Page 80 of Bulletproof

“Oh, yeah?”

“I swear.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“And you’ll stay at least a week.”

“Two days.”

“Four.”

“Three.”

“Three,” I sighed heavily. “Deal. Three days alone with you on a tropical island—I’ll take it, Kage.”

He chuckled, and I heard the deep rumble that I loved.

“Was Dane pissed?”

“Not at me,” he said, and I could hear the smile in his voice. “You’re the one who’s running around, saving the brothers of drug smugglers, and not listening to him.”

“He told you that, huh?”

“Yessir, he did.”

“Shit, you realize, of course, that he’s gonna be here at, like, the butt crack of dawn to throw me on an airplane.”

“Yep,” he said, cackling.

“Christ.”

“Hey,” he breathed out. “Pack some clothes for me, okay?”

Suddenly, there was no air in the room.

“Okay?” he prodded.

“Okay,” I managed to get out.

“I love you, baby. Breathe.”

And I did.

TWELVE

When I got off the plane at the Honolulu International Airport, there was the boarding area, and then, immediately, to get to the main terminal, I had to walk outside. It hit me instantly—sweet, flower-scented air, sticky humidity on my skin, and a vision of the whole world bathed in bright, beautiful sunshine. It was like a painting—the turquoise-blue sky, the blinding white of the clouds, and the lush green of the palm trees. And that was just the airport!

Back inside, because once you got off the shuttle, you had to enter a different building where ticketing was and the terminal, it was the same cluttered mess that every airport was, with the added touch of the lei sellers and men in aloha shirts and some women in muumuus. After I claimed my luggage, I made my way to the curb to wait in line for a cab.

The trip to Waikiki from the airport was fast at two in the afternoon, and thankfully, since I had gotten on the plane at five thirty in the morning in Chicago, the driver didn’t want to chat.

The time-share was in use, so Dane had basically just made reservations for me at a hotel in Waikiki. And because he was my brother and he never did anything small, the suite was much too big for one person. I could see beachfront from my lanai and Kalākaua Avenue—named after the king who had brought back the hula—and if I looked out to sea, I had a killer view of the sunset, which was truly breathtaking. Just the wash of colors that the sky became took my breath away. Standing there on the balcony, twenty-three floors up, locked in my lavish, enormous suite, I felt almost as safe as I did when I was in Sam Kage’s arms.

When it was dark, like a vampire, I went out.

March in Hawai’i was not the cold wet that Chicago was, so when I went out in jeans, a short-sleeved button-up, and sneakers, I wasn’t worried that I needed a jacket. The sidewalks were crowded with people, and between the scent of the ocean and what I thought was magnolia but was corrected by the concierge—it was white ginger or pikake, which was carried on the breeze—I could not stop taking deep breaths of the air.