Dark Lava: Lei Crime Book 7 (Lei Crime Series) Read Online Free PDF Page B

legs. Her small breasts were tender, pert rounds. That ass he adored was temporarily hidden, but knowing it was there, and that he’d get to it in due time, increased his desire.
    She wasn ’t vain. She didn’t know how beautiful she was. It was one more thing he loved about her. He leaned over and licked the tiny bowl of her navel, and she giggled.
    Lei. Giggling.
    He wished he could stop time, trap this memory in amber so that he could take it out and savor it again later. He tickled her just a little, causing her to gasp, and he turned it to kisses and she sighed, all the while leaving her hands where he’d put them, her eyes shut.
    “ You’re perfect,” he said, and watched her smile again, the smile of a child on Christmas morning, full of hope and excitement, her lips trembling a little as she made herself wait for him. For whatever he would do to her. That smile made him want to dive into her, cast aside control—but he had something more interesting in mind.
    He tore his own clothing off in a few utilitarian gestures and l ay down beside her. He used his lips and tongue and fingers to explore and awaken every inch of her body, beginning with the scars of old pain on her wrists, white lines that reminded him of lacy spiderwebs.
    Her past. Her story. But not painful any longer . Those scars were dear to him, because they were part of her. He kissed and laved them with his tongue, nibbled them with his teeth, and she moaned.
    He wanted to make sure she felt how beautiful she was, in every way he could show her, with his hands and lips and body. It went on a good long while.
    In the end, they fell together into the deep sleep that only follows ecstasy.
     
    “ You told me to get you up for the ten o’clock news.” Lei shook him awake. “I hate to wake you for someone like Wendy Watanabe.”
    “ I gotta see what she says about my case.” Stevens stood up from the bed, still naked, and Lei handed him the pair of old LAPD sweats he slept in. He sucked in his belly, conscious of her eyes on him as he pulled them on.
    Lei gave him a little punch in the shoulder. “ Not bad, old man,” she said. “Think I’ll keep you.”
    “ Hey. I can still wear you out.” He tried to smack her butt, but she darted ahead of him, laughing, into the living room, where Wendy Watanabe dominated the screen in a bright fuchsia suit.
    Stevens sat on the couch, reaching for Lei and pulling her against his side as he focused on the diminutive reporter. “ Maui’s finest are hard at work on a case that looks like an extension of the looting that has plagued Oahu’s sacred places.”
    Stevens frowned as they rolled clips of the looted Oahu sites, feeling his stomach churn at how extensive this case looked to be.
    Wendy reappeared, and he noticed her lipstick was the exact color as her suit, an annoying detail. He focused on her words as a series of photos, dramatically enhanced, showed the desecration of the hula heiau here on Maui. “Someone has extracted these petroglyphs quickly and professionally. Mr. Okapa, guardian of the heiau , is here to tell us what went on in the early hours of this morning.”
    Okapa ’s rugged face filled the screen, his long gray hair whipping in a breeze off the cliffs. He’d worn a cloth kihei robe printed in traditional patterns, and a polished kukui nut lei encircled his neck. He looked almost regal as he recounted the story Stevens had heard from him earlier. “I goin’ tell you straight, anyone come here again going get it!” Okapa finished his tale with a threatening wave of a carved staff.
    “ Well, Mr. Okapa, we appreciate your passion.” The reporter covering the story for Maui held a microphone to Okapa’s mouth. “Tell us about the citizens’ group you are a part of.”
    “ All these folks who care about the heiaus , we getting together one watch patrol, da Heiau Hui.” Okapa held up a T-shirt in forest green with a graphic of a petroglyph warrior on it, spear raised. “You