Page 55 of Forsaken

“Mace happened.”

“Mace was a cop?”

Mav nodded. “He used to be on the same force a couple years before I signed up. He’d quit when he lost his son. But he still had connections with the force so he knew what some of the guys were planning. He literally saved my life because some guys jumped me one night outside the garage I used to work at – I still went there to do work on my bike every once in a while. The guys were kicking the shit out of me and planned to make it look like I’d been killed during a robbery. Would have worked too if Mace hadn’t shown up.”

“What happened to the men?” I stammered as I tried to fathom how close to losing his life Mav had truly come.

“Three of them had to show up for their trials in wheelchairs,” Mav murmured. “I testified and every single one of them went to prison. Mace knew there was no way of me going back to my job or even joining any police force after all that so he introduced me to Ronan.”

I felt some of the tension ease from my system, but I finally began to understand why Mav was so unwilling to accept the idea that he was a part of anything bigger than himself. Because he’d tried that before. Despite the horror of his childhood and the cruelty of his family, he’d given himself over to another family. The Brothers in Blue. Only he’d once again been the outcast, simply because he’d chosen to do the right thing.

“Those guys…they can’t still get to you, right?” I asked.

Mav shook his head. “Ronan and Mace helped me disappear, so to speak. Maverick is my real first name but James is actually my middle name. And since I never talked about my mom or my past with any of the guys on the force, they had no way of linking me to anything so I just quietly disappeared.”

I was toying with Mav’s hair when I asked, “Did your mom have a crush on Tom Cruise or something?”

“What?”

“You know, Maverick from Top Gun?”

Mav laughed heartily. “God, I wish. That would be a whole lot cooler.” Mav’s fingers began stroking up and down my spine and I tried not to shiver at the contact. “No, there weren’t a lot of things to watch on TV on the reservation and with lots of people all wanting to watch at the same time, they had to agree on certain shows. There was an old TV show from the late fifties called Maverick that they all liked – some type of black and white comedy western show starring James Garner.”

“Really?”

“I can’t really complain because the lead guys were named Bret and Bart Maverick so I lucked out that she picked Maverick instead of Bret or Bart.”

I couldn’t stop the bubble of laughter that started deep in my chest. Maybe it was the stress of the last two days or maybe it was just the idea of trying to call Mav by either of those names, but I just completely lost it and began laughing so hard, my entire body was shaking. I didn’t really expect Mav to be angry or anything, but I wasn’t expecting him to join in either. So when his laughter filled the steamed up room right along with mine, I felt like some kind of valve inside of me had been opened and all the pressure released. I wrapped my arms around Mav’s neck and just held on to him as I laughed, and he didn’t hesitate to do the same thing. A good ten minutes passed before we’d both quieted and just held on to each other. I knew I needed to let go of him and let him finish his shower, but despite my earlier promise to myself not to be intimate again with him, that was exactly the urge I was battling. And I knew he was in the same boat because he whispered, “Take a shower with me?” in my ear.

I tried to say no, but not very hard because only a couple of seconds passed before I was nodding against his neck. Mav held me for a while longer before pushing me back to begin working my shirt buttons loose. When he pushed the shirt off my shoulders, his hands skimmed over my skin as he slid the shirt down my arms. I wanted him to kiss me, but at the same time I also didn’t.

He didn’t.

He just kept up the sensual torture as he undressed me bit by bit and I was reminded of the night before when I’d done the same to him. At his urging, I climbed off his lap so he could stand and then I helped him get undressed. As turned on as we both were, there wasn’t anything sexual in the way we touched each other…at least not to the extent that we were both desperate for the next level. No, it was more like we were exploring each other…soothing each other.

I expected the water to be cool or lukewarm after having been on so long, but it turned out to still be hot when we stepped under the spray. We took turns washing each other and when Mav turned me around so he could work some shampoo into my hair, I relaxed against him and enjoyed the sensation of his fingers massaging my scalp. He made quick work of his own hair, but instead of turning off the shower, he pulled me back against him so that my back was pressed up against his front and held me there under the spray of water, his forearm wrapped around my shoulders. I could feel his erection pressed up against my ass, but he never once upped the heat level of his touches.

We stood there like that for a good thirty minutes before Mav finally turned off the water and dried us both off. I wasn’t sure what he was planning next and while I told myself I couldn’t make love to him again and expect to walk away in one piece, I didn’t hesitate when he led me to my bed and pulled back the covers and crawled in after me. We ended up in the same position as in the shower, my back to his front, but instead of just one arm around me, they both were and his lips were resting against the back of my neck. It wasn’t even four o’ clock in the afternoon, but that didn’t stop me from reaching up to turn the light above the bed off. My eyes grew heavy very quickly and I knew I was going to finally be able to give in to my need to sleep. But just seconds before all sense of reality escaped me, I heard Mav whisper, “Thank you, Eli.”

They weren’t the three little words I wanted more than anything to hear from him, but they still warmed me from the inside out. Maybe they’d be enough to tide me over when I started the next chapter in my life.

Maybe.

Chapter 23

Mav

It was late when I finally heard my phone vibrating on the nightstand next to the other bed in the room. The last thing I wanted to do was get up and answer it, but mostly because of the warm body that was pressed up against mine. At some point after we’d fallen asleep, Eli had rolled over and turned into me so that his face was pressed against my throat and his arm was wrapped around my waist. One of his legs was thrown over me, putting his dick precariously close to mine. But even though I was turned on, I was content to just lie there and feel his heart beating against mine and his slow, even breathing that meant he was finally finding some peace.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t ignore the phone, especially when it began vibrating again within a minute. It was well past midnight and although Eli and I had managed to get a good eight hours of rest, I knew we both needed more. But clearly the rest of the world didn’t give a shit.

I carefully untangled myself from Eli’s body and climbed out of bed, but not before I brushed a soft kiss over his temple. I left the lights off as I walked naked to the phone which started ringing again for the third time and my heart sped up when I saw Jace’s name come up on the Caller ID. There could be only one reason the man was calling me.

Eli’s stepdad.

“Hello?” I said softly as I began heading towards the bathroom so I wouldn’t wake Eli.

“It’s me. We have a problem.”

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