His hand slid from her mouth to her hair. His fingers dug in and hauled her close, her breasts crushing against his chest. Maverick kissed her on a groan she greedily swallowed as her hands went around his neck.
The door to the mess pushed open and a couple more Ravens spilled into the lounge behind them. Alexa gasped into the kiss, instinctively trying to jump back, but Maverick held her fast. “Don’t care about them. Not done with you,” he whispered into her mouth.
A shiver ran through her whole body. The guys said good-bye to Maverick, but he paid them no mind, even when someone laughed good-naturedly at his expense. For her part, Alexa was hyperaware—of the hard press of Maverick’s body against hers, of the shared sweetness of sugar and cinnamon on Mav’s tongue, of being watched by the others.
When Maverick pulled his lips away, he wore the sexiest, most satisfied smile she’d maybe ever seen on his ruggedly handsome face. “Mmm, good morning.”
She smiled and smirked at him. “Good morning to you.”
“Yo, Mav,” Jagger said, coming into the lounge. “I gotta head down to the track to check over a bunch of shit for Monday’s license renewal inspection, but give me a call when you know when you need my help this week.”
Maverick finally released Alexa from his embrace, though he kept her close with his arm around her shoulders. “Will do. We’re heading over to Alexa’s mom’s today to start figuring things out so I should have more details in the next day or two.”
“Good deal,” Jagger said, his fingers tapping against his thigh. A memory came to her—listening to Jagger play his acoustic as a group of them sat at the fire pit out by Maverick’s pond one fall night. The man was self-taught and absolutely amazing. She hadn’t thought of that in years. “Just say the word. See ya, Alexa.” He gave a wave as he headed out the front door.
“Bye,” she said, trying to make sense of the exchange through the haze of lust and nostalgia clouding her brain. “Jagger’s gonna help move my mom, too?”
Mav shrugged like it was obvious. “Of course. Everyone will as much as they can. Before you arrived, Jag reminded me that he’s got a cousin who owns one of those three-guys-and-a-truck moving companies. He’s going to call in a favor to see if he can do the move. We got to talking that if your mom will agree to it, maybe we get her and her most essential things moved as fast as we can, and then we take our time going through the rest. That gets her out of Grant’s crosshairs sooner.”
“Wow. Yeah, that all sounds great, assuming Mom can be brought around to the idea,” Alexa said, the realization sinking in that the Ravens had spent time talking about how to help her and coming up with an actual plan to deal with Grant’s blackmail attempt. It was so unusual to feel like she wasn’t alone that she barely knew what to do with the emotion welling up inside her. “Thank you.”
More Ravens came into the lounge, headed up by Phoenix. He clapped Maverick on the back and gave Alexa a smile. “Okay, we’re heading over to Creed’s to get it ready for your mom. Should I leave the furniture or does she have enough of her own?”
Alexa’s gaze scanned over the small group that included Phoenix, Blake, and a Raven she didn’t know well whose cut read Bandit. “She does have a lot, but it’s not all in the best shape. Maybe leave it until we see what she actually wants to move and what she might need?”
Phoenix nodded and waved, already heading for the door with the others. “That’s a plan. Okay, then, we’re outie.”
“Thank you, Phoenix,” she said, overwhelmed by the generosity all of these men were showing her. Which made her remember . . . “Hey, what was the emergency you had to leave for this morning?”
A storm rolled in over Maverick’s expression. “The situation for one of our clients escalated when her estranged husband tried to break in. The mother called nine-one-one. Sheriff Martin knew she was one of ours so he called us in on it, too. The husband had never done anything like that before so we didn’t have a twenty-four/seven detail on her.” He shook his head, clearly frustrated. “We moved them up here to one of the cabins for the weekend because the kid is so spooked. As if it wasn’t bad enough that the sick fuck had abused her, now she’s scared of him crawling through windows in the middle of the night.”
“Oh, God,” Alexa said, her heart aching for the little family. What would people like them do without people like Maverick and his brothers in the club? What would she have done without them? Once, she’d thought she had nothing in common with the women and families the Ravens helped protect, but now Alexa knew that was just one more thing she’d denied because she hadn’t wanted to see the similarities. “That’s so terrible. Was anyone hurt?”