Page 12 of Maverick
Maverick Crawford was back in my life.
When we got the news that he’d been traded, I thought I’d be able to handle it. We hadn’t seen each other in years. People could grow in that time, right? I was certain that he’d have forgotten about what happened back then, or at least have started to forgive me.
As if on cue, my shoulder ached. Of course he hadn’t—that tackle was personal.
In hindsight, I probably should have kept my mouth shut. I’d never been very good at that. One thing Iwasgood at was reading Maverick Crawford like a book—even if I hadn’t always wanted to admit it. When those hunter eyes shifted, turning into something dark, I should have taken it as a sign to stop talking.
Frustrated, I yanked my keys out of the ignition, snatched my duffel from the passenger seat, and tromped inside. After a morning in the sticky July heat, lying naked in the air conditioning was calling my name. Or maybe the pool—I hadn’t decided yet.
What Ihaddecided? I’d earned a strong drink.
Bypassing my lazy-as-fuck cousin sprawled across the couch, I dropped my bag by the door and paused in the hallway, briefly enjoying the air from the vent before continuing to the kitchen. Beckham played hockey, so his lucky ass was currently in his off season and free to do as he pleased—like inhabiting my house like he lived there.
As I prepared the ingredients for a margarita, Beckham appeared in the doorway. For a moment, I considered chugging the tequila straight from the bottle.
It was my ridiculously early alarm for the next morning that made me reconsider, and I measured out a double shot.
“So…”
Another thing about Beckham: He was ridiculously nosy.
I was an only child, but Beckham and I being so close in age made sure that I never missed out on having an intrusive older brother around. Hell, we looked enough alike that we could pass for siblings, but he also assumed the luxury of having a front row seat to my business.
And Maverick Crawford being traded to my team meant that he was all up in there.
I only arched a brow in response, adding lime juice and ice to my shaker before popping on the lid and mixing it up. The stainless steel cooled against my palm, and I used the sting as a distraction.
“Did you see him?”
“Have you talked to Kit?” I countered.
Beck’s cocky smile faltered—just as I thought it would.
Last week, he’d had a meeting with his agent.Everyonein the industry knew about Kit Graves’s bulldog-yet-playboy reputation. If the noises coming from my guest bedroom that night were any indication—along with averyhungover Kit sneaking out the next morning—I’d say it was one hell of a meeting.
Grinning, I strained my strong margarita into a glass rimmedwith extra salt, adding a couple wedges of lime before carrying it out the door. Pool it was.
Setting down my drink, I strolled to the pool house to change. Unfortunately for me, Beckham followed. When I stepped back onto the deck, he was standing there. Damn, he was relentless. “What do you want?” I groaned, making a beeline for my cocktail.
“I want to know how it went—is that a bruise?”
I twisted to look at my right shoulder. Sure enough, an angry purple mark was settling into my skin. Great; now I’d remember Maverick every time I looked in the mirror. “It’s nothing.”
I placed my glass on the edge of the pool and lowered myself into the water.ThenI was finally able to take a sip from my drink. Tequila burned as it slid down my throat, and the lime tickled my sinuses. The salt cut through the bitterness of both, and the combination of it all practically melted the tension from my body.
“He finally sacked your ass, didn’t he?”
My only response was another mouthful of my margarita, and that was all the answer that my nosy cousin needed. He rolled up his sweats, dropping his feet into the water as he sat next to me. “Seriously, Reese. I know it must have fucked you up to see him after all these years.”
With a sigh, I set my glass down. Clearly, I wasn’t getting out of this conversation. “Yeah, it did,” I admitted. I scrubbed my hand over my face, but the only thing that accomplished was letting an image form behind my closed eyes: Maverick’s pretty green eyes—wet with unshed tears.
He'd always been a bit softer. No, not in the literal sense of the word, but he’d always required a more delicate hand. He’d come to Tuscaloosa from a small town in Georgia and had been separated from his family and his best friend for the first time in his life. Nervous, he’d latched onto the first person he could: Me.
I was from an equally quiet town in the suburbs of Tennessee and even though Auburn was on the smaller side, it was a bigger city life than what we were used to. The college experience wasthrilling—and Maverick Crawford even more so. The way he looked at me sent shivers down my spine and during a fresher’s week party, he rolled his swollen bottom lip between his teeth, and I had the overwhelming urge to bite it myself. Emboldened by lust—and tequila—I hauled him into the nearest bedroom and did just that.
Only, it didn’t stop there. Teeth clashed and tongues tangled. Clothes came off… and then he was on his knees for me. With my back pressed against that stranger’s bedroom door and the sounds of the party making the wood thump as aggressively as my heart, I had my own sexual awakening.
But I’d kept him to nothing more than that: lingering stares and stolen touches, ravishing each other behind closed doors only. As much as I pretended not to enjoy it, the sounds that I could pull from his mouth said just the opposite.
