I pout at him and he smiles, waiting for me to say something. But all words fail me. Seeming pleased and needing to egg me on, he asks, “Any other objections? If California is too basic for you, we could always go to Paris, though we would be in Cali long before Paris… but it’s up to you.”
It’s up to me? What? Travelling to California or Paris on a whim on a Saturday morning is up to me? What?
“California is fine, thank you.” I pout, stomping back to the bedroom.
What the hell have I gotten myself into.
41
It’s always been a dream of mine to travel the world. Of course, never in a million years did I imagine that this is how my first time would wind around happening. But then again, never did I think Maverick would be the one to snatch my virginity from between my thighs. The former sure pales in comparison to the latter.
Despite my initial resistance, and despite the thousandth time of telling him how ridiculous this trip is, I’m secretly excited to be on a plane. I texted my dad on my way to the airport and my mother had called back completely hysterical, worried out of her mind.
Unsurprisingly, dad doesn’t know how to keep a secret. Still, as we board the plane and assume our seats in first class, I can’t help but feel completely overwhelmed by how different everything is.
I’m reassured that I look like a deer staring into oncoming headlights when Maverick leans over and whispers against my ear. “First time flying first class?”
“First time flying.” I squeeze my eyes shut as we taxi down the runway for takeoff.
Without saying a word, he reaches over and takes my hand in his and I suddenly feel safe as the bird lifts us up into the air.
“Thank you,” I whisper without looking at him. He brushes his fingers across my knuckles, sending shock waves through my body.
“So… what are we doing in California?” I ask once my stomach has returned to my body and I’m no longer terrified about falling from the sky like a shot bird.
“Waterpark sounds pretty good. Museums…Universal…Disney? Parasailing? We have options.”
All those options sound amazing. Somewhere deep down, though, there’s a bit of guilt wrestling with me. I should be over the moon. And I am. It’s just that I cannot seem to shake the feeling that I don’t deserve any of this and I hate feeling like a charity case.
“Whatever you’re thinking about could you please stop? I can feel your mood from over here and I’m afraid you’re going to bring the whole plane down.”
“Not the best joke to tell someone on their first flight, Maverick.”
“Hey, it’s open to interpretation. You chose to go dark.” He smirks and I’m about to punch him when the flight attendant pulls up to our cabin.
“Can I get you anything?”
Maverick looks over at me with narrowed eyes then reads off half the menu. If his aim is to prove to me that he’s wealthy, he did that the day he bought a Lamborghini after pretty much wrecking his old car on purpose.
Not long after taking Maverick’s order, the flight attendant returns with our trolley of food. All I can think about is the fact that there is no way we can eat all this.
I watch as Maverick digs into a plate of blueberry pancakes, then pierces a turkey strip with his fork. He chews like he’s just taken a slice out of heaven before turning to me.
“Eat,” he says sternly, picking up my discomfort with the spread.
“I’m not extremely hungry.”
“Extremities are not a requirement. You haven’t eaten since yesterday and we’re going to be up and down the streets of California all day. Don’t you want to have the energy to actually enjoy all this?”
“Did it have to be so much?”
He sets his fork down and turns to look at me in exasperation.
“Okay, Hendrickson. Lay it on me. What’s really going on here?”
Now that he’s called me out, I feel incredibly stupid for being such a sour puss about his gesture. He’s really just trying to have a good time. I know that. But it still doesn’t mean that it isn’t too much. There’s that old saying ‘Money doesn’t buy happiness.” I kinda want to throw that at him. Tell him that he can’t just buy his way out of his problems, he actually has to face them. Throw money at a therapist if he wants. But what happened last night, it doesn’t just go away because he’s boarded a plane. Problem is, looking at him, there isn’t a trace of the broken man left. Maverick pulled out his wallet and he fucking bought happiness.
“Well?” he asks when I say nothing, and I slowly start to slide down my seat in an effort to hide from him.
“Beth, what are you doing?” he groans, shaking his head at me the way one would when watching a small child jump into a bucket of stupidity.
“Making myself invisible?” I groan back and he reaches over and pulls me back up by my belt.
“I’m being serious. You were against us going to California and now you’re beefing with breakfast. What gives?”
I stare out the window, then around our cabin, then finally into his face.
“I’ve never been on a plane before-”
“Yeah I got that,” he interjects.
“I wasn’t done talking.” I pout and he throws up both hands as a show of apology.
“My family could never afford to just pile onto a plane on a whim or even with planning. There was always something else. Something far more important to spend that money on. Never enough to just have this kind of fun.”
I can see him putting together the connection in his mind ahead of me and I don’t like the guilt on his face.
“When you suggested the trip, I thought you were joking. When you booked the tickets I couldn’t believe it was happening.”
“And then I just ordered a ton of food.”
“And in between all of that, you’re pretending like last night never happened.”
“We’ve talked last night into the ground,” he says.
“But all of that still happened.”
“So did the second world war. The past fucking hurts, Beth. I didn’t want to be wrapped up in that pain anymore…”
“And so you bought your way out of it.”
That wipes any hints of a smile straight off his face. I feel like an ass. Maverick can see it too, because he holds up his hand in a plead for me to hold off on the apology.
“For now,” he says. “But unfortunately, not forever.”
“You can’t keep running.”
“And maybe one day I won’t feel the need to. But right now, I need this. We were happy, I was getting everything I’ve ever wanted. I fucking knocked my game out of the park. I was happy, Beth. And then Jessica broke into my apartment. And then you asked me about my mom. And then everything just spiraled out of control.” He grips my hand in his and holds onto them like I really mean something to him. Like he wouldn’t let go if he didn’t have to. “And once I was done spiraling, you were there. So this…this is just my way of saying that…I don’t know…I guess it’s my way of saying I’m sorry and…If I ever manage to royally fuck things up between us, then at least we’ll have California. At least you’d have gotten something out of this agreement that you can look back on and be happy about.”
I stare up at him. Speechless. One hundred and ninety percent speechless.
“Beth?”
“Uh huh?”
“You’re crying.”
I wipe at my face. My hand comes up wet.
“I’m crying,” I say, and he laughs before pulling me flush against his chest.
A silence passes between us for at least a minute or two. In that silence, the only thing I hear is the pattering of his heart. It’s soothing. More soothing than it should be. My own heart, in comparison, is a mess of unsteady beats – beats that likely belong to Maverick and no one else.
42
The hotels in Beverley Hills have always been some of my favorites. There’s something about the luxury that they always seem to get right. They’re eleg
ant without trying too hard. Comfortable. Private.
It’s everything Beth should want. Except she’s hardly said a word since we got off the plane. Right now, she’s sitting at the edge of the bed, pouting like only she can. It’s just as infuriating as it is appealing. I take my phone out and snap a picture of her and she looks up quizzically at me, but says nothing.
“Time out.” I sigh after a while and she glances up at me.
“What?”
“I’m calling a time out. I don’t want to be here if you don’t want to be here. It defeats the whole purpose of celebrating with you and that’s really all I’m trying to do.”
Her face slowly goes from pouty to neutral and I find myself hoping for a smile but neutral seems to be as good as I’m going to get.
“I’m sorry,” she finally says, and I sit beside her and start poking her side. “This is a lot. Like A LOT. And I’m just…taking it all in, I guess.”
A smile shifts onto her face and instantly, I feel a lot better. Crazy how we’re from two different worlds, completely the opposite of each other and yet, I feel like I fucking need her.
Crave her.
Want her like I’ve never wanted anyone.
I know it’s true, because right now, as calm and collected as I might look, I’m fucking nervous. I want her to have fun, to remember this, to experience every inch of this moment like it’s the last thing she’ll ever do. I want myself imprinted in a part of her memory that is filled with only the good stuff.
I steady her head between my palms and I kiss her. It’s a delicate kiss, yet rough. Soft, but hard. And when she moans into my mouth I know that it’s doing exactly what I intended for it to do – it’s reaching her heart.
“I have an idea,” I say, pulling back.
“Oh no,” she feigns concern and I roll my eyes at her.
“How about when we get back, we stay with your folks for a week?”
A look of horror crosses her face. “You’re kidding, right?”
“No. I realize that we’re from two different worlds. I’ve just dragged you into mine, so I’m giving you permission to drag me into yours.”
“We are absolutely not doing that.” Her hair swishes back and forth as she shakes her head.
“Why not?”
“We’re not having sex in my parents’ house.”
Of all the responses she could have given, that was not at all what I expected. I pretend to be offended by her comment.
“You only want me for my body?” I gasp and she falls over on the bed laughing at my damsel impression.
I hadn’t realized until now just how melodic her laugh is and something about it pulls me closer to her.
“So is that a ‘yes’ to the parents?” I whisper, sitting down beside her.
“A hard no.”
“How about,” I trail my fingers up her thigh, “If we rent a place for the week.”
“Maverick,” she protests, but I ignore her.
“You could lay down the law, tell me what to do, what not to do, be my tour guide.” I smile down and her and she shakes her head at me.
“You’d have to give up your sports car and ride the bus.” She raises an eyebrow at me and I can feel a frown deepen on my face.
“You’re right. It’s a dreadful idea.”
She laughs again and I find myself on top of her, staring down into her bright eyes.
“Stop laughing at me,” I warn her. She’s laughing so hard, there are actual tears rolling down the sides of her face.
I start tickling her side again. Weakly, she tries to fend me off. Watching her tiny arms trying to swat mine away and feeling her squirm beneath me, does nothing to keep my arousal at bay. I can feel my erection growing, fighting to get free.
“Stop. Maverick, please!” she squeals, her face red from exertion and her eyes watery.
“You promise not to laugh at me again?”
“I swear.” She tries to catch her breath and I lean in, resting my forehead against hers.
“I’m sorry for overreacting earlier,” she whispers. “It was a bit of a culture shock for me. I don’t want or need you to have to experience life through my eyes. It’s not fun. I don’t want that for you.”
“Careful,” I warn, “It almost sounds like you’re trying to protect me again.” I smirk down at her and I can feel the erratic fluttering of her heart against my chest.
I don’t understand this reaction that I’m having to her, but the magnetic pull of her lips is inescapable as I lean in further to get a taste of her.
Her eyes light up before I kiss her again. “We should really get going.” I groan in between kisses and she nods, draping her arms around my neck. I want to fuck her. I want to fuck her so bad. Slowly and rhythmic, until the orgasms bleed out of her like the perfect song.
“We should.” Her voice is breathy. She wants me to fuck her too. She wants me to fuck her so bad. So hard. So soft. So completely.
“Beth?”
“Mmmhmm.”
“We didn’t come to California to be holed up in a hotel room?”
She shakes her head, biting down on her lower lip.
“Beth?”
“Mmmhmm.”
“There’s no way I’m leaving this hotel room. Not right now. Not when you’re so alluring and intriguingly irresistible.”
I ease off her and drag my shirt over my head. A look of hunger darkens her features as she stares lustfully at me.
She shakes her head at me. Ever the defiant one. “Staying in was my idea and you shot it down, so no, we are not staying in.”
I make a dissatisfied face at her and she laughs, tracing her hand over my stomach. The look in her eyes softens as she traces the knights on my torso.
“Do they have a meaning?” Her voice is soft as she glances up at me and I can see strobe lights going off in my head.
Now?
She wants to talk about this now?
The hammering in my pants slowly starts to fade as I settle beside her on the bed. Her eyelashes rise and fall gently against her cheeks as she waits for me to answer her poorly timed question.
Do I really want to go into all that now?
When I look back at her, she’s patiently gnawing at her lips. Sex would be so much easier. So much more fun.
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” she says after a few more moments of awkward silence.
I take a deep breath. So deep that it stings my lungs. “This part,” I point to the knights and coat of arms, “Is my mother’s family crest.” Her eyes slowly fall to my bare chest. “The tower represents time and space and she’s trapped inside.” I can see the day I decided to get inked vividly in my head. The artist had been impressed with the design on paper, but when I showed him my scars, his eyes lit up with creative lust. He had made some minor adjustments to the design to mask my wounds perfectly and it had taken us about two weeks to get the whole thing done.
Beth is guiding her hands over those very scars now.
“And the dragon?” she asks, pulling me away from my thoughts.
The dragon... I expect that to be obvious, but I can already tell what her response is going to be, and I don’t know if I can take on much more of her insistence that I’m not as horrible a person as I know I am. She experienced first-hand just how dreadful I can be, so it boggles the fuck out of my mind that she is still willing to stare me in the face and tell me otherwise.
“It’s me,” I mutter, waiting for her response, but she traces the scales that are all welts and scar tissue from the accident.
“You’re guarding the tower,” she whispers, and I reach down to claim her hand.
“It’s the least I can do after what I did-”
“Stop that,” she snaps. “We talked about this. You didn’t do anything.”
“You weren’t there.”
“And you don’t remember,” she claps back, and I roll off the bed with a sigh.
“Today was supposed to be a celeb
ratory day. Why do we keep fighting?”
She laughs, covering her face with a pillow before throwing it across the room at me. I dodge it, then pick it up from the floor and toss it back at her.
“We’re not fighting, Maverick,” she says. “We’re just having a conversation. We don’t agree with each other, but that is not the definition of a fight.”
My lips twitch as I stare at her. She really is from a different world, isn’t she?
“Then what is?” I ask, crossing my arms over my chest, only to free them in an attempt to protect myself from the rain of pillows and cushions she starts to hurl at me.
“Hey!” I chuckle and she sticks her tongue out at me like a toddler and stands up on the mattress, bouncing around as I throw the pillows back at her.
It’s weird having this kind of fun in a room like this. She’s still fully clothed in a floral dress with thin straps and she’s not horizontal. Still I think this is easily the happiest I’ve ever been in a room with a bed, that I’m not even on.
When I hop up on the bed, Beth jumps off and starts to run around the room, giving rise to a high-speed chase. She slips under my arm when I try to grab her, and I take a tumble onto the sofa.
“Truce!” I bellow, sprawled out on the couch, trying to catch my breath and she stops running. I watch as she walks over to the sofa, her brown hair flying all over the place.
“I win?” she asks, panting as she sits between my legs. “You can’t really want to give up victory that easily.
“You win.” I hold up both hands and she grins. “But you also lose, because I was gonna fuck you soooo good. And now, I’m not.”
She pouts at that and blushes red as a fully bloomed rose.
Chapter
Beth
We took California by a storm. I’ve never walked as much, seen as much, or breathed as much in my entire life. From the Hollywood Walk of Fame to Universal Studios, Malibu to the Santa Monica Pier, Maverick and I packed as much as we could into the weekend. In between all that, I also tacked a few more life lessons onto my list.
Don’t stuff your face with cotton candy and ice cream before being spun head over ass in a rollercoaster. (I didn’t throw up, but I came pretty damn close).
Vile Intentions: A Dark Sports Bully Romance Page 21
