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Wondering what the juicy story had to be behind that announcement, I got an even bigger shock when he said, “To you.”
“Me?” I blinked repeatedly and pressed a finger to my chest. But why the heck would he apologize to me? I’d been the one to tackle him.
“I work with a bunch of assholes,” he tried to explain.
“Um…” Yeah, that didn’t clear a lot up in the understanding department. “Okay.”
He winced, letting me know he didn’t want to explain anymore.
But then he grunted, scowled, and turned his attention to the front room, slowly glancing around it. “They think I’d have a better disposition around the worksite if I got laid, so some of them have thought it would be funny to pay these professionals they think would entice me to come to my house and…” Not finishing the explanation, he rolled his eyes and lifted a hand, letting me use my imagination from there.
And wow, my imagination ran wild. “So you thought I was, what, a prostitute?”
When he sent me a miserable scowl, letting me know that’s exactly what he’d thought, I threw back my head and shouted out a laugh. “Oh my God, wow. Now I don’t feel so bad for my assumption about you! That’s actually kind of awesome, though. Maybe I should rethink my major. You think? But wait…” Amusement dying a quick death, I blinked at him before asking, “For you to think that, wouldn’t I have to be the type that actually, you know, entices you?”
He grimaced at the question as if he hated having that little detail exposed, but then the look he sent me had my entire system ratcheting itself into hyper-drive. He did like what he saw.
Holy…
Wow.
Clearing his throat to reveal his obvious discomfort, he flailed a hand lamely around the living room as he tore his gaze from me. “It doesn’t look like you.”
I lifted my brows, not understanding, still stuck on the fact that he found me to be in any way attractive. “Hmm?”
He motioned to the space around us again. “The room. Walls. Decoration. It’s not you.”
“Oh.” I laughed. “Yeah. I guess not.” Especially the poster of that Sports Illustrated model that was tacked to the wall above the sofa. “But this is Trick’s place, not mine, so why would it, huh?”
Maverick turned back to squint at me in question.
I shrugged and stuffed my hands into my pockets, wondering what I could do to entice him just a little more. “I just stay with him during the school year. I’m actually packing to head home for the summer right now.”
Eyes narrowing, he stepped intimidatingly close as if learning this offended him and he needed to punch someone to alleviate the anger. “You’re leaving?”
I nodded slowly. Did this mean he didn’t want me to go? “Uh. Yeah. But I’ll be back in the fall again to enrich everyone’s life once more with my sparkling personality. Not that I’ll be going that far, anyway. My parents live just outside of town, maybe twenty minutes away. Mom wanted a garden, you see, so Dad ended up getting her a whole damn farm. He bought a place with plenty of land for her to plant as big a garden as she wanted. But then they decided we needed chickens to eat all the bugs that would bother her flowers and plants. Except the coyotes kept killing the chickens, so they had to get a llama to keep the predators away, and here we are now, damn near farmers! How crazy is that, huh?”
Maverick blinked at me. Then said, “You talk a lot.”
Shit. I’d just killed the enticement, hadn’t I? Way to go, idiot, I told myself. You just had to be YOU, didn’t you?
“Yeah, I know.” I splayed out a what-you-gonna-do gesture. “I drive the entire family crazy with it sometimes, but my mama always told me that it’ll help me weed out the people who weren’t supposed to be in my life in the first place. The ones who really matter won’t mind it.”
“I don’t mind it.” Maverick took a step closer. “I like it,” he said.
That’s when I swallowed my tongue.
“Y-you—You do?” I fumbled out the question.
He nodded and hesitantly reached a hand for my hair. His gaze sought mine as if to ask for permission. When I bobbed my head yes, he sank his fingers into the tight curls and sucked in a breath befo
re gripping the locks and looking into my eyes again.
Holy damn, he was one of those intense lover types; I could already tell.
I could definitely handle intense.
Yes. Bruise me, I almost begged aloud.
