Crazy Good

by Rachel Robinson

  “Shut the fuck up, Marney. Don’t be a bitch. He wanted her here. Why do you care anyway?” Morganna grates. It’s nice to hear her stand up for me, when most of the time I’m trying to stand up for myself against her. The table falls silent. Morganna is head bitch. That much is obvious. At our silence a few of the guys cast curious stares our way. I try not to avert my gaze, to avoid Maverick. I’ll hold my own without his help. I’ve got this. Actually, Morganna’s got this, but it’s my freaking heart that is pounding.

  “It’s just weird. That’s all,” Marney says, chastened. “I’ve never seen him out with a woman before. Aren’t you the least bit interested in why he picked her? After turning away Becky and Freya and even Chloe!” My stomach churns. Marney fixes me with her glare and this time it’s sincere curiosity.

  I swallow. I take a deep breath. I fold my hands in my lap. I take another calming breath. Sometime during my exercise in control he crept up. Maverick stands right next to me, in between Morganna and I, sending shivers and panic throughout my body.

  “Becky, Freya, and Chloe weren’t for me, Marney,” Maverick says tactfully. Actually, now my heart is pounding. He lays a hand on my shoulder. “Windsor isn’t like them. She’s not like anyone, because she is the one. My one. Why did I pick her? I’m lucky she picked me, honestly. She’s real. I owe her more than rattling off the never-ending list of why she’s the one for me, so I’m shutting my fucking mouth. All you need to know is I’m hers. Make her feel welcome.” His fingers tighten on me.

  Morganna cackles. The Y’s, including Marney, are open mouth breathing, watching Mav. It’s kind of nice, but I don’t want him to defend me. I want to be the woman who stands up for herself. I might suck at it, but a valiant effort is always noticed.

  Never let them see you sweat. I gaze up into his hazel eyes and then back at the group. “So we’re clear. My business is my business. Not yours. Thanks for that, Mav, but you didn’t have to explain yourself for their benefit.” I wave my hand around the table. Nervous hair tosses catch my eye. “But I did enjoy listening for my own benefit.” I bite my lip and give him my most suggestive smile.

  He leans down and kisses my temple, then my cheek. I feel self-conscious, but not enough to stop him. He kisses me again, over my hair, but still on my ear. He whispers, “It wasn’t for their benefit. I’ll give you the never-ending list later.” I shiver. “In bed,” he rasps quietly. He straightens. “Let me know when you’re ready to go,” he says, walking back to his table.

  The guys haven’t even missed him. They’re all wrapped up in some overtly loud conversation that requires the use of their hands to explain. It’s sort of funny. They get away with so much more than average people. It’s because they honestly don’t give a shit what people think. The earth circles the sun. That’s normal—it’s a fact. These guys go through life on their own frequency, with their own agenda and their own…rules. I get it now—seeing them together fuses all the voids I wasn’t sure of before. This is Maverick’s family. That’s a fact.

  Marney snaps out of her trance and says, “Well, guess we all know the answer now.” Hushed whispers start. Morganna groans, ready to dominate any conversation that sparks. I prepare myself for round two. With Maverick’s touch still on my skin, I’m ready for anything.

  “What exactly is that?” I ask, looking at each person in the eye one at a time. Show no weakness. I repeat the mantra of the strong.

  “Maverick Hart is finally in love,” Marney admits. The women laugh a little and it’s not caustic laughter; it’s genuine laughter stemming from disbelief. I realize whatever I have with Maverick is huge. The leaps and bounds of progress we’ve made in our relationship shifted from tiny skips to huge spikes. I never in a million years would have thought I’d be okay with being in this position again. I am, though. So much so, that I didn’t even think about it. It was just a natural progression. Maverick and Windsor.

  The air shifts and they no longer direct bitterness at me.

  “Who would have thought,” Morganna offers, shooting a fond look at Stone, who doesn’t notice her gaze. “Who would have thought?” She glances at me, smiles wide, and then turns her gaze to all the Y’s. Morg raises her glass and all of the others follow suit. Hesitating a few seconds, I wonder what I’m toasting to, but I do eventually raise my wineglass. We all clink, fake smiles perched on our faces like an expensive accessory.

  And just like that…I’m in.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Maverick

  With every day that passes, my apprehension about leaving grows. Never before did I give a shit about deployments—they are just part of the job. I accept it. It’s usually a little fun…if there’s stuff to do—bad guys to catch, lives to make a little harder.

  This deployment will be different because I’m doing something I’ve never done before. Insane, I know. I’m leaving something behind. Not just something, but someone. And I happen to be madly in love, heavy on the “madly,” with that person. My mind is a twisted fuck of a place to be. Having sex with Windsor didn’t have the effect I thought it would. She didn’t push me away; she pulled me closer. I’m not sure which is worse.

  I’ve lost all hope of having a clear head before or after I leave. The only time I’m not thinking about Windsor or some part of her body, or something she’s said, or something she’s done is when I’m inside her. See that catch-twenty-two? It’s a bitter bitch. I’m impossible to deal with at work. I can’t stop calling and texting her just because I can. I won’t be able to talk to her very much after I ship out.

  And because I fucking think about calling her, I pick up the phone and slam my finger on her name.

  Her picture pops up on my screen. She has a white sheet tucked under her arms and her hair is a tangle of perfection. I snapped the pic after we had sex for the second time in one night. Her lips are pink and swollen and her blue eyes scream come fuck me again. Contrary to popular belief, I will never get sick of being inside her. My dick gets hard just daydreaming.

  The phone rings a second time. Windsor answers and says, “I’m never going to get anything done if you don’t stop calling me.” Her voice is playful. I take a deep breath. She giggles. I’ve done this five times already today. I’m packing, so I have thirty huge dead-hooker-bags strewn around my house in haphazard array. I call her to forget.

  I sigh. “How many appointments do you have this afternoon? I want you to come home,” I tell her.

  “Mav, I have to work. I can’t stay in your sex dungeon twenty-four hours a day,” Windsor whispers. I chuckle. She told me this morning she wishes she could spend the entire day in my bed. I told her she should. I’m at this crazy breaking point of being absolutely insane. I’m scared I’m going to say something so ridiculous that she’s going to freak out.

  “What’s wrong with the bedroom? You seemed to love it this morning.” I smile. I wish she could see it through the phone. “Last night. The day before that. And the day before that, too.” I hear a door shut. Her office door.

  “I miss you, too. Let me get through these reports. I’ll be home two-ish. Can you work with that?” Windsor asks. I look around my room at all the bags. I purse my lips.

  “Yes. I can work you out then,” I growl. I’ll have to pack my shit quick. I want to be finished so I can focus on her as much as possible. T-minus four days. I close my eyes. “As soon as you can. Come home.”

  Windsor laughs. For a second I forget about everything except what makes me happy. Her laughter erases every fucked up thought that races through my brain. It’s such a simple, ordinary, unoffending thing. Something I would have laughed at if you told me the same thing six months ago. I never would have believed it. Right now, I’ve never believed in anything more.

  “You’re crazy,” she says, pausing. I know she’s thinking. She didn’t say enough. Windsor holds back when she’s not admitting something.

  “One word,” I say, curious. She makes a little sucking sound and I’m one hundred percent sure she
has her fucking lip in her mouth, eyes turned up to the ceiling. My cock responds accordingly, as if she were here in my presence doing the same thing.

  “Sad,” she replies, her voice low. Boner flat-line.

  “Don’t be,” I say automatically. “We have four full days. I have plans for all of them, too.” If I can convince her, maybe I can convince myself, too. Stone told me leaving Morganna is a bitch, that he misses her like he’d miss a limb if it got blown off. I never understood what he meant. I will soon. I missed my parents after I left and didn’t look back. That’s a different kind of miss, though. I chose not to care, and they chose not to reach out.

  Her phone beeps. She has another call. “You’re everything,” she whispers before clicking off the line. I hold the phone against my ear for a few additional seconds.

  I drop the cell to my side, balling it in my fist. “Fuck!” I bellow, my growl echoing in the vast expanse of my bedroom. Existing in this interminable state of almost gone is miserable. Windsor almost saying love is also a fucking drag. I don’t fault her, because I feel her affection in every word she says to me, in every breath she takes—in her huge blue eyes when she gazes up at me. She needs time. I can give her that.

  I drag one of the huge black bags into my closet. I’ve packed all my uniforms already, so I go to the side that houses my t-shirts. Scanning the hangers I pull off one that says The Dude Abides, another that has a huge mustache sprawling across the front, and another that says Yo Mamma. All exceedingly appropriate. I fold them the way you’re supposed to fold a t-shirt and put them in my bag followed by a red poncho, a sweatshirt with an AK printed on the front, and a pair of Elvis sunglasses. My skintight, spandex American Flag shirt goes into the mix and I start to feel a little lighter doing what I do every time I ship out. The familiarity of packing eases the burn a little. I feel even better when I pull out my leather, badass eighties rock gear.

  The costume reminds me of Stone, so I dial him up to talk about what he’s bringing and to make sure I have all the necessities on the pack-out list. He convinces me to bring my big screen TV because Morganna isn’t letting him take their TV from their living room, and I have an extra for occasions like this. After that long, drawn out conversation, in which he forced me to listen to the new rock song he just wrote for Morg, I call Steve. I need to make sure they don’t expect me to go to the bar hopping party. He tells me I’m a pussy—that I’ll regret not tapping a few girls from the Maverick stock sex pool. I tell him he should bag them instead. He agrees and I’m off the hook.

  A few hours later I’m stacking all my bags next to the front door, feeling a little excited to deploy, when Windsor rushes in. She has on a gray skirt and a black button up shirt, the top two buttons open. Her hair is up, but pieces have fallen down into her face. Her smile, like it always is when she first sees me, is God damned brilliant. She kicks off her heels and runs toward me. She knocks into me as hard as she can, but I catch her easily and pull her up so her face is level with mine. Her eyes say I miss you. I want you. I miss you. I could stare into them all day long.

  Windsor shakes her head and says, “God, you’re even hotter than when I left this morning. How do you do that?”

  I let it rip—the big smile, because she’s looking at me like I’m the fucking prize. Her gaze lands exactly where I want it. Almost immediately, she kisses me. Her eyes fall shut as I lower her to the ground and bend down to avoid taking my mouth off of hers. Reaching up, I release her hair so it falls down around her shoulders and fist it in my hands. Her fingers snake under my shirt and skirt up to rest on my chest, always one hand on my heart…over her tattoo. She loves it. I love her.

  I help her take my shirt off. My heart races at skin on skin contact because it knows what comes next. Who am I to deny it? I unbutton her shirt, teasing her mouth with flicks of my tongue and gentle kisses. She tilts her head to get a better angle and joins in the competition to see who can dominate better. She wraps her hands around my neck and pulls me closer once her shirt is wide open. Skimming her wet mouth down over my jaw, my chin, and down the front of my throat, she licks my neck tat and sighs a happy little moan. I close my eyes and take it all in.

  She sucks my neck, just enough to make it feel good, but not enough to leave a mark. “I don’t want to leave you,” I admit, tilting my head back to give her better access. She bites my collarbone.

  Against my skin she murmurs, “So don’t leave. I want you to stay with me, too. I don’t even know what to expect when you leave. I miss you so much when I’m at work and that’s only like nine hours. What does four thousand, three hundred, and twenty hours feel like? Torture.” She kisses me where she just bit me.

  “Did you work that out in your head?” I ask to avoid the sickening truth.

  “Numbers are my thing. I figured it out around the fourth time you called today.” Her full lips find mine again, but this time they don’t help me forget. They are like the signature on my death sentence— or a drug I won’t be able to have for a significant amount of time. She’s right. It will be torture. Windsor strips her shirt off and then her pink lace bra. Her tiny nipples pucker at the chill in the air. I kiss them. I lick one and then the other as she clutches my head to her chest.

  “I have to go, Win. I don’t have a choice. You’ll be here when I get back?” My tongue slides up the center of her breasts as I lick a trail all the way up her throat to her mouth. I whisper at her lips, “Promise me.” Windsor darts her tongue out to trace my lips. She pulls my bottom lip in between her teeth.

  “Like right here? In this exact same spot?” She says, her lips grazing mine as she speaks. I hate that she doesn’t get what I’m asking. My addictive personality is about to rear its head. Fuck. Fuck. “Or are you asking if I’ll still be yours when you get back?”

  “Yes,” I say simply, inhaling the scent of her cherry lip gloss intermingling with her shampoo.

  She pushes me back a touch, so she can look at me face on. “Isn’t that the way this works? Why would you even have to ask? Of course I’m yours. I’m yours forever. I’ll be here. I’ll be in this exact spot if that’s what you want. Say the word,” she says, pointing to the ground.

  My stomach is a tangled fucking mess. This conversation just increases my inner turmoil. I’ve never had to have a talk like this. Not even with the blonde monster. But I never gave a shit about her, so I guess I wouldn’t. This is the sissy stuff that attached people deal with. Not lone wolves like me.

  I view attachments with a singular view. With each person you grow close to, you increase your odds of miserable things happening—whether it’s friends or a girlfriend, or even parents having more children. With each addition of love to your life, the favor turns against you. You’re more liable to have something stripped away. Cancer. A car accident. A broken heart. The horrific scenarios of loss are endless and more plausible with each attachment you form. Because that’s the thing with attachments —you benefit from them, but they fucking destroy you. If you keep attachments to a minimum your risks stay low. I have Stone and my team. Now I have Windsor. An addition I know makes me vulnerable tenfold.

  Stone told me I should talk about how I’m feeling with Windsor. I took his advice because number one, I always take his advice, and number two, he has Morganna, the impenetrable force field wrapped like a hard dick. You can’t undermine that feat.

  “This is new to me, Win. I’ve never left a girlfriend behind before. I just wanted you to know that I don’t want to lose you because of my job. I don’t want to lose you for any reason. I want you to be here, in my house, in my life when I return. That said, I’ll understand if you can’t. It’s a lot to ask of anyone. You should know though, I’ll never not want you. You’re my always. And I do think I want you in this exact spot when I get back…maybe in the bedroom instead. We can negotiate if you’re amenable.” She has this huge fucking smile on her face as she watches me spill my soul.

  “You’re being dramatic. Six months is not that long to w
ait. Especially for the best damn sex of my life.” Now she’s teasing me. Christ, if my friends saw this pathetic show, they’d have a field day. “Also, I’d wait forever for you—you crazy man, you. You’re my always, too. I’m in, Mav.”

  “All in?” I ask, pulling her waist toward the bulge in my pants. She raises her eyebrows when it bumps her stomach.

  “All the way in,” she purrs. Fuck yes. I glance at the bags behind her head quickly, distractedly. She follows my gaze and then narrows her eyes at me. “I think those bags need some action. Something to remember me by?” Windsor says, her tiny hands falling to unbutton and unzip my jeans.

  I shake my head. “I need something to remember you by. Those bags don’t deserve you.” She’s lost her skirt and her panties in the last few seconds. She gets the award for world’s quickest naked woman. I want to be the one to congratulate her. Pursing my lips together, I cross my arms over my chest. Windsor takes a step back toward the bags. I slide my boxer briefs off and step out of them.

  She clears her throat. “Well maybe you can both have me at the same time,” she explains, her gaze trained on my cock. If I didn’t know better I’d think she was talking about getting tag teamed.

  Placing a hand on one of my black bags as tall as her waist, she strokes it reverently. I’ll never look at that fucking bag the same again. That’s the point, I think.

  Windsor turns around, giving me a grand view of her narrow waist and round ass. Her long hair falls down her back, brushing her side when she turns her head to look over her shoulder. “Fuck me. Right here. On top of these bags,” she commands, her eyes fierce.

  My dick is the only thing I can think of. How hard it is. What her words do to me. I blow out a pent up breath and approach her. When I’m standing behind her, I put my fingers where my dick wants to go.