Page 116 of Fierce

Hemi’s grandfather nodded with the quiet satisfaction he’d been showing ever since we’d arrived. “You just may. Because of what she’s taught you to do, maybe.”

“And that could be right as well,” Hemi said.

I knew I was blushing, and was glad when the game started. Even though I knew absolutely nothing about it, and I wasn’t particularly illuminated during the hour and a half that followed, other than that the All Blacks wore tight black uniforms, and that they were the best, and that that mattered. That it was one of the most brutal sports I’d ever seen, that the All Blacks won, and that that was a very good thing.

As soon as the game was over, Hemi was pushing back his chair. “I’m going to take Hope back to the house. Jet lagged, isn’t she.”

“I don’t know,” Karen piped right up. “Is she?”

“Yes,” I said, even though I wasn’t, not that badly. But I wanted to go home with Hemi. Of course I did.

Hemi bent and kissed Karen goodbye. “Don’t drink too much.”

She rolled her eyes. “Rub it in,” she said, and he laughed.

She’d pouted, earlier, when I hadn’t let her order a beer, “even though I’m totally legal here.”

“Right,” Hemi’d said. “Take a sip.” And had thrust his mug of Waikato Draught across to her.

She’d tried it and grimaced. “Do they have any better kinds?”

We’d all laughed at that. “That is the best kind, love,” Tane’s wife June had said. “You stick to Coke, and you’re golden.”

Hemi straightened, now, and asked his grandfather, “All right?”

“Yeh, mate,” he said. “Karen and I’ll be home in the morning, after we have our wee adventure.” Which consisted of spending the night in his caravan—his travel trailer—in the RSA’s parking lot as he always did, “so I can stay up late and have a few.”

I’d asked Karen if she’d be good with that, but she and Hemi’s grandfather had bonded. She made him laugh in the same way she amused Hemi, to my relief, and she’d headed out there to help the two of them with their fencing as soon as we’d gotten home from our hike today, and had seemed to enjoy it. We’d always been pretty short of male companionship, and Karen was making up for lost time.

Tonight, that left Hemi and me alone, which was another thing that suited me fine. We said our goodbyes and left, and Hemi said, as he held the car door for me, “Would you rather have stayed longer?”

“No. I want to go home with you. Although,” I mused as we headed up the winding road toward the house, “I’m rethinking that now. Some of those rugby players were really good-looking, and that’s some fierce stuff. I always thought you were sexy, but if you were sexy and a rugby player....hmm, mightn’t that be even better? Maybe I’ll just stay on here, take a little extra vacation, and see what happens. What do you think? Think I’ve got a shot?”

“I think,” he said, smiling all the way now, “that I’ve created a monster. And that it’s been too long, and that I may need to do a little...reminding tonight of who you belong to.”

“I think you’re right.” I moved a little closer and put a hand on the thrilling solidity of his thigh. “I like you this way. All manly and Kiwi and Maori. All that veneer worn off. Think you could show me some more of the elemental man tonight?”

“You know,” he said, the smile still quirking the corner of his mouth, “I think I could. Throw down a challenge like that? You’re asking to get thrown down, aren’t you.”

“Only if I’m very, very lucky.” I stretched so I could give his neck a gentle bite, then a soft kiss, which had him swearing and slowing a little too much around the next corner, then throwing me a glare that told me what I had to look forward to. “But then,” I said with a sigh, “I pretty much am.”

For all that, he wasn’t one bit rough, as it turned out. He was just...thorough. He took me into the house, put me on the bed, and took my clothes off slowly, kissing all the way down my body. And when I tried to reach for him, he grabbed my hands, pinned them over my head, and kissed me some more. Until I was sighing. Until I was melting. And then he started moving down my body again.

After that, he set to work to remind me of exactly how much pleasure he could give me with his slow hands, his talented mouth, and every solid inch of his hard body. To satisfy me over and over again, to move me into one position after another, to wear me out until I was lying, limp and shaking, against his chest, and he was running his hand over my back, letting it drift down over the curves of my backside.

“Another night,” he promised me as I lay with my eyes closed and hummed a little at the pleasure of his hand stroking over my skin, “I’ll let you know what I do to girls who fancy the All Blacks.” He rubbed a bit more, then slapped me once, hard enough to make me jump.

I smiled against his chest, then squirmed upward a little and bit him in the spot where the ridge of muscle at his shoulder met his neck. “Promise?” I breathed into his ear.

He sighed. “Saucy. What am I going to do with you? Think I need you under my iron hand a bit more, eh. And as it happens, I’ve got a plan for that.”

I sobered a little. “We’ve talked about this.”

Because we had. Hemi’d wanted to move Karen and me in with him ever since he’d given me my bracelet, and I’d said no. For the same reasons I’d been careful all along. Karen, for all her feisty talk, loved Hemi so much already. I didn’t want to think of what it would do to her if she lived in his apartment, got used to counting on him, and then it ended.

And if you think I might have had some of those same issues—you’d be right.

“Mm,” he said, his hand smoothing over my skin again, gentle now. “Not until we’re sure it’s forever, you said. Until you’re sure I’m sure, more like. Would marriage help you be sure enough? If we did it here in En Zed, so we could go home together and start the rest of our life? Because as far as I’m concerned—I want to spend it with you, and I want to start that now. Or do I need to do that carved moko after all to convince you? I’ll do it if I have to, but, sweetheart, you’ve made me hurt so much, it feels as if I already have.”

---