Hawaii - James Michener [553]
"Not many wahine cute like you," Kelly replied gallantly, whereupon she shivered with joy and brought her body closer to his, where she could feel the muscles of his chest against her neck .
It was a long, exciting trip out to where the waves formed, and as they waited for the right one, Kelly asked, "You scared stand up dis time?"
"I'm game to try anything with you," Rennie said, and she showed remarkable aptitude on the long surge in, and when the surfboard finally subsided into the broken wave, and when they were undersea for a kiss, she found to her surprise that her hands were now inside his swimming suit, clutching passionately, hungrily. When they surfaced, his black hair in his eyes like a satyr's, he laughed and said approvingly, "Bimeby you numbah one surfer, get da trophy, Rennie."
"Do I do things right?" she asked modestly.
"You very right," he assured her.
"Shall we catch another wave?" she suggested.
"Why we not go on up your room?" he asked evenly, keeping his dark eyes directly on her.
"I think we'd better," she agreed, adding cautiously, "Are you allowed upstairs?"
"S'pose you forget your lauhala hat on de beach, somebody surely gotta bring it to you," he explained.
"Is that standard procedure?" Rennie asked coyly.
"Like mos' stuff," Kelly explained, "surfin's gotta have its own rules."
"We'll play by the rules," she agreed, squeezing his hand. And when he got to her room, holding the sun hat in his powerful hands, he found that she had already climbed into one of the skimpiest playsuits he had ever seen, and in his years on the beach he had seen quite a few.
"Hey, siesta! Wedder you wear muumuu or sundress or nuttin', you look beautiful," he said approvingly, and in her natural confusion over her divorce, this was exactly what she wanted to hear, and she dispensed with the customary formalities of such moments and held out her arms to the handsome beachboy.
"Normally I'd order a Scotch and soda, and we'd talk a while . . . Let's take up where we left off under water."
Kelly studied her for a long, delicious moment and suggested, "Alla time, dese badin' suit get wet too much." And he slipped his off, and when, he stood before her in rugged, dark-skinned power she thought: "If I had married a man like this there'd have been no trouble."
Now, as the parade passed down Bishop Street, she was about to leave Hawaii, and she held his hand tightly in the last minutes before boarding the Mouna Loa. For nine days she had lived with Kelly passionately and in complete surrender to his amazing manliness. Once she told him, "Kelly, you should have seen the pathetic little jerk I was married to. God, what a waste of years." Now she whispered, in the bright sunlight, "If we hurried to the ship, would we have time for one more?"
"Whassamatta why not?" he asked, and they clambered aboard the big ship and sought out her stateroom, but her intended roommate was already unpacking, a tall, rather good-looking girl in her late twenties. There were several embarrassed moments, after which Rennie whispered to Kelly, "What have I got to lose?"
She addressed the girl directly and said, "I'm sorry we haven't met, but would you think me an awful stinker if I borrowed the room for a little while?"
The tall girl slowly studied Rennie and then Kelly. They were an attractive couple, and she laughed, "A vacation's a vacation. How long you need?"
"About half an hour," Rennie replied. "They have a band upstairs."
"And a full orchestra right here," the girl laughed, and before she had climbed to the next deck, Rennie was undressed and in bed.
Later she confided, "For five days I've been, imagining what it would be like to have you back in New York. How old are you, Kelly?"
"Twenty-one."
"Damn. I'm twenty-seven."
"You