His knuckles are white around the steering wheel as he stares straight ahead.
“Maverick?” I repeat, reaching across the bench to put my hand on his forearm.
At the contact, he finally turns toward me, an uneasy grin pulling at his mouth. “Yeah, baby?”
“You okay?” Seeing him unsettled—a man who’s always calm—is enough to put me off balance.
He looks away. “Are you feeling better?”
“I’m fine,” I assure him. “Are you?”
Again, he avoids my question. “You remember the code phrase?”
I nod. Anyone who’s part of the Resistance in New Athens will know the code words. “The flowers are beautiful this time of year.”
“The daisies are especially lovely this season,” he answers with the appropriate response. It’s ambiguous enough that no one would suspect anything suspicious if they overheard.
“Maverick,” I say again, louder this time, frustration mounting.
“I can’t!” he yells, startling me. “I can’t, I can’t—”
“Hey.” I crawl over on the bench and do the only thing I can think of to calm him down. Climbing into his lap and straddling his hips, I take his face in my palms. “Look at me.”
Chest heaving, his eyes scan back and forth between my own frantically. “I can’t do it—I can’t let you go.”
“I’m gonna be okay.” My thumbs stroke over his beard, hoping the repetitive motion soothes his nerves.
“What if you’re not? I won’t be able to live with myself if something happens to you.”
I shake my head. “I promised you that if things get too dangerous I’ll call you and you can pull me out. I intend to keep that promise.”
He studies my face, no doubt trying to decipher if I’m being completely honest, before he finally nods in acquiescence. “Okay.”
I lean forward, pressing my lips to his in a gentle kiss. His large hands frame my waist, pulling me closer to him as the kiss quickly becomes heated. Mouths parted, we share breath as our tongues dance together. My hips grind against his, my body seeking friction of its own volition.
A loud bang from the back of the van jolts us apart. “Any day now, boss.” Benji never says anything without reason, so we likely need to move to avoid a patrol.
With one final kiss on the tip of his nose, I climb off his lap and get back in my seat, fastening my safety belt and looking straight ahead as Maverick puts the van in drive. “Where are we?”
“Near the border. The Brotherhood doesn’t have any bases this far north, so it’s rarely patrolled.”
We drive in silence for a while before turning off the main road and onto a gravel path. Maverick tells me this used to be the access road to a bunch of different hiking trails, but since the Brotherhood chooses to allocate their resources elsewhere, forestry maintenance has fallen to the wayside. Even in its overgrown state, he clearly still knows the way to wherever we’re going.
As hard as I just worked to convince Maverick that I’m feeling fine, doubt creeps in. The more we drive, the harder it is to breathe. It’s like Gabriel has his hand around my neck, squeezing tighter and tighter the closer we get—like he’s cutting off my oxygen, even from a distance. My fists clench hard in my lap, so much so that I can feel my nails breaking through the skin on my palms. Maverick reaches overwithout a word and grabs my hand, bringing it over to his side of the cabin. He kisses the back of my hand and holds it in his lap so I can’t hurt myself. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to apologize,” he says, slowing down to avoid a particularly large dip in the road.
His touch calms me enough to think clearly again. “I wanted to talk to you about something.”
“Anything.” He squeezes my hand.
“When we get there… I mean, when I’m with Gabriel…” I take a deep breath, trying to find the right words.
He brings our clasped hands to his mouth and kisses the back of mine. “Take your time. There’s nothing you could say or do that will change how I feel about you.”
I turn my head to look over at him. “I might do or say things that are hurtful to you, but it’ll all be an act. I just need him to think the last few weeks have been torture, when in reality, they’ve been the best weeks of my life.”
“I know, darlin’. And the same goes for me. Whatever we have to do to pull this off, we’ll do it.”
