Intrigued By Love (Written in the Stars Book 5) Read online

  Kai slid her hands into the thick layers of her skirt and shimmied out of her underwear. She took a step toward me, resting a hand on my shoulder, straddled my hips, letting her skirt flow around us, and then pushed her hot, soaking cunt down my engorged cock.

  “Oh God,” we both called out at the same time.

  Nothing felt as good as her body wrapped around me. I only hoped I lasted. Her mouth had brought me to the point of coming, and I hadn’t quite gotten my need under control. I’d be damned if she didn’t come first.

  I gripped her hips as her palms settled behind my neck. Slowly she rose and lowered, gyrating her hips in the exact way I’d imagined when I watched her dancing. It was twice as hypnotizing now with her staring directly into my eyes. Her gorgeous face flushed and her bare breasts tipped in hard points only a few inches from my face.

  I had to taste those nipples. With one hand holding onto her back, I used the other to cup a perfect mound and sucked a hard pebble into my mouth.

  “Jax.” Kai’s pace faltered for a second. “Yes, harder.”

  I feasted on her breasts, moving back and forth, giving her the slight bite of pain to bring her closer to her release.

  “Please, I need,” she moaned.

  “I know what you need.” Cupping her ass with both palms, I leaned back until I felt my shirt underneath me and proceeded to take over her movement.

  I pumped up as my hands brought her down. It was hard and fast. Her nails dug into my shoulders, kneading the flesh as little cries of pleasure escaped her lips. My balls drew up, and I knew I wasn’t going to last much longer.

  I grabbed the thick tumble of hair at the back of her neck and tugged her forward, exposing her throat, and then bit down, not hard enough to break her skin but with the edge she needed to give her the pleasure-pain guaranteed to send her over.

  She immediately responded. Her pussy quivered and then clamped down like a fist around my cock.

  “Oh God. Y-y-y…es.” Kai clenched her eyes tight, threw back her head, and lost herself, plummeting me into my own orgasm.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Kailani

  “Time to wake up, sleepyhead.”

  I opened my eyes to see Jax leaning over me. It should have been a crime to look so good without trying.

  I reached up and rubbed my finger along the stubble covering his jaw.

  “You need to shave.”

  “It’s on the agenda.”

  I yawned. “What time is it?”

  “Four ten.”

  I groaned and turned my face into my pillow. “I had twenty more minutes to sleep.”

  “We need to talk before all the craziness of the wedding starts.”

  The seriousness of his tone had me moving to face him. The hard set of his jaw told me we were about to have the one conversation I’d hoped to avoid.

  “I need to know if you want me to stay or not.”

  “Jax.” I sat up. “It isn’t that simple.”

  “Yes, it is. You either think we have a chance or you don’t.”

  “And you believe we do?”

  He scraped a hand through his sleep-messy hair. “I have no doubt we can make it work.”

  “Jax this isn’t just about us. There are other factors.”

  “Like what?”

  “The fact we come from different worlds. You’re Hollywood and affluence. I’m a military brat.”

  “Who owns a huge percentage of this resort.”

  Shit, I’d forgotten he’d been part of the initial financing for the development of the property. Back then he’d offered to loan me more money to get a more substantial stake, but I’d refused, wanting to make the investment with my own savings.

  “Jax, why can’t you see I’ll never fit into your world. I work for a living. I like working. You’d be better with a woman you could take to events and wouldn’t give you as much trouble as I do. I know I’m not an easy person.”

  “And I am. Answer this, have I ever asked you to change, to fit into any mold?”

  “No, you never told me to change, but you kept me as a separate part of your life. I won’t ever be that again.”

  “Dammit, Kai, I told you why I did that. I wanted to keep you from the disaster my parents are. If I was ashamed of anyone or wanted someone to change, it would be my parents. They don’t matter anyway. I haven’t had a relationship with them since before you left me.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I didn’t want to bring my shit home to you.”

  “And that’s the problem. I’m the one person you’re supposed to turn to, to stand beside you. Instead, you kept me far away from things.”

  “I can’t change the past, Kai.”

  “I know. But I won’t risk the same results again.”

  Hurt flashed on his face. “I really was fighting a losing battle. There was no chance for us from the beginning.”

  He slid from the bed, moving to the chair where his clothes lay. He put them on and then glared at me.

  “You aren’t blameless in this. You ran away. Instead of fighting for us, instead of confronting me, you got it in your head it was time to go and you moved on. You left. And I had to pick up the pieces. Did you know I’d left that weekend to get my grandmother’s engagement ring from the family vault in Los Angeles? Did you know I was arranging for your family to fly in so I could propose to you? Or that Kevin had to be the one to see the aftermath of my shattered heart when I realized you ended us without looking back?”

  What?

  He wanted to marry me? I’d always hoped, but Jax rarely mentioned anything about a future with marriage. I’d thought he was happy with the way things were between us.

  Had I read everything wrong?

  My hands shook as I stared into his eyes and saw the truth of his words.

  Why hadn’t Kevin told me this?

  “I didn’t know.” My throat burned.

  “All I’ve ever wanted was what your parents have, what Thad’s parents have.” He grabbed his keys and moved to the stairs leading to the lower level of my bungalow. “It doesn’t matter. It feels as if everything I’ve done to convince you of how much I love you was a complete waste of time. It only pushed you further away.”

  “It wasn’t. It hasn’t. I just need to process everything.”

  “Dammit, Kai. What more do I have to do to convince you I’m in this for good? I feel as if I’m fighting a losing battle.” The resignation in his voice had panic churning in my stomach.

  This couldn’t be how it ended.

  “Jax.” I reached out. “Please don’t go. Not like this.”

  At that moment, my alarm went off, making me cringe.

  “You have wedding details to manage. I’ll let you get to it.”

  Jax left, slamming the downstairs door.

  “Wow, Mama, you’re stunning,” I said as I entered her bungalow and passed the hairdresser and makeup artist who’d helped her prep for the wedding.

  I’d just left Lina in the capable hands of Raquel and her team of people to make Lina’s vision of wedding-day beauty a reality.

  Now it was my turn to have my hair and makeup done. Hopefully they could hide the puffiness under my eyes.

  My insides had felt shredded ever since Jax had left my place, and I’d barely managed to get the last-minute details organized. No, I actually hadn’t. Raquel had noticed I wasn’t entirely with it and had taken over.

  “If you think I look good, then you need to see Kiana,” my mother said. “She’s truly gorgeous.”

  “She’s an exact replica of you, so I wouldn’t expect anything else.”

  Personality-wise, Kiana was completely Papa, but looks-wise, she was a younger version of Mama. Lina and I were a hodgepodge combination of our parents and grandparents.

  Mama huffed. “All of my girls are beautiful.”

  “Yes, but I’m the prettiest.” Kiana came out of a back room, wearing her strapless baby-pink gown.

  It was si
mple with an empire waist that made her look almost delicate. I could definitely agree with her assessment of herself. In fact, she could have been the woman in front of the camera as much as the one behind it.

  I wore the same style of dress, with a secret pocket sewn in to hide my phone since I was still in charge of the wedding.

  Kiana stopped in front of me and frowned. “What’s wrong? You look as if you’ve been crying.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Umm, okay.” She grabbed my arm, dragged me to a nearby couch, and pushed me down. “I call bull. Now spill it.”

  “Jax and I decided it would be better to end it.” I closed my eyes for a brief second. “After the wedding, he’s going to leave.”

  “What happened?” Mama asked, coming to sit by me and taking my hands in hers. “I could have sworn the two of you were next to go down the aisle.”

  “They’re the only ones left, so of course they would have been next,” Kiana interjected.

  I ignored my sister and addressed my mom. “Mama, I can’t put my heart on the line again.”

  “It’s already on the line, baby.”

  My heart would heal—well, I hoped it would.

  “Will you tell me now why you left in the first place? We’ve all wanted to know, but you never shared and we decided it was best to let you come to us with the information.”

  It was time to tell them. The abbreviated version.

  “When Jax was present he was perfect, but when he wasn’t, I was lonely and left feeling like a separate part of his life. He’d disappear at the drop of a hat to take care of things in LA, putting everything in our life on hold.

  “He said it was to protect me from his parents. I just have a hard time accepting his explanation. I could have dealt with it if this was an occasional occurrence, but it had turned into a weekly thing. Vegas became a place he visited instead of where he lived.

  “I know it was selfish but I wanted to be the most important person in his life. He was in mine.” I hung my head, unable to look at my mom. “I’m ashamed to say leaving was easier than seeing if his love for me had died.”

  “Baby, that man never stopped loving you. It was always in his eyes.” Mama tilted my chin up. “And this may be hard to hear, but you need to. If you love him, you have to accept whatever relationship he has with his parents.”

  “Why?” Kiana asked as she sat on the edge of the wooden coffee table in front of Mama and me. “They are such horrible people. I don’t blame her one bit. Do you remember how they treated us like garbage? If it wasn’t for Ani’s intervention, I would have punched Jennine Burton in the face, paparazzi be damned.”

  Mama glared at Kiana, causing her to wince. She made a zipping motion to her lips.

  If Kiana lasted more than three minutes without giving her opinion or making a remark, it would be a miracle.

  “I’m going to tell you a story I haven’t shared with any of you girls. When I met your father, neither of our parents were happy with us being together. In fact, Isaiah’s mother thought I was a gold digger, since his family had generational money, much like Jax’s father. And your Tutu Nima thought I was turning my back on our Hawaiian culture by marrying a man who knew nothing about our traditions and lifestyle and would move me away from my family.”

  This was seriously surprising news. “But Grandma and Tutu were such good friends. They acted as if they’d arranged your marriage from birth.”

  Tutu would say destiny had matched Mama and Papa. There had never been an ounce of dislike whenever Tutu would speak of Papa and especially not Grandma. They were thick as thieves and had traveled all over the world together as two widowed seniors.

  Mama set a hand on my arm. “It took five years of marriage, five years of dislike, five years of horrible things said on both sides before things changed. In fact, it was your Papa nearly dying during a deployment to the Middle East for everything to change. I was pregnant with you, all alone at the base in San Diego, and scared out of my mind after hearing your Papa was airlifted to a hospital in Germany with a severe injury.”

  Mama pinched the bridge of her nose. “It still makes me want to cry remembering that time. I’d contacted both moms to let them know what was happening, expecting them to ignore my calls as they’d done since the day your Papa and I eloped. But they both answered and arrived on my doorstep within twenty-four hours.

  “The resentment I’d had toward them disappeared the second they hugged me. And by the time your Papa returned home to us, both moms were friends and understood each other.”

  I sighed. “Mama, I’m not sure there’s hope for that kind of reconciliation with Jax’s parents. They aren’t like Grandma or Tutu. They are about image and status. It isn’t about what’s best for Jax. The stories he told me about his childhood were filled with sacrificing Jax’s happiness for advancing his parents’ careers and lives.”

  “Then answer these questions, is Jax like them?”

  I frowned. “Of course not. He’s nothing like them.”

  “Then be honest with yourself—did he keep you from his parents because he was ashamed of you or because he wanted to protect you from them?”

  I knew what she was trying to do. To show me I’d run for no reason, that I’d let my insecurities get the best of me.

  My lips trembled. “Because he was protecting me.”

  “Would you rather he’d let you fend for yourself with his parents?”

  “No. But I’d rather he had stood by my side when I dealt with them.”

  “Baby girl, men don’t think the way we do. If they love someone—and I know Jax loves you—they want to slay your dragons and protect you from anything that could hurt you.”

  The image of Christopher and Jennine Burton as evil dragons made me want to smile. Then a wave of guilt hit me.

  “Mama, I don’t want to be the reason he has no relationship with his family, no matter how fucked-up they are.”

  I winced, realizing that I’d cussed.

  Mama lifted a brow and said, “That isn’t a decision you can make. It belongs to Jax. Your Papa made his own choices when it came to his parents. From where I’m sitting, Jax picked you.”

  I wanted it to be true; I wanted to have a life with him. He was saying he would. Then why couldn’t I accept it as real?

  My vision clouded and a tear slipped down my cheek. “I’m scared that if he moves here, he’ll regret it.”

  “Dammit, Kailani, sometimes I want to shake some sense into you,” Kiana burst out. “Sorry, Mama, but you’re being too gentle with her. The only way to get through to her is by being blunt. Are you worth the risk? Is he worth the risk? If the answer is no, then walk away. Stop going back and forth, make a fucking decision and stick to it. If you have regrets later, then it’s on you. I swear, you can be such a dumbass.”

  “Kiana, language.” Mama pointed a finger at her.

  “No, Mama. I’m tired of this. The man is head over heels in love with this idiot, but he only has so much energy to spend on trying to convince her to take the chance. I’m of the mind to tell him to move on. He deserves someone who loves him with the same intensity he feels.”

  “I do love him. I love him so much that I couldn’t imagine living a life where I was second to everything else in his life.”

  “But you weren’t.” Mama wiped the tears on my face with a tissue she’d pulled from a box on a side table. “Perception isn’t always reality.”

  “I know.” I hiccupped. “I shouldn’t have left him the way I did. I should have confronted him with the way I was feeling, instead of shutting down. I should have—”

  Kiana cut me off. “Should have doesn’t belong in this conversation. It’s what you’re going to do now that matters.”

  Kiana was right—I had to stop living in the past and letting my fears win out. I either took the risk or lived out the rest of my life as I had the last two years.

  Alone.

  Taking a deep breath, I whispered, “You’re
right.”

  “Of course, I am. Just because I’m younger than you doesn’t mean I’m not wiser than you.”

  God, I loved this girl.

  “Yes, yes, on this matter you are.” I leaned over, kissed Mama on the cheek, and then smiled at Kiana.

  “Now that we’ve figured out your love life, go have your face fixed. You look like hell.” Kiana smirked and pointed at the room where the makeup artist waited.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Jax

  My breath caught as Kai came out with Kiana and Ani. Kai was a vision. The simple, strapless pale-blue gown showed off her curves in all the right places and gave me visions of what it would be like if we were the ones getting married.

  After this morning, I wasn’t sure if it was only ever going to be a fantasy. I couldn’t get through to her, and my parents were always going to be a problem for us.

  I’d barely acknowledged the pair since they’d arrived on the island. I knew there was no hope of making them see their actions in my life had caused a rift that could only be mended if they met me halfway. No matter if Kailani and I were together or not, I couldn’t let them manipulate my life anymore. Maybe I was a bad son, but at this point, I couldn’t care less.

  “Everyone, you know your positions. Time to pair up,” Raquel announced as she looked at her watch. “The music will start in exactly three minutes.”

  I moved to where Kai stood. Her beautiful deep brown eyes lifted to mine.

  “You’re stunning.”

  She licked her lush lips. “Thank you. You look handsome too.”

  Without thinking, I leaned down to kiss her, and to my surprise, she lifted her face and the knot in my stomach eased. Maybe there was hope for us, after all.

  “Oh no, you don’t.” Raquel set a hand on my chest and pushed me back. “You will not mess up her makeup. Her horoscope said she has a romantic moonlit night ahead. So, save the smooching for later. Right now, we have a timetable to follow.”

  Well, I guessed we couldn’t argue with Raquel’s daily horoscope predictions. I would take any positive prediction about our future that I could get, especially after this morning.