Chapter Thirty
Maverick
I’m sorry. Those two words are never enough. I learned that the hard way growing up in the Hart residence. You show your remorse through doing better and proving your apology is sincere by actions. That’s what I’m doing now. I could apologize a million times for the fucking awful lies I told Windsor. But they’d be just words from a person who doesn’t deserve trust. I barely trust myself right now. I haven’t had a sip of alcohol since the night Windsor came to me. She could have stayed with Nash that night, but she came. It was the only show of confidence I needed. It’s strange how some small act creates so much forward momentum.
“She’s been wanting that new couch for like a year. Windsor is going to flip out,” Gretchen says excitedly. I asked what Windsor wanted if price wasn’t an object, and she told me a couch. It’s not the most romantic gift in the world by any stretch, but if it will make her happy that’s all that matters. It’s similar to the leather couch in my own home. “All the flowers were a little unnecessary, but I get the over-the-top apology you’re going for. I appreciate the lack of goldenrod in these bouquets. Your love sent my allergies into a fucking tail spin the last time you went on a flower gifting rampage.”
“Roses tend to be less of a trigger if you have allergies,” I explain, looking around at every single table covered with glittering flowers. “I just want it to look like the last time…except better.” I want to pick up at a place when everything was perfect. Before Stone blew himself up and before I pushed her away. This is the only way I know how. Goose prances, yes, the fucking dog prances over and hops up to his designated blanket on the new couch. I smile. He’s easy to train. Windsor’s just a softie.
Gretchen clears her throat. “Your kitchen timers are going off, oh skilled-at-everything-Navy-SEAL.” I made dinner for all of us, but Gretchen explained that if she had to play third fiddle on one more date in Windsor’s life, her head would explode. Exploding heads aren’t conducive for what I need to happen tonight. She’s going to leave us alone. I’m nervous Windsor won’t agree to be alone with me and she’ll be here any second. Morganna sent me a text a few minutes ago. A sheen of sweat breaks across my forehead.
I meet Gretchen’s calculating gaze and say, “I’m not skilled at everything. I wouldn’t have to grovel like a pig if I did things perfectly the first time. I’m sorry, Gretchen. You’re the person who has to deal with the aftermath of…everything. Thank you for helping me pull this off.”
Tightening her ponytail, she slings her hands on her hips. “Nash doesn’t deserve her. You fucked up less. What he did to her, in my eyes, is unforgivable. But Windsor being Windsor feels like everyone needs the benefit of the doubt. She’s big into second chances, if you didn’t notice. She was destroyed after you pushed her away, but you know she never let on? I’d hear her cry all night long, and poor little Goose had a wet, tear soaked head constantly, but she didn’t want to affect anyone else with her pain. That’s how she dealt this time. So, you know I didn’t deal with the aftermath directly. She’s thoughtful to a fault. Thank you for making this right. She deserves this and so much more. Just don’t fuck up again,” she says, eyes narrowed.
I’m already shaking my head. “If I can make this work. If I can get her back, I’ll never let her go again,” I say. Punishing myself by denying Windsor wasn’t going to work for very long. In my short sober stints in between drunken blackouts, I surmised that much. Now I’ve wasted four months. I want the rest of her months to be mine.
Keys jingle as the front door closes. Windsor’s heels click down the hall, and she peeks into the living room, her eyes darting to me immediately. She can’t hide her smile. It’s in her eyes and on her beautiful mouth. She looks a little sad, like maybe she’s been crying, but her smile distracts me from everything else. The ache in my chest encompasses my whole body, relief washing over me. I felt close to her while visiting Kathy in Georgia because I was in her space, with her mother, but seeing her in the flesh right now is better than my wildest fantasies. I missed her more than I can quantify. Gretchen slips quietly past Windsor and out the front door. We’re alone.
Flowers are everywhere, but her gaze is all mine, she doesn’t look away. I swallow down the fear. “I’m a stupid man, Windsor Forbes. I’ve said things I can’t take back, I’ve done things that are even worse. I let alcohol step into my shoes and run my life for me. I let it take away the only good thing in my life. I let it take away the one thing that makes me feel alive. I’m so, so sorry.” I pause because I see her blue eyes glassing over. She merely nods. I’m just getting started though.
I close the distance between us and grab her small hands in mine. She doesn’t pull away. If anything she leans toward me, wanting me closer.
Time to play the honesty game. “I'm not honest. I'm trustworthy though. It sounds like fuck-all bullshit, but that's it. That's me. It's all I can offer, Win. The dark places stay dark places. You'll never have all of me. I don't expect you to be happy about that fact. I just want you to love what's in front of you. Because what you see, this person I am when I'm with you? It's the best version of me and it's all because you didn't run from the other me. I love you. I love all of you. Now, I'm asking you to love me back, but only the part that deserves your love. This guy. Right here and right now. I’m offering you what’s left of me. It’s not much, but it’s all I have to give. Look at me. Look at my life. I'm fucking crazy, and maybe I’m a little bit deranged and over-the-top. But you? You're good. You make me good.” I pull her to my chest, because the inches between our bodies feel like oceans. Her arms wrap around me and her face finds that place on my chest that only she can fit into—like a puzzle piece.
“I love all of you, Maverick,” she sighs against me. The feeling buzzing around inside me right now is why I drank myself into oblivion. It was absent. “You’re not deranged either. Maybe just a little compulsive and set in your ways, but not deranged. I’ll take what’s left of you. It’s more than I could have hoped for. I have to admit though, I’m afraid.” She shivers.
I pull back to read her eyes. “Of what?” I’ll crush any fear she has.
“Of loss,” she says. With one word she’s explained everything that’s wrong with my life. It’s undeniable. It’s the one thing I can’t promise her. It’s part of me. My loss. Her loss. The whole damned world’s loss. I can’t protect her from that. “I see what loss has done to you and Morganna, and I’m not that strong.”
I tip her chin up and will her to see everything inside my mind. How I think she’s the strongest person in this world…in this universe. Silent strength. Passionate strength. The strength to forgive. The strength to move on in the midst of her darkest hours. She’s stronger than me. Fearing loss is the worst way to live. It’s worse than actually dealing with it.
“You just have to live, Windsor. Worrying accomplishes nothing. Tomorrow isn’t promised. All we have is today. Right now. This moment is what’s left. Loss only exists because you had something worth losing in the first place. Do you know how stupid I feel for wasting four months of tomorrows?” Her blue eyes look fierce as indecision lights her face. A moment later Windsor leans up and presses her lips against mine, twining her arms around my shoulders, her body against mine. I’ve had a lot of great moments in my life. This one tops the list. I deepen the kiss, running my hands down her sides to rest on her small hips. If lips could heal, Windsor’s would be my type of treatment. I forget about everything. It’s just her and I and our blistering, fucking amazing, crazy love lighting the entire world on fire. That’s what it feels like, anyway.
I bring a hand up to grab her chin. She automatically opens further, letting my tongue dip inside to meet hers. “Miss you,” she says against my teeth. Her body is so warm against mine, her tits pressing on my stomach. She has morphine-laced lips. Her kiss numbs all the bad. Delirious happiness rages inside me. I want her. How did I stay away from her for so long? I was a fucking drunken idiot. I want to punish myself for punishing myself.
“I missed you too,” I say, not breaking our mouths apart. It’s more than mere miss, though. I want to stay attached to her forever. I don’t want this to end. I thought it did end. I thought it was fucked forever. I should have known better.
Love doesn’t die. No matter how many bullets you put in it. It breathes on its own without oxygen, without need for anything else. It exists, swirling in its own form of gravity, ready whenever you are, to be consumed by it.
I hold her gorgeous face in my hands and with a great effort I tear my wet lips from hers. I only stop because if I let this kiss go on I know I’ll have her naked on the floor in minutes, and that’s not what this is about. Well, it kind of is, because I want her…and I haven’t had sex since her, but that’s not part of my great plan. I wasn’t even expecting her to surrender her lips to me tonight.
“I made dinner,” I explain. Her eyes are wide, pupils dilated, and the soft pink of her cheeks are the telltale sign—she’s ready right now. That fact flips a switch. I want her in all fucking ways. Which means I’ll need enough restraint for both of us. I focus on controlling my uneven breathing. Looking around the room, Windsor sees the flowers for the first time, and eventually the couch. Her jaw drops.
“This is what you were doing? You bought me a couch?” she asks, her voice loud. I can’t determine whether it’s a happy or a what-the-fuck question.
“If you don’t like it we can switch it for something you do like,” I say, thinking the couch was a horrible idea. She shakes her head, her hair swinging across her back.
“No, I love it. Thank you. Gretchen must have told you I’ve wanted this one for a while. It’s too much,” she says, sitting down on it next to Goose. She picks him up and cuddles him against her chest, rubbing the leather with her free hand. She makes a few exclamations about how much she likes the sofa and then follows me into the kitchen. The couch isn’t nearly enough. She doesn’t know that yet, though.
“You didn’t have to do all of this Maverick. You had me at I’m a stupid man, Windsor Forbes. It’s a version of I’m sorry I haven’t heard yet. You get beaucoup points for creativity.”
I exhale. Easy. Being with Windsor is easy. I think any other woman wouldn’t forgive this easily. But then again, if they aren’t Windsor, I don’t need or want their forgiveness in the first place.
We eat dinner in a sexually charged atmosphere, eyes fucking when our bodies can’t. I can taste it in the air. The need to be close to her in any capacity is stronger than anything else. The conversation is light and flows effortlessly. When you have months and months to catch up on, I guess that happens.
She’s also relentlessly curious about my time spent with her mother. There really isn’t much to say about that. I wanted to get to know the woman who raised Windsor. They are polar opposites, something I’m sure Windsor is grateful for. I know I am. Behind every single insult Kathy slings her way, behind it all, is undying love. It’s just her weird, fucked up way of showing it. Knowing that fact comforts me. It gives me hope for my own parents. I called them and we talked. It was minimal and just the basics, but the lines of communication are open. If I was going to take Stone’s advice about Windsor, I want to take all of his advice. Sober Maverick is going to attempt to fix everything.
Her eyes are downcast as she whispers. “I’m glad you feel better, but you can’t be magically cured, Mav. I saw what drinking made you do. Even if I didn’t see it, Morganna gave me first hand accounts of the situations she dealt with. You know, when you didn’t want me in your life. My love for you isn’t some magic pill. I saw exactly how intoxicating being intoxicated was for Kathy. Is it the same for you? Should you get more help?”
Heavy words—heavy, but so true. I don’t feel like drinking right now. When I have to go home to my empty house tonight, I’m not so sure what I’ll feel like. I know I can control myself. The problem is wanting to. What happens when I can’t fall asleep because I can’t stop the memories? “It’s a work in progress, Win. You give me a reason to stay sober. When Stone died, a lot of fucked up shit crossed my mind. Drinking got it off my mind. I told you I have addiction problems. I need you to trust me. I can do this. We can do this. Tell me I can’t and watch what happens,” I say, smiling big and wide. Windsor laughs, exposing her perfect white teeth.
She stands, sauntering over to sit directly in my lap, her legs dangling off the side. I groan and laugh at the same time. It’s so unexpected and so right at the same fucking time. Wrapping her arms around my neck, I feel her answer. She says it anyway. “I trust you. I just don’t want to be the reason you quit. I want you to want it for yourself. If I were to drop off the face of the planet tomorrow, I’d want to drop knowing you’d be okay.” She kisses my cheek. She kisses my ear. She runs her fingernails through my hair.
“I’m okay now. I know that I’m okay now,” I whisper, closing my eyes, feeling her on me and around me. It’s not a lie. I’ll be okay if I always have this. Windsor’s steely blue gaze is trained on me when I open my eyes.
“This plan?” Windsor asks, narrowing her eyes and biting her bottom lip. Fuck. “Does making out on the new couch come next?”
No. “Yes,” comes out instead. She squeals as I pick her up, cradling her in my arms. “The plan is whatever makes you happy,” I admit, pulling her down on me, sinking deep into the sofa. I want to know she’s mine before I take her again. This time I’m going to do what I should have done the first time. The thing is, there is no way I’m telling her no…maybe not ever again. Our legs are entwined and I feel every body part that touches hers. She props herself on her elbows and looks down at me, her brown hair spilling over her shoulders. My heart starts pounding the second it recognizes the look in her blue eyes. There’s no guessing about it. I know what she’s thinking.
“I love you,” I say, beating her to the punch.
A half-smirk inches its way across her beautiful mouth. Eyes smiling she says, “Blow me, Maverick.”
She cuts off my laugh with a kiss, her hands sliding under my shirt, lifting it as she goes. I pull it over my head and toss it to the floor. She sits up, straddling my hips, her knee-length skirt rising to accommodate. My eyes are immediately drawn down.
“Whenever I couldn’t sleep, when I was upset after you left, I would think about this,” she whispers, laying a hand over her tattoo over my heart. “And the day at your house when I went to see you…” She swallows. I move my hands to rest on her hips. “I saw the tattoo and I knew that if I ever meant as much to you as you said, then we’d find a way to each other. Then Nash came along, a changed freaking man. I hoped that if you ever came back to me, I’d be able to forgive you…and that I’d be the same person you remembered.”
At the mention of Nash, my hands tighten on her hips possessively. I blow out a breath through my mouth. I sense she isn’t finished so I remain quiet as she drags a finger over my chest.
“One word,” Windsor says, finally glancing back up to my face.
I don’t lie. “Nash.”
She sighs, placing her hands on top of mine. “I forgave him for the altar dash. I felt a little bad because the bimbo left him. I know that sounds crazy because of what he did to me, but there it is. He needed my forgiveness and part of my messed up mind wanted to give it to him. It’s a clean break, Maverick. We were just friends getting to know each other again,” she explains. She tells me how much he’s changed and all the things he’s said and done for her when I was busy in drunk mode. It makes me feel a little bitter.
It also makes me feel a little sick that he was there for her when I wasn’t…because I chose not to be. If he honestly changed as much as she thinks, wouldn’t he be the better choice for her? My ego won’t let me believe it, so I push the thought away. I’m the man for Windsor. Kathy even said I was good for her. She told me how Nash was just a placeholder until the great love of her life showed up. She told me I was it. I’m not sure how she surmised as much, but I’m glad she said it.
“I was never supposed to be more than friends with John Nash. I told him so.”
Relief courses through me. Though that had to be a hard conclusion to come to, after all those years spent pouring herself into something that never happened.
She puts a finger over my lips. “Before you say anything else, I need to know why you need my clothing sizes. Morganna told me,” she says, cocking her head in question.
Morg, the blabbering bitch is going to ruin everything. I shrug. She didn’t give away any pertinent details. That I know of, at least. “We’re going on a long weekend,” I say nonchalantly. I say it like she doesn’t have an option either. If she doesn’t agree, my plan will go up in flames. I need for her to see me prove myself to her. Her brows wrinkle in confusion. It’s so cute. I smile.
She shakes her head. “I can’t just take off work.”
“You can. I already requested it off for you when I went to talk to Hannah.”
“Of course you did. Anything else you did for me? Where are we going?” I notice she doesn’t ask hypothetically. We’re going. We’re fucking going. I pull her close to me for a kiss just because I feel like I might explode from happiness if I don’t use her as an outlet. It’s the first moment in a long time that the grief doesn’t rear and funny enough…it makes me feel guilty. I slam my eyes shut and kiss her harder.
She bites my lip as she pulls away. “Your boss was pretty amenable about the whole situation after I explained…and after I told her that you’ll be managing all my accounts when you get back, she couldn’t argue. Expensive time off, Win. Better get ready to have some fun. Plus, I have seven long weekend cards to use if I remember correctly.” That was my plan if she shot me down all night. I was going to argue that she had to honor at least one of them. I was going to tell her that if she wanted, if it was what she wanted after I’d laid it all out on the line, it could be the very last time she saw me. Luckily, she’s going to go along without kicking and screaming.
“You’re so crafty. And manipulating. Trying to buy my love again, I see?”
“The first time I was trying to buy a date. Now I’m trying to buy your love,” I admit, smiling. “Want to see the clothes I chose?” She hops off me and pulls me to stand. She swats my hand when I reach for my shirt.
Trailing a finger down the center of my chest down to the button on my jeans she whispers, “No shirts. You want my love…no shirts.”
“You have a shirt on,” I fire back, raising one brow. Windsor unbuttons her shirt unmercifully slowly, taking her sweet time sliding it over one shoulder and then the other. When it’s all the way off and her black bra is all I can see, she throws her shirt in my face. Pissed she covered my view, I throw the shirt to the ground.
“Not anymore,” she says, backing up, heading for her bedroom. It kicks in—the adrenaline…the fight or flight response that’s wavered in fucking neutral since the mission. Fight. I’m not running anymore. Not in my head. Not in my life and definitely not in my relationship with Windsor. She’s giving me another chance and, for fuck’s sake, I’m going to take full advantage of it. My paused life is officially in drive.
She unzips her skirt and steps out of it at the entrance to her room. I close the door behind us. I hesitate a second, studying her black thong, and then lock it. She laughs.
“Goose can’t do doorknobs,” she says, smiling, eyes roaming my body like I’m her favorite sight in the whole world. I run my hands through my hair self-consciously. She glances at the closet where Gretchen hung the new dresses all in garment bags. A crease forms between her eyes as she tries to decipher what they mean for our weekend destination.
I clear my throat. She startles.
“I’m not used to having men in my room. But I’m very glad you’re here.” Windsor nods toward the dresses. “We going to the Grammys or something?” I unbutton my pants and let them hit the floor. No underwear tonight. Her eyes widen. Now it’s my turn to laugh.
“We’re going to the bed,” I demand, flicking my gaze to it and back to her. I’m in front of her in the next second. “If that’s what you want, of course.”
I palm her bare ass in my big hands, and pull her against my hard dick. She kisses her tattoo on my chest, rubbing her hands up my biceps and shoulders. Her touch is so reverent, meaningful. I won’t make the first move though. It feels like the first time. There’s just one thing I need from her.
“You know you’re mine, right?” I ask. She nods. I lightly touch her chin and force her wandering gaze to mine. “Forever,” I say leaning toward her so she gets my implied meaning. I can’t be any clearer.
“Make love to me, Maverick Hart. I’m yours forever. And you? You’re mine for eternity,” she whispers grabbing me in her hand. That’s a green fucking light. Her words hit me square in the chest.
I have the remaining scraps of lace on the floor and her in my arms before we even hit the bed.
A realization dawns on me—falling in love hurts. Existing in it is bliss.