Page 73

Mari arched under him, trying to get the tiniest amount of friction between them.

“Don’t…” She repeated as her body became nearly frantic with wanting. “Don’t stop.”

The last thing she remembered for the next few minutes was the slight smile on his face before he leaned in and started to love her with his tongue.

It was… in a word… everything.

NINE

BUCK

He woke up with a smile on his face.

It was kind of monumental.

No, it was monumental.

It was the first day that he could remember waking up without glaring at the sunlight. Or pulling the covers up and over his head to hide from him.

Then again, he rolled to his side and lifted a brow at the fact that there weren’t any covers on him at all.

He had been sleeping on the covers.

Sitting up in bed, he looked around the room for his first good look at Mari’s bedroom.

The night before he’d had better things to do than look around, but he could see the simple furnishing around him. A dark wood dresser, a metal rack with clothes hanging from it.

A bookcase that had seen better days, but the important thing was that it was filled with books.

The house itself was older, simple, raised off of the ground with a lattice of wood around the base.

All of it was lived in.

Worn.

But… loved.

The house and property had been in Mari’s family for more than a generation, something that he understood. The same could have been said for his family. They’d been in Wisconsin from around statehood. Doing the math in his head, Mari’s family had been in Hawaii before its statehood in Nineteen Fifty-Nine.

Why was he musing through the timeline?

He had no idea.

If it had been an hour or so before he could have chalked it up to the rush of endorphins after sex.

But looking over at Mari, face down on her bed, her tank top tangled exposing her waist. Her butt was covered in a matching pair of high-cut briefs.

He’d taken a similar pair off of her earlier, now his hands itched to do it again, but he knew he was going to have to eat soon.

And if he was any judge of the activity that they’d both indulged in earlier, she was going to be hungry soon.

Lowering his feet to the floor, he got up and felt a twinge of pain in his lower back.

Buck smiled at the feeling and stretched enjoying the warmth of outside air that came through the screens covering the windows.

He picked up the clothes he’d dropped on the floor and lifted them to his nose.

“Thank God for air conditioning,” he shook his head. “I should get breakfast on and worry about a shower later.” It would make sense to at least scrub off the sweat and exertion from earlier. He’d change clothes at the house later.