Page 31 of His Hawaiian Heart (Stateside Doms #26)

Chapter Twenty-One

Samantha

“This reminds me of the first time I saw you in your element.”

Sam.

I hadn’t planned on seeing him today, but I was so very glad he was here. Turning, I smiled. “Are you crazy or just suffering from island fever? There is nothing about this Eden that resembles anything at the airport.”

With a chuckle, he walked to me and wrapped his arms around me.

“You may have passed through a thousand airports and may visit a thousand more, but not a single one could be referred to your element.” He brushed a finger across my cheek, capturing a stray curl and tucked it behind my ear.

“I was talking about the day we became an us . You were standing waist deep in ferns. The sun’s rays turned your hair into flames that I wanted to reach and grasp regardless of whether they burned.

You were wearing those sexy glasses, and all I could do was pray that you’d find it in your heart to give me a second chance. ”

“And you stepped from the trees and my heart threatened to stop. I’d never been so grateful than to know I hadn’t destroyed any chance of knowing you, knowing?—”

“What makes you you.”

No matter how many times it happened, I would never cease to be amazed at how connected we were. His grin told me he felt the same.

“Do you believe in fate, Sam?” I asked, pulling back to look up into his eyes.

“With every cell in my body,” he said without hesitation and then he shook his head, “Oh, babygirl, please don’t cry. I know I promised we’d go slow, but I couldn’t let another single moment pass before I told you that I love you.”

I felt tears sliding down my cheeks, but I couldn’t have stopped them if I tried. “I love you, Sam. I love you so much it hurts.” When his brow furrowed, I smiled. “In the best way possible, of course.”

His forehead smoothed and he wiped his thumbs across my cheeks. “That’s my beautiful, amazing, sweet and very, very dirty babygirl.”

My laugh, my joy, rang out across the forest where Sam had brought me that day we’d become an us.

I’d spent weeks studying here and though he’d never returned with me, every time I looked toward the log or found a crinkled leaf, I would see him right beside me.

I’d known that day I loved Samuel Blackwell and prayed that one day, he’d love me back.

I’d capped the last vial yesterday and my team had moved on to finish up in another area, but I’d had to come back to say goodbye.

The thought of why I’d come back here tore at me in a way I’d forced myself not to think about. I didn’t doubt he loved me, but did he love me enough to let me go?

“What are we going to do?” I asked, too chicken to face the subject head on.

“We’re going to keep doing what we’ve been doing. You’re going to continue to save the world, and I’m going to make sure you have a home to come back to.”

“You-you don’t mind that I could be gone for months at a time?”

“Of course I’ll mind. But, babygirl, loving me doesn’t mean you have to give up loving what you do.”

For the first time since I’d looked through my father’s magnifying glass to peer at a ladybug, I felt torn. “I don’t think I could survive not seeing you for months.”

He pressed his forehead against mine. “I might not have ever ridden a camel or an elephant, but I have been known to ride in an airplane. There is nowhere on this earth I won’t go when you need me. Wherever we are, as long as we are together, it will be home.”

“Pomaikai,” I whispered softly.

“Pomaikai,” he agreed and then released me to kneel and pulled a box from his pocket. “Samantha, will you?—”

“Yes!” I shouted and flung myself at him, knocking him on his ass.

His “oomph” turned into a laugh as he rolled us until he was above me.

“Sorry, but I do seem to recall informing you that it was perfectly okay to pick up the pace a bit.”

“Marry me?”

“Already answered, but, yes, Samuel, yes with all of my heart.” I reached up and drew him down to me and when my lips brushed his, I added, “And every single inch of my body.”

His mouth claimed mine and then claimed all of those inches as we tore off our clothes and made love in the ferns. And, after spending a good half hour on our hands and knees, we finally found the ring he then slipped onto my finger.

“This was my mother’s,” he said. “She would have loved you so very much.”

He’d told me how he’d lost them and my heart had ached for the pain the little boy he’d been had gone through. He and Kekoa, always friends, had become true brothers that day. Harriett and her Harry had brought them up and helped shape them into the men they’d become.

“I wish she were here to see the man you’ve become. I wish I could thank her and your father for bringing you into the world for me. I would promise them I’ll spend the rest of my life doing everything within my power to assure you that you know you are loved beyond measure.”

He cradled my face in his palms. “And I will promise the same, but there is one small issue we do need to clear up.”

That caught me by surprise, but I nodded. “Okay, I’m listening.”

His lips curled slowly and my heart skipped. “I believe that will be my job, babygirl.”

I gave him a questioning look. “What about ‘listening is your job’ makes sense?”

“Because if I do my job correctly, you’ll be far too busy pleading, begging, shouting, and crying to concentrate on listening. Your only job is to drape yourself over my knees and ask me to clear your slate.”

“Seriously? You spanked me behind the waterfall. Not to mention you just proposed to me. Now you’re going to spank me again? Who does that?”

“Your Dom, of course,” he said as he settled his back against a rock, stretched his legs out and patted his thighs. “Babygirl, those swats behind the waterfall was funishment. The spanking required to clear your tally isn’t in the same department.”

“Funishment? Is that a dommy word? I’ve never heard of it?”

He grinned. “I can’t swear to its origin but are you going to tell me you didn’t enjoy it?”

Darn it, why couldn’t I lie without it being totally obvious? “No, though how that was possible when my ass burned for hours, I’m not sure.”

“You’ll feel this one for longer,” he said in a tone that spoke of absolute assurance he was speaking the truth. “Oh, and if you’re even thinking of leaving out the ‘obey’ part in our vows, we’ll need to discuss that, too.”

“I wouldn’t even dream of it, Sir. After all, you’re not only the love of my life, you’re my Dom.”

“Then you know what to do.” He patted his lap as if worried I’d forgotten, but this wasn’t one of those easy-to-forget topics.

“Um, this tally? Was I supposed to be keeping a list?” I asked, once I’d positioned myself across his thighs, his cock pressing up into my belly.

“Not as long as you trust me to give you the spanking required to clear it.”

That was easy enough as I trusted this man with my very life and didn’t hesitate to tell him so. “I’m sorry. Would you please spank me to clear my tally, Sir?”

“Yes, babygirl, I will.”

If I wasn’t familiar with how a funishment was different than a punishment before we started, I most certainly was by the time he’d tossed away the switch he’d gotten from somewhere among the green growth on the forest floor.

I’d done exactly as he’d said. I’d cried, I’d pleaded, and shouted then added sniffling and hiccupping as my tears slowed.

I’d discovered the gratification of funishment when it had added to the release of a climax in the cavern.

Today, beneath the canopy of the trees, I learned the sense of releasing any guilt I clung to, even subconsciously.

He’d first warmed me with the palm of his hand, applying swat after swat until there couldn’t have been a centimeter of my butt or the backs of my thighs that hadn’t felt his hand which was as hard as a paddle.

If that wasn’t enough to convince me he was quite serious about all those “tally” statements, the fact the spanking had finished with his laying down lines of fire across my ass with a narrow but lethal switch, most certainly did.

I also learned that, funishment or punishment, both ended with me sitting on his lap, cradled by his arms and cuddled close. The experience hadn’t been completely pleasant, but I knew the next time my tally came due again, I’d climb over his lap and ask him to clear my slate.

By the time we left our spot, I was wearing his ring on my finger and his marks across my ass. And I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.