23. Sophie
23
Sophie
“ W hat the fuck do you mean, he revolted ?” Maverick snarled, stirring me awake. I pushed onto my hands, glancing around his dark bedroom before I saw the bedroom door ajar and heard his voice drifting from down the hallway.
Frowning, I climbed out of bed and tiptoed to the door, listening to him murmur angrily into his phone.
“I hear what you’re saying, but I want to know why. Did you even fucking bother to ask?”
I flinched at the harshness in his voice. This was Maverick. This was the side I saw when I first met him: brutal, ruthless, dangerous. Not a man I wanted to cross.
His earlier confession rose up in my mind. I’ve killed people who crossed me.
“Not acceptable, P. I don’t care what you have to do. You fucking drag his ass down here so I can ask him myself.” A pause. “And when you do, tell him I’m going to tear him limb by limb for what he’s done.”
Nothing but silence met me for a beat—there were no parting words, no goodbyes—just the low, weighted kind of quiet that told me everything I needed to know. The call was over. I exhaled, straightened, and scurried back to bed, checking the time to see it was a little after three in the morning.
I wondered if this was what my parents’ marriage was like. My dad up at all hours handling God knew what while my mom worried from bed.
It was a few minutes before Maverick pushed the door open, wearing only a pair of low-slung gray sweats. His head was ducked so I could only see the hard set of his jaw, but the tension in his shoulders concerned me.
I doubted he’d open up to me about what had happened, but it was still worth trying. “Is everything okay?”
His head snapped up, eyes wide as he rounded his side of the bed and climbed in. “I didn’t mean to wake you,” he said instead of answering.
I crawled over to him and curled into his side, taking a moment to listen to the rapid beat of his heart. “That call sounded intense. You don’t have to talk about it with me, but you won’t scare me off if you do.”
I hated that it was the truth. In a matter of months, all of my morals—or, what morals I thought I had—had been thrown out the window. I no longer cared what was right and wrong, only that he was okay.
He was quiet as he rubbed a soothing hand down my back. “It seems, Sophie, that you don’t need to swoop in to take everything from me.”
His words felt like an ominous ice pick to my heart. “W-what do you mean?”
A heavy sigh. “Nothing. I’m sorry for disturbing you. You should get some rest.”
He’s shutting me out.
It felt like everything I’d expressed to him mere hours ago was already coming to fruition. But then again, maybe I was overthinking everything.
Yeah. That’s what it was.
Because even though he was a criminal and ran a dangerous drug empire, I trusted him to keep his word.
That’s what I told myself as I turned away from him and tried to will myself back to sleep.
***
The next morning, the dark cloud crowding my subconscious hadn’t dissipated. Something was still off. He’d woken before me, and a desperate part of me wanted to chase after him, but I didn’t. I lay awake, facing the floor-to-ceiling windows as rain pelted the glass.
How apt.
Last night was nothing like our first night together. Sure, he punished me again, and his words were filthy, but it all felt like it came from a place of reverence. Sex felt more intimate. We talked. We laughed. We spent the night kissing softly, our hands wandering and our limbs entangling. Memorizing each other.
And then that phone call.
He’s a busy man. He’s probably stressed.
My brain reasoned with my heart while my gut warred with my fight-or-flight response.
Finally, I tossed the blankets off and stormed into the bathroom when I heard the shower start. I stripped out of his T-shirt and opened the steamy shower door, the heat curling around me as I stepped inside. Maverick stood beneath the cascading water, head tipped back, muscles slick and glistening. For a moment, he stayed like that, shoulders tense, fingers flexing at his sides, like he was trying to let the water rinse away more than just last night. Then he exhaled sharply, rolling his shoulders before lowering his head, pinning me with a slow, deliberate smile—one that told me everything I needed to know. The phone call still sat heavy between us, but he wasn’t going to talk about it.
“Good morning.” There was a gravelly note to his voice that gave me goosebumps as I stepped under the water with him, my styled hair forgotten. I just wanted to be close to him.
God, clingy much?
“Morning. I forgot to tell you last night that I’m going to brunch with Callie this morning. It’s kind of a tradition. Does that throw a wrench in your plans?”
He shook his head, water droplets falling onto my face from his wet, dark hair. “No. I have to go attend to some matters at the club today.”
My heart plummeted. “Oh. Is everything—I mean, does it have to do with last night’s phone call?”
Maverick stilled before pulling me into his arms, my back to his front, where I could feel him hardening—conveniently keeping us from being face to face. I let him take his time lathering shampoo into my hair while I fought the urge to groan at how divine it felt. Sure, it was a distraction, but I’d indulge it… for now.
He finally spoke as we finished rinsing off all the soap covering our bodies. “Last night I got a call that one of my men sold our operations out to a rival cartel. When questioned by one of his runners, he declared, ‘Long live the Reyes’ reign’ just before a member of the rivals shot him in the leg. They had the decency to call Paulie and let him know he was our problem to deal with. They left him bleeding and limping down the street.” He sounded cold and detached, much like how I felt hearing my family’s name.
I hated it.
I also hated how fucking angry it made me that the second I started to find happiness, the universe had to go and smear its darkness all over it. Why did I even bother trying to find anything resembling brightness in my otherwise pitch-black world? There was clearly no fucking point.
Damn damn damn.
Maybe it was best I just get out while I could.
Or maybe this is what the remaining members of my father’s reign wanted.
The loyalty Maverick had told me about.
I wiggled out of his grasp, stepping back to put my hands on my hips. Water rained down over his golden skin, glistening off his chiseled frame. I needed to focus, so I traced my fingers in meaningless patterns on the steamed glass.
“ Dios mio ,” I mumbled and rubbed my forehead. “ Estos es jodidamente ridículo. ” The Spanish words— This is fucking ridiculous —tumbled from my mouth before I could stop them. “Don’t tell me you think this has anything to do with me, Maverick. Don’t blow this up before it’s even started.”
He blinked, and the Maverick I’d come to know resurfaced. He stepped toward me in his massive shower—really, who needed this much room?—and I shook my head to stop him. “Jesus Christ, Sophie, no. I—” he cut himself off before groaning in frustration and shutting the water off, stepping around me and yanking a towel off a hook as he did.
He dried himself off a bit before whipping around with the towel secured around his waist. “Of course I don’t think you’re involved. I trust you. I’m just trying to decide how much to tell you. At the end of the day you’re still a cop, Detective, ” he sneered, making me flinch as I stood sopping wet in the shower. “Believe it or not, I do have a guilty conscience about sending you back to work knowing you’re sleeping with a morally gray monster. You’re already culpable for being an accomplice to too many of my fucking crimes based on your knowledge alone.”
Maverick grabbed my arm to pull me out of the shower, gripping another fluffy towel and gently drying me off.
For a moment, I contemplated quitting my job. For a man. What is wrong with me?
Heaving a sigh, I asked, “Do you know why he would all of a sudden rebel?"
“No. Paulie hadn’t gotten it out of him yet when I spoke with him. But like I told you a few weeks ago, most of our crew are still loyal to the Reyes family, should you choose to step in. My only theory is someone has caught wind of our involvement together. Word spreads fast on the streets.”
I took the towel from him and gently scrunched my waves to get the water out. The last thing I wanted was for false information to drive a wedge between us, or to take away everything he’d built his life around. “Would it help if I stepped in?”
He narrowed his eyes, the blue in them darkening. “What do you mean, step in ?”
I shrugged. “Like, make a public statement to your guys claiming I have no intention of being involved in this business and the Reyes family supports you and your family.”
“Hmm. Maybe. But what do you gain from this?”
I ignored the sting of the question, because this was take-no-prisoners, ruthless, business-oriented, deal-making Maverick, and I had to learn to separate my emotions with a man like him. So, I squared my shoulders and looked him dead in the eyes. “You.”
His gaze softened. “Me?”
I shrugged again. “Yes. You, without questioning my intentions, without this hanging over us. We can just be us.”
He grabbed my hips and pulled me into him. “I like the sound of there being an us in all of this.”
Beaming brightly at him, I stood on my tiptoes to kiss him. I let him deepen it, let him thread his fingers into my waves, before I pulled away, thrilled at him even considering my idea at all. “Think about it?”
He dipped his chin. “I’ll talk to Paulie and Duane about it after we interrogate the rebel.”
One of my brows arched. “Interrogate, huh? Maybe my professional lingo is rubbing off on you.”
He barked out a laugh that had my core tightening. He ripped the towel off my body, growling, “Fat chance. Now, go get on the bed on all fours. I want to fuck you from behind before I leave.”
I swallowed and half ran back into the bedroom to obey, suddenly excited in a whole different way. Maverick was behind me seconds later with a hand on my hip and another rubbing my slit. My back arched on instinct, my hips rocking back onto his magical fingers.
“Look at my little whore, already so wet for me,” he purred, then smacked my ass. I gasped at the sharp but fleeting pain. “You’re a good girl who likes to be punished when she does bad things, aren’t you?”
I nodded, biting my lip, even though he couldn’t see it. Couldn’t punish me for it.
“Fucking say it.” Another smack on my ass.
The words came out as a whimper. “I’m your bad girl who likes when you punish me.”
The hand on my hip slid up until it grabbed my throat. “That’s right. You’re my girl. Good and bad. Angelic and bratty. I fucking love it.” His fingers continued to work me, making me pulse as I climaxed. He groaned. “I need to be inside you. Now.”
Before I’d even caught my breath, he pushed into me, stretching me in the way only he could. The backs of my thighs pressed against the front of his, his hand still firmly on my throat, squeezing just enough to labor my breathing.
Then he started moving, and he was far from gentle.
“Yes,” I moaned. “God, yes, Mav.”
“I fucking love hearing you say my name, baby. Say it again,” he said through his grunts.
“You feel so big, Maverick.” Returning the praise felt right, especially in light of last night.
“Fuck,” he breathed, releasing my throat to grab my hair and twist it around his hand, forcing my back to arch further and deepening the angle he was thrusting. “I can feel all of you, Soph.”
The way he said my name had my heart tumbling, falling into the abyss that was Maverick Mercer. So reverently, so beautifully.
“Just right for me.” His words were so quiet, I wasn’t sure I was meant to hear them at all, but it didn’t matter because seconds later another orgasm erupted inside me, taking all of my strength and thought with it.