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“I always cry.”
“I hate it when you cry. Especially when I can’t fix it.”
“This is a good cry,” she nearly whispers. “It’s because I’m so happy. And because I love you so much.”
It’s the second time she’s said those words to me, the first being an hour ago, and I wonder how long it’ll take me to get used to it. Because right now, I feel like I’m floating. Like I’m in a dream I never want to wake up from. “If you’re happy, smile for me.”
She does—tentative, close-lipped.
“I gotta say,” I tease, “you don’tlookvery happy to be naked on top of me.”
This prompts a genuine laugh, and I beam. I drop a kiss on the tip of my pinky finger and reach up to press it into her dimple. “There. That’s what I wanted to see.”
Azalea’s grin widens, and she leans down to kiss me at the same moment she begins to move her hips.
After that, there’s no more talking for quite a while.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Azalea
Iwakeupearlythe next morning, only a few hours after Maverick and I drifted off to sleep for the second time. He’s out like a light with one arm above his head and the other draped over my torso. I extract myself from his hold and tiptoe around his bedroom, getting dressed, before I slip into the hall and pull the door gently closed behind me.
After making some coffee, I put on my coat and shoes and step out onto the balcony. It’s very small, nothing more than weathered slats of wood that need to be repainted, but the sun is rising and it’s a great place to watch. I lean my elbows on the railing and wrap my hands around my coffee mug, trying to warm them.
My mind starts to churn as soon as I fix my eyes on the rays of light steadily filling the sky. Distantly, I register the sounds of cars starting in the parking lot below, traffic and emergency sirens a little further away, but none of that can drown out my racing thoughts. My memory is stuck in a loop, playing and replaying Marie’s face, her words, her unequivocal rejection of me. I’ve never felt as chastened as I did while listening to her catalog all the ways I ruined her life.
Then I think of Maverick and how readily he showed up for me yesterday. I find my pulse slowing, my body settling. He’s my safe place, even in the privacy of my own mind.It’s always been like that,I realize now. Ever since Maverick held my hand on that very first day, he’s been the one I want—need— to stand beside me through the good, the bad, and the ugly.
My thighs involuntarily rub together as I recall what it was like between us this morning. As close as Maverick and I were as friends, as much as I enjoyed the fooling around we did in Chicago, I was wholly unprepared for the overwhelming sense of unity that consumed me as I welcomed him into my body. With every roll of my hips, with every cry of pleasure, with every stroke of his hands along my curves, I only felt our connection growing stronger.
This is right, I thought just before I came with Maverick’s thumb on my clit and his mouth at my neck.This is what we are supposed to be to each other.
I’m so lost in thought that the sound of the glass door opening startles me. My grip on the coffee mug loosens. I clap a hand over my mouth in horror as it falls two stories to the sidewalk below and shatters into pieces, brown coffee splattering everywhere.
Maverick comes up beside me and peers over the ledge. “What was that?”
“One of your mugs.”
His hand presses briefly against the small of my back. Even through my puffy coat, the touch zings me. “I’ll go sweep it up so nobody steps on it,” he says. “Stay right here.”
I do as he asks, returning to my position at the railing as he goes back into the apartment. He appears below a minute later, armed with a broom and dustpan. I watch as he quickly sweeps all the ceramic pieces into a pile. “Do you need help?” I call when he kneels to maneuver the debris into the dustpan, feeling bad that I didn’t offer before.
“I got it,” he calls back.
So I stay put, smiling a little at the sight of Maverick down there with his rumpled pajamas and his bedhead, cleaning up a mess he didn’t make to ensure safety for people he doesn’t know.
When he returns to the balcony, he launches himself at me from behind, pinning me to the railing. I squeal and laugh, clutching at his forearms where they hold me around the waist. “What are you doing?”
“Warming myself up.”
“Let’s just go inside.”
Maverick readjusts so his arms are beneath my coat. “Nah,” he says into my shoulder. “I’m good like this.”
I relax against him, concentrating on his heart thrumming against my back. That heartbeat was slow and steady when it lulled me to sleep last night. It was fast and hard when our naked bodies came together early this morning. Now it’s somewhere in the middle, keeping me firmly grounded in this moment.
“Zale?”
