Page 28 of Maverick (The Bull Riders #3)

Chapter Twelve

Stella

I like staying with him. It’s… Well, I’ve never spent so much time with someone who just fits me.

Because from the moment he gets up in the morning to the moment we get ready for bed, Maverick is moving.

He works out pretty much the whole day, I work with Frank, I run the barrel racing course.

He works on the ranch, does practice bull rides, mainly on a mechanical bull, lifts weights.

I love watching him work out. One of the greatest things is that after two days of staying with him, he showed me his gym.

It’s in the basement level of the house, and he has everything.

He lets me work out in it with him, but I admit that mainly I’m watching him lift weights, do pull-ups. His body is incredible.

Every night, he finds me. We don’t always eat dinner together. In fact, the last few days we haven’t. But he finds me in the evening, whether I’m in the shower or in bed, claims me. Takes me to the stratosphere and then leaves me. He doesn’t spend the night.

I don’t really mind it. So much of the day-to-day is shared with him that I don’t need to have the whole evening too.

I’d like it. But it doesn’t need to happen.

I want to make him dinner tonight, though, and I text him and tell him that.

He doesn’t respond, but he doesn’t tell me no, and so I take that as evidence that it’s okay if we do it. I’m a very good cook, as it happens. Because anything that I’ve ever learned how to do, I become great at. That’s just who I am.

My toxic trait. I don’t know how to just achieve. It’s always overachieving.

I go to the grocery store and choose the best steaks I can find, along with the nicest greens, and some Yukon Gold potatoes. I make some lovely potato pavé that are all layered and cooked in butter. And I’m excited to make them for him, along with a superior steak.

It feels domestic, and we aren’t. At least, we are not consciously domestic. But the reality is sometimes a little bit of domesticity creeps in. We drink coffee together in the morning.

I’m thinking about that when I take a turn down the condom aisle and grab another box. We’re burning through those. We’re responsible with our debauchery. Which I think is great for us.

For a moment, I pause to think about what might happen if we weren’t.

And that makes me stop in the middle of the aisle altogether.

A baby. Maverick’s baby. I don’t know if he would be a good dad.

I believe it, viscerally. The image of him holding a tiny baby that we made, it makes something inside of me clench tight.

But that’s all feeling, all that virgin nonsense.

That ridiculousness that I’m trying not to get consumed by. That’s what that is.

I shake myself out of my fugue state and make my way to the checkout counter. It’s that same girl who didn’t pay attention to me last time. Except when she grabs the box of condoms this time, she looks up. “Weren’t you just in here?”

And I can feel the unanswered question hovering between us. Have I really gone through that whole giant box of condoms since I was last here?

I feel a smirk tug at the corner of my lips. “I was.”

I leave the store with a little bit of pep in my step. I can’t help it. It’s a really wonderful thing. Being with Maverick like this. And I feel… Good. Happy. Happier than I have for a long time, honestly.

The drive back to his place is familiar now. I don’t yearn for that pipe to come. I don’t yearn to be back in my own space. I quite like being in his.

When I go through the front door with groceries in hand, I do pause to look at Sadie.

I see her every day, up there on the wall.

It’s so complex because I don’t know her.

But she was so young, and it’s a terrible thing that she died.

I’m also very aware that this is her house, hers and Maverick’s, and in no way mine.

Not that it should be, or would be, after a short amount of time of me sleeping with him.

He hasn’t promised me anything, and in fact, has gone out of his way to make sure that I know that there is no way in all the world I’m getting anything beyond sex anyway.

But still, I see Sadie, and I think about her. About the sweet vet tech who was an accomplished dressage rider and an excellent horse talent scout, because Frank truly is one of the most talented horses I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been around an extraordinary amount of equestrian talent.

I wonder how she handled his moods. I wonder what he told her about his childhood. Everything? He’s given me bits and pieces. It’s hard to imagine him having a whole heart-to-heart with somebody. Really baring his soul, and yet, I’m sure it happened. Maybe more than once.

Well, they were together for more than five years, so…

“Did you get to see him smile all the time?”

I feel silly asking that question to thin air.

And yet, somehow I have a feeling that she didn’t.

I don’t know why that feels like a definitive thing.

But I’m not sure that Maverick has ever been happy-go-lucky.

I think her death did change him, obviously, because he was open to love back then, and I don’t think he is now.

I don’t think he can see a world where he’ll ever fall in love with someone now. And I understand that. I think.

As someone who never thought all that much about falling in love, I don’t know that I can speak to that.

But when I look at him and those wedding pictures, and I see what he was willing to do, the way that he posed for engagement photos and for those wedding pictures, I know that even if he wasn’t ever the easiest person, she definitely had his heart.

Has it still.

I set the grocery bags down on the counter and set about cooking dinner.

Partway through preparation, I stash the condoms upstairs.

I’ve taken to leaving them in convenient locations around the house.

I slipped a few between the couch cushions.

I have them near the bed in my room. Have a couple in his bathroom.

I even put a few in the tack room, though we haven’t used them yet.

I just want to be able to have him when the mood strikes me. That feels important to me.

Because all of this feels important to me, he feels important to me.

I enjoy preparing dinner, and once the meat is resting and everything else is in the warmer, I go upstairs and get changed. I rarely dress up. But tonight I want to. Tonight I want to look special for him.

I put on a fitted emerald green T-shirt dress that shows off every curve of my body – a reason that I don’t often wear it – and throw on a little bit of lip gloss and some iridescent eyeshadow.

I just don’t have the patience to put on a lot of makeup.

I don’t have the patience to style my hair either.

So running my fingers through it a couple of times has to be good enough.

I come downstairs right as he walks through the front door. There’s a strange expression on his face when he sees me. He’s something like blindsided. And that makes me feel very good indeed.

“What’s all this?”

“I wanted to make you dinner. And I wanted to look nice.”

“You definitely look nice,” he says.

I take the stunned expression on his face as a gift.

I smile. “I’m glad that you like how I look.”

“I more than like it.”

“I think you’re going to like what I cooked for you, too.”

He walks in slowly. “I have to go wash my hands.”

“That’s fine.”

While he heads upstairs to wash up, I hurriedly plate dinner. Then I set the food out on the dining table. We’ve never eaten there together. We rarely eat together at all. And if we do, it’s in the nook in the kitchen, which is definitely more casual.

I look around the dining room. There are hallmarks of Sadie everywhere. A hutch that I am absolutely certain he didn’t choose. A lovely dining set with floral cushions.

I smile at nothing, but in my heart, it’s at her. Because I don’t want her to haunt me or anything. And it is nice of her to let me cook in her kitchen. Sleep with her husband.

Not that she’s here.

But I feel the absence of her, so I can’t imagine how it is for him.

When he comes back in, he’s also wearing a different shirt. “I was dusty,” he says.

“I wouldn’t have minded.” I cross to him and wrap my arms around his neck.

I kiss him slowly, softly, and only when I’m in the middle of that kiss does it occur to me that I might’ve crossed the line.

We kiss when we’re about to have sex. We’ve definitely spent a fair amount of time making out on the couch, but it’s always a prelude.

We part, and I clear my throat. I watch his face closely. He doesn’t seem upset. Far from it.

“How was your day?” he asks.

“Oh, it was good. I didn’t do a whole lot of training. I took a little bit of a rest. Decided to go grocery shopping. I really like cooking.”

“I didn’t know that about you.”

“Yes, well, a lot of the time I don’t really have patience for it. But I learned some techniques a few years ago. I don’t do anything halfway.”

His eyes go to the plates. “Clearly not. That looks incredible.”

“I think it will be.”

I walk over to my chair and take my seat, and he does the same, sitting across from me. He practically groans when he sees the food. “This looks amazing.”

“Take a bite.”

I lean forward, eager to see him enjoy his dinner. When he does take a bite, the expression on his face is nearly orgasmic. And as I am familiar with his expression being orgasmic, I am an excellent judge of that.

“Incredible,” he says.

I can practically tell that I’m glowing. I’m smiling so hard that my cheeks hurt, and I definitely seem like I’m not even that mad about it.

“Well, nice to know my classical French training served me well.”

“So,” he says, picking up his knife and going in on the steak, “Is there anything you don’t know how to do?”

I feel a wicked smile pulling at the edges of my mouth. “Other than have sex?”