by Melinda Minx
But I realize it will be good for me. I’ll fuck him, and it will be just like any other one-night stand. It won’t mean much of anything, and we’ll both realize that. I’ll leave Tuckett Bay, and I’ll put all those good and awful feelings about Mason behind me once and for all. And he’ll be able to move on, too.
Neither of us is eighteen anymore, and after we sleep together, we’ll both realize that what we had was mostly a product of out of control hormones. I’ll be able to let it go.
Closure. Finally.
“And maybe,” I say, “maybe when it takes you right back, you realize it wasn’t as good as you thought—”
And then, as if to crush my argument before it can even begin, he pulls me into him, and his lips touch mine.
If my heart was pounding before, now it’s slamming like a jackhammer. His tongue slips into my mouth, and I open up for him instinctively, without a second thought. The warmth and tenderness of his tongue fills me up. His whole body is so fucking hard, but his tongue is still as soft as ever.
We kiss, and his scent hits me hard. His big, strong body is pressed up against me, and his arms are wrapped around me. One hand is gripping my lower back, and the other is just between my shoulder blades. My hand is still on his chest, but as we kiss, my hand feels more and more tempted to trail down. I want to explore his abs, and then go further down still.
He pulls away. “Sophie…”
I can still feel his taste and scent lingering in my mouth and nostrils. It’s begging me to take him right back, to kiss him again. Our bodies are still pressed together, and his hands are still holding me tightly against him.
“Mason. Touch me—”
His hands sink down, squeezing the thick flesh of my ass. I gasp, and my head falls back. My eyes close.
Another hard hand moves up to my waist, lingers around my stomach, and then finally cups my breast. My nipples turn hard as diamonds in an instant.
“Fuck,” I whisper.
I’m speaking out of almost pure lust, but still a hint of “Oh, I fucked up,” is still there, nagging at me. This was not my plan for the evening. Not at all. This idea, to show us both that it’s not as good as we remembered it, all hinges on the sex not being that good.
What if it is that good? What then?
He pulls my dress down off my shoulders, exposing both of my breasts. The chilly air hitting them sends a shiver down my spine, but Mason’s warm, protective hands are on them in an instant, and I don’t feel cold after that.
He squeezes and kneads me, tweaking my nipples between his fingers. I gasp and moan for more, and he’s happy to give me everything I want.
“You said you have a bed,” I whisper between breathy moans.
And then it feels like I’m flying. Mason scoops me up in both arms, lifts me effortlessly, and carries me through his apartment. I see us pass through a doorway, into darkness, and then I feel myself being gently lowered down. A soft bed greets my back, and I lay there in the pitch darkness, waiting…
His tongue touches me, right between my breasts. His lips press against my skin, and his tongue slides up along my breast. I hold my breath in anticipation, and then he pulls my nipple between his lips. He presses his tongue against it, and sucks.
I cry out, and my hand instinctively touches between my legs. I’m soaking wet already, and he’s only just getting started.
He runs his hands up my sides, massaging and exploring my body as he kisses and sucks on my breasts. God, it feels good. When was the last time a man took his time with me like this? When was the last time I felt this good?
“I can see you,” he whispers.
I freeze. I start to move my hand slowly away from my wetness.
“You’re moving now,” he says.
“It’s pitch black,” I say. “You can’t see me. You just felt me move.”
“Don’t touch yourself, Sophie,” he says. “I’ll touch you when the time is right.”
I nod, though I still can’t believe he’s able to see me.
“Good girl,” he whispers, then goes back to my breasts.
Slowly, he works his way up toward my neck, and when he kisses and licks so softly the flesh of my throat, my legs start squirming.
“Is it time yet?” I ask, desperation seeping into my voice.
“No.”
He moves up to my jaw, to my ear. He kisses and nibbles on my earlobe.
He whispers in a voice that is just barely there, “You’ll know when it’s time.”
I’m clutching my own thigh so that I’m not tempted to touch myself. I’m afraid that if I disobey him, he will make me wait longer as punishment.
“Touch me,” he says. “Keep your hands busy.”
I nearly laugh. I’ve been so preoccupied with what I want him to do to me that I’ve lost the moment. I move my hand off my thigh to his body. I grab hold of what feels like his lower torso. It’s hard and muscular through his shirt. I remember the buttons he undid, and I run my hand up along the flannel material, searching for the opening.
I feel his warm skin, and I reach down for the next button. I pop it open. Now I feel the top of his muscular abs. I press my palm against him and run it down his body, below where his shirt is still buttoned. I stop when I reach his belt.
I feel his body shift, and then his hand is tearing at the buttons on his shirt. Soon I feel a whip of wind as the shirt falls away and disappears into the pitch blackness.
I hear two loud claps, and I nearly jump off the bed.
A flash of light blinds me, and then I see Mason Steel towering above me, his hard body covered in tattoos and peppered with scars.
“Clap on,” he says, grinning.
I can’t help but laugh. “That’s so cheesy!” I say, gasping for air between laughs.
“It came with the apartment,” he says. “The light switch doesn’t work.”
I clap twice, and the lights shut off. “I thought only 80-year-old women had these things.”
He claps again, and the lights reveal a wide smile. “See, I can still surprise you.”
Then he looks down at my body. My breasts are spilling out, but my dress is still on.
“God, Sophie,” he says. “It’s like you said...it takes me right back.”
“You’d really want to be in high school again?” I ask.
“No,” he says, shaking his head. “But this is the best of both worlds. I’m a stronger person and know exactly what I want, but this…this feels just as good as it did before.”
I bite my lip. I agree with him...so far. But how can I trust my feelings when I’m this horny? When he’s touching me in all the right ways. How will I feel the next morning? When I have to go to work again, and when I can see myself in the light of day?
I touch a long, puffy scar on the side of his torso. It feels coarse against my fingers. “Did this hurt?”
“These…” he says, touching his scars one after another, “these stopped hurting after a while.”
“What is that?” I say, pointing to another twisted scar. “A burn wound? You’re telling me that didn’t hurt at all?”
“Physical pain,” he says. “The body never really adapts to it. A piece of burning shrapnel is always going to burn your skin. It’s always going to sting, but the mind can steel itself against that. The wound heals—scars over—but there’s no lasting pain. Not like…”
He trails off.
“What?” I ask.
“Some things hurt worse, and never quite heal.”
He looks at me, and without speaking any words, we both know what he means.
I shift off the bed to stand up, and I pull my dress all the way off. His eyes widen as he takes me in.
“It’s time,” I say.
He springs off the bed, and slams me against the wall. The force of it is hard enough to shock me, but not hard enough to hurt me. Before I can even react, I feel his hand press against my soaked panties, and I moan.
I start to tug at the panties to get
them off, but his hand is there already.
“Mason,” I say, my voice desperate.
He lets off for just a moment, long enough to pull the panties down. They fall to my ankles, and his hand touches against my bare pussy.
An electric shock jolts up my body as his fingers run up and down my outer lips. He slides a finger into my wet hole, and I gasp.
“Mason—”
He presses his thumb against my swollen clit, and that shuts me up straight away. He slides his finger in and out of me, and his thumb continues to graze my clit.
He works me so good that I dig my heels into the floor and press my back hard against the wall. I feel drool dripping down out of the corner of my mouth as he slides another finger inside me, the pressure against my clit intensifying.
I keep getting more and more wet, until I feel the wetness on my inner thigh.
Mason drops down, and his fingers pull out of me with a wet pop.
The next thing I know, his head is between my legs, and his tongue is licking up my juices.
I gasp in anticipation, and just when I can’t wait another second, his tongue presses against my clit.
I explode. There’s been too much build-up, and when he feels how hard I convulse against him, his hands grab hold of my ass and squeeze. He holds me still as he sucks my clit to full climax.
I shake and wail and moan, and a fire builds up within me. I grab his head and dig my nails into his scalp, while with my other hand I grab my breast and pinch my nipple between both fingers.
The orgasm rocks through me in electric waves. Cold shocks blast through me, but an intense warmth fills me up again before I can feel any discomfort from the cold.
Everything inside me rises and builds up with an intense pressure, and then Mason’s tongue hits me just right, and everything releases in a rush. The rush surges up from between my legs, out through all my limbs, and I moan as it blasts through me. It finally hits my head, which cuts off all sound from my throat. My eyes roll back in my head, and my toes curl. I feel my body sliding down against the wall, but Mason holds me up with his strong arms, and when the head rush dissipates, I scream until I’m out of breath.
As the orgasm fades down into a warm afterglow, I laugh giddily. The relief feels so fucking intense, and we’re not even done. I’ll want him again soon—I’ll feel his big cock inside me, and I’ll fuck him until I’m physically exhausted and can’t move another inch.
Mason lifts me up and lowers me onto the bed. I convulse again—an aftershock of orgasm—and look up at him with warm eyes.
He looks so good now, but his pants are still on. “Take them off,” I say, though I’m surprised how slurred my voice sounds. As if I’m drunk.
“Nah,” he says. “Never give a woman everything she wants.”
He grabs his shirt and pulls it onto his muscular frame.
What almost feels like panic overtakes me. But the afterglow is so good that it insulates me, as if I’m on a morphine drip.
“Mason…” I say. “You’re getting dressed.”
“Yeah,” he says. “I told your father I’d take you home.”
“But…”
But I’m not seventeen years old. And Dad knows what was going to happen anyway and—
“Fuck me,” I say.
“You’ll have to stick around if you want that,” he says, grinning down at me.
I look at him in disbelief.
“You said you were going to leave after we did it,” he says. “I want you around, Sophie. Let’s go on a real date Saturday night. There’s a new Greek place open over in Stockton, we can—”
“Mason,” I say, looking down at the bulge in his pants, “at least let me…”
“No,” he says. “I want you to really think about what you want, Sophie.”
“You’re just mad,” I say. “That I said I was going to leave. You think I’m doing it out of revenge? Because you left me?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t think that’s your motivation, no. But even if it was, I’d deserve it. I know what I want, though, Sophie, and it’s more than one unforgettable night. Get dressed.”
“Marv’s crew is coming in,” Melanie shouts.
I turn the bottle of ketchup over and shake. Nothing comes out.
“Come the fuck on!” I hiss.
I shake the bottle harder, and it all comes out. It spills out all over the fries, and the fish.
“Fuck!” I shout. Then I whisper in a seething anger, “Mr. Garland just has to have his fries drenched in ketchup. Like he can’t do it himself? Why do we have a ketchup bottle on every damn table? And why do we get glass ones?”
Melanie grabs me by the arms. “Sophie, what the hell is wrong with you? You’re acting like you just went cold turkey, but you don’t even smoke.”
Cold turkey. Yeah. I went cold turkey off Mason Steel. He denied me what I wanted, and he did it with a smug fucking grin. That asshole. And now he thinks he can just take me out to some Greek restaurant, as if I wasn’t furious with him.
“Look on the bright side,” Melanie says. “Mason’s going to be here soon.”
I shoot daggers at her.
“Oh,” she says, her face tightening. “So he’s what’s wrong? What happened?”
“He thinks he gets to be in control.”
Melanie laughs. “A man like that? I’d let him be in control. Men like that were born to be in control.”
I grind my teeth together while throwing the plate of food away. It’s a waste, but there’s no way to get that much ketchup off everything. The fish and fries will be soggy and red.
“After he did what he did,” I say, “he should be begging me for every last touch.”
Melanie laughs. “You going to dump his ass then?”
No. Of course not. Not after he made me cum again and left me wanting for more. I felt it again, a hint of what it felt like when I was eighteen. I was wrong. He was that good. We were that good.
“Guess not,” Melanie says. “So it sounds like he’s in control.”
“He’s not though,” I say. “If I could resist him, he’d be begging me…”
He was all but begging me, and then I gave an inch. Now he wants ten miles. I let him in too easily. I should have fought harder.
“He’s a fisherman,” Melanie says. “He’s got a hook in you, and if you keep fighting, you’ll wear yourself out. Then he’ll have you where he really wants you. Don’t fight him, not yet, just let him reel you in. Once he takes that hook out of you, then you fight him back.”
“I’m so sick of fishing metaphors, Melanie,” I sigh, staring down at the ruined, ketchup-stained food.
But she’s right. If I fight back, it will just take longer to get what I want. I should just go along with him, let him think he’s in control, and just when he thinks he’s won, that’s when I’ll fight back.
Marv’s crew stomps into the Crab Shack, Mason last. He grins at me as he walks in, and I flash him a big smile as I hand Mr. Garland his plate.
Samuel and Ashton elbow Mason and give me knowing looks.
I walk up to them and smile. “What did Mason tell you guys?”
The two are suddenly tight-lipped.
“Samuel?” I ask. I know he’s easier to open up, like a grilled oyster.
“Uh,” he mumbles. “Mason won’t tell us anything. We just...we just saw you smiling at each other.”
“He hasn’t told you anything?” I ask.
Mason smirks at me and crosses his arms.
“It almost sounds like he’s ashamed? What kind of fisherman doesn’t like to tell a good tale?”
“I’m a soldier first,” Mason says. “Fisherman second. A soldier can keep his lips sealed.”
“Well,” I say, leaning in toward Samuel and Ashton. “To tell you the truth, there isn’t much to tell. Mason probably just doesn’t want to admit he’s got a long way to go with me. He didn’t even seal the deal.”
Samuel’s and Ashton’s eyes bulge, and Mason
leans in toward me.
“Nice try,” he whispers. “But I’m still doing this my way.”
I smile. “What do you guys want to eat?”
I take their orders and go back to work. I’m letting Mason think he’s got me right where he wants me. I have to at least pretend to fight him. But I’ll be patient. More patient than him.
My phone rings while I’m on break outside. It’s an unknown number, so I consider not answering it. I’ve got another ten minutes left on break, so I decide to answer.
“Hello?”
“Dr. Sinclaire?”
Dr. Sinclaire. It’s been a long time since I’ve heard anyone call me that, and hearing it is like being jolted awake from a long, lazy nap.
I sit up straighter where I’m seated on the bench. “Yes, this is she.”
“Dr. Sinclaire, this is Dr. Wood from Pfizer. We’ve reviewed your application and would like to invite you to our new lab in Boston for an interview.”
“Oh,” I say, my voice betraying my lack of enthusiasm.
“Are you still interested in the position?”
“Yes!” I say, forcing myself to sound more energetic. “I’m very excited about it, when would you like me to interview?”
“Would next Thursday at 2:00 p.m. work?”
It’s not like I have to check my calendar. I can just swap shifts with someone and drive into Boston.
“Yeah,” I say. “That works. I’ll see you then.”
“Great,” Dr. Wood says, “I’ll email you more details, including the exact address and interview location, tonight.”
I hang up the phone, and I hear Mason’s voice. “Dr. Sinclaire.”
I nearly jump. I turn around and see him standing there, leaning against the corner of the building with his arms crossed.
“How long have you been there?” I ask.
“Long enough. So you really are trying to leave Tuckett Bay?”
I bite my lip. “It won’t be for a while. I haven’t even interviewed yet.”
“It won’t be long, though,” he says. “I know you’re good at what you do. Now that you’re applying, you’ll find something sooner rather than later.”