Page 10 of Maverick
“Is it okay that I call you that?”
It was slow, but he nodded.
I’d been right before: He was beautiful. Damp black curls hung in soft, hunter green eyes that gazed back at me. A smattering of freckles dotted across his nose and cheekbones, his olive-toned skin accented from the afternoon in the sun. “But I was late—on my first day. And I tackled Reese pretty hard.”
I scoffed. “He deserved it.” Confused, Maverick furrowed his brows. “We’ve all wanted to punch Reese a time or two. Unfortunately, I have an image to maintain—and everyone else is scared of him. For the life of me, I can’t figure outwhy. I understand why you were late, and why you lost your temper with him but neither of those reasons are why I wanted to talk to you. I wanted to make sure you were comfortable with us being on the same team after…”
Maverick’s cheeks deepened in color. Neither of us needed to finish that thought. Hell, it had only been two weeks. I could practically still feel the way his ass strangled my cock as he came.
Focus, Webster.
“I don’t really have a choice, do I?”
“You do. I’m the one in power here. I can talk to the coaches and step down from being captain.”
Maverick’s head thrashed side to side. “No. I can’t ask you to do that.”
I relaxed in my seat, noting the way that Maverick’s gaze roamed my body, pausing on my lap before returning to my face. “Come here,” I commanded, patting my thigh.
His lips twitched, but he still didn’t move. “We’ll break the chair.”
“Then I’ll buy a new one.”
Hesitantly, but with a brightness in his eyes that wasn’t there before, Maverick crossed the room. His long legs ate up the space between us, and I rotated in the chair to give him room to step between my thighs. He perched on my knee, but that wasn’t going to do. I tugged him into my lap and once the chair stopped creaking under our weight, we both relaxed. Maverick eased into my arms, and I basked in the feeling. It was a strange twist of fate that it was him I’d been speaking to, and I’d walked away from it dying to know who that blindfolded man was—I wanted more of him.
Now was my chance and as long as he was comfortable with it, I wasn’t going to miss it. And behind closed doors, we didn’t have to worry about wandering eyes. “How’s your stomach?” I asked, remembering that he’d been sick on the field.
“It’s fine. I think I’ll just skip the protein shake next time.” But his stomach was the least of our worries when he jerked his head back, barely covering his face in time to sneeze down his T-shirt. “Ugh, I think I picked something up on the flight.”
“You need to go home and get to bed,” I laughed, rubbing his back and offering him a tissue from the box on the desk.
“My bed’s not even put together yet—moving has been a bit of a nightmare.”
My brows drew together. “Where’d you sleep last night?”
“If by ‘sleep,’ you mean the power nap that I had this morning, I crashed on the couch.”
I patted Maverick’s hip, nudging him to stand. “Alright, I’m making an executive decision: You’re staying with me.”
“I can’t?—”
“You’re sick,” I interrupted, rising to my feet. “You need rest—in abed.Besides, I’m a Daddy dom. You can’t tell me you’re sick and don’t have a proper place to sleep and expect me to do nothing about it.”
Maverick squirmed, shoving his hands in his pockets. “I’m not a Little.”
“You don’t have to regress to be taken care of, sweetheart.” I took a step closer, bringing us chest-to-chest. “When’s the last time you let someone take care of you?” His silence served as his answer. “That’s what I thought. Let’s go.”
I leaned in, but he flattened a hand on my chest to stop me. “Sore throat.”
“Fair enough.” I smiled and stamped a kiss to his forehead instead. “Let’s go.”
Deciding to leave his car behind, I drove Maverick to his place to pack an overnight bag. When I walked in, the modest two-bedroom house was more boxes than a home. I didn’t know how he moved around, much less got any decent sleep. By the time we walked in my front door, he was dead on his feet. He didn’t even protest when I took his bag for him. I set both his and mine by the front door and held him steady as he kicked out of his shoes. “Are you hungry?” I asked him.
“Yeah…” he admitted bashfully. “I haven’t eaten since last night.”
I tamped down the urge to scold him. It wasn’t what he needed right then. “No wonder you threw up…”
I led him through the hall and into the kitchen, where I parked him on a stool while I made him something to eat. I’d precooked some chicken earlier in the week, so I diced that up with a microwave bag of vegetables. I wasn’t sure what he’d be able to tolerate, nor did I think he could hold his head up long enough forme to make a full meal from scratch. Maverick sat at the counter, gazing around the kitchen. “Your place is really nice. Mine doesn’t feel quite like home yet.”
