Page 96 of Can't Get Enough

I roll onto my side and tug the waist of my silk pajama shorts down to expose the curve of my hip. Maverick left souvenirs, faint bruises where he held me so hard when he fucked me. I caress one smudge on my skin and moan, pulling my knees up to my chest.

I didn’t even tell Soledad and Yasmen I’m home a little early or that Mav and I smashed. They’re my best friends, but they will have questions, and of course advice—solicited and unsolicited. I just want a little time to process what happened.

What I did.

Is this a secret I’ll keep from my business partner forever? That I fucked her ex once?

Once?that inner bitch taunts.Like you wouldn’t do it again.

“Shut uuuuuuup,” I groan and squeeze my eyes closed tight.

My cell buzzes on the bed beside me with a call, and I glance over to see it’s the front desk downstairs.

“Yes, hello?” I sit up and push my hair back from my face. That wig is hanging in my closet and I washed my hair, which, after about fifty eleven products, blossomed into a big ol’ Afro.

“Delivery, Ms. Barry.”

“What is it?” I sigh and roll off the bed to check my reflection in the large mirror hanging on the wall. Pink silk lounge shorts and fuzzy slippers. I’m cocoa buttered and not planning to leave this place all day.

“Flowers again.”

“How many?” I ask, making my way down the steps and studyingthe empty surfaces in the living room and kitchen that were filled with Maverick’s flowers not long ago.

“Just one dozen this time, it seems.”

“Okay. Send them up.”

I hate that my heart is beating triple time at the thought that Maverick is still pursuing me, even though I told him to stop. Am I becoming that girl? The one who is coy with her refusal? Who says one thing and means another? Wants another?

I open the door to confront a bouquet of champagne roses so large it eclipses the delivery man.

“Thank you,” I say. “I’ll take them.”

He moves the flowers obscuring his face aside. Maverick staring back at me nearly pulls my heart through my chest. My shoulders go taut, and I steel myself against the way I melt a little inside at just the sight of him. Not speaking, I turn and head back into the loft.

“These are for you,” he says, placing the roses on my coffee table.

“I figured.” I sit on the couch and notice the bottle in his hands. “And what it that for?”

“Also for you.” He sets the bottle down beside the vase of roses. “One of my favorites. Macallan Anniversary Malt, 1928.”

My brows lift. I’m not an expert, but I do recognize it’s a very valuable bottle of whiskey.

“Trying to buy my affection?” I ask.

“I already have your affection.” He sits so close the rough denim of his jeans is mildly abrasive against my bare thigh. “We’re friends, right?”

“That was before we fucked.”

“Friends don’t fuck?”

I blow out a disbelieving breath. “You want to be my friend?”

“Always.” He looks at me unblinkingly, unsmilingly for a few seconds. “You bring a goddess offerings. The whiskey is a gift, an expression of worship.”

I roll my eyes. “If you’re saying that I’m a—”

“I am saying that.” His eyes roam the length of my body and I force myself not to squirm. “If you give me the chance, I’ll make you feel like the goddess I see you as.”

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