by R. R. Banks
We walked down the hall and he guided me into the massive powder room attached to a smaller, but still sprawling, bathroom. He stepped out and I looked into the mirror. I was surprised at what I saw reflected back at me. There was something about me that was different. It had been so long since a man had touched me, so long since I had given myself permission not to be controlled by the uncertainty and insecurity that I had developed. Instead I gave over to the delicious desire and completely selfish pleasure that I could find in the arms of a strong, sexy man like Mason. I was surprised at myself for being so swept up by Mason, but I didn’t regret it. I felt like he was exactly what I needed in that moment.
I straightened my hair as best as I could and used a tissue to smooth my makeup. When I felt like I had covered the evidence as much as possible, I stepped out of the bathroom and found Mason waiting for me. He looked neat and polished as though nothing had happened between us and I wondered how he could have possibly gotten himself back together that quickly. He extended his hand to me and pulled me toward him. Giving me one more kiss, he guided me back toward the living room. I could hear the sounds of the party as we got further down the hallway. They had gotten louder during the time that we had been away, telling me that the party was getting more and more raucous. We approached the steps and followed them down into the crowd, seamlessly reintegrating ourselves into the group as if we had always been there.
“Mason!”
I heard the high, almost frantic voice of Mason’s personal assistant from behind us and we turned around. Aidan was rushing toward us, nearly pushing one of the men I had met out of the way as he came.
“Hey, Aidan,” Mason said. “Are you having a good time?”
“No, I am not having a good time,” he hissed, dropping his voice to as much of a conspiratorial whisper as he could while still making sure that we could hear him. “I haven’t been able to find you for the last hour.”
Mason perfectly contorted his face into a confused expression. He glanced around the room.
“Where were you?” he asked.
Aidan blinked at him, staring as if he thought that he must have misheard.
“What do you mean where was I? I was here looking for you.”
“Well, I don’t know where you could have possibly been, because I was at my party. I don’t know how you could have missed me.”
“You were here?” Aidan asked, sounding exasperated.
“Of course, I was. Where else would I have been?”
I had to roll my lips in and look down at my feet to keep myself from laughing. Mason was a skilled manipulator. That might not be something that I would ever think that I would admire in a man, but in that moment, it was perfect.
It doesn’t really matter. It’s not like he’s ever going to get a chance to lie to me.
Aidan shook his head as if trying to shake himself out of the moment.
“I don’t know,” he said. “It doesn’t matter. What matters is that Kevin Posen is getting ready to leave and you haven’t spent ten seconds with him tonight.”
“I most certainly have spent ten seconds with him.”
Aidan’s face was getting red and I hoped that Mason would let him stop wriggling before he exploded.
“You haven’t spent more than ten seconds with him, and he isn’t exactly feeling celebrated. I don’t want him to start regretting his choice to join the Showstoppers. Do you think that you could do something?”
“Absolutely,” Mason said.
He released my hand and climbed the steps again so that he stood slightly above the party. He called for the attention of the guests and they all turned to him. I was briefly amazed by his control, but then I remembered the way that he had dominated my body and my mind in the pool and felt a rush of heat go through me. My eyes scanned his body, remembering the way that he looked beneath his clothes. Mason noticed me looking at him and gave me the hint of a knowing smile as he gave an elaborate and gushing speech about the new player. Finally, when he was finished, and the guests streamed out of the apartment, stopping briefly to say goodnight to their host.
They couldn’t move fast enough. I had planned on falling into step right behind them and heading home as soon as the party was over, but as each person disappeared out of the door, my need for Mason got more intense. I couldn’t wait for the guests to finally leave. When they did, and Aidan rushed off to oversee the cleanup, Mason rushed down the steps to where I was standing. He swept me up into his arms and carried me toward the back of the apartment. I felt him open a door and then kick it closed before bringing me across the room and tossing me down onto the bed.
Everything happened in a blur. Our hands tore at each other, clothing disappearing and skin finding each other again. My mouth scoured him, my teeth scraping across his skin as each inch was revealed. Finally, I held his thick, delectable cock in my hand again and I brought it into my mouth hungrily. My tongue explored the veins and ridges, savoring the taste of his skin and the slick fluid that poured from the tip as I reached between his legs to cup my hand around his balls. I massaged them, letting them roll around between my fingers as I squeezed them gently.
Mason groaned in response to my touch and his hand grasped at my breast, the touch firm enough that it was almost painful, just intense enough that it shot exotic pleasure through me. Suddenly I felt him pull away from me and felt a flicker of disappointment, but was soon rewarded by the sound of a condom wrapper tearing. An instant later I was on my back and Mason was impaled within me, slamming into my already tender body until I screamed with a release that shook my entire body and welcomed the hard pulses of Mason’s cock inside me.
Chapter Fifteen
Mason
I could still smell the lush muskiness of Ella’s body when I woke up before I even opened my eyes. My body was humming from our encounters the night before, but that didn’t stop my eager cock from hardening again in anticipation of starting the day with another delicious fuck. I reached my hand toward the side of the bed toward her, but didn’t feel anything. My eyes snapped open and I looked over. That side of the bed was empty, the sheet and pillowcase still wrinkled where she had been. I ran my hand along the bed, seeking the heat of her body.
Maybe she just got up to go to the bathroom or get a cup of water.
But the bed was cold. She hadn’t been there in some time. I got up as fast as I could and pulled on my trunks. I crossed the room toward the window and looked out at the darkness of the early morning. There was just enough light for me to see the ground, but I didn’t notice anyone skittering from the building.
Holy shit. She’s gone.
I was stunned that Ella had left that way. I had never had a girl leave in the middle of the night without telling me, or without my encouragement, and I didn’t know how to process it. What I was more surprised about, however, was that I cared that she wasn’t there. I realized that I had actually been looking forward to seeing her in the morning and possibly spending some time with her before I had to leave for the day. That was a new feeling for me, something that made me feel off-balance and vulnerable.
I turned away from the window and looked around the room. My eyes fell on the dress that Ella had worn the night before, the shoes sitting on the floor just beneath it. I stared at it, the thought flickering through my mind that she didn’t have anything to wear on the way home. It occurred to me that I didn’t see the shirt that I had worn and wondered if she left wearing just that. The thought sent a shiver through me and I wanted to find her even more.
The tight schedule that I had for the day looming over me, I took a shower and dressed. Foregoing breakfast as to not waste even another minute, I rushed out of the apartment and down the steps in the back of the lobby, not wanting to wait for the elevator. I approached the front door to the building just as the sun was coming up and saw the doorman give me a smile far wider and brighter than the early hour warranted.
“Good morning, Mr. Dupree,” he said in his boisterous,
cheerful voice.
“Good morning, George,” I said.
“You certainly got that girl out early this morning. You are cutting down your time.”
He said it with a laugh, but it made my heart thud painfully.
“You saw her leave?” I asked.
George nodded, his smile fading slightly as he seemed to notice the tension in my voice.
“Yes,” he said. “I hadn’t even gotten out here for my shift yet. I saw her coming out of the elevator and running across the lobby. Of course, I would be running, too, if I was wearing as little as she was. What did you do, confiscate her clothes?”
Oh, dear lord. She really did leave wearing nothing but my shirt.
“What was she wearing?”
“A pair of heels and what looked like one of your overcoats. Bare legs.”
Not quite as bad. Sexy as fucking hell, though.
George chuckled in the deep, belly jiggling way that he always did when we were talking about my conquests. Though his hair was still jet black and his eyes sparkling with youth, the older man’s laugh was even beyond his years. It was one of those laughs that filled a space and told you that he had laughed the same way since he was a young man and had just been waiting for the time when he would get old enough to grow into it.
Or to get a job stuffing himself down chimneys to bring toys to children once a year.
I didn’t know why, but the laugh bothered me that morning. I didn’t want him to think of Ella the way that he thought of the other women who he had seen coming out of the building. I hated the way that he looked at me with the glint in his eyes that said that he knew exactly why she was coming out of my apartment so early in the morning. In a way, he was right. In fact, there was a chance that he had been witness to us up against the glass the night before. But there was something about the way that he looked at me when he talked about her that made me feel angry and my stomach turn.
What the fuck was happening to me?
“Do you know where she was going?” I asked.
George shook his head, more of the smile fading. It was a question that I had never asked him before.
“No,” he said. “I’m assuming that she was going home. She didn’t stop to say anything to me. If I see her again though…”
His voice trailed off and I knew that just as much as I knew that there was no reason for Ella to ever come this way again, so did he. Her sister’s idea of a fun prank giving the concierge the wrong number meant that I wasn’t going to be able to get in touch with her. I couldn’t imagine that she frequented Fifth Avenue with an event planner’s budget, and unless one of the other men in the building decided to throw a party, she wouldn’t be coming back to The Avalon.
My coat. What is she going to do with my coat?
Just as it did every morning, my car slid up to the curb in front of the building and my driver got out to open the door for me. I nodded at George, not knowing what else to say to him, and headed toward the car. I climbed in and looked out the window, wishing that I had asked George what direction Ella went in when she left. At least that would give me an idea.
As the car started down the street, I tried to shake myself out of the thoughts. I should be glad that she left in the middle of the night. It saved the awkwardness of her leaving in the morning. It meant I could escape her asking for my phone number or when we would see each other again. It meant that I could just remember the feeling of her body and the taste of her mouth.
It was those things that I couldn’t get out of my mind for the rest of the day, but when I let my mind wander further it filled with the sound of her voice and the feeling of her breath on my neck. I fought to concentrate on each errand that I had to run and meeting that I had to suffer through. Several times throughout the day I took out my phone and stared at it, opening the social media app that I had designed so many years ago and still used fairly religiously. I wondered if Ella used it, if I would be able to find her. The first few times that I did it, I shoved it back into my pocket before even starting to type in her name.
This is fucking ridiculous. This is not what I do. The girls obsess over me, not the other way around.
Finally, though, the curiosity overtook me and I had to type in her name. I scrolled through the results, feeling disappointment settle into my stomach when I didn’t see a profile picture that looked like her.
I was on the phone with Aidan, talking about the party the night before and everything that he had scheduled for me for the week to come, when I arrived back at The Avalon late that afternoon. He was rambling on as I opened the door, but the sound of his voice disappeared when I stepped through the door. Ella was walking through the lobby.
Ahead of me I saw her coming out of the elevator, her head tucked down as she hurried toward the doors.
“Ella,” I called out.
She looked up at me, but her expression didn’t change. She continued toward the door, making a large curve to avoid me.
“I’ll call you back,” I said into the phone.
Without waiting for Aidan to respond, I tucked the phone back into my pocket and rushed after her.
Chapter Sixteen
Ella
I tried to get out of the building before Mason could get to me, but he rushed up to my side and I had to turn to look at him.
“You left,” he said.
My heart was pounding in my chest, but I tried to keep it from showing on my face.
“I know,” I said back.
He looked at me quizzically, as if he couldn’t fully understand what I was saying to him.
Because no one has ever said no to this man.
“Why?” he asked.
I wished we weren’t standing in the lobby of The Avalon. If he had just gotten back a few minutes earlier, I would have still been upstairs, and we could have had this conversation up there rather than out here in earshot of the doorman, the concierge, and whatever of the other inhabitants of the building happened to wander out of their apartments or the Café at that moment. I had reassured myself that I wasn’t going to have to see any of these people again after last night. I didn’t want to have to face any of them in the light of day.
Yet here I was. All sorts of exposed.
“I brought your coat back,” I said. “I left it with your housekeeper. I meant to grab mine this morning, but couldn’t find it so I got yours instead.”
That’s it, Ella. Just completely avoid the question as if that’s going to stop him.
“You could have waited for me,” he said. “Faye knew when I was going to be back.”
Oh, did she now.
“She didn’t volunteer that information. I didn’t even get past the door.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine, really. I just wanted to get the coat back to you. It was a little too cold for me to try to get home in just a pair of panties and a bra.”
“I can imagine. You could have worn the dress.”
“Then I would have just had to bring that back to you.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “That’s for you.”
I closed my eyes, trying to get my emotions under control. This was exactly what I didn’t want to happen.
“Mason, I have no reason to have a dress like that. I wore it last night to fulfill my end of the deal, and that’s all.”
“Why?” Mason asked. “Why is that all? Why did you leave last night?”
I looked up at him, surprised at the emotion in his eyes. I couldn’t completely identify what the emotions were, but I didn’t see the emptiness, the dismissive lack of investment that I thought that I would. For a man who had a reputation for tossing his nightly conquests out with the morning paper, he seemed far more interested in keeping me around than I ever would have expected.
“You were right last night,” I said. “Nobody needs to know our business.”
“What do you mean?” Mason asked.
“The only reason you would need to say that is bec
ause you didn’t want to tell them who I really am. And that’s fine. I don’t fit into your world. I don’t belong here anymore than you would belong in my neighborhood. Last night was fun. I really appreciate it. But let’s not fool ourselves. That’s really all it was.”
Mason didn’t respond. His eyes burned into mine and his jaw set. Suddenly he grabbed my arm and I felt him dragging me across the lobby into a narrow hallway. He pressed me up against the wall and his mouth crushed down on mine. I gasped, but he only used the parting of my lips as an opportunity to thrust his tongue into my mouth. I wanted to resist, but I couldn’t. I gave myself over to the kiss, wrapping my arms around him and rising up onto my toes to align our bodies more closely. We kissed passionately for several heated moments before Mason tore his mouth away from mine, grabbed my arm again and started pulling me down the hallway toward the back of the building. Ahead of us was what looked like a large elevator door.
“What’s this?” I asked breathlessly as he punched in a code on the panel beside the door .
“An elevator,” he said.
“There are four in the lobby,” I said.
“Not like this one,” Mason said.
I could hear some of the mischief in his voice and when the elevator doors slid open, I knew what he meant. Unlike the other elevators in the front of the building, this one was elaborate and gorgeous. Filled with brass and mirrored on one wall, this elevator was truly spectacular. I knew what he had in mind because it was the only thing that I could think about.
Mason pulled me into the elevator and hit the button for the 57th floor. The doors slid closed and I felt the elevator start to move beneath me. While the elevators at the front of the building moved rapidly, this one seemed to glide upward. I didn’t care. I wanted as much time as I could have.
My hands went to Mason’s belt and I released it, opening his pants as fast as possible so that I could take hold of the thick, long cock that I hadn’t been able to get out of my mind since the night before. I dropped down to my knees, not hesitating to fill my mouth with him. Mason leaned back and grabbed the brass bar along one wall, holding himself steady as my mouth glided along his length in fast, deep sucks that drew him close to my throat.