Page 39 of Hula Girl

I follow her gaze and see the blanket of stars shining against the dark sky. “It is,” I agree. “I’m so glad that you opened yourself up to the spirit of this place. It has a way of making you reevaluate your priorities.”

Cocking her head, she looks at me. “Yeah?”

“There’s something calledmana—your life energy. Where you focus yourmanais so important to what you get in return. If you focus it on moments like this, on enjoying and respecting nature, on living a life of meaningfulness in work, then it all comes back to you in the form of a kind of balance that’s hard to find elsewhere.”

She’s quiet as she takes that in. I can see in her expression that she’s considering what that means for someone who lives in a big city like LA, and perhaps wondering if I’m telling her she’s not directing hermanain a positive way. I don’t want that. I don’t want her to feel like I’m judging her. I was just trying to point out how quickly she was able to benefit from the way of life here because she opened herself up to it.

Rather than lecture her on that, though, I try to make light of it. “And that’s why they have yoga and meditation classes everywhere on the mainland, right?”

“Sadly, I prefer sprints on the treadmill.”

“Hell, yeah,” I say. “That’s why you have such fantastic legs.” I run my hands from her incredibly squeezable ass along her thighs.

“Maybe we should …”

She tilts her head toward the shore.

“Yeah, let’s.”

We body surf the mild waves in and Ava quickly pulls on her dress. The thin material sticks to her wet skin, outlining her sexy figure and making my mouth water with need. I hurry to get my shorts on, to contain my dick, which has been hard and ready for more since she stripped down earlier to get into the water.

“Come on, Surfer Boy,” she says in a teasing sing-song as she walks backward.

I rush toward her, sweeping her up in one smooth movement so that she’s got her arms and legs wrapped around me again. I keep walking, not missing a beat as I carry her toward my place, kissing her as we go.

She lets out a yelp of delight whenI swing her around in a circle. “Oh my god,” she says. “You make me feel like I’m light as air.” She grabs my forearms, leaning back slightly at the waist, her wet air whipping around and her smile big as she laughs. It’s a pure, uninhibited laugh that matches the moment of perfection I’d felt with her in the water.

That’s when I know I’m going to miss her.

That’s when I know that after I figure things out with my father, I’m going to see her again.

* * *

We endup staying the night at my place which means she has to leave me earlier than I’d like since she had to get back to the hotel to pack her things. We do a repeat of me walking her to the inlet that gets her back to where her car is at Makai’s. The walk is quiet, but we hold hands as we go. It’s incredible how quickly we’ve gotten not just familiar, but intimate with each other. I may not know her whole story, but there’s a part of me that connects with her in such a basic, primal way that it’s astonishing we’re about to say goodbye.

“Damn,” I murmur.

“What?”

“There so much more I want to show you. So much more of the island you haven’t seen.”

“You showed me a whole lot,” she says, and leans in for a kiss.

“I’d have loved to take you to Nakalele Point. It would give you some of that romance I know you crave.”

“Oh yeah? What’s it like?”

“It’s just north from here, maybe less than ten miles. You look for mile marker thirty-eight-point-five.”

“That’s very specific,” she says with a laugh.

“That’s the best spot, anyway,” I tell her, “to see the geyser. In the morning, the water sprays up and the sun shines through perfectly to make a rainbow.”

“Ooh, that does sound romantic.”

“The best part is that there’s also a volcanic rock formation with a natural cutout in the shape of a heart.”

She squeezes my hand and I see a smile of delight on her face at the prospect. Yep, that would have been a great place to take her. Anything to get that kind of sweet, carefree expression out of her.

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