My eyes shot up, the realization that I was not actually dreaming but living a real waking nightmare pulsed through me.
Maverick. The storm. The dog. It was all real.
I rolled in the oversized bed, realizing that it wasn’t the dream that smelled like leather and Maverick, it was me.
He’d insisted I sleep in his master bed last night, promising he wouldn't be far away on the couch, just one floor away.
The soft sounds of violin music wafted into my psyche then. Apparently I had not been dreaming of that.
“No way does a man like that play the violin,” I said to myself, pushing Maverick’s blanket off of me and crawling out of bed.
I padded across the room and stood at the door. The crack was small, only pure darkness beckoning me. And soft strains of a violin.
I opened the door, walking barefoot across the smooth floorboards. The loft area opened up widely, moonlight finally stretching through the windows. Most of the silver light was swallowed by the shadows of the evergreens that wintered outside Maverick’s home.
The soft steady breathing of Maverick, sound asleep on the leather couch below me, drew me in. I imagined what it would be like sleeping next to a man like that, big enough to swallow my body whole three times in the shadow he cast. He was warm but with a wild edge, an amusement in his eyes when he teased me that made my stomach flutter like a schoolgirl.
I’d never fully understood why exactly my father and Maverick detested each other, but I could see why some men might be rubbed the wrong way by the way Maverick filled up a room. He demanded you take notice, towering over everyone, and with a voice rougher than sandpaper and a beard thick and full.
More violin music crowded into my brain, shoving out the thoughts of Maverick sleeping below.
I crossed the loft to the opposite corner of the floor, determined to find the radio that Maverick must have left on before falling asleep.
Rain dripped down the windows as I passed, my fingertips cool against the panes as I imagined watching the storms come in off the mountains.
I could almost see a life up here on Lovers Ridge.
Violent shrieks of a violin pierced my eardrums just as my palm landed on the door knob of a cracked door.
A rush of cool air washed through me, energy crackling in my veins like rogue fireworks before the door slammed closed against my fist with force.
“What in the world?” I tried the knob, surprise coursing through me when I realized it was locked.
No violin music, and a force on the other side of this door trying to prevent me from entry.
I jiggled at the lock again, grunting softly when I realized it wasn’t about to budge.
“What’s going on?” Maverick suddenly towered over my shoulder.
“Oh.” I backed away from the door like it burned me. “I heard music coming from that room, and then the door just slammed closed—”
“That room hasn't been opened in decades.”
“Decades? That’s not possible, it was just open. There was violin music—”
Maverick’s face was taut with annoyance before he shoved a hand into the pocket of his jeans and plucked out a key. He shoved it into the lock, jiggling it easily and then opening it freely.
“See?”
He stepped aside, allowing me entry to the empty room.
“But…” I frowned, moonlight bouncing off the window at different angles and giving the room a wall of mirrors effect. “The music?”
I turned, Maverick standing at the doorway, arms crossed and assessing me shrewdly. “Are you fucking with me on purpose?”
“No, I would never—”
“You said the door was open, clearly that was a lie.”
“It was, and I did hear music, and see—” I pointed across the room to one of the sheer white curtains dancing in the breeze— “That window, who opened it if the door was locked?”
I could see Maverick’s jaw grind to a halt, eyes crossing the room to take in the curtain. “The window isn’t open.” He crossed the room in long strides. “It’s the forced air heating system.” He turned his eyes to me, staring me down as he closed the distance between us. “Does anyone ever tell you you’re dramatic, Petal?”
The next thing I knew, the roughened pads of his fingers caught my chin, pulling my gaze up to his. I felt like a petulant child. I hated him completely at that moment.
“Stop calling me that.”
One side of his grin cracked.
I inhaled deeply. Leather and pine, rain and evergreen. His scent melted my knees.
“I should walk home.” I didn’t mean it, even though every fiber of me did.
His barrel of a laugh echoed through the room.
A cloud shadowed the moonlight then, forcing the room into sudden and complete darkness. On instinct, I leaned against him.
His body stiffened, muscles rigid, before he grasped my elbows and pushed me off of his body like I’d singed his skin.
“Sorry.” I tripped over the syllables.
He only grunted in reply, forcing me forward through the darkness, escorting me out and then closing the door behind us. “You want water or anything before bed?”
I shook my head, grateful when the cloud passed literally and the moonlight washed over the hard angles of Maverick’s jaw.
He was so beautiful it was painful.
And he seemed in pain, the way he held his spine like steel and forearms like marble—I was more intrigued than I’d ever been.
“This entire day has been a nightmare,” I confessed out loud.
“That’s the truest thing I’ve heard all day.”
A nervous laugh fell over me, and then a hum of pleasure rushed through me when his palm hovered at the base of my back, escorting me across the loft and back to his bedroom.
His bedroom.
“I don’t think I can sleep now.” I paused at the doorway, reluctant to be alone as much as I was reluctant to be with him.
Rain rushed harder outside the windows, only filling my ears as loudly as my
