Legend (Real, #6)(61)

“Yes. He’s okay. I just . . .” He sets me down. “I was distracted. Thinking of . . . our trip together. And the next thing I saw was him choking. I didn’t even know it was the train wheel until I realized the train he’d been playing with had only three wheels. Remy twisted him upside down and then tried to pull it out, but it seemed caught. . . . We rushed him to the hospital.” I wipe my tears. “That’s why I couldn’t make it to the airport. I wanted to come. I ended up at the hospital, but I clung to your penny and to thoughts of you. And so I came here.”

His eyes cloud with a mix of sad tenderness. “Reese, what you’re asking me to do—I don’t need you to give me back the penny. It was all I had to give you. But now I have more. And I’ll have even more still.”

“But I want you to have the penny for a while. For luck.”

He tucks it into his jeans pocket and then raises his hand and lays his fingers on my hair, runs them through the strands as he uses his free hand and gently pulls me into his arms.

I’m knotted up, waiting for his lips, waiting for his skin to touch mine. But he’s running his fingers down my hair as if it’s lovely. As if it’s made of streaks of honey or rays of sunlight or yellow diamonds. When I tip my head up, I feel him place his lips on the bridge of my nose, five times. On my . . . five freckles?

I tip my head up higher, and Maverick finally yields to the impulse and tastes my mouth. I taste him too, soft, hungry. Gripping his shirt in my fists. A shirt I want to take off so badly.

The things this man does have no precedent, will have no predecessors; they couldn’t.

I boost myself up with my fists and curl my legs around his hips, and his muscles ripple beneath me as he starts walking us to the room. My fingers trace the tattoo on his back, over his shirt. He stops walking. Closes his eyes. He holds me tighter, close.

“Reese,” he whispers in my ear.

He tips my head back and clenches his teeth, his eyes raw and violent.

“What?” I pant, pressing closer. My breasts ache, my sex aches, my whole body aches.

“When you do that . . .” he begins, dark and hot.

I run my fingers over his tattoo again, and he presses me against the nearest wall, and crushes my mouth with his in a kiss that curls my toes and makes me clench my legs around his hips tighter as he grinds himself to me.

I touch his face. “You’re the first big decision I’ve made on my own. The first good decision.”

He looks hazy with desire as he gazes hotly at my smile, then frowns at me. “How do you know I’m a good decision?” he asks, his voice rasping in his throat.

“Because I know you.”

His expression flashes darkly with emotion.

“Spend the night,” he says. Nuzzling me.

I nod. “But I need to be back by the time Racer wakes up.”

“Okay,” he concedes, stroking a hand down my bare arm, savoring me. “How long do we have?”

“I’d say it’s long.” I giggle.

God.

Maverick is so hard against me.

His eyes dance playfully. “Dirty girl.”

“I’d say five a.m. would work?”

He cups my face tenderly and kisses me again. “You want to lie down with me now?”

“My head on your chest? Like that?”

He scoops me up from the wall with both arms. “Just like that.”

I’m floating and everything is a blur as he carries me to the bedroom, kicks the door shut, and sets me down on the oversize bed. He opens the buttons of his shirt and I hear it land softly on the carpet, and I scoot back and watch him crawl over the bed, muscles rippling, like a panther, lying next to me and pulling me to his side.

I swear Maverick is wearing his heart in his eyes as he looks down at me and holds me against his chest.

I set my cheek on his bare pec.

“Oh,” I say.

He frowns down at me. “Oh what? Not comfy?”

“VERY.”

Hard. So warm. I can smell his aftershave, his soap and his deodorant and his skin. I slip my arm around his waist and scoot over closer, and he tightens his arm around my shoulders and stares up at the ceiling, exhaling slowly, as if he’s at last relaxed.

I’m quivering with the feel of his arms around me. And I feel him tense at the feel of me. Smelling my hair, his body taut as my fingers absently trek the dents of his abs. I can almost hear him tell himself, Easy, Maverick. . . .

But his hand is on the move already. His fingers—long, tan—slip under my shirt and cover my breast through my bra. He squeezes a little, brushes his thumb over my nipple. It’s already hard. I gasp when he caresses, and he takes the gasp into his mouth.

I fall to my back as he leans over me, sliding his other hand under my shirt to cup my other breast as he kisses my mouth, slow and easy, but with his tongue. His marvelous tongue.

The noises I make, soft, fluttery, make him groan in his chest. “You like that, Reese? God, I like my hands on you.” He tugs my shirt over my head and reaches behind me to open my bra.

He leans over to memorize the shape of my breasts, the weight, the form, the taste, the look of my nipples, the texture. He sucks me gently, murmurs, “I want you wet. I want you wet when I dip my fingers here.” He drags his hand between my legs. I arch my hips on impulse, craving the touch.