Page 34 of Maverick
I feel like it is. But I’m not going to dwell on that. I’m not.
I hear the front door open a moment later, and hear him stomping down the hall. “I’m going to climb up into the attic.”
“Oh,” I say. “Is that…”
“It’s probably rats,” he says.
“So, I didn’t break it?” I ask that question, but internally I’m wondering about the rats.
Where are the rats? Why are the rats? Do I have to worry about the rats?
“You probably didn’t break it,” he says, his eyes looking far too intently into mine.
They’re dark brown, but right then, I can see there are flecks of gold and amber, and they’re far too compelling for me to look at too long, because I might do something stupid like lean in.
I take a big step back.
He disappears again and goes down the hall toward my –
“Wait a second!”
But then he’s in my bedroom, where there’s a giant box of condoms on the bed, my warning coming too late.
I’m standing behind him. He looks at the box of condoms and then at me.
I feel my face getting hot. I’m sure that it’s cherry-red.
“The attic access is in your closet.” He gestures to the back of the room, and it all makes sense to me now, but…
I feel exposed because I know what I was thinking of when I bought those condoms. But he doesn’t know what I was thinking of. That I was thinking of him. Maybe he just thinks I’m looking to have a good time out here in Idaho. Of course, he also knows that I’m a virgin. If only he didn’t know that. Because then he might have thought nothing of it. I can see that he’s thinking of it.
I take a sharp breath.
And then suddenly it feels like the room is smaller, like he’s too close, like I can’t breathe.
“What are you planning, Stella?”
“I just wanted a shower,” I say.
I can feel my nipples hardening into tight points, I can feel my heart beginning to beat harder. My whole body overreacting to this moment. If I had some experience, maybe I wouldn’t. If I had some experience, maybe I could laugh it off. Maybe standing in the room with a box of condoms that I bought while fantasizing about the man standing in front of me would feel like a funny little joke. Would feel like nothing, really.
His eyes are trained on the box of condoms. No longer on the closet at the back of the room which would give him access to the attic.
Does he want me? That simple question makes my heart beat faster.
His eyes meet mine, and I see something different there. Something intense. More than that, something determined and decided.
That night in the trailer after he won me, he went and laid on the bed and covered his face as quickly as possible. I couldn’t see his eyes. I couldn’t see his expressions. I assumed he didn’t want me because if he did, why wouldn’t he just have me?
Now I realize that I don’t know anything about him. Not what he wants, now or then. I don’t know what he looks like when he desires a woman, or what he does in a situation like this. My brain has created an entire legend of Maverick that it has decided is the truth.
A playboy who can have any woman he wants, based on nothing I’ve seen, but my own feelings about him. A man who decided he didn’t want me based on the fact that he didn’t rush to fuck me when I bet myself in a poker game.
But the way he’s looking at me now feels a lot like desire. And I don’t know anything about him. Nothing.
All of my guesses about who he is and what he wants could be wrong.
That makes him feel like a stranger, makes me feel like I’m falling. Like I don’t have a good gauge on anything that’s happening. On what might happen next. I don’t even really know what happened before. And that is the most stunning realization of all.
