Burning up the Rain (Hawaiian Heroes) by Cathryn Cade

ridiculous because she’d just come from a swim and shower, and she wasn’t even touching him.
    “See anything you want?”
    “Mm-hm.” She bent and fished a Coco Brown Ale from the ice.
    He grabbed it from her, twisted it open and handed it back, more to avoid that enigmatic dark gaze than to be polite.
    “Mahalo.” He ignored her, concentrating on opening his own beer to fight the urge to smile at her, to bask in her honeyed warmth. A mirage like the oases that shimmered out on the deserts east of California, no doubt. With a noncommittal grunt, Jack stalked away, around the group of loungers to the other end, clutching his cold beer like a talisman.
    “Where are Gabe and Sara?” he asked Malu, realizing the other couple was not out on the reef or anywhere else in sight.
    “They had to get back to Maui,” Malu told him, squinting against the sun shining over Jack’s shoulder. “Said to say good-bye.”
    Jack nodded. Damn, he’d missed saying good-bye to his old friend. He’d have to give Gabe a call later.
    As he sank onto the lounger next to Melia’s, she smiled at him, tossing her damp blonde curls back over her shoulder. “Not going for a swim?”
    Jack paused, his beer partway to his lips. He turned his head to eye the clear turquoise waters of the bay, remembering that he’d meant to dive in first, then start drinking his breakfast. “Yeah,” he remembered. “I am.”
    Melia chuckled, stretching her bare toes out on the lounger. “Last time you were here you spent so much time in the water, you had a terrible sunburn, remember?”
    “That’s me,” Jack agreed amiably. “Never do anything by halves.”
    He looked past her. Lalei stood beside David’s lounger, holding her drink. She was surveying the group, serene as an Asian statue, but Jack recognized tension in the whitened fingers clutching her beer bottle. Despite Melia’s and Bella’s greetings, she wasn’t sure of her welcome. Suddenly he was pissed off on her behalf. What right did any of these women have to judge her? They didn’t have a social-climbing dragon for a mother, and as far as he could recall, Claire and Daniel hadn’t been real discreet about their initial affair either.
    Sitting back on his lounger, Jack cocked his head to catch her eye. Lalei raised an arching brow at him as if to ask what he was looking at. He jerked his chin upward, beckoning her. He swung his legs to one side of his lounger, leaving the foot bare.
    She hesitated and then sauntered across the lanai to fold herself elegantly onto the space he’d left, one leg curled beneath her.
    Jack watched Melia and Claire track her movement and then glance at each other. Bella was frankly staring, a little line between her dark brows. He moved his foot, nudging the small of Lalei’s back. Her skin was warm and silky, and he wanted to keep stroking her there. With his little toe, he caught the rivulet of water rolling down the elegant crease of her spine. He’d rather use his tongue. Hell, he wanted to pull her back between his legs and pick up where they’d left off. There were a few places he was dying to put his tongue.
    Whoa, no. Not going there again, or at least not now.
    “You gonna drink that or just hold it?” He indicated her beer.
    She looked down at the bottle as if surprised to see it, then shrugged. “I don’t really like beer that much.”
    He shook his head and leaned forward to take the full bottle from her. “Then go get something you do like, hūpō.”
    Her eyes narrowed. “Did you just call me stupid, haole boy?”
    He froze with a mouthful of beer. Claire clapped a hand over her mouth, her blue eyes full of mirth, and Jack nearly strangled trying to swallow.
    “Ah,” he coughed, stalling. “I thought it meant, just sort of…silly.”
    “Means that too,” David said, his eyes twinkling. “Better stick with nani wahine , pretty woman. Den you’ll be fine, moke.”
    Jack saluted Lalei with his beer. “What he said.”
    She