Legend (Real Book 6)

Reese

He’s staying at our hotel. At our same hotel. It made it easier to get the room number, since the Tates are known by the hotel staff. But it made me all the more nervous when I rode the elevators to the seventeenth floor, keeping my head down.

Ting.

I step out, my nervousness and anticipation reaching new levels when I start scanning room numbers. Down the hall, I check the number and I knock on the door. Oz opens the door, squinting.

I exhale. “Is Maverick here?”

He focuses on me. “A little late, aren’t you, little lady?”

God, I can’t get into a battle with Oz right now. “So he’s not in?”

“He’s not.”

Fuck. “Well, do you know where I could find him? Is he training?”

“Look, girl, I’m not a guy who gets up into someone’s business but he’s my champ, and I won’t stand for him being played. So maybe leave a guy with a mission time to focus on it . . .”

“Oz.” I hear an angry voice speak behind him. His fucking voice. So near and so excruciatingly real, I’m trembling as my heart turns over in my chest.

Oz sighs and opens the door, and there’s my Maverick. My rebel. All alone, except for Oz.

And now me.

He’s wearing jeans and a black button-down shirt, and he looks like death by sex, and I feel like dying tonight about a dozen times over.

I stay outside, peering into where he is. The suite is huge, and seeing Maverick among such luxury makes him look like a dark prince of the underworld.

“I came looking for you,” I lamely say.

“And I waited for you.”

His deep, resonating voice sounds lower and more thunderous than ever, and my stomach grips in reply. I wait for him to say something else—to tell me how much I suck.

“I’m sorry, Maverick.”

He comes to the door, and then lowers his voice, one hand on the doorframe as he leans forward. “Did they keep you from me?”

He’s gauging me and I’m gauging him back, not knowing what to do to be let in.

“No.”

“You’re here to tell me we’re a mistake.” He’s searching my expression with a new rawness in his eyes.

“No.”

We stare at each other.

I’m about to ask, beg, “Can I come in?” when he takes my hand in his and starts backing in as he leads me inside. And as he does, he watches me with bare, thirsty, impaling eyes, and my knees feel like rubber as I follow him, ready to tell him what I came here to say.

Maverick stops to look at Oz. A look that says he wants to be alone. With me. And Oz shuffles into one of the bedrooms. He steps out a minute later, clothed, shoes on.

“You don’t have to leave,” Maverick says. “Just give us some privacy.”

“Nah, nah, you two need it,” Oz says, and says he has something to do. And then he leaves, looking at Maverick as he shuts the door.

He cares about him.

And so does Maverick for Oz.

My heart can’t take the heaviness I feel.

I realize Maverick is looking down at me now, waiting, expectant. His hand is still gripping mine. Lightly, almost as if he expects me to draw away. And then, his other hand lifts to my cheek and he cups my face and runs his thumb beneath my eye.

“You’ve been crying.”

Just like that, with his tenderness—so unexpected for such a tough guy—he makes my eyes sting a little again.

“How do you know?” I whisper.

“I just know.” He dries the other corner of my eye, looking sad. “You okay?” he asks.

“I am now,” I croak, and I look at his chest, and up at him, and swallow. “You look very handsome in black. Are you going out?”

His lips pull a little, and his eyes are still full of questions—and tenderness. So much tenderness I feel flooded with it. He shakes his head. “Not anymore.”

I like how silent he is, how every look of his says something. We’re both silent now. And I think he knows why I’m here.

Or does he?

He’s studying me too deeply. Almost tortured. And I realize maybe he doesn’t.

I take his hand and open it, and then I set the penny inside.

His eyes raise to me, questioning.

“I want you to make love to me.”

He inhales sharply and closes his fingers around the penny, his voice rougher. “Only that?”

“No.” My voice is low and very soft, but on fire with meaning. “I want you to love me very hard. Because I’m pretty sure I’ve never loved someone as hard as I love you, Maverick.”

His every muscle tightens when I say it, his shoulders, his jaw, his arms, his legs, and I can see a flash ripple in his eyes as if he can barely keep himself in check.

He’s known rejection, and I almost feel as if acceptance is new to him.

As if he doesn’t know what to do with it.

“I know that we still have a lot to learn about each other. But I also know there will never be another Maverick in my life,” I keep going. “I came here to find myself. And I think I did. And I also found . . . you.”

“And I found you,” he counters gruffly, standing suddenly closer, his eyes devouring me.

“So.” I clear my throat and go on, “I want to be with you. For as long as we have. An hour, a week, or just for the summer. I feel things for you that I don’t understand and I want to. You’re not your father, and I’m not my family. And for some reason, Maverick, I think that you’re quiet enough that you can hear me. And with you, I don’t need to wonder what you mean. Because you say what you mean.”

“I fucking want you, Reese,” he growls, impatient.

“Have me then. Right now. And tomorrow.”

“Both of those. And after.” He grabs my waist and lifts me, and I curl my arms around his neck. I see his jaw tighten as he looks at me, studies me. Memorizes me.

His eyes drop to my breasts. His hands shift lower, to my ass.

And he raises his eyes to mine.

“You’re priceless. Gold. Not gold, you’re the whole fucking mine to me. Do you know that?”

God, those eyes. So stormy right now.

“Maverick, Racer swallowed and choked on a little train wheel,” I blurt out. “He wasn’t breathing right, he was purple—”

“He all right?” He sounds harsh and angry, his hands clenching my hips convulsively. And I know it’s because he cares.

“Yes. He’s okay. I just . . .” He sets me down. “I was distracted. Thinking of . . . our trip together. And the next thing I saw was him choking. I didn’t even know it was the train wheel until I realized the train he’d been playing with had only three wheels. Remy twisted him upside down and then tried to pull it out, but it seemed caught. . . . We rushed him to the hospital.” I wipe my tears. “That’s why I couldn’t make it to the airport. I wanted to come. I ended up at the hospital, but I clung to your penny and to thoughts of you. And so I came here.”

His eyes cloud with a mix of sad tenderness. “Reese, what you’re asking me to do—I don’t need you to give me back the penny. It was all I had to give you. But now I have more. And I’ll have even more still.”

“But I want you to have the penny for a while. For luck.”

He tucks it into his jeans pocket and then raises his hand and lays his fingers on my hair, runs them through the strands as he uses his free hand and gently pulls me into his arms.

I’m knotted up, waiting for his lips, waiting for his skin to touch mine. But he’s running his fingers down my hair as if it’s lovely. As if it’s made of streaks of honey or rays of sunlight or yellow diamonds. When I tip my head up, I feel him place his lips on the bridge of my nose, five times. On my . . . five freckles?

I tip my head up higher, and Maverick finally yields to the impulse and tastes my mouth. I taste him too, soft, hungry. Gripping his shirt in my fists. A shirt I want to take off so badly.

The things this man does have no precedent, will have no predecessors; they couldn’t.

I boost myself up with my fists and curl my legs around his hips, and his muscles ripple beneath me as he starts walking us to the room. My fingers trace the tattoo on his back, over his shirt. He stops walking. Closes his eyes. He holds me tighter, close.

“Reese,” he whispers in my ear.

He tips my head back and clenches his teeth, his eyes raw and violent.

“What?” I pant, pressing closer. My breasts ache, my sex aches, my whole body aches.

“When you do that . . .” he begins, dark and hot.

I run my fingers over his tattoo again, and he presses me against the nearest wall, and crushes my mouth with his in a kiss that curls my toes and makes me clench my legs around his hips tighter as he grinds himself to me.

I touch his face. “You’re the first big decision I’ve made on my own. The first good decision.”

He looks hazy with desire as he gazes hotly at my smile, then frowns at me. “How do you know I’m a good decision?” he asks, his voice rasping in his throat.

“Because I know you.”

His expression flashes darkly with emotion.

“Spend the night,” he says. Nuzzling me.

I nod. “But I need to be back by the time Racer wakes up.”

“Okay,” he concedes, stroking a hand down my bare arm, savoring me. “How long do we have?”

“I’d say it’s long.” I giggle.

God.

Maverick is so hard against me.

His eyes dance playfully. “Dirty girl.”

“I’d say five a.m. would work?”

He cups my face tenderly and kisses me again. “You want to lie down with me now?”

“My head on your chest? Like that?”

He scoops me up from the wall with both arms. “Just like that.”

I’m floating and everything is a blur as he carries me to the bedroom, kicks the door shut, and sets me down on the oversize bed. He opens the buttons of his shirt and I hear it land softly on the carpet, and I scoot back and watch him crawl over the bed, muscles rippling, like a panther, lying next to me and pulling me to his side.

I swear Maverick is wearing his heart in his eyes as he looks down at me and holds me against his chest.

I set my cheek on his bare pec.

“Oh,” I say.

He frowns down at me. “Oh what? Not comfy?”

“VERY.”

Hard. So warm. I can smell his aftershave, his soap and his deodorant and his skin. I slip my arm around his waist and scoot over closer, and he tightens his arm around my shoulders and stares up at the ceiling, exhaling slowly, as if he’s at last relaxed.

I’m quivering with the feel of his arms around me. And I feel him tense at the feel of me. Smelling my hair, his body taut as my fingers absently trek the dents of his abs. I can almost hear him tell himself, Easy, Maverick. . . .

But his hand is on the move already. His fingers—long, tan—slip under my shirt and cover my breast through my bra. He squeezes a little, brushes his thumb over my nipple. It’s already hard. I gasp when he caresses, and he takes the gasp into his mouth.

I fall to my back as he leans over me, sliding his other hand under my shirt to cup my other breast as he kisses my mouth, slow and easy, but with his tongue. His marvelous tongue.

The noises I make, soft, fluttery, make him groan in his chest. “You like that, Reese? God, I like my hands on you.” He tugs my shirt over my head and reaches behind me to open my bra.

He leans over to memorize the shape of my breasts, the weight, the form, the taste, the look of my nipples, the texture. He sucks me gently, murmurs, “I want you wet. I want you wet when I dip my fingers here.” He drags his hand between my legs. I arch my hips on impulse, craving the touch.

“I am wet,” I gasp.

He unbuttons and unzips my jeans and slips his fingers inside, into my panties, and then he groans when he brushes his fingers between my folds. And I’m soaked. My panties are soaked, my folds are soaked, soaked for him, and he says, “I could drink you, Reese, and never get thirsty.”

I brush my hand against his cock and he groans.

“It hurts?”

“Best kind of pain, the one you give me.” His tongue flashes out to rub across my nipple again and I let my fingers wander his shoulders, his flexing arms, and his perfect back.

“I love touching you, Maverick,” I whisper as I arch again and lick my tongue into his mouth. This is only my second time, and I’m curious. I’m alert to the way his breath changes. The way my body softens and weakens and wets for him. The feel of my nipples grazing against the flat wall of his chest. The way my hips seem to lift, wantonly and on their own, upward. Asking for it.

I’m already high and I keep rising and rising as he eases his finger inside me. I bury my nose in his neck, and Maverick presses me closer to him. I’m panting, and he’s breathing deeper than usual.

I bite his throat exploratively and drag my fingers over his tattoo, tracing it in my mind.

“Reese,” he rasps. “When you do that . . .”

“What?”

He looks at me with eyes that look heavy and hazy with desire.

Desire for me.

And I think . . . maybe. Love.

“You’re the only person in the world who gets this tattoo,” he rasps thickly, and then he crushes my mouth and kisses me, ravenous and deep.

We’ve been waiting for this and we’re both so wired, we can hardly speak. Maverick tugs my jeans down my body, gets rid of every scrap on me. And then he gets rid of his perfectly sexy clothes and he is so . . .

Freaking.

Perfect.

Naked.

Hot.

And in fucking bed. With me.

I don’t even have time to be self-aware. Or time to feel a little too voluptuous. I’m a little firmer and sleeker now, though still curved. But the way Maverick’s silver-metal eyes eye-fuck me as he comes over to lie on top of me tells me that this man, this man, thinks I’m gorgeous and perfect and amazing and female. The proof of that is, though I have never seen another erection in my life, I’m sure there could not be one as big and hard and greedy-looking as Maverick’s.

He shifts above me so that our bodies are at maximum contact. So I can feel his cock between my legs, and I like the maximum contact so much. Too much. I shiver and fist his hair and breathe rapidly in and out, anxiously, through my mouth. “Oh god, Maverick, I’ve wanted this too much.”

“I still want this too much, Reese,” he says as he goes to his knees, and I watch him, and I know that he can see me watching him—his chest, his arms, his abs, his erection.

Just as he’s watching me. My chest, my abdomen, my hips . . . my pussy.

We’re impatient.

I start grabbing him to me and he’s high on me, I can feel it in the strength of his kiss, his arms as he grabs my hips and drags me down the bed toward his erection, hard and Maverick’s, and he watches me as he plunges. I gasp, my cheeks hot, my hair getting tangled behind me as I toss my head to one side and then to the other. The pleasure of this man inside me is absolute.

He’s all I want.

He takes my knees and drags my legs around his hips, driving in deeper. So deep my vision goes blurry, and his eyes go dark, almost engulfed by his pupils.

I raise my head and kiss the scar above his eye, where I stitched him up once. He groans, undone, and sets his forehead on mine. He slides a hand between us, rubbing my clit with his thumb.

“Are you letting go for me?” he murmurs.

He buries himself deeper, grabs my hips and holds me down so I have no choice but to take him, deeper and deeper, as far as he wants to go. As far as I want him.

Hands on my hip bones, he moves in me, and I move with him. Like a dance. We go faster and faster. And I never want to stop. I never want to stop moving, watching, tasting, getting fucked by Maverick Cage in Maverick Cage’s bed.

I always wanted to be loved, and I think he loves me because I’m ready to be loved, and he’s ready too, and here we are.

We’re having hot sex but we’re making love, him and I, and I want to say it. I want to say the I love you because who knows if there’s tomorrow, if I’ll ever get to say it again, if I’ll see him after the season; who knows what happens tomorrow and yet I know now that I have to say it.

I’m coming and I want to bring my heart to an emotional climax too, and when I can only gasp and see colors and stars and Maverick’s gorgeous male face before me, I hear him.

“That’s right, Reese,” he says, kissing my lips until my chest is ready to explode along with the rest of me. “You’re with me now.”

♥   ♥   ♥

IT’S EARLY IN the morning. Three, maybe, or four. And I’m the Sexpot in Maverick Cage’s Bed. The Lucky Sexpot.

I’m enjoying watching his muscles as he shifts and moves above me.

The clench of his jaw when he’s moving inside me.

The chameleonic shifts in his eyes as we start making love . . . and finish making love.

I’m addicted and drunk with all the ways his lips know how to move and pleasure, torture and reward. He’s fucked me, he’s made love to me, he’s . . . well, he’s gone down on me.

“How many, tell me?” I coax now as I wonder what he’s going to do to me next. I told him that I was a virgin, and I now want to know how many girls he’s been with besides me.

“No.” He’s not looking at my face; he’s too busy with my body. “They don’t count. Nobody counts until now.”

I’m sweaty, glorying in the hurricane intensity that he’s brought to bed with him. The sight of his cock, full and stiff for me, has me panting. You cannot believe someone so powerful could hold all of that energy under control, but Maverick does it so well, it’s exhilarating to be under the attention of such force and be receiving one controlled, delicious, calculated dose at a time.

He gives me only what he measures I can take.

“Mav, I want to kiss you here,” I say, trailing my hand over his erection.

“When I’m done with you first, maybe.” His thumb circles my belly button, then he teases his tongue inside a little bit. “Only one of us can be properly undone in this bed, you do it so much better. You like that?” His lashes lift as he speaks huskily and watches me, dipping his tongue into my belly button again.

He moves his mouth lower, toward my sex, and I’m tensing in preparation of what’s to come. I try to sit up when he nudges my thighs apart, but he presses me back down, caressing my breasts.Then he urges my thighs open, my sex drenched before his eyes. He looks at me, rubs a finger over the folds, checking that I’m wet and ready.

“Maverick,” I protest weakly, utterly embarrassed.

I can never stop feeling vulnerable when we have sex, and I feel so raw and needy.

“You’re as beautiful here as you are everywhere else.” He leans up and his mouth slides across mine, then he’s kissing me between my legs again, gently, and wetly thrusting his tongue with gentle rhythm, driving inward, pulling out, making me complain when I’m empty. I’m overloaded with Maverick, his scent, the feel of his kiss where I’m hottest and wettest and in a place where I can’t even see.

I’m panting hard while he works his lips up my sex, up my flat abdomen, between my breasts. When he kisses my mouth again, I’m ready, I was made to receive him, and his body was made to take mine, and we fit just right and I’m empty without him. I’m a huge, trembling nerve, quivering in need.

When I’m begging, he rises to his knees, braces up on one arm to keep from squishing me.

He looks extraordinary. This absolutely mystical creature, he’s so beautiful, his body in its prime, his face harsh with lust and his eyes shimmering in all those metallic-silver hues that make me want to stare at them for hours at a time.

I stare now. And they stare back at me. Memorizing me and visually fucking me before he physically does the same.

I love the way my body tenses in anticipation. And how my abdomen feels firm and so do my thighs as I curl my legs around his hips.

Curving his hand on my hip, he holds me as his thick, throbbing flesh fills me to the hilt. The sensation of him entering arches my body, so delicious my thighs skew open wider so he knows he’s more than welcome here. He’s needed.

I mew softly in pleasure, and he groans and stays there, inside me, like he did the time I gave him my V card. Letting me adjust to him.

“Reese . . . give yourself to me, Reese,” he coaxes. He crushes his mouth to mine, slides one arm upward, and holds my wrist in one hand as he pulls out and thrusts in. The headboard slams.

I groan. His body ripples against mine. Muscles flexing powerfully with each move. I’m locked beneath him, drowning in the power of him. All this time with him is just making me care.

I don’t want to care this much. . . .

I’m scared to care this much. . . .

When the summer is over, I need to leave. Back to school. And the saying “fight or die” applies to this guy to a T. Maverick would die if he’s not fighting.

And I feel like the light in my lamp is going to flicker off when I go back to where I used to live. And maybe, who I used to be. . . .

No, I am not her anymore. Not after this trip, this summer. Not after this man.

He moves his arms, and with our hands linked above my head, he keeps driving inside me, his skill delicious and smooth, but strong. Eyes on mine, he teases me with his lips, and he eases back to keep watching me as he takes me to the heights of pleasure, before teasing his lips across mine again.

“God, to have you like this every night . . . soft and wet and undone for me, Reese . . .”

His pace quickens, slamming harder, our hands clenched tight; I moan, arching and writhing, feeling him inside me, every stroke, every plunge maddening me. My nerve endings crackling. Hungrier than ever. Needing him more than ever. Closer and closer to my climax, his harsh groan running over my skin. Then we tense, together. My head tosses aside, the pleasure going on forever. He lets out a growl, then he slams his lips to mine as we’re both coming.

♥   ♥   ♥

I’M IN HIS arms, needing to go. I’m buzzing. My body and I content with each other.

“So why didn’t you cash your penny in before?” He smirks at me and lifts his brows as he smooths his thumbs down the bridge of my nose, one after the other. “You could’ve asked for anything. Didn’t I say you could?”

“I don’t know. I couldn’t let it go. I had you with me.” I see it in his palm and try to snatch it back up, and he squeezes his palm shut.

“Uh-uh.” He shakes his head. “Earn it.”

“Come on. Be gentlemanly.”

“Earn it.”

I laugh and playfully slap his shoulder, and his eyes dance; I can tell he loves my teasing slaps and that it doesn’t hurt him one bit.

He falls sober the next moment.

“Sorry about Racer. You love the little guy,” he says then, setting the penny aside.

“Very much. He was mad at me after a while and didn’t want to be with me. I felt like shit. So rejected.”

He kisses me. “You lose some, you win some.”

I grab his head and kiss him. “I need to go.”

He glances at the clock. “Yeah, I need to train.” He flops to his back and exhales happily.

I do the same. “People in love mimic each other, did you know? I read that somewhere. One grabs their hair and the other unconsciously does that.”

“When you grab your hair, makes me want to grab your hair too, not grab mine.”

I laugh and cuddle a little. “You’re funny.”

“No.” He sounds grumpy now.

“You have a sense of humor.”

“I’m just happy right now.”

“Really?” I ask, raising my brows.

He raises his pointedly. “Really.”

“See! You just lifted your brows like me.”

He groans and shakes his head. “Don’t even, Reese. I’m not a couple-y kind of guy. I don’t do costumes and I definitely don’t do matching costumes and I don’t do anything other people do.”

“That’s fine. Just do me.”

He smacks my butt as I get out of bed and squeezes it and pulls me down and kisses me. “You’re out of control, girl. Someone needs to keep an eye on you twenty-four/seven. I volunteer.”

I kiss him again, then I slap his chest playfully. “I’m going now,” I warn.

He sits up too and strokes my hair, then lowers me to his knee and looks down at my nipples and plays with them. “I’m going for a run with Tate today. I’m going to tell him about us. I want this out in the open.”

Butterflies wake up vigorously in my stomach. “Okay.”

He looks up at me meaningfully. “I want to take you to dinner tomorrow, after the semifinals.”

“Ummm.” Shit. I twist my mouth to the side as I think about how to phrase it. “Maverick, I wanted to talk to you about that. You see . . . tomorrow Miles is in town, and my other friends. I’m supposed to meet up with them once Brooke gets back from the fight.”

His eyebrows shoot up, then he narrows his eyes. “You want me to hang back while you go frolicking with Miles?”

I slap his thigh playfully. “Yes, because he’s just a friend. He’s always been just a friend. I thought . . .” I shake my head. “Maverick, I didn’t know the real thing.”

He narrows his eyes even more.

But, I admit, the possessive look I see there thrills me a little.

No, a lot.

Maverick not only looks possessive, but he sounds possessive too. “You’ll go out with them after the fight, but you won’t come to watch my fight? Reese?” he says, frowning and cupping my breast again, as if to remind me who makes me moan.

I drop on the bed, tug the sheet up, and playfully hide my breasts from him. “You said you didn’t want me there because I’d fuck with your head.”

He tugs the sheet back down to look at me, then he rubs my breast tips with the pads of his thumbs. “I said that before. Before I wanted you so badly on my side.”

My eyes close.

“What? No slap?” he teases.

I slap his shoulder, then set my hand there, possessively too. I squeeze his hard arm, with meaning, though it hardly budges at all.

“I’ll meet my friends tomorrow. And I’ll find a way to make it to the championship match. To see you.” I get up then and wait for his answer.

He nods at that, slowly, his gaze a little threatening. “Just remember.” He cups my butt as he stands and gently bites the top of my ear. “This ass is mine.”