In Deep

by Brenda Rothert

  Instead of dropping us off at the door, he parked in the gravel lot behind Morrie’s and I sighed inwardly. We’d all been looking forward to tonight and I didn’t want our night out to be as awkward as this car ride had been.

  I got out of the car before he could come around and open my door, but Mason closed it and then met my eyes with a pleading look.

  “April.”

  “I’m not fighting with you in this parking lot.”

  “I don’t want to fight.”

  “Did you get things out of your system on your trip?”

  Ivy waved at me as she and Alyssa headed for the door to Morrie’s. “We’ll meet you in there.”

  “No, wait, I’m coming with you,” I said.

  “We’re coming,” Mason said. “I flew home to try to fix things, doesn’t that mean anything?”

  “You didn’t have to leave in the first place.”

  I followed Ivy and Alyssa inside, hearing the crunch of gravel behind me as Mason followed. Inside, the darkened bar had a small crowd. Reed, Austin and Hannah were sitting at a table in the back, where we joined them.

  “What the hell happened to your face?” Austin asked Mason as soon as he laid eyes on them.

  “I was sparring.”

  “You sparred with an asshole, then.” He looked over at Reed. “Wasn’t you, was it?”

  Reed shook his head and raised his hands in mock innocence.

  Their conversation was interrupted when the waitress approached, giving Mason big eyes.

  “Hi there. What can I get you?”

  “Just a beer. Newcastle. Run me a tab for the table.”

  “You look so familiar to me,” she said, looking at Mason, grinning and reaching out to touch his arm. She looked to be maybe twenty-two and she’d just given him her best impression of a horny doe.

  “Huh,” he grunted in response, sitting down next to me.

  I ordered a mixed drink, giving her a pointed look for all womankind more than for myself. Even though Mason wasn’t mine, for all she knew he was.

  I felt Mason’s gaze on me as the rest of the table ordered and the waitress departed. Everyone made small talk with Alyssa until the music started up and a few couples headed for the wooden dance floor in the corner of the bar.

  Austin and Hannah got out on the floor, followed shortly by Reed and Ivy. I knew Mason was too much of a gentleman to ask me to dance because it would mean leaving my sister sitting alone. But then she got up and went over to dance, finding two willing partners as soon as she made it to the dance floor.

  And then there were just the two of us.

  “Dance with me,” Mason said, his commanding, baritone voice making me squirm with unwanted arousal.

  “No.”

  He wrapped his arms around my waist, burying his face in my neck so only I could hear him.

  “April. I’m dying here. I miss you so fucking bad.”

  I shook my head. “It’s not me you miss.”

  “It is. I think about you all the time.”

  I turned to him, our faces just inches apart. “You hurt me. You’re doing it again right now. We’re at two different places in this relationship. If you care about me at all, leave me alone so I can move on.”

  “I’m sorry I hurt you. I’ve done nothing but hurt people for a long time now, but I never meant to do it to you. I was just . . . Dammit, April, I don’t want to do this here.”

  “If you think you’re coming home with me, think again.”

  He sighed, his warm breath washing over my skin and leaving goosebumps in its wake. “Outside, then. Where we can hear each other over the music.”

  I got up and followed him through the crowd and out the front door. He led the way to an alley beside the bar.

  When I looked up at him, I saw contrition and sorrow. There was also something else–fear, which surprised me.

  “My feelings for you run deep,” he said, taking one of my hands. “I’m sorry for the things I said and for the time it took for me to realize exactly how I felt.”

  My heart tugged, magnetically drawn to him. But then I reminded myself how much he’d hurt me.

  “I don’t know what that means,” I said. “Feelings can be lots of things. Friendship, lust, anger . . . esteem.”

  “Esteem?” He cocked a brow in amusement. “You think I feel esteem for you?”

  “It was just an example.”

  He looked up at the night sky, exhaling deeply. “This is so much harder than I thought it would be.”

  “Well, I’m so sorry,” I said sarcastically.

  “I don’t mean it like that.” He took my other hand in his free one and turned me slightly so my back was up against a brick wall in the alley.

  “If you try to seduce me right now, I will knee you in the balls so hard–”

  He covered my lips with his fingertips. “Just listen. I came to the house on my way home from Boston to tell you all this, but I couldn’t do it with everyone there.”

  I nodded.

  “People say ‘I love you’ all the time, but it doesn’t always mean anything. I thought I loved someone once, but now I’m not so sure I did. I think I might’ve been young and stupid and just in lust. With you . . . it’s deeper. I never want to dance with another woman. I love watching you make dinner. The way you are with the girls is just . . . amazing. When I make you laugh, it warms my soul. When we make love, I feel humbled by the depth of what it does to me. When I see you with my family, I know you belong with me. I can’t even function without you, April. Everything’s dark without you and I need your light back. I’ll do anything for another chance with you. Because all these things I feel . . . I’m pretty sure it means I love you.”

  “What?” I whispered, my heart racing as I processed his words.

  “I love you. I want to be with you. I’ve never imagined a future with any other woman but you. I can’t see anything else.”

  “This is all . . . to get me to dance with you?”

  The corner of his mouth quirked up in the boyish smile I loved.

  “You’re busting my balls after all that?”

  “No. I just . . . yeah, bad time for a joke.”

  “Do you still love me?” His eyes were imploring, his tone hopeful.

  “Of course I do.”

  His expression relaxed with relief.

  “Give me another chance, April. I’ll do it right this time.”

  I nodded slowly and he reached up to cup my cheek in his hands. There was a shine in his eyes I’d never seen there before.

  “Never call me a whore again,” I said pointedly. “Unless we’re in bed.”

  He looked like he was trying not to smile. “I’m sorry for that. I won’t even say it in bed.”

  “No, in bed it would be . . . I mean, you can say it in bed.”

  “You’d like that?”

  I shrugged, my cheeks warm. “If you don’t want to, it’s okay.”

  “No, I could get into that. I’d never just call you a whore, though. You’d have to be my whore.”

  “That totally classes it up,” I said, laughing.

  “I never said I was classy. I’m rough and dirty and I’ve got a voracious appetite for you.”

  “Are you sure I’m enough for you?” I asked warily.

  “You’re so much more than enough. I’ve never wanted someone in every part of my life like I want you. But I might need you to help me be enough for you. With the emotional stuff, I mean. I’m not good at that but I want to be. Always tell me what you need from me and it’ll always be yours.”

  “Always, huh?”

  “Always.”

  “Okay, now I’m gonna have to dance with you. But you should know—”

  “That you’re an abysmal dancer? I’m aware of that.”

  I held back a smile. “That’s true. But I’ll be doubly abysmal at . . . whatever people call dirty dancing these days, because I’ve never done it.”

  “You’ve got the moves. I’ve seem
‘em in bed.”

  “Alright.” I took a deep breath and let it out. “Let’s do this.”

  “This meaning dancing or our relationship?”

  “Both.”

  I FELT EYES ON me as Mason led me onto the dance floor but, for once, it didn’t make me self-conscious. Instead, I felt a possessive pull over the man who wrapped his hands around my waist and pulled me close.

  Other women could look, but they couldn’t touch. He was all mine, imperfections and all.

  He leaned his forehead against mine and I wrapped my hands around his neck. We moved slowly to the sensual beat of the song and I realized I could get by even though it wasn’t a waltz.

  It was a slow, sexy alternative rock song, but Mason still led. He shifted his hands on my hips, turning my back to his front.

  I followed the rhythm of his movement, his hips guiding mine. Heat spread from my core outward, radiating throughout my body. It wasn’t just the dance making me hot¸ but the echo of his words in my mind.

  His fingertips trailed along my arm, stopping at my wrist. He moved my wrist up and around to the back of his neck, and I gasped as he wrapped an arm around my waist. My fingers were itching to reach higher and rake through his short, dark hair, but I wasn’t tall enough.

  Instead I closed my eyes, savoring the hard strength of him behind me. The feeling that we were one swept over me, and it still scared the hell out of me.

  But he was worth the risk.

  We spent the evening dancing and drinking and we all agreed that we should do it again. When we got back to Grieves House Alyssa said good night and slipped up to her room. Mason wasted no time in pulling me across the living room to lead me downstairs.

  Once there, we stripped off each other’s clothes in a tangled frenzy of hands and mouths. He was like a prowling tiger, his gaze dark and hungry as he backed me onto the bed.

  I didn’t think I could stand an hour of slow foreplay. The dancing had wound me tight and I was aching for release. He seemed to feel the same; he only took time to roll on a condom before burying himself in me in one long, hard thrust.

  “I love you, April,” he said against my neck as he moved deep within me.

  My words of love to him were strangled by my cries of satisfaction as he pounded himself into me with abandon. In a matter of minutes, we came together, our moans lost in each other’s mouths.

  He’d given me everything he had, which humbled me beyond measure. And I’d given the same. Until I met Mason I hadn’t known how wrong every man I’d ever dated had been for me. Then I found him–the one man who made me feel more deeply that I’d ever imagined.

  I fell asleep in his arms, finally feeling utterly content and foolishly in love at the same time.

  I WAS ENGROSSED IN the email I was writing on my laptop in bed when April’s gasp made me look over at her.

  She had her e-reader resting on her thighs, her legs pulled up near her chest as she read while sitting next to me in bed. I still wasn’t used to the way this woman read a book. Gasps, sighs and groans were part of her process.

  And the cashews. She ate them methodically, always one at a time. There was always a light layer of salt on her bedsheets when we turned the lights off. But I didn’t mind. It reminded me I’d been lucky enough to get another chance with her. Salty sheets, the sweet scent of her shampoo and her warm skin against mine were my favorite things about waking up in the morning.

  “Good gasp?” I asked her.

  “Mmm . . . not sure yet.”

  She put the tip of her fingertip between her teeth, another of her reading habits. My cock stirred to life under the sheets. I’d stayed with her every night since we’d gotten back together, and even after a week, I never seemed to get enough of her.

  “You look really sexy right now,” I said, closing my computer.

  She gave me an amused glance. “Are you making fun of my reading glasses?”

  “No. With your hair pulled up like that, and the glasses, and the way you’re nibbling that fingertip . . .” I took her fingers in mine and nipped the fingertip myself. “Put the book away and I’ll give you something to gasp about.”

  “Before the end of the chapter?” She gave me a teasing glance.

  “Before the end of the next sentence, woman.”

  She set down the e-reader and I pulled her on top of me, getting hard from the feel of her soft curves molding to my body. When I grabbed her hips and ground her against my erection, she gave a gasp that was her first of the night, but most definitely not her last.

  WE WERE GETTING TWO more girls at Grieves House, and I was mentally planning all the things I needed to do to prepare for their upcoming arrivals. I had paperwork to complete and I wanted to go over their files one more time. I also had to clean the second upstairs bathroom and stock it with towels and toiletries.

  I was going over the household accounts, writing checks to pay the household bills, and my mind was totally absorbed when Mason walked into the room.

  I could tell from his pensive expression that he was lost in thought. When he was unhappy, the lines on his forehead were more pronounced.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Colton bonded out of jail.”

  “Oh. And you think he’ll come back here?”

  “Only if he has a death wish.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Mostly I’m just pissed. His bond was set too low. Reed had to give the case to another public defender since you’re the victim and he’s related to you. Apparently the other guy’s a hack.”

  I wrapped my arms around myself and sighed. “I’m more concerned for Taylor than anything. She’s seven months along, and I can’t stomach the thought of her bringing that baby up around Colton.”

  “Maybe we should talk to her about it.”

  “I don’t know. I try to be a non-judgmental source of support for the girls.”

  Mason gave me a skeptical stare. “What’s more supportive than telling her you don’t want to see anyone beating the shit out of her and her kid?”

  “You’re such a man.”

  He cocked a brow in amusement. “So I’m told.”

  I returned to my paperwork but I was still thinking about Taylor. I couldn’t decide whether talking to her about Colton was a good idea or not. I wanted to give her good sound advice but I didn’t want her to feel under attack and then turn on the defensive. My experience with my sister had taught me that sometimes trying to change someone’s mind about the person they love only pushes them away.

  But Mason’s words about Colton possibly hurting their baby rang loudly in my ears. When Taylor walked in from school thirty minutes later, I knew I had to say something.

  “Hey, how was school?”

  “Oh, the usual.”

  “Have you heard that Colton’s out of jail?”

  She gave me a wary look. “Yeah.”

  “Can you sit down for a minute?”

  She pulled out a chair, looking between me and Mason. I was trying to think of gentle words to ease into this conversation, but Mason had a different tack.

  “Are you planning to keep seeing him after you have the baby?” he asked, closing his computer.

  Taylor stiffened in response. “He is the baby’s father. I can’t just not let him see his own child.”

  “Sure you can. We could help you get settled somewhere new, and he wouldn’t know where to find you.”

  “We’re bringing this up because we care,” I said softly. “Having a baby can be stressful, and people who already have self-control issues may not handle that well.”

  “I haven’t said I’ll live with him after I have the baby.”

  “But he’s managed to abuse you while you’ve been living here.”

  Mason shifted in his seat. “Tough love, Taylor . . . A guy who hits a pregnant woman is a guy who’ll hit a kid. There are stories in the news all the time about what guys like him do to kids. If you love this kid, you’ll either raise it where he can’t find you, or you
’ll give it to someone who’ll keep it safe.”

  Silence hung in the room. I felt a pull to mediate this and tone down what Mason had said, but I knew in my heart he was right.

  “If I thought I could start fresh,” Taylor said softly, “and he really wouldn’t know where I was . . . I’d probably do that.”

  My shoulders sank with relief. She was finally seeing the light.

  “It’d mean cutting contact with anyone you guys both know,” Mason said. “Even your friends.”

  “I don’t want my baby growing up scared.” Taylor put a protective hand on her belly. “Every time I tell myself he wouldn’t do something, he ends up doing it. I never thought he’d lay a hand on me while I was pregnant.”

  “You’re safe here,” I said, reaching for her hand and squeezing it. “Mason’s staying here now and Colton will have to adhere to the terms of the bond or he’ll find himself back in jail.”

  I realized as soon as I said it that we’d never talked about Mason being here. He’d been staying here every night since we made up. But when I met his eyes across the table, I knew from their warmth that he had no plans to go anywhere. He was, in fact, staying.

  And I’d never been happier.

  I USED MY GLOVED hand to clear the wet clumps of leaves from the gutters at Grieves House. I needed some time to think, and in a house full of females, the top of a ladder had been the only place to find complete silence.

  Loving April was the best thing I’d ever felt. But it was also scary as hell. Being deeply invested in another person was a brand new sensation for me.

  I remembered Reed’s old girlfriend Meredith once telling me I was overbearing. Too intense. I didn’t want to lose April because of those things. She was good for me, and I wanted to be just as good for her.

  It was at times like this, when feelings started mounting up, that I went to Bellator. The physical release I found there was like no other. It was brutal. Impersonal. And it helped me manage the rising panic that would come on when I felt the feelings taking over.

  But, at the same time, I knew I couldn’t be good for April if I had to run to Boston to deal with my feelings every time they re-surfaced. I had to find some other way of coping than getting the shit kicked out of me.