Chapter 22

Eli

As tired as I was, I couldn't sleep. Because every time I closed my eyes, I could feel Mav's lips against mine. It would be our last kiss. I knew it without a shadow of a doubt. This morning I'd been willing to give him any part of me he wanted or needed up until the moment he walked away from me. But seeing the hurt in his eyes as he asked me to tell him how to stop him from hurting me anymore had been proof that I couldn't let it happen again. Maybe if I was better at hiding my emotions when he made love to me, or if I could keep from telling him that I loved him, it would be possible to have one more night with him. But the fact that I'd gone so far off the deep end after he'd admitted that he wasn't even going back to Seattle to get his Harley, had been proof enough that I couldn't separate my heart from the physical act of loving Mav.

I lay there for at least half an hour before I realized that Mav hadn't come out of the bathroom yet. I'd heard the shower come on shortly after he'd gone in there and from what I could tell, it was still running. I waited another fifteen minutes before the concern began to gnaw at me and I slowly got out of bed. When another five minutes passed and the shower stayed on, I got up and went to the bathroom door and knocked .

"Mav?" I called, but there was no answer. I knew there was a likelihood that he couldn't hear me in the shower, but that wasn't enough to stop me from testing the knob. I was relieved to discover the door unlocked and as I pushed it open, I continued to knock and call his name. I saw him instantly because he wasn't in the shower. No, he was sitting on the closed toilet still fully dressed, the picture of his mother in his hand.

"Mav? You okay?" I asked as I entered the room and came to a stop in front of him. The agony in his eyes was nearly unbearable.

"She's really gone," he whispered as tears started sliding down his face.

"I know, Mav. I'm sorry," I said softly as I pushed his hair off his face.

"I told you she only called me when she needed money, but that wasn't true. She used to call me on my birthdays too. Every year without fail. No matter how stoned or drunk she was, she always made that call. And not once when she did it did she ask for money." Mav's eyes dropped back down to the picture. "I fucking hated her for what she did, but God, I couldn't wait to get that damn phone call."

Mav let out a harsh sob and then covered his eyes with his hand. I pulled him against my belly and held on to him as his arms wrapped around my waist. I pressed kisses against the top of his head as his tears soaked through my shirt. When he finally quieted and lifted his head, I shifted until I was sitting astride his legs. I used my sleeve to wipe his wet face.

"They should have done better by you, Mav," I said softly as I straightened his loose hair so it wasn't stuck to his damp face. "They're the ones who lost out by not knowing you…by not watching you grow up to be such an amazing man."

Mav wrapped his arms around me again and settled his face against my neck. "As awful as that place was, I would have stayed if they'd shown me even an ounce of kindness," he admitted.

"I know you would have. But I'm so glad you got out of there," I added. I pulled back so I could look him in the eye. "I know it must have been terrible for you, being so young…" I said with a shake of my head. "But to think of you being condemned to that life." I couldn't even continue the thought because it was so disturbing. Mav was so vibrant and strong and those men had all looked like they'd died a thousand deaths and were just waiting for the one that would stick.

"I almost didn't," Mav said as he settled his hands on my hips. "My friend Travis and I made plans to get out together. We'd been saving every penny we could make from selling scrap metal. This guy on the reservation paid us a couple bucks a week to collect as much as we could and then he'd drive it to the city and sell it for cash. Between us, Travis and I saved up a couple hundred bucks – enough for bus tickets to the city where we figured we'd get jobs, find an apartment."

"What happened?" I asked.

"I came home one night after I'd been out looking for one of my uncles who'd wandered off drunk. I used to sleep on this porch behind the house – it was old and falling down, but no one wanted to share it with me so it was all mine. Anyway, I found this envelope under my pillow. There was a hundred dollars in it and a note from Travis telling me he was sorry."

Mav dashed at his eyes as his voice became husky. "Travis was gay too, but he had it worse than me ‘cause his family used to beat him up all the time. But they'd also fucked with his head a lot and he was scared to leave them. When I saw that note, I knew…" Mav sucked in a breath before continuing. "I ran to his house…it was almost a mile away. I found him in the tent he used to sleep in behind the house. He'd shot himself with his father's hunting rifle."

I shook my head as I struggled to find the right words. But there just weren't any so I leaned forward and kissed his temple. "I'm so sorry."

Mav nodded against me. "I left that night. I wasn't sure I could do it without him – I was so fucking scared – but I was more scared for what would happen if I didn't go."

"Where'd you end up?"

"I hitched a ride with this trucker going East for a while, but had to bail when he insisted I blow him as payment for the ride. I decided it would be safer to take the bus after that. I ended up in Minneapolis and stayed there for a couple years working odd jobs. I lived on the streets when I had to, but sometimes I had enough money to get an apartment or a motel room for an extended period of time. Then I want to Chicago, Indianapolis…I basically just kept heading East whenever I got the urge to keep moving. But things changed for me in Philadelphia."

"How so?"

"I got a job working for this guy who fixed up Harleys," Mav said. "That's where I met my girl," he added with a light chuckle that made my insides light up with warmth.

"Your girl?" I asked with a smile.

"A custom Harley Davidson Night Train," he said. "My boss let me work nights and weekends to pay for it and after that I used every extra penny I made to fix her up."

"How long did you work there?"

"Until I was about 24 or so. I liked working on bikes, but it wasn't what I'd been dreaming of doing my whole life."

I smiled. "I just realized I don't even know how old you are."

"I'm 32."

I gasped in mock horror. "You're an old man."

Mav laughed and slapped me on the ass. I was glad to see some of the anguish had left his face. "So what was it that you wanted to do?"

Mav became serious as he said, "I wanted to be a cop."

"Really?"

He nodded. "Joined the force when I was 26. A year later it was over."

"What happened?" I asked in surprise.

"Found out the cop I was assigned to work with was taking bribes. Did my duty and reported him. I actually thought my fellow cops would back me up," he added with a harsh laugh.

"They didn't?"

"No, not since most of them were on the take too," Mav murmured. "My little report ended up taking down almost a dozen veteran cops. And let's just say it didn't make me any new friends, but I did manage to get a lot of enemies out of the deal."

I froze at that. "Did they come after you?"

"Since most of them were looking at life in prison with some of the same guys a lot of them had put there, yeah, they came after me. In a big way. Because without my testimony…"

Even though Mav was right in front of me, I was still unreasonably terrified for him. "What happened?" I managed to ask.

"Mace."

"What?"

"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.