“Okay. Wow. Um, are you sure? I can’t imagine you intended to get hung up here all day.”
“I don’t say what I don’t mean, Alexa,” he said, nailing her with a stare.
“I . . . I know. It’s not that. It’s just . . .” She shook her head. “You know what? Never mind. Thank you for offering. If you got your truck, that would be great, actually.”
Maverick nodded. “You got it.” He made for the street, and then an idea had him stopping in his tracks and turning back to her. “What are you going to do?” He’d spent enough time with Alexa and her mom to know that Alexa could only take so much of her mother at a time.
Alexa shrugged and looked maybe just a little lost. It made Maverick want to hold her, claim her, tell her she was fucking found. Forever. Which was a problem given that she was engaged to be married in just two weeks. If his gut wasn’t so sure she was in trouble, he’d cut himself off from seeing her again. Because on one level he was just torturing himself by coming around. “I don’t know,” she said with a rueful chuckle. “Fall down on the grass right here and take a nap maybe?”
“I got a better idea,” he said, a yearning planting itself in his gut. Could be the last time . . .
“Oh, yeah? Do tell,” Alexa said with a smirk and an arched eyebrow. And fuck it was sexy when she came at him with a little playful attitude like that. Always had been.
“Ride with me.” The words flew out of his mouth, and he didn’t want to take them back even though, fuck, it put him out there to be smacked down again. But damn if it wouldn’t be worth it to feel her holding him, pressed up tight against him, laughing in his ear.
She hesitated and maybe even looked a little nervous, but Maverick could see the interest in the liveliness of her eyes.
“Don’t think. Just say yes,” he said.
Alexa tilted her head and narrowed her gaze at him, and then she smiled. “Okay. Yes.”
That’s my girl. He kept the sentiment to himself, but he felt it down deep. His Alexa was in there. The one who could throw caution to the wind and have fun doing absolutely nothing. The one who laughed freely and bantered relentlessly. Maverick gave a single nod.
“Let me tell Mom. Be right back,” she said.
“I’ll bring the bike around.” Maverick took a step backward, but then paused when Alexa turned and hurried toward the house. His gaze traced her curves and lingered on the bare skin of her thighs. Thighs that were going to be wrapped around him in just a few short minutes. Thighs that had been wrapped around him in all kinds of ways many times. Many times. Fuck.
A few houses down, Maverick straddled his Harley Night Rod Special and brought the engine to life on a low rumble. He pulled the bike to the curb in front of the Harmon house and waited. He didn’t have to wait long.
Alexa came flying out through the garage. She made eye contact with him and it fucking seared his blood. For some reason this ride felt weighted with a significance he couldn’t put into words. And he wasn’t trying. He was just going to enjoy the hell out of it. Because Maverick knew her agreeing this one time didn’t change anything. Not anything important.
By the time she reached him, Alexa was smiling even though he could tell she was trying to hold that shit back. But she couldn’t, and that got to him, too. For a moment, she hesitated, like she wasn’t sure what to do. No way that was it, though, because even though it had been years, she’d been in his saddle as many times as his bed. He suspected the real issue was giving herself permission to do what she was gonna have to do—get close and hold tight. To him.
Something she hadn’t done in years.
But then she did it.
She braced one hand on his shoulder and climbed onto the small leather seat behind him. Her thighs hugging his ass. The softness of her breasts against his back. Her breath against his neck.
Fuck. The good old times once more.
He slid on a pair of sunglasses, then handed her his helmet. “Put this on.”
“What about you?” she asked as she took it.
“I’ll be careful.” He looked over his shoulder at her, and she gave a nod when she had it secured. “Ready?”
“Yeah,” she said, and he didn’t think he was imagining the anticipation in her voice.
The moment her hands came around him, Maverick pulled away from the curb. And the rightness of having her on his bike again made him want to drive up into the mountains for the rest of the day. Fists and knees in the breeze for a long ride. Find a quiet spot by one of the lakes. Fuck like a couple of kids against a tree or in the grass. They’d done it before. More than once.