The Young & the Sinner: An Age-Gap Romance (The Entangled Past Series)

by V. T. Do

  I took him in my hand instead.

  His skin there was surprisingly soft. I ran my fingers up and down the length of him, even loving even the vein that protruded out his skin. And when he let out a low groan, I looked at him, startled.

  His eyes were dark and hungry. “Keep going,” he said.

  I nodded and wrapped my hand around him again. He was thick. So thick, my fingers barely met around him. I wondered how he would fit inside me, but that was a problem for another day.

  Today, I wanted to see him lose control because of my touch.

  I moved my hand up and down, and Mason leaned his head back against the couch, eyes closed. “God, Livie. You’re killing me.”

  “Killing you?” I asked in amusement. “I don’t know about that. Driving you crazy, however…”

  I trailed off as he let out another groan, and I never realized how sexy that was. To hear the sound the man you love makes while you pleasure him. I was wet again.

  “Am I doing this right?” I asked.

  Mason grabbed a fistful of my hair and pulled me close. The pain on my scalp made my eyes burn, but it didn’t detract from the burning pleasure inside me. No, instead, it was like adding gasoline to fire and waiting for the explosion.

  “Harder, baby. Squeeze me a little harder.”

  I did as he asked and was rewarded when he pulled my hair a little harder.

  “Like this?” I asked.

  “Yes, baby. Like that. I’m going to come.”

  “Good. I want you to come for me, Mason. I want to watch you.”

  I moved my thumb up to the tip of him, finding small droplets of pre-cum there. I swiped them with my other thumb and watched him watch me as I brought that thumb up to my mouth and sucked his taste off.

  That was his undoing. With a shout, he came all over himself and me, and I kept watching, utterly and completely captivated by the sight of Mason losing control because of me.

  Mason pulled me into his lap when he was done, and he kissed me hard.

  He kissed me like he thought this might be our last kiss, kissed me like he couldn’t believe I was real, and kissed me like he didn’t ever want to let me go.

  And I had a thought then.

  One that should scare me but didn’t.

  One I shouldn’t be having about a man like Mason Kade.

  I wanted to be kept by him.

  By the time I got home, it was dark.

  I got out of the car with a smile on my face. I looked around the dark neighborhood, and the sign out front caught my eye. The For Sale sign for the Jenkins’ house was still up, and right across the sign, placed diagonally, was a big red SOLD sticker. Someone bought the house.

  I couldn’t believe it. Within the next few weeks, we would have new neighbors and Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins would be in another state. So many things were changing so quickly, and I felt like I was changing the most.

  I was no longer the naïve little girl with stars in her eyes. Lorenzo made sure to kill that part of me permanently. But most of my changes were due to Mason and Max. I was more sure of myself and my place in the world. I didn’t feel as lost as I had when my mom left me behind. I was better.

  I took in a deep breath and walked inside the open garage. Max’s car was already parked in the driveway, and I knew he already had dinner, probably by himself.

  I rubbed my chest at the tender spot there, guilt gnawing at me.

  When I got inside, the kitchen light was still on, but Max was nowhere to be found. I figured he was either in his office or bedroom, and sure enough, when I made my way to his office, Max was sitting there, looking over some documents in his hands, his laptop open in front of him.

  He looked up when I entered, an easy smile on his face.

  I smiled back and walked over to him, planting a swift kiss on his cheek and taking a seat across from him. “Hi, kiddo. How was your day?”

  “It was good.”

  “Good. Have you eaten dinner yet? There’s some left over in the fridge if you haven’t.”

  “I have, thanks,” I responded absently, as I continued to stare at him, my affection for him growing so much, it was almost hard to contain.

  He shot me a bemused smile. “What?”

  “Nothing. I just wanted to tell you I love you, is all.”

  He relaxed back into his chair. “I love you, too.”

  “I know.” And I really did. There once had been a point in my life when I wouldn’t have believed him if he told me so. Or at the very least, not believed that he loved me as much as I loved him. But I could clearly see how wrong I was. Max loved me since the day I was born.

  I stood up, avoiding his eyes so he wouldn’t see how wet they got. Then I walked over and hugged him, bending forward so I could bury my face in his neck and take in his familiar and comforting scent. He wrapped his arms around me, tight enough that I knew he wouldn’t let go until I did.

  “Hey, what’s this? Is something wrong? Is there anything I can do to fix it?”

  I shook my head. Nothing was wrong at all. “I just need your hugs right now,” I said, my voice muffled in his shirt.

  I just needed him to love me enough to forgive everything. To not see my relationship with Mason as the betrayal that it was, but simply as me falling in love so deeply that I couldn’t find my way out, even if I wanted to.

  He patted my back reassuringly. “Of course. We can stay like this for as long as you need.”

  He pulled me forward until I was sitting on the chair with him. His office chair was big enough, and I was such a tiny person that I didn’t take up much space.

  Max let me stay like that for a while. And it wasn’t long before I fell asleep in his arms. My last thought was when I felt his lips on my forehead, a promise of him always being here ringing true in my ears.

  42

  Mason

  Two weeks passed by in a blur.

  Two weeks filled with Olivia, work and little else. There was a time in my life when she was nothing more than a stranger—someone I knew existed but knew very little about. Unlike Max, I wasn’t close to Grace or Michael. I was ten, almost eleven, when Grace gave birth to Olivia.

  At the time, I was still too young to understand why everyone was so upset about Olivia’s birth, why Grace had moved out of her house to live with Michael and his family, and why my brother looked so sad most of the time.

  Max kept seeing Grace and Olivia throughout the years. He had convinced himself that he was in love with Grace, but at fifteen, what did he even know about love?

  By the time I was out of high school and knew a little bit more about my brother’s relationship with Grace and her family, I was ready set out to have my own life. A life where I wasn’t living in Max’s shadow. A life where I wasn’t known as Max’s little brother, but a whole other person unto himself.

  I didn’t see Grace again until my senior year in college. And by then, both of us had grown up. Olivia was twelve at that time, though I still didn’t know her. I wouldn’t have even known what she looked like had Max not kept so many of her pictures around.

  And I hated that. I hated the thought that Max might love another’s man kid, and all he got was to watch from the sidelines while Grace and Michael enacted out the perfect marriage and the perfect family.

  But everyone knew the truth. There was nothing perfect about that family.

  And then I did something terrible.

  I betrayed my brother for the first time.

  And because I was young and stupid, and I didn’t want to face the consequences of my actions, I moved across the country, as if that would allow me to escape my mistakes.

  I moved back home when Max asked me to. He asked me to be there for him when he realized Olivia would be the only thing between him and Grace, and he had to deal with what all that meant.

  What Olivia didn’t know was Max fell out of love with Grace a long time ago. But he stayed because he never stopped loving her. And Grace was all too happy to take advantag
e of his love for her daughter.

  And for the longest time, I hated Olivia for it.

  I hated her for capturing my brother’s heart, making him stay and trying to make it work with a woman who would never love him back, or at the very least, love him the way he deserved.

  But all that came to an end when I finally met Olivia again. At only seventeen, she fascinated me. There was just something about her soft demeanor, the way her eyes lit up whenever she smiled, those innocent brown eyes that called to me beyond what I could understand.

  I had belonged to her from that moment on, and every moment we shared after only cemented it.

  Loving Olivia was my second betrayal to my brother.

  One I hoped wouldn’t break us.

  One I knew I wouldn’t be able to stop or control.

  The weekend before her final exams at school, Olivia was going to be spending the night at my apartment for the first time. It was the first time she ever outright lied to Max. She told him she would be spending the night at Lizzie’s.

  We both knew we couldn’t keep our secret for much longer, but before we could come clean to Max, I needed to come clean to her about my first betrayal to Max—and inadvertently, to her—and hoped, just hoped, that we were strong enough to make it through it.

  I hoped that she would love me enough to try and work through it.

  Because that was what Olivia was: in love with me.

  She never said it, but she was never good at hiding her feelings. Every thought she ever had was on display in those innocent brown eyes of her. She looked at me as if I hung the moon, and I hated that there might be a chance I would shatter that image she had of me forever.

  I sat down on my couch, nursing a glass of scotch while I waited for Olivia to show up, wishing I could keep her here with me forever. The way I felt about her was uncontrollable, and it drove me crazy to think she might not feel the same way.

  That she might be in love with me, but that she would always love Max more.

  And it was selfish of me not to want that. I wanted to be the most important man in her life, but I didn’t see how that could be possible.

  A knock on the door brought me out of my thoughts. I almost smiled when I got up, chugging the rest of my drink before heading to the door.

  Like always, Olivia made everything better just by being here. She smiled when she took me in, and there was just something soft about her that I wanted to preserve.

  Unlike other women I dated before, Olivia didn’t play games. She didn’t act shy or coy in attempt to get my attention. I didn’t think Olivia knew how, but she got my attention nonetheless.

  She was wearing an olive-green jacket, which I was sure was a gift from Max, fitted blue jeans, and black leather ankle boots, with a black overnight bag slung across her shoulder. She looked good enough to eat.

  She looked up at me, biting her bottom lip to keep from smiling, and I knew she enjoyed the way my eyes devoured her. She liked it when I looked, even if she was too shy to ever admit it.

  I moved aside for her to come in, leaving only enough room for her to squeeze through. She moved passed me, her shoulder brushing up against my arms, her cheeks reddening.

  It still amazed me that even after everything we’ve done, she still blushed every time I so much as looked at her. Her innocence was refreshing to a cynical bastard like myself.

  I locked the door after us and watched as she moved around the apartment, smiling over how comfortable she seemed with everything. She walked into the master bedroom, and I followed behind her.

  When I was staying at Max’s, we spent most nights together. But this would the first night I would have her in my arms in my own apartment.

  Something about this made me feel like a schoolboy about to interact with his crush for the first time. That was what Olivia had reduced me to. A blubbering, nervous mess.

  She dropped her bag on the floor by the closet door and turned to me.

  “Aren’t you going to say anything?”

  I could tell she was resisting the urge to fidget under my gaze and call me a bastard, but I liked making her nervous. I liked making her blush more, and nothing made her turn red more than when I was close by.

  I ate away the distance between us in three large steps. She tilted her neck back to take me in. She was so tiny, so fragile. Sometimes, I was afraid of holding onto her too tightly, afraid I might break her. Other times, I wanted to push her to her limit, just to prove to myself how strong she was. That I didn’t need to be so careful.

  Today was one of those times.

  I traced her lips with my pointer finger, and her eyes fluttered closed from the contact.

  “Mason,” she breathed out. Just the way she said my name got me hard. I wanted her. I wanted her so bad there were no words.

  I never had to wait to take someone to bed before. But then again, I had never dated a virgin, either. I would wait until she was ready. I would wait for years if that was what it took, because Olivia was worth it.

  I unzipped her jacket and pushed it off her shoulders until it fell down to the floor in a silent heap, revealing the tight black shirt she had on underneath. The shirt molded to her shape perfectly, and I wanted nothing more than to throw her on my bed and consume her… use her in every deprave way possible, until she forgets everything but my name. She swallowed noticeably, and I held in a smile.

  “Do you want me?” I asked, my voice gruff. Evidence of the effects she had on me.

  She nodded, nuzzling into my palm when I cupped her soft cheek. “You know I do.”

  “We’re going to do something different today. Are you ready for that?”

  After a slight pause, she said, “Yeah.”

  My stomach dropped in anticipation. Everything we did so far had been a new experience for her. But I wondered if she could tell it was all new to me, too. That I never felt this way about anyone, and because of that, I didn’t know how to let her go. I would have her at any cost, even at the expense of my relationship with Max.

  But was Olivia ready or even willing to take that risk?

  I didn’t know.

  “Do you trust me?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she answered, no hesitation.

  I smiled, showing teeth. “Good.”

  I moved away from her and to my bed, sitting down. Olivia looked at me with wide Bambi eyes. She stayed where she was, but I could tell she wanted to come to me. To seek my protection and my assurance.

  I smiled a little at that. “Strip, baby. I want to watch you.”

  Her eyes widened at the command in my voice, and I didn’t say anymore, waiting for her to make her move. Her hands shook slightly as she moved them to the hem of her tight black shirt. I held my breath in anticipation.

  Did she not know how gorgeous she was? Did she not know how I couldn’t get enough of the sight of her? If she did, she wouldn’t be nervous. She would wield the power she obviously had on me.

  I let out a long exhale when she pulled the shirt up and over her head, revealing creamy pale skin, and a lacy, almost see-through, baby pink bra. I liked the bra. It went well with her skin tone, and it was revealing enough that I could see a hint of her dusky pink nipples peeking out.

  I clenched my fists, resisting the urge to move over to her and strip her out of everything.

  But this was her show. And I would be nothing more than an appreciative spectator. At least, for now.

  She kicked off her boots and they landed somewhere near the foot of the bed. Not that I cared, because she was removing her jeans, showing me those shapely legs, wide hips, and matching pink lacy underwear.

  I bet she was wet. I bet it wouldn’t take more than my fingers to make her come.

  But I stayed where I was, enjoying the show. “Lose the panties and bra, sweetheart.”

  She shot me a small smile and did as I asked, hooking her thumbs on the waistband of her panties and tugging it down her legs, revealing the prettiest little pussy I had ever laid eyes on.
I licked my suddenly dry lips.

  Then she unhooked her bra letting the flimsy fabrics slide down her arms and fall to the floor.

  Finally, she was naked.

  I let my eyes roam around her body slowly. Whoever said men were visual creatures was spot on. I was painfully hard just from the sight of her. From her small perky tits, pink erected nipples from both the cold air and her arousal, to the thin patch of hair she had on her mound, and finally, those delectable pussy lips that I couldn’t wait to taste again.

  My mouth watered just from the thought.

  “Now what, Mason?” she asked breathlessly.

  I pointed to the spot in front of me, and she walked over to it, her gait a little awkward, but nonetheless beautiful. I could watch her for the rest of my days.

  And then she was close enough to touch. So that was what I did.

  I cupped her shoulders with both hands, and she jumped a little, either from my cold hands or surprise. I paused and took her in, making sure she was still with me.

  I knew I was a little overprotective with her, but ever since her assault, I couldn’t help but treat her like breakable glass. I knew she hated that, but I was under no illusion that I wasn’t a big guy.

  I was.

  And Olivia was tiny. The top of her head barely reached my shoulder.

  “Okay?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” she answered, and I was happy her voice didn’t even waiver.

  She was getting more comfortable around me. I knew she wasn’t used to being naked in front of anyone, but I loved seeing her like this. Seeing all of her.

  My hands moved down, and Olivia bit her luscious bottom lip to keep from making any sound. I held in my smile, letting my hands roam all over her skin, not quite touching her where I knew both of us wanted.

  Goosebumps broke out across her skin, and she shifted from one foot to another.

  “Mason, stop teasing me.”

  “Teasing you? How am I teasing you?”

  She frowned a little, creating a small skin indent in between her eyebrows. I smoothed out the spot with my thumb.