Scorched (The Frenemy Series Book 4)

by Kate Benson

  I cringe a little at the imagery but can’t deny the truth in his words as I shrug. “I guess you’ve got a point.”

  “Anyway, my job is to offer my help so she doesn’t feel like I’m making her do everything by herself, but not actually touch or do anything. I just need to show up with a credit card, get where she tells me to go on time and stay the hell out of the way like ninety percent of the time. Something heavy needs lifting or she starts getting emotional? That’s when I get involved.”

  “Well, aren’t you a prince?” I shake my head, smirking slightly at his reasoning. “That doesn’t feel off to you?”

  “What’s there to feel off about?” he shrugs, gesturing toward the door she just walked out of. “That woman had been dreaming of wearing an overpriced dress while people fawn over her and give her presents since she was birthed into being, Mason,” he shakes his head, laughing in my face. “She’s living her best life right now.”

  “Yeah,” I agree, laughing with him. “Another point well made.”

  “We’re in the homestretch now, man. As long as I don’t show up looking homeless this weekend, we’re good, bro.”

  “Heard,” I smirk, polishing off the last of my beer and moving toward the kitchen. “You want another one?”

  “Nah, I’m good,” he says, leaning back against the couch a little further as he nuzzles Miles into his chest and gestures toward the twins. “Watch them for a minute, will ya? Milo and Big Poppa need a cool fifteen.”

  “Yeah,” I smirk, returning to the living room.

  I stretch out onto the carpet next to Dallas and Aspen, leaning onto one side to face them, smiling wide when they both beam back at me with their matching, toothy, dimpled grins. We’re halfway through some animated thing that has them captivated despite Dash’s snoring when the door swings open. I cringe just slightly as the sunlight crashes into the room and lie back on the carpet, a low humph leaving my chest.

  “Wow,” Evie starts as she takes us in, shaking her head as Dash jolts awake, checking the baby before he glances up at her. “You two are really laming it up in here.”

  “Hey baby,” he yawns, rubbing his eyes clear as she tosses her bag onto the counter and moves toward the couch. Alex follows her inside and pushes the door shut, our eyes meeting for a split second before I awkwardly look away and glance back at my sister. “Did you have fun?”

  “Yes,” Evie nods immediately, pressing her lips to his before she leans in to kiss the baby still sleeping in his arms. In the next instant, she’s beaming at the twins beside me. “I missed my babies,” she sings, lowering to the floor and showering them both with affection. “Why didn’t you take them to the park or something? It’s nice out.”

  “I can’t take three kids to the freakin’ park,” he laughs.

  “Why the hell not?” she counters.

  “Have you met me?”

  “Yeah. You are pretty pathetic,” she teases him with a wink. “But you could’ve done it. I do it all the time.”

  “Well, that’s why you call the shots, pussycat,” he smirks as she repositions herself against the edge of the couch beside him, clinging to Aspen and Dallas. “I can barely get them all into the same room by myself.”

  “What?” she shrieks just low enough to keep from waking the baby as she leans her head back to face him behind her. “You had Mason to help you!”

  “Look at him,” he yawns, laughing at my deadpan expression. “He’s hungover and useless. He’s been whining all day.”

  “Seems legit,” Alex shrugs, earning a glare of her own, although I can’t look directly at her for long.

  Oddly, she looks away almost as quickly as I do this time.

  I redirect my attention to Dash, and he shoots me a knowing wink that makes me shake my head in childish embarrassment.

  “I’m sitting right here,” I remind them.

  “I see you, sugar,” he teases before his head rolls to the side to face Evie. “You hungry, babe?”

  “Mhmm.”

  “Do you want pizza?”

  “Do you want pizza?” she giggles.

  “Hell yeah, I want some pizza,” he laughs, eyeing the twins. “Do you want pizza?” he asks, his goofy, distorted voice making them both cackle and reach for him. He and Evie trade off and she takes Miles to his crib, returning a few minutes later to join us.

  We spend the rest of the night hanging out, talking about the next few days and lounging around lazily. By the time we’re finishing up with dinner, we’ve got a good game plan for the rest of the week and the kids are ready for bed. I can’t say I blame them, I think to myself with a yawn. The girls are in the kitchen still talking, ignoring the last three goodbyes they’d said and instead focusing on some recipe neither one of them has ever made. I blow out a long, low sigh of exhaustion and rest my head against the frame of the door in protest as Dash lowers to peer into the cutout to the kitchen.

  “Babe, she’ll be back at ten a.m.,” he reminds her, earning a look.

  “So, what?” she shrugs, leaning onto the kitchen counter to face him.

  “So, I’ve only got about another forty-five minutes left in me and I’ve still got shit to do.”

  “So, go do it,” she throws her hands up. “Nobody’s stopping you.”

  “I need you for some of it, so yeah, you are.”

  “Dude,” I groan, slapping his hand away from me when he flips me off behind his back.

  “Say goodnight, pussycat. I’m pulling rank.”

  “Pulling rank, huh?” she snorts. I don’t have to see her to know she’s rolling her eyes as she turns her back to him altogether. “You’re cute.”

  “Why don’t you finish running that pretty little mouth of yours so I can get downright fuckin’ adorable?” he teases. It pulls a giggle from the kitchen as he returns his amused gaze to mine and winks at my offended expression. “Your sister’s a freak.”

  “I hate you,” I whisper, making him laugh.

  “Yeah, I’ll text it to you in a few minutes,” Evie promises Alex as they round the corner, joining us at the door.

  “No, she won’t,” Dash argues. “She’s busy tonight. She’ll give it to you in the morning.”

  I make another face that makes them both smirk and Evie wraps her arms around Alex, hugging her close.

  “Thanks again for everything today,” she smiles, releasing her. “I’ll see you in the-” She pauses midsentence, pushing Alex’s hair back and leaning forward. “Oh, no.”

  “What?” she asks, eyebrows crinkled slightly.

  “It looks like you’ve lost one of your earrings,” Evie explains sympathetically, immediately glancing around them on the floor for any sign of it. “Do you guys see it?”

  “What does it look like?” Dash asks, glancing closer at Alex’s ear. “Do you know when you lost it?”

  “No,” she shakes her head, searching, too. “I didn’t even know it was missing until Evie said something.”

  “Mase?” Evie starts. “Do you see anything?”

  “No,” I shake my head.

  I begin to scour the carpet at our feet with the others before glancing over quickly as Alex tucks her hair behind her ear. I see a familiar silver hoop and my eyes widen, the familiar sting in the bottom of my foot suddenly beginning to throb as the same X-rated images I’ve been trying to forget instantly swarm my mind all over again. I look up at Alex again, her expression as awkward and guilty as mine and I feel my ears beginning to blaze.

  “Oh, no.”

  “What happened?” Evie asks as her and Dash’s eyes raise to mine. “Did you find it?”

  I stare back at Alex, her blue eyes filled with anxiety before quickly she blinks away and shakes her head.

  “Mason?” Evie says again, grabbing my arm. “What’s up with your ears?”

  “I really don’t want you to even stress it, Evie. It’s not a big deal,” Alex interjects, pulling Evie’s attention as my muffled memories from the night before start to come more clearly. �
��I’m sure it’ll turn up when I get back to the hotel.”

  “Yeah, I know what you mean,” she nods. “I have some that come off in the bed, too.”

  “Yep,” Dash smirks low enough that only I can hear him. “I bet that’s exactly where it is.” I glare up at him, searching for some kind of silent, brotherly support. Instead, I’m met with a low chuckle and a wink. “Drive safe, dear.”

  chapter fifteen

  mason

  As we make it to my car, I can still hear Dash’s laughter reverberating in my ears, and it makes my chest flare.

  What the fuck?

  What the actual fuck?

  I hit the key fob and unlock the doors, stepping around the back of my car to both avoid Alex and give myself a moment to process what just happened. I’m halfway through my third pace when I glance up and find her staring over the hood of the car, biting her lower lip awkwardly as she keeps her arms folded over her midsection. I start to say something twice, but both times, only mumbled stammering gets out and I shake my head as I resume my pacing.

  Okay, so it’s not like you fucked her or anything, I remind myself, pushing out a deep breath.

  In fact, if that dream is as real as it’s turning out to be, none of this was your idea to begin with, I recall, rubbing my eyes hard. My cock begins to throb at the memory of her tongue sliding up the base of my shaft, her blue eyes staring up at me as she wrapped her lips around my tip, moaned as I slammed it against her throat.

  Fuck me and sonofabitch.

  I stop my pacing once more and glance up at where she’s still standing a foot from the passengers side door and open my mouth to speak again.

  Jesus, I want to bend her over the trunk of this car right now.

  Immediately, I blow a low breath out of my chest and finally move toward the door and pull it open, hesitating when I catch her gaze over the roof.

  She doesn’t move.

  I slip behind the wheel and rest my forehead against the leather, clenching my eyes shut tight for a moment before I bite my lip and reach across the seat and push her door open. She stands in place for another two seconds, seeming to weigh her options same as me before a low groan that my soul understands leaves her lips and she forces herself into the seat.

  We ride in silence that I can say with certainty, neither of us can fully appreciate. I know I can’t. Not with all the thoughts circling around my head, the echoes of my freaky-sex-dream-turned-reality playing in a loop. By the time we’ve made it back to the hotel and I pull into my parking spot, neither of us have spoken and the awkward tension has mounted tenfold.

  This is best. We don’t need to talk about it, hash it out. We need to just move on with our lives, pretend nothing ever happened.

  I reach into the ashtray and pull out the last half of my joint and raise it to my lips three times before I drop it back into the ashtray and turn to face her.

  “Were you just never going to tell me?”

  “Oh, my God. I knew you were going to make this into a thing!”

  “Ya think?” I shout, throwing my hands up, exasperated as I finally face her. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “What the fuck was I supposed to say, Mason?”

  “You were supposed to tell me what we did last night!”

  “How is that my responsibility?” she asks, making my eyes go wide in disbelief. “Seriously, Mason. And besides. Why does it even matter what we did? We were both completely wasted.”

  “Alex, you suc-” I halt the words immediately, biting my lip hard as her cheeks begin to blaze in warning and force me to look away once more. “You can’t do shit like that in public and then just never tell the other person.”

  “Why do I have to tell you? It’s not my fault you were so drunk you don’t remember it,” she argues. “Believe me. I am very memorable.”

  “Fine. I was hammered. You still should’ve said something.”

  “Well, I was hammered, too, Mason. Obviously,” she rolls her eyes. “Otherwise, it never would’ve happened.”

  “But it did happen, Alex!” I rail. “You had my dick in your mou-”

  “Ugh!” she groans, cutting me off. “We’re not finishing this conversation.”

  “Why? Because you made an asshole move?”

  “No. Because if we talk about it, that makes it real and I don’t want to do that.”

  “It doesn’t matter if we talk about it or not, it’s still real, you lunatic!” I insist. “Do you think if you don’t talk about something, that means it just doesn’t exist?”

  We stare back at each other, the heaving in our chests bringing another little glimpse from my drunk memory back into view and I relax against the seat. This time, when I reach for my joint, I don’t hesitate to light it and I take a deeper pull than usual before I offer it to her. We finish it off in silence and a full minute passes before eventually, I turn back to find her chewing on her thumbnail, stewing in the same regret as me.

  “So, what are we supposed to do now?” I ask, my voice low for the first time since we started talking.

  “Nothing,” she shrugs.

  “Nothing?”

  “Nothing!” she insists. “We just have to get through the week, okay? It’s not even a full week,” she reminds me. “We just have to act normal until the wedding is over and then it’s back to business as usual. No one has to know this ever happened, we never have to talk about it again. Deal?”

  I hold her eyes, nodding silently for a minute before I clear my throat.

  “Yeah,” I nod. “Yeah, deal. We don’t even remember that much, right?”

  “That’s why I didn’t bring it up,” she replies, raising her eyebrow with shaky resolve. “It wasn’t even worth talking about.”

  “Hey. He’s worth talking about,” I disagree as I gesture toward my cock, pulling an eye roll from her. “Don’t act like I’m wrong. He’s spectacular and we both know it.”

  “I’m getting out of the car.”

  “You can get out of the car,” I shrug. “Just don’t lie while you’re doing it. If my drunken memory serves correctly, he’s been nothing but good to you.”

  “Stop talking about your dick like he’s a separate entity!” she shrieks, stamping her foot into the floorboard. “Neither one of you even knew about it until a half hour ago, you idiot.”

  “Well, he’s got enough personality and one hell of a track record, sweetheart,” I snip back smugly as she pushes the door open and groans in annoyance.

  “I thought I asked you not to call me that.”

  “Fine, I’ll go back to calling you what I was calling you before you sucked my dick next to a plastic fern.”

  “It wasn’t next to a plastic fern. It was in the hallway by the ice machine, stupid.”

  “Hmph,” I smirk. “I thought you didn’t remember?”

  “Oh, why don’t you go suck your own entity?”

  “And deprive you? You obviously can’t get enough of it.”

  “Says the guy who was trying to fuck me in an elevator,” she snips back. “Yeah, so stop acting like I took advantage of you.”

  We make our way toward the entrance and step inside, both silently fuming. She mashes her finger against the elevator button angrily before the doors slide open, signaling our impending escape.

  “I changed my mind. I don’t want to be your friend this week anymore,” I announce as we step on. “The truce is off.”

  “Why?” she asks, eyebrows scrunched together in annoyance as she hits the button for our floor and folds her arms over her midsection. “Did I hurt your feelings by not fawning all over your little friend?”

  “Hey!” I hiss out, eyes wide. “What the fuck did I just tell you about lying?”

  “What the fuck do I care what you said about lying, Mason King?” she counters. “If you don’t like what I have to say, stop demanding that I talk to you about it.”

  “I’m not demanding that you talk to me about it. I’m just saying it’s fucked up for you t
o suck someone’s dick and not bring it up.”

  “And I’m saying it didn’t come up for a reason,” she smirks.

  “And I’m calling you a liar because I wasn’t too drunk to remember you were all fucking over it,” I insist. “And I’ve got a laundry list of women who would back me up on that.”

  “You’ve probably also got gonorrhea!”

  “Well, then I guess you’ve got it now, too, then, don’t you, sweetheart?” I smile smugly.

  “Don’t call me sweetheart!” she screeches out as the elevator dings, signaling our arrival.

  Our chests are heaving, her blue eyes shimmering in anger as she stares back at me, seething. I don’t miss the way her nipples peek through her shirt as her chest juts out with each heavy breath. I also don’t miss the way her gaze shifts slightly toward my mouth before she forces it back to my eyes.

  The doors slide open and tug at us enough to have both of us falter half a degree, the energy falling slightly, yet immediately. I pinch the bridge of my nose and release a deep, exhausted sigh.

  “I need a fucking drink,” I admit quietly.

  “Finally,” she whispers. “Something we can agree on.”

  I nod silently, forcing my eyes away from hers to check the time on my cell phone.

  “It’s eleven,” I say quietly. “You know what time that bar closes?”

  “I don’t know,” she mumbles. “One? Maybe two?”

  “Awesome,” I nod and slip the phone back into my pocket, my eyes holding hers as I reach to my right and hit the button. “Ground floor it is.”

  alex

  I stir awake as the sound of a commercial telephone ring I haven’t heard in years comes from somewhere across the room. My eyebrows quirk together slightly, my thick lashes still protecting me from the harsh light I can sense is seeping in through the window, and I can’t make sense of the ringing still filtering in.

  There are only a handful of people who know I’m here. Who the hell is calling me? Why aren’t they using my cell?

  Another half dozen questions leave my mind just as quickly as they come in, and above all of them, the thing that sticks is the throbbing pain in my temples.