Taming A Maverick (The Sterling Shore Series #11)

by C. M. Owens

  “Sean’s smartassery is starting to make more sense now,” I retort, causing her to chuckle as I move toward the bed.

  As soon as we’re side by side, I wrap my arm around her shoulders, drawing her to me, as I find the sappiest fucking romantic movie I can.

  “I’m not watching Titanic with you,” Salem tells me.

  I shift to a different movie.

  “I’m also not watching Pride and Prejudice unless it’s the zombie version.”

  Another movie.

  “Nope. Princess Bride is so not happening.”

  I drop the remote, giving up, and she picks it up, giggling a little as she starts looking up different movies.

  “I don’t do zombie movies,” I say when she tries to pick one.

  She moves on.

  “Or alien invasion movies.”

  A little growl of frustration leaves her lips.

  “Or super nerd movies.”

  She drops the remote and we both stare at the TV, trying not to smile.

  “When does the chill part happen?” she asks, looking up at me.

  “What if we just skip to the part where I’m subtly letting my hand drop lower and lower until I’m copping a feel?”

  She shifts, her body pressing up against mine a little firmer as she gets comfortable, her head resting on my shoulder.

  “Or we could just talk and get to know each other. You want to be friends. I’d like that. I’ve had tons of sex with guys I cared nothing about and guys who cared nothing about me. I’ve had very few friends.”

  The sincerity in what she’s saying snaps me out of everything I had on my brain.

  “You grew up in Georgia, right?” is the first question I blurt out.

  A smile spreads across her face. “Mostly. It’s the closest thing to a home I have. We go back there after each divorce or annulment. Usually we end up in the South somewhere even when Mom does find a new man. You’ve always been in Sterling Shore?”

  “A Sterling is nothing without Sterling Shore,” I tell her, twirling a piece of her soft hair around my finger as her eyes flick to my Sterling tattoo. “All the Sterlings stay here.”

  And for exactly three hours, I don’t make a joke—new world record for me. I actually listen, and for once in my entire life, I’m serious with a girl.

  Chapter 17

  SALEM

  “One year on and one year off?” Maverick asks, working damn hard to understand my complicated family.

  We’ve been talking for hours about anything and everything.

  I don’t think I’ve ever done this with anyone. And to be honest, I don’t think he has either. At least not without a thousand jokes to lighten up the serious conversation and keep things from becoming real.

  I have that habit too.

  Call us kindred.

  “Yeah. Both of them. They’d live with their fathers for a year, and live with Mom and me—and Sean, after he came along—for a year. Connor got a hockey scholarship up north. Tyler has a wife and four kids.”

  We’re lying on our sides, a small gap between our bodies, as we stare into each other’s eyes. Fully dressed, I might add.

  “I still can’t believe you said you hate sports, yet you grew up in the South,” he says, shaking his head in mock disappointment.

  His arm is under my head, but that’s the only place we’re touching. And though it has to have fallen asleep by now, he keeps it there.

  I grin. “Stereotype much?” I ask, and he rolls his eyes. “I hate all sports, but I’ve always made time to go watch my two athletic brothers do things with balls and pucks. I take Sean to some of Connor’s hockey games when I can. And we also go watch Tyler play basketball.”

  “Tyler have an office team he plays with or something?” he asks sincerely, since he knows Tyler is two years older than me.

  “Something like that,” I say with a secretive grin. “You went to the school where Sean goes now, right?” I ask him, shifting the subject.

  He nods, smirking. “It was just a step above regular public school back then. The Sterlings made it a school that people all over the country try sending their kids to.”

  He’s proud of his name. His lineage. His home.

  I get it. I wish I had that.

  His smile wavers. “Don’t get mad, but the kid sort of told me about your dad. I didn’t mean to pry behind your back.”

  Sean usually doesn’t tell anyone personal things about either of us. Despite the fact he tortured Maverick, Maverick still must have done something to make my brother trust him.

  “There’s not much to the story, and no, my mother’s cold influence didn’t drive him to drink. He got drunk a lot. Even when he was married to Mom. He was her biggest score, because he was drunk in Vegas when he married her—no prenup—and she fought him for every dime she could when they had me and got divorced. He died about two years after that, leaving a casino too drunk to see, and figured he could still drive in that condition. Fortunately, it was just himself who was killed.”

  Maverick reaches up, brushing my hair out of my face. I hope he doesn’t think I’m a cold-hearted woman like Mom just because this no longer causes me to have any emotion. I’m just desensitized to it from telling the story so many times, and I don’t remember him at all.

  Just a thousand pictures of his heavy eyes and drunken drool hanging out of his mouth are all I have of him. He never looked sober in any of the pictures.

  “I didn’t drink for a long time, worried I’d be like him. Then I learned there’s such a thing as moderation. Not that it was all his fault. Alcoholism is a disease. He just chose not to treat the disease,” I go on.

  “We used to steal Dad’s beer when we were sixteen and we’d drink in my basement—only at his house. He usually didn’t notice—or if he did, he pretended not to. But Mom? Gah, she marked a line on her wine bottles so that she’d know if I’d stolen even a sip,” he tells me, groaning, and my smile only doubles.

  That’s actually smart, and I should be doing that.

  His phone rings, and he leans over, grabbing it and answering it without taking his eyes off me.

  “What’s up?” he asks, putting it on speaker.

  “Hey, Harley just bought a—”

  “No,” Maverick says firmly, glaring at the phone suddenly.

  “Damn it, Maverick, just tell me how to—”

  “Hell. No. Use Google. Or that kinky app Harley designed. Do not ask me whatever it is you want to ask me.”

  “But you—”

  “I’m currently watching two chicks on TV get to the good part, and my lotion is waiting, Dale,” Maverick deadpans, almost convincing me that’s exactly what he’s doing, even though I’m perfectly aware of what he’s actually doing. “My spank bank is still being replenished to override some of the images you’ve put into my head.”

  I grin as he shakes his head, rolling his eyes.

  “Too much information,” Dale says.

  “Says the motherfucker calling me to ask for my knowledge on some new kink Harley wants to try out. Google, Dale. Save my dreams.”

  He hangs up, putting the phone far away from him, and turns his attention back to me.

  “What were we talking about?” he asks, pretending as though all that didn’t just go down.

  “What just happened?” I ask, pointing at his phone.

  “I don’t want to talk about it. Really. I don’t,” he states flatly.

  Obviously that only rouses my curiosity more, and I sit up, scooting closer. Not sure why I feel the need to be closer, but I do. He moves over to his back, eyebrow arching at me when I casually toss my leg over his waist.

  “You have to tell me now. That’s like telling someone a joke, but withholding the punchline at the last second,” I argue.

  He points his finger at me. “No. Not happening. My dick will stay limp for a week if I start talking about it, and I happen to be in the minority of men who love morning wood.”

  I burst out laughing,
and he winks at me, his hand going to my leg and running up it. I sort of regret opting to wear these shorts now, since the feel of his hand on my leg is a thousand times more intimate than it should feel.

  He tucks an arm behind his head, angling it a little more, watching me. My laughter cut off abruptly when he touched me, and I’ve sort of just been staring a little obviously at him ever since.

  “I’d be a terrible boyfriend,” he says finally, confusing me.

  “Who’s asking you to be a boyfriend?” I muse, trying to sound sassy and not panicked.

  Please, for fuck’s sake, tell me I didn’t just ask him to be my boyfriend!

  I have this thing where I sometimes say things without realizing I said them, but I’m almost positive I didn’t say that.

  “That’s the real reason I never had a serious relationship,” he goes on, like he’s explaining the question I asked so long ago. “My dad cheated on my mom when I was a kid. Ended their marriage. Before that, they argued all the time. Dad’s a natural flirt, even though most of the time he’s not actually flirting, if you know what I mean. It always drove Mom insane. After constantly being accused of cheating, he finally did cheat just to end things. Broke her fucking heart to pieces.”

  He clears his throat as I reach down, running my hand over his chest like I’m trying to soothe him, even though he doubtfully needs soothing. I feel like I’m supposed to do something, even if it is making this awkward.

  “Anyway, fourteen years later, he marries your mom, and my mom finally decides to start dating again. She’s been waiting all these years. He knows it. I know it. She knows it. The thing is, she wants him to be someone completely different. And she couldn’t ever be secure enough in their relationship to trust him. Imagine how little trust there’d be now that he’s broken it,” Maverick goes on.

  “That’s why you don’t care about our parents being married. Your dad marrying my mom means your mom will finally move forward with her life.”

  He nods, absently lacing our fingers together like it’s a natural thing. “There’s a good chance my dad is using your mom as much as she’s using him. Because he knew my mother would never move on until she felt like he had. That’s not to say my dad doesn’t like your mom, but you get what I mean.”

  Desperate measures for a woman he cared about and broke. Sort of tragically sweet.

  “I’m a lot like my dad. Flirting harmlessly, never meaning anything by it usually. Hell, it’s how I talk to ninety percent of my friends. I even do shit like that with the guys. The downtown kink store thinks Corbin, Dale, and I have normal threesomes.”

  My eyebrows go up as a very hot image flashes in my head, and I barely pause my hand in the air to stop from fanning myself. His lips curve in a knowing grin.

  “Obviously it’s disgusting that your mind just went there,” he points out. “We’re blood-related cousins. I mean, I’ve heard rumors about kissing cousins in the South but—”

  His words end on a laughing grunt when I slap him across the chest.

  “In my head, you’re just three strangers who met for the first time. In a honky-tonk. Chaps might be in this image.”

  He loses it, laughing so hard that he shakes the bed, and I watch like I can’t look away. As his laughter tapers off, he tugs on my hand, studying it.

  “The point is,” he says, his eyes still on my hand, “I can’t be someone else. And relationships are complicated. I’d never want someone to be as pitiful as my mother was during their marriage. She’s fierce now. Fully confident. She was a shell of that woman then, because she was so worried he was serious when he said something. Sort of like the things I said to Bella tonight.”

  My lips purse. “What you said with Bella was just joking around. Not flirting.”

  He gives me an eye roll. “You pointed out that I was flirting at Dad’s house that day I accidentally ran into you, and I was doing the same thing then.”

  “No,” I say, pointing at him. “Totally different. You were dropping all kinds of hints to me about our little encounter, and by encounter, I mean the quickie—”

  “Warmup,” he interrupts as though he’s programmed to do it.

  I fight my smile as he silently dares me to call it a quickie again.

  “Anyway, that was flirting. When you make inside jokes about the sex you’ve had to the person you had the sex with, it’s flirting. Joking around with someone you’ve never slept with and don’t intend to sleep with, using double entendre and ass jokes is not flirting. Major difference. At least to me.”

  He studies me like he doesn’t believe me.

  “And you still change, even if you don’t want to,” I go on, shrugging. “Relationships do that. It’s how you change that should tell you what sort of relationship you’re in. If you go from a happy optimist to a miserable shut-in, there’s a good chance the relationship is toxic. But everyone changes, evolving together.”

  He goes back to studying my hand like it’s fascinating.

  “Who’s your dream couple?” I ask him, knowing this is dangerous territory.

  He jerks my hand suddenly, and I let out a yelp as I awkwardly fall to his chest.

  “Are you asking me a Brangelina sort of question?” he asks with a grin as I shove my hair out of my face and try not to focus on the fact that I’m lying on his chest. Or that my leg is still over his waist, making this almost like I’m straddling him very intimately.

  “I mean out of your friends. Rye and Brin have this like crazy magical connection. If you tell them this, I’ll hate you, but sometimes I just like to watch them.”

  He looks at me like I’ve sprouted a second head.

  “What?” I ask defensively.

  “Rye and Brin? The prankster couple from hell? The couple we all dread seeing, because there’s a good chance we’re going to end up with food dye in our mouths, or something else just as bad?”

  I roll my eyes. “Not the pranks, though I do enjoy watching them get creative. It’s the after that I like so much. The way he always catches her, and it always turns to something sweet, which makes zero sense. But it’s…magical.”

  An embarrassing, dreamy sigh escapes me.

  Maverick continues to stare at me like I’ve lost my damn mind.

  “Forget it,” I mumble, looking down at his chest and avoiding eye contact.

  “Kode and Tria,” he finally says.

  I peer up to find him glaring at me.

  “I swear, if you ever tell Kode I said this, I will hunt you down and shave you bald. I don’t give a damn about the fact I love your hair. It will be gone in an instant.”

  Working to keep a straight face, I nod, accepting the very odd terms.

  He narrows his eyes, hesitating as though he’s not sure he trusts me with this top secret information.

  “Kode and Tria because they are constantly together. Out of all the couples, they spend the least amount of time apart. Yet they act like they don’t have enough time together,” he goes on.

  I run my finger along his chest, studying him.

  “You don’t like being alone very much, do you?” I ask, thinking back to how often I’ve heard about him out with his friends or out doing things. Tonight alone, he’s told me about dozens of gatherings like tonight that he’s gone to over the past month. Maverick is the only constant. They’re not all always there. Just bits and pieces of them on different nights.

  But Maverick is always there unless there’s somewhere else he’s at—somewhere else with people.

  “You wouldn’t be as pretty bald, so I suggest keeping that to yourself,” he says, then eyes me when I grin.

  “I’d be hot as hell bald. Britney Spears style.”

  A rumble of laughter escapes him, and he shakes his head. Maverick Sterling, the guy who makes a joke out of life and is always around for all his friends, and has a string of one-night stands, hates being alone. And he’s the only single one left.

  Besides this Britt chick I’ve heard of but still haven’t s
een. Starting to think she’s a myth. But she’s a lot younger.

  He’s the last of his cousins, which means they all have relationships, and he spends more and more time alone.

  “If we’re being honest, I’m not a fan of being alone either. I hate it on the nights Sean is at Mom’s. Sometimes, I actually go over there just so I’m not at the house alone.”

  I sigh dramatically, because that really is an embarrassing confession. I expect him to laugh, but when I look back into his eyes, he’s regarding me with something I can’t decipher.

  I’m not sure who initiates it. One second our mouths are inches apart, the next they’re fused together in a desperate, bruising kiss.

  In one fluid motion, he flips me so that I’m on my back, and he comes down on top of me, his weight settling on me in just the right amount. My fingers tangle in his soft hair as he takes his time, exploring my mouth with his tongue in a way that has me moaning.

  I’m not sure how long we kiss, but I know my lips are swollen and my body is begging for more by the time he finally breaks the kiss and starts dragging those incredible lips down my neck.

  “Tell me to stop, and I will,” he murmurs against my neck.

  “Don’t stop,” is the immediate response that flies out of my mouth.

  I feel him grin against my chest as he works his way down, kissing me through the material of my shirt as he works it up with his hands.

  He takes his time taking my shirt off, kissing all of my upper body, teasing me, dragging it out.

  I lose patience.

  “Maverick, if you don’t fuck me, there’s a good chance I’m going to your bathroom and taking matters into my own hands.”

  He laughs and kisses me again, as I reach between us, shoving my shorts down.

  That’s the thing that snaps his control.

  Finally.

  He rises up, tugging his shirt off without undoing the buttons—hot!—as I slip out of my bra, my eyes not moving from the hard planes of perfectly placed muscle. There’s not an ounce of bulk on him. Every muscle is lean and sculpted, not too exaggerated but certainly not lacking.