My mouth falls open. “Wait. Really? That’s the reason?”
“I was fifteen when I came up with it.” He shrugs. “It’s super cute and maybe even a little sexy when you think about it.”
I shake my head. “How is that even sexy to you?”
“I don’t question, I just accept.” He quirks an eyebrow. “Besides, you still slip and call me Rune from time to time.”
“All my memories of you are inextricably linked with that night.” I point to a stray coil. “Is it okay to ask if I can…?”
He grins and reaches back, shaking loose a cascade of shiny black curls tipped in gold. “Go for it. I love having my hair played with.”
“You look like a lion,” I say, gently sliding my fingers in along his hairline. “Wow. Even softer than it looks.”
“You should see it by the end of summer. Between the sun and the water, it bleaches out quite a bit.” He kisses me as I lose my fingers in the glorious curls. “So…by that night, I assume you mean the night at your cabin when I embarrassed myself?”
I shake my head, pushing a stray curl off his forehead. “You have no idea how beautiful you were that night. Earnest. Like a lyric. And I just think you have one of the most poetic names on the planet.”
“So youdidthink I was hot back then,” he says, popping his eyebrows. “Pervert.”
I laugh. “Sorry, but…I did not.” I run my thumb over his perfect cheekbone, then stroke his jawline. “You were too young for me to think of you like that, but I could seeyou. It bothered me that you approached me, actually.”
“Really?”
“Of course it did,” I say, kissing his forehead, then the tip of his nose, then the tip of his chin. “My dad raised me to be respectful of people, and to respect their age, and what that meant for where they were in life. But not everybody is like that. Some creepy guy could’ve taken advantage of you. I was scared for you.”
I think back, wishing I had given Maverick a warning, or at least warned his parents. But I’d just met my birth father that day, and my brain was still a scrambled mess.
Sigh.
Another reminder of why this is so very complicated.
“Hey. Where’d you go?” Mav asks, his hand sliding over my hip.
“Not all the things that make this problematic are resolved by you getting older,” I admit.
His eyes slide off to the side. “True.”
“And it doesn’t seem like either of us much wants to talk about those complications.”
“I absolutely do not.” He grimaces. “Cannot,” he clarifies.
I’m curious what he means by that, but his eyes are too pretty to care.
I lay kisses from his square shoulder down to the curve of his biceps. “You’ll know mine soon enough, but I need to talk to someone else first.”
“Sounds serious,” Maverick murmurs, kissing the top of my head.
“Serious?” I pull back and tilt my hand side to side. “Maybe. But not in a bad way.”
He pinches his brows together, thoughtful. “I can accept that.”
“And yours?” I ask, rubbing the line between his brows. “Is it serious? Is it bad?”
“Yeah, definitely serious.” He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, then takes my hand and starts kissing my fingertips. “It changes things. But I don’t know enough to know if it’s bad or good.” He chews on his bottom lip, and I stay quiet till his eyes meet mine again. “Your job actually makes all of this very complicated,” he says quietly.
Damn.
There’s a part of me that wants to use my detective skills to figure out what he can’t say. And there’s another part of me that doesn’t ever want to know.
