CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

We woke some time later to my phone announcing an incoming text. Mason swung out an arm and grabbed it off the nightstand to pass to me.

It was from Eva. ~His Jeep is in the driveway again. That gigolo better treat you right.~

~This EX gigolo is treating me better than all right~, I returned and gave the phone back to him to replace on the nightstand.

“What was that about?” he asked with his sleepy, sexy voice.

“Nothing.” I curled into his warm side and ran my fingernails lightly over his chest. “I was just bragging a little to Eva.”

My phone chimed again. I began to lean over him to retrieve it, but Mason caught my waist, halting me. “Don’t you dare stop touching me like that. I’ll get it.”

Sighing contentedly, I caressed him a little lower. He groaned out his approval as he opened my text. “She said you’re a lucky bitch.”

I smiled, and a little something-something under my stroking fingers grew into a rather large something-something. “Why, yes. Yes I am.”

He cursed and hooked an arm around my waist to tug me on top of him. This time around, I straddled his lap and did a little cardio exercise. Mason was even kind enough to show me how the backward cowgirl position worked. Bless his soul.

After round two, we took another nap. When we woke again, food became a little more important. I knew I didn’t have much in my cabinets, but we went to investigate the kitchen anyway.

As I commanded him to stay seated at the table, I scurried around to collect all the breakfast friendly food I had.

From his seat, he took a drink of the OJ I’d gotten him and sighed, refreshed, as his gaze followed every move I made. “I finally know why a guy likes it so much when his girl wears nothing but his shirt around.”

“Why?” I asked and wiggled in his shirt so the hem would ride higher up my thigh. “Easy access?”

“Well, that too.” Eyes glittering with sensual awareness, Mason watched me open the fridge and pull out a couple of jars. “But I think it’s like marking his territory. He knows just how much she’s his when she’s wearing his property.”

I paused and lifted a non-impressed eyebrow. “Marking his territory?” God, he really was a guy, wasn’t he? “So…I’m like a car tire you feel the need to pee on?”

His grin grew wolfish. “Peeing on you isn’t quite what I had in mind.”

I wrinkled my nose and stuck out my tongue.

He laughed and crooked his finger, beckoning me closer.

Unable to deny him, I drifted within his reach. “So, here are your choices for breakfast.” I set a jar of strawberry preserves on the table next to the loaf of bread and box of cereal I’d already gotten out.

He didn’t look at the food. His gaze wandered to the bare skin on my thighs where his T-shirt ended. “I know exactly what I want for breakfast.”

I snorted. “My God. Let a guy rock your world two times and he turns into a horny perv.”

“Hey, I was a horny perv before.” Snaking out his hands to grasp my hips, he swung me into his lap where I landed on his arousal pressing against his boxer briefs. “And you have no idea how hard it was for me to hide all the horny, perverted thoughts I had every time I was around you.”

Licking my lips, I tilted my head back, letting my hair tumble down my back as I rocked against his erection. “Oh, trust me. I’m getting a pretty good idea just how ~hard~ it was.”

He chuckled and kissed my throat. With a sigh, I sifted my hands through his hair and drifted languidly under the stroke of his expert mouth. He worked his way down until he met the collar of my shirt. With an irritated mutter, he gathered it up in his hands and ripped it over my head, tossing it aside.

“Oh, home girl,” he chastised when he saw my bra. “This thing got to go.” With three deft moves, he’d unclasped my bra and flung it across the room too. His gaze lit with approval. “Now that’s more like it.”

I laughed. “You are so—~Damn~.”

His mouth latched onto a nipple and I forgot what I was going to call him.

Mason Lowe was one incredible lover. He touched me with such reverence, his fingertips light and curious as they cruised up my spine while his mouth was bold and knowing, his tongue lavishing taut, puckered skin with deadly precision.

Without warning, he grasped my waist with both hands and lifted me off his lap to set me on the edge of the table. He stood up as he urged me to lie back. Then he leaned over me to give a little attention to my other breast.

Closing my eyes because this was so wild and crazy and amazing, I reached out and grasped the edge of the table for support.

Keeping my legs draped over the side, Mason fitted himself between my thighs and rubbed against me as he began to kiss his way back up to my throat.

“You taste so good,” he rumbled against my flesh. “Feel so good. Smell so good.”

I sighed. His touch kind of fried my awesome communication skills, so all I managed to reply was, “Y-you too.”

Grinning, he lifted his face to press a tender kiss on the end of my nose. Then he gazed into my eyes and straight into me. “I love being with you, Reese.” He looked down at my mostly naked body and let out a breath. “I love doing this with you. I love…I love you, period.”

I swallowed, choked with emotion, and not at all used to hearing him say that. Wiping his dark hair across his brow and out of his eyes, I frowned softly. “You say that like it’s the last chance you have to speak to me, like you’re afraid I’m going to disappear any second.”

His grin trembled. “Aren’t you?”

“No.” I shook my head. “I’m not going anywhere. This is real, Mason. I’m real, you’re real, and this is really happening.”

Leaning down, he hugged me and buried his face in my neck. “It feels like a dream, like I’m going to wake up any second and you’ll be gone. I don’t want to wake up from this.”

“You won’t. I promise.” I wasn’t sure what else I could say to reassure him, so I simply stroked his hair and let him rest on top of me. When I wound my legs around his waist and hooked my feet at the base of his spine, he hummed in approval.

Out of the blue, he said, “Hey, I thought you didn’t eat fruit for breakfast.” He lifted up off me just enough to snag my strawberry marmalade and eye me with arched, care-to-explain-this eyebrows.

“But that’s jam,” I argued. “Anything full of sugar doesn’t count.”

Mason unscrewed the lid. “Is that so?” He dipped out a pinkie full and popped the jelly-soaked digit into his mouth. Closing his eyes, he sighed deeply. “Yeah, that is pretty sweet. But I think it’d taste even sweeter…on you.”

As his lashes opened slowly, the intent in his gaze made my body burn with all kinds of hormonal abnormalities, because it couldn’t possibly be normal for a girl to get this turned on from a mere remark.

“You’re not.” Utterly aghast by what he was suggesting, my mouth fell open as he dipped his hand back into the jelly jar for more preservatives.

“This may get a little sticky.” His grin looked wickedly pleased.

“Mason,” I warned in a don’t-you-dare voice, even though my body was heating in all the right places, and the muscles deep in my abdomen were contracting and preparing themselves for another earth-shattering orgasm.

He smeared one of my nipples and I gasped at the chill. But almost immediately, he leaned down and heated the area with a swipe of his tongue.

My back arched off the tabletop, and I had to clutch the edge with both hands.

“Incredible.” He moaned as he licked the last bit of strawberry off me. “But I know where this would taste even better.”

When he peeled off my panties, I nearly shot off the table. “Mason, oh, my God. You ~can’t~.”

Could he?

Holy shit, he could.

He caught my hip as soon as I sat up. “Shh,” he murmured against my mouth just before he kissed me long and tenderly. His lips had the power to kill brain cells; it didn’t even occur to me to resist after that.

I relaxed onto my back when he urged me down again. Then I opened my thighs when he nudged them apart.

He straightened nonchalantly and stared at me all spread open as his personal feast. He wasn’t in any hurry to begin his meal, however. With a slow, sensual smile, he watched me while he picked up his glass of juice. I tensed, thinking he’d pour it on me and lick that off too. But he just took a long drink, his throat working as he swallowed.

His eyes never left mine as he finally lowered the cup, sighed, and licked a droplet of orange off his full bottom lip.

“Dear God.” I panted, unable to look away.

His stare left my eyes to run over my completely exposed, waiting body. He examined me as if he were mentally mapping out everything he was going to do to me. I was already halfway gone into ecstasy land by the time he picked up the jar of jelly again. When he knelt between my legs and coated me with sugary strawberry wetness, I arched and squirmed, thrashing my head. Then I came hard against his mouth when he licked the glob of jam away.

He didn’t stop there. Oh, no.

Scooping up another finger full, he started all over again, building me back up. This time, he took his mouth off me and fingers out of me just before I could come.

Replacing his tongue with something just as delicious, he pushed inside. My back bowed off the table as my thighs hugged him hard. Straightening to his full height, he hooked his arms under my knees and gazed down at me.

“Christ.” He groaned, his eyes going unfocused. “You are so…”

“Beautiful?” I tossed out the breathless guess. “Amazing? Fun?” I couldn’t come up with a fourth suggestion because I ended up crying out an orgasm instead.

“Yes,” Mason hissed. His stomach muscles tensed as he thrust once more and shuddered inside me. “Yes.”

~$~

Staring up at the ceiling in a dazed, sticky, satisfied mess, I wondered if one of Mason’s clients had ever taught him how amazing strawberry jam could be.

I told myself it didn’t matter where he’d learned such a neat trick. It felt so good; it shouldn’t bother me. But it did. My heart felt charred and raw.

How many women had he given this exact treatment? How much money had he earned from it? How special did that really make it between us?

I hated how much this ate at me. What he’d been before he’d met me wasn’t significant to what we were building right here and now. But I was so incredibly jealous of every other female who’d ever touched him or wanted to touch him.

Or looked at him.

He landed on the table beside me, pink smears on the corner of his mouth as he beamed with pride. I was grateful my aunt and uncle were not spendthrifts—they had to buy the best of everything—so we didn’t cause the sturdy table to buckle under both our weights. It held us securely, and Mason looked so happy and content, I wanted to cry. Why did I have to have such unhappy thoughts when he was so pleased and satisfied?

“I’ve always wanted to do something like that,” he said, sounding like a little boy who’d finally been allowed to drive the car.

Instant relief consumed me. Oh, thank God. He hadn’t shared this intimacy with another woman.

I rolled toward him and threw my arms around his neck. He snuggled into me with an approving sound and hugged me back.

After kissing him lightly on the mouth, I said, “You know, we should do breakfast together more often.”

His eyes sparkled. “You know, I totally agree.”

~$~

It ended up, we did do breakfast together the next morning. Mason stayed all through Saturday. Yes, he let his mother know he wouldn’t be home.

Since he’d been suspended from work and wasn’t allowed to go near the Country Club for a week, he stuck around my apartment, and we remained inseparable for the rest of that lazy afternoon. Borrowing my calculus book, he did his math assignment while I worked on Virology. And let me tell you, naked homework sessions are a blast. I sat on one end of the couch and he sat on the other as we kicked our feet up and rested them on each other’s stomachs…until this one time, my heel totally slipped just the teeny tiniest bit. It slid over his junk and kind of pressed against him harder that I probably should have. When I felt some swelling under my arch, well…my toes felt compelled to investigate further.

After that, we didn’t get a whole lot of homework done. We did learn where the most sensitive places were on each other, however.

But as all honeymoons must come to an end, ours did too. Sunday morning, Mason woke me with a full body massage. After stroking every inch of my body until I was a pile of yummy, relaxed mush, he had his wicked way with me. And I have to admit, I really, really liked his wicked ways.

Kissing me as I drifted in a haze of semi-conscious post-coital bliss, he said, “I’ll make you a deal. If you promise not to move from this spot and stay exactly as you are until I get back, I’ll run out and find us some lattes.”

I moaned in delight. “Sold.”

He popped from the bed, looking way too energized for my taste. Once he tugged his clothes on—I know, boo hiss, clothes bad—he grinned and leaned down to kiss me goodbye.

I’m fairly certain he meant it to be a quick peck goodbye, but…I couldn’t help myself. I sank my fingers into his hair—because I was actually allowed to touch it now, ~squee~!—and opened my mouth under his, my teeth nipping at his bottom lip.

Groaning, Mason crawled back onto the bed and pinned me immobile under the covers so he could take over.

His eyes sparkled as he paused kissing me to grin. “So you want to tease, eh?”

It took us another twenty minutes of ~teasing~ each other before he finally rolled out of bed again. “Don’t move,” he warned one last time before disappearing from my room. Footsteps, the jingle of keys, and the door closing marked his departure.

I sighed, feeling a little lost without him near.

It was sad, really. I’d had no idea a girl could become so addicted, so completely, and so quickly. With Jeremy—

Oh, why did I keep comparing? There was no comparison. I’d always been a little leery of Jeremy, deep down, as if my soul recognized he was no good. But either Mason had my soul completely fooled, or he was the man for me. I voted for option number two, hands down.

Feeling delicious and pleasantly sore in all the right places, I stretched languidly under the sheets just as a beep came from the nightstand.

I frowned because my cell phone didn’t make that kind of boring tone. With a quick glance to the left, I discovered Mason had left his here. Worried it might be Dawn trying to reach him, I checked the ID.

When I saw the caller was ~Landlady~, my blood ran cold. I should’ve felt guilty for opening her text and reading his private message. But, nah, I totally didn’t.

~I have Jeremy Walden’s number dialed into my phone. Need you to come at ten tonight to keep me from pushing send.~

With a gasp, I dropped Mason’s phone.

That bitch!

I should’ve known she’d keep trying to use me as bait to blackmail him into sleeping with her. I mean, why didn’t everyone suspect that of their evil, cougar landlady?

White-hot rage smoldered inside me. How dare she? How dare she hurt him like that?

I knew Mason. And every visit he spent in her bedroom damaged him. It stripped away a part of him and transformed him into someone he despised.

Well, that shit stopped now. No one hurt my man and got away with it. Mason wasn’t any woman’s play toy. Not any longer.

He also wasn’t the only one who could sacrifice himself to protect the people he loved.

So, that’s pretty much when I completely lost my mind.

A plan formed in my head, and I just couldn’t shake it away. It would be risky, putting my own safety on the line. It’d be slightly illegal, but heck, I’d always wanted to know what breaking the law felt like.

It might possibly blow up in my face too. But to free Mason of that woman forever, I had to try. And I didn’t experience one iota of regret as I made up my mind.

Putting step one of Operation Save Mason into motion, I pushed ~reply~ and typed in “~I’ll be there~.” After sending “Mason’s” answer, I cleared both her text and my response from his phone completely.

~$~

By the time Mason returned with both his hands full of lattes, I had dressed and moved to the front room, disregarding his request to stay put. After that text, though, I hadn’t been able to relax or remain naked a second longer.

He knew something was wrong the moment he saw me. His face filled with trepidation. “What happened?”

I didn’t want to lie to him, but I couldn’t tell him the truth, either, or he’d put a stop to my plans before I even started them.

I decided to go with the tactic he’d used on Dawn.

“One of your clients sent you a text message. I read it. Then deleted it.”

See, total truth.

He stared at me a moment before coming toward me. “Good. I’m glad you deleted it.” Sitting beside me, he placed the lattes on the coffee table before turning and taking both my hands. “But I don’t like this look on your face, Reese. Talk to me.”

I shook my head, not sure what to say. I was still too rattled from the message, too rattled from the plans I’d made. Too rattled by everything.

Licking my lips, I tried. “H-how often do you get a text like that?”

He winced and glanced down at our interlaced fingers. “It’ll take a while for the word to get out that I’m done.”

I nodded. “And how much longer after that will it take to convince all your clients that you’re really serious this time?”

I don’t know where these words came from, or why I used such a scathing tone to deliver them. I didn’t want to pick a fight with Mason. I just wanted to gather him close and tell him I’d protect him always.

But the idea of texts pouring into his phone for days and weeks, maybe months, from women wanting sex bothered me. So the words kept spewing from my mouth.

“How long will they continue to slip you their business cards and tell you to call as soon as things between you and me get a little rough? I mean, how closely am I going to have to watch what I say? Because the first time I piss you off, you could just going running back to—”

“Stop,” he demanded sharply and yanked me into a hard hug. “I’m not going to cheat on you, Reese. I will never do that. I tried the other way. For ~two~ years. I didn’t like it. I’m not going back. I just want you.” A tremor rattled through him and echoed into me. “Don’t break up with me already. It’s only been one day. That’s not enough, not ~nearly~ enough. Please don’t give up on us yet.”

“I won’t.” Bursting into tears, I sobbed, “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I keep saying this stuff.” Holy crap, why was I getting so emotional? It wasn’t even close to my emotional time of the month. But I crawled into his lap and burrowed close. “I just want you too, Mason. I don’t want to break up with you. I don’t want to lose you at all.”

“Shh.” He gathered me close and kissed my hair, rocking me gently back and forth. “You’re not going to lose me. It’s okay.”

He swayed with me, letting me cry out my tears. When I finished, he wiped the wetness off my cheeks and kissed my nose, ticking the diamond stud with his lips.

“I know it has to be damn near impossible for any woman to deal with a boyfriend who has a history like mine,” he admitted, “especially being that it’s a very recent history for me. And it isn’t fair to ask you to. But I ~need~ you to. If anyone can get over what I was, you can. You are so strong. You are so amazing. You are…everything.”

See, was it any wonder I was so obsessed with this guy?

I lifted my face from his neck and met his worried gaze. “I’ll get over it,” I assured him with utmost confidence.

I didn’t care how hard it would be; I just knew I ~would~ get over his baggage. Because the alternative—losing him forever—would be unbearable.

He nodded and kissed me, but I didn’t taste passion. This kiss was desperate and seeking; he needed reassurance that I wasn’t going to leave him. Kissing him back, I put my heart into it, and it seemed to pacify him.

We held each other on the couch, just like that, for the longest time. But for the rest of the day, I sensed a distance between us. I knew it was tension on my part—worry about the evening to come—and I suspected for him, he was worried he could lose me at the drop of a hat.

In an attempt to ease some awkwardness, I suggested we finish our ~Harry Potter~ movie marathon. We made it through three more videos before evening approached. That’s when I stretched, faked a yawn, and kicked him out—politely, of course—telling him he really needed to go home at some point before Dawn labeled me Son Corrupter of the Year.

Seriously, though, I needed him gone so I could prepare for phase two of Operation Save Mason.

He looked like a kicked puppy as I walked him to the door, but he didn’t beg his case to stay. Such a guy, he didn’t want to appear whipped or anything, I guess. I put a little extra oomph into my goodbye kiss, trying to convince him how much I loved him.

But all the angst behind the glance he sent me before he jogged down the stairs and strode to his Jeep had me fisting a hand to my chest and wanting to call him back to confess everything. I watched from the opened door of my loft as he backed from the drive and disappeared down the street.

Then I blew out a breath, pulled on my big-girl panties, and got to work.