Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 73094 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73094 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
His lips were close to my ear, and his voice had dipped into that commanding growl again.
“You know the reasons why we shouldn’t,” I said. “I think you’ve just forgotten that you could have anyone you wanted.”
His expression went serious for a moment. The green of his eyes seemed to darken, and he held my gaze.
“If I can have anyone, then I want you, naked, under me in my bed with my cock deep inside you as you beg me to let you come.”
He pulled off of me in an instant. He let his words hang there like a challenge, and he walked away, leaving me in the hallway, hard and desperate and waiting. He disappeared through a doorway and I stayed there with my back against the wall, breathing deep.
I told myself how easy it would be to just walk down the stairs and leave, to resist the tug, to ignore all the stupid things my heart wanted me to do.
But I knew I wasn’t going to.
12
JESSE
Mason gave me a molten glare the moment he entered my room. I was kicking off my shoes in the corner, and he gently shut the door behind him.
“Left me out there to run after you?” he asked.
“You made your way in here just fine.”
“I don’t understand you. You tell me you don’t want to fuck anyone, but you bring me back here like I’m some prize you found while out on a hunt?”
The whiskey was still making my whole world fuzzy, but in a deep, warm way that was causing me to feel way too fucking good. I didn’t exactly know what my plan was anymore, but I’d enjoyed walking into this house proudly holding hands with Mason. That was a feeling I could get used to.
The light was low in my bedroom, lit only by the small glowing lamp on my desk and the ambient light coming in from the second-floor windows. Mason looked obscenely good. He always did, but tonight, he’d come right from that fancy party and he cleaned up so well, even if I also liked him in his usual flannel, too. His button-up shirt hugged his body in all the right places—the sides of his abs and his biceps, especially.
He had a slightly ticked off look on his face that only made me want to push his buttons more, too.
“I’m not going to fuck you,” I said. When I saw the brief flare of disappointment in his eyes, I decided to relent. “Yet.”
His cheeks went pink at my compliment, even though he was still trying to give me a hard stare.
“Where did you even come from?” Mason asked softly, shaking his head.
“Don’t know. Maybe aliens dropped me onto a hockey rink when I was a baby, or something.”
“Are you calling yourself some kind of hockey Superman?”
I sat down on the edge of my bed. “More like a hockey Batman. Dark, lone wolf, and I like the nighttime.”
Mason puffed out a laugh. He took off his shoes, coming over to stand over me, looking down. I reached a hand out to his waist, untucking a little portion of his shirt and gently stroking my thumb across his smooth skin there.
“I have to be honest about something,” Mason finally said.
“Tell me,” I said. I pulled back and hitched my fingers under the hem of my shirt, popping it off and leaning back on the bed. I liked the way Mason’s eyes surveyed my torso before he spoke again.
“If you fuck me, I’m going to have a crush on you,” he said, point blank. “And I know you don’t want that.”
“I’d be flattered.”
“Flattered and then freaked out,” he said. “I’m not trying to fall for a guy who’s 21, unavailable, and completely off-limits to me, anyway. Your cock may as well be… in a cage, or something.”
“Trust me, it isn’t in a cage.”
My heart was in one, maybe, until you came into my life and started fucking with everything.
“You know what I mean, though.”
“You didn’t exactly say you were in the market for anything either, Cowboy Fuckboy,” I told him. “Why would you care about a crush when you like to fuck anything that waltzes into the Hard Spot and winks at you?”
He rolled his eyes. “The guys at the bar say that shit about me because they think it’s funny. They know I’m a flirt. But they don’t know what’s actually behind it.”
I pinned him with my gaze. “And what’s that?”
“I’m lonely,” he said, his eyes looking off toward my lamp.
I swallowed. “I see.”
He reached his hands up behind his head, stretching. “I fucked around all year because I needed to feel… something. Anything,” Mason explained. “But no, I don’t just want any guy.”
“What do you want?”
“Love,” he blurted out, giving me a hopeless look. “I don’t just want love, I want to be knocked on my ass with love. I know I don’t deserve it, and I need to get my own goddamn life back on track before I could ever be someone truly lovable, but of course that’s what I really want.”