But he simply pulled away from my grasp. “If you did, those men would’ve called you an ambulance. You’re going to be okay, all right?”
The man wasn’t eccentric, he was a fucking idiot. “Thanks for your help.”
“Anytime,” he said, moving back toward the front door, “and like I said, after five days, if regular Tylenol isn’t keeping things in check, have the guys call me.”
“We will!” Mav called after him as something touched down against the kitchen table.
I slowly turned toward the steam rising up from the bowl in front of me. Inside, there was this creamy sort of broth with hunks of potatoes floating around in it. Peas and corn. Carrots and onions. It was a regular garden variety fest in that bowl of soup.
And it smelled divine.
“I know you want to go home,” Mav said as he held a spoon beneath my gaze, “and you have my word that we’ll take you home once we know what’s going on and whether or not you’re safe.”
I snatched the spoon out from his grasp. “Do me a favor?”
“Anything.”
“Don’t talk to me anymore.”
And as I slipped my spoon into the soup, a heavy sigh fell against my ears. Not my sigh, though. Maverick’s.
A sigh filled with so much guilt that it almost made me want to forgive him.
Almost, anyway.
11
MAVERICK
God, she was gorgeous. Her pin straight black bangs covered her forehead, framing her icy blue eyes in a way that tugged at my cock. Her delicate waist poured into a set of hips I wanted to mark with my teeth, and heat pulsated throughout my body. I briefly heard Dante toss the soaked cell phone into the trashcan before gathering the bag out of the waste basket, and off in the distance Axton barked orders out on the front porch.
The instant we were alone, however, I locked my gaze with hers.
“So,Brielle,” I said as I walked over to her, “care to be escorted to your—”
She brushed past me without so much as a look. “Leave me alone.”
I nodded as she knocked into my shoulder. “I can do that, too.”
Her angry footsteps carried her up the stairs before the creaking of the floorboards above me tilted my head upward. I drew in a deep breath as the pounding of her feet made me shiver. I’d get her beneath me. I’d get a taste of those luxurious curves before she left our clubhouse. She had every right to be pissed, though, especially with her parents. And if we were being honest for a second, I felt for her. None of the other guys would; they enjoyed burying their trauma beneath mounds of fuck you’s and bullets. I mean, having a sibling betray you was a harsh reality to swallow. It sucked the air right out of your sails whether you knew them well or not.
My older brother did it to me several times.
And not once did my parents ever believe me when I told them what was happening.
“Where’d she go?” Dante asked.
His voice ripped me out of my trance and I turned, only to find him sticking his head around the corner from the hallway.
“Well?” he asked.
I pointed toward the ceiling. “Upstairs. Most likely to the room we set up for her.”
His gaze raked down my body. “She has every right to be pissed. Don’t take it personally.”
I shrugged. “I’m not.”
He chuckled as he disappeared back down the hallway. “Yeah, you are. So, suck it up.”
