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  “I’m fine,” she repeated, feeling less fine than she’d ever been before. “I’ll be finished and back in the office in a few days and then you can see in person how fine I am, okay?”

  She continued to stare at the stone. Her flesh tingled, as though someone feathered it with warm fingertips or caressed it with a steady stream of cool breath. Her pussy constricted, clenching a cock that wasn’t there.

  “Hmmm. I’m not convinced. I think I’ll send Craig anyway. If nothing else, to give you some company tomorrow. You shouldn’t be alone on your birthday.”

  Jordynn laughed. “Tom, I’m not suicidal. And don’t you dare send the helicopter. Craig’d get lost trying to find the cabin and I’m not going to spend my birthday searching the rainforest for his skinny ass. You know he’s hopeless at direction on the ground. He got lost driving from Honolulu International to the university’s campus, for Pete’s sake. And that was with a GPS! There’s no way he’d be able to follow the trail up here from the clearing.”

  “You sure?”

  Release me. Release…

  “Yes. I’m sure. Now I’m ending this conversation. I have a very evil boss who will kill me over how expensive the phone bill is.”

  “Ha ha. Very funny,” Tom muttered, clearly not amused, nor willing to drop the subject. “I’m still not—”

  She hung up on him, staring fixedly at the peridot waiting for her on the floor. Slowly, hesitantly, she lowered herself to her knees, incapable of removing her stare from the jewel. Almost of its own accord, her free hand reached for it. The tips of her fingers brushed its polished surface and a jolt of pure, concentrated pleasure shot straight to her core.

  She hissed in a breath and stumbled backward, blinded by the image of a dark and mysterious man suddenly flashing through her head.

  Release me…

  Jordynn stared at the stone. Her sex throbbed, her pulse pounded. What the hell was it?

  She maneuvered onto all fours and crawled silently toward the peridot. It was irrational, she knew, but she didn’t want the stone to hear her approach…

  Mere inches away, she stopped. A scowl creased her forehead.

  What the hell was she doing? Creeping up on a hunk of green rock? What did she expect was going to happen?

  Disgusted at her idiotic behavior, she scrambled to her feet. “Stupid, Jordynn,” she growled, brushing at her knees and ignoring the heavy want between her thighs. “You’re being stupid.” She bent down and snatched up the peridot, clenching it in her fist for a brief second before dropping it on the cabin’s work desk. “You see?” she scolded herself. “Nothing. No strange man, no instant orgasm. Nothing.”

  So why is your head spinning? Why is your pussy wet? Why does your heart beat as if you’ve just had the best sex of your life?

  Scowl etching deeper, she turned her back on the peridot and stormed across the room. She had work to do. The time for foolishness was over.

  * * * * *

  Auburn hair. Cascading over fine, sun-kissed shoulders. A heart-shaped face. Sad yet strong blue eyes.

  Kale saw them. Somehow, from the prison of Pele’s punishment, he saw them.

  And longed, more than anything, to take the sadness from their depths.

  Chapter Two

  The Dawn

  Pre-dawn stillness settled over the Hawaiian terrain. Everything around Jordynn, every tree, every branch, every blade of grass appeared in perfect clarity, so sharply defined it was almost painful to look at. The faint golden glow from the rising sun painted the landscape a warm, coppery hue, turning an already beautiful vista into a landscape photographer’s fantasy.

  Meandering through the Koa and ‘Ohia’lehua trees, knapsack slung over one shoulder, sweet, unpolluted air filling her lungs, Jordynn told herself she was lucky. So damn lucky. What better way to celebrate twenty-seven than in the magnificent Hawaiian wildness, enjoying such a magical moment? Why would she want companionship when she could have the entire Mauna Kea to herself?

  She pulled in a deep breath, tasting the pure air. Her eyelids fluttered closed. Damn it all, she was happy with her life. Truly. She had no need for—

  “Who are you?”

  Jordynn’s eyes snapped wide.

  The naked man stood before her in the lightening wilderness, looking at her with piercing green eyes.

  Jordynn folded her arms and glared at him. “Who am I? Who the hell are you?”

  Dark eyebrows rose. “You have fire in your spirit as well as your body.”

  “I’ll give you fire in your body if you don’t tell me who you are and why you’re standing around buck naked in the forest.”

  The threat made no sense, but Jordynn didn’t care. Her heart was pounding like a sledgehammer, her palms were sweaty and her mouth dry. The man standing before her in the increasing dawn light, body hard and sculpted, resting cock long and thick enough to take a woman’s breath away, was the stuff of wet dreams. Her wet dreams.

  It pissed her off.

  She crossed her arms, ignoring the interested beat in her pussy. “Have you been stalking me? What the fuck are you doing up here?”

  The man studied her with those mesmerizing, unnerving green eyes. The smooth muscles of his torso shifted slightly and Jordynn’s pussy throbbed more. “Why do you ask so many questions?” The man’s voice licked over her flesh, velvet smooth and deep. “Is it because you are lonely?”

  Exasperation—no, change that, fury—roared through Jordynn and she stamped her foot. “I am not lonely!”

  Black eyebrows shot up farther. “Your soul speaks differently.”

  Jordynn raised her own eyebrows. “My soul?” She narrowed her eyes. “God, you have been stalking me! That explains why I keep dre—” She stopped, sinking her teeth into her bottom lip. Heat flooded her cheeks.

  A glint of mischief sparkled in her mysterious companion’s striking eyes. “Explains why you what?” His entirely too-kissable lips twitched. “And stalking? Like that which a hunter does to its prey?”

  More heat flooded through Jordynn, this time flushing her pussy with damp excitement. Hunter. Prey. Something about the words made her sex contract, wanting to close around a long, thick cock. She’d never been anyone’s prey before.

  But then, you’ve never had a hunter who looks like this after you before, have you? A Hawaiian warrior of sublime perfection and carnal sensuality. Let him hunt you. Let him overpower you. Let him devour you. Starting with your—

  Jordynn scrunched up her face, squeezing her eyes shut on the wanton thought. Dammit, she was twenty-seven now. She was too old to be fantasizing about mysterious men with even more mysterious eyes. Stop it, Harrison!

  “Stop what?”

  The whispered words tickled the sensitive dip just below her left ear. She started, body awash in tingling chills, and opened her eyes.

  The wilderness before her was empty.

  “Gone,” she said aloud, completely bamboozled and disappointed. Exasperated disgust rolled through her and she threw up her hands. “For Pete’s sake, Jordynn! It’s a dream. Wake up!”

  He could almost feel her. In his mind, he knew her skin felt like velvet. In his pleasure-drugged consciousness, he knew the fine hair on the soft curve of her sex was downy and silken. “It may be a dream…but I am not gone,” he whispered, causing her to jump again as he moved to stand behind her. “See?” He ran his palms over the line of her rib cage, playing each subtle dip and rise. He couldn’t feel her, not with his hands—substantiality still alluded him—but he felt her with his soul. With his heart.

  By the gods, he felt her.

  He pressed to her body, his cock thick and straight. How it was so, he couldn’t fathom. He had no form, no substance, yet his erection throbbed with such power and hunger his head swam with giddiness. He couldn’t deny that reaction. He could feel that reaction, and knew the beautiful woman in his arms felt it too. She seemed to feel everything. Her body told him so.

  How was it so?

  U
ntil you know love again, until your heart is hot with passion once more…

  Pele’s fateful words came to him.

  Yes. The goddess was right. He’d been nothing, trapped in nothingness, until the moment this woman, in this place, in this time, touched the peridot. The precise instant her skin made contact with the stone’s surface…he began to feel once more.

  He began to be.

  “I am with you now.”

  The voice tickled her senses like a playful breeze and suddenly Jordynn realized she was naked. Gloriously, wonderfully naked. Her breasts full and heavy and exposed to the breaking day, her pussy wet and aching for attention.

  “Feel me.”

  Brown hands skimmed across her hips and belly. Long, sure fingers slipped between her bare thighs, parting the sodden lips of her pussy without preamble. Jordynn pulled in a short breath. Warmth licked through her body in languid strokes, radiating from her sex. She closed her eyes, knowing she was dreaming once more but not caring in the least.

  She would deal with her unhinged mind later. For now, she would enjoy her birthday fantasy and go with the exquisite, rapturous flow. Oh God, would she go with the flow. A wonderful, sinful birthday present from herself.

  “Tell me why you are lonely?”

  The softly murmured question caressed her ear as the fingers in her pussy played over her clit.

  Delicious pleasure flooded her core, her belly. She arched her back, pushing harder against the hands between her thighs. A tiny smile curled her lips. Utterly amazing sex and psychological therapy in one sweet dream? Talk about brilliant multi-tasking! “I’ve never been moved by anyone,” she murmured back, rolling her hips backward and forward. “My heart’s never been touched…”

  “Touched?” The fingers slid over the throbbing nub of her clit, sending ribbons of bliss deep into her core. “Like this?” Warm lips brushed the sensitive hollow just below her earlobe, followed by a tender nip from teeth she knew to be both straight and white.

  She leaned back into her dream lover’s embrace, feeling his rock-hard cock nudge her ass cheeks with wordless promise. “Yes,” she whispered. “Yes.”

  Her lover, the utterly incredible imagined man that he was, pushed the tip of one finger past the sodden lips of her sex. “Yes?”

  Jordynn nodded wordlessly, giving herself over to the raw pleasure the slow but purposeful penetration created. She lifted her arms, tangling her hands in his long, thick hair, pressing her ass harder to his rigid shaft. Damn, she never wanted to wake again.

  The lone finger grazed over her now-swollen clit before dipping deeper into her sex once more. Jordynn pulled in a deep breath and parted her thighs slightly, granting greater access.

  The invitation was accepted. Another finger joined the first, seeking and finding her wet warmth. Both wiggled, stroking the sweetest of spots within the well of her pussy.

  “Jesus, that feels fucking fantastic!”

  A deep chuckle sounded in her ear, sending wicked ripples of lust through Jordynn’s body. She tugged on a fistful of hair and was rewarded with a thrust of fingers and cock. She gasped. “God, do I know how to dream!”

  Warm lips pressed to her neck. “Why do you think you are dreaming, huapala?”

  Jordynn let her head fall to the side, curving her neck for his mouth to explore. “What other explanation is there?”

  Her lover smoothed his free hand up her body, warm palm charting a slow course over her belly, the curve of her rib cage, until he found her left breast. “A joining of spirits?” His lips nipped her flesh as he cupped her breast. “A connection of souls?”

  Connection.

  Jordynn whimpered at the delicious sensations the fingers between her thighs and on her nipple created. At the single word defining the one thing she hungered for the most.

  Connection.

  How did he know?

  It’s your dream, Jordynn. Your psyche.

  Soft, warm lips nibbled at her earlobe. “It is becoming more than that.”

  Jordynn leaned deeper into his exquisite embrace. “Is it?” She didn’t know what else to say. Dream or no, this strange, powerful man knew everything in her heart.

  The fingers in her sex dipped deeper still, stroking the walls within. “Your sweet, gentle, lonely soul called mine.” His breath feathered her flesh as he pressed a gentle kiss to her jaw. “I don’t know why or how, but your soul called mine.”

  “And you came?”

  His lips roamed down her neck. “How could I not?”

  He withdrew his fingers from her moist folds a little, just enough to press them to the swollen nub of her clit. Exquisite heat shot through her and she moaned, tightening her fists in his hair. “Please!”

  Her whispered plea seemed to ignite him. The hand on her breast grew fierce, squeezing and kneading the swollen curve of flesh. He pinched her puckered nipple, rolled it between thumb and fingers. She moaned and thrust her breasts farther forward, craving greater contact.

  With a force both gentle and demanding, he turned her around, staring down into her face for a still moment before cupping both breasts in his hands and lowering his head. He took her right nipple in his mouth, rolling it between his teeth and flicking it with his tongue, his fingers pinching and twisting her left nipple in perfect harmony. She arched her back, gripping tension lashing through her body, into her core. He suckled on her nipple, drawing the rock-hard tip into his mouth, worshipping it with his teeth and tongue. Her breasts grew heavy, swollen with pleasure, and she moaned, shifting her hips in an effort to ease the building heat between her thighs.

  His hands raked up and down her body, skimming the curves of her hips, her ass. She pressed her thighs together, capturing the squirming sensation his languid exploration created in her very core. Her clit felt on fire. God help her if his fingers found the small button of flesh again. She’d come on the spot.

  Awash in wave after wave of pleasure, struggling to stay on her feet, she knotted her fists in his hair. The silken strands only served to highlight the fever in her flesh and she sucked in a quick breath, pressing his head harder to her breast.

  His tongue lashed at her nipple, circling it in ferocious hunger. His fingers moved over her breasts, kneading the heavy globes, scooping them together so he could drag his mouth from one nipple to the other with barely a second of lost contact. He suckled on each, making her pussy throb, a hot beat echoing the drawing action of her lover’s mouth. A shudder rocked her body and she groaned, tightening her fists in his hair.

  He pulled his mouth from her nipple, gazing up at her for a still moment with shimmering green eyes. Breaths shallow and rapid, she watched him slowly lower himself to his knees, his hands smoothing down her rib cage, over her hips to her pussy. His fingers slipped into her wet folds before smearing her juices over her sex, her ass. She pushed her hips forward, delighting in the wicked sensations blossoming in the pit of her belly. The feel of his fingers—not only on her slit, but the tight opening of her anus—stole her breath and she gasped.

  Smoldering green stare locked on her face, he smiled silently, sliding one hand up the back of her thigh to cup her ass. He pressed the tip of his finger to her cream-slicked, puckered hole, his smile turning into a thoroughly dirty grin when she whimpered.

  “Yes?”

  The question whispered through her mind, low and respectful. Raw and hungry.

  She closed her eyes, letting every fiber of her being focus on the fingers on her body, on her anus, in her pussy. “Oh God, yes.”

  He dipped deeper into her sex, seeking and finding the exquisite spot within, quickly stroking the sensitive area at the exact moment he pushed the tip of his finger into her ass.

  She bucked, a sharp, brutal and totally abrupt orgasm rocking her to the core and she came all over his hand. “Oh, fuck!”

  Body drained, muscles so overwhelmed with raw pleasure they could no longer keep her upright, she collapsed before the last powerful pulse of her climax shuddered through h
er.

  He caught her, his strong arms slipping around her waist. With fluid speed and infinite care, he laid her on the ground, replacing his hand in her pussy with his mouth, lapping at her cream-soaked folds. Bathing her with his tongue.

  “Oh God,” she moaned, pushing her sex harder to his mouth, rolling her head from side to side. “Oh God!”

  He continued to lick her clean, his tongue stroking her throbbing clit, dipping into her slit and back to her clit again. His hands roamed over her body, turning her already hot flesh molten. Just when she knew she couldn’t take any more, just when she knew she was about to lose her mind to the onslaught of concentrated sexual ecstasy surging through her, just when incoherent words of surrender fell from her lips, words of whimpered pleas and supplication…he lifted his head from between her thighs and stared at her.

  The fire in his green eyes stole her breath. “You are so tight.” His deep voice played over her senses as surely as his hands played over her body. “I long to fuck you. To feel my cock pump into your tight, wet sex again.”

  The brazen words and his matter-of-fact tone made Jordynn moan. He spoke of a certainty, not a possibility.

  Of course it’s a certainty.

  Whose thought was that? Jordynn couldn’t tell. She and her mysterious lover seemed one.

  Connection.

  The word filled her with flooding warmth, mingling with the damp heat already consuming her from his intimate invasion. She’d wanted this level of passion, this level of intensity. She’d searched for it her whole life.

  “Yes,” her lover said, eyes ablaze with wild green fire. “Connection.”

  Before she could respond—and really, what was she to say?—he rose over her body and crushed her mouth with a savage kiss.

  Rapture roared through her. She parted her lips and met his tongue with hers. He sucked it into his mouth and Jordynn whimpered, tangling her hands in the thick ebony curtain of his hair. He tasted of fresh rain and exotic spices. That delicious combination filled her and a distant part of her mind marveled at how real this dream was. All five of the senses were evoked—he tasted mysterious, looked gorgeous, smelled delicious, sounded sensual and touched her like sin. She shoved her hips to his, reveling in the feel of his turgid erection. Oh God. Yes.