11. Maverick
11
Maverick
I mpatience pulsed through me like a second heartbeat as I waited for Sophie to answer my question. I refrained from adjusting my cock in my dress pants. I was so fucking hard after watching her scare Priscilla off with her dirty words and ironclad grip on my thigh.
If I wasn’t mistaken, it was coming from a place of jealousy. As much as I shouldn’t like that, because I was sworn off wanting her, I fucking loved it. She was getting a taste of her own medicine after that stunt she’d pulled, fucking another man after dry-fucking me in my own goddamn club.
And fuck, I really fucking missed seeing her face and hearing her voice.
She gave me a playful smirk. “What was what, sir?”
I groaned and shifted in my chair. I was close to excusing myself to the bathroom so I could take care of the issue in my pants. “You come in here dressed like this with that filthy fucking mouth and have the audacity to play dumb?”
Sophie full-on grinned now. “Don’t tell me you didn’t like it.” I glowered at her. “Come on, Maverick, you missed me. Admit it. Now why don’t you tell me why you suddenly stopped stalking me.”
I picked up my wine glass, which she swiped from me. I watched the dark red liquid bead on her lip before she licked it off. Fucking torture. I wanted to lick it off her lips. To taste every inch of her sinful body.
“First of all, I was never stalking you.” Goddamn liar! “Second of all, you made it very clear you wanted me to leave you alone.”
She handed my glass back to me and snorted softly. “Please. You expect me to buy that bullshit? It never stopped you before. So either you got what you wanted out of me, or you found me so repulsive after I accidentally flashed you that you wanted nothing more to do with me.”
Fuck. Is that what she thought?
I hooked my ankle around the bottom of her chair and pulled her closer, cupping the back of her neck. Jesus, our lips were nearly touching.
“You can’t possibly believe that, Sophie. You’re the sexiest woman I’ve ever laid my goddamn eyes on. I left you alone because I can barely control myself around you,” I rasped. “And I’m so fucking close to throwing away the rest of my willpower and fucking you until we both see stars.”
She gasped, and apparently not caring where we were, leaned in to whisper in my ear, “I dare you.”
I smirked and leaned away from her, dizzy from her intoxicating scent. “No. You’re not ready yet.”
“What if I told you I was?”
“Detective, if you were truly ready, you’d contemplate taking some time off work, because I would fuck you so hard you couldn’t walk straight, and then I’d fuck you in every position on every surface of my house, claiming you as mine, until you became addicted to the feeling of my cock filling you up. If you were ready , you wouldn’t be able to resist me while sitting at this table. You’d be begging for me to finger-fuck you under the table before insisting I take you to the car because you couldn’t wait one more goddamn minute for me to fuck you. I don’t see any of those things happening right now, so no, I don’t think you’re ready. ”
Sophie was practically vibrating with need, her face flush and lips parted. “Maverick—”
“Your meals,” a waiter said as they appeared at our table. Grateful for the reprieve, I waved the dishes over so we could eat. “Is there anything else I can get for you?”
I shook my head. “That will be all, thanks.” I turned back to Sophie, who was now staring down at a plate of food she didn’t order, breathing heavily, before picking up a fork and shoveling food in. I stared at her. “Hungry?”
She glared at me, her dark eyes darker than usual. “Starving. I haven’t eaten all day.”
I frowned. “What do you mean all day? ”
“Exactly what I said.”
“Why?”
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t act all concerned about my well-being now, Maverick.” My frown turned into a scowl. She sighed. “My job is demanding. I go from crime scene to office, back out to interviews, blah blah blah. I don’t often get a chance to stop and eat.”
“We’ll have to do something about that.”
“I’ve managed this long. I think I’ll be just fine.” Something in her voice gave me pause. There was more to the story than she was letting on.
“Why are you so fucking stubborn?”
She dragged her finger along the rim of a water glass, the faint clink of her nail against the crystal filling the silence. “Why do you care so much?”
I hesitated. Why did I care so much? To avoid answering, I cut into my steak and popped a bite into my mouth.
“You never told me why you called your goons off,” she said quietly.
“Because I made a stupid fucking call by approaching you to begin with. I never should have done that, let alone proposition you the way I did. Had I been wrong about you, you’d have thrown my ass in prison.”
“Hmm. I wouldn’t be so sure about that. I’m not a goody-two-shoes cop, nor am I as morally right as you seem to think I am. You said it yourself. You see a darkness in me that you recognize. So when are you going to be completely honest with me?”
“Baby, we hardly know enough about each other to have established trust, and this is arguably one of my best-kept secrets. Attraction and trust are two completely different things.”
Sophie raised her eyebrows, looking slightly offended as she sat back in her chair. “Well.” She gently placed the linen napkin draped over her lap on the table next to her plate. “I hear you loud and clear. You can go back to being Mr. Mercer and I’ll go back to not knowing who the hell you really are. See you around.”
I flinched at the name. That was what people called my father, not me, and certainly not what she should be calling me. Maverick, or sir , would do just fine, but clearly I had pushed her too far. If I let her walk away from me now, I may never have a chance to play out all the fantasies I’d created in my mind.
“Wait. Don’t go,” I commanded, my voice lowering to a tone that I knew affected her. But this time, she just swallowed and turned, walking as quickly as she could away from our table.
Shit shit shit.
She wasn’t giving me an ultimatum, but it sure as hell felt like it. She’d come in here so confident, so sure of herself, but this defeated woman was not the same. She weaved through the restaurant, her hair billowing behind her.
Whatever was between us was a living, breathing thing that I didn’t want to resist. At least not tonight, not after she’d come all this way just to get my attention. I threw a few hundreds on the table and raced after her.
“Sophie, wait. ” I grasped her elbow, equally firm and gentle, but she tore her arm away from me.
“Just leave it, Maverick. I get it, so let me leave. Please.” Her pleading tone was a punch to the gut.
“What did I say?” She started walking again, and I matched her pace effortlessly.
“There’s only so much rejection a woman can take. I shouldn’t have to practically beg you to pay attention to me, let alone fuck me. I refuse to be reduced to that level of desperation.”
I groaned inwardly, questioning how I found myself in this position—chasing after someone when I had never played the role of pursuer before. “It’s not about what you think happened. Acknowledging our chemistry doesn’t equate to trusting you.”
She scoffed and pushed through the restaurant doors, stepping into the crisp night air. “I didn’t ask for your trust. I was trying to comprehend why you changed your mind about following me after an embarrassing wardrobe malfunction on my part that led to me holding you at knife point.” She exhaled sharply, crossing her arms as if bracing against more than just the cold. For a second, she stared past me, like she was debating whether to keep talking or just walk away. Then, slowly, she turned her attention back to me.
“Contrary to your assumptions, Maverick, being with you is something I was starting to enjoy, and I wanted a genuine conversation without any external influences. However, it seems you prefer reducing this,” she waved her hands wildly at the space between us, “solely to physical attraction. So I’m asking you to please have some mercy on me. If this isn’t what you want, if I’m not something you desire, let me go now, and we can part ways forever. You won’t have to lay eyes on me again.”
City life bustled around us, and we both shifted out of the way of the crowd. The two feet between us felt like a mile while her words hung in the air. I didn’t want her to disappear, despite how much I’d told myself otherwise the last few weeks. No way in hell was I letting her go now, even if it was the dumbest decision I could ever make.
“I’m not built for mercy, Sophie,” I growled, my hands curling into fists to stop myself from taking her in my arms.
Her eyes shuttered, the light in them dimming.
“And I’m not a good man,” I continued. “But something tells me you don’t care about that.”
Even if you’ll be my downfall .
Quick as lightning, I grabbed her waist with one hand and a fistful of her hair in the other, tugging her into me and crashing my lips into hers. She tasted like wine and sin, a temptation so strong I couldn’t resist her any longer. Her soft lips parted on a moan, allowing me access to sweep my tongue across hers. When she sucked on my tongue, I groaned, yanking myself away as my cock grew painfully hard.
But I couldn’t let go.
Her lips were puffy and her soft hair was wild as it tangled around my fingers.
“Maverick—” her voice was breathy and needy, but then the restaurant door opened behind us. She had no time to continue as I grabbed her hand and dragged her into a nearby alley.
I pushed her against the brick wall of the restaurant, gripping her thighs and hooking them around my hips. Another moan slipped out of her as I attacked her neck with my lips, nipping and sucking and inhaling her delicious scent of peonies and vanilla and velvet.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Sophie,” I grunted, trailing my nose along her jaw, my hands inching their way up the outside of her thighs and slipping under her dress.
“Shut up and kiss me,” she demanded. Sophie tugged my hair in the most sensual way and kissed me hard, not even coming up for air.
“I’ll make you pay for talking to me that way,” I muttered against her mouth.
“ Please ,” she pleaded, as if that sufficed as an apology.
I pulled back. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” My hands reached her ass, stilling as I realized she was nude under her dress. I narrowed my eyes. “Sophie, did you intentionally come see me while not wearing panties?”
Sophie bit down on her swollen bottom lip and nodded. “I didn’t have time—”
“That’s bullshit. You’ve wanted this since the night we met, haven’t you?” Her silence was all the answer I needed. “Me, too. I’ve thought of you every fucking night, imagining what I’d do to you. But this? Oh, Sophie.” My voice was so low, it sounded like a threat even to my ears. One hand reached around her to brush her bare pussy, my fingers immediately drenched with her arousal. My dick jumped at the mere thought of being inside her wet cunt. “You’re such a little slut for showing up with nothing underneath this fucking dress. Tell me, do you always do this, or was this for me?”
Her back arched off the wall and her head fell back as she moaned. “For you, Mav. Only you.”
This wasn’t me. This was a mirage of Maverick, a clone that fell prey to a pretty face and wet pussy after being in the longest dry spell I’d had since I lost my virginity.
And yet, the idea that she did this for me brought a sick sense of pleasure raining down, given that the last time we'd crossed paths, she'd run to another man. I grinned wickedly, teasing her center again with my fingers. “Good girl. From here on out, this pussy is mine. Understand?” She hummed in response, and I took her sweet lips in mine again, pressing my hips forward to give us both the friction we so desperately needed. Her heat seeped through the layers between us, and every primal instinct inside me took over.
I pressed two fingers inside of her while I continued to rub against her clit with the seam of my pants, causing her to pant against my mouth
“Please don’t stop, Mav. Please. I need to come. I’ve been dreaming of you making me come for weeks.” Her fingers trailed down my jaw and over my shoulders before ghosting down my chest to fumble with my belt buckle. My cock sprang free, and I was close—so fucking close—to penetrating her in this dark alleyway.
But this wasn’t how I wanted to have her for the first time.
“Fucking love hearing you beg, baby,” I breathed. Barely functioning through the fog in my head, I pulled my fingers out. She cried out in disappointment and glared at me when I unhooked her ankles from my waist to gently set her on the ground.
I huffed out a laugh, murmuring, “I won’t be fucking you for the first time against a brick wall. No, when I make you mine, I will fucking claim you, and you will be screaming my name so loud that no one will question who you belong to.” I put my two fingers, still soaked in her arousal, in my mouth, groaning at the taste.
“But—when?” She reached for me, but I stepped back and tucked my dick back into my pants. “I can’t—I’ve been— ugh. ”
She did that a lot—stumbled over her words when she was flustered—and it was fucking adorable. I grabbed her chin. “Do you have plans tomorrow?”
Sophie swallowed and nodded. “Yes, I have a stakeout tomorrow night. The night after I’m free.”
“Perfect. You’re coming to my place. I’ll make you dinner, and whatever you want to know, I’ll tell you. But this dinner is on my terms, got it?” I released her and waited for an answer.
Fucking Christ, what am I doing?
She stilled, her breath catching as she took me in, her chest rising and falling in sharp, uneven beats. Her hair was a mess, her lips kiss-swollen, her skin still flushed from everything that had just happened. And I was barely holding it together. I should win a fucking award for my willpower.
“Okay.”
My brain came to a screeching halt. “Okay?” No argument, nothing? Just okay ?
“Yeah, okay. I’m not passing up an opportunity to get answers.”
I quirked a brow at her. “I could say the same. Just how did you know where I would be tonight?”
A shy grin tugged on her lips. “You’re not the only person who has resources at their disposal.”
I blinked. “What—”
Coming to her senses, Sophie smoothed her hands over her dress, then flashed me a knowing look before sashaying to the mouth of the alley. I darted after her, placing my hand on the small of her back to guide her to my car, weaving around pedestrians who were none the wiser to the fact that I’d almost thrown caution to the wind and fucked this woman in an alleyway.
“What are you doing?”
I gave her a full-fledged grin that made her swallow. I fucking loved that I had that effect on her. “Bring an overnight bag. You’re insane if you think I’m letting you leave without being properly fucked.”
Even in the dark, I could see her face and ears redden. For a woman who was so confident and comfortable in her sexuality, she certainly became very demure the second I started talking dirty.
“It’s a date, then,” she whispered, examining my face as she gauged my reaction.
My first instinct was to bristle at the words—dating wasn’t my thing—but the idea of her being mine and mine only, and giving no one else my attention except her was the most heady feeling I’d ever experienced. “Damn right, it is.”
I grabbed her hand and reached for the door to the backseat of my car. “Where are you going?”
“Home.”
I ducked my head into the car. “Halls, please take Detective Reyes back to her apartment in Newark.”
“Oh, so it’s back to Detective now, is it?”
“Baby, I’ll call you whatever you want.” Leaning close, I murmured, “And I better not find out you’re going panty-less for someone else. You’re my little whore now.”
Her brazenness returned as she flashed me a devilish smile. “If I break your rules, I guess you’ll just have to punish me how you see fit. Sir. ” She kissed my cheek as I blinked in surprise—no one had ever been so open and accepting of this side of me unless it was an arrangement made clear up front. Her words made my heart beat a little faster.
As the car disappeared into the distance, I knew I had crossed the point of no return. No longer could I hide from the intense connection we shared. Would revealing my true self to her be the final nail in the coffin? I couldn’t let her walk away without knowing the whole truth. Even if it meant losing her forever. She held the power to either accept me or reject me.
This woman had turned my life upside down, shattering all that I once knew.