I leaned in, mouth at her ear. “You want to know why I can’t stand you, Maverick?”
She looked hurt for a fleeting moment, then laughed, breathless. “Enlighten me.”
I tossed my hat off and kissed her, all teeth and anger, and she bit back just as hard. Her legs locked around my hips, her arms pulling me closer. I could feel every part of her, soft and tense and wanting.
She dropped her legs and clawed at my shirt, tearing it loose from my waistband, her hands hot on my back. I shoved her harder against the wall, lips on her throat, her jaw, her mouth. She didn’t shy away. She met every move, fierce and wild.
I could taste salt and sweat and the sharp tang of lemon from her skin. She dug her nails into my waist, drawing blood, and I growled low, animal. I owned every inch of her mouth, my tongue memorizing every taste. There was no other sound in the room, just the sound of breath and skin and the occasional tap of her head against the drywall when I pinned her too hard.
When I pulled away, we stood there, chest to chest, hearts hammering.
She was the first to speak, voice rough. “Still think I’m not ready?”
She might have kissed like a fucking woman on fire, but when I looked at her, I saw a spoiled brat.
I pulled back, looked her in the eyes. “You’re trouble, Maverick. That’s what you are. You’re reckless and have no discipline. You think everything is a game, and you’re the one moving the pieces across the board. I got news for you darlin’, this isn’t a game I’m interested in playing.”
She grinned, lips swollen, still thinking she was in control. “What does that mean?”
I let her go, put my hat back on, and picked up my toolbox. She watched, smug and triumphant.
“It means you’re still not ready, little girl.”
I left, the sound of her confused gasp following me home.
Chapter 5
Brie
The door shut so hard it rattled the glass in the windows, and I just stood there, back pressed to the cool, flaking paint, half expecting Gunner to storm back in and finish the job; yell at me, or fuck me, or both. Instead, the only sound was the distant crunch of gravel under his boots and the useless pounding of my own heart.
He’d called me “trouble,” Maverick, a “little girl playing grown-up,” and it was worse than any slap. Worse than the way he’d kissed me, so hard I was certain my mouth was bleeding; worse than the way he’d looked at me just before he let go, as if he pitied me for not being enough. I could still taste him—salt, coffee. It was all over my lips, my tongue, my teeth.
I sagged to the kitchen floor, knees knocking together, arms wrapped tight around my ribs like I could maybe hold the rest of me together. The leftover adrenaline made my teeth chatter. I pressed my forehead to the hardwood floor and let myself breathe, just breathe, in and out until the rush of blood slowed and the dizzy part of my brain stopped screaming.
He was right, obviously. I was a mess. A spoiled brat, a fuckup, a “project” no one would ever finish. I told myself I didn’t care, but every molecule in my body was vibrating with humiliation and hunger, and it was all for him. I hated him for it. I hated myself more.
The thing was, I’d never wanted someone to want me this badly. I was good at making people notice me—could bat eyelashes, flash a smile, lean just so over the pastry case and score a free almond croissant without even trying. At university, I’d won a barista’s entire week’s tips just for giving him my number, which I never answered. It was easy. It was a game.
But Gunner didn’t play games. At least, not with me.
He played them with everyone else. I’d seen him at Pearl’s, in the smoky warmth of the bar, laughing and trading stories, high-fiving the other wolves and ruffling the hair of the MC’s newest kid like an affectionate big brother. He was golden, unbothered, the center of every joke. But the minute I walked into the room, the humor dried up, and he’d stare at me with this complicated look—half disgust, half ache.
Why did he go cold with me? Was I so broken?
I picked myself up and paced to my bedroom, slamming the door behind me, then locking it for good measure. The walk through the house was automatic; I’d memorized every creak in the floorboards, every spot where the paint peeled, every place the light hit wrong and made the whole place look haunted. Sometimes I felt like the house was an extension of me—pretty enough from a distance, all cracks and holes if you looked too close.
I flopped onto the bed, barely missing the sketchbook I’d left open on the comforter. My latest drawing was a half-finished self-portrait, but it didn’t look like me; it looked like someone who didn’t care what happened next. I tossed the book across the room and buried my face in the pillows.
My wolf had nothing to offer. She was curled up in the corner of my brain, licking her wounds. “You’re trouble, Maverick,” Gunner had said, voice so low and final it vibrated right down to my bones.
For a split second, I hated him. Then, as the minutes crawled past, the hate slipped into a sticky sort of longing, so familiar it made me want to cry. He was probably already back at his barn, tossing hay and pretending he’dnever even set foot in this house. I wondered if his hands were still shaking. Mine were.
I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to pretend this was all a bad TV show, and that next week I’d be a whole new Brie—one who never got nervous, never let a man make her feel like this. But I’d seen enough to know that even the best pilots got canceled before the season ended. I was already on reruns.
I should have felt angry, but all I could manage was tired.
I didn’t realize I was crying until I felt the warm, stinging wetness on my wrist. Not the pretty, cinematic tears you dab away with a monogrammed handkerchief, but the ugly kind; snuffling, hiccupy, making the skin under your nose raw. I swiped at my face with the sleeve of my favorite cardigan, blue and gold, the one Luc had always said made me look “très chic.”
