she didn’t look away.
She couldn’t. She’d been staring again, of course, but this time she’d been fathoms deep, caught in an undertow of fascination impossible to escape.
A wave of heat traveled from her toes to the top of her head. Her heart began to pound as Hunter walked toward her, his eyes never leaving hers, until he was standing right in front of her.
“Hey,” he said.
She cleared her throat. “Hey.”
He was too tall. She had to tilt her head back to look at him, and it felt like a surrender, somehow . . . the way her body curved toward him like a flower in sunlight.
She was being pulled into his eyes. His pupils were dilated, pools of black within hazel.
“So should we play again, or—”
She and Hunter jerked their heads around at the same time, startling Caleb into silence.
For a moment the three of them were frozen in an awkward tableau. She and Hunter were just inches apart, connected by heat and electricity, and Caleb stood a few feet away with a bunch of darts in his hand.
“Why do you guys look so weird?”
Now there were three people jerking their heads around, this time to look at Stu, who’d just returned from the restroom.
Another moment went by, and then Caleb cleared his throat. “So I’ve had a great time tonight. I’ve laughed, I’ve played darts, I’ve drunk whiskey. That’s carousing, right? Bachelor party mission accomplished. I think I’m going to call it a night.”
“What are you talking about, man?” Stu protested. “It’s not even midnight.”
Caleb glanced meaningfully at Hunter and Airin. “I guess you and I could toss back a few more, but I think my brother has other plans.”
Other plans? Meaning . . . her?
Oh no. No, no, no. She’d spent too much time already observing these males in their habitat. It was time to head back to her world.
She jumped to her feet. “I have to go,” she said. A sudden wave of dizziness made her grab the back of her chair. “The three of you should”—she made a vague gesture with her free hand—“keep doing the bachelor party thing.” She focused on Caleb. “I hope you have a wonderful wedding. Your Jane sounds like a lovely person.”
She took her hand from the back of the chair, tested her balance, and decided she was okay to walk.
She pulled off her lei and handed it to Caleb. “For you,” she said. “Congratulations.” She smiled at all three men. “Thank you for letting me join you.”
Then she turned and walked quickly away, pushing through the crowd toward the entrance, which suddenly seemed very far off.
She bumped into someone—an older woman swaying to the guitar music.
“Watch where you’re going,” the woman snapped.
“I’m so—”
She bumped into someone else.
“Damn it, lady.”
“I—”
A big hand closed on her upper arm, and then Hunter was guiding her the rest of the way through the crowd to the door. He held it open for her, and the two of them stepped outside.
The air was cool and delicious. In spite of all the cars and tourists going by, it tasted of the ocean, which was just a few blocks away.
Airin took in a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“Thank you,” she said to Hunter. “I’m sorry you had to rescue me so much tonight.” She nodded toward the bar. “You should go back to your brother.”
“Caleb will be okay for a few minutes. Why don’t you let me walk you back to your hotel? I assume you’re staying somewhere around here.”
She imagined her mother spotting the two of them together, and the long, unpleasant discussion that would inevitably follow.
No. She’d go back to her room by reverse engineering the way she’d left it: skirting the dolphin enclosure, sneaking past the kitchens, and squeezing behind the dumpsters near the side door that led to the housekeeping staircase. From there, it was an easy journey to her suite.
But she didn’t want Hunter to witness any of that. How in the world would she explain herself?
She shook her head. “I’ll be fine. I know you don’t have reason to believe it based on the hour we’ve known each other, but I’m not completely helpless.”
Hunter looked down at her. They were standing to the left of the door, out of the way of the crowds, in their own little pocket of privacy.
“Okay,” he said. “If you’re sure.” He paused. “It was nice to meet you, Airin.”
She stared at him for a long moment. He was, without a doubt, the handsomest, sexiest man she was ever likely to meet.
She’d hit the jackpot on her first night of freedom.
“I’m never going to see you again, am I?” she asked, half to herself.
“Probably not. Strangers who bump into each other in Waikiki don’t usually meet again, and in my case, the odds against it are even higher.”
“Why is that?” she asked, intrigued.
He grinned. “In three days, I’m going into a sealed biosphere on the Big Island. I’ll be living with seven other people in a simulated Mars habitat for eight months.”
She stared at him.
It was obvious from his expression and tone that he didn’t expect her to know what he was talking about—or even to believe him.
But she did know what he was talking about. And it made perfect sense.
He was an astronaut.
He was smart, decisive, in perfect physical condition, and a natural problem-solver. His background was probably military—fighter pilot, if she had to guess. Of course he was an astronaut.
I know all about the biosphere, she could say. That’s why my mother came here to Hawaii. She’s meeting with the scientists who designed the Mars simulation project, because she runs a private aerospace company that contracts with NASA.
But that was the kind of conversation you had at the beginning of a relationship or a friendship. And this wasn’t the beginning of anything. Not for the two of them, anyway.
Timing really was everything.
Her fingers curled into her palms. Was there a chance she could make the timing work for her instead of against her? A chance that the very temporariness of this connection could give her the nerve to ask for something she wanted?
“So you’re an astronaut,” she said after a moment, reaching out to touch the faded NASA logo on his T-shirt.
He sucked in a breath. “Yeah.” He covered her hand with his, trapping it against his chest.
She could feel the powerful beat of his heart, and her own pulse began to race.
“And you’re going into a biosphere for eight months.”
“Yeah.”
She took her courage in both hands. “I wonder if you’d do me a favor. It would only take a few minutes.”
“Sure. I already said I’d be happy to walk you back to your—”
“That’s not it.”
To the left of the bar there was a narrow alleyway. Airin pulled Hunter into it, leading him halfway down to a door she assumed led into the kitchen or back room of the bar they’d just left.
The alleyway was deserted. There were no lights, except for the ambient illumination from the streets on either end.
Perfect.
Hunter looked amused as he leaned back against the wooden door. “Okay, now you’ve dragged me into the shadows. Are you a spy? A beautiful assassin? A member of Hawaii Five-0?”
If only she were anything that interesting.
“No.” She hesitated. “What if I told you that your first guess was right? That I’m an alien here to observe Earth?”
“Then I’d say your Blue Hawaii really did pack a wallop.”
She plowed on. “If I were an alien . . . someone who was here for the first time . . . you wouldn’t think it was weird if there were things I’d never experienced. I mean, of course it would be weird that I was an alien, but it wouldn’t be weird if I’d never kissed someone before.”
He stared at her, and she was very grateful for the shadows that hid her face. Her cheeks were probably bright red.
He put his hands on her shoulders. “Airin. I’m pretty sure you’re under the influence of rum and blue curaçao, but let’s forget that for a moment. What is it you want to ask me?”
It was harder to think clearly with his hands on her shoulders. And in the darkness, his face was more inscrutable. The lines of his cheekbones and jaw were harsher, more rugged.
More alien.
“I want—”
She stopped, took a deep breath, and started again.
“I want—”
A moment of silence, and then Hunter squeezed her shoulders.
“Spit it out, Airin. What do you want?”
“I want you to kiss me.”