Soon enough, I’m no longer capable of holding back my moans. I also don’t want to. I want Maverick to hear just what he does to me. I want him to know just how he affects me.
“Maverick,” I cry out, and he sucks harder. Just one more time, just one last time, before pulling back and using his tongue to flick me into the most sensational orgasm. I climb high, cradled in the arms of something great, something beautiful, something that is really and truly, only ours.
Without giving me time to find my way down from bliss, Maverick climbs onto the bed and proceeds to strip my dress from my body until I’m completely and vulnerably naked before and beneath him. He doesn’t take the time to undress himself and when I reach a hand out to offer assistance, he grips my wrists and throws them above my head before hovering over me like a fox ready for the prowl. Our lips touch, our tongues tangle. The need to breathe feels like less of a necessity than my need for him and so I don’t. I don’t think. I don’t breathe. I just give him everything.
There’s something about him being fully clothed while he kisses me that goes worlds beyond erotic. The feel of his pants, belt, shirt contrast the softness of his tongue as he slides past my lips and into my mouth. This kiss is soft, desperate, defenseless, but not short in the way that it completely disarms me. We’re like that for a while, tasting each other, speaking without words. There’s nothing erotic and everything erotic about what’s happening now.
“I want you,” I whisper into his mouth. He pulls back briefly, then thinks better of it and kisses me even harder.
“I’m terrified of how much I want you,” he says. The fear in his voice says that I should believe him. Logic, however, dictates that there’s nothing for him to fear. I’ve never felt this way about anyone before. Never wanted anyone before. Never even wanted Maverick, if I’m to be perfectly honest about it. But now that I have him, I can’t ever imagine what it would be like to lose him. Him, on the other hand. He knows what it’s like to be with someone else, to want someone else, possibly to love someone else.
“I’m the one who should be terrified.” He doesn’t dispute that with words. And if anything, the speed with which he strips his own clothes from his body and the delicacy with which he parts my folds, is every confirmation I need that I am right.
Maverick knows my body like he’s been studying it for decades; knows it in a way that he shouldn’t. In a way that not even I know myself. It’s as though I come natural to him.
He eases inside of me, his cock slick with my juices as he pushes until there’s nowhere left to push. The world falls to the side as he takes from me all the things I’m willing to give and all the things I’m not, slowly bringing me higher and higher.
This time, when we come, we do so in unison. Perfect together. If I’m to forget the fact that perfect doesn’t exist. But right now, as I’m drifting off into the darkness behind my eyes, I’m not so sure anymore because this feels pretty damn perfect.
Maverick pulls me closer to him so that my back is flush against his chest. There’s nothing to be heard, save for the lightness of his breathing and the steadiness of his heartbeats. Sleep drifts closer and closer until I’m nestled in the arms of it, wrapping myself in the beginnings of a dream.
“I’m terrified that I might have fallen in love with you.” I’m more than halfway between sleep and wake, but even then, I know the voice is Maverick’s. But it’s softer, richer, riper, bare. I know what I heard, but I wouldn’t swear it with my neck on the block because as real as all of this feels, love makes it feel so much realer.
43
I’ve come to realize that once Beth gets an idea stuck in her head, she’s relentless in her annoyance and it’s not a battle I can actually win. The last few days have made this abundantly clear. When I make a promise to her, she expects me to keep it. So here I am, keeping it. And I promised her that once we got back home, I’d deal with my demons.
“Thank you for agreeing to meet with us.” She beams up at her parents who are both seated across from us in my living room.
“I want to apologize for how our first meeting went,” her mom offers, and I smile over at her.
“Please, there’s no need...I deserved that.”
There’s an awkward silence and I realize that, despite her bugging me to do this, Beth is pretty nervous, which makes me uneasy.
“Bethany said you’d be able to help me fill in a few gaps that I might have regarding my mom?”
Her dad nods before handing me an old photo album. He’s pulled out a few more items from his backpack and placed them on the table before us, which makes me know that he came into this meeting prepared. I’m not sure if I should be happy or unsettled by the fact. I’m about to dive into a part of my life that I’ve always wanted to remember. It has the potential to be healing, yes. But it also has the potential to wreck me just the same.
I pull the photo album from his hands and suck in a deep breath before flipping to the first page. I can feel all the eyes in the room on me, which makes me nervous beyond words.
The first photo is of my mother in front of a packed auditorium, pride and determination in her smile as she looks out at the crowd of youngsters ahead of her. She’s got a microphone close to her lips and I can almost hear her voice, soft, gentle, sweet. The second photos has Beth in it. She’s possibly no more than 4 years old with her violin under her neck and my mom standing over her, teaching her the correct posture from the look of it.
The third and fourth photographs display my mother’s smile in full effect. She’s not focused on the camera, not putting on a face. She’s just in her element, happy. I wonder if she was this happy when she was back in the UK…when she was with me.
The rest of the photographs take me on a journey back in time. I find myself smiling. I find myself wondering. I find my heart breaking and coming back together all at the same time.
“She was beautiful,” Beth’s dad speaks up, “And kind. With a very gentle heart. She never cared to stay at a fancy hotel whenever she came here. She would always stay with us for the full trip and you would send her the sweetest letters.” Beth’s mom smiles at us and I can see a twinkle in her eye.
“She talked about you non-stop. Her little man with a heart of gold.” She hands us a Christmas card that was signed by Eloise and Mavvy...nobody has called me Mavvy in a very long time.
My fingers trace the loops of her cursive handwriting, trying to reconnect with even the slightest part of her.
“What happened to her, what happened to you, it broke our hearts. We’re so sorry you had to lose her like that,” her dad offers and, I accept his belated condolences with a respectful nod.
“You knew?” Beth stares up at her father in shock and he looks truly repentant. I guess this isn’t the conversation Beth thought we would be having. Me either, if I’m being honest. Beth said they’d help me to fill in some gaps, but never mentioned they knew anything about the accident.
My skin feels cold, like I’ve stepped right into the Arctic without a single layer of clothes on. My mouth’s been frozen shut too, so I don’t get to tell him that this is where I’d prefer the conversation to end. That I don’t need them detailing to Beth and myself how I killed my mother.