“You don’t have to carry me.” She grinned and wound her arms around his neck.
“Yes, I do. Because then I get to touch you.” With that, he walked out into the gentle summer rain.
She laid her head on his shoulder. “Yeah, okay. Touching is good.”
Hell, after years of thinking it would never happen again, touching her was everything.
And he didn’t want to stop.
Inside, he carried her to her bed and stripped them both down. “I want you in my arms tonight. You good with that?”
“Yeah, Mav.” She fit herself into the nook along the side of his body until there wasn’t a breath of space between them. Her hand settled on his chest, and he folded his around it. “I’m great with that.”
And even though they lay there perfectly still, perfectly peaceful—at least for that one moment—Maverick realized that Alexa Harmon was the best fucking ride of his life. And he never wanted it to end.
CHAPTER 21
Alexa first became aware of the delicious achiness of her body, an achiness that spoke of sex so hot just thinking about it made her sweat. Smiling, she kicked off the covers, her mind playing the highlights reel. The electrifying shock of Maverick cutting open her clothes. The deep satisfaction of him taking her in such a primal way. The rough need in his voice. But as raw as the sex had been, there’d been tenderness, too. The way he’d held her after, cradling her against him. How he’d covered her with his cut and carried her inside, his face nuzzling her hair. His tight hold all night long, his body molded to hers, his hand cupping her breast.
Except . . . her hands stretched out and found only emptiness.
Her eyes opened, confirming that she was alone. “Maverick? Hey, Maverick?” Pushing onto an elbow, a sheet of paper on his pillow caught her eye.
Hey Al—
The club got an emergency call at 5:30 A.M. so I had to ride. Hated to leave your bed without saying good-bye. Come to the clubhouse when you get up?
—Mav
Alexa pressed the paper to her chest as she fell back against her pillow. The man had spent last night protecting and helping her, and then he’d gotten up in the middle of the night to help a stranger. A warm pressure filled her chest, getting bigger and bigger until she knew.
She knew.
She still had feelings for Maverick—and maybe had never stopped having them in the first place. She still wanted Maverick. The clarity and growing certainty of her emotions was stunning and a little jarring after months of building questions and doubts.
Part of her worried that this was all happening too fast. Only days had passed since Grant had thrown her out. It was fast.
But everything that had happened between her and her ex these past weeks had snapped Alexa into a level of awareness she hadn’t had in such a long time, like she’d suddenly awakened from a drug-induced sleep. Now it was like Grant had simply been an interruption to something that’d existed since she first became aware of the opposite sex—her attraction to Maverick Rylan. Her longing for him. Her need for him in her life. Either way, she felt miles away from the woman who’d stared in that bathroom mirror last weekend and tried to convince herself that there was nothing wrong with the way Grant had taken her.
She wasn’t perfect, she wasn’t flawless, and she was far from being as strong as she wanted to be, but she wasn’t that Alexa anymore, either.
And now that she had that clarity, she wasn’t wasting it. So once she’d dealt with the chaos of her life and finished fighting Grant, she was going to lay all her feelings and flaws out on the line and fight for Maverick. Because she wasn’t making the same mistake twice in letting him get away, not if he was willing to give her a second chance.
Lucy leapt onto the foot of the bed, meowing as she walked up Alexa’s body until she was demanding attention by lying on Mav’s note and pushing her head into Alexa’s hand. “Well, there’s my baby. How are you today?” Purring was her only answer, and it was a good one, full of contentment and lazy satisfaction. Lucy liked it here. “I do, too,” Alexa whispered, her mind wandering, building hopes and dreams she didn’t know whether she had any business wishing for. For long minutes, she stroked her fingers over the softness of Lucy’s head and big ears. “You need a bath, little one. We’ll do it tomorrow. Okay?” That wasn’t the only thing she needed to do. Her final project was due on Tuesday, and Alexa hadn’t done five minutes of work on it all week. But even that wasn’t the most important thing she had to do. “I need to take care of my mama today.”