The corner of his lips curled up, but there was something hidden in his eyes — something that looked a lot like shame.
He blew out a sigh, shaking his head before he pressed his lips to mine. The kiss was too brief for my liking, but Makoa was already flipping the next page before I could try to deepen it.
“Wait, what’s that?” I asked when he flipped past what looked like a greenhouse.
Makoa frowned. “What, this?” He pointed to the photograph, and I nodded. “Oh, that’s Mom’s hanging garden.”
“Her what?” I asked, stealing the book and pulling it into my lap to get a better look.
He chuckled. “I don’t know, that’s what we called it. Mom used to macramé all the time, and she’d make all these holders for plants. Big ones, small ones, ones that hung over and drooped down with these leaf-ridden vines. We had a little sunroom, and she filled the whole space. It felt like a jungle when I was a little kid.”
I shook my head in disbelief, eyes soaking in all the wondrous corners of the room in the photograph. There were plants of all shapes and sizes, all shades of green, some with flowers budding and hanging down, too. There was Burro’s Tail and String of Nickels, Boston fern and a spider plant, Ripple Peperomia and Golden Pothos. My jaw dropped when I spotted pops of color in the background. “Wait… is that… is that a wall of roses?”
Makoa chuckled. “It is. They’re her prized possessions.”
My jaw was still hanging open as I shook my head, taking in every centimeter of the photograph. My eyes found Makoa’s. “We have to have one of these here.”
His eyebrows shot up. “A rose garden?”
“A hanging garden. This is… Makoa, this is beautiful. And it would be a piece of your childhood. We have so much natural light from the windows.” I chewed the edge of my fingernail, thinking. “Maybe we could put it in here, in the corner. Or in the living room?”
“What about the bedroom?”
I frowned, but then the image became clear in my mind, and I gasped. “Oh, my God. That would be perfect.”
In the next breath, I launched myself at Makoa, and he just barely had time to catch me before we rolled onto the plush rug. I straddled him, kissing him full and hard and breathless.
“Wow,” he said on a laugh. “Interior design really does turn you on, doesn’t it?”
“I promise, it’s even weirder than what you’re imagining.” I kissed his next laugh to silence, rolling my hips where they met his. I grinned against his mouth at the feel of his erection already straining against his sweatpants.
“You’re killing me, woman,” he husked, nipping at my bottom lip.
“So take your pants off and let me bring you back to life.”
He groaned again when I licked the side of his neck, sucking the skin between my teeth to leave the tiniest mark. I was already working a trail down to the promise land when I was flipped over on my back, and Makoa had me pinned instead.
“I like this view even better,” I said, biting my lip and pulling his mouth down to meet mine.
Makoa chuckled, his tongue swirling with mine and shooting electric bolts straight between my thighs.
When he leaned up and put space between us, I stuck my bottom lip out in a pout.
“Trust me, I want to strip you down and break in this rug properly,” he said.
“So, let’s do it.”
I reached up for him, but he caught my hands, kissing my knuckles. “We will. But not right now.”
“Why not?” I practically whined, dragging out the words.
Makoa laughed, rolling onto the floor with me until he was on his back. He pulled me into his chest, kissing my hair as I settled in. “I took everything you said to me very seriously, Belle. And I meant what I said about you being more than just sex to me.”
“That doesn’t mean we can’t have sex at all,” I argued.
“I know. But… for now, I just want it to be about us getting to know each other.”
I sighed, deep and heavy, which earned me another chuckle before Makoa tilted my chin with his knuckles, making me look at him.
“Hey… we can still have some fun.”
There was a heat in his eyes with those words, and I smiled, running my hand down the length of his chest. “Oh yeah? What do you have in mind?”
“Mmm…” he hummed, tracing my bottom lip with his thumb. “Wanna make out and dry hump like a couple of horny teenagers?”
“Sounds like lectamia to me.”
“Well, that is half the fun of trivia,” he said, rolling me until I was pinned under him again. “You always learn something new.”
I laughed, but it was silenced when he pressed his thick erection into the center seam of my leggings, catching a line of friction that had me remembering all too well what it was like to ride his cock until I came.
“Can you get off from lectamia?” I whispered against his lips.
Makoa grinned, rolling his hips and biting my neck as another shockwave of pleasure coursed through me.
“Only one way to find out.”
Makoa
The Fourth of July came in a sweltering, clear-blue sky heat wave that brought Chicago alive like I’d never seen before.
The city that was usually all business, with suits and dresses marching back and forth on the streets, climbing in and out of cabs, swiping their subway pass and boarding the L trains, was now pulsing with a completely different kind of energy. It was the kind, Belle informed me, that came about every spring, that grew in strength every summer, and seemed to shine just as bright as
