“I already made dinner. I was going to drop it off.”
“You made me dinner?”
“No. Yes. No. I mean, I made… pesto pasta… and…” Her voice hitches, and she grips the front of my shirt, bunching the fabric in her tight grasp. “I can’t think straight when you do that.”
My mouth curves on her skin. “Good.”
“Mason, I’m serious…Oh god,” she hums in pleasure when I brush a feathery kiss behind her ear where I remember she’s most sensitive.
Her breathing becomes erratic until she’s almost panting. I ghost my lips at her temple.
“You made pesto pasta?”
I kiss the side of her mouth, and she whimpers.
“Yes.”
My fingertips follow the path of her curves as they glide up from her hips to her ribcage.
“For me?”
Her eyes flutter close when I trail a fingertip along her clavicle. Back and forth. A lazy seduction. Every muscle in her body is trembling with desire and need.
She swallows thickly. “Yes,” she whispers.
Knowing that she made one of my favorite meals for me makes me stupidly happy.
“I bought a rotisserie chicken, too.”
She rises on tiptoe, her lips chasing mine as I tease her face with phantom brushstrokes of my mouth. Her cheek, her forehead, her brow. When I don’t give her what she wants, she growls at me.
“That’s good because I’m starving.” I reach around her and turn the doorknob to the front door.
“Me too,” she says, twisting my shirt in her hands and yanking me inside the house as soon as the door gives way.
Chapter 10
ARIA
My body is literally on fire. An inferno. I’m dry kindle ignited by the match of his teasing kisses. Singed. Branded.
Mason and I were combustible from the minute we met. We burned hot and wild. The chemistry between us was off the charts. For an inexperienced, naïve girl who had never been in a serious relationship before, being with Mason was new and exciting and life-altering. I became addicted to him. Craved him. Needed him. I never regretted a second of our time together. I only regretted…still regret… how we ended. The suddenness of it. The fact that I told him I loved him, and he couldn’t say it back. Instead, he walked away, shattering my heart in the process and leaving a big, gaping crack splitting me wide open. A wound that had been slowly healing, only to be ripped apart again last night when he suddenly reappeared in my life. Declaring his intentions. Saying he came for me.
I’d be stupid to trust him with my heart again. It won’t survive another Mason-sized crack when he inevitably walks away. I had decided earlier to give a tentative friendship between us a chance. Nothing more. He’s my new neighbor, after all, and will be Brandon’s coach once school starts. It’s best we keep things casual and simple—for my brother’s sake, of course. He doesn’tneed any more drama in his life. Our parents’ messy divorce and his strained relationship with his father are enough for a seventeen-year-old to handle.
Knowing all this, why am I dragging Mason inside my house ready to strip my clothes off and pounce him?
Because his lips on my skin feel good. Because it’s been way too long since I’ve felt anything. Joy. Passion. Desire. And I want more. Damn the consequences.
And because, when it boils down to the ugly, messy truth, I’m still irrevocably in love with him.
We stumble over the threshold, mouths locked in a greedy, toe-curling kiss. It’s desperate and uncoordinated—and probably one of the best kisses I’ve ever had.
Mason’s capable hands lift me up, and my legs automatically lock around his lean waist as he carries me to who knows where. I don’t care at this point as long as he doesn’t stop kissing me.
I’m a little confused when he takes me into the kitchen and deposits me on top of the countertop, but that thought flies off into the ether when he steps between my thighs and kisses the hell out of me.
“Where’re your plates, baby?”
