Fearless In Love (The Maverick Billionaires, Book 3) (18 page)

She ate the way she did everything, with enthusiasm, moaning around a mouthful. The erotic sound kicked his pulse even higher.

“You’ve got to try some.” She held out a forkful she’d just cut.

He wanted nothing more than for her to feed him, so he cupped her hand to pull her closer as he let himself take what she was offering.

“To die for, right?”

Jesus, she didn’t know the half of it. Had no idea what was happening to him under the tablecloth or that his heart had powered up into heavy metal drumming mode.

“Try mine.” He dredged a hunk of lobster tail in butter.

She put her hand under the fork to catch a drop as her mouth closed around the tines. She slowly drew away, driving him a little mad. A
lot
mad. Eyes closed, her lashes long and lush, she moaned her appreciation. Then she licked the drop of butter from her palm.

When she opened her eyes, they shone with the knowledge of what she was doing to him. Sweet
and
seductive was one hell of a combination. One he wasn’t sure he’d be able to resist forever—even though he gave self-control his damned level best.

“Ever had lobster before?”

She shook her head, her smile half-cocked. “Like I said, SpaghettiOs were gourmet in my house.”

“Canned stew in mine.” He wanted her to know he’d been there too. They shared common beginnings, making them alike in so many ways, yet different in how they’d each reacted. “Watered down so it would stretch further.” Although his dad’s portion never got the extra water.

“Sometimes we’d fry just bread because there was no cheese for grilled cheese sandwiches.” She made another
mmm
sound that tightened every muscle in his body. “Isn’t it amazing how you can invent really good stuff when you don’t have enough?”

He had never thought of the deprivation of his youth that way, yet he remembered how Susan and Bob had always brought joy into their house without much of anything. “At Christmas with the Mavericks and Susan and Bob, we had hot chocolate and made garlands out of paper and popcorn and hung it all on a fake ficus tree Bob rescued from the dump. Nobody cared it was made out of plastic. It was about being together.” Matt’s own home had been bare of decoration because his dad wouldn’t waste the money. With Bob and Susan, it had only been about the joy. The way Ari was all about hope.

“Gideon always found the perfect gift,” she told him. “It never cost a lot of money, but he never let us forget it was Christmas.”

“And after your brother left?”

Anyone else with her rough childhood would have gone down the rabbit hole at his question. Ari simply shrugged. “I was never as good at finding stuff. Gideon had a knack. He just cared so much.”

She was resilient, pulling the love she’d felt for her brother around herself like a warm coat, even after all these years apart. A lot of people would have been permanently beaten down by now. Not Ari. She’d triumphed.

No doubt about it, she was definitely Maverick material.

* * *

Matt refilled her champagne glass. Ari didn’t know how much she’d had, but she felt light and airy rather than drunk. Exchanging the lamb for lobster had been almost sexual, and the attraction between them sizzled barely beneath the surface. But the night was about so much more than just attraction.

They’d talked for hours, and it turned out that they shared so many common experiences from childhood. Of course, they also talked about all the things Noah did and said that cracked them both up. She adored hearing about the other Mavericks and Matt’s foster parents. She didn’t want dinner to end.

Just when they were about to get up from the table, his phone buzzed. Reading the screen, his expression grew serious. “Rafe just texted to let me know that Karmen Sanchez’s mother lives the closest, in Bakersfield. He also found her phone number.”

She wanted to rip the cell out of Matt’s hands to call the woman. But this wasn’t just about Ari, was it? She wasn’t the only person who had lost someone they loved. “Do you think it will open up old wounds for Karmen’s mom?”

Matt curled his fingers around hers, and her heart turned over as though she were doing somersaults on the trampoline.

“I don’t know.” His voice was so soft, his touch so gentle. “Maybe no one’s mentioned her daughter in years, and you’ll give her a chance to talk about her. To remember her.”

He astounded her with his insight. It was exactly what she’d been trying to say about Gideon—that the memories Zach Smith had given her were precious.

She thought of her mother, and how no one had talked about her after she’d died. Yes, she was a drug addict who had dragged her daughter from filthy apartment to dirty dive, one after the other. But Ari had loved her. “When my mom died and they took me away, it was like she didn’t exist anymore, as if talking about her would remind me of some terrible time.”

Matt’s hand tightened around hers, giving her his strength, his heat, his power. “But you wanted to remember, didn’t you?”

“I needed to. Not everything was totally bad. She loved me, and sometimes she’d hug me so hard I could feel that love deep inside.” She’d only been able to talk about this to Rosie and Chi. And now, after all these years, she was telling Matt. “How do you remember your parents?” In all the things they’d spoken of so far, they hadn’t shared this.

His hand flexed over hers, and she thought he might not answer until finally he said in a quiet voice, “I prefer to remember what it was like in Susan and Bob’s house.”

She melted for him, for the little boy who’d never found what he needed in his own home. Knowing that made her feel even closer to him. “Everyone’s different.” She offered him comfort with the rhythmic stroke of her thumb.

For a long moment, he watched her thumb go round and round on his hand, and the heat of his skin penetrated deep inside her. Finally, he raised his gaze from their linked hands. “Karmen’s mom could be like you, wanting to remember. Let’s call her now. It’s not too late.” Without letting go of her hand, he picked up his phone again and tapped the number his investigator had texted.

Her heart choking her throat, she listened to his gentle voice, his careful explanation, and finally his thank-you.

“Tomorrow,” he said. “She’d like to talk to us. We can be down there before noon.”

Ari wanted to throw herself at him, cover him with kisses, and show him how much what he’d done for her really meant. How much
he
meant.

Because in her heart, there was no going back.

“Thank you,” she said at her hotel room door. “Not just for dinner.” She put her hand on his arm, his tendons flexing beneath her fingertips. “For everything.”

The way he gazed at her had the breath catching in her throat. But instead of kissing her the way she so badly hoped he would, he said, “Breakfast at eight sound okay? And then we’ll get on the road.”

Of course she nodded. “It sounds great.” It seemed a crime to sleep alone after all they’d shared today, but unfortunately this wasn’t a decision she could make alone.

In her room, she wandered past the huge bed to the sitting area with its small sofa and two chairs surrounding a fireplace. Turning in a circle without sitting down, she finally realized the connecting door was still open. Crossing to close it, she saw Matt standing just beyond the door, his gaze on her as if he hadn’t looked away since she’d entered her room.

He’d given her such joy—the things she’d learned about Gideon today, the potential for what she might discover tomorrow. All of it encircled Matt, his generosity, his caring.

“I almost forgot to tell you.” His voice was raw with emotion and desire. “Noah wanted me to give you a good-night kiss.”

That was all it took. She didn’t think rationally, didn’t want to remind herself that this relationship could never work unless they were both fully on board.

Her body cared only about what she wanted, needed.

Craved.

She threw herself at him, almost launching into the air, and he caught her, hauling her high against him until she wrapped her legs tightly around his waist and curled her arms around his neck. He slammed the connecting door shut and shoved her up against it, his mouth on hers, kissing her until her breath mingled with his as though they were one.

He was so hard between her legs, and she was miles beyond hot, wet, and ready. She kissed him with ferocity, hugged him tighter, moaned her need into his mouth.

Pinning her body to the door, he held her face in his hands, dropping kisses over her cheeks, her mouth, her ear, tipping her head to get at her throat. He bit her neck lightly, then trailed back to her ear, kissing her until she trembled with desire.

“What do you want?” he whispered.

“Everything.” She wasn’t afraid to admit it. But she didn’t want to go there alone. She needed him to be as fearless as she was. “What do
you
want?”

“You.” Something rough and potent in his voice took that single word far beyond the physical. “I want to strip you down, bare you one gorgeous inch at a time, and love you the way you deserve to be loved.”

Everything inside her turned to liquid fire under the heat of his gaze. He let her slide to the floor, stepping back to look down at her. His fingers traced her curves with barely a touch, making it all the more intoxicating.

Then he skimmed beneath the lapels of her jacket. “I looked at you across the table tonight, the lilac jacket…” He pushed it off her shoulders, let it drop to the carpet, and rested his hands at her waist. “The white shirt…” He tugged it from her jeans, began drawing it up, the backs of his fingers hot against her skin.

She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak, couldn’t even say his name to beg for more.

When he pulled the cotton over her head, he stared down at her with such heat in his eyes that she felt spotlighted by his desire. As if she were the only woman he wanted, the only one he’d ever want.

“There it is,” he whispered. “All that pretty purple lingerie. I saw the hint of it beneath your shirt, and you have no idea what that did to me.” He slid one finger beneath the strap of her bra, brushing down, coming perilously close to her nipple as he dipped into the cup. Then he pulled the straps off her shoulders, letting them hang a moment down her arms. Decadent. Sexy.

Unbearably erotic.

He toyed with her, his hands at the zipper of her jeans, driving her crazy. Finally, he slipped the top button loose. “I wonder if your panties match that lovely lilac.” He drew on the zipper, hissed out a breath as he saw the fabric of her panties. “Hell, yes. You can make a man wild with imagining what’s beneath all these clothes.” Then he hooked his fingers inside her waistband and stripped off her jeans. All the way down, going on his haunches before her. “God, you’re beautiful.”

He pulled everything off, including her shoes, as she braced herself on his shoulder. His skin burned even through his shirt. Then he looked up at her, his gaze following the length of her body, his eyes as hot as a wildfire. Rising slowly, he let his fingers take the path his gaze had moments before. She trembled for him.

“I need to touch you.” He seduced her with his words, his heat, the way he snapped open her bra in the front and moved to circle her nipple with one possessive stroke. She was naked except for the tiny bikini panties.

And she was all his for the taking.

“I need to have you, skin on skin.
Now.”
With that, he stripped away the final wisp of fabric covering her. “You steal my breath. My sanity.” His admissions were raw with heat—and emotion.

“You steal my sanity too,” she whispered. “And I want to strip you down the same way.”

“You took the words right out of my mouth,” he said in that low, commanding voice that always made her come apart at the seams. “It’s your turn now, Ari.”

Her hands on his belt, she didn’t fumble. The hot flare of passion burned in his eyes as she undid his zipper with an achingly slow glide. And her mouth watered for his taste.

Finding the hard jut of him with her hand, she knew taking him that way wasn’t something she could do badly, even as inexperienced as she was. He was so special, and she wanted it so much. She stroked him with the tiny pearl of moisture on his tip.

“Everything,” he said. “Take it all off.”

She stripped off his shirt, caught for one moment by a dusky nipple. She licked him, sucked the nub into her mouth. Then bit him lightly. His body surged in her hand.

“So you want to play dirty, huh?” he whispered. Then he gently steered her to her knees…and she swore every last part of her liquefied.

She tugged off the rest of his clothes until he was gloriously naked, and she was eye level with all that beautiful flesh—thick, full, hard, and long. Up close and personal, she was able to appreciate his magnificence in a way she hadn’t that one special night.

Then she took him, just the tip, circling with her tongue, and his body arched, his hands tangling in her hair. “I’ve imagined this. I’ve dreamed about you, Ari. Over and over.”

Knowing he’d dreamed of her the way she had of him, the moment overwhelmed her, and she took him deeper.

“
Jesus
,” he whispered through a sizzle of breath.

The sound made her feel beautiful and wanted and powerful. Power was something a girl like her had never found before. It wasn’t even something she’d known she wanted until the moment he gave it to her.

Then he hauled her to her feet, kissing her openmouthed, his taste still on her tongue. “You feel so damned good,” he murmured. “But it’s too soon. This night needs to go on forever. And I can’t control myself around you.”

She didn’t hold back her smile. Refused to hold back anything. “Then don’t.”

He lifted her high and gently tossed her on her stomach in the middle of the bed. He climbed after her, stalking her, pulling her up on her hands and knees and moving in behind her, his thighs taut against hers.

“Are you sure you mean that?” His words were harsh with need as he ran his hands down her back to her hips, resting them on her bottom. The things he said and the way he touched her made her feel raw and needy, her skin sensitized all over.