Raw

  “My parents realized what was going on about two years in. They might have suspected for a while, but I think they chalked it up to me being young. Two years my addiction was permanent, and they finally got me help. It was difficult at first. I started eating a little more in the beginning, to help curb my anxiety. I gained some weight, which I’ve been slowly losing at last. I have,” she looks at me, “a few friends now. But I am my own friend now too. I want what’s best for me. I want to be known for who I am, who I consciously choose to be, work hard to be. I’ve been sober for one year, and every day I beat this is a win for me. Thank you.” She nods, and before she leaves the podium, she’s looking at me. Just me. Eyes hopeful and bright, and a little apologetic too.

  She ducks her head and leaves the stand, and then she takes her chair.

  Too far away from me.

  Too fucking far away from me, a world away, when I want to crush her in my arms and tell her she’s amazing.

  All this time. Reese quietly fighting her fight.

  I sit here, still a moron, staring at the back of her head, reeling and knowing for a damn fact that I’m in love with this girl.

  I want to set up house.

  Pop out a couple of babies with this girl.

  I want to protect her from a bottle or a man or a word or a fucking raindrop or from fucking me.

  That’s how much I care about this girl.

  Guess I’m not emotionally stunted after all.

  Guess it just takes a second to realize what stares you in the face, slamming you like a punch in the gut.

  She wanted a friend in me. I’ll be her friend, but I want so much more.

  “You see her,” I whisper to Oz, and he frowns and nods. “That’s her. That’s my girl.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  UNVEILED

  Reese

  The room starts emptying when the session ends, and I find myself on my feet, unmoving, as the wall of lean muscle at my eye level starts coming toward me. I know this chest. I’ve touched it. I scratched it in orgasm. I know its owner, and for some reason I still can’t find the courage to look into his eyes.

  Until Maverick stops before me.

  Tall, that chest broad and big and begging me to get close to it if only to borrow its strength.

  I inhale, and force my eyes upward.

  Something happens when our eyes meet. The air shifts and whirls between us. Everything falls away until it’s just me, raw and bare and naked and without any real secrets left, and him.

  I don’t expect what he does next. He wraps his arms around me and gives me this huge hug, pressing me to him until we’re like one big entwined tree, the kind of hug my father or mother would give me when I was “brave,” and when he kisses my forehead with such passion I feel his hot, wet mouth on my skin, I want to kiss him so bad I ache inside. “You’re incredible,” he whispers in my ear.

  Oh god.

  For some reason, I want to know why I hadn’t told him. Why I don’t ever tell anyone. Even the Tates only know because my mother wanted to be sure I made at least one AA meeting per city, and I resented that they had to know. If only because I didn’t want to look weak in the eyes of people who are strong and nearly perfect to me.

  But they didn’t judge. They didn’t look at me with pity. They welcomed me into their team, their home, their lives, and let me get close to the most precious thing they have: Racer.

  “I didn’t want . . . to be someone who was recovering to you. I wanted to be me. The new-and-improved me that I’m working on.”

  “You are you,” he says fiercely.

  The way he says this pushes an emotional button, and I swallow. “I wanted to be special on my own, without a bottle or a story about me, just me. This trip . . . was about that for me.”

  Until it became all about you.

  “I was sixteen. When I started, and then I . . . stopped completely at nineteen. I’m not even at a legal drinking age and I’ve already vowed not to do it again,” I say, smiling wanly into his face. “I’m not even tempted. I want what it gives me, maybe, to feel free and . . . But I don’t want it.”

  I glance at the door where Oz left. “He didn’t want to talk?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Does he need a sponsor?”

  “Maybe.”

  “If he takes those twelve steps, they’ll be the first steps to a new him.”

  Maverick won’t take his eyes off me. His arm is possessive around my waist. And then, Maverick slips his hand under my hair, his eyes dark and quietly loving. “I’m on fire when I look at you,” he says, his voice reverent and his gaze electric on me. “You decimated me just now.”

  I exhale and blink back the emotion in my eyes. Not everybody sees this, when they see someone recovering. They see someone who could fall again. Who could be weak again. Who already fell. They don’t see the strength it took to overcome it and push through, sometimes they don’t see the humanity, and sometimes they don’t know that to someone who’s recovering it’s hard to stay in a world and a reality where the reflections of themselves they see mirrored in others’ eyes are so lacking.

  “Do you need to get back?”

  I nod, regretfully. “I said I’d just come to the meeting.”

  “I’ll take you.”

  I smile, and duck my head. “I’m glad you brought Oz.” And I add, “I’m glad you know.”

  There is something about telling someone a secret that binds and locks you together. And there is something about somebody knowing everything about you that makes you aware of how much work you still have to become a better you.

  ♥ ♥ ♥

  WE RIDE IN the back of the cab in this order: me, Maverick, Oz.

  I’m feeling raw.

  Too attracted to him.

  More than ever.

  Maverick sits beside me. Quiet. And I sit here. Quiet too. He watches me in the darkness and when our eyes meet, he smiles.

  He reaches out and takes my hand.

  His hand is rough and warm, dry, and my hand fits just right in his.

  My mind and my heart and my soul seem to flutter.

  I wonder what it would be like to spend all night with him, not just an hour, nothing between us. Set my lips on every inch of his skin. Rest my head on his chest. And just be there, talking. Or silent. Or kissing.

  I set my head on his shoulder.

  He inhales slowly.

  I need to be closer, I can’t control this. It’s like a need to breathe, an impulse toward him, the body reacting strongly to what it needs to survive.

  We can’t get our hands off each other. I pry my hand free to touch his thigh, and he sets his hand on my thigh, rubbing slowly up and down. There are other people here. So really, our hands probably need to stay where they are. There’s the cabdriver, and Oz. But I am only aware of ONE. One Maverick riding beside me. His shoulder hard against mine. His legs skewed open so one touches against mine.

  I press closer and turn my head just as he seizes my chin, ducks, and our lips meet. His tongue, wet, slips inside my mouth. Impulsively, I slip my hand under his T-shirt. Just because I need to feel his skin. He’s hot as a furnace, his skin smooth under my fingers. I push my hand higher, to catch his heartbeat in my palm. I rub a little as he sucks hungrily on my tongue, shifting his shoulders as if to cover me.

  I open my mouth wider and let his tongue lead mine.

  Oz clears his throat.

  Maverick tears his lips free. He glances in his direction and groans in exasperation. “Come on, Oz, you were young once.”

  “Nope,” Oz says.

  Maverick digs into his pocket and pulls out his phone, and then his earbuds. “Put those in and put on some music, and look away until we get there,” he tells Oz.

  He looks back at me as Oz grumbles and does what he’s told.

  “How do you fucking work this?” Oz demands.

  Maverick turns back to him, grabs the phone, and presses Play on the music. Then Oz slips the earbuds in a
nd looks out the window with a grin.

  Maverick looks at me again, then he curls his fingers around my skull, and my eyes are heavy-lidded, his eyes slits as he lowers his head and takes my mouth. I slip both my hands under his shirt and kiss him with all I’ve got. I rub his muscles with my fingertips, realizing I’ve missed the feel of this chest though I’ve felt it beneath my fingers only once before. . . . You’re turning me into a nymphomaniac, Maverick. . . .

  And Maverick is kissing me like he has all the time in the world and like he’s never going to let my mouth go.

  I feel so reckless, I want to do more, I want to feel him everywhere, touch him everywhere, be touched everywhere. . . .

  Impulsively, I let my fingers wander down the planes of his chest and over his stomach, but Maverick seizes my face with one hand and as he forces me to look at him, he slips a hand into the hair at my nape.

  “Look at me.”

  Oh god, he’s so beautiful. I’ve never felt as naked before him as I do now.

  “How do you do it?” he asks quietly. “How do you have me hanging on every word you say? Every expression on your face?” He looks intently down at me and then runs his tongue over my bottom lip. “Every look you give me,” he says.

  He holds me closer against him and shifts his shoulders to keep me from being seen, and softly, tenderly, he kisses me again, running his hand down the back of my head in the most tender caress.

  When I slip my hands around his neck, I nearly claw my nails into his flesh. I want him so much I’m in actual physical pain.

  His lips keep tasting, hot, exploring, friendly, and also intimate. He trails his lips downward to my neck, and tugs down my shirt a bit, to kiss the top crest of one of my breasts.

  He then kisses his way to my earlobe, and when I turn my head to bite on his earlobe, he groans into my ear—he sounds tormented—and he eases back to just smile at me. Smile at me as if he’s happy just to be kissing me tonight.

  I can’t even smile back. What is wrong with me?

  He’s turned my body into a firestorm.

  I grab him, and my hands go up his back, over the exact spot where I know he has his phoenix tattoo. Then I take the back of his head and draw him back to me.

  Our kisses get wilder, my control dangerously close to nonexistent.

  We’re burning and fevered and then there’s no more talking. No more playing. No more training. No more anything but heat and Maverick Cage’s mouth.

  Fitting perfectly on mine.

  His hands rubbing up and down my back, restless. I want them to go other places. I want those big calloused hands on my breasts, between my legs, on my bare skin.

  And this mouth, this mouth—I want it on every inch.

  My body is on fire for Maverick.

  I hurt so much I want to cry. I want his every secret, his every dream, and I want to be in one of those dreams; I want to be one of those secrets.

  Soon I’m going to be in my room, alone. Alone and Maverickless.

  All the nights I’ve been remembering what it was like in his bed . . . all the nights trying to do the right thing—the thing that’s right for my head and feels so wrong for the rest of me—are coming to a near boil.

  He stops kissing me and stares down into my face. Maverick’s eyes have a new, possessive glimmer. Still shielding me with his body, he gives me a firm peck on the lips again. My tongue flashes out greedily, and he smiles down at me, his eyes burning with hunger and happiness.

  “It’s as hard to keep my hands off you as it is to keep from looking at you,” he whispers.

  Touch me, see me. . . . I want to beg, but I’m so out of control that it takes every ounce of me to be quiet. Instead I wrap both my arms around his neck and I breathe in the scent of his warm skin.

  I want you, Maverick Cage. . . .

  I bury my lips against his throat, and as I peer past his shoulder, I recognize the passing scenery and I realize we’re almost a block away from my hotel.

  He groans as he forces his mouth away from roaming over my temple.

  God.

  I think about the fact that our kisses nearly pushed him over the edge.

  When will we be alone again?

  Will we ever be alone again?

  “Maverick . . .”

  He laughs softly to himself and rests his head against mine, his intimate stare only confirming that he knows that I recklessly wanted to do more. I feel my ears start to get red.

  I glance at Oz, and thank god he’s facing the window, snoozing as he listens to the music.

  Maverick watches me run my fingers down my hair.

  I look back at him. His eyes are absolute flames and I want to tear his clothes off and memorize every hot, hard inch of him.

  He makes me so reckless, I don’t know this girl. I like it, but I’m afraid of it too. “I want to spend the whole night with you. I want to know what it’s like to lie on your chest. And talk about things.”

  God. I don’t know why I said that, but I blurted it out. I force myself not to take it back. To own it.

  We stare at each other as the cab slides to a stop in the hotel driveway.

  Maverick helps me out, then leans toward the cabbie. “I’m walking her up, stay put.”

  “Keeping the meter running,” the cabbie says.

  Maverick nods and shuts the door behind us. His fingers press into the small of my back as he leads me across the lobby, pushes the Up button, and we wait for an elevator. When it tings and a couple shuffles out, he steps inside with me. And then we ride, all alone, to the penthouse.

  He takes my hand in silence, dipping his thumb into my palm and staring down at me in smoldering male satisfaction.

  “I should be embarrassed. I’m never this reckless,” I admit.

  “Good. But I want you to be reckless with me.”

  I laugh and duck my head, really embarrassed now. There are lights above us, and they feel brighter than usual after the shadows of the cab, and I’m utterly mortified.

  “You know who I am. And I know who you are, Reese. And none of it has to do with what you said just now, or with who our fathers are.”

  He pulls me so close that I can feel what our make-out in the cab has done to him, and his lips cover mine again, softer now, achingly soft.

  A feather of pleasure ripples down my back as he shifts me and we end up flat against the wall. I’m sandwiched between the elevator wall and tons of Maverick.

  We’re so hungry for each other that we can’t get our mouths off the other.

  “You make me drunk, Maverick,” I say worriedly, as we kiss.

  “I take it”—he frowns—“that’s a bad thing?”

  I search his face. “I don’t know.”

  “You make me want to go all out, Reese. Do everything.”

  We kiss a little hotly again.

  “You bring out a different me,” I confess, gripping his chest as I try to catch my breath. “I wanted to be her. But I don’t know this new me. I’m a stranger to this new me.”

  He eases back with this slow, adorable smile. “I can see her perfectly.”

  When the elevator arrives, he follows me out to the big doors of the three-bedroom suite. As I fish out my key, he says, “Hey. Find out where you’ll be staying next location.”

  “Why?”

  “I want to stay at the same hotel.”

  I stare.

  He nods soberly. “I want to find out what it’s like to have you lie on my chest. Spend the whole night with me. Talk about things.” He smiles as he quotes me.

  I think I fell just a little bit deeper.

  I inhale.

  For two people who don’t talk a lot, this is huge.

  To want to spend a night together. And talk.

  “Hey,” he says quietly, lifting my gaze to his, “I want you in bed with me.”

  I laugh.

  “I’ve never spent a complete night with a woman, not in my life.”

  I stop laughing.

 
Oh god. He’s emotionally a virgin too.

  What are we doing?

  His expression intensifies, and he takes my hand and kisses my knuckles. Knuckles, which are the way he makes a living, probably one of his most prized body parts after the obvious one. “I liked what just happened in the back of that cab, Reese.”

  “I liked it too.”

  “Then don’t regret it,” he whispers in my ear.

  He heads to the elevator.

  “Maverick.” I stop him.

  I want to kiss him for luck.

  I want to kiss him for me.

  “I wish I could be at the next fight,” I say instead.

  He stops by the elevator, hot and delectable, laughing softly as he rakes his hand through his hair. “I’m glad you’re not.”

  “Why?”

  He shakes his head woefully. “I need my head with my opponents.” He sends me a meaningful look, as if I fuck with his head.

  “Riptide is undefeated, Maverick. He’s . . . unstoppable. I don’t want either of you to get hurt.”

  He comes back and tells me gently, “One of us will.” He chucks my chin. “Don’t worry about me. I can take a beatdown. I learn best when I’m on the ground ’cause I fucking hate it there.”

  He goes back to the elevator, and I lean on the door as he disappears inside. I open the hotel room door, dine on cereal, and head to my bed. I lie there, still breathless, squeezing my eyes to relive what just happened in the back of the cab with him.

  I have never been so scared.

  Reese, is this really you? Are you ready to be bold and brave?

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  HER

  Maverick

  When we reach the hotel, I take a shower, drop into bed, and I’m restless. I replay the cab. I replay her kisses. I replay her words. I replay what she said about herself.