I love you.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Poppy
Light tapping on my bedroom window woke me out of a dead sleep.
My heart launched into my throat, fear channeling through my system before the distinct tap tap tap happened again.
I considered calling out for Dad.
Tap tap tap.
I narrowed my focus, sleep dissipating as I rolled over in bed and slid the drawer of the nightstand open. I felt in the dark for the cold metal of the pistol I knew Dad kept next to every bed in the house. I wrapped my finger around the barrel, every afternoon spent target practicing as a kid coming back to me in one violent quake.
Tap tap tap.
I swallowed the fear in my throat and rose out of the bed, crossing the room on quiet footsteps as I pressed the gun to my bare thigh. Sliding along the wall, I paused at the window frame and then angled my vision through a crack in the curtain.
“Maverick!” I blurted, then covered my mouth.
I set the gun on the bed and rushed quickly out of the room and down the hallway. By the time I opened the front door, Maverick was there, standing in the moonlight with a ravaged look on his face.
“I brought you a gift.” He held out a ribbon with a key dangling. “To keep you safe.”
He stepped aside, allowing me to see the vehicle that was parked along my father’s street.
“What are you talking about? Maverick, it’s almost midnight.”
“I wanted you to have the safest car within a thousand miles of here, so I had a Rover shipped in.”
“You bought me a Range Rover?” I took a step out onto the porch, confusion pummeling me. “Now I know you’re insane.”
Maverick paused, defeat crossing his dark features. He stepped closer, the pad of his thumb slipping against my wrist before he seemed to think better and dropped his hand at his side. “I guess I fucked this up again.”
His words crushed me.
I stepped down off the porch, following the silver moonlight into the front yard. “We should talk.”
“I didn’t want to make a scene in the middle of the day.” He followed me down the steps, running a hand through his hair with frustration. The action caused his shirt and jacket to rise up and reveal just a sliver of the smooth, golden skin above the waistband of his jeans. My eyes darted to it instantly and the sight was an instant turn-on.
“Motherfucker, I don’t know how to make this right!” He kicked rocks. “How do you do this to me?”
He paced down the yard to the Rover and wrenched the door open before slamming it as hard as he could. He kicked the tire then, face contorted with self-annihilating anger. “Fucking shoulda minded my own business up on that ridge, serves me right for messing around with Cherry Falls. People, always fucking things up.”
I balled my fists at my sides and stomped after him. His elbows were up over his head, his forehead resting on his forearms on the hood of my new gift.
“Can we go for a ride?” I said from behind him. He didn’t move. I could see him taking deep breaths, probably trying to calm himself down.
I had to suppress the eye roll.
“I’d rather have this conversation at home, but apparently I can’t take you there. I’m not really sure where to go.” His fists clenched above his head. “I’d take you to the end of the goddamn earth if that’s what you wanted, Petal, but I’m starting to think you don’t know what you want.”
“Maverick, please, don’t be so dramatic.”
“Dramatic? I’m not the one being fucking dramatic.”
In a flash he was in front of me and had both his hands on my shoulders.
“I should be able to ask for some time without you going all fucking nuts on me.” I glared at him. His eyes flashed fire at me, his jaw clenching.
“After everything, you pretty much told me you don’t want to go home with me, Poppy. What am I supposed to do?” His eyes were shooting daggers at me. “I’m a once-in-a-lifetime love kinda guy, Petal, not the one-night-stand kind of losers you might be used to.”
“I didn’t say anything like that, don’t put words in my mouth.” I hovered at the side door of the Rover.
Maverick spun me around in his arms. “Then what were you saying? Because right now it sounds like you’re choosing your old man over me.”
“I was saying that your past is fucked up and I hate it!” I cried. “I don’t know what happened between you, but the hate you both have for each other is toxic. It’s killing you! God, it’s killing me!”
He bit his bottom lip and anger flashed in his eyes, and then something else. He pulled me flush against his body and held me there tightly. Our thighs, our hips, our torsos were melded. One hand wrapped around the back of my neck and pulled me to his lips, and suddenly we were crushed together and kissing fiercely.
His tongue twisted angrily with mine, this dominance his outlet for anger. He was turning his rage into passion for me. I threw my arms around his shoulders and jumped up to wrap my legs around his waist. A sensual moan escaped his throat as I held his lips to mine, returning his kiss with just as much ferocity as he was aiming at me.
He opened the car door, pushing us inside until my bare thighs connected with the cool leather. I wrapped my legs around his hips as he leaned over me. I ground my core into his hips and rocked rhythmically. Begging for him. I needed him as much as it seemed like he needed me, neither one of us with the words to convey it. Only this wicked hot chemistry that sparked to life between us existed in those moments.
My fingers fumbled with the button of his jeans. My head leaning up to kiss him, our lips still attached. Maverick fumbled and then pulled my sleep shorts off of me. His fingers fumbled with my panties and then I felt him rip them off my body; the tearing of that delicate fabric only ratcheting up my passion for him. The palm of his hand pressed between my thighs, applying the delicious contact my body craved. He slid one finger through my slick heat and then thrust it into me.
I bucked my body in pleasure at his long finger invading and pumping in and out of me. He was doing it so roughly, with such unbridled passion. His lips met mine and I came instantly around his finger. I whimpered in pleasure and then tried to stifle the sound of my passion echoing around the neighborhood. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I registered that we could be heard, but Maverick against me left my brain too frazzled to care.
He slid his jeans down and sank inside me before I had time to ride the high of my first orgasm. I groaned at the instant fullness and propelled my hips into him.
“You make my life so beautiful, Petal.” Maverick gritted through his teeth and held my gaze with his own fiery blue eyes. He grabbed one of my bare legs and twisted it to the side in front of him, then held both my ankles together so he was pounding me sideways. The increased friction had me panting in pleasure and I felt my release burning hot in my belly.
“The sunshine you bring makes my life worth living, I was just too damn dense to realize it before now. You’re the only one that’s made me feel this way in twenty-five years. I love you so much, but you make me So. Fucking. Insane. Too.”
He punctuated each word with another deep thrust. So this was angry Maverick.
This Maverick might be my favorite.
“I love you, Maverick Wright,” I panted as he slid one hand up my bare thigh, holding my hip roughly to keep me steady. My hand clenched around his forearm and my nails dug into his flesh.
“You can’t run on me, Poppy. I love you. You. Are. Always. Mine.”
“God...” I groaned in pleasure, his words spurring my release. “I promise. I won’t run.”
“You can’t be another person that leaves. I won’t let you.” He pumped frantically, fast and long and deep, and my release ripped through my body, searing-hot pleasure spiking through my system. My head fell back against the hood of the car and my body was wracked with heavy pants as I tried to catch my breath and let my brain calm from the blissful high.
Maverick
held both of my ankles in one hand and angled in with his other, holding my hips tightly. He reached me full and deep and then shuddered and groaned with his own release, his face twisting in a combination of pain and pleasure. His chest heaved as he released both of my legs and collapsed between my thighs.
I came down from my high and instantly remembered that I was half naked in a Rover in front of my childhood home.
My body shivered with the loss as Maverick slowly pulled away.
“I’m sorry it’s been so confusing,” I whispered to him.
His eyes flicked to mine.
“No, I’m sorry, Poppy.” He changed then, a reserved arrogance taking over him as he pulled his pants up and reached down to hand me my sleep shorts. “These are torn.” He pocketed my lace panties and turned away from me.
I sat nearly naked in the passenger seat of the Rover and felt utterly alone and abandoned, even though I’d just been fucked seven ways from Sunday by the man I loved. The man who said he loved me.
I watched his back as he ran one hand through his hair. Sex didn’t seem to be a stress relief for him—it had somehow created more anxiety.
Tears sprang to my eyes and I wiped them away. I pulled on my shorts then turned to look at him, still facing away from me.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered again, because I didn’t know what else to say. What had just happened between us and what was going through his mind right then was a mystery to me.
My tortured Maverick.
I knew then I’d never save him.
The realization that I’d wanted to all this time was like a bullet to my heart.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Maverick
I hadn’t seen Poppy in two weeks.
Every day I ordered flowers from The Flower Patch for the beautiful owner. And I paced the floor with thoughts of her on my mind.
Two weeks.
I stopped eating, like a broken fucking dog that’d just lost his life’s companion after our frenzied fuck in the Rover. I’d lost everything—again.
Two weeks.
This pain was the reason I kept people at bay, because in my experience, outside of raising Aspen, I found people only had a way of hurting people.
I liked this ridge to myself, nature was unfussy and without complications, the seasons came and went, Winchester at my side and Aspen visiting every now and again...I was happy.
I’d been a fool to risk that happiness for Poppy. She was too good to be true from the start—the darkness I’d carried since losing Aspen’s mom was unbearable, but somehow, losing Poppy hurt in a fresh way because I’d handed her the key to my heart.
I’d only ever been with two people—first Aspen’s mom, and now Poppy.
The more haunted the nights grew.
I’d taken to walking the halls until dawn, when the violent strains of classical music weren’t pounding in my head like a horror show symphony. Aspen’s mom had loved classical when I’d only ever thought of it as noise on my ears—now it seemed I'd never escape it.
By day fifteen without Poppy, my head was pounding and I was delirious with exhaustion and memories and perpetual violin notes that I wasn’t even sure were real. I’d lost track of the days, but not of her—Poppy’s soft laugh rang in my ears.
I needed to see her but I hated her for leaving—for proving me right.
I hated myself for letting her in—her dad for intruding—the world for taking everything I loved away from me.
Rain cut down the floor-to-ceiling windows, the sound pulling me outside because being out in the wild was the only thing that ever made sense to me.
“Please,” I pushed a hand through my hair, “please let her be okay—even if she doesn't come back—make sure she’s happy.”
The rain slid down my cheeks, pelting my shoulders and drenching me to the bone as my thoughts swirled about Poppy and the past and the future.
“Petal,” I hummed, conjuring the taste of her in my mind. I inhaled once, blinking away the fog that always clung to the ridge as a figure in white stepped out of the shadows.
“Mav—”
My heart sank, my knees gave out and I dropped.
“Maverick—are you okay?” She appeared out of the mist, as real as ever in my arms.
I pressed my lips to her hips, yanking her to me to be sure she was real flesh and bone. “Petal, you’re back, you came back, thank God.”
“I’m here but are you?” She dropped to her knees, cradling my cheeks in her palms and swiping at the rain that cut down my cheekbones.
“I should’ve come for you.”
“No, Maverick, I had to work things out with my dad. He gets it now, I mean, well—he still thinks I’m insane to love you, but he respects me. The Rover helped, too. I think you’ve proven yourself, Maverick Wright. I didn’t need it, but my dad did. Thank you for giving me that.”
“Petal—it’s been hell without you. I think I lost my mind a few times.”
Soft tears were charging at her eyelids now. “Maverick, why do you torture yourself?”
“I fuck everything up, I'm going to keep fucking things up, it’s what I do best, Petal, but I also promise I’ll take care of you—you just can't leave like that.”
“I had to talk to him, he was so afraid you’d hurt me I think he had to make sure I was really okay. The house overflowing with flowers all day every day irritated him, but when he saw the new car in the driveway the next morning...I think he knew he’d been beat.”
I grunted, the disdain that man had for me was unreal.
“He’s trying to be better. He told me all about what happened when you were kids, how you were close and then what happened in high school, he even showed me these old letters—”
“Letters?”
“Between my mom and...well—long story short, deep down in his own weird way he blames you for my mom leaving.”
“What?!” I moved to stand but her hands at my biceps kept me grounded.
“I’m sorry I was gone so long, but I'm glad. We needed the time together and we both worked so much. I think it took something big like this to force us to confront stuff from the old days.”
“Sounds dramatic,” I said.
“It was very dramatic,” she wrapped her arms around my neck and hummed against my lips, “but you’re good at that, so I know you understand.”
I breathed her in, so damn grateful to have this woman back in my arms again. “Look at me that way and I’ll kiss the smile right off your lips.”
Her grin only widened. I took it as my invitation and attacked her lips, slow and steady at first, all of my pent up frustration that she’d been gone so long coming out in the deft movements of my hands against her skin. My lips trailed down her neck and I sucked at the earlobe before crawling up the shell of her ear and breathing softly.
“I love you, Petal.” I caught her arms above her head, leaning her back into the damp grass as the rain misted down over us. Evergreen boughs, heavy with raindrops, sheltered us from the hardest rain as I trailed my lips along the waistband of her pants, darting the tip of my tongue along the waistband as she arched beneath me.
“I love you so much, Maverick, even when you make me crazy.” She pushed one of her hands into my beard and tugged softly. I growled, catching her lips in another kiss before slipping my hands under her sweater and pushing it over her torso.
Sweet rain covered her soft body, my eyes devouring her like I hadn’t been able to since the first time.
“Petal.” I arched her neck back and planted kisses down her throat and around her ear. “My tongue craves you.” I ran my tongue up the column of her neck. “I can’t live without you.”
She wrapped her arms around me, ran her palms up under my shirt, and clutched at the skin, digging her nails deep and pulling. She writhed as I groaned with pleasure before I clamped down on her bottom lip and tugged softly.
I handled her like a wild man, exposing her skin to the night air and trailing my nose between her bre
asts as she whimpered while I inhaled her. I ran my nose around the edge of her nipple, watching it harden with desire before I sucked it into my mouth and pulled on it with my teeth.
“I love the feel of you everywhere,” she hissed and it went straight to my throbbing dick. Tingling and burning with the need for release, I tried to keep a handle on the impending orgasm as I staggered my strokes and sank deeper. She hummed with her pleasure, while I became a wild animal, lost my mind a little bit inside of her.
The walls melted away and it was just the two of us. My mind shot into another galaxy when I was buried inside my Petal.
“Say you’ll stay,” I ordered.
“What?” she asked, breathless.
“Stay on the ridge with me, sell your apartment, we’ll move your stuff in this weekend.”
“But the flower shop—”
“We’ll hire someone to take more shifts, or you can keep flowers here and do deliveries, or—”
“Okay, okay, I get it,” she giggled.
I tugged on her nipple with my teeth just as waves of pleasure washed over her body, sweat dampened her skin, her heels curved into my hips. With my jeans around my thighs, I slowed slightly to take in the pleasure of her pulsing around me. Filling her, my own release pulsed and exploded. Like molten lava, my blood thickened in my veins as she threaded her fingers in my hair.
I dropped my head into her shoulder and sucked in the sweet smell of our lovemaking on her skin. I nipped at the soft flesh covering her collarbone as I supported her. We were damp and tangled, a wild mess, and I loved it.
This woman filled something in me that I needed to breathe and I hadn’t even known I’d been so starved for the oxygen.
I could never let her go.
“I can’t wait to walk you down the aisle.”
“A wedding? You’re a big-picture thinker, huh?”
I chuckled, kissing her softly. “With you I am.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
504 Lovers Ridge: A Cherry Falls Romance Book 18 Page 7
