by J. S. Scott
“I won’t,” he interrupted. “I already told you that.”
My head was spinning because it still seemed insane that I was even having this conversation with Mason Lawson. “It would be a disaster.” I hesitated before I added, “And there was one other qualification I mentioned that I needed.”
He set the menu aside and looked at me, giving me his complete attention.
My heart stuttered as I met his steely gaze.
I couldn’t look away.
I couldn’t breathe.
I couldn’t think.
I felt completely captured. Part of me wanted to run like hell, but the rest of me had no desire to get away.
Mason lifted a brow. “You wanted a man to want you,” he said huskily as his eyes devoured me whole. “I can promise you that no man will ever want you more than I do, Laura. I completely qualify.”
Holy shit!
I swallowed hard, stunned by the depth of the desire I could see in his swirling silvery stare.
I shook my head, but it was almost impossible to force out the words, “I-I-I can’t.”
God, getting those two little words out was probably the hardest thing I’d ever done.
“Because you’re not attracted to me?” he questioned, frowning as he asked.
My stomach was aching because I could have sworn I heard a tiny inflection of disappointment in his tone. Or was I just imagining things?
“No. I am attracted to you,” I said in a rush, unwilling to let him think that I was rejecting him because of that.
Honestly, I wanted to strip off my clothes and crawl across the table to get him naked, too.
The desire to touch every inch of his heated, bare skin was gnawing at me, making my hands shake just a little.
I wanted to know what it would be like to be with a guy who actually wanted…me. Mason did. I could see it. His expression was unveiled, and completely carnal.
“So it isn’t that you don’t want me?” he asked hoarsely, his lust-filled expression making my legs weak.
I shook my head as I bit my lip. Moist heat flooded between my thighs, and I crossed my legs because it was uncomfortable. “No. Definitely not because of that.”
Mason was every woman’s fantasy. Hell, he was definitely my favorite wet dream. And having him offer to have an endless amount of sex with me? That was almost impossible to resist for any female.
Especially me.
“Good. Everything else will just work itself out,” he answered, sounding satisfied.
For the very first time since I’d met him, Mason Lawson actually grinned.
His usual masculine, stern expression transformed into something far different from the grim look I was used to seeing on his handsome face.
He looked…relieved.
Happier.
Way more human than I’d ever seen him.
Again, I got the impression that there was so much more to Mason beneath the surface, a part of him that people rarely saw.
And it was at that moment, during his expression of some kind of emotion other than his usual know-it-all attitude, that I knew I was completely screwed.
Laura
Interestingly enough, dinner was actually pleasant.
Mason had dropped the whole baby daddy discussion, asking me if I’d just look over his information.
I’d reluctantly agreed, and we’d moved on to other topics.
Thank God!
Not that I was planning on agreeing to his crazy suggestion, but I’d really needed to end that topic of conversation. Immediately.
The discussion couldn’t go any further.
Eventually, I was going to have to set Mason straight on some things, but Jett and Ruby’s rehearsal dinner wasn’t the time or the place to do it.
I was finally able to relax as we moved to other getting-to-know-you topics.
Mason and I were both globe-trotters. Of course, I’d traveled extensively as a model, and he circled the planet on business, so we’d had an interesting discussion about our travels, and various cultures all over the world during the appetizers.
Over the entrees, we discovered that we were both passionate about our charities, and I’d learned that we donated, and felt fiercely troubled about a lot of the same causes.
When dessert was offered, I held up my hand to the waitress who was wheeling around the dessert cart. “Nothing for me.”
“Are you kidding?” Mason asked, his brow quirked as he looked at me. “You’re looking at that carrot cake like you want to have a seriously intimate relationship with it.”
I smiled at him. “Oh, I want it. But that doesn’t mean I should have it.”
He swiped a piece of carrot cake, put it in front of me, and then took some banana cream pie for himself. “Thanks,” he said to the waitress, letting her move on to the next table.
I salivated over the sweet in front of me as I said, “I can’t eat that, Mason. I already had a glass of wine, and way too much food.”
“You can’t be full. You hardly ate,” he replied firmly.
I snorted. “I ate plenty. A lot more than I usually do. I have a pretty strict diet I stick to for the most part. I already cheated tonight. Big time.”
“You look beautiful. Eat your cake,” he grunted.
I watched as Mason dug into his pie without a single sign of remorse.
The man obviously loved his food, and he probably needed a pretty big calorie intake to fuel a body that…large.
“I do have to fit into the clothes I model,” I said, exasperated. “Sweets are wasted calories. I might be a plus size model, but that doesn’t mean I can slack off. Sugar goes straight to my hips.”
“Your hips look fine to me. Laura, are you trying to say you think that you’re fat?” He had a very unhappy expression on his face.
“No. Not really,” I answered carefully. “But there is a reason why I’m not a regular model. I can’t fit into the clothes.”
He shrugged. “Why can’t they make the clothes fit the model instead of the other way around? Then having that piece of cake wouldn’t be an issue. Hell, it’s not an issue anyway. You’re healthy. You have a beautiful, statuesque body. There’s no reason you need to deprive yourself.”
I scowled at the offending piece of cake, but I picked up my fork. What the hell. Today was a special occasion. “The business doesn’t work that way. Models need to fit the clothes. And I don’t starve myself. Not anymore. I’m just…careful.”
His head jerked up. “Anymore?”
I started to eat my dessert, savoring every bite. “I used to starve myself down small enough to fit into a regular model size.” I had no idea why I was sharing this with Mason, but I felt comfortable doing it. It wasn’t like I hadn’t put my own cautionary tale out there for other women. “I was thin. Dangerously thin. But I was still getting pressured by my agent and designers to drop more weight. I was popping diet pills, and not eating enough to stay alive. Long story short, I starved myself to the point where my hair was falling out, I was passing out, and my body rebelled. I got sick.”
“Why in the hell would you do that?” he asked, his nostrils flaring.
“In my industry, if you don’t fit into the clothes, you don’t work. Brynn and I were friends, roommates, and we were in the same situation. We had to starve to stay at an abnormally small size. One night, we were both crying in our apartment in New York because we were so damn hungry. And I was still being encouraged to lose more weight, even though I was skin and bones. I think that was the night Brynn and I both realized we were slowly killing ourselves, that what we’d been doing was so incredibly unhealthy. Both of us decided together that we weren’t willing to die to be thin. Brynn was already so popular that they gave in and let her get to a healthier weight. I put on weight and went to plus size modeling.”
“You were literally starving to death,” he said in a graveled voice.
I nodded. “If I hadn’t stopped trying to chase that size-two body, I probably woul
d have died. Some women are just naturally thin, and they’re healthy that way, but I wasn’t.” I took a deep breath before I continued, “I looked like a walking skeleton, and I was still being pressured to get thinner.” I sighed. “There’s a dark side of the modeling world. A really dark side. Brynn and I have worked our butts off since that day we reached our breaking point to try to get the industry to show some body diversity. Young women coming into the industry don’t need to be caught up in that kind of hell, and it’s not realistic. Only a small part of the female population is meant to be a size zero or a size two. It’s a bad example to set for young females who aspire to be models someday. Modeling aside, I don’t want any young woman feeling like they have to be model thin to attract male attention—unless she’s one of the few who is healthy at that size.”
“Not all men find that attractive,” Mason mumbled as he finished off his pie.
I shot him a doubtful look as I swallowed another piece of cake and said, “Most do.”
“I don’t,” he grunted as he dropped his fork on his empty dessert plate.
“Why?” I couldn’t keep the word from popping out of my mouth. I was curious. Most billionaires would want very beautiful, very dainty models hanging all over them.
He dropped his napkin on all of the empty plates that he’d stacked in front of him. “I played a linebacker position in college football, Laura. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a large man. It’s not comfortable for me to be with a woman I’m afraid of hurting if I put my hands on her. I’m not attracted to them.”
Okay. Weird. I’d seen a lot of men Mason’s size who still wanted a tiny female who made them feel invincible.
I was dying to hear more. But I didn’t ask. Really, his preferences were none of my business, right?
So what if he lusted over bigger, curvier women? It wasn’t like I was going to sleep with him.
No matter how appealing the thought might be.
“Don’t ever starve yourself again,” he said abruptly. “You don’t need to, and fuck what the modeling industry wants. As long as you feel good, it doesn’t matter what size clothing you wear.”
My heart melted, and it felt like it trickled to a puddle on the floor at my feet.
God, it felt good to hear a guy say that to me. Granted, I was okay with who I was now most of the time, but there had never been a male who hadn’t made me feel like I should strive to be smaller. Maybe because every guy I’d ever been with worked in my industry, so their mindset was the same. “I think you’re the first man who’s ever said that,” I joked.
“Then you’ve been with the wrong men,” he said thickly.
“Maybe I have,” I said, trying to keep the conversation light, even though my heart was hammering hard inside my chest.
Our conversation felt so sensual…even though it shouldn’t. It was seductive that Mason seemed to find me sexy as hell exactly the way I was.
Not once had his attention strayed from me, even though there were a lot of gorgeous women in the restaurant.
He wasn’t scanning the room for something better, or looking around for a skinnier, more attractive woman.
Mason treated me like I was the only female in the entire place.
For me, that was incredibly heady.
In my business, I was always surrounded by women who got way more attention than I did.
But not right now.
Not here.
Not with Mason.
“I have to ask you something,” I said, my voice sounding breathless.
I needed to change the subject, and I couldn’t think of a better way to do it than to ask him some questions that had been burning through my mind for a long time.
He nodded sharply. “Then ask.”
“What happened that night in Jett’s penthouse?” I asked hesitantly. “At his engagement party. I know somebody took me home, but I don’t remember much after we spoke on the patio. Did you see who took me home? The last thing I remember was telling you that I wanted to be artificially inseminated. Everything else that happened that night is a blank.”
A look of surprise crossed his handsome face as he queried, “You don’t remember anything else?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think anything bad happened, but I have to know exactly what did happen.”
He frowned. “What did you think might have happened?”
“I don’t know,” I confessed. “When I woke up the next morning, I couldn’t remember how I got home. I never drink like that. I guess all that alcohol got to me. I was upset about my visit to the clinic that day. So I overindulged, and I paid for it. I don’t even know if it was a male or female who took me home. And I was—” Oh hell, did I really want to tell Mason? “I was out of my dress and in my underwear.” I forced the words out of my mouth. If I wanted his help, I had to admit that I’d been pretty defenseless.
“You want to know if anybody took advantage of your weakness that night?”
“I do. I feel really stupid because—”
“Don’t,” he said gruffly. “Nothing happened. I took you home. The party was so crowded that nobody really noticed. I carried you out of the back exit, and most of the crowd was near the front area of the penthouse.”
I gaped at him. “There’s a back way out? Of a penthouse?”
“Of course. People may not enter and exit that way often, but there are two ways out. I did my best to make sure nobody had anything to gossip about.”
“How did you know where I lived?” I was still shocked that it had been Mason who had taken me home.
He shrugged his enormous shoulders. “There’s something to be said for being one of the richest guys in the world. I have a good security team who can figure out where just about anybody lives.”
I slumped in my chair. “Oh, God,” I groaned. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he insisted sharply. “Shit happens. We all occasionally do something that’s not exactly wise. I’m glad I was there to get you home.”
I quirked a brow at him. I highly doubted that Mason ever did anything out of line. Somehow, I had a hard time picturing him two sheets to the wind. He liked being in control far too much. “Then what happened?”
“Nothing. I took you home.”
It didn’t escape my attention that, for the first time that night, Mason didn’t seem to want to look me in the eyes.
He continued, “I took off your dress. I didn’t think you’d want to sleep in it.”
I bit my lip to keep from groaning aloud again. Shit! For some reason, there was nothing creepy about Mason taking off my clothes because I was so drunk I couldn’t do it myself, but I was still pretty mortified.
What in the hell had I been thinking?
Problem was, I hadn’t thought about anything that evening. I’d just recklessly drank until I’d passed out. It was something I’d never done before.
“I’m sorry,” I muttered quietly. “You shouldn’t have had to do that. But I’m grateful that nothing bad happened.”
“If I had thought that you might have assumed something bad did happen, I would have mentioned it before. But you were talking to me at one point after I got you home. I guess you don’t remember. I thought you knew it was me.”
“What did I say?” I asked cautiously, not quite sure I wanted to know what else I’d babbled on about to Mason while I was in a drunken stupor.
He hesitated for a moment before he answered, “Nothing important. I just thought you were aware of who I was, and that you were home. If I’d known that you didn’t remember what happened, I would have mentioned it a long time ago.”
“Did I get sick?” I questioned, alarmed that I might have done that in front of Mason.
“No. I made sure you were okay and asleep before I left your place. I would have stayed and helped you if you were ill.”
He sounded offended that I might think he’d take off if I was sick.
“So you would have held my hair back from my face if I was wo
rshipping the porcelain god?” I teased.
He stared at me like I had two heads as he answered, “Wouldn’t anybody?”
No. Hell, no. Most men wouldn’t.
Obviously, he’d never heard women talk about wanting a guy who held their hair back from their face if they were getting sick and hugging the toilet.
Personally, I had no idea what it felt like to have a man who adored me that much. Not even close.
“No. Not everyone would,” I finally answered.
I gazed at him until our eyes finally met, and my heart skittered as I saw the sincerity in his stormy eyes when he said earnestly, “I would.”
An ache of intense longing made me shiver, and because I couldn’t handle my reactions to him anymore, I had to look away.
My action was a survival instinct. If I was going to get through the rest of the evening with Mason, I was going to have to keep my guard up.
As rough and businesslike as Mason usually was, there was something in the blunt way he answered my questions that moved me.
It was like he was speaking to every insecurity I had, and was determined to make them disappear like magic.
Did he know that, deep down, I craved that kind of acceptance from somebody like him?
How could he?
Honestly, I knew he was just being Mason, a guy I really hadn’t known until tonight.
Brynn had been absolutely right when she’d said that Mason wasn’t a player.
If he was, his undivided attention wouldn’t have scared the hell out of me like it did right now.
I wanted Mason desperately. He opened the door on a yawning need that I thought I had closed a long time ago.
And my hunger had absolutely nothing to do with wanting a baby daddy.
He could hurt me. Badly!
I wasn’t sure where that thought had come from, but that sudden acknowledgement made me slam that damn door closed to my darkest emotions in a hurry.
Mason
“I can’t believe I just got kicked out of my own place,” Jett said unhappily as the two of us hung out on my patio with a drink later that night. “Thanks for putting me up tonight, Mason. Ruby says it’s bad luck to see her until she walks down the aisle tomorrow.”