“Lattes and bacon rolls.” He looks gorgeously ruffled in a pair of faded blue jeans and a white t-shirt that is stretched very tightly across his chest and shoulders. “Is your drooling act for food or me?” he asks making me blush as I laugh.
“I like you in white shirts,” I babble and although the wise thing would be to say no more, I stupidly continue while Mase watches with an amused smirk and an arched brow. “It’s like I can see your naked chest and arms, even though you’re dressed. I think it might be the tattoos,” I admit in a face palming moment even I’m shocked by. “You know because I can see the shadow of them, like today and the other morning when you made me an omelette.” I am sure there should be some kind of internal filter that knows when enough is enough and kicks in to tell me to shut up, but if I have one then it is clearly not programmed correctly where Mason Harding is concerned because I blindly continue. “You know I like your tattoos and am drawn to them so seeing them like this, masked, almost hidden, I imagine them because I know what they look like naked—”
“Olivia, as much as I love hearing how you can’t keep your eyes off me, I really think I should stop you before you die of embarrassment or hyperventilate.” He grins, puts breakfast, lunch or brunch down on the counter in front of me and leans in to place a gentle kiss to my lips.
Mase circles the counter and kisses my bare neck and back as he grabs two plates and then with my hand in his he guides me to a stool.
“Eat,” he instructs whilst assembling my bacon roll and some potato things I’m unfamiliar with on my plate. “Latte okay or do you want me to make you something else?” He gestures to the coffee machine.
“Latte is fine. I was going to attempt coffee, but that machine is complicated.” My frown makes him smile.
“Not really, baby. I’ll give you a demonstration later,” he offers making me shake my head. “If I don’t show you soon I’ll be making my own coffee in the morning,” he adds with a wry smile of his own.
“You’ll be making your own coffee in the morning anyway as I won’t be here,” I reply taking a long sip of my shop bought coffee but glancing up I see him stiffen. “What?” I already know this is going to be a bone of contention, going home.
“What do you mean you won’t be here?” He folds his arms across his chest as he frowns at me. Yup, huge bone of contention.
“As I say, I won’t be here in the morning, at least not when you’ll want coffee making.”
“You agreed to stay.”
“Yes, I did, and I have, last night and today, but tonight I’m going home.” I am determined to return to my own home and bed tonight.
“There’s no point. You’ll be back first thing in the morning so just stay. You’ll get a lie in here.” He is grasping any incentive he can think of.
“Mason, I need to go home. My boards are all at home and work things, plus a lie in with you may render me disabled,” I joke, kind of, because I really don’t think I can have sex again today and if I do I am sure I won’t be capable of walking tomorrow.
“We could go back to yours and get your things,” he offers making me shake my head at his persistence.
“Why? We each have our own place and although this is great between us, we are not going to spend every night together,” I say seriously. “We are not months or years into this, we are days in.”
“We will spend every night together that we can, that it’s feasible to do, so if you insist on going home tonight, I will come with you. Tomorrow night though, we stay here, both of us together and Tuesday because I have a very early start Wednesday and won’t be back until Friday.”
“Mason, this is not a discussion when you just stampede in with a plan that suits you.” I have a frown to match his now.
“Is this the sex thing, that you’re sore?” I flush with a shake of my head. “I did warn you, all weekend, sore and aching,” he reminds me. “We won’t have sex then.”
“Ever?” I clarify, horrified at the prospect of it but that just makes Mase laugh, which is preferable to his frowning and scowling.
“Not ever. Just until you feel able to. I’m reluctant to put a time frame on it because if I do, we will both be desperate for it, more than usual, although if you could manage it before I go away, I’d be obliged.” He sounds as though he is thinking aloud.
“Obliged?” I laugh. “I’ll see what I can do. So, you’re coming to stay at mine tonight, despite me saying I was staying home alone.”
“Yup. Pleasure to cut a deal with you, Miss Carrington.”
“Mmm.” I frown, although my current frown isn’t as deep as my earlier one. I return my attention to my coffee, wondering how this happens. I say one thing, Mase says another and we end up with a compromise that essentially sees me doing what he wants.
“Plus, if you stay here or I stay with you it means no public transport with men rubbing themselves against you,” he adds, as if sensing that I might need a further reason to fully accept my own U-turn.
I remember the journey into work after the night I met Mason and feel sick, not that I felt the man on the train was a genuine threat to me, not like in a stalker or rapist kind of way. However, he had to know what he was doing, that he was getting a hard on and rubbing it against my arse for his own sexual gratification. That he was using me, taking advantage of the fact that I was stuck, vulnerable, wedged between him and a seat. Why would anyone want to do that? Violate me, violate anyone in that way, not that he was the first to do that to me.
When I was dancing with Will, when I’ve danced with guys in clubs and I’ve become aware of their arousal pressing into my behind, hip or belly and ignored it or removed myself from it they’ve usually ignored it themselves, taken the hint. Maybe realised that I wasn’t interested or because they were embarrassed enough without pushing further until faced with a full on rejection, but there are always guys like the one on the train who see a woman as no more than a means to an end, their own end, whether they want to be or not.
“Olivia,” Mase says with a concerned frown.
“Sorry, I was miles away.” I smile weakly. Why am I doing this? Thinking about these things, those people and allowing my head to become full of these counterproductive thoughts?
“Sweetheart, are you okay?” He’s still worried for me.
