Not even close.
“I’ll be right back,” he told her before he walked into the hallway.
His memory served him in his search for the bathroom. He was once allowed to come upstairs in the Itani summer house when they were little. He and Ryan had been friends, and they had occasionally condescended to hang out with their little sisters, Colleen and Mari.
Until the summer after Mari’s freshman year of high school.
Kassim and Shada Itani had apparently noticed the way Marc stared at their blooming, beautiful daughter, and the rules in the Itani household had changed drastically.
Marc had never really thought much about the Itani’s ethnicity and religion before that summer. But when Mari had become a young woman, Marc was forced for the first time to realize the vast differences in their backgrounds and culture. He could still recall how stunned he was when he learned how rigidly Mari’s dating would be monitored by her parents. They were nowhere near as strict with Ryan.
It quickly became clear to Marc that under no circumstances would Mari be allowed
to date an Irish-American boy from a liberal, Catholic family. He may have been acceptable as Ryan’s friend, but, when it came to Mari, he was a pariah in Kassim and Shada Itani’s eyes. Their grins of delight upon seeing him subtly changed over a single summer, replaced by tense, slightly suspicious expressions.
Of course, he and Mari had seen each other, anyway. Not much could stand in the way of two determined teenagers with hormones raging through their blood. Whenever and however they could manage to be together, they did it.
He washed his hands. Thinking about all the tenuousness of being with Mari when they were kids made him anxious to return to her. Would it always be that way? Not if he had his say about it.
He impatiently swiped his wet hands on a hand towel and hurried into the stuffy hallway. Before he joined Mari in the bedroom, he hurried downstairs and flipped the gauge on the thermostat. The AC hummed to life.
“Success,” he proclaimed as he entered the room.
“Cocky,” she murmured.
She snorted when he plopped down next to her, making the mattress squeak in protest, and immediately began to ravish her neck. He liked the sound of her laughter so much he tickled her with his whiskers.
“Is that a complaint?” he growled between tickles and nibbling her neck. He couldn’t get enough of her taste on his tongue.
“Oh no…heaven forbid I’d complain about that.”
Marc raised his head, grinning. He glanced down, realizing for the first time that Mari had drawn the sheet over her nakedness. He raised his eyebrows, his mirth fading. She stopped laughing, as well, when he tugged the sheet to her thighs. He sobered at the vision of her beauty.
“Please don’t hide yourself from me anymore.”
He opened his palm along the side of her ribs and stroked her from breast to thigh, awed by how she flowed beneath his hand like warm silk. He met her eyes. Her expression had become as somber as his.
“All right,” she acquiesced quietly. “For tonight.”
He leaned down and kissed her abdomen. Her taut muscles leaped beneath his lips. Relishing the delicate shivers he evoked from her flesh, he lowered his mouth, exploring the sensitive skin of her lower belly. He wasn’t above pressing his advantage.
“Not just for tonight, Mari,” he corrected. He skimmed his lips against the satin skin of her inner thigh, and she opened for him with a sigh. “Not ever,” he murmured before he lowered his head.
Mari awoke the next morning to the sound of her cell phone ringing in her purse. She opened her eyes. The sunlight streaming through the window was so intense, she had to squint.
She squeaked in panic and raised her head.
“What’s wrong?” Marc asked groggily.
For two seconds, Mari just stared incredulously at him. The vision of him—naked, sleep-rumpled and sexy as hell—seemed to score her consciousness. She lay in the circle of his arms. Her head had been resting on his chest. Everything came back to her in a rush: the storm that had raged outside of the house and inside of the bedroom, as well, the sensual hours of making love throughout the night, the complete focus on one another as they tried to get their fill…
Never fully succeeding.
Mari glanced over at Marc’s mouth and the succulent flesh of dense pectoral and shoulder muscles.
“It looks like it’s late, and I have an appointment at the hospital at nine-thirty, not to mention a ton of other things I need to do today,” Mari said.
The drowsy look in Marc’s blue eyes evaporated.