Chapter 21 Maverick
Maverick
Driving up to the Tybee house feels like I’m holding a live grenade and praying it doesn’t go off in my hand.
The porch light we left on is still on. The security team rotates with the same quiet economy that’s starting to feel like a lullaby instead of a warning.
Conrad meets us in the foyer. He doesn’t shout. He doesn’t have to. The set of his jaw says it all.
“You took her,” he says to me, and there’s anger in it but not accusation. He looks at her next, and that’s the look that matters. “Are you okay?”
She goes to him without any guilt, steps into his space and sets her palm on his chest. “I’m good,” she says. “I wanted to go. It was right.”
He breathes through his nose. His hands come up like they’re not sure which job to do first—touch, check, hold, surrender. He picks the one I would’ve picked. He cups the back of her neck and bends his head like he’s matching his breath to hers. Some of the fury leaves him like steam.
Atticus gives us a once-over—for blood, for cracks, for tells—and when he finds none, he nods to Storm. Storm nods back. Spencer leans in the doorway of the den like a man who didn’t sleep but might now.
“We’ve been briefed. I’ll update the policy,” Atticus says. “Trash routes. Lighting. Escort protocol. We’ll add a line for officer interactions so no one improvises under pressure.”
“Thank you,” she says. “Make sure Rosa gets the day. With pay.”
“Done.”
Conrad turns his attention back to me. He isn’t any less angry. He’s just decided anger isn’t a wedge; it’s a tool. “Next time, wake me before you go.”
“You were out,” I say. “You needed it.”
“I need her more,” he answers.
“Noted.”
Phoenix watches us like we’re a picture she’s deciding where to hang.
There’s heat in her eyes again from earlier, or still.
It’s not an aftershock. It’s a carryover.
I feel it answer in my blood like a low chord.
She reaches for me, and I go because I always will when she looks like that.
I slide an arm under her knees and the other around her back and lift.
She fits her face into my neck and laughs once in pure pleasure at the novelty of it.
“Show-off,” she murmurs.
“Always,” I say.
Conrad follows us down the hall. He doesn’t say he’s coming. He doesn’t have to. The air changes.
I nudge my door open with a shoulder and carry her in. Conrad steps in after and closes it quietly behind him. He stays against the door without turning the lock, like he wants it known that anyone could walk in and we’d still have nothing to be ashamed of.
I set Phoenix on the edge of the bed and step back just enough to look at her. She reaches for the zipper of her hoodie and pauses, eyes moving between us, the focus lazy and sharp at once.
“Conrad,” she says, soft. It’s not a request. It’s an opening.
He stands there and stares at her like she’s an answer to a question he thought he had to live with his whole life. The hand that finds the back of his neck is almost funny in its surprise; he didn’t know his body was going to do that.
“I’m going to watch him with you,” he says to her, voice rough. “Because I want to. And because it’s you. And because I don’t know how not to anymore.”
“Okay,” she says. “Maybe you won’t just watch.”
He inhales like he’s standing on a dock and the tide finally reached him. “Maybe.”
He says maybe, and I feel it all the way down my spine.
Phoenix’s hoodie is half-zipped, her fingers on the pull. She’s on the edge of my bed, bare legs swinging once, slow, like she’s testing gravity. Conrad’s still by the door, one shoulder to the wood, big hand at the back of his neck like he’s holding himself together by a grip.
“Color,” I ask, because we’re not doing a single thing without that.
Her gaze cuts to me. Steady. Hot. “Green.”
Conrad exhales like he’s been underwater for a decade. I hear that sound in my bones.
“Door stays unlocked?” he asks.
“Yeah,” she says. “You’re still on watch.”
Something in his expression eases and tightens at the same time. “Then I’m on watch,” he says quietly. “For you.”
“You’re both on me,” she corrects, and the way she says it makes my pulse trip over itself.
I move first, because that’s my job. I step in until I’m between her knees, my hands braced on either side of her on the mattress. Her hoodie gapes just enough to tease. She looks up at me, pupils blown wide, mouth soft and stubborn.
“You sure?” I ask, even though I heard the green.
“I started this,” she says. “I’m sure.”
“Okay then, Firebird,” I murmur. “Let’s catch up.”
I kiss her.
She tastes like toothpaste and heat and whatever word means mine in a language I don’t speak.
Her fingers curl in the front of my shirt, hauling me down like she’s annoyed it took this long.
I let her take what she wants, tilting my head, deepening the kiss when she licks into my mouth, giving her every bit of filthy, grateful hunger I’ve been sitting on for weeks.
Behind us, the bed dips. Conrad hasn’t said a word; he’s just moved, quiet as a shadow. The mattress shifts when his weight settles at her back, one knee sinking in on the other side of her hip. His heat hits the length of her spine a heartbeat later.
Phoenix trembles once between us, a full-body shiver. My hand finds her thigh, squeezes. Conrad’s hand lands over her ribs, big and steady.
“You say stop,” he murmurs against her hair, “and this ends. I walk out. He walks out.”
“Not walking out,” I mutter into her mouth, but I don’t argue the rest.
“I know,” she says, voice gone a little breathless. “I’ll say it if I need it. Now stop asking.”
I tear my mouth from hers long enough to look at Conrad over her shoulder. His eyes are dark, pupils huge, jaw clenched so hard I can see the muscle jump.
Phoenix moans, a short, shocked sound that melts into a sigh when my thumb strokes higher on her inner thigh. Conrad’s hand slides under the open hoodie, splaying over her bare stomach like he’s claiming a fault line.
“Lie back,” I tell her softly. “Let us do the work.”
She goes, trusting, easing onto her spine along the mattress.
Her hair fans out on the pillow, hoodie falling open the rest of the way.
Conrad shifts with her, stretching out along her side, propped on one elbow so he can keep his body flush to hers.
I take the other side, mirroring him, our shoulders almost touching over her.
Her chest rises and falls fast. She blinks up at us like she can’t decide where to look first.
“Eyes on him,” I say, nodding toward Conrad, because I remember the first time they were together and how he looked then—starving and guilty because he craved her. “He needs it.”
Conrad makes a low, helpless sound, but he doesn’t argue.
Phoenix turns her head, finds him. He cups her jaw with ridiculous care and kisses her like he’s been rehearsing it in his head for years. I watch his control fray in real time, the way his hand tightens on her, the way his breath goes uneven.
I lean down and drag my mouth along her throat while they kiss, tasting the little sounds she makes into his mouth.
My hand slips under the hem of her shorts and my fingers slide against her already wet pussy, the heat of her skin nearly knocking me out.
Her hips jerk against my palm, tiny and desperate for more.
“Fuck,” I whisper against her pulse. “Look at you.”
“She’s perfect,” Conrad says, like it’s a fact he’s been waiting to put in a report.
Phoenix turns back to me, eyes glassy. “Maverick,” she says, and my name in that tone rewires my soul.
“Yeah, baby. I got you.” My fingers find the patterns I already know she likes against her clit, coaxing, circling, pressing, until her legs are trembling and her hand is clawing at my forearm.
Heat builds between the three of us like a storm trapped in a glass.
Clothes finish disappearing in a series of thoughtless movements—her shorts, my shirt, Conrad’s slacks, everything soft and cotton and in the way. Skin slides against skin, hot and slick. The lamp throws everything in gold and shadow.
Somehow we end up with Phoenix on her side, back to Conrad’s chest, my body curled in front of hers. We’re an unbroken line of heat, her leg hitched over my hip, Conrad’s arm banded just under her breasts, his nose buried in her hair.
“Color?” Conrad asks one more time, voice shredded.
“Green,” she says, and there’s no shakiness now. Only hunger. “Please.”
We move.
In one moment, I’m lining my cock up against her slick opening, and I can feel Conrad moving behind her.
She’s pressing against both of us, but when I look over her head at Conrad, he shakes his head slightly.
All right then, looks like my firebird isn’t about to take both of our cocks at once. We can take turns in her pussy.
That’s fine. I can share her. Especially with Conrad.
We don’t choreograph it. We don’t need to. Every shift of her hips, every catch in her breath, we adjust—Conrad slowing his movement when I thrust harder, me easing when he changes angle while holding her, both of us listening to the sounds she makes.
There’s a point where she’s clinging to my shoulders, fingers dug in, eyes locked on mine while Conrad’s breath rakes hot over the back of her neck. I can hear him behind her, feel it in the way his hand shakes on her belly.
We all need this.
“You’re okay,” he rasps. “You’re so fucking okay.”
“I know,” she gasps. “With you. With both of you. Don’t stop.”
We don’t.
The pleasure builds wild and fast, catching all three of us in the same rip current.
When she finally snaps—body bowing between us, a raw sound tearing out of her throat—Conrad holds her and curses against her hair.
I’m right there too, dragged over the edge by the sight and sound and feel of them both shuddering around me and Phoenix’s pussy gripping me until there’s nothing left for me to do except empty my balls into her waiting body.
For a few seconds, everything is heat and shaking muscles and panting breaths. No ship. No metal walls. No past.
Just Phoenix between us, held from both sides.
Eventually the world filters back in: the hum of the fan, the tick of the old clock, someone laughing low and wrecked. Might be me.
Conrad eases his grip, hand smoothing over Phoenix’s stomach like he’s checking she’s still there. I brush damp hair back from her face. Her eyes are heavy, satisfied, no ghosts in them for once.
“Color now?” I ask.
She smiles, slow and sated. “Sleep,” she says. “That’s my color.”
Conrad huffs a quiet laugh against her shoulder. “I can work with that.”
We settle without really talking about it—Conrad staying at her back, me at her front, her hands fisted in both of us like she’s not letting go. The door stays cracked. The room stays warm. The past stays where it belongs.
And for the first time since we were idiots who let her go in high school, I know exactly what question we were trying to answer back then.
The answer would always be her.