CHAPTER 25 Maverick Jennings
Bingo Card
I pull her mouth down to mine as she rides on top of me. Emotions I never thought I’d experience again are raging through me as I finally allow myself to feel again.
Because of her.
She’s unlocked something in me, and maybe this is all we’ll ever have—these three times. Maybe we’re drawn more closely together because we’re away from the spotlight in Vegas.
But if this is all I get, it was worth it.
In the back of my mind, I know it’s wrong to give into this temptation. She’s been hired to help me, and if things go south between us, we could both find ourselves in a lot of trouble. But trouble has never stopped me before, and it won’t now, either.
I kiss her like my life depends on it as she holds onto my shoulders for balance and moves over me. Hell, if this is trouble, I want to get into a lot of it.
I grunt as the edges of release start to claw at me.
I wrap my arms more tightly around her, and I start to shove up into her, taking control from the bottom.
She cries out as I hammer into her, and this is much better than having to be quiet in a hotel room when we’re surrounded by people I work with. We work with.
She throws her head back, breaking our kiss, and she pushes her chest toward me. I suck one of her nipples into my mouth as she starts to come, and she claws at my shoulders as she lets the pleasure take over.
It hits me at the same time. I’ve never been so in sync with a woman before the way I am with her, as if our bodies were made to pleasure the other.
I let go as my cock swells inside her just as her pussy grips tightly onto me, the pulses racing through us both as each throb of my body fires another hot shot of cum inside her.
As the throbbing finishes and the pulsing slows, she falls into me, her head buried in my neck as I still inside her. I don’t want to pull out. I don’t want to leave this space. It feels safe here, and safety is something that’s been missing in my soul for far too long.
The problem is that once I’m on the outside again, I’m not sure we’ll have that safe space.
At some point, she’s going to realize that we shouldn’t be doing this.
Or worse, she’s going to realize that she can do better than me.
She’s going to leave like everyone else has.
It’s some broken piece of me that drives everyone I love away without even knowing that I’m doing it.
She breaks the connection first. She lifts up so I drop out of her, and she walks over to the bathroom to clean up while I think about how I want it to stay in her, owning her, marking her, and branding her as mine.
I grab my boxers and pull them on, and I lie back on the bed, falling onto the pillows. She grabs underwear and her tank top. It’s too many clothes, but it also gives us the space to have a conversation.
“So after attending tonight’s event, have you considered what sort of impact you could make with your own charitable foundation?” she asks.
“No post-sex talk about how great it was?” I tease, and she seems surprised that I’m teasing her. I guess I’m a bit surprised by it myself.
“It was more than great, Maverick,” she says softly. She climbs onto the bed and rests her head over my heart, and I wrap my arms around her. “I just sometimes don’t know what to say to you, and I figured I’d gloss over the awkward stuff by getting back to business.”
“I don’t ever want you to feel awkward around me,” I say. “I know I can be hard to read, but you can always compliment my talents.”
She presses a soft kiss to my chest.
“And to answer your other question, yes. I’ve done some research on therapeutic sports.
I turned to football as soon as I learned that I had a little talent, and I threw myself into it.
It was my therapy when I was dealing with the shit my father put me through.
I’ve donated to different nonprofits that use sports for confidence building and healing after trauma, but I think I’d like to start my own foundation. ”
She shifts up onto her elbow, and her eyes light up brightly as they fall onto me. “For real?” She sounds excited about the prospect.
I lift a shoulder. “Yeah.”
“That’s amazing, Mav! This is exactly what we’ve needed to show the other side of you, the side you don’t let anyone see.
Wait,” she says, and she jumps out of bed and runs over to her purse as I process her words.
I stare at her sweet little ass as I realize she’s right.
I don’t let anyone see, mostly because I don’t allow myself to feel.
But maybe we’ve turned a corner on that.
She pulls her phone out, and she taps on the screen as she walks back to me.
“Look at this,” she says, and I stare at the photo she’s showing to me.
It’s Bella and me walking into the gala, a shot Everleigh took from behind. The two of us are hand-in-hand, two completely different people from completely different worlds who somehow bonded over shared trauma even though I know nothing of hers and she knows nothing of mine.
I feel an unfamiliar heat pinch behind my eyes as I stare at the picture.
I draw in a breath as I hand her phone back to her, and she sets it on the nightstand and moves back into position with her head on my chest. I wrap my arm around her so my fingertips are resting lightly on her bicep.
“So you channeled your pain into athletics, and you want to help kids do the same?” she asks.
“Something like that.”
“I can have Ellie do some research. She has connections with the charity division at the Aces, and they’ll help you set it all up and get it off the ground.
We could start with this idea of therapeutic sports and even add in other aspects to it later.
I’ll look more into it. And you can be as hands-on or hands-off as you want to be,” she says.
“I’d like to be involved,” I say as I think about Bella and other kids I could help with this program.
Football gave me a reprieve from what I was going through, and I want to provide that for other kids.
Maybe that is the legacy I want to leave behind.
Making life a little easier for someone who’s been dealt a shit hand.
“Are there any other charities you’d like to get involved with?” she asks.
I clear my throat. “Alzheimer’s research.”
She’s quiet for a beat, and then she asks, “When was your mom diagnosed?”
“Six years ago. She was on the younger side, but life expectancy is usually only four to eight years.”
She makes little circles on my chest with her finger. “Are you close with her?”
“She was all I had when I lost Christina. I leaned on my mother a lot that first month after the accident, and then I threw myself into workouts. It was my first season with the Cowboys, so football became my life. Training. Studying. Analyzing. Anything not to have to think about her.”
“And it turned you into the player you are today,” she murmurs.
“I suppose it did. But it also turned me into the asshole I am today.”
“You’re not an asshole,” she says softly.
“Oh really? Didn’t you once call me a divisive asshole?”
She giggles as she taps on my chest. “Yeah, I did say that, didn’t I? No wonder why you hated me.”
“I didn’t hate you,” I say softly.
“Yes, you did.”
“Okay, I did,” I admit. “But the feeling was mutual.”
“It was.”
“And it had more to do with you being forced on me and then finding out you were Dex’s sister,” I say without thinking.
The truth is that maybe I’ve come to accept that she was forced on me, but the fact that she’s Dex’s sister won’t ever change.
If push came to shove, would she choose me or her family?
For a split second, her father’s casino comes to mind. I’m not sure why it chooses that moment, but it does, like it’s some sort of foreboding omen that we started with her family coming between us, and there’s a danger that it could possibly spell our end as well.
That’s just the way my mind works. I’m always looking for how everything has the potential to fall down around me.
“I can’t change who my brother is,” she says quietly.
“I know. And it doesn’t matter.” I press my fingers into the flesh of her arm.
“Doesn’t it? Or will he break another rib someday, and you’ll take it out on me?”
Before I get the chance to answer that, her phone starts to ring. She shifts to glance over at it, and her brows dip down. “It’s my best friend. She usually texts—”
I hold up a hand. “It’s fine. Answer it.”
“Penny?” she answers. She listens, and then she says, “Oh, God. Take a deep breath, babe.” She listens some more.
“Shit. Are you okay?” She paces in front of the windows.
“I’m so, so sorry. What can I do?” She pauses in her pacing and glances over at me.
“Of course you can. I’m here for whatever you need.
I’m in LA but returning tomorrow.” She resumes pacing.
“I love you, Pen. You’re going to be okay. Promise.”
She says goodbye and hangs up, and my brows crinkle together as I study her. “Is everything okay?”
She shakes her head a little, and she stares out the window.
“My friend was at home with her boys, and her husband is out of town on a work trip. She got a message from a friend with a video in it from an hour ago that’s already going viral, and the message was like, ‘Isn’t that Brent?
’ She watched the video, and sure enough, her husband was making out with some other woman at a Bulls game.
He’s not even out of town. He’s cheating on her. ”
A text dings on her phone, and she opens it. Penny shared the video.