“Hey.” She cleared her throat and tried to remember why she’d called him. It definitely wasn’t because she was horny as hell. “I wondered if you were doing anything tonight.”
“I might be.” How did he manage to make three simple words sound so dirty? Or was it just her perverted mind?
It’s definitely not just my mind.
“I thought I’d cook for us tonight.”
“Sounds good. I’ll bring the wine.”
“Great. Are you still at work?” He often worked late, which was the reason why they hadn’t gone out together at all during this last week. He’d simply turned up a couple of times late in the evening and stayed over.
Well, she wasn’t going tonotlet him through the front door, was she?
“Nah, I got off early this afternoon.”
Why hadn’t he let her know?Why should he?It didn’t matter. Except it just underlined the fact that he didn’t really tell her anything much of what was going on in his life.
“Okay. Well, um, so I thought I’d cook for us at yours tonight. As a change of scene.” She knew where he lived, and if he wasn’t going to ask her over, she’d invite herself. Peyton was great about the times Mason came over but it’d be nice for them to be alone for once.
He didn’t answer straight away. Piper transferred her phone to her other ear.Stop imagining things.There was no way to tell if her question had put him on the defensive.
“How about I pick you up at eight and we go out for something to eat?”
He doesn’t want me to cook for him.No, that wasn’t it. He didn’t want to take her back to his flat. It shouldn’t hurt as much as it did.
Before they even slept together he told her he’d met the right woman a while ago.No chance of anything happening there.At the time she’d been intrigued but hadn’t taken it too seriously.
But now she couldn’t get it out of her mind. Suppose that mystery woman was the reason he didn’t want to take her back to his flat? Maybe it was a shrine to her or something.
Oh get over yourself.Of course it wasn’t. Mason wasn’t the type.Was he?
She took a deep breath and injected a deliberately airy tone in her voice. “Okay, that sounds good.” Then she couldn’t help herself. “Don’t trust my cooking, is that it?”
He laughed, which was totally unfair since his laugh always did insane things to her body.
“Sure I do. I just don’t want to piss off your sister by hanging out at yours all the time.”
That’s why I just invited myself back to your place.The words were on the tip of her tongue, and then a memory from the past flooded her mind.
Colton, rolling his eyes in mock disgust as he told her about the latest girl his brother had slept with.“She can’t take a hint. Mase said she’s a clinging vine, strangling him so he can hardly breathe.”
She snapped her mouth shut.It’s only been a month.Just because she was starting to want more than casual hookups didn’t mean anything.
Four weeks was way too soon for her to expect anything serious from him. She hadn’t been serious about any of the guys she’d seen over the last couple of years, and they’d dated for longer than four weeks.
I never slept with any of them the first night, either.
She had no idea what point she was trying to make. And Mason was still waiting for an answer.
“Eight’s fine.” Anyway, why was she getting so tied up in knots? Mason had just asked her out.
“Great. See you then.” Before she had the chance to respond she heard a woman’s voice in the background. It was faint and she couldn’t make out the words but for some reason it put her on edge.
“Where are you?” She tried to make the question casual but had a horrible feeling she sounded accusatory.
“Nowhere. Gotta go. Catch you later.”
*
