He looks at her under the garden’s soft lantern light, his gaze hungry and constrained. Like he’s starved but doesn’t want to bite her.
June turns her eyes back to the pond, mulling over his words. She decides she believes him. Mason’s reasoning sounds a lot like her tattoos, deeply instinctive and frequently without a good explanation, or at least none that anyone else can understand.
The fact is, everything has changed in the last few months. For them both. She doesn’t belong to Razo. And Mason’s father—the man who burned and hit him the way Razo burned and hit her—is dead.
“Do you miss him? Your father, I mean,” she asks.
Mason goes back to staring down at the water for a long time before finally admitting, “Yeah, but not the way you might think. It’s… it’s hard not to have somebody to hate. Somebody to direct all your anger at. When that goes away, you have to live your life, and you can’t hide behind what fucked you up anymore. You have to deal with who you are, and the choices you’ve made.”
June thinks about Razo again. About her recent struggles to move on and learn how to live without his tyranny. She nods, completely understanding.
“June?” he asks.
She looks up. “Yes?”
“You and Jordan. You real kin?”
June clamps her lips tight, but then thinks about all he’s told her, all he’s shared. And she decides to trust him. Again.
She shakes her head.
“That’s what I thought. D might say you and I got to work on that. File some adoption papers, so the state don’t try to get involved and split you up. I’ll make a few calls. How old are you anyway?”
“Twenty-four,” she answers. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-seven.” He grins. “You’re older than I thought. Mind you, I ain’t complaining. It’s good to know I don’t have to feel like a pervert on top of everything else.”
“You’re younger than I thought,” she admits. “I’m not complaining either.”
He chuckles. She smiles.
They stand for a little while longer on the red bridge. Beneath the sliver of crescent moon. Above the brightly colored, non-native fish who are oblivious to their presence, maybe even drifting to sleep.
The silence becomes comfortable again. Until June says, “Mason, you almost done with your beer? Because I think I know where we should go next.”
Chapter 20
Mason
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Mason has really been trying. Trying hard not to—
But when he sees where she’s brought them, he can no longer deny what he’s been suspecting since he came back to her and the kid.
He’s falling in love. He knows it for a fact as soon as the huge drive-in movie screen appears over the horizon. And by the time the movie credits roll on Shaolin, the kung fu movie she’d taken him to see, he can’t deny his feelings any more.
“Did you like it?” June asks, smiling up at him shyly.
Truth is, martial arts films have never really been his thing. But all that’s changed. Mason will always love martial arts movies from here on out because they will remind him of tonight. Of sitting in the cab of his truck with June curled up under his arm.
“Yeah, I liked it,” he answers, his words all but drowned out by the intensity of his feelings. And I’m falling in love with you.
But he stops himself from saying the words out loud, recalls his uncle’s hunting advice: “Don’t move too quick, boy. If you’ve got a critter in your sights, you got to be patient so you don’t scare it away.” Mason can be patient. He has to be.
He swallows and instead of telling June how fucking mind-blown he is by her thoughtful date night substitutions, he says, “I should have planned tonight better. I’m sorry for putting it all on you.”
She responds with another of her rare smiles. One so shy and hesitant, it makes him feel like they’re meeting for the first time. “Oh, it’s okay,” she says. “I never got to be in charge of plans like this. It feels like a real gift.”
Jesus, she’s killing him. Despite the wings on his back, he feels like he’s plummeting fast and hard. He has to bite down on the inside of his cheek to keep from telling her how he feels.
Instead, he says, “You need to go to the doctor.” The words come out way more emphatic than he means them to. She leans back in obvious surprise and not a little confusion.
“I mean, I been to the doctor.” As he says this, he realizes how stupid he must sound. He knows he’s not making any sense.
Mason shakes his head, forces himself to talk straight. “What I mean to say is, I’m clean. And…well I think you should get checked out, too, because of…”
That killing feeling comes over him again. His fists open and close. He wants his knife, just thinking of that Razo fuck.
“Mason?”
Her gentle voice pulls him out of the killing rage. It’s the emotional equivalent of her taking his gun and dismantling it right in front of him.
“I already been to the doctor. Soon as I got my health insurance. I’m clear and…”
Her eyes dim beneath the dim overhead lights of the drive-in parking lot, even as she forces a smile to her lovely face. “Well, it doesn’t look like I can get pregnant. My ovaries are in bad shape, according to the doctor. Which I guess explains why it never happened before. I mean, I tried to use protection but towards the end there…well,” June stops and glances down. “Anyway, we can do it however you want tonight.”
Actually, he hadn’t been worried about her getting pregnant. But now that he knows the situation, it makes him a little sad. June’s only twenty-four, and though she’s obviously trying to put a nice spin on her situation, Mason knows it must be hard for her to deal with, especially after what she’d already been through.
He swallows, searching desperately for something helpful to say. “Then we really better get that paperwork started on Jordan. Make him your kid, officially.”
Her face brightens and she smiles. Which makes him feel like he’s getting some kind of medal pinned on his chest.
Until he recalls the last time he tried to do something official for her, sending her that GED book in the mail. “Uh, June. My source is going to need your last name, but you never told me yours.”
She winces. “You’re not going to believe me when I tell you.”
“Why? What is it?”
“Mason.”
“Yeah?”
“No, that’s my last name. It’s Mason.”
He looks at her. Laughs out loud. “You’re fucking with me.”
June shakes her head. “I knew you wouldn’t believe me.”
But he persists, “Nah, come on June. You’re fucking with me, right?”
She shakes her head gently.
He leans forward to cup her round face in his huge hands. “Cuz if you ain’t fuckin with me, then this really is starting to feel a whole lot like fate.”
“Serendipity,” she murmurs.
“Seren-what?” he asks, thinking—not for the first time—that his schooling wasn’t nearly as thorough as hers. She’s too smart for him. Too beautiful. Too everything.
“Serendipity. It’s another word for fate,” she answers.
Fuck not deserving her…Mason kisses her anyway.
Kisses the woman life branded with his name from the start. He could’ve spent the night with her in that truck. Might’ve done it, too. If a movie lot attendant didn’t choose that moment to bang on his window and tell them it was time to leave. So they did.
Chapter 21
“Fairgood love ain’t nice. It’s instant, relentless, and rough. 50 Shades of Hillbilly,” his other cousin Colin joked, when they made up over beers after everything that went down in Los Angeles.
The new generation of Fairgoods is definitely an upgrade. They don’t hit women or children. But in some ways, they’re just as intense as their fathers before them. Because when it comes to love, they go all in. Fall harder than anybo
dy else with a lick of sense would ever do. Mason guesses all that intensity has to go somewhere when it’s not being filtered through a lens of hate. So…love it is.
That said, June is still healing. Six years with that little fuck, and it’s going to take a while. He’s got to keep things to himself for now.
That night, he places her on a bed covered in rose petals (he’s proud he managed to make that happen while June was at work), and makes love to her in a room filled with the soft glow of candlelight. Mason gives her slow kisses, keeping his touch purposefully gentle. He treats June like she’s something delicate and precious. Whispers sweet things in her ears without any cussing—a feat she probably didn’t even know he was capable of.
The night before had been all about the consummation. About finally claiming her as his.
But tonight, it’s all about the warm candlelight, the rose scented room, him kissing her all over, before asking her to open up for him.
She does so willingly. And then he drops his head between her legs. Lapping at her core. Gentle this time. Showing her he’s not always set on “animal” mode.
“Mason, please stop…”
June pushes at his head, and he stops immediately, feeling confused. Climbs back up to ask, “Did I hurt you? Are you okay?”
She looks away, embarrassment shading her candlelit eyes.
“Tell me,” he says. “Whatever it is, you can tell me. All I want is to make you happy. Tonight is all about you, June. So if I ain’t being gentle enough...”
“No, no…it’s not…” The words tumble out of her. Then trail off.
And here comes the panicked feeling again. Right on cue. The feeling that tells him he’s in way over his head. That he’s like a motorcycle that can’t be fixed—a junk bike—no matter how many ravens, trees, and wings you paint on it. Mason hates himself for not being able to do this right.
And the shame…he’s nearly overwhelmed with memories of who he was before. Along with the weird guilt of wanting her to be his more than anything else, but wishing better for her.
“Not like this.” Her quiet voice brings him back from his personal brink. “I don’t—I can’t do it like this.”
Mason stills on top of her, his soul taking on an intense new heat as he understands what she’s trying to tell him. “You mean it’s too gentle for you? You want me to take you rough?”
June nods, turning her head to the side. Maybe feeling ashamed.
“Thank fuck! Put me inside you…”
She does, one hand wrapped around his thick length as she guides him toward her wet entrance. Only now, he drives into her as soon as his tip hits her tight hole, filling her wet heat with one thrust.
All former gentleness goes right out the window, and now he’s fucking her so heavy, both their bodies jerk upwards with every hard stroke.
Mason’s hands run up the sides of her arms, lifting them up and over her head, before he pins them down with one huge hand on her wrists.
He’s giving it to her rough, like she asked. But something comes over her.
Not fear. He knows when she’s afraid, especially of him.
She bucks under him, tearing her wrists from his grip with a strength he didn’t think she had in her. Cussing, scratching, pushing hard, even after he stops moving on top of her. Until suddenly, the sound of a sharp slap cracks through the candlelit room.
Mason reaches up to rub his face, his cheek stinging from her unexpected slap.
And she blinks, as if coming out of a trance. “Why did I do that?” she asks. Him or herself? He can’t tell.
“Because you wanted me to stop?” he hazards, treading very carefully.
But she’s shaking her head almost before the words are out of his mouth. “No, I liked it. I was really liking it. But then I just wanted to hit you. I can’t explain it. I just wanted to fight back. I guess because I could? I’m so sorry!”
She looks up, her eyes sorrowful with apology. “And your face! Mason, I’m so sorry I hurt you! But you didn’t do anything wrong. I promise. I wanted… I don’t know what I wanted. Or why I wanted to fight you when you were just trying to please me... Oh God, I’m so messed up.”
“Okay then…can I fuck you while you fight me?”
Her eyes saucer. Confusion overtaking regret.
“Um, what?” she whispers.
He tries to keep his expression blank, the way he always does when he’s feeling too much. But she’s tripped one of his secret wires, and it’s taking everything he has to keep himself in check.
“You got my permission,” he grounds out. “What I mean is, you can hit me. Hard as you like. It don’t matter so long as I’m fucking you while it happens.”
As so often occurs with her, he can hear her thoughts almost as clearly as if she’s speaking out loud. But it does matter! It’s wrong, and—
“Fuck, June, I’m trying. Really I am. But you got me so hot right now. I can’t wait for you to think this out. Either tell me to get off you, or hit me again. But decide something. I can’t, I can’t...”
He grits his teeth, unable to finish.
And she slaps him again, even harder this time, without any restraint whatsoever. Like she didn’t even pause to think about it.
Mason barely flinches. But something goes dark in him, revving his engine up well and good.
And when he drives into her the next time, it’s like nothing he’s ever experienced. Raw animal sounds come out of him as he moves between her legs. Mercilessly fucking her, even as she slaps at his thick shoulders, her fists pounding against his back, giving him all her anger, all her rage…
Until she can’t hit anymore. Not because he stops her, but because an orgasm overtakes her. Wiping her out with its intensity. And as for the rutting beast on top of her…
Mason lets out a ragged sound, something between a growl and a keen, before his entire body shudders. His cock kicks, deep sensation shooting up his spine, right before he floods a hot river between her legs.
“Mason!” she gasps as another orgasm washes over her. This time, instead of hitting him, she holds on for dear life. Like he’s her only port in an unexpectedly intense storm.
The silence that follows is way more intense, more charged than any they’ve ever had between them. And that’s fucking saying something, considering how quiet things usually are with them.
June is weeping. Hot tears spill from her eyes.
Oh fuck…
“Ssh,” he says. Mason pulls out of her, lifts himself off her body, and rolls her into his arms. “It’s okay, June.”
“No! It’s not okay. I hit you! I hit you!” she sniffs. “Just like your father.”
Fuck, this girl is trying to kill him. Thinking about him, when she really should be thinking about herself. He’s falling…falling…
“Not like my old man,” Mason insists. “You’re nothing at all like him. You went through some shit, June. Now you’re working it out with me. However, I’m not going to lie to you, sweetness. You fighting me like that—it’s hot as hell.”
June sniffs again. Then asks, “Have you ever done that before?”
“Nope. Never knew it was something I wanted to do. Most women probably wouldn’t dare, and truth is, it never would have occurred to me to ask for it if you hadn’t tried it first. But fuck, you took it to the next level, sweetness. Thank you.”
His words seem to relax her. And when he looks down, she’s smiling against his chest with an expression he hasn’t seen on her face before: pride.
Even though he still has reservations about the guy she’s decided to get mixed up with, he begins to think maybe this relationship of theirs could work. True, they got no business together, but they also got more going for them than a lot of other folks. Hot sex. Understanding. Maybe if he keeps this up, keeps doing for her, protecting her, and making sure she stays well-fucked, well, maybe one of these days she’ll start falling for him, too.
Chapter 22
June
It’s a soul quake of a night. June falls asleep feeling like her relationship with Mason has entered a new phase. Not because of the sex, but because of the trust.
He trusted her to hit him. And she trusted him not to hurt her when she unleashed all her pent up anger and rage.
She wakes up in the morning feeling refreshed and brand new. Like a phoenix. Reborn from the ashes of her past.
Which is why she’s surprised to find herself alone in bed. The open doors and windows are the only sign Mason was ever there.
She puts on her nightshirt and goes to kitchen.
He’s not there either. The windows are closed and sealed up, like they always are before Mason joins her and Jordan for breakfast. Only the door leading outside is wide open.
Shivering in the morning cold, June pads down the short path between the house and the barn in her bare feet. She finds him in the barn, exercising. Chin-ups on an iron bar. Or pull-ups. She can never be sure of the difference. Only vaguely remembers not being able to do even one during her PE tests in that other lifetime.
But there he is doing them at a steady pace, only his sweat-glistened shoulders giving any indication it requires any effort whatsoever. She watches, completely mesmerized by the display of his muscles and stamina, until he sees her and stops.
“Hey,” he says, dropping down to the barn’s newly tiled floor. “Testing out the new chin-up bar I installed on Friday. It’s holding up good. Barn’s old, but not a total piece of shit like most buildings you see these days. It’s got strong walls.”
Yes, very strong walls, she thinks, her eyes floating to his pecs. No bruises there. But she still remembers what it felt like to push against his unyielding muscles, only to have his chest drop down on top of hers. Crushing her breasts flat as he fucked her into the bed.
Okay, okay…she thinks, her face heating up. She raises both hands with a nod. A clear signal that she’s happy to leave him to it.
His to Own: 50 Loving States, Arkansas Page 14