by Roxy Wilson
That, too, was addictive. So was hearing her beg.
“Please, Mason,” she pleaded, and my cock throbbed in my jeans at the sound. I could wait, though. This moment was all about her.
I parted her folds and fastened my mouth around her clit, sucking gently. I pressed two fingers slick up inside her to give her something to grip onto.
It was exactly what she wanted, and her hands in my hair tightened, her breath hitching erratically.
I sucked and licked her, fucking her slow and deep with my fingers, until her thighs spasmed around my shoulders. Even though she was desperate to come, I drew it out as long as I could, bringing her to the edge and then pulling her back again and again until she was whimpering.
I was enjoying myself far too much.
“You wanna come, huh?” I asked her softly, biting into her thigh again.
She fisted her hands in the sheets, and then against my shoulders, and then back again. “Yes.”
I grinned up at her, feeling a rush of power so easily equal to that of holding a man’s life in my hands. “You’re beautiful,” I told her helplessly, unable to stop the words flowing out of my mouth.
I didn’t just mean on the outside, or needy on edge like she was. I meant in every way a person could be beautiful.
“Mason,” she sobbed, and I gave her back my mouth.
She came in moments. Her fluids gushed against my hand, she arched helplessly against my arm, and she came trembling, her stomach muscles tensing.
She called my name and my cock ached. The tight slickness of her around my fingers was unbelievable and I couldn’t wait to push inside her.
I kissed my way up her gasping body, undressing her properly as I went. I pulled off my own shirt and threw it to the floor as she watched me intently, her pupils completely dilated and her mouth parted.
I stood at the foot of the bed, unzipping my jeans and pushing them down, letting her take all of me in with her eager eyes.
“You’re so fucking hot, Mason,” she said breathily, still recovering from her orgasm. I grabbed my swollen cock and stroked it a few times for her benefit. My body, at least, I knew she was comfortable wanting. “Get down here.”
I grinned and climbed back onto the bed, leaning over her and making a place for myself between her thighs.
I kissed her slowly, making sure to painstakingly ravish her mouth, and then I knelt up, holding my cock and guiding it into her.
She sighed, tipping her head back. The push home was so slick, so hot, and I had to bite my lip to keep from groaning too loud.
Taryn flexed her muscles around me, and then I did groan, long and helpless. I couldn’t hold off anymore, and I gripped her hips and fucked her, my strokes hard and lengthy.
Her back arched off the bed, her heels digging into my back. Her hands were fisted back in the sheets, twisting up the pretty floral pattern.
Watching her was as good as fucking her, I thought deliriously. Never in my life had I been so visually aroused, my focus so pulled towards every reaction from my partner.
Every time she moaned, I matched the angle and strength of my thrusts. I wanted to make her come again, one last time if it had to be that way, and I paid close attention to every clench of her pussy and every ripple of her stomach
She was close.
I leaned down over her, taking her mouth again, and then we both toppled over the edge, Taryn’s legs wrapping tight around me and holding me deep inside her.
We trembled together, swallowing up each other’s moans. I felt so fucking close to her, melted together with fire and history. I wrapped my arms around her body, under her arched spine, and gasped against her until I was drained and spent, every muscle in my body going slack.
When my vision cleared, the intense euphoria easing and my thoughts coming back down to Earth, Taryn was half-smiling.
I kissed her lazily, but mostly we just inhaled each other’s breaths, soaking up the moment. I pushed the damp hair off her forehead and framed her face with my hands, in so much awe over how stunning she was.
I didn’t have the words to say, not without making myself even more vulnerable than I already had today, and so I nuzzled her nose with a small smile.
“It happened again,” she said, dryly amused.
“We can’t be trusted around each other,” I quipped and Taryn chuckled. “At least you weren’t mad at me this time.”
“Don’t be so sure.”
I conceded to that point, leaning in to kiss her again but not quite getting there when my phone rang.
Taryn groaned. “Okay now I’m mad. Do you have to answer it?”
“If it’s who I think it is, yes.” I felt around the floor for my jeans, wrestling my phone out of the pocket. The screen flashed Ian and I turned to Taryn, kissing her briefly. “I’ll be right back.”
I rolled out of bed, grabbing up my underwear and hopping into it as I headed out into the hall and down the stairs.
“Ian?”
His voice down the line sounded muffled by people and music, the sound of some busy bar. “I got your info about that Ethan Foster guy. I know who wants him dead.”
“Where the hell are you?”
“Monroe’s,” Ian told me, trying to keep his voice hushed even under the ruckus.
“Holy shit.” That couldn’t mean what I thought it meant. “What did you find out?”
“You’re not gonna like it…”
No, I didn’t think I was.
Chapter Five
Taryn
Mason hustled me out of bed, handing me my bathrobe and urging me into the living room.
Still walking around in his underwear, the bright light of day continually reminding me what a damn fine body he had, he sat me down on the sofa.
His movements were taut and unhappy and I knew it couldn’t be good news.
“Seriously, Mason, you’re freaking me out.”
“It’s about Ethan,” he said, standing in the center of the room, arms folded tightly over his bare chest. I tensed everywhere, waiting for him to deliver the worst. “He hasn’t done anything wrong.”
“Well,” I said slowly, frowning, “that’s good, isn’t it?”
“You’d think, but the person who wants him dead is the problem.” Mason dragged a hand through his hair. “His name is Carl Monroe.” He paused for a long time, and I felt myself leaning over my knees, my heart somewhere in my throat. “He’s the leader of a criminal organization, a pretty fucking serious one.”
“How serious?”
“Drugs, kidnapping, murder, money laundering—”
“He’s the mob?” I spluttered.
“Basically, yes.”
“Oh my God.”
How—how could this have happened? How did Ethan end up wanted by the fucking mob?
“Apparently, Ethan’s father raped and murdered Carl Monroe’s daughter,” Mason explained roughly, staring beyond me—a place I couldn’t reach, a past that still haunted him. I didn’t blame him; I couldn’t believe what I was hearing either. “She probably dared to say no to him like my mother did,” he spat, a sneer on his face.
That monster. I stood, ready to comfort Mason, his name soft on my lips.
But he whirled around before I could get close, his fist connecting with my drywall with an awful, resounding crack. “That piece of fucking shit!”
“Jesus!” I darted forwards, gripping his shoulders and hauling him back. “Mason, goddammit, look at me.”
He was breathing hard, his muscles stood out tense against my hands, but he did, he looked at me, an unquenchable fire in his stare that I’d never seen before. It spoke of violence, of blood, of deeds I had no understanding of.
“His death was too quick,” he muttered feverishly. “I should’ve made him scream.”
“Mason!” I yelled, digging my fingernails into his skin—anything to bring him back to me. “He’s gone. You rid the world of that evil man and that’s all that matters.”
I unde
rstood perfectly, now, why he did what he did. Mason’s eyes were a door to the past, all the pain William Foster had spread in this world right there for me to see. That man deserved to pay for his crimes, and yesterday the police had laughed me out of the station over this whole mess. It didn’t take a genius to see that Mason had had few choices.
Did I wish he’d told me a decade ago? Yes, I thought genuinely. I’d have carried that weight for him. Better than losing him like I did, carrying a child for nine months whose father was little more than a ghost.
I couldn’t change the past, though; neither of us could. We could only deal with what was in front of us.
“It was justice,” I told him firmly, and he blinked, finally seeing me properly. “What you did was justice.”
“And revenge,” he breathed. “Murder.”
“He deserved it,” I said intently. “But you didn’t. You didn’t deserve to be the person that had to do that.”
Mason laughed humorlessly. “I did more. Worse.”
“Is that it, then?” I snapped. “This is your lot in life and you’re just gonna accept it? Keep killing forever? Live a life in the dark, full of death and loneliness?”
“I don’t know.”
He didn’t—I took a deep, steadying breath and tried not to get angry again. It wasn’t going to help either of us if we devolved into another shouting match.
“How can you say that?” I asked calmly, clinging to my temper.
“Killing is all I’m good for, Taryn.”
“That cannot possibly be true.”
“Men like William Foster leave a legacy,” Mason said flatly. “Me, Monroe, Ethan. It goes around and around and it never ends, we never get to break out of it.”
I raised my voice. “Ethan can’t die.”
Mason looked at me, startled. He blinked, the glassy look in his eyes fading. He was coming back to me in pieces but I realized I might never see a whole man here again.
I was already preparing myself to lose him again.
I pulled away, slumping back down into the sofa cushions, needing some space. “What a mess we’re in.”
“We?”
“I’m in this, Mason,” I said fiercely. “For Ethan, and for you. I’m mad as hell at you but I get it now, the terrible thing you did.”
Mason stared at me, his vulnerabilities tucked safely away now and his gaze inscrutable. I was glad; I’d had enough emotional ups and downs for one day.
“Okay,” he simply said. “Anything I find out, you’ll know too.”
“Thank you.” I nodded. “You know what, though? I’m actually kinda glad.” I looked up at the photograph on my mantle: Anna, Ethan, Daisy, and me at the beach last summer. I saw Mason frowning at me in my peripheral vision. “It means that at least Anna married a good man. We weren’t wrong about him.”
“Things are still fucked, Taryn.”
I tossed him a tired smile; it cost me what little remained of my energy. “Yeah, well, I’m a glass-half-full kinda gal.”
Mason glared, and I thought for a second he’d start ranting again, but his expression cracked into a fond, exasperated smile. “You’re nuts.”
I scoffed, so relieved that he’d finally found some humor in the situation. “Look who’s talking.”
This frankness between us was refreshing and I felt lighter for it. Mason had let me see a glimpse of his struggle, had shared the darkest part of his life with me, and I appreciated his honesty, however belated. He’d seen my love for Anna and Ethan and hadn’t shut me out of the hard reality we were all facing.
Yes, the situation was still fucked, as Mason so succinctly put it, but Ethan wasn’t his father, and that mattered.
“So, what now?” he asked, looking to me for input.
I hesitated, wary of the responsibility. “I think you need to explain all this to Ethan. He deserves to know.”
“And to my sister.”
“And to your sister, yes.”
“She’s going to hate me.”
“A few days ago I hated you,” I pointed out. “She’ll get over it.”
“Oh, you’re over it, are you?” Mason drawled, too dry and self-loathing for my liking. I had to rectify that.
“Maybe not over it,” I said honestly—he’d showed me some and now it was my turn. “But I think, maybe, I could get there.”
He seemed surprised, raising his eyebrows. Other than that, I didn’t know what he was thinking, if he believed me, if he even cared.
No, he definitely cared. I knew that much.
“I told you you were nuts,” he sighed. “Let’s just hope my sister still is.”
For everyone’s sake, I sincerely did.
Chapter Six
Mason
“I’m at work,” Taryn told me on the phone. “With Justin watching Daisy so much, I’m doing double shifts just to get the books balanced.”
I planned to meet her at the diner near closing time, a small curl of dread sitting in my stomach.
Not at her, though. Her I was excited to see, almost embarrassingly so.
The town was one thing, but that place, diner—my mother had died there. I hadn’t even walked or driven past it the whole time I’d been in the area.
Taryn had offered to meet me after she’d closed the shop, go for coffee by the lake place or even at my hotel room, but I’d declined. This homecoming had turned into something almost therapeutic, and I owed it to myself to confront this particular demon.
I hunched inside my jacket as I stepped through the door, the little bell over it ringing.
The place was fairly empty, just one booth filled with two tired-looking construction workers, empty plates in front of them and hands curled loosely around their coffee mugs.
The décor was different, cool blues and greens instead of reds, white Formica tables instead of gaudy black-and-white check, but the place felt the same, a familiar vibe. There was still the same old linoleum on the floor. There were still random napkin scribbles by the locals pinned on the back wall behind the counter. And Taryn was still in her blue skirt and white apron, at the register.
All the things that mattered still existed.
I was instantly twisted up with nostalgia, a gut-clutching feeling of powerful memories freezing me by one of the tables.
I’d bussed tables here for years, both before and after my mom died. I met Taryn here under the watchful eye of her mother and father. I was accepted into this family, along with Anna, when our elderly aunt had passed and we had nobody left to take us in, and only a future in foster care to look forward to.
And, right where I stood, I had seen my mother’s congealing blood after her brutal murder, staining the checked tables and the shiny linoleum floor.
“Mason?” Taryn said softly, appearing right in front of me while I was miles away.
“Yeah.”
“You don’t have to come in here. I told you I’d come meet you later—”
“No,” I said over her. “I’m okay.”
I walked past her coolly, taking a seat on a stool at the counter to collect myself. In the back, I could see a girl I didn’t recognize cleaning off the grill—the grill I’d cleaned countless times myself.
Those were better memories and I clung to them.
“You can get going, Zoe,” Taryn told her, peeling off her own apron and hanging it on a hook under the counter. “I’ll lock up.”
The girl thanked her, grabbing her jacket and leaving.
“How does it feel to be the boss of this place now?” I asked Taryn, struggling to relax. I felt like I was about to be attacked or something, like I was surrounded by ghosts baying for their share of my blood. Sheer paranoia, I knew, but being aware of what it was didn’t exactly eliminate it.
“It feels tiring,” Taryn sighed, pulling my attention back. “Since Mom and Dad retired to Florida, Justin and I usually share the responsibilities. Anna still does part-time management duties, but because of her honeymoon, I’m the last man standing
.”
“I haven’t helped the situation, I know.”
“No,” she agreed wryly, a flirtatious smirk on her mouth that told me she was messing with me. “You haven’t.”
“How is Daisy?” I asked tentatively.
“She’s good.” Taryn nodded. “She loves it at Uncle Justin’s place. He lets her get away with murder.”
Her choice of words was not lost on either of us, and a heavy, pointed silence filled the air for a moment.
“You miss her, though,” I said.
“I see her every day, and she’ll be home with me soon,” she said brightly, and I didn’t know how she could stay so positive about all of this. Guilt gnawed at me and Taryn seemed to see it, putting a hand over mine on the countertop. She had an insatiable need to put everyone at ease, and I allowed her to do it, making my guilt weigh even heavier. “Hey. Stop that. You came back and you threw everything into a tailspin, yes, but you’re not responsible for the price on Ethan’s head. That would’ve happened regardless of you being here.”
“You said death seemed to follow me everywhere.”
“I was angry.”
“And you weren’t wrong,” I said firmly.
“You’re a ray of sunshine today,” Taryn quipped. “Here, have some pie.” She turned to grab a slice of apple out of the heated glass cabinet and slammed it down in front of me. “Our chef makes great pie.”
I raised an eyebrow at her. “Pie?”
“What, hitmen don’t eat pie?” she asked quietly, ducking down close to me to whisper it so the customers couldn’t hear.
I couldn’t stop myself from chuckling. “No, we eat nails and rocks because we’re tough guys.”
Taryn tossed me a fork. “Then you’re in for a pleasant surprise.”
She cleaned up whilst I ate, and it was pretty damn good pie, I had to admit. By the time I was finished, the construction workers had thanked and tipped and left, and it was just me and Taryn and my slightly lighter mood.
“Told you it was good,” she said, wiping her hands on a towel. “I can see it in your eyes.”
“It helped,” I grudgingly admitted.