He kisses me back, his hands rubbing my back, sliding lower to my ass. His hands completely encompass it, and I groan because his erection is pressed against the one part of me I need him to touch.

He kisses my collarbone, his hands on my hips coaxing me into a delicious, grinding, maddening rhythm. A rhythm that makes me want to come apart for him. He takes my lips and groans, “Give me your tongue,” against my mouth.

I slip my tongue tentatively into his mouth and he starts sucking on it gently.

I feel my body go weak. He holds on to me like I’m his anchor, and he kisses the life out of me.

We’re both panting, moaning, grinding, dying with every second that goes by and we’re apart.

“What do you want?” I ask him.

“What do I want?” His eyes flare open and his hand grips my hip. His eyes search mine, pure, lovely, flowing gray. “You know what I want, Reese. I want you now. And I want you in my arms tonight.”

“Whatever you want, take it,” I groan.

He studies me, devours me.

“Please,” I whisper.

I don’t need to say anything else because he flips us over until I’m on my back, and he’s on his side, looking down on me.

I caress his face, run my fingers down the scruff on his jaw. Rub my thumbs on his cheeks.

Trace his lips.

“You drive me crazy,” I whisper.

And we kiss and kiss by the lake in the park, my picnic basket forgotten because there’s no other hunger for me than him—and I can tell, his lips tell me, that there’s no other hunger for him greater than me.

♥ ♥ ♥

LATE AT NIGHT, he leads me into his room and I strip and slide naked into his bed. And as soon as he strips and joins me, it’s warm beneath the sheets, his body steel-hard and smooth and muscled and hot. And I link my legs to his and rest my cheek on his chest.

I trace his nipple with my finger. His breathing changes when I slip my other hand down his waist to stroke his abs. “It’s not that your chest is muscled and beautiful and tan and perfect,” I whisper, almost to myself. “It’s that it’s warm and wide and strong and all your male strength just surrounds me when I’m on it.”

His breath catches, and then he lets out the most delicious groan. He flips me to my side, and he spoons me and tongue-fucks my ear as he starts to fuck me slowly in the dark, sliding his hand down my abs to caress me between my legs as he drives inside me, over and over, and then he rasps in my ear, “I love you hard.”

“Mmm. How hard?”

“This. Hard.” Driving deeper. Faster.

A low moan leaves me. I turn my head to him and we start kissing, and after we fuck as hard as we love each other, we settle down to fall asleep, spooning for the rest of the night.

FORTY

THE PHOENIX AND THE SCORPION

Maverick

It’s pitch-black when my cell wakes me. Reese stirs beside me, and I blink to focus. I smile when I see her curled up to me, warm and soft, her hair tangled up somehow around my arm. I ease it from beneath her, hearing her mumble, “No,” and I smile.

The Tates’ hotel was fully booked, but I’m staying just down the block.

I want her close.

I ease off the bed, snap on some boxers, and head out to the living room to take the call.

“Maverick Cage?” a female voice asks.

“Yeah.”

Fuck, it’s 3:00 a.m.

I pull the phone away to scan the number. I’m frowning as I put the phone back to my ear and peer out the massive window at the blinking lights of New York and the long, shadowed rectangle of the park. “It’s about your father.”

I hear the word “father” and I’m immediately transported to the moment I first saw him; the broken man I last saw in the hospital bed.

My body engages like it does before a fight. “He’s awake?”

There’s hope, stupid hope, in my guts when I ask that.

Hope that for the first time in my life, my father will look at my face.

For the first time in my life I can stare at his eyes and say, I’m fighting, Dad.

“Unfortunately, he didn’t make it. They tried to ease him out of the induced coma and . . .” She trails off when I inhale sharply. “The doctors want to speak with you about what’s next.”

Disbelief.

Denial.

Anger.

I grit my teeth as I lift my free hand and stare at my bruised knuckles in the dark.

“Sir?”

I turn my hand and glare at my palm.

Is it bigger than his? Wider than his? Does he have all the calluses I have? Does my strength come from him or from his denial of me?

“Sir?”

I glance at Reese as she stands at the bedroom door with the crisp bedsheet wrapped around her shoulders, so fucking lovely my eyes hurt, and I gruff into the speaker, “I’ll take the next flight out.”

“Maverick? What’s wrong?”

I scrape my hand down my face and end the call, then I toss my phone aside, go and scoop her up, and take her back to bed. I set her down, look at her face, and just want to bury myself inside her again, all night. The rest of my life.

“My dad’s dead. I’m taking a flight out. Get some rest.” I reach for my jeans and a clean T-shirt.

“I want to go with you, Maverick.” She reaches for her clothes.

“No. I don’t want you near him.”

“Why?” She halts, then drops her clothes and stares at me in question.

I shove my legs into my jeans, zip up and snap them, and then stare at her for a moment, and slowly shake my head. “I just don’t.”

I’m ashamed for Reese to know my father. I’m ashamed for her to see where I come from. You’re the good in my life, all of it. My lucky charm. I don’t want you near the bad.

Not even my own mother wanted to be near him again, a woman who once loved him. I don’t want my girl near him either.

“I’ll be back for the fight,” I say, shoving into my T-shirt and quickly grabbing my stuff.

Reese clutches the sheet to her chest, her eyes loving and tender and full as she comes to me.

Comes to me and lovingly kisses my lips.

I’m slayed by her.

Everything she does touches me.

Everything she does pleases me.

Everything she does cuts me.

“For luck?” I ask thickly, probing into her eyes, desperately searching for the measure of peace I crave to find.