Alex wanted to say something witty. Or maybe something seductive. But her sharp mind failed her. And she suspected that was due to lack of oxygen.
Chapter 13
10:57 p.m.
Mason was a firm believer that some things—fuck it,mostthings—were better left unsaid.
But all of his partial explanations for declining Alex’s offer had only hurt and confused her. So he’d decided to come clean with as much of the truth as he could.
For one thing, she deserved it. For another thing, sometimes a Hail Mary was the only Mary a guy had left. And he didn’t think he could live with himself if he saw another flicker of pain cross her eyes and knew he was the cause of it.
He wasn’t sure what he expected her response to his confession to be, but it certainly wasn’t the slamming of her eyebrows over her nose. She said something that sounded a lot like “Completely, totally, utterly vexing.”
“Huh?” He sat forward, clasping his hands tightly between his knees to keep from touching her legs.
Her robe had fallen open again, revealing inch upon inch of silky, soft skin. It was taking everything he had not to stare. And drool. If he touched, there would be no hope for him.
She blew out a breath, and he would swear he felt it moving over his body. Just like that he was hard.
Alex had done that to him from the start. Turned him into a fourteen-year-old boy with no control over what happened in his pants.
“You make it impossible to stay mad at you,” she grumbled, but he was pleased to note her normal expression, one of good humor, played around the edges of her face.
“Is that a bad thing?”
“Yes!” She tossed exasperated hands in the air. “Iwantto be mad at you.”
He jerked back his chin. “Why?”
“Because…” She started and stopped and tried again. “Because…” This time when she stopped, she scrunched up her nose in frustration. Finally, she staunchly declared, “Because!”
“Right.” He used her own words against her. “Very articulate.”
She blinked and he was sorely tempted to remove her glasses so he could stare into her eyes until…well, until he got tired of it, which he thought might be never. “Did you just make a joke?”
He shrugged. “Two in one day. Must be some sorta record.”
“Oh my god. A joke followed by sarcasm.” A delicate hand landed on her chest. “Who are you? And what have you done with the real Mason?”
His lips twitched. Sparring with Alex always made him a bit giddy. “So glad you’re enjoying yourself at my expense.”
“Is it just my imagination, or have you decided to pull the stick from your ass?”
“Maybe.” He waited a tick before adding, “So I can beat you with it.”
“Three!Threejokes in a day!” She laughed, and it was a sweet, tinkling sound that burrowed under his skin. Her smile was enchanting and so guileless. Just like the woman herself.
What must it be like to live life so free and open? To have nothing to hide? To not couch every word or worry about every move for fear one slip would tell the world just how abnormal you really were?
“Let me see if I have this straight,” she said. “You think if we sleep together, it’ll be so good we’ll be flooded with hormones. Which will either (a) have you falling in love with me.” Her quirked brow could only be described as coquettish. “An outcome I could definitely see. Because even though I haven’t done it before, I’ve been studying up. I think, given a little practice, I can master most of the skills. You’d be putty in my hands.”
He refused to let his mind dwell on what she meant bystudying up.
Or at least hetriednot to let his mind dwell.
Against his will, images of her flipping through the pages of a sexy novel or glued to a screen watching X-rated videos flashed through his head.
Putty? Shhyeah. If by “putty” she means “painfully, achingly hard.”
