“If you think coming to me was a bother, maybe you never knew me at all,” he said, the muscle in his jaw clenching. He stepped away, his gaze fierce.
His words set off a pang in her chest. She did know him. His protectiveness, his possessiveness, his goodness—despite his club not being totally aboveboard. Although, from what she understood, their less-than-legal activities funded the Ravens’ quiet mission to defend those who couldn’t defend themselves . . .
Wait. Was that why she’d gone out there?
The question was like a sucker punch to the gut. Alexa wasn’t someone who couldn’t defend herself. She wasn’t in an abusive relationship like the women the Ravens helped. It had only been that one time and Grant had apologized over and over again. And she’d been the one who tripped, after all.
“Maybe I . . . maybe I didn’t,” she said, her voice not much more than a whisper as the thoughts settled uncomfortably deep inside her.
“Fine. Have it your way,” he said, his voice like gravel. Just when she thought he would leave, he stepped up to her front door and pulled something from his back pocket.
“What are you doing?” she asked, moving to his side.
“Letting you back into your house.” He worked a silver tool that looked like a pocketknife at the door handle.
“Are you picking my lock?” She watched in fascination as he quickly manipulated the tools and turned the knob, opening her front door.
“I’m letting you back into your house.” He flipped the little tool set closed and slipped it into his pocket.
“You carry lock picks on you?” she asked. Her night had gone from stressful to surreal.
“Yes. You’re welcome.” His right eyebrow arched, just the littlest bit. And it was so damn sexy. Her blood heated, her nipples hardened, her pulse raced. She and Maverick had always been good at fighting. And even better at making up afterward. Her body clearly remembered . . . and hungered.
She blinked as he pushed open the door. “Um. Okay. Thank you.”
He stepped away from the opening, and Alexa slipped into the spot where he’d stood, the word Good-bye on the tip of her tongue.
But he still didn’t leave. He heaved the box off the porch and turned to her, the muscles of his biceps and in his neck popping out.
“You don’t have to do that,” she said, even as she backed into the house to get out of his way. As he passed her, she noticed a band of black fabric tied around one of his arms. She nearly gasped as memories again sucked her five years into the past. To Tyler’s funeral. He’d been a prospective member of the Ravens, and they’d honored him by wearing strips of some of his cut-up T-shirts around their arms. Who’d died now?
Mav lugged the box inside. “Where do you want it?” he asked, pulling her from the memories.
“Maverick—”
“This thing is really fucking heavy, Al.” He stared at her expectantly.
“Right around the corner in that room,” she said. Her office had become the holding area for all the wedding gifts as they came in. Which suddenly made her uncomfortable about having sent Maverick in there. She followed him in and watched him settle the unwieldy box next to the long credenza filled with unwrapped gifts. China and picture frames and vases and luxurious linens, to name a few. “Thank you.”
His gaze surveyed the wedding gifts, but he didn’t make a comment, and she couldn’t read his expression. At least, not until he looked at the project boards hanging over her desk, one filled with plans for the model home job and another filled with her work on a design project for her senior capstone. Then his expression became interested. “That for school or a job you’re doing?” he asked, eyes still on her work.
“Both.” What did he see when he looked at her design ideas? Maverick had always had an eye for design and an appreciation for aesthetics—it was one of the things that made him such a talented and sought-after custom bike builder.
He nodded. “Pretty cool,” he said in a quiet voice. Before she’d started her interior design program, he’d been a big supporter of her going to school and pursuing her dreams. Now she was only her current course and one internship away from finishing after all these years of working full-time and pursuing her degree and accreditation part-time.
The sincerity of his words and in his expression did funny things to her chest. “Yeah?”
His gaze cut to her. “Yeah.”
They stood looking at one another a long moment until Alexa’s heart was thundering against her breastbone with an unnamed need. She shoved the desire back. She’d made her choice for a man and a life—and it hadn’t been with Maverick. But being in his presence messed with her head . . . and her body. Clearly. Which was why she’d stayed away . . .