by Amy Brent
I fell asleep that night with the sound of the door ringing in my ears. I cried myself to sleep, knowing I’d fully pushed Mason away. There was a part of me that needed space from him, that needed this time to process what the fuck I was going to do next.
But the rest of me wanted to figure that out with him. The rest of me wanted to yank him into this room, shut my door, and lose myself in him. I knew he could help me find a way out of this. I knew he could help me dig out from underneath the rubble that had come crashing down on us.
I wanted his presence so badly, but I didn’t know how to ask for it.
Things had gotten too crazy and too out of control too quickly. In the span of a few days, I’d ruined my relationship with my best friend, I’d ruined my relationship with the public, I’d ruined the reputation of my show, and I’d demolished the relationship I had with Mason.
Well, the arrangement I had with Mason.
I pulled myself out of bed and began packing up all of Emma’s things. Mason wasn’t calling or texting me anymore, which meant I could breathe a little easier. At least I’d made that decision easier on him. He would’ve left me anyway once he discovered what was wrong with me.
Discovered the secrets I was hiding.
I picked up the box full of Emma’s things and lugged it all the way to my car. I drove over to her place and dropped it on her doorstep, knocking on her door before I turned to leave. The least I could do was return her things, so she could give them to whatever new friendship she developed.
I’d run out of ways to repair ours, and I simply had to admit defeat and keep going.
“Sarah? What the hell’s all this?”
I stopped in my tracks when I heard her voice. I slowly turned around and saw her standing there, looking more beautiful than I’d ever seen her. She’d showered and put on makeup. She was wearing an outfit I hadn’t seen her put on in quite some time. The light behind her eyes was back, and the sight of her filled me with a joy I hadn’t felt in days.
“That’s the stuff you had at my place,” I said. “Figured you’d want it back.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Because we aren’t friends anymore. I figured it would be the right thing of me to give you back your stuff.”
“When did I ever say we weren’t friends?” she asked.
“When you stopped taking my calls, told me all my relationships failed because I was damaged, and shut out your brother,” I said.
“First off, I’m sorry for all that shit I said to you. It was wrong and uncalled for, and you didn’t deserve any of that. What I’ve been trying to tell you and Mason is that I just need time wrap my head around things. Sarah, I fucking found out from the news. Cut me a bit of slack.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” I said.
“Look, if you want to be with my brother, go ahead. He’s a strange one, I’ll give him that. But I’ve seen a good side of him lately, one I didn’t think existed.”
“What?” I asked.
“And he likes you. He’s happy with you. If the two of you want to be together, I’m not going to stop you.”
Her words hit me like a ton of bricks as she picked up the box off the ground. He was happy with me? What the hell did that mean?
“A good side of him?” I asked.
“I know. Seems weird, right. When all this blows over, we’ve got a lot to talk about,” she said, grinning.
“Sounds like it,” I said breathlessly. “How do you know he’s happy with me?”
“Because he told me. Well, I could see it in his eyes after our mom called him out on it.”
“Your mother?” I asked.
“Told you we had a lot to talk about,” she said.
My mind was running at a thousand miles a second. Suddenly, I felt the desperate need to track Mason down. I was finally standing in the shoes he’d been standing in for weeks, and I felt my fingers trembling as the feeling washed over me.
I was in love with Mason.
“A word of advice?” Emma asked.
I turned my head toward her as tears flowed down my cheeks.
“Tell him your secrets. I may have already mentioned you had some serious baggage going on, and now he’s curious. Plus, if you want things to work out, you’ve got to let him in. You haven’t done that with any of the men you’ve ever dated. Whether I set you up with them or not. You just hold them at arm's length and let your fame do all the work. If you want it to work with him, let him in. Fully.”
I felt my entire body shaking with anticipation and fear. Emma was right. I’d never let any of them in. I never told them the things I kept close to my chest. I never told them the things that kept me up at night. I never told them the source of my sadness and anger. What really fueled me to reach for the success I strived for on a daily basis.
“I know I don’t know Mason well. Hell, all I’ve seen is what’s in the headlines. But even the press has never seen him like this before. He really cares about you, Sarah. He doesn’t chase women, not like he’s chased you. I got a taste of his incessant perseverance when he was knocking down my door to talk with me. If he’s been doing that to you for however long this has been happening, then it’s serious with him,” Emma said.
“Serious,” I said, whispering.
“Go home and think about it,” she said as she stepped back into her home. “I’ll call you in a few days.”
“Okay,” I said mindlessly.
The entire way back home, I wondered if I should call him. The mere idea of him feeling the same way toward me filled my chest with delight. It filled so fast and sat so heavy on my lungs, I was struggling to breathe by the time I got home. I rushed up to my apartment and barreled in, immediately calling Mason on his cell phone.
And I got my first taste of what it had been like to be in his shoes for the past few weeks.
I hung up and called again, feeling my heart sink lower and lower as it kept throwing me to voice mail. I left him message after message, calling him ten or fifteen times before tears started trickling down my neck. I wanted him to pick up. I needed him to pick up. I needed to talk with him. To see him. To hear his voice even though we had that stupid fucking agreement. I needed him to knock on my door one last time.
One last time and I would let him in. For good, if that’s what he wanted.
I called and I called and I called, but eventually, it didn’t even ring. Eventually, it was just me and his voice mail, his voice echoing gently in my ear as I sobbed against my cell phone.
I crawled myself onto the couch and cried myself to sleep that night. I’d missed my chance with the only man I’d ever truly fallen in love with, and I was all alone.
Again.
Chapter 32
Mason
I woke up that morning to the peaceful sound of the silent countryside. I stretched my limbs, feeling the emptiness of my bed as the heaviness of my heart slowly flooded back to the forefront of my mind. I’d finally called Tony back and told him I was alive. He updated me on some things with the business and told me some shit was going down in politics, so the media shit would finally be pushed from the forefront of the news. I was glad to hear it, but just hearing her name ached my soul.
But when I reached for my phone and saw the dozens of missed calls I had from her, I began to panic.
How the fuck did I not hear the vibrating of my phone? I never missed a phone call from her. Never. I always picked up when she called. Had something gone wrong? Was something wrong with Emma?
Was something wrong with her?
I immediately called her back, and my heart leaped with joy when I heard her pick up on the other end. Her groggy voice brought a smile to my face, and I slung my legs over the edge of my bed.
“Mason?” she asked.
“The one and only,” I said, grinning. “How are you feeling? Are you all right?”
“Mason, I-I need to talk with you, okay?” she asked.
“Anytime, anyplace. I’m so sorry I missed your cal
ls. I didn’t hear my phone vibrating last night.”
“I talked with Emma. She told me something that I need to ask you about,” she said.
“What did she say?” I asked.
“She said you cared about me. That-that you were happy with me. Is that true?”
I felt my body freeze as my eyes looked out the window. The sun was rising high in the sky, illuminating the rolling hills of green as I closed my eyes. I couldn’t run from this any longer. We couldn’t do this dance any longer. I was tired of it, and all I wanted to do was get it off my chest.
“Yes. It’s true,” I said.
“So, you’re happy when you’re with me?” she asked.
“Happier than I’ve ever been, Sarah.”
“Okay,” she said. “Okay. Um, are we still, you know, spending time together?”
“I fucking hope so,” I said, chuckling.
“Then we need to talk. There are some things I have to tell you before we go any further. Because if we do, and the media catches wind of it, I want you hearing it from me before they dig it up and plaster it everywhere.”
This must’ve been the baggage Emma was talking about. I felt my heart pounding in my chest as I rose to my feet. She wanted to talk. Sarah wanted to meet up and talk about all of it. I strode into the bathroom and put her on speakerphone before I started washing my face with soap.
“When would you like to talk?” I asked.
“Are you free tonight?” she asked.
“I’m free anytime you need me,” I said as I dried off my face. “You just tell me when and where, and I’ll be there.”
“Is the press still hounding your place?” she asked.
“Nope. I think we’ve been officially bumped by politics this morning,” I said.
“Then how about I come over around six?” she asked.
“I’ll be ready and waiting.”
The entire day I spent trying to knock out work. If she came over and decided to stay, I wanted to have the morning with her. I wanted to make her breakfast in bed and lie naked with her until it was time for lunch. I wanted to wake up with her in my arms and be able to dote on her beauty as the sun streamed through the windows. I worked steadily through lunch before I turned in the last of my things around five thirty, and then I raced upstairs to get myself dressed.
I was coming down the stairs when Sarah knocked on the door.
“You look radiant,” I said as I smiled at her.
“I don’t feel radiant, but thanks,” she said, sighing.
We instinctively migrated over to our couch. She sat down as I grabbed her a glass of wine, her lips smiling with relief as she plucked it from my fingers. We sat there on that small love sofa that overlooked the backyard and sipped our drinks. The silence was uncomfortable, to say the least, but I was simply glad she was there. I was experiencing her warmth and her beauty once again, and for the first time since I’d met her, I hoped it wouldn’t be the last.
“When I was in high school, I dated this guy,” she began. “He was everything a high school girl could want. Tall. Dark. Captain of the football team.”
“Didn’t realize you went for that kind of guy,” I said.
“I didn’t. He pursued me. It was the first time I’d ever caught a man’s attention like that, and I loved it. He followed me everywhere I went, wanting to get to know me and asking me questions. It took him five tries before I finally agreed to have lunch with him in the cafeteria one day, and I thought I was hot shit.”
“So, I’m not the only one who had to track you down just for a meal,” I said, grinning.
“Nope. You’re not,” she said. “Anyway, we dated for a while. I lost my virginity to him. You know, the whole nine yards. But then, I got pregnant.”
I turned my gaze slowly over to her as her eyes locked heavily with the outside world.
“I got pregnant at sixteen, and he was so angry,” she said breathlessly. “He yelled and screamed. He blamed me for getting pregnant. Called me a slut and told me it couldn’t be his because we used protection. I tried to remind him of a party we went to, where we got drunk and had sex without any sort of protection. It was the first time he ever hit me.”
I felt my entire body lock up with anger as my blood began to boil.
“He would do little things. A slap in private here, a verbal jab in front of people there. One time, he intentionally pushed me down the staircase stomach first.”
“He fucking what?” I asked.
“I gave birth to this beautiful baby boy a couple months after I turned seventeen,” she said as tears welled in her eyes. “He was the most gorgeous thing I’d ever seen in my life. Full head of black hair. Hazel eyes like his daddy. An absolute vision.”
“Sarah. Where is your son?” I asked.
“With the family that adopted him, I suppose.”
She put her lips to her wine and didn’t let go of the glass until she had gulped every last drop down. I could see the tears threatening to spill forth as she tried to keep herself composed. My eyes danced along her features, taking in the strength that was hidden beneath the surface of her skin. A strength that could only come from walking through the fire of the underbelly of this world and coming out the other end walking, no matter how badly the body was bleeding.
She was opening her heart and bleeding in front of me, and all I knew to do was slip my arm around her and pull her close.
“Bouncing around in foster homes was the hardest thing I’d ever done. When my foster family figured out I was pregnant, they kicked me out. I went back to a home for a while until a family willing to take in a pregnant teenager took me in, but they didn’t give a shit about me. I came home with bruises on my face from that asshole, and they didn’t say shit about it. Just sent me up to my room and took me to my doctor’s appointments when I needed to attend them.”
I pulled her as close to my body as I could get her before I set our wine glasses down. I pulled her into my lap as she tucked her face into the crook of my neck, and I could feel the moment her tears released. She wasn’t heaving, and she wasn’t sobbing. Her chest merely hiccupped and then I felt a pooling wetness at my collarbone.
“Every other man I ever attempted to date after that cheated. Didn’t give a shit about me or what I had to offer. A couple used me to bolster their own growing social media bullshit. I think one tried to care, but I wouldn’t let him in close enough. I don’t know anymore. I try not to think about it,” she said.
“Holy fuck, Sarah. I am so sorry,” I said.
“I’m so sorry for not telling you sooner. I was trying so hard not to get attached to you. I really was. I just knew you were going to break my heart like the rest of them if I got attached and couldn’t let you go.”
“Ssh,” I said. “It’s okay. Come here. It’s all right.”
“I tried so hard, and I’m so sorry for dragging you into all this,” she said.
“You dragged me into nothing, okay? I enjoy the time we spend together. I enjoy the time I get to be in your presence. I enjoy your body, and I enjoy your opinions, and I enjoy experiencing things with you,” I said.
“I tried so hard but …”
“But?” I asked as I looked down at her.
Her beautiful eyes fluttered up to me, riddled with tears as I lost myself in them. She pulled herself up into my lap, straddling my legs with hers as I wiped away her tears. I slid my hands around her shoulders and down her waist, settling my palms on her hips as I saw the cogs turning behind her eyes. All she had to do was admit it. All she had to do was say it, and she’d never hurt again. She’d always be protected, she’d never want for anything, and she’d never be lonely.
Never again, so long as I was around.
“But I think I’ve fallen in love with you,” she said breathlessly.
“Funny you should say that,” I said as I tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Because I think I’ve fallen in love with you, too.”
Chapter 33
Sarah
The way his hand stroked my cheek made me shiver down to my core. His eyes were sparkling with lust, but there was something else behind his stare. A hint of gentleness I’d never seen in the eyes of American’s newest playboy. I planted my hands softly on his chest, feeling his rapid heartbeat as our lips ventured closer and closer together. My soul was alight with happiness as our lips connected with one another’s, but the tone of the evening didn’t stay gentle for long.
His arms snaked around my back, pinning me to his body. Our tongues danced, and our teeth banged together, but I could feel his raging cock growing underneath me. Slowly, we peeled each other’s layers off, like the leaves of a banana ready for the taking. His skin felt hot against mine like he was trying to set me on fire with nothing but his touch. My skin tingled with every crevice his hands dipped into, and at first, I simply took in the sensations.
His lips upon my neck. His teeth grazing my pulse point. My back on the floor in front of our couch while my hands raked through his hair. I could feel my pussy dripping, leaking for him as his tongue rolled around my sensitive, aching nipple. I was trembling with want for him. My hands were reaching for any muscle they could bury themselves into, so I could memorize another part of his body.
I looked down at him and saw his eyes already staring back at me. He smirked, that glimmer of boyish charm nestled directly underneath his eyes as his lips started to drag themselves downward. I propped my feet up, opening my body to him as his hands caressed the backs of my legs. One heel was on the couch while the other was on the coffee table. I wanted him as close as I could get him.