She’d been gone for such a short time,
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really, but everything had changed. And everyone. No, that wasn’t true. She saw her sister’s contorted face, the streaming tears. Priggish Sarah had made love to a man. She’d obviously disliked it.
Jules saw her own life as series of days spent in silent despair and nights spent thinking of what she couldn’t have, and swallowed down the hated tears.
It was as if she’d conjured him up. She sat very still, watching Michael, magnificently naked, stride through the surf toward the beach. He was running his hands through his thick hair, then shaking himself like a mongrel dog.
As he came closer, Jules let her eyes fall down his body. She had never before seen a naked man – only Michael when he’d worn those meager pants. Now he wore nothing. The hair was thick on his chest, narrowing as it snaked down over his flat belly. She knew that men had things on the front of their bodies, and that’s where babies came from. Men stuck themselves into women. For a moment she stared at him objectively, wondering how it would work, and how it would feel to touch him there. How it would feel to have him pressed against her, naked.
He turned a moment, looking back over the water. Her fingers tingled as her eyes
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traveled down his back to his buttocks, to his long legs. Old Lanakila carved figures in smooth, glowing wood. Michael looked as sculptured and perfect as the most beautiful of Lanakila’s statues. Suddenly he twisted about and his eyes met hers, and held.
He made no move to cover himself, merely stood there, the water lapping over his feet, gazing at her.
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She was staring at him, staring intensely at his manhood, now swelling and jutting out beneath her gaze. Before he’d seen her, he had been thinking that Maui was indeed a Garden of Eden, so lush and warm and vibrantly beautiful. Jules fit into his image as naturally as the moonlit waves lapping over his feet.
Very slowly he walked toward her. Her bright hair was in wild disarray, flowing down her back and over her shoulders. She was wearing only a simple white cotton chemise that came to her knees.
He said nothing, merely stopped in front of her. She sat very straight on the edge of the rock, her hands folded primly in her lap, her emerald eyes wide upon his face. He dropped to his knees in the sand, feeling the coarse grains against his legs. He stretched out his hands and placed them on her thighs. Slowly he pulled her legs apart. He slid his hands upward beneath her chemise, his fingers wet and warm on her smooth thighs. He clutched her buttocks, lifting her, and brought her down against him.
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She cried out softly, and Saint shook himself free.
He was reeling with the vividness of the fantasy that had held him for many moments. He knew that what he’d imagined could easily happen – right now. He felt his manhood swelling, responding to her yearning gaze.
He forced himself to stand rigidly, and called out, his voice cold and distant, “What are you doing here, Jules?’
‘I didn’t know anyone else would be here,’ she said, her voice high and breathless.
‘You didn’t answer my question.’
‘I … I had to get away from the house, from Sarah.’
Had priggish Sarah been taunting her? ‘I see.) was all he said. He walked briskly up the beach, aware of her eyes following his progress. He found his clothes and quickly dressed himself. He managed to pull on his boots, then straightened. The bulge in his trousers had diminished, thank heaven.
When he turned, she was standing very quietly, watching him. Soft moonlight flowed over her face.
‘I’m staying with the Baldwins,’ he said. ‘I’m going back now. I will probably see you in the morning.’
God, he sounded like a cold, uncaring
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bastard. He stopped in his tracks. ‘Jules,’ he said, his voice gentle now, ‘don’t let Sarah hurt you. She doesn’t understand.’ No one does, ]cast of all your damned father and your wilting mother.