When his body finally calmed, he lifted her against him until he was cradling her in his arms, her legs wrapped around his hips, their fronts pressed together, his cock still buried to the hilt. When he finally killed the engine, her arms wrapped around him on a sigh so contented he could’ve dedicated his life to making her sound that way over and over. She stroked at his hair as her whole body went lax against him. The silence was loud all around them.
“So good with you,” she whispered.
“Always,” he said, not sure if she meant the sex or how she felt or, just, all of it—the sex and the closeness and the fun times and the hard times and the boring minutiae of daily life. Which was how he meant it.
“I can’t even be mad that you ruined my clothes,” she said with a little satisfied hum. “Because it was too damn hot.”
He chuckled and nodded. Someday he’d be eighty and too arthritic to ride and too senile to remember what he was arguing about with Dare, but he’d sure as shit recall every detail of what’d just happened with her. It was seared into his very DNA. “I’ll replace them.”
She pulled back from the hug just enough to look him in the eye. “I don’t care about the clothes, Maverick. I don’t care about anything that’s replaceable. Not anymore.”
At just that moment, he realized that he’d made love to her without kissing her even once. His gaze dropped to her lips, and suddenly he was ravenous for a taste. He devoured her with a deep, slow, lingering kiss, full of tangling tongues and tugging lips. His senses were full of her, but not as full as his heart. So he kept right on kissing, because it ensured none of the words pinballing around in his head got voiced. Not yet.
Alexa shifted in his lap, emphasizing that his cock was hardening again inside of her. He gripped her hips and thrust himself as deep as he could go. Held himself there. His libido started making plans he wasn’t sure either of their bodies was actually up to carrying out.
Just then, wind gusted a warm, humid breeze through the garage, and a thin spray of water blew over them.
Al squeaked and laughed. “When did it start raining?”
Maverick peered over his shoulder. “Hell if I know.” A nuclear bomb could’ve exploded out there ten minutes before, and he wouldn’t have realized it. She shivered, goose bumps rising up on her skin. “Let’s get you inside.” When she nodded, he eased out of her, helped her off the bike, and did up his jeans when he got off.
She tried to hold the pieces of her clothes together, but he’d literally ripped her to shreds. And he couldn’t stop staring. “You are a wet fucking dream right now, Alexa. I’m not gonna lie.”
“I am? I’m a disaster.” Looking down at herself, she gave a little chuckle.
He shook his head. “A beautiful disaster, maybe. But all of us are sitting on some kind of disaster, Al. Some are just better at hiding it than others.” He sure as hell was. The guilt over not protecting his mother all those years before still had the ability to steal his breath and trash his self-worth. He should’ve seen it. He should’ve acted sooner. He shouldn’t have let it get so out of control. He shook away the thoughts and slipped out of his Ravens cut. “Here.” He held it out for her to put on.
She put her arms through the holes and wrapped it around herself, and the denim and leather was so big on her that it hung to the tops of her thighs. And fuck if seeing her wear his colors didn’t threaten to rev him up all over again.
An image flashed before his mind’s eye—a black-and-purple tribal raven with a red heart tattooed on Alexa’s fair skin. Marking her as one of them, as claimed, as his. The imagining made him think of his conversation with Dare, and that his cousin might actually get the pleasure of seeing such a thing on Haven’s skin in the not-too-distant future. And Maverick had maybe never been more jealous of another human being in his life until that very moment.
Not that his cousin didn’t deserve every bit of happiness he found with Haven. Because he did. They both did. But that didn’t keep Maverick from wanting a little slice of that for himself. Wanting it bad.
“Maverick? Are you sure it’s okay for me to wear this?” Alexa asked, her fingers stroking over his name patch and impacting him like it was his cock instead.
“It’ll be fine,” he said in a gruff voice. “Just ’til we get you inside. Come here.” He bent and scooped her into his arms.