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He paused and looked down at me as he moved his hands to my neck and shoulders, rubbing out the knots and tense muscles as he spoke. “One.”
“Who?” I asked on a whisper.
“Cora please.” He whispered back and leaned down to kiss me, and I let him briefly and then pulled back.
“Just tell me who.”
His eyes burned as he looked into mine. “Sarah.”
The water froze on my skin as I looked up at him. “Sarah Washington? My old best friend Sarah Washington? The one you fucked to destroy us?” I yelled as panic started seeping into my veins.
“I’m sorry Cora, please know that being involved with her after that night you caught us was only ever out of bitterness. I was hurt that you took off without a backwards glance like I meant nothing at all to you and so when the opportunity presented itself to hurt you back with her, I took it. And I regret every second of it.”
I turned away from him and he grabbed me, but I swatted away his hands and sank down onto the bench. I held my head in my hands as this new information swarmed in my brain. That had been my biggest fear over the years as I fought to stay away from him because of my stupid pride. I was afraid that he had gotten with Sarah and that they were senselessly happy together in spite of me and it had happened.
“My worst fear came true.” I whispered into the silence.
Maverick sank to his knees in front of me and made me look at him, but I couldn’t see through the tears that pooled in my eyes, so I closed them, and closed him out.
“I’m so sorry Cora. You have to believe that I never would have done it if I’d known the truth about why you left. Please forgive me Cora, I’m so sorry baby.”
I shook my head as more tears fell. “She set us up that night and she got everything else that she wanted after it.”
“What do you mean?” He asked, holding my face as he leaned his forehead against mine.
“She told me you were at that party. She knew I was looking for you and she told me you were there. And then an hour later I walked in on you nailing her. Do you really think that was a coincidence? And then you go and date her, publicly. Giving her every single thing she ever wanted.”
“I had no idea.” He whispered, haunted by it all.
“I know.” I said, shaking my head. “I know you didn’t know, and that’s the only thing keeping me in your life right now when everything in me is screaming for me to run far, far away from you and all the hurt that will keep coming.”
He moved so fast I never had time to brace. He wrapped his arms around my waist and tore me off the bench and pulled me into his arms, forcing my legs to straddle his hips. “Don’t say that. Don’t ever say you’re going to run again.” He threaded his fingers into my hair and held my face close to his as he struggled with his emotions. “I won’t survive you running away from me again. I know that we both have baggage and hurt that we caused each other, I know you will always feel threatened by other women because of what I did to you, and I promise you this right here, right now, I will never hurt you that way again. I will never allow another woman to come between us like she did before. I promise you.” He shuddered, his whole-body shaking underneath mine. “But my trigger and my worst fear is you running away from me again, abandoning me like you did when I was at my fucking worst. I can’t even explain to you how bad that destroyed my head and my heart the last time you did it. So I am begging you Cora, if you’ve ever cared for me in the least before, don’t ever run away and abandon me again.” His hand was tight in my hair and his arm held me against his body almost painfully as he expressed the depth of his pain to me in a way that I had begged him to communicate with me when we were kids.
When Lucas died, a huge part of Mav died with him. And I had tried to be everything he needed from me to help him grieve and process and cope that loss, but he shut down and would never communicate what he needed from me. But here, once again on his knees for me, he was communicating and telling me exactly what hurt him the most, exposing himself to me and begging me to spare him that pain again. And I could never, even on my worst day, dare to use that against him.
“I won’t.” I said against his lips, wrapping my arms around his neck and clinging to him as tightly as he clung to me. “I won’t leave you Mav. I’m not going anywhere. I love you.”
His lips crashed against mine in a painful, ugly kiss that was all teeth and hurt as we cut our old wounds open and begged the other to help us put ourselves back together again. Seeing the man that had become so much, reduced to pain on his knees on his shower floor broke down the tallest part of the walls I’d constructed around my heart a decade ago and his love rushed in around the pieces to my damaged heart.
“I’m not going anywhere.” I whispered again as I held onto him. He buried his face in my neck and clung to me just like that for a long, long time. I whispered over and over again, all of the things I had wanted to tell him over the years.
I told him how much he meant to me, how deeply I ached for him, how lost without him I had become. I promised him everything he asked from me and more and he promised it all back to me.
We weren’t the same kids we had been when our lives were torn apart by pride and childish decisions. We were so much more than that now, and if we fought for it, nothing could ever tear us apart again. Because we had already overcome so much, we knew what our worst pains felt like and we both knew we were never willing to go back to that place again.
Chapter 9- Maverick
I stood in the doorway of my master closet and watched in awe as Cora dressed for the day. I was already dressed and ready to leave, and I stood with my coffee in my hand and watched as the love of my life slowly slid a pair of black stockings over her calf and knee, smoothing the fabric out as it ended at mid-thigh.
She dropped her leg off the bench where I put my shoes on each morning and placed her other bare foot on it to repeat the process and I couldn’t keep my body still a moment longer. I walked into the large closet and placed my coffee down on the island in the middle and slid behind her lush body and wrapped my hands around her bare stomach. She wore a pair of black panties and matching bra and one black silk stocking, and I ached to drape her body in expensive lingerie of every color for the rest of her life.
“You smell divine.” I said as I pressed my nose into the base of her neck behind her ear and took a deep breath.
She slid her hands over mine and leaned into me. “I smell like you. I need to shower at my own apartment tonight so I can smell like a woman again.”
“Stay with me here.” I said, kissing along her neck and shoulder before sliding my hand up further to palm her large breasts.
She moaned and laid her head against my shoulder. “You are insatiable, you know that.”
