by Moxie North
“Yeah?”
“Uh, can you hand me my leg?”
“I’m sorry?”
“My leg, it’s in the corner.”
Prudence turned and looked around. She saw it leaning up against the wall by the counter. Walking over to it, she picked it up.
“Oof, it’s heavy!”
“Babe, did you think it was a peg leg?” Maverick’s concerned face broke into a grin. He looked apprehensive when she opened the door.
“Oh man, a peg leg! Instant Halloween costume! I’ve always wanted to go as a pirate wench!” She handed the leg through the door.
“Pru, I’m not wearing a peg leg. Although I’d look pretty bad ass in it.”
“You really shouldn’t be so willing to play dress-up with me. I have this whole cop scenario playing through my head right now.”
“Take a shower before I drag you back to bed and fuck you again.”
Maverick took the leg and used it to make a salute.
“Shit, that is so wrong,” Pru said with a laugh.
Maverick gave her a wink and she shut the door.
“Weirdo,” she whispered to the door.
Prudence got into the shower thinking that her Maverick was nothing like the man she met. He was funny, friendly, caring. He didn’t think she was too dorky. Not that Prudence minded being a dork. She loved her quirks. She liked talent shows, even elementary school ones. She watched anything on TV that had jugglers or bad singers. She thought bobble-headed animals were hysterical and had a secret collection back at her apartment that she would have to break to Maverick.
Her world needed sugar, veggie dogs, and karaoke. She couldn’t sing at all, but she was willing to try after a few beers. She loved her knitting and sewing, and felt guilty whenever she bought something new.
In the grand scheme of things, these were probably not deal breakers with any man. But Maverick was different. His life was faster, potentially more violent, and incredibly more complicated. He was the magic she always knew was in the world. Right in front of her was the man that proved she wasn’t as crazy as she thought. Well, as crazy as her parents thought.
Pru finished up in the shower and tied her hair up in a messy bun. She went out to the bedroom and found the bed was made. Did a magic fairy do it? Or did she find the only man in Oregon that would make a bed?
Since she was pretty sure there wasn’t a maid hiding in the closest, that meant he was tidy. That was like hitting the boyfriend jackpot.
Grabbing her clothes from the quilted bag she brought with her, she pulled out a pair of black leggings with hot pink folded paper airplanes on them. She topped it with a green paisley that was a swirl of emerald green and teal. If Ethel or Claire could see her they’d probably shake their heads.
She ran down the stairs, grabbed the newel post and swung around it with a jump. She headed to the kitchen and found Maverick in nothing but a pair of track pants standing by the counter. The full pot of coffee was steaming behind him and there were two prepped mugs waiting.
“All clean!” she announced.
Maverick turned and gave her a low growl. It stopped Pru in her tracks. It took her a second to realize that it was a good growl, not a bad one.
She waited for the light to settle in his eyes. “Sorry, did I startle you?”
His lip twitched before he said, “Even with my bum ears, I can still hear you breathing when you’re upstairs. You can’t sneak up on me.”
Pru bit the side of her lip. “Good to know.”
“Don’t do that with your lip unless you want me to kiss you, then fuck you on the kitchen table. I was going to try and be civilized and wait until after I fed you.”
“Hmm, I better get started on the frittata then.” Prudence was always down with some Maverick post-breakfast sex. At least she figured she was.
“Good idea,” he said turning back to the pot to pour two cups.
As he turned, Prudence got a view of his expansive back. There was an eagle that stretched across the top of his shoulders. It was a military looking tattoo. The eagle was holding a flag in its talons. There were names scrolled on a banner in the eagle’s mouth.
She stepped closer and saw his muscles tense. She lifted her hand to his back and slowly let her fingertips touch the wings of the bird. There were three names on the parchment.
Alexander Terry
Jennifer Evers
Bill Preston
Quietly she asked, “The names?”
“My squad, they didn’t make it.”
Under the bird on his lower right side was a line of footprints. One foot was a man’s foot, the other was paw print. Along his lower back was the word Redemption. On either side of the word was a set of tall trees. They didn’t look like the trees in Oregon; they were thicker and the branches thinner. The left side of his back was blank. It was glaring how his skin was unmarred and bare.
She traced all the lines as Maverick stood still. There under her fingers was the story of Maverick. She knew it was more than a few tattoos. It was him, each line a symbol of something he’d been through, or something he was still going through.
“The blank space?” she asked quietly.
He turned his head toward her. “My redemption isn’t complete.” His words were quiet and it tore something inside her.
“How is it not done yet?”
“I’m just not finished I guess. More I need to figure out, or more I need to do. I guess I’ll know it when I see it. Then I’ll be able to fill it in.”
Prudence didn’t feel like she had a right to say anything to that. It was too personal and too important. So she did all she could think of doing. She wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed a kiss to the middle of this back.
“Tell me about it someday?”
“Yeah, babe,” he said, putting his hands over hers and giving them a squeeze.
Giving him another kiss on his skin, she pushed away and walked to the fridge. She got out the supplies she’d bought and started making breakfast. She was chopping asparagus and tomatoes when Mav handed her a mug of coffee.
She took it with a smile and took a sip. It was just like she liked it, cream and extra sugar. Maybe this mate thing had its perks. Pru didn’t say anything, just went back to her chopping.
Maverick moved to pull out a bowl and a whisk. He started cracking eggs into the bowl. He stopped at four and looked at her.
“Keep going.”
Maverick continued cracking until he’d put in a full dozen. Pru handed him a block of cheese and said, “Grate.”
“Worse than a drill sergeant. What next? Peeling potatoes?”
“No, this will be enough for even a hungry man like you.”
“You don’t know how right you are. Aren’t you missing something like meat? No bacon, no sausage?
Pru turned toward him with a small grin. “I’m a vegetarian.”
She watched his eyes as he tried to process this information.
“You don’t eat meat. At all?”
“No, haven’t since I was little. But I have a junk food habit I’m not proud of. It’s not that I think everyone has to be vegan or anything. I just didn’t like the idea of eating something with a face. You, of course, have to eat meat. I mean, you’re a wolf and that’s just nature. I wouldn’t stop you from eating it. I don’t know if I can cook it though. You might have to do that for yourself. I’m really good at making sides though. I’m all about the non-meat sides.”
She knew she was rambling, but it felt awkward telling a man that had a real carnivore living inside him that she was a plant eater.
“I think we can figure something out. I eat lots of things if you remember.” That was said with a glint that had her girly parts twitching.
Just being in his presence made her struggle to keep her eyes from going over to the kitchen table. Him being shirtless didn’t hurt either.
Keeping her eyes on her work, she focused on not cutting her fingers off. She finished up and put the di
sh in the oven. She picked her coffee back up and turned to face Maverick.
Taking a sip, she eyed him leaning against the counter, one hand behind him on the edge. He took a sip of his coffee and looked back at her.
They both stared for a while, the tension between them building. Prudence was trying to decide if she had time to give him a blow job before the buzzer went off. She decided she did.
Setting down her cup, she walked over to him and dropped to her knees in front of her man.
“Babe, what are you…”
Prudence wrapped her hands around his waistband and gave it a tug.
“Killing time.”
Chapter 24
Maverick got a stellar blow job as they waited for their breakfast. He wouldn’t normally let a woman get on her knees for him. He just didn’t think it was a very comfortable position. He didn’t mind doing it. He’d happily get down on his knees for Pru. Especially if it meant he was getting his fill of her pussy. It took some maneuvering for him to get down on his knees, so if he was going to do it, it would only be for her.
But Pru gave him the attention like he’d never had before. She wasn’t just trying to get him off. She was showing him how much she cared. Her mouth was hot and soft. It wrapped around his cock as she took him deep into her mouth. She alternated between sucking and licking, her hand moving over his slick cock pumping him in a steady rhythm that had his balls drawing up. For a moment he debated about pulling out before watching her swallow him down. She milked his sticky cum out of him, lapping up every drop. Her eyes shined up at him the entire time, full of emotion and sexual prowess.
She finished before the buzzer went off. She got off the floor like it was a totally normal thing, gave him a quick kiss, and then pulled the casserole dish out of the oven.
“Get some plates?”
Maverick tried to get his eyes to focus on her. He’d just come and was still seeing stars. He looked down and saw that Prudence had tucked him back into his pants. Now she was bent over the stove and that wasn’t helping his dick go down. It seemed that around Pru, there wasn’t a state of flaccid anymore. He was ready, willing, and able at a moment’s notice.
“Mav, plates?”
“Uh, yeah,” he turned around and opened a cupboard.
He set the table and they both sat down to eat. Maverick would have been happy sitting and enjoying Pru’s cooking. But he felt like he missed out on the last few days. So he asked her about her family. Asked more about her time traveling in other countries. She asked him about his life and he evaded as many questions as he could.
“You really aren’t going to tell me?” she said, putting down her fork.
“I just don’t have a lot to tell. Anything else is in my past. You’re my future. I don’t see why we need to go over it.”
Prudence wanted to get angry, but she couldn’t. He was hiding and she could see there was so much hurt behind it. She didn’t know how she was going to fix that. But she was sure it was going to be on her to do it. She’d have to talk to Deacon again.
She watched as Mav stood up and walked to a box on the counter by the kitchen door. It looked like an old bread box but smaller. Prudence hadn’t snooped while she was in the kitchen. The box seemed ominous and she wasn’t sure she wanted to know what was in it.
Mav picked something out of it and returned to the table. It was long, black, and kind of looked like a pen.
“What’s the plan today?”
“I need to go to the camp. Check in and see what Deacon has scheduled for me.” Maverick put the black pen to his mouth and sucked on it until the end glowed.
“You smoke?” she practically screeched as he blew out a cloud of smoke.
“No, I vape like a hipster. I’m addicted to the nicotine but don’t want to reek of smoke. This is my compromise,” he said, taking another drag.
“Uh, okay?”
“You don’t like it? It won’t make stuff smell bad. It’s just water vapor, so you don’t get any second hand.”
“I guess I’ve just never been around anyone that does it. It still smells like cigarettes,” she said, crinkling her nose.
“That’s because it’s tobacco flavor. Fuck me,” he said with a sigh. “I’ll switch flavors if it makes you happy.”
“Flavors like what?”
Maverick rubbed his hands over his face. “You name it they have it.”
“Oh, like vanilla?”
“Christ, yes, like vanilla.”
Nobody could say that Maverick wasn’t willing to sacrifice for his mate. If the club gave him any shit he’d just knock them out.
“Okay. I don’t have to work today. I guess I could just hang out here. I don’t want to get in the way at your…job.”
“Babe, it’s not a job, it’s my club. And you wouldn’t be in the way. Come with me. The pack should get to know you. But I have to warn you. The club isn’t about sharing and butterflies and shit.”
“Butterflies?”
“I’m saying don’t ask questions unless they are to me. I’d prefer you didn’t ask them in front of anyone. Pretty much everything you see or hear is club business. I’ll talk to Deacon and let him know where we stand. He’ll make sure the club knows that you belong to me and you’re off limits.”
Pru raised her eyebrow at the belonging part.
“Do you think I belong to anyone else but you?” he asked.
She wasn’t sure how to answer that. Normally she would give her standard answer of personal ownership and sometimes she would throw in that it was against the law. This time she didn’t.
She took a hard look at the man across from her. What would it feel like to be able to tell people he was hers? That this handsome man had eyes only for her? She still wasn’t sure she believed that she was the only one for him for the rest of their lives. His eyes told her that he didn’t see that as a problem.
If she felt possessive toward him and he to her, why was ownership such a bad concept? He’d promised to keep her safe, cared for, not loved, but certainly adored. Maybe that was that great thing everyone was striving for. A connection so strong you felt that you were the only two people in the world. That the universe had let you in on a cosmic bond that was a very small club.
“I really hope not. Because the more time I spend with you the greedier I feel. I’ve never been a jealous woman. With you I could see myself scratching and pulling hair if I had to.”
He smiled at her. “I don’t scratch or pull hair, but I would kill for you,” he said, his smile fading. “That’s no lie, Pru. No one touches you, hurts you, or looks at you sideways while I’m around.”
Prudence thought that was a rather bold statement. Violence was not something she was comfortable with, but she was currently considering shacking up with a man that was comfortable using his fists to solve problems. That was something she was going to have to come to terms with if she wanted to be with him.
“You know there is a lady at the book store that gives me weird looks because I sniff the books. You wanna go beat her up for me?”
“How old is she?”
“Don’t know, like, sixty-five?”
“I’ll probably just growl at her and make her piss herself. That’s worked in the past.”
Pru took a sip of her coffee. “Works for me.”
“You sniff the books?”
Pru put her cup back down. “Yeah, ever smelled a really old book? It’s old and musty, but I like to think the story has been marinating so long it makes that smell. Like the story could get better the older it is.”
“You know that’s just the pages decomposing, right?”
She stuck her tongue out at him. “Don’t ruin the mystique.”
Mav chuckled and glanced down at the cup in his hands. His smiled faded down to a line. It looked as though he was thinking about something very deep and very important. Pru waited to see if he was going to share it with her.
When nothing came, she finished her coffee and got up, taking h
er dishes to the sink.
“I’ll clean up if you want to shower?”
“Probably a good idea. I don’t mind going around smelling like you all day, but you might not like the comments.”
Pru let one of the dishes clatter into the sink. “They could smell me?”
“Oh yeah, and the old-timers don’t have filters. I could tell them not to say anything, but they probably would risk it just to see you blush.”
“Oh gawd, that would be mortifying.”
“Yeah, I’ll go shower.”
Pru had turned her back to him to focus on the dishes. She didn’t jump when his arms slid around her, his warm chest pressing against her back. “I’ve got you. Nobody does or says anything to you to upset you. I take care of you now.”
Giving him a nod, he kissed her neck and walked away. Pru couldn’t say anything. She’d never had someone that would take care of her. Her mother was not overly maternal and her father was always absent. She didn’t have a big extended family she could rely on. She’d always felt like it was just her against the world. Now this man wanted to claim her and all that went with her.
She wasn’t sure if she should like it. There was no doubt the warm sensation in her tummy had to mean that she wasn’t as against someone wanting to protect and care for her as she thought. She was still strong enough to do it for herself. It humbled her to think of the sacrifice someone would have to make to take on another person. That was something deep, even if it wasn’t love
Shaking off her heavy thoughts, she finished up in the kitchen and picked up her purse from the table. She’d left her phone upstairs, so she went to the bottom of the stairs and yelled up to Maverick.
His head popped over the railing from the hallway by his room. The hair on his head was still damp, his beard looking dark from the water.
“Grab my phone for me?”
She got a chin lift in return and it made her smile as she went to the powder room downstairs. She was feeling very domestic and it made her feel giddy. Pru brushed on some powder, a couple layers of mascara, and her favorite all natural-tinted lip balm. It wasn’t fancy and most likely a lot lighter than anything the other women would be wearing today, but it was just normal Pru.
