When Its Least Expected

by Heather Van Fleet

  “Mason, stop … please,” she quietly begged, curling her knees up under her chin on the

  swing. He reached over and squeezed her hand in reassurance. She relaxed but still looked

  uneasy. It was only the beginning. She hadn’t heard anything yet.

  He’d been resisting telling her his secrets, but she needed to know why he was such an

  ass all the time. That way she could finally get the courage to walk away, something he could no longer do himself.

  “I’m not a perfect guy, little beast. I’ve done things and said things that I’m ashamed of,”

  he looked away and sighed, rubbing his hand down the front of his face as he stood. Harley had so much pain as it was. Did she really need to witness his pain too?

  He leaned up against the railings of the porch, looking out onto the quiet, country road in front of her house. Seconds later she was behind him, her hands braced against his shoulder blades, and he felt the warmth of her cheek press against his back even through the material of his shirt.

  “I’m here, Mason. You can trust me with your secrets.” He turned back to face her, rage

  taking hold as he grabbed her wrists and held them down at her sides. He was ready to yell at her, to scream and tell her that she didn’t want to know his secrets, but her serene face and parted lips distracted him from his anger.

  Yeah, okay, maybe he could do this after all…

  “It was almost seven months ago when it all went down,” he swallowed and turned his

  face away, but this time, she interlocked his hand with her own. He selfishly sucked in her strength through her touch. “My dad had decided that we were going to get up early on a

  Saturday and hit our favorite spot for waves in Santa Cruz. It’s called Paradise Point and we’d been going there since my dad first placed a long board in my hands when I was five. He

  checked the swell report that day and everything was looking good for perfect morning waves.”

  Mason rolled his shoulders back and forth, an attempt to ease the growing knot in his

  neck. He was relinquishing all of his vulnerability by telling Harley this, like she had done for him.

  It was the hardest damn thing he’d ever done.

  “When we got out of the car, I looked over at my dad, and I saw how pale his skin had

  become. He kept telling me that he had heartburn or something and that he didn’t think he was up for the waves after all, but I was a spoiled jack ass. I kept pushing and pushing him. I called him a pansy and an old man, but he wasn’t, you know? He was only forty, and he was super

  athletic, with more muscles than I have. He ate like a damn bird – fruits, veggies, chicken. The guy never ate red meat for shits sake.” Mason laughed dryly, running a hand through his thick hair. The memory was still too fresh. It’d be a miracle if he could get through this without crying like a wussy.

  “But we always had this easy ability to joke with one another like that. He said crap to

  me, I gave it back. Hell, he was a bigger smart as then I am.”

  “I know how that is, Mase. David and I share the same thing with each other.” Harley’s

  smile was all he needed to calm his inner demons. She had a gift that he was never going to want to share with anyone. He shook his head at the insane thought and grabbed her other hand,

  holding them both tightly against his chest. She was inches from him, and her strawberry smell was intoxicating. He wanted to nuzzle his nose against her neck. He wanted to lock that smell into his senses forever, but he held back. He wasn’t done with his story yet. She might want to run away still after he told her.

  “I was so damn worried about missing all the good waves, especially since he was the

  one who had woken me up anyways that morning. I was exhausted from a late night of partying, and I didn’t even give a shit that my dad was miserable. I kept thinking that it served him right for getting me up so early, so I was an insensitive ass, took off to hit the waves, sans my old man. I didn’t even a look back at him. All I cared about in that moment was getting my daily adrenaline rush and getting rid of my hangover.”

  Mason paused to look down at Harley, expecting to see a look of disgust in her eyes, but

  to his surprise, all he saw was encouragement intermingled with little bit of sadness. He

  swallowed a ball of crappiness in his throat.

  “I’d been out there for twenty minutes, I think, and I still hadn’t seen any sign of my dad.

  I was pissed, and I kept cussing him out in my head. I figured he had stayed in the car after all, so I kept surfing, escaping in the waves. Finally when I got my shit together and got past my bitterness, I decided to finally go hunt him down,” he closed his eyes, and the memory tore at his chest. The pain was too much.

  “Forty-five minutes later, I found him lying against the front of our car … dead.” Mason

  slugged a wooden beam on the deck, and Harley jumped, a gasp left her mouth. Good, he wanted to scare her. He was tainted; she needed to know how badly now. “I tried waking him up, I did CPR, and then I looked over and noticed his cell was in his hands, that he’d tried calling 911.”

  He pushed away from the railing, his hands so tightly balled that he was sure blood would drip from his nails digging into his skin. “Harley, he was dying and there I was, off surfing, not a care in my ridiculously, selfish world.”

  The pain was building in his chest; he couldn’t fight it much longer. He sure as hell

  couldn’t start balling like a baby. Shit, he never even cried as his dad’s funeral! Why the hell was he struggling now?

  A soft, tentative finger was there under his eyes, catching the tears that had fallen without his permission. He stared down at Harley’s wet face, and not a trace of laughter or disgust was on her cheeks. God, she was a blessed miracle that he didn’t deserve.

  “We found out later that it was a massive heart attack.” Pity formed in her eyes. That was

  too much. He pushed away from her, walking towards the other side of the porch. He couldn’t deal with pity. “I should have been there for him! I was too freaking selfish with my own crappy issues to notice my dying dad, less than two hundred yards away. I should have been able to save him.” Feeling hesitant and embarrassed from his weakened emotions, Mason placed his head

  into his hands, trying to erase the ache.

  It wasn’t working. Hell, it never did! He was forever destined to live in guilt. That was

  how it was supposed to be. He deserved an eternity of misery for what he’d done.

  “Jesus, Mason, don’t you dare blame yourself! It wasn’t your fault. Wasn’t that what you

  just told me?” He glanced over his shoulder, almost amused with the way Harley’s pony tail

  flicked back and forth behind her. Then when she was there in front of him wrapping her arms around his waist, he knew he was both a hypocrite and a goner. She had him so tightly woven around her finger and into her world that he’d be damned if he lost her too.

  Nobody needed to erase Mason’s guilt especially not Harley. It was the only thing he had

  left that served as a reminder of that day. Hastily, he turned around, pushing her away by the shoulders. His temper was on the verge of flaring again, and she had to steer clear of it. “Don’t try to take the blame away from me, Harley. It’s my fault he’s dead, and no matter what you or anyone else says, my guilt won’t go away.” Harley’s eyes widened, and her mouth hung open in what he could only assume was shock. At least she gave him the space he’d demanded.

  Truthfully, he loved the way her arms felt wrapped around him and missed it when she

  wasn’t there.

  Yeah, Mason was probably preaching to the choir. Like he said, he was hypocrite, but he

  could have saved his dad if only he’d been there to call an ambulance, to do earlier CPR.

  Anything – something!

  “No, Mason, you don’t get to do thi
s.” The fierceness in her eyes was back, and his anger

  began to lighten. “You don’t get to blame yourself especially when you just told me that I can’t blame myself for what happened with my brother or with Aiden.” Her voice rose. She was yelling, and she was damn sexy doing it.

  He was officially losing his mind. One minute he was crying, and the next minute he was

  lusting, desiring.

  He was one messed up son of a bitch.

  She moved against the railing to stand next to him, shoulder to shoulder, arm to arm.

  Together, his equal. Equal. That one word was his final straw. He had to get those lips of hers back onto his.

  He whipped his arms around her waist, and pushed her back against the side of a post,

  one hand on each side of her head, pressing his front flush with hers. She tried to fight him, but the anger that had darkened her eyes was fast replaced with the passion. He smiled, his breath coming out in pants.

  Holy hell, she wanted him too, and he was going to have her.

  Their bodies were glued together like they were once before. Both were breathing

  rapidly, and the cool fall air did nothing to keep the heat between them at bay. When her eyes shut, Mason knew it was time to take her over completely.

  “No more talking, little beast.”

  Her mouth opened as if to do just that, but he grabbed her by the nape of her neck

  threading his fingers through those waves and silencing her words. Her warm breath

  intermingled with his, and he lost it, finally, crashing his lips down onto hers.

  This wasn’t right. His little beast needed to have someone to cherish her like she was a

  breakable treasure. Then she pushed as hard against him as he was her, and he knew right then and there that he’d made the right choice. No tenderness … pure, animalistic lust; that’s all this was. That’s what they both needed.

  Or was it?

  Her tongue pressed against his lips first, and he eagerly accepted, opening wide. This was

  unlike their kisses that night in her bed. If it had been this hot, then there was no way he would have been able to walk away from her then. With her hand tucked cozily under his t-shirt on his stomach, she began to trace the lines of his abs with her finger nails. Mason growled deep in his throat at her teasing and immediately reciprocated, his own fingers finding a home over the front of her hoodie.

  Harley moaned in response and arched into his touch. He was about two seconds away

  from throwing her over his shoulder caveman style and depositing her into the backseat of his car.

  A noise sounded in the distance. He probably should have pulled away, but her fingers

  were too torturous, too distracting, as they wandered around his stomach and up his chest.

  He couldn’t stop now if she begged him to.

  “Get your God damn hands off my sister, you stupid shit!” Crap. Okay, that’ll ruin the

  moment. Mason pulled away gasping only to stare down at Harley’s still closed eyes. Her cheeks were red, and her mouth was swollen from his kisses. Wow … he had no word to describe her as other than stunning.

  David cleared his throat, and instead of looking shocked when her eyes reopened, Harley

  looked pissed – raging, mad pissed. Mason stared back over at her brother, his heart still racing as he took in David’s hatred filled face. The dude may have been in a wheel chair and legless, but he had arms the size of cannons and a temper that’s seemed to exceed his own.

  Harley turned around. All the calm, cool collectedness was gone as she walked towards

  her brother. Evil intent was in her steps as she slapped her feet against the wood. Mason held back a bubble of laughter. He’d gone and fell for one hot, murderous girl.

  “David you better shut the hell up, before I make you.” His little beast was back, and

  fiercer than ever. He smiled, ear to ear. “Now wheel your ass back inside so that I can pretend you never came out here.”

  David paled at her words and responded with an I’ve-been-put-in-my-place kind of

  frown. “God, Harley. Mom just wanted me to tell you that the pancakes were ready, jeez…” He whined, crossing his arms over his chest as he slumped low in his chair. Harley in return

  whispered something back, smirking the entire time. David frowned harder and responded with a roar. “What do you expect, Har? The dude’s hands were all over you, and I don’t like seeing his tongue in your mouth. It’s …just … nasty…”

  With one last hate-fueled look towards Mason, David left. Mason smirked at his backside

  before his stomach began to clench with unease. Shit … now he had an enemy on his hands.

  “Umm … so … where do we go from here, Mason? It feels to me that we’re kind of

  going somewhere when we kiss like we just did,” Harley purred as she slowly traipsed back over to him.

  She was all vixen that girl, totally un-Harley like. Mason graced her with his own one

  sided smile. He liked this side of her. Oh, the things he could do with that side of her. Then when she finally reached him and began running her fingers along the cording of his necklace that lied snugly around his throat, Mason almost lost control again.

  “You know what I want, little beast.” Mason uncharacteristically stammered. A slight

  raspy tone echoed in his voice as he grabbed her hips. He was losing it … losing his heart and it was scary as shit but undeniable and glorious all at the same time.

  Shit … glorious? That wasn’t a manly word. What the hell?

  “Well could you possibly refresh my memory then, Mason? I never can seem to

  remember anything when I’m with you. You’re rather … distracting.” Damn, was she sexy, but

  he had to give her time to think this through.

  Sure they had one hell of a good time kissing. They meshed together like they belonged

  to each other, but Harley wasn’t thinking with her head. She was thinking with her heart and apparently her new found hormones too…

  He grabbed her hands in an attempt to ward them off his body. He was done ravishing her

  body in the wide open. He wanted her alone and in some place a little more private the next time he decided to lose control. “Well, I’ll tell you what, little beast. I’m going to let you stew on that kiss for a day or two. When you figure out what it is that you want, you come find me.” His grin was playful, and he positioned his hands against her side before tucking his own into his pocket.

  He leaned forehead and kissed her forehead, the warmth of her head on his lips made his body sizzle. Their eyes met as he pulled back. Confusion and desire was there in her eyes still, and he needed to leave before he changed his mind.

  He turned away, his body screaming obscenities at him as he did. He just hoped he hadn’t

  pissed her off with his cryptic response.

  Like he said before, the girl needed time to decide because rushing into a relationship

  with him wasn’t something she could take lightly. Hell, he had his own thinking to do. He had things to figure out like how in the hell would he be able to part from her when he left to go back to Cali.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The constant up and downs of the past week had taken its toll on Harley’s body. She was

  truly sick now and had been since Wednesday afternoon; right after Mason had so easily escaped from her front porch.

  She was feverish. She was snotty. She felt like shit. A simple head cold was feeling like it was going to kill her. She was sure of it. She had missed the rest of the school week because of it and was so out of sorts that she didn’t even know what day it was until Abigail came waltzing into her room, beauty torture devices in hand.

  Dammit. Was it Saturday already? That only meant one thing – it was dance day. How

  was she going to make it through an entire dance when she could barely get out of bed?

 
; “Knock, knock!” Abigail’s all too cheery voice said it all. Harley groaned, pulling the

  covers over her head. “None of that grumpiness, girlfriend! This should be a happy day. Well, except for that nasty cold you have going on,” Abigail pulled the covers back. Harley let her, but her pouty lips were going to make it known that she wasn’t happy about the intrusion.

  It was pointless to fight Abs though. She always won, no matter the battle. “Man, you do look like crap!” Her bluntness sucked, but Harley was used to it. It was actually the one and only Abigail characteristic that she could love and hate at the same time.

  Abigail sat down next to her on the bed, as she pinched her chin with her thumb and

  forefinger. She sighed, “It’s going to take a lot of work to make that swelling disappear under your eyes, Harley Ann, and I don’t have the time or the money to call in the plastic surgeon.”

  “Whatever, Abs. Just tell me what the first order of torture is.” She pushed Abigail’s

  hands away and sat up. “Nails, hair, make-up? One of those mud mask thingies?” Harley hid her giggle with her fingers as Abigail’s frown spread across her lips.

  “Well, smarty pants, I was thinking hair first, and then make-up, and then a light pink

  iridescent polish for the toes and fingers. Whaddya say?”

  Harley rolled her eyes. “Whatever. You know I don’t give a crap about that kind of

  stuff.” It was the truth. Well, at least partially.

  A little piece of Harley wanted to look hot for herself and, yeah, maybe even for Mason.

  She wanted to be someone special, someone beautiful if only for one night. Sure, it wouldn’t hurt if she looked edible too. That way, maybe, Mason would kiss her again.

  Then she sneezed three times in a row with snot and everything. She frowned harder.

  Crap. Obviously there wouldn’t be any kisses after all.

  Abigail grinned like she could totally hear her thoughts, but for once she kept her mouth

  shut as she stood to ready all of her craptastic torture devices. Harley peeked around her busy body, noting about fifty different curling things – some had cords, some didn’t. Each and every object though represented immediate torture. Harley groaned. Teeth extraction sounded like a better option at that point.