Chapter Six

Chapter Six

A lana shifted in her chair trying to enjoy the late afternoon breeze, but it didn't help her mood. All week she had been growing more agitated by the day. She was known for her even temper but just yesterday she hung up on a board member. It was that or tell him to shove it. That would have definitely raised a few concerns.

"Are you going to tell me why you're being a raving bitch?" Colin asked.

She frowned at him. He had dragged her out trying to get her out of her funk but it was getting worse by the minute. Right now, she wanted to dump her drink on Colin.

She shook herself from that thought and took a sip of her drink, then set it down on the table.

"That's a dirty mouth you have on you. Does your Tutu know you talk like that?"

"You know her. She taught me the words. So, are you going to tell me what's going on?"

She sighed. "I'm frustrated because of Marco."

"What did he do?"

She glanced out at the passing traffic on Kam Highway and tried her best not to sigh again. "Kissed me."

He frowned at her. "What's wrong with that?"

"Nothing." Not really. Except that she hadn't had a decent night's sleep since he did it. Her lack of sleep had definitely added a layer of that bitchiness Colin had pointed out.

"I thought he kissed you before."

She shook her head. "No. He gave me a kiss. This was a kiss ."

"Ah."

He had one of those condescending looks that irritated her. Okay, most of the time they amused her. This time she wanted to punch him in the face.

"What does that mean?" she asked.

"Well, it's been awhile for you."

She frowned into her drink. "I had a date a couple months ago."

He shook his head. "First of all, we have to talk about you admitting that as if it is a good thing. Secondly, I meant sex. It's been awhile."

"I don't know why I share things with you. You always say horrible things about me. And not trying to be the raving bitch you accused me of, but you are hardly someone who should be talking."

"I have sex fairly regularly."

She snorted. "Besides, it wasn't sex. Just a kiss."

"Tell me this. Did you forget your last name?"

That kiss was seared in her memory. The feelings filtered through her just as they did every time she thought of that moment. She had never had a man kiss her like it meant more to him than his next breath. There was a pretty good chance she would remember it on her deathbed before she remembered any sex she'd had.

"Yeah."

"Being the man that I am, I'll give a little advice. Men like Santini do not kiss like that on a whim."

"I think that he might just be a better kisser than you. In fact, from my experience with you, I would say he is definitely better."

"There's that bitchiness again."

Dammit. She hated when Colin was right. He rarely was. It was probably the reason he was so damned smug about it when he was.

When she didn't respond to his taunt, he apparently decided to continue on. "He wouldn't do that to his landlady."

She snorted. "Sure, whatever. He hasn't touched me since."

He stopped with his fork midway to his mouth. "You've been out again?"

"No. I was going down to the beach a few days ago and he showed up. Then, I was potting some impatiens on my lanai and he helped. I got a little kiss."

He chewed his food as if coming up with some great advice. God, she hated when he got like this. Colin was her best friend, but he was horrible at advice. He gave it to her even if she didn't ask for it. "A little kiss?"

"Like a peck."

Colin studied her for a moment or two. "Have you made any advances?"

"No."

She had never been that sexually aggressive, and she hated to admit it, but her time with Pete made it tough to take the chance again. He had been laughing at her behind her back all the time.

"I want to beat the hell out of that bastard."

She snorted again. "I think you would end up with...how do people say it? Oh, you would end up with your ass handed to you. I wouldn't mess with Marco if I were you."

"I wasn't talking about him. I was talking about Pete. I should have done it before he was chased off the islands by his creditors."

"You're so sweet. Why didn't we end up together?"

"Because the last time we tried to kiss like boyfriend and girlfriend it felt like I was kissing my sister."

She laughed. "That's true. It was...kind of gross."

"I think you're going to have to make your move."

"On Marco?" She shook her head. "No way. I can't do that."

"Why not?"

"He's a SEAL for crying out loud. He should be the one to launch a maneuver."

Colin laughed as he sat back and studied her. Then, he sobered. "You haven't told him about your family, have you?"

She shrugged. Other than the brief discussion on their date, she hadn't said anything else and he hadn't asked.

"He's waiting because you aren't open with him."

"First of all, men don't care if you are going to tell them your background."

"They do if they are serious."

She waved that away. "Marco Santini isn't serious about me." Colin opened his mouth but she shook her head. "No. He's not. And, I don't know much about him other than the fact that he's a SEAL, his family all serve in the military, and he will be an uncle in less than a year. That's about it."

"Well, you need to quit tiptoeing around it. I might die an old man without children to spoil if you don't hurry up."

She rolled her eyes. "I guess you haven't heard from Sara?"

"Nope. She called. I ignored her."

"Hmm."

In a moment of rare seriousness, he said, "I couldn't go on like that any more. I'm sick of her treating me like a dirty little secret."

Alana leaned forward and studied him for a second. "You mean it."

"Yes, I do."

"Good. You need to get away from her."

"And you need to make a move on Santini. He kissed you, now you need to up the ante."

"I don't know about that."

"Tell you what. You go talk to him tonight. I'll pick you up for breakfast in celebration or as a pick me up."

She smiled. "You were always the best friend I ever had."

"Well?"

She drew in a deep breath and nodded. "I'll try my best."

Alana figured at this point it would be better to know than to be wondering if he was still interested.

Marco was having a crappy day. A long crappy day at that. He had been late for PT in the morning, and that had pissed the commander off. It went downhill from there. Now, dealing with his brother on the phone was starting to piss him off.

"How is my future wife?" Gee asked.

Marco ground his teeth. He hadn't told any of them he was going on a date with Alana, but apparently his mother did and Gee wouldn't let it go.

"Alana is not your future wife."

He was so fucking frustrated being a nice guy with her. He got the idea that she didn't want to rush things and he knew she was a little inexperienced. Being the situation they were in, it was probably best that he didn't push her. If he screwed this up, living there would be horrible.

"You don't know that."

He glanced out the window and noticed that her car was back. "Yeah I do. I have to go, Gee. Shouldn't you be in bed?"

"It's only ten here on a Friday night. I'm young enough to stay up later, old man."

"So, a single man, one who claims to be full of vigor, is sitting at home on a Friday night talking to his brother on the phone. Sad, Gee, really sad."

There was an ominous beat of silence, then he said, "I'm being deployed. Nothing huge, but I'm going over to Afghanistan for the next few months."

That stopped Marco's pacing. "You were there not too long ago. I thought they gave you more time between deployments."

He sighed. "One of the guys has a mother who is pretty sick. They needed a volunteer."

"When?"

"Not sure. Within the next two weeks. Haven't told anyone else."

It was common for the two of them. Gee was the youngest and Marco was the closest to his age. From the time they were little, Gee followed him around like a lost puppy dog. It had been aggravating at first, but since they had matured, they had grown closer. "But at least you'll be back soon with the drawdown."

"That's the way I looked at it. I'm one of the few single guys around right now."

Even though many people would peg Gee as shallow, he wasn't. He understood what military families went through, and he knew what volunteering to go meant also. It wasn't something everyone would do. Sure, he would earn a little more money, but to help a fellow PJ because of family was more important. Joey Santini had raised them right.

"Mom won't take it easy, that's for sure."

Gee sighed. "I thought maybe you could call her and tell her."

Marco laughed. "Yeah, no. Not unless you're going to tell her when I get called up next time."

"Well, damn. Maybe I should let Leo do it. He's giving her a grandchild, so she's all happy with him."

"I bet he won't want to lose that buzz he has going with her."

"He owes us. Mom is all over me about Alana and you, just so you know. Ever since Leo found MJ she's been crazy for more women in the family. I can't believe we're going to be uncles."

Marco laughed. "Yeah. Even harder is to believe that Leo is going to be a father. His kids will be crazy."

"Not too crazy. MJ will make sure they're raised right. Like Mom did with us."

He knew that Gee was in the mood to talk, but he saw Alana walking his way. His heart was suddenly in his throat and his palms started to sweat. She was wearing a pair of board shorts and a T-shirt. He was so used to seeing her in a dress, every time he saw her dressed casually, his brain shut down. The fabric of her top clung to her breasts. He'd spent the last week imagining just what they looked like. He sighed as his gaze moved lower. He had more than one daydream about having her long legs wrapped around his waist as he thrust—

"Marco?" Gee said.

He shook his head trying to get it back to the conversation, but he kept his attention on Alana. "Sorry, what did you say?"

"Nothing. I'm going to go. I have to get enough sleep to get the nerve to call Mom tomorrow."

"You're in the US military and you're afraid of one little woman."

"And you're not? You're a SEAL and I'm pretty sure you wouldn't want to call Mom."

"Point taken. Night, bra."

Gee chuckled. "Listen to you getting Hawaiian with me. Night."

He hung up the phone just as Alana knocked on the door. He set his phone down on the counter and slowly walked to the door. He had to fight every instinct to run to answer it. He couldn't help it. He wanted to spend every free moment he had with her. Every day he found himself hurrying home to see if she was free. It was worse than when he had his first crush.

He opened the door and lost his train of thought. She'd picked up a flower along the way and slipped it behind her ear. He noticed she did that a lot. Just like he could imagine the way it would feel to have her beneath him.

"Hey," she said, her lips curving. "I didn't know if you were busy tonight or not."

He shook his head and said nothing else. He was still trying to get his head wrapped around the idea that she had walked to his house. With barely any clothes on. For Hawaii, it wasn't that strange, but…

"Uh…Marco?"

"Oh, no, not doing anything. Do you want to come in?"

The smile she offered hit him harder than a ton of bricks. "Sure."

He stepped back ordering his body that this meant nothing. She was just stopping by to chat, just like they had been doing for the last week. She walked past him and he caught the light scent of flowers and sensual woman. It was something he would always associate with Alana for as long as he lived. He shut the door and watched as she walked into his kitchen.

He followed her in. "Gee says hi."

She leaned against the counter. "That's nice. Wait, he's home on a Friday night? For some reason, that seems odd. It's odd that any single Santini man is home on Friday night."

"I'm home."

"Yeah, I find that strange. As I have for the last few months."

He shrugged. It was hard to admit that the dating scene had been boring him for the last year. It made him sound like Vince, and he didn't like that. Vince was old.

"We went out last Friday night."

She tilted her head to the side and studied him. "We did. But, then you backed off."

"No I haven't."

"Yes, you have. You haven't…you know."

He couldn't seem to follow the line of questioning. It was probably because all the blood had moved from his brain southward. Just being in the same vicinity as the woman had him rock hard. "No, I don't know."

"You haven't really kissed me since Friday night and I want to know why."

He could only stare at her. Right now his fingers itched to touch and his mouth was dry at the thought of tasting her. Did she really not understand how attracted he was?

From the blank stare on her face, she didn't.

"I didn't want to rush you."

She snorted and rolled her eyes. "Okay, Marco. I've got some work to do, so I'll see you around."

This was wrong. Very wrong. He knew women didn't like to be rushed, especially women like Alana. Plus, there was a part of him that wanted to take it slow because something felt very different with Alana. She was already walking past him when he grabbed her wrist. She stopped and looked down at their hands, then back up at his face. Confusion and pain darkened her green eyes.

"I told you before you have the wrong idea about me."

She gave him a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "No. I had the wrong idea. It's just best if we let it go. I have lots of guy friends."

He didn't like the sound of that. He didn't know what bugged him more: The fact that she put him in a category of friend already or the fact that she had a lot of male friends.

"Does this have to do with the guy who was here a couple weeks ago?"

He hated to think she had been involved with both of them, especially after he had specifically told her his feelings on the subject. She shook her head.

"Colin and I have known each other since kindergarten."

"That's it. No one in the way. No other man?"

She shook her head.

"Good."

Then, without a word, he let go of her wrist, sliding his hand up to cup her face. He didn't hesitate as he leaned in to brush his mouth over hers, then deepened the kiss. He poured everything he could into that kiss. Every feeling—anticipation, frustration, infatuation—he had for the last few weeks as he had realized how attracted her was to her. She sighed and leaned against him. Something squeezed tight in his chest

When he pulled back, she was smiling.

"So, whatcha waiting for SEAL?"

He couldn't let the challenge go. He bent at the waist, and lifted her up and over his shoulder. She squealed. He smacked her on the ass, leaving his hand there. Gee had been right. Marco liked a curvy woman, and Alana was definitely that.

"Just what do you think you're doing, Marco," she said, laughing.

"You should know better than to mess with a SEAL, Alana. You gave me a challenge. This is my acceptance."

He said nothing else but dumped her on the bed. Her hair was a mess now, but it was spread out over his pillows. He realized he wanted her there. Not just now. Not just for the time he had left in Hawaii. He wanted her in his bed every night. Forever.

"Marco?"

Touching her tonight, sharing with her in his bed, he knew what that meant to him. Now he just had to convince the woman he was in love with.

"Time to pay up," he said, before jumping on the bed ready to rise to the challenge.