He kept quiet, still trying to engage me while biding his time. I knew Kona. He wouldn’t push and as long as I went on acting like a timid coward, not brave enough to talk to him about how I’d allow our lives to almost unravel, he’d give me the distance I seemed to want.
The last of the groceries put away, I walked to the rear of the cabin and the sliding glass doors that lead out onto the back porch. Kona had disappeared out there a half hour before mumbling something about firewood. I knew he was annoyed with me, with how frigid I was being, how skittish. I couldn’t blame him. Now he was working himself into a sweat as he swung the axe over his head, breaking down several large logs stacked along the back of the cabin, a physical task he enjoyed and that Brad knew to leave for him whenever we let him know we were coming. From my vantage point I could see Kona work, those large, round muscles bunching, flexing under the thin t-shirt he wore. Despite the cool temperatures outside, Kona had worked himself hard and sweat collected across his chest and at the base of his lower back.
I found that watching him swing that axe in a rhythmic display of strength was oddly relaxing. Until, that was, he paused to take off his tee. It was a charcoal gray shirt, the cotton soft with age, the Captain America logo splitting in the center. Kona still wore it often, claimed it was his favorite “geek tee.” But as he tugged off the shirt and wiped it over his wet face, I didn’t think about Marvel or the First Avenger or anything at all except the way my husband moved under the bright sunlight; how the ridges of his stomach were still very defined, how the years of morning runs, over hours and hours he still spent in the gym had crafted the aging athlete into something a man twenty years his junior couldn’t manage—a wise man, aged and still fit, finely strong.
Small streaks of sweat trickled down his back as he continued his work, the flexing of those strong muscles kept to the rhythm of his swing. There was a cascade of dark freckles over his shoulders that disappeared into that dark skin and a small smattering of black hair gracing his chest and down to his stomach. Watching him work, seeing all that beautiful skin, the effort of his body as he moved had focused my attention on the lines and dips of his shoulders and arms. How many times had he held me with those arms? How often had I grazed my teeth and tongue over that chest or across those shoulders?
Standing there, watching my husband like he was a perfect stranger, the sensation of desperate need came over me. Just then, I wanted his hands, his mouth on me. I wanted him to touch me. I wanted to touch him. The sensation was so overwhelming that my nipples hardened and I had to lean against the glass door, holding my palm flat on the surface to keep from stumbling where I stood.
Kona continued moving, splitting the wood and throwing each log into a neat pile next to the back steps, unaware that the more he moved, the harder it was for me to breath, the harder it was for me to keep from touching myself.
He paused to stretch his shoulders, his body like something carved from marble and my hand drifted to my breast, tugging on my nipple as he lifted the axe again, once, twice... But then he stopped, and looked over his shoulder as if my body was calling out to him, and his gaze caught my hand on my breast, my lips parted with desire.
There was no need to be embarrassed. He was my husband. I was his wife. We’d played games, watched each other in the most intimate moments of our lives. There was nothing he hadn’t seen of me. But just then, having been caught staring openly, with what I was sure was little more than abject lust, I felt opened, raw.
The expression on his face just then, that deep smolder in his eyes, the hunger lacing around his features, told me there how much he still wanted me. No matter what disaster I’d made of our lives, no matter that I’d invited the enemy into our lives, Kona still wanted me. And I would have let him have me. Right there. I needed only to open the door, to strip myself of the worry about the mess we’d made of our lives and go to him. I almost did. But as my hand moved to the door, Kona’s gaze was pulled toward the back drive and I heard the sound of revving engines. The moment was irrevocably lost.
Kona lifted his hand and waved a greeting with a forced a smile on his face as Brad, flanked by two other men, drove up on their mud flecked four wheelers. I saw Kona exhale and his jaw tighten as he picked up his sweaty tee from the back steps, stuffing it over his head. He spared one long look at me, something that promised he wasn’t remotely done with me before he greeted the men. I noted, with some alarm, that all of them had shotguns resting on their shoulders.
The men talked in a circle, Kona towering over them, arms crossed, but he was smiling and nodding along, just another one of the guys. One of them must have cracked a joke, because they all laughed, even Kona, then Brad slapped him on the back. Almost as a group they turned toward me standing at the window, the strangers nodding a greeting, Brad offering a wave which I returned, my face reddening, before they continued speaking. I couldn’t help but think that the joke had been at my expense.
After a few seconds Kona approached the cabin, the irritation in his features present in the tight work of his jaw when he moved his teeth together. His steps were slow but sure and I moved back when he opened the door, stretching his arm above my head on the glass, blocking me from the others’ view.
“Baby, Brad said there was a bear and some cubs spotted down the front of the property.”
“Bears?” I forgot for a moment about anything that had stalled between us with the groundkeeper’s appearance. “Is it…when? I mean, is it safe to be outside?”
“There’s no real danger, but it might be better to stay inside for now. He said normally he wouldn’t be worried, but they’ve been going through people’s garbage the past few weeks so they’ve gotten kind of bold. I think it’ll be okay as long as you stay inside but Brad and his cousins are going to ride around the property, create some noise, scare them off. They've asked if I want to join them.”
Alarmed, my eyes flew to his face, but he straightened, almost defiant, as though he knew an argument loomed. I couldn’t hold back my surprise, though. “Are you crazy?”
“Not that I know of, makamae.” Kona looked over his shoulder when Brad cleared his throat and stalled him with a nod before he turned back to me and came inside, closing the door behind him. “I’m just gonna ride the property with them. It’s no big deal.”
“It is if there’s a freaking bear outside. A mama bear at that, Kona. Jesus, you know what those animals are like when their babies are involved?”
“I’m familiar.” He lowered, coming so close that I could feel the heat of his body still remaining from the work he’d been doing. “Trust me, I’m not stupid. I know not to come between a mama bear and her cubs.”
“Kona. No, this trip is supposed to be about us. It’s supposed to be about…”
“You remember that now?”
His words were calm, but they struck me almost like a physical blow. I blinked. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
His laugh was sharp, and my shock quickly switched to anger as he walked away from me, heading into the bedroom to grab a fresh t-shirt from his suitcase. I trailed behind, frustrated with myself over how my body responded to the sight of him half naked, despite how annoyed I was with him.
“Shit, Keira, you know what it means.” Kona shoved on his shirt, grabbing a towel from the en-suite bathroom to rub it over his face and neck. “I practically beg you to come get a shower with me this morning and you ignored me. You’ve been ignoring me for...” He stood in front of me, seemingly calm, but his nostrils flared, giving evidence to his own anger. “I’m your husband. I know things were fucked things up before, but we came here to work things out and all you’ve seemed to do lately is pull away from me.”
“I did not…I was just…” The grunt I released had nothing to do with the sound of the weak bleat of the four wheeler horn when it blasted an interruption. Kona’s features went hard, severe and I warred between wanting to smack him and kiss the life out of him. “I don’t want you to go out there with a bunch of rednecks itching to kill a bear.”
Shoulders lowering, Kona rubbed his neck before he held my face between his hands. “They don’t want to kill anything and if I go with them, I can make sure you'll be safe.”
“So you leave me alone?” He dropped his hands, grunting as he moved from the room.
“You’ll be fine as long as you stay inside.” He was nearly to the door before he stopped, gripping the handle before he straightened his shoulders and turned toward me, pulling my arm until he had me right against his chest. “I love you, Ku`u Lei. I’d do anything to protect you. Even piss you off.” Then he kissed me before he pulled back, forehead against mine. “Go take a bath. Do something to keep yourself busy and when I get back, we’ll finish what you started with that fucking look you gave me through the window.”
Then he was out of the cabin, heading towards where our own ATV had been stored under a tarp. “Lock the door!” he called back to me, revving the four wheeler's engine before heading out with the others in a crunch of gravel, and I moved to the door to push the deadbolt home, staggered to suddenly find myself alone. Something to keep myself busy? Nothing would, not when he left to tangle with a bear and a shotgun-wielding rednecks.