Page 43 of Maverick
He shrugs. “I guess so. But I’m painfully aware that you were a virgin up until an hour or so ago, and also painfully aware of the fact that you’re twenty-four. That makes me feel… Old. And also like a dick.”
“I know what I’m doing. I know what I wanted. I bought the condoms thinking about you.”
“Was that all an elaborate ruse?”
“No. I genuinely had a pipe failure. And I didn’t mean for you to see them. I was trying to tell myself that it was about sex in general, and that maybe I would have it with anybody. That was a lie. A lie that I told myself to justify the purchase. I wanted you. Okay? I wanted you, not someone random. You’ve been a fantasy of mine for a while.”
I lower my face. I know that it’s red.
He reaches across the table, grips my chin with his thumb and forefinger, and tilts it upward. “Sweet girl. Please don’t make a fantasy out of me.”
“What if it’s just a sexual one?”
“I don’t know. I’m undecided.”
“Do you have to go back to being a monk?”
“I’m not a monk,” he says. “That implies that I’m being intentional. But… No. I don’t think so. Or, I’m a man whoremembered how great sex is, and now I don’t want to go back to not having it.”
“That’s fine if so. But I just kind of want to know if I now have to expect a parade of women traipsing up to your house while we try and do this horse training thing.”
“Would that bother you?”
“That might hurt my feelings a little bit. But then, let’s flip the script, Maverick. What if I decided that sex with you was so good that I should just start entertaining other gentlemen to get my fix?”
“You fucking will not.”
“Exactly.”
He looks at me from across the table. “Okay. I take your point.”
“There’s nothing wrong with having sex just to have sex,” I hear myself say. “Nothing wrong with that at all. In fact, I think it sounds like a lot of fun.”
“Fun. That’s a weird word for tonight.”
I wrap my hands around the tea mug. “Yeah. I guess. Intense.”
“Intense is maybe a better word.”
Silence stretches between us at the table, and it feels like it pushes more distance between our bodies. I want to ask him more questions. I want to ask him how he met her. I want to ask him about how he decided to propose. Then I want to ask him about things that have nothing to do with her. I want to ask him how he decided that I was the one he was going to break his celibacy vows with. I want to ask him what he was thinking when he tore that box of condoms in half.
Some of those questions, I think, might be totally inappropriate. But some of them, I think, I have the right to know the answer to.
“So… I was just really irresistible… Or…”
“Stella,” he says.
There’s a warning in his tone.
“I really want to know. I’m sorry. But that was incredible. You are like a man on a mission back there. Mission accomplished, by the way.”
“Thank you.” He sighs. “When I came back to the circuit after taking a break, I saw you. You were leading your horse across one of the lots, into an arena. And I thought someone had lit my jeans on fire. Goddamn.”
“What?”
“You’re a problem. You’ve been a problem, Stella Lane. You’re prettier than you ought to be, and you’re sure as hell more appealing to me than you should be.”
“I had… No idea. I didn’t even think you knew I was alive.”
