Poor girl.
Resting my elbows on my knees, I’d come close to approaching that blissful state where you know you finally get to pee after you’ve been holding it for some time, and it was going to be really, really amazing.
That fell short.
My bliss was interrupted when the door to my stall was, for all intents and purposes, ripped off its hinges.
“What the… What are you…?” I screamed, my legs slamming together.
Then my brain shorted out.
It abandoned me.
There wasn’t even enough comprehension of the situation for my anger to flare up at the sight of the person it seemed to relish in.
I was stunned.
For now, crowding the made-for-singular-capacity women’s bathroom stall, with my bare ass still kissing the porcelain and my panties around my ankles, was Maverick good-for-nothing-pissed-me-off-royally-but-was-a-really-good-kisser Hart.
What in the ever-loving fuck?
“We have to go now,” he growled, and I could do nothing but balk at him.
He didn’t even notice.
“The hell we are.” I gaped at him, but no further explanation fell from his full lips.
It was like he was looking through me.
No wit.
No pigheaded slurs.
Nothing.
It was possible if I’d been less concerned about the fact that my underwear was down my legs and that I was still sitting on a toilet, I’d have noticed that maybe he looked worried.
Wordlessly, he slipped his hands under my armpits and hauled me to my feet. It was somewhat of a miracle I didn’t pee myself from the roughness and surprise of that alone.
“Don’t manhandle me,” I screeched like a poorly behaved adolescent.
He shook his head and took his hands off me.
“What are you even doing here?” I shouted.
He ignored me.
“I have to pee.” I made my eyes wide and waited for him to leave, but he didn’t. “Badly,” I added for empathies, but still, nothing.
He averted his eyes to above my head. “No time.”
Was he trying not to look at my cooch?
Not possible.
Maverick Hart didn’t have a respectful bone in his body.
“Get fucking dressed, Princess. Now.”
There he was.
I stared at him for a nanosecond, considering just how low I’d be on the woman scale if I punched him in the gut while I was naked from the hips down. Eventually, I bent at the waist and secured my thong and dress to their rightful positions.
“Dressed,” I hissed, and shoved past him.
He grabbed me by my upper arm and slammed my back against the bathroom wall. “Keep your attitude in check,” he barked, and I snarled at him. “I don’t have time for your bullsh—”
His sentence was interrupted by the sound of a two-way radio I hadn’t noticed clipped to his belt. “We have the Goose sequestered, please advise. Over,” a male voice said into the, I now noticed was empty, bathroom.
Grabbing at the device with his free hand, he pressed a button on the side. “Evacuate Goose. Over.”
He said it in the same short and clipped tone the other man had used.
The other male voice came through almost immediately. “Negative. Goose won’t evacuate without the bird. Over.”
“Fuck.” His black eyes bore through me. “Shots were fired on this block,” he explained, and my eyes went wide while my temper thinned into the air around us. “We need to evacuate Beau to a safe location as part of his security, and he won’t leave without you. So, we have to go.”
I nodded but stood still.
“Now!” he yelled.
I jumped.
He pressed the button again. “En-route with the bird. Over.”
“Ten-four,” the voice said back.
Maverick didn’t waste any time. He put his hand on the small of my back like he had the night of the gala and moved us expertly through the theatre.
Down two floors and left into a service hallway, I could barely feel him breathe.
He was steady, and I was scared.
I leaned into his hand.
We hit the end of the hall and pushed into what looked like the back of the theatre, when Beau and another guy—the one I recognized from Maverick’s office and the gala—came into view.
“There you are. Are you okay?” Beau ran towards us. “Is she hurt?” His eyes travelled over my head to Maverick, just as I felt his hand slip away from the small of my back.
“She’s fine,” he clipped.
Beau cupped my face, worry in his blue eyes. “I’m so sorry about this.”
“It’s fine,” I assured him. “I’m fine.” And I was.
He lifted his chin and pressed his lips to my forehead. “I was worried about you.”
I wrapped my arms around his waist and leaned my upper body into his chest.
“I have to pee.”
Yes, that’s what I said.
I’d developed a bad habit over the years of handling stress inappropriately.
I laughed at funerals.
Thus, in that moment, all I could manage to think of was that I still had to pee.
Beau’s comforting chuckle warmed the room, and I smiled into his suit, soaking it up.
There was nothing uncomfortable about being around Beau.
It was easy.
He was an easy man to like.