Page 18 of Teasing

“Emmie... wait,” Maverick calls out, but I don’t turn around.Not yet.I stare out over the creek and watch the fat raindrops hit the surface instead, unwilling to watch the big oaf stick his foot further in his mouth. “I’m sorry.”

Wow.

Okay... With my attention grabbed, I turn around because I’m honestly astonished. I wasn’t sure he had that in him.

“Shit.” He stands up with a look of horror on his face and tosses his phone on the table in front of him. “Let me get you a dry shirt.” Before I know it, he rushes into the house and back out, then shoves a navy-blue Kroydon University hoodie in my face. “Here. Put this on.”

I back away from the sweatshirt like it personally offended me, which isn’t that far off. “I’m okay. Thanks.”

“Emmie...” Maverick stares at my chest for a beat too long, and I finally look down, then quickly snatch the sweatshirt from him and throw it on. I hadn’t realized how wet my white t-shirt had gotten or the way my boobs now covered in muddy puppy footprints make me look like a weird piece of sex art that somehow went really wrong.

Or really right.

The hoodie smells clean and masculine, like the grass after a warm summer rain. It’s intoxicating. “Thanks,” I murmur as I slip it on.

“Thanks for rescuing Butters. I didn’t even realize she got out. She’s usually sleeping with Rosie by now.” Maverick looks past me to the rain that’s coming down pretty hard now. “Might as well wait it out for a few minutes. It hasn’t rained too long for any stretch today.”

He motions toward the sofa, and I stare at his open hand.

Do I want to sit down on this man’s sofa?

Strangely, I do.

I shouldn’t. He’s grumpy as can be, bordering on downright rude.

Who am I kidding? He is rude. There’s no bordering about it.

But yet . . . there’s something else there.

Something I see in myself and recognize in him, even if I don’t want to.

I sit down and tuck my feet up on the sofa under my body and look around. “Where are the guys?”

“Ryker’s out. He should be back soon, and Jamie’s at West End with some of our friends. Two of them just got back from their honeymoon, so a bunch of the guys met them there.”

A crooked smile falls in place on his handsome face, and my gosh, it transforms this man in a way I didn’t think was possible. That smile should be criminal.

“How come you aren’t with them?”

His smile falls, replaced by frustration pulling tight at his eyes. “I’ve got Rosie.”

“I thought you have help with her...” Ryker told me just last week that their cousin was helping with Rosie. “Aurora... right?”

Maverick tilts his head, and I can already tell he thinks I’m fishing for information.

“My God, it’s got to be exhausting,” I tell him as I try to force myself to relax in hopes that his body will mimic mine subconsciously.

It doesn’t work.

Though it was worth a try.

“What?” he asks, clearly growing suspicious. Any openness we had a moment ago is slipping through my fingers, and I’m not sure why, but that bothers me.

“Being so guarded.” I watch the way his eyes flash, and wow, I want to know his story—because I can already tell someone hurt this man on a scary level.

But who . . . ? Why? How?

“Listen... you grow up in the family I did, and suspicion is a trait that keeps you and the people you love safe. I’ve met more people in my life who I shouldn’t trust than people I should.”

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