his thighs against my butt turning staccato as he reached his own peak.
Another squeal escaped me as I heard him grind out a curse in my ear, and I moaned once more as I felt the sharp pulses of his release, combined with the nip to my earlobe and a hissed out, breathless, “Who do I belong to?”
That he asked me that at that moment, when my mind was foggy, dull from pleasure and whittled down to the barest of thoughts, wasn’t fair.
But Maverick would never be fair.
Not when he knew tomorrow wasn’t promised.
With my eyes closed, I released a shaky sigh, and savoring his gift to me, I rasped, “Me.”
Because he did.
And always would.
Forty-Two
Maverick
The following day
“Sin?”
“Hey, Mav, how’s it going?”
Because I knew he wasn’t talking about the work we were both doing for the council, instead was meaning on a personal level, I was honest with him. “Had some nightmares last night.”
Which was irritating because the way I’d felt when I slept in Alessa’s arms, I should have been at peace. Instead, my mind had been turbulent, stormy. And even the sound of a chair scraping on the fucking floor had me rearing back like I was in the middle of a firefight.
“I know how that goes, brother. Wanna talk about it?”
I sighed. “Not really, Sin. I mean, I know I can, and I want you to know you can talk about this shit with me too, but I just—fuck, I’m so used to keeping it inside.”
“I get it. I do,” he murmured. “It’s what we do. But maybe that’s why we get the nightmares?”
“Could be.” I rocked my head to the side, trying to ease the tension in my neck. “Truth is, this situation ain’t helping. All this crap with the Sparrows? It’s got me seeing fucking conspiracies left and right.”
“Who could blame you? I didn’t sleep well myself last night. How many of our brothers are inside on trumped up charges, huh? How fucking many? I can’t wait until Quin’s out. A week inside is more than I can stand, never mind him.”
Because I agreed, I released a heavy sigh. “I’m the same. Be glad when he’s home.” I pinched the bridge of my nose, needing to get this out because it was stupid, but my brain hadn’t been able to see anything but wheels within wheels since I’d woken up this morning, coated in sweat, my chest burning like I’d been running.
Alessa had done the unthinkable—sucked me off until I was calmer, which had turned into a whole other kind of reason for my lungs to be burning—but the thoughts wouldn’t go away. They wouldn’t leave me.
“Remember how I told everyone in church about the assassin who was behind Rene’s death?”
“How could I fucking forget?” he grumbled.
“I just couldn’t get this stupid sliver of information out of my mind. It’s crazy and dumb as fuck, but… it’s too simple to ignore.”
“Talk to me, bro. What is it? Where’s your mind at?”
That he was willing to listen to me posit a stupid theory had me shrugging my shoulders back as I stared at the water, looking out of the kitchen window into a pool that was slowly turning frigid with fall. “Ken told me how the assassin’s surname, or at least, the identities he was willing to burn, were made up of capital cities.”
Silence fell on the other end of the line. “You serious?”
“Deadly. He mentioned a Paris, a Moscow, and Madrid.”
A hiss sounded down the line. “Can’t be a coincidence,” he muttered.
“That’s what I was thinking.” Tension hit me hard, and I reached up to rub the back of my neck. “London’s a more common name than a goddamn Moscow, but still…”
“I’ll get Hawk over there. Get him to pick up some DNA samples. See if there’s a match.” He grunted. “This is too neat, surely?”
“Neat read insane. Whatever the fuck we did to get on the Sparrows’ radar…” I shook my head even though I knew he couldn’t see me. “I wish we could roll back the hands of goddamn time.”
He agreed, told me once more that he’d be sending Hawk out right away as he was in the middle of club business—I didn’t ask for more details because, as enforcer, that could mean he was beating the shit out of someone who owed the MC money and I really didn’t want to know—before we parted ways and I was left with the ringing silence of the kitchen.
The poolhouse’s situation was such that half of