The only saving grace in the whole situation was that she hadn’t yet combined her savings account with Grant’s, which meant she at least had some money to provide a cushion. Not that it was huge, but it was at least something.
She threw back the covers, got up, and made her way out to the kitchen in the dark. Lucy hopped off the end of the bed and padded after her. After a moment of fumbling for a light switch, Alexa found it, and then she was squinting against the brightness while her eyes adjusted. Standing at the sink, she filled a glass with water.
“You okay?” came a voice from behind her.
“Oh, hey,” she said, the glass nearly slipping from her hand in surprise. Maverick stood at the edge of the room, sexy as all hell with his sleep-mussed hair and wearing an unbuttoned pair of jeans and nothing else. Which reminded her that he liked to sleep naked. Or he used to. His tattoo-covered muscles were lean and hard, and her brain unhelpfully supplied her with the memories—so many molten-hot memories—of how all that hardness felt against her. “Did I wake you up? I’m sorry.”
“Wasn’t asleep.” He crossed his arms and leaned against the corner of the wall, the position emphasizing the bulge of his biceps and drawing her gaze to the maddening opening at his fly. Dark blond hair ran in a line down his abdomen and under the denim. And damn if her mind didn’t helpfully supply her brain with all kinds of images of exactly what lay beneath. She swallowed hard. “You neither?”
“I slept for a little while.” Sighing, she finished her drink and placed the glass in the sink. Everything inside her wanted to go to Maverick and burrow in against him. And at least a little of her wanted to go to him and push those jeans off his hips and down his thighs. Maybe reacquaint her mouth and fingers with every tattoo he had. The Live Free/Ride Free and crossed wrenches tattoos on his chest, the tribal black motorcycle on his arm that morphed into black flames, the black-and-white checkered flag that wrapped around his ribs on one side, the big piece on his shoulder that looked like he was mechanical under his skin—that one was new. Well, at least since they’d been together. But she’d lost the right to do any of those things. Worse, she’d thrown that right away.
“You gonna try to sleep some more?” he asked, dragging a hand through his hair. Hair she knew was so soft.
What was wrong with her? The last thing she needed to be doing right now was drooling over another man, but she couldn’t seem to stop noticing all the things that had always driven her crazy about Maverick Rylan.
“Al?”
“Huh?” Her gaze snapped to his, and found that dark, dark blue absolutely blazing. “Oh, uh. I’m not sure there’s much point. Maybe I’ll just watch some TV. Or something.”
He nodded toward the living room. “Maybe there’s something good on HGTV,” he said with a wink. “Probably not, but . . .”
Alexa chuckled. “Don’t say that like you don’t like a lot of those shows, too. You know you do.”
“Do not,” he said, shuffling toward the living room and yawning.
Walking out of the kitchen, she came up behind him. And the sight of his back nearly took her breath away. She’d forgotten how sexy his massive tattoo there was. The words Raven Riders arched across his shoulder blades, and below, a huge black raven clutched at the hilt of a blade stabbed through the eye of a skull. The club’s logo. Every fully patched Raven had one like it. Mav’s muscles rippled under the ink, making the big black bird seem alive.
“How much of the work around here did you do yourself?” she asked, glad when he dropped onto one end of the charcoal-gray couch, breaking her view of his impressive ink. She sat away from him, but not all the way at the other end either. She hugged her legs to her chest as Lucy perched on the rug on the other side of the coffee table and stared at them.
“I had some help, but I had a hand in all of it.” Mav flipped on the TV and changed the channel to a show about fixer-uppers.
“Uh-huh. Don’t worry, big bad biker. Your love of HGTV is safe with me.” She gave him an innocent look, but inside this all felt so familiar that she could almost pretend that the last five years hadn’t happened. She and Maverick had always shared an interest in design. Interiors were her first love and building custom bikes was his, but they’d watched more than their fair share of shows about rehabs, renovations, flips, and more. They both liked learning new things and neither was afraid to try to do something themselves. She’d always loved refinishing and repurposing old furniture and, as the updates to his place proved, he had more than a little handyman skill. She used to enjoy watching him work on his bike projects in the chop shop at the Ravens’ clubhouse. She’d always found competence and confidence sexy as hell—and Maverick had both in spades.
“It’s a good thing I like you,” he said, yawning again. He stretched his legs out in front of him and settled his big body into the cushion behind him.
Alexa chuckled, but her smile slipped right back off her face. Because the past five years had happened. She couldn’t pretend they hadn’t, after all. More than that, she was going to have to deal with a whole host of consequences for all the things she’d let get so out of control.
They watched the show for a couple minutes, but as soon as a commercial played, her thoughts raced. Laying her head against her knees, she peered at Maverick. “I don’t know what to do about work in the morning.”
Maverick gave her a serious look. “Do you have any kind of a contract?”
She shook her head. “I’m in the middle of a huge project, though. The deadline’s next week. God, I don’t even have any clothes to wear.”
“I can run you home in the morning, Alexa. But if he’s realized you left your ring there, that you intend to leave him for good, you gotta prepare for him to be vindictive. And that maybe means violent, too. He’s already shown he’s not above that. But don’t worry. I can bring some of the guys if I need to.” Maverick shifted toward her, crooking one of his legs up on the couch. The position pulled the gap at his waist open, and her gaze couldn’t help but lock on the fascinating strip of skin it revealed.
“Yeah?” she said, looking back to his face. “Okay.” The heat in his gaze said he’d caught her admiring him. She pressed her fingers into her neck and massaged a knot there. “You don’t have to stay up with me, you know.”
“I don’t mind.” His gaze flicked to her hand. “You hurting?”
She gave a little shrug. “I’m just a ball of stress.”
“I’d say you came by that honestly, Al.” He sat up, bringing his body closer to hers, and then he pushed her hand out of the way. “Lemme.”
Maverick’s big, warm hand gripped the back of her neck and massaged her sore muscles. She groaned and buried her face in her knees.
“Too much?” he asked, his voice gravelly.
“It’s perfect,” she said. And it was. Warm, firm, strong, his touch felt so damn good it was all she could do to keep from moaning.