“Not sure if you noticed, but they’re boots. I can just slide them off.”
Mason stood up again and waved toward my boots. “Come on then, take them off.”
He crossed his arms over his chest and watched me.
I tried to use the opposite leg to push a boot off my foot, but the sharp stab in my back when I lifted my leg stopped me.
“You were saying?” the jerk asked and went back to helping me.
“Thanks,” I said, low enough that I still felt like I could hold on to my dignity.
“Turn around,” Mason ordered and walked over to stand next to the bed.
“What?”
He made a circular motion with his hand. “Lie down on your stomach.”
“Why?”
“Why do you think?”
“So you don’t have to look into my eyes when you finally kill me?”
He didn’t respond just kicked his shoes off.
I still hadn’t moved, too confused to do anything but frown at him.
His knees hit the bed, and he took my left arm and lifted it up. “I’m tired. I want to go to bed. So it would be great if we could do this now, rather than in an hour, when you finally decide that you can’t sleep because your back is too sore.”
I let him guide me onto my stomach and relaxed into the bed. I just hoped this wasn’t payback for my proposal earlier.
He got something out of the nightstand and pulled my shirt up.
“Hey,” I protested but he shushed me.
“Don’t shush me,” I complained into the pillow, but it was unlikely he could make out what I was saying.
He put some lotion on his hands and started rubbing my back. And holy mother of god, I was dead. Dead and gone to heaven, because I could hear the angels sing their sweet melodies and strum their harps.
I had firsthand experience with his amazing hands. I knew he was good, but this was something else. And he was doing it to make me feel better. I doubted he expected anything in return since I had come to the conclusion that he didn’t want to sleep with me again.
He kneeled next to me on the bed and massaged me until I was one happy Stella. The pain was gone; I was purring like a kitten and was willing to give him anything for just another massage like that.
“Better?” he asked, and I hummed into the pillow, too tired to lift my head. I was about five seconds away from falling asleep.
The bed shifted and I felt him get up. I heard his clothes rustle, then the light switch flicked, and the bed moved when he got back in. He pulled the covers over me, and the last thing I remembered was feeling happy.
I guess it turned out he did want to sleep with me again. Just without the getting naked part and with our eyes closed.
Iwas nervous. So nervous that I had to reapply my lipstick twice already because I’d chewed it off. I was wearing the dress my mother had sent to the garage while I was working. It was a boring grey with capped sleeves and came down to my knees. The shoes that accompanied it were enclosed black heels. I hated both on sight. But not wearing either wasn’t an option.
My hair was up in a chignon, something I had mastered early on, since my mother insisted on me doing my hair this way. My hair was long and thick. It was also wavy and didn’t like being told what to do. So any updo required copious amounts of hairpins and a lot of cursing.
But since this wasn’t my first dinner party, I was able to get myself together in about an hour. And now I was wasting time staring at myself in the bathroom mirror. I’d been standing in the same spot for the last ten minutes, wondering if this was the beginning of the end of my freedom.
And that was something I just couldn’t accept. I couldn’t live with my mother again. I would rather be homeless than move back in her mansion. It might still come to that. After all, I only had my current job for a few more weeks, and my mother had made sure that I was unable to get a job anywhere in Humptulips but at her office. The amount of pull she had over the town sickened me.
I wasn’t ready to leave my friends behind, and working in another town meant I had to drive about an hour just to get there. I wouldn’t be able to get a well paying job so soon after graduation. The gas money would take up most of my income and I would be right where I started. I was stuck for now.
