But here we are.
And the penthouse is ridiculous.
High ceilings. Floor-to-ceiling windows with automatic shades that come down at the push of a button. One of those rainfall showers the size of my kitchen back home. Concrete countertops. Shiny marble floors.
There’s a pool on the rooftop, a gym on the ground floor, and a fridge full of protein shakes and alarmingly expensive bottled water, which I can see with my eyeballs through the closed doors because they are glass.
Glass!
See through!
Ooh la la . . .
I set my toiletry bag down on the counter and stare at my reflection in the bathroom mirror. Sun-kissed cheeks. Wind-blown hair.
I look happy.
Also: terrified. But also stupidly, deliriously happy.
Is that weird?
I swipe a bit of mascara from under my eyes and try to remember the last time I felt this uncertainly settled, which isn’t an oxymoron if it’s true.
What is happening to me?
Guh!
I wander out of the bathroom and into the bedroom, where Maverick is pulling clothes from his duffel with the kind of efficiency that screams “I travel with a team and know exactly what I’m doing, self-sufficient man that I am.”
He looks up as I walk in. And stops moving.
Gives me a once-over, gazing at me up and down.
“What?” I ask, suddenly self-conscious, brushing wind-tangled hair out of my face.
He doesn’t answer. Tosses a T-shirt and crosses the room in five long strides, stopping when he’s right in front of me.
“We haven’t broken in the bed yet,” he says, voice low and serious.
I blink. “I—what?”
He shrugs. “New city. New bed. Kind of feels like we should ... christen it.”
Oh.
Oh . . .yes?
My brain short-circuits as his hands slide to my waist, warm and easy and confident, like he’s not absolutely ruining my ability to think straight.
“Wanna get naked?”
“I do.”
Maverick grins. “That’s the spirit—you sound like a bride.”
My fingers find the hem of his shirt and tug, because I am a woman of action with terrible decision-making skills, or I wouldn’t be in this mess, would I? No. I would be at home in Star Lake, organizing ananniversary party or planning next year’s Fall Festival inpersonlike a responsible adult.
“God,” I whisper, when we finally collapse onto the bed in a flurry of limbs and laughter. “This is so dumb.”
