by T. N. King
And even if they hadn’t just informed them of that, that would have been enough. It was her case, even as closely tied into it as he was, it was her who deserved to make the deciding factor on when and where Aaron was seen to. Almost as if in a daze, Mason himself nodded, catching the look of relief between the two detectives, and the mumbling from outside about someone calling Jenson. “No fine,” he interrupted the lot of them, his voice hoarse all of a sudden. “She pays no fine, and he agrees to no chance of parole for this case for all ten of the years he is in.” He didn’t want him charming his way out early on good behavior, didn’t want to see him within the next few years wandering among the same haunts that he and Nicole would undoubtedly still be around.
“I mean we can’t make that deal for him, but we can put it into the paperwork and have him and his attorney sign off on it of course…” They were only two stipulations, and given the fact that they were as small as they were, and that Aaron didn’t know what all force was about to be levied against him from his other victim… if not more should his adoptive family start opening up…
The rest of the proceedings passed in a blur of paperwork and information, both being interchanged amongst both the two detectives, he and Nicole. What he’d assumed concerning Aaron’s adopted family was correct, years of intimidation and threats coming to light, as well as physical force utilized not only upon the two adults in the home, but the other children as well. Further questioning on the matter apparently revealed a bevy of narcotics, illegal substances and firearms, and blackmail that he held over the parent’s heads so they would agree not only to keep quiet on the lot of it, but support him when he needed to play the role of doting son that was horribly mistreated. Were it not for the promise that they could declare immunity in his crimes, none of it would have ever made its way to light. As the wife assured officers she was speaking to, they were too fearful he could come back, that he could somehow pin it on them like he managed to do with so much else in his life.
He was the consummate actor, involving so many in his web of deception, but… Nicole seemed to have slipped him up, forced his hand, and now he would be paying the price, something Mason couldn’t help but find comforting as they were leaving the station. He wasn’t being held, he wasn’t being charged, he hadn’t so much as been read his rights for any reason- making it only so many yards outside of that front entrance before he lost his footing, stumbling in place and in a half-circle before landing straight on his ass, his face lifting up to the sky and his eyes closing. Aaron would be going to go to jail… he was going to go to jail… and Mason was allowed to go free. He’d never felt so overwhelmingly free in his entire life, walking out of that station, with Nicole on his arm… He could barely breathe, listening to her questioning him, say his name like she was worried…
He wasn’t being arrested… Nicole wasn’t going to have to see that creep ever again. He had a lot to say against their police force, even more against the laws that were undercut in this country… but in this moment, right now, he was more than happy with the outcome, he felt more grateful than he thought he’d ever been to any authority figure or group in his life. His breath leaving him in a large exhale and his chin notched even further up, the sun beating down mercifully on his upturned features.
“They aren’t my family,” the one word like more of a curse than the descriptor that it should have been used as. “My family is split between the prison and the grave Dr. Friedrich,” again, it was too much emotion, too telling- but he couldn’t have pulled back at that point even if h’d tried.
“My mother is in Heart’s Cemetery, six feet under, and my father is serving the time needed for having put her there. Marie and Paul? Are not my parents and they never will be. Marie and Paul are the couple who decided to ‘take me in’ without my consent. Marie and Paul are the two adults that I’ll live under until I reach the age of majority and can move out on my own. Marie and Paul are the owners of the home that I crash at. They are not my parents, they will never be my parents.”
He could hear himself, all of those years ago, ranting as he’d been to the good doctor… and those words had stuck with him for all of these years, made him for the first time, think back on them, laugh, his face lifted and his head shook along with his shoulders. They weren’t his family, he’d said, but one way or another he’d ensured that they would be. As the African proverb had said, he hadn’t felt the warmth of the village, and so he’d burned the whole village down to experience its warmth…. Only that village was Marie and Paul’s household, and the warmth he had desired most… had been Nicole.
Nicole who he would to get to take home now, Nicole who- legally- had nothing else tying her back from accomplishing whatever in the fuck she wanted… and with him along the way to make sure that she got there….
“I don’t think it was a mistake Mason. I don’t for one second think that if the situation were to occur again, even after this, that you would make any different choice than you did yesterday.” What was that supposed to mean? Was he implying that he couldn’t control himself? He could. He knew how to hold onto his temper, he’d just … forgotten momentarily. He didn’t answer, blinking blankly back at Dr. Friedrich even as he put that clipboard back down and leaned forward, as if he was confiding in him rather than lecturing or… whatever it was he was doing in actuality.
Dr. Friedrich had been talking about the incident with the boys when they were younger, more words come back to him over the passage of time as if they’d all along been hinting at something bigger. He had been right, Dr. Friedrich, because the situation had been different and it had occurred again. And his reaction had been just the same as when he was eleven… protect Nicole, no matter the costs.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Everything felt unreal, like she was moving through the motions of a dream that wasn’t even hers, that she didn’t even belong in, grasping Mason’s hand like she was and being led out of the station without anything further for them to do. Nicole wanted, like a small part of her, wanted to look for Theresa, to offer her words of comfort and support that she wished could’ve been offered to her when it was she was put in the same situation as Theresa was now. Only Theresa, no matter how Mason sneered at her, was stronger than Nicole had been. Theresa had been able to turn Aaron in, without benefitting from it herself at all, she’d managed to do what Nicole, before her, couldn’t have done… and had saved Mason’s and by way of him, Nicole’s lives.
There were so many different words she didn’t understand, forms to sign and lawyers and detectives talking over their heads, the longer that they sat in the room that they had first been directed the more that came to light, both from Theresa, wherever they were talking to her- and apparently Aaron’s adoptive family. She had been a fool to ever think that there were any similarities between the two men that Aaron had been even slightly like Mason in anything but circumstance growing up. They were black and white polar opposites. Mason had never harmed her, or her mother and father, he’d never used his size or age to threaten and bully those younger than him… all things that Aaron was apparently well known for doing, just not in circles that would have reached Nicole’s ears…
The more she heard the sicker she became, her stomach rolling and rolling with the disgust in the knowledge that she had willingly, and knowingly been with him. That she’d been intimate with him and given as much of herself as she had in some kind of bastardized attempt to have Mason to herself without actually having the actual man, and that was just… insane. Her whole chest hurt, walking out of that building, looking at Mason and watching his features shift into … an expression she wholly didn’t recognize. She didn’t know what it stood for, or what he was doing in that second before he fell- landing hard on her ass and making her gasp from where she’d stopped just behind him.
At first she thought, that like she had earlier, he had just fainted, letting the day catch up and take over him. But watching him, watching him lift his face upwards like he
was and extend his arms out… she realized that he had allowed the day to catch up to him in an entirely different way. She picked her way around him carefully, coming to a stop just in front of him and lowering herself slowly onto her knees, half-crawling until she was situated between the both of this thighs, her hands holding her steady and her face tilted to be in front of his, looking at him, and forcing him to look at her. She needed him. She needed him more than she realized it was ever possible to need another human being.
“I love you,” her voice was soft, repeating those words that she knew he hadn’t heard near enough growing up, even in her house. “I love you and I am … so beyond grateful for you… as a human, as a whole.” Her voice caught, slowly transferring her hands up his person so she could instead fit her arms around him. She did. Love him. She didn’t even know if that phrasing was accurate enough for it, if it encompassed enough and all of what he had become to her, what he’d been to her over the course of her life. He had always been her protector, always been her best friend, he was now also just… more… Her arms closed the circle around him, pulling herself half in his lap and holding on, her breath leaving her all in one big whoosh of emotion.
She didn’t know how long they sat like that, how long he hugged her back so tightly that her ribs felt near crushed… all she knew was that his arms felt like home, and the breath of his beating against the side of her face felt like her heartbeat held just outside of her body.
“I don’t know how to do these sorts of things…” His voice sounded far away, strained and yet relieved at the same time, his palms rubbing small circles into her back as she shuffled even closer to him. “I thought they were going to arrest me today…”
Which was why he’d been pulling away, she should have considered this, should’ve known it was where he was going… she’d been with him before, maybe not romantically, but back when he’d found so much trouble adhering to laws and found himself in and out of juvenile detention centers and police stations. She’d seen the way he hollowed upon coming out of it, and the way his whole demeanor shifted before they picked him up… she just… hadn’t ever equated it as easily as she did seeing it from this perspective herself.
“I don’t know how to do them either,” she confessed. Her one successful relationship had been with an abusive psychopath, she hardly thought that qualified her over him in that department. “We’ll work them out together… work through them together…” Her fingers knotted up in the hair at the nape of his neck, forehead rolling against his as she tried to keep those tears from starting to fall again. “I just want to stay with you Mason…” For however long he’d have her, for forever and even after that too… she didn’t care what people had to say about the rate they were moving, she didn’t care what people thought when it came to their relationship previous to being with one another. They hadn’t been related then and they weren’t now, lips pressing into the tip of his nose and her heart thudding loudly through her ribcage.
“Whatever that takes, however we have to do it or work it, I just want to stay with you, and I’m willing to do what that requires.” Her voice was slower this time, lips hovering just over his and preparing to crawl more fully into his lap. She couldn't imagine a life without him by her side in it. She couldn’t imagine, now that she had him, going back to how things had been between them before. He was hers and she was his, there was no other working of that order. “Whatever it takes,” she promised, working her thighs up along the outsides of his.
“Marry me.”
Wasn’t what she was expecting his response to be, so thoroughly taken aback that she stopped moving entirely, her hips held just up off of his and her eyes widening. Maybe she’d heard him wrong, or maybe—
“Marry me,” he said again, lips only just brushing against the both of hers with the words that time, her lower abdomen and thighs both clenching with the execution of it. Smooth bastard, he knew what he was doing, looking up at her like he was, enticing her face even closer to his own.
She couldn’t help it, the little giggle bursting out of her. She didn’t have to think about it even, didn’t have to question herself on what she wanted, shaking her head lightly at him. “That’s always the go to here huh?” Ignoring his confused look and wrapping her hands more solidly into the hair at the back of his neck. “Of course, I’ll marry you,” she gasped out in that instant before her lips were claimed by his.
It was different than any kiss that had come previous to it, long, slow and sensual, his lips coaxing her all the closer, her hips rolling down into his as if they weren’t on the side of the police station’s building, heading to their parked car. Although it didn’t feel like that was where they were headed when his hands lifted up to her hips, pulling her more firmly down onto him and that ridiculously hard erection sticking through his jeans.
His breath was hot against her, pressing his hips up into the junction of her thighs and forcing her to gasp. She wanted him… right there, despite the fact that there were no doubt cameras, despite the fact that anyone, or even a police officer, could walk out at any moment… she wanted him, and her breath was quickening because of it, nipples tightening inside of her bra and straining uncomfortably against the fabric.
“Mason…” She wasn’t sure if it was a plea or warning, circling her hips back down into his and looking around them worriedly. “We’re in public… outside of a police station…”
“A police station that just let me go... “ he reminded her, his hand dipping into the back of her jeans and grabbing her ass within his fingers … hard. “Tell me you don’t want me to fuck you here and now,” he challenged, the growl in his voice warming her core. He knew better, he knew it was an offer that she couldn’t refuse… not on a good day… much less one that had been so emotionally fraught.
“I want you to fuck me,” she said instead, undoing the button on her jeans to provide him more access.
“That means we have to tell Marie, Paul, and Dr. Friedrich,” he mumbled against the skin of her neck,
This took her aback a second, her brain struggling to catch up and then finally laughing as she caught on… heady with the knowledge that she could distract him too she was as much of an issue when it came to his thinking as he was to hers…“Well,” she drew out, each syllable more elongated than the last. “Not right now though… right?” He’d made her say it after all, drawn it out of her as efficiently as he had, something he never seemed to do without reason. He’d made her beg before, he’d made her plead, but he’d never done so without shortly making it up to her. She wasn’t as nervous as she should have been about their public location, wasn’t as nervous as she would have thought at the idea of being discovered, not when she was faced with the reality that maybe his hands wouldn’t stay on her skin here and now at all…
“Mason…” Warning him, or begging him, she didn’t even know which one it was herself in that moment, her fingers pushing through his hair as if to encourage him. Something she only had to wait a moment for before receiving her answer, his hands closed so firmly already over her ass tightening even further, fingers pushing up to separate that flesh, one finger sliding between her thighs and—“Oh,” she moaned instead, her forehead falling further into his own, looking down only to catch his face lifted as it was, watching her reaction. He had to know, after the past two days, just how easily he got to her- just how effectively he crawled under her skin… and inside of it. That was a thought that made it all the harder to sit still against his finger, the thought of him inside of her at all was… heated, her breath coming faster and her thighs widening just that much to encourage his hand.
Not that he followed any sort of direction himself, ass squeezed all the tighter as if in retribution for her trying, those featherlight touches of his fingers against her between her thighs catching the breath in her throat. She couldn’t ask any more clearly than she had already, couldn’t force him to hear her any louder than he had already, didn’t know if he was wanting for her
to beg or if he was just… making her wait, chest pushing into his and nearly gasping aloud when his ring finger finally slid into her.
“Oh, fuck…” She needed to remember that they were in a public place, they were as close as they were to as many police officers as were inside of that building. That anyone heading to their car would have to pass them… gooseflesh broke out along her skin, her hips stilling from those unconscious circles she hadn’t even been aware they had begun to form.
“Careful with that mouth, girl,” that dark, seductive note back beneath his words.
She almost shoved her hips down right then and there, lips parting and a slight whimper escaping her throat despite her best efforts.
“We just got out of chains….” He trailed off, index finger joining that ring finger and her shoulders rounding forward in her attempt to stay still. “Although I wouldn’t mind seeing you in them…”
Catching her breath in an entirely different way, the mental imagery not something that had ever… been considered, much less discussed. She’d tried the ropes with Aaron and had been… seriously turned on even just by the concept, the idea of doing it with Mason, and adding still more into it was … almost too much, her low moan bit back behind her teeth and fingers tightening into his hair.
“I think we need to occupy that mouth,” he warned instead, hand leaving her ass and his fingers resting just inside of that part that her lips had formed, fingertips dragging her lower lip down even further, working their way into her mouth.
Without pause or consideration, she hollowed her cheeks, sucking on those ends of his fingers he was offering her, her tongue swirling along each of them individually and earning her a groan in return.
“Good girl.”
This nearly soaked her panties all the way through with just the two words and the way he uttered them. She didn’t mind, whatever it was they were doing, but she didn’t see how he was getting anything out of it, going to shift her hips again and being stopped by that hand slowly working up within her.