Page 44 of Marked

“Love me through it.”

Shifting on the hay bale, I spread my thighs, pulled her between them, and wrapped her in my arms.

“That’s a given, Darlin’.”

Resting my chin on top of her head, I contemplated my next step. I’d thoroughly prepared for every contingency, complete with a plan A, B, and C. Every minuscule detail was carefully crafted in my head, yet there I was, going completely off-script as the words tumbled out of my mouth.

“Move in with me.”

“What?”

Her head whipped around, nearly colliding with mine. I seized the opportunity to swing her around to sit across my lap. This conversation needed to be face-to-face.

“You heard me.”

“You’re asking me to move in with you?”

“Asking implies I’m giving you the chance to say no.”

“Noah, you’re crazy.”

“Crazy about you.”

She rolled her gorgeous eyes. “And apparently corny. It’s too soon.”

There wasn’t an argument she could make I didn’t have an answer for. The last thing I wanted was to put more pressure on her already overburdened shoulders, but this was right. I felt it in my soul. Our future was inevitable.

“Says who?”

“We just started dating.”

“No, Lanie. We’ve just started living.”

The kiss started slow and sweet, then escalated into something primal. Teeth scraped. Tongues lashed. Our desperate moans bounced off the rafters. We were so hungry for each other; we almost didn’t hear the pounding on the barn door or Koen’s panicked shouts from outside.

“Yo. Get the hell out here.”

By the time we raced out the door and followed Koen to one of the lower fields, pandemonium had already ensued. At least I thought it had, considering there were more tits and asses flapping in the breeze than you’d see at a nudist colony.

“What the fuck?”

I could barely hear my own question over the loud sixties music, which started playing through the gigantic speakers set in each corner of the field. The entire community—by my calculation—was not only buck-ass naked, they were dancing badly while flying high on the ganja plane. And in the middle of it all were my future in-laws, toking on the biggest bong I’d ever seen.

“It’s April twentieth. Pot Day,” Lanie muttered. “How did I forget?”

None of us moved, nor did we look away. We couldn’t. It was like coming across a car accident on the side of the road; you were almost compelled to slow down and look. The introduction I had to Percy and Iris didn’t hold a candle to what was happening in front of us. I was going to either need therapy or a gallon of vodka to erase my memories when it was all said and done.

“Maybe they didn’t see us. Just slowly start backing away,” I suggested.

“Alaina!” Iris shouted, waving her arms above her head. “Come join us.”

“Too late.”

We all spun around quickly, putting our backs to the nudes like we’d been caught doing something bad. Iwould’ve laughed if I hadn’t been trying to keep my breakfast from reappearing.

“Fuck my life.” Lanie’s face turned six different shades of red.

“Yeah, Alaina,” Koen sputtered. “Why don’t you?—”

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