Sun Kissed by Joann Ross Read Free Book Online Page B

self-control and wasn’t about to allow this woman, as enticing as she was, to undermine it in a single day.
    “You were telling me about Kealehai,” he reminded her, rigidly reining in the impulse to drag her down onto the warm sand and reenact From Here to Eternity ’s iconic beach lovemaking scene.
    “Right.” Lani blew out a deep breath, suggesting he wasn’t alone in his feelings. “Since she derived her spirit power from the volcano, if they made love on his village’s beach, so far away from her own fire pit, her youthful human facade could crumble away and the handsome young man would realize how old she actually was.”
    “Mature women have their appeal, but it sounds as if she might have been pushing that envelope.”
    “She was several centuries older than your average cougar,” Lani agreed. “So, she put a trance on him long enough to get away. Then, once she got back to the volcano, she sent her younger sister, Marua, to bring him back.”
    “Did Marua share her sister’s heated charms?”
    “Actually, she was like the soft moon to Kealehai’s blazing sun. Having always lived in her older sister’s much brighter shadow, she’d never had an opportunity to know love. Until they were returning from Taranga’s village, when suddenly, on impulse, the young prince grabbed her and planted a deep, hot kiss on her. From the way it’s described in the various versions of the legend, he would have kissed the socks right off her. If she’d been wearing any at the time.”
    Donovan so didn’t need to be talking about impulsive kissing right now. Especially since Lani was also barefoot. Although he was totally a leg guy, he’d never been into women’s feet. Until this moment. “And thus the eternal love triangle,” he said.
    “It didn’t happen right away,” Lani said. “And it wasn’t as if she invited the kiss. Marua was not only sweet, and a virgin, she was truly loyal to her sister.”
    “And undoubtedly afraid of her sister’s temper,” Donovan suggested, having seen more than a few romantic triangles turn deadly.
    “Probably so,” Lani conceded. “At any rate, Marua insisted that they both remember that he’d already pledged himself to Kealehai. And that should have been that.”
    “Yet there wouldn’t be a legend if the plot hadn’t thickened.” Donovan didn’t need his detective skills to tell that this story was going to end badly.
    “You’re getting ahead of me,” Lani complained. “Having been tempted by her first kiss, Marua hesitantly allowed another. And, as the story goes, being cast under the spell of the prince’s magical charm, she even initiated a few kisses herself as they traveled from the beach through the valley.
    “Unfortunately, Kealehai had been watching out for the couple from her peak on Mt. Waipanukai high over the island. She became more and more enraged with each kiss she witnessed and literally blew her top just as poor, bewitched Marua arrived back with Taranga.
    “When he saw the fiery display of passion, the man-whore of a prince forgot all about poor sweet Marua, swept Kealehai into his arms, and made mad, passionate love to her on the edge of the erupting volcano. Unfortunately, instead of enjoying a lovely afterglow of postcoital bliss, Taranga was incinerated by the flames… And that’s the painting you’re going to have gracing your wall.”
    “That’s fine with me.”
    Lani stopped again to stare up at him. “You’ve got to be kidding. It’s one of the ugliest things Daddy’s ever done.”
    Unable to resist touching, he ran his knuckles down her cheek. “Ah, but whenever I look at it, I’ll think of you.”
    In turn, Lani dropped her sandals on the beach and placed her hands on his shoulders. “Are you accusing me of having a temper?”
    “No,” he murmured, tracing the exquisite planes and hollows of her face with his fingertips, “I’m accusing you of making things very, very warm around here.”
    “Is that a