Page 20 of Maverick (The Bull Riders #3)

“It’s not a put on,” he says. “I’m unfriendly. Genuinely. I’m a loner. And before her I… I would’ve told you I was never going to get married.”

That hits me strangely. I’m jealous, I realize. Of a dead woman. Which is petty and ridiculous. Entirely unfair. But whoever he was before her, it was still sort of this thing, I guess. Then she changed him enough that he built this house and posed for those engagement pictures.

And that feels… Mysterious to me. Because I can’t fathom it.

He actually makes less sense to me now than he did ten minutes ago. Except that his leaving makes a lot of sense. And hurts my feelings less, I guess.

“Why don’t you come into the kitchen?” he says.

I go ahead and follow him away from the photos, and into a cozy little kitchen area, with a small table that sits right next to the window. It’s dark outside, but it has a cozy vibe, even without sun shining through it.

“Sit,” he says.

I don’t argue with him.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

He laughs. And laughs and laughs. Even while he moves around the kitchen, filling a teakettle up with water and putting it on the burner. “Am I okay? I’m not the one who just lost my virginity and then had their partner have a whole freak out.”

“No,” I say. “But you are the one who had the whole freak out.”

He braces his hands on the counter. He puts his head down, and I can’t help but admire how beautiful he is. How strong. It’s an inappropriate time to be doing that. I still can’t help it.

He’s just that gorgeous.

And so, so broken.

“I shouldn’t have dragged you into this.” He looks at me. “You didn’t know what you were getting into.”

“I feel the same way. I mean, I shouldn’t have… I just thought that you were an asshole. A really hot asshole. And I thought that we could have sex and it would be fun. I didn’t realize that I was going to… Did you have a vow of celibacy or something?”

He barks a laugh. “Kind of.” He shakes his head, turning the burner on. Then he turns toward me. “Kind of. Not really officially. But I’m supposed to win the fucking rodeo for her. You know.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. And I was sort of… Not having sex until I did that.”

He feels so real and human right now. So fallible. Even though I also know that he’s a sex God, there’s something vulnerable in this, and it makes me ache.

“I’m sorry.”

He gives me a hard stare. “Sorry that you left a box of condoms out, and my will folded like a goddamn house of cards? That’s not your fault.” He laughs. “There’s no fault about it. It was good, Stella. And you don’t deserve to be all caught up in all my issues.”

“I am, though.” I’m trying to figure out how to say what I want to say, but I’m afraid it could come across as insensitive.

I bite my lip, hesitating.

“Just say it. You already busted into my house and saw all my pictures.”

He has a point. “I’m attracted to you,” I say. “And I think I’m probably attracted to all of the different issues that you’re carrying around with you, too. Or… It’s part of your vibe.”

“Part of my vibe,” he says, shaking his head. “Wow.”

“I just… I don’t know. This is kind of a mess.”

“It’s a mess.” The teakettle whistles, and he shuts the stove off, pouring hot water into two different mugs and dropping a teabag into mine without asking me what kind I want. But it’s fine. I’m not even sure that I’ll be able to taste it.

He hands it to me, then sits across from me, holding his own mug. “I never really had tea before I married Sadie. She loved it. And I still have so many bags of it around the house. I don’t even know if I like it.”

I stare at him. “Oh. Really?”

“Yeah. I was more or less feral before I met her. Got a little bit less feral after that. Now I’m… Well, I don’t even really know.” There is a stretch of silence between us. “I can’t offer you anything, Stella.”

No. He can’t. That much is clear. His house is a monument to the woman that he loves. And I can see that losing her changed him. That it cost him. That completely upended his life. I can also see that he’s not interested in moving on. Having sex with somebody isn’t moving on.

He wanted sex.

And that’s why he feels bad.

Because he used me. And he can’t give anything back to me.

But I used him too. And yes, I’m caught in the middle of just the smallest bit of sadness now. Seeing him as a real, human man with faults and flaws and heartache.

“You mean other than four orgasms and a chance at Olympic gold?”

I don’t know what I expected. Nothing, really. Because it’s one of those things where I just said something rather than thinking it through, but I know that what I don’t expect is for him to laugh.

He lowers his head over his cup of tea and shakes it.

His shoulders are shaking. “When you put it like that,” he says.

He raises his head, and his eyes meet mine.

“I don’t want to hurt you. It’s one thing to roam around the circuit and collect the casual resentment of the people around me.

It’s another thing to actively hurt someone who doesn’t deserve it. ”

“I didn’t say I wanted anything from you, Maverick Quinn. You’re making a lot of assumptions.”

He shrugs. “I guess so. But I’m painfully aware that you were a virgin up until an hour or so ago, and also painfully aware of the fact that you’re twenty-four. That makes me feel… Old. And also like a dick.”

“I know what I’m doing. I know what I wanted. I bought the condoms thinking about you.”

“Was that all an elaborate ruse?”

“No. I genuinely had a pipe failure. And I didn’t mean for you to see them.

I was trying to tell myself that it was about sex in general, and that maybe I would have it with anybody.

That was a lie. A lie that I told myself to justify the purchase.

I wanted you. Okay? I wanted you, not someone random.

You’ve been a fantasy of mine for a while. ”

I lower my face. I know that it’s red.

He reaches across the table, grips my chin with his thumb and forefinger, and tilts it upward. “Sweet girl. Please don’t make a fantasy out of me.”

“What if it’s just a sexual one?”

“I don’t know. I’m undecided.”

“Do you have to go back to being a monk?”

“I’m not a monk,” he says. “That implies that I’m being intentional. But… No. I don’t think so. Or, I’m a man who remembered how great sex is, and now I don’t want to go back to not having it.”

“That’s fine if so. But I just kind of want to know if I now have to expect a parade of women traipsing up to your house while we try and do this horse training thing.”

“Would that bother you?”

“That might hurt my feelings a little bit. But then, let’s flip the script, Maverick. What if I decided that sex with you was so good that I should just start entertaining other gentlemen to get my fix?”

“You fucking will not.”

“Exactly.”

He looks at me from across the table. “Okay. I take your point.”

“There’s nothing wrong with having sex just to have sex,” I hear myself say. “Nothing wrong with that at all. In fact, I think it sounds like a lot of fun.”

“Fun. That’s a weird word for tonight.”

I wrap my hands around the tea mug. “Yeah. I guess. Intense.”

“Intense is maybe a better word.”

Silence stretches between us at the table, and it feels like it pushes more distance between our bodies.

I want to ask him more questions. I want to ask him how he met her.

I want to ask him about how he decided to propose.

Then I want to ask him about things that have nothing to do with her.

I want to ask him how he decided that I was the one he was going to break his celibacy vows with.

I want to ask him what he was thinking when he tore that box of condoms in half.

Some of those questions, I think, might be totally inappropriate. But some of them, I think, I have the right to know the answer to.

“So… I was just really irresistible… Or…”

“Stella,” he says.

There’s a warning in his tone.

“I really want to know. I’m sorry. But that was incredible. You are like a man on a mission back there. Mission accomplished, by the way.”

“Thank you.” He sighs. “When I came back to the circuit after taking a break, I saw you. You were leading your horse across one of the lots, into an arena. And I thought someone had lit my jeans on fire. Goddamn.”

“What?”

“You’re a problem. You’ve been a problem, Stella Lane. You’re prettier than you ought to be, and you’re sure as hell more appealing to me than you should be.”

“I had… No idea. I didn’t even think you knew I was alive.”

“Little girl, why do you think I ended up in the poker game? Do you think it was an accident?”

“I…”

“And I had to win it.”

“You didn’t have sex with me.”

“No. I didn’t. I would never have taken you that way. Under those conditions. I wanted to. But I wasn’t going to.”

That makes me feel special, not rejected. It makes me feel like there’s something magic to this, instead of like I was a bratty kid that he had to deal with.

“So you wanted me.”

“Yes. And if either of those assholes had won, I would’ve beaten the hell out of them. I never would’ve let them leave with you.”

I blink. “But that doesn’t make sense. Because you weren’t going to have me.”

“I think, unfortunately, we’ve been barreling toward this moment for a while.

I should never have invited you to come back here.

Because I did know that we had chemistry, and I knew there was a strong chance it would end up this way.

I just pushed that aside. I was trying to pretend that it wouldn’t happen.

Trying to figure out a way to make it so I can have what I wanted.

Without acknowledging that’s what I was doing.

Or maybe I just wanted to keep you close so that nobody else could claim you. Hell, here we are.”

“Yes,” I say. “So… What if you don’t want me to ride Frank after this? Should I leave?”

“Yeah,” he says. “Bottom line, you’re here for Frank. If you’re here for the next couple of months, then I figure it’ll make sense for you and me to burn through the rest of that box.”

“But if Frank and I don’t jibe, then I should go?”

I see him hesitate. He won’t admit that he wants me to stay.

For the sake of it, I realize. And he might not even be honest about whether or not he thinks I’m a good fit for Frank, because he might be tempted to use it to either keep me or get rid of me, depending on how he’s feeling in the moment.

I reach my hand across the table, and I put it over his.

“Don’t lie to me about the horse. Whatever happens in your brain for the rest of tonight, don’t lie to me about the horse tomorrow.

If you think I’m a good fit for him, then you keep me here, regardless of whether you think it’s going to be a fucking mess.

It might be. But if I’m the right rider for the horse, you owe that to him. To me.”

I don’t say that he owes it to his wife. That, as a woman who was just in his bed, I feel is a bridge too far. But I know that he feels it implied.

“And if you want to keep me here for sex, but you don’t think I should ride that horse, then you need to be honest about that too,” I say. “I don’t know if I’ll stay under those circumstances, but I might. Just… We have to have honor somewhere, okay?”

He nods slowly. “You have my word on that.”

I move my hand away from his. I want to kiss him. I want to stay the night. I want to do something to fix what feels a little bit broken.

I don’t know if it’s him or me or this thing between us.

I also know that I can’t. I need to let them go.

I need to get some distance. He needed it tonight, and now I understand why.

It makes perfect sense, and I don’t begrudge him that distance, not now that I know.

Which is maybe unfair. I probably should’ve respected it at the time.

But I would rather understand than not understand.

I would rather have found some kind of tentative understanding than not.

“I’ll go,” I say, getting up from the chair and going to dump my tea in the sink.

“Good night,” he says, not standing.

I scrunch up my face. “I still don’t have water.”

“Lord Almighty,” he says. “Okay. I’ll go back with you.”

This is absurd. But I find myself getting back into my truck and driving to the house, Maverick behind me in his truck, shirtless, as it happens.

That’s how we find ourselves back in my room. I’m standing in the doorway, my arms crossed. He’s cursing a blue streak and climbing into the attic.

“I don’t think you should do that shirtless,” I say.

“Too fucking late.” Or at least that’s what I think he says as he disappears up into the crawlspace. “Fucking rats. Fucking fuck.”

He’s cursing and thumping around overhead. I feel nervous and horror-stricken as he bumps around up there.

I don’t like it at all.

He brought some tape up there with him, along with a flashlight. And then he comes back down a few minutes later, covered in insulation, looking a whole mess.

“Did you find it?”

“I found it. I patched it for now, but I’m going to have to get a new section of pipe and put it in. Goddamn rats chewed it up. It… It makes more sense for you to come stay in the house. I have an extra bedroom.”

I realize what an ask that is for him. Because that’s his sacred space. It’s the place where he still has shrines to her. A place he didn’t let me in; I think by design, when we first got here.

“Yeah. That’s… Okay.”

“Pack up your little bag.”

Which is how I end up heading back to his place.

“You need another shower,” I say when we walk in.

“No argument,” he says gruffly.

I trail after him up the stairs, and he shows me to a guest bedroom that is about as untouched as the rest of the house. Clearly decorated by Sadie.

But there are no personal knickknacks in there, at least. There’s a desk, a comfortable chair, and a bed. It’s lovely and tasteful like the rest of the house. Like the cottage. Which now makes total sense. She probably decorated all these things.

Maverick disappears to go take a shower, and I stand there, entrenched in my feelings.

My heart clenches tight.

This woman built this whole life, and then she didn’t get to live it. Now I’m here with her husband.

“I don’t know if I believe in ghosts,” I say. “But please don’t haunt me. He really… I think he loves you a whole lot. But he’s lonely.” Well, that wasn’t true, and she’s a ghost, so she probably knows I’m lying. He’s horny. And fair enough.

I sit down on the edge of the bed. I’ve invaded his space enough. I know I have.

So all I need to do now is be patient. Be reasonable.

That’s not so hard.

I open up my suitcase, and there’s a condom right on the top.

I’m being tested.

I’m not sure that I’m going to pass.