BOUND: A Dark Bad Boy Romance

by Leah Wilde

  But I should have known better than to assume that any kiss with Mason would be less than explosive.

  One hand wound into my hair, pulling it free of its bun so that he could clutch tightly at the strands. The other went lower to move over the pockets of my jeans. He squeezed my ass tightly, pulling me against his crotch at the same time. I felt his tongue slide against the seam of my lips, demanding entrance. And like all his demands, I obliged.

  We tasted each other. I let his hands explore my body all over again, dipping beneath my shirt to my bare back. I knew that I wasn’t wearing a bra. I was waiting for that moment when his fingertips would reach the underside of my breast.

  When they did, I heard the clearing of a throat.

  Breaking the kiss instantly, I flushed with embarrassment, glancing over at Clay. He was the standard picture of calm. Our little display hadn’t bothered him, but he must have wanted to get back to work.

  “Don’t worry. Clay doesn’t mind,” Mason told me in a low husky tone, repeating those same words he’d used on me that first time.

  I swatted at him. “Yeah, well, I mind. There’s a damn body on the street!”

  Mason shrugged like it didn’t bother him, but he didn’t try to pull me back in for another kiss. Instead, he turned to Clay. “Did you actually call Billy?” he asked and I winced. I worried that if Clay answered yes, it would not be good for his health.

  “Mason,” I began, but both men ignored me.

  “Yeah, boss. I did. I really fucked up.”

  Mason went stiff against me, letting me know that Clay really was on thin ice. “Why? I explicitly said no one else.”

  Clay shook his head. “He worked with me and Sasha.” He motioned with his head towards me. “But I didn’t tell him we were moving the stash tonight. I just told him to be on alert, you know? Like I was. To make sure nothing suspicious was going on.” Clay let out a sigh and shook his head. “I should’ve fucking killed that guy.”

  Mason waved him off. “Already taken care of. Prick’s in the damn store.”

  Clay nodded, but said nothing else. I realized he was waiting for Mason to make some kind of decision. When I looked over at Mason’s face again, I saw that it was blank. Devoid of emotion. He was thinking on everything, coming to a conclusion.

  Gripping his shirt, I whispered, “Mason.”

  I didn’t know if he heard me or not, but a moment later, he sighed and said, “Don’t screw up like that again. I don’t put up with fuck ups for long.”

  Clay’s shoulders relaxed ever so slightly, the only indication that he had been concerned about Mason’s decision. Then he nodded his head. “Yes, sir.”

  “Jesus, two bodies in one night,” Mason muttered, glancing back at Jimmy.

  I still didn’t want to think about dead people, so I worked hard to keep my gaze focused on Clay instead. He glanced first at Jimmy, then towards the shop.

  “I’ll take care of ‘em, boss,” he said gruffly. “Since it was my fault anyway.”

  Mason gave a single quick nod. “Fine. I’m taking Sasha home. If there are any more problems, you call my cell. No one else. Understand?”

  Clay assured him that he would call if there were any hang ups. Mason walked me to his car, even opening the door for me. I was pretty sure it was only because I was in shock, but I appreciated the gesture just the same. Sliding down into my seat, I was grateful when Mason got in and started the car.

  The ride was blissfully silent, but when Mason pulled into my driveway, he turned to me. “Have you reconsidered after your little taste of life in the fast lane?” He offered me a smirk and clearly was trying to play this off as no big deal, but I sensed that my answer was important to him.

  I tilted my head to the side so that I could look at him. I was exhausted, so I didn’t try to be snarky. Instead, I just said, “No. I meant what I said. I’m in. Partner in full, so don’t forget it.”

  His smirk widened into a grin and he nodded once, then got out of the car.

  Groaning, I made myself open the door and got out. Together we walked to the door and I unlocked it, then pushed it open and headed inside. I half expected him to tell me he’d see me later and leave, but instead he followed me inside. We lingered just past the door and for a moment I had no idea what to do. Then I remembered that I was an adult and we’d already hashed all this out.

  Clay was taking care of the bodies, which I refused to think about because that would probably make me have to deal with whatever psychological drama that caused. My son was safely tucked away at Steph’s. There was nothing else to think about except the fact that Mason Marsh was standing in my living room looking just as sexy as he had when he appeared on my doorstep a couple of hours earlier.

  “Do you want to have a seat?” I asked, gesturing to the couch.

  He smiled at me. “Sure. I’ll sit, but only because I want you to ride me.”

  Fire ignited within me, eager after the danger and the death tonight. I felt it run along my skin beneath my clothes, spreading until heat coalesced between my legs. I let out a shaky breath and when he started confidently walking to the couch, I followed him.

  He sat down, slouching in the middle of the couch. His legs were spread wide until it seemed like he was taking up all the available space. Then he looked up at me with dark, lusty eyes and he motioned for me to sit. On him.

  I swallowed and did what he wanted. I straddled him, putting one leg on either side of his hips until my core hovered just above his manhood. His jeans were strained and my underwear was wet. I thought briefly about standing back up to undress myself, but then his hands were on either side of my face, pulling me to him. His lips crashed against mine, insistent and ravaging. I lost myself to him.

  His hands went to my rear, squeezing me and pulling me against him, encouraging me to begin moving over him. I gasped when I felt his hardness beneath his jeans.

  I began to move on my own, grinding myself against him, wishing that we’d paused long enough to get undressed. I moaned into his mouth when he squeezed my butt again, and kept moving as his hands traveled up higher. They slipped beneath my shirt to find bare skin, rising higher and higher up my back until they could confirm that I wasn’t wearing a bra.

  He had to momentarily break the kiss, because his hands hadn’t stopped moving, but they couldn’t lift the shirt any farther while we were connected. So I pulled back slightly and lifted my arms, letting him push the shirt up until my breasts were exposed. I jerked the shirt off the rest of the way, and threw it on the couch beside us.

  Mason took a moment to appreciate my breasts, which he loved from the beginning. His hands went to them, weighing them in his palms and then squeezing them.

  I gasped, “Yes!”

  His thumbs ran over the nipples until they were hard pebbles, and then I felt a spark of pleasure and surprise when I felt his mouth slip over the left one. I groaned as his teeth grazed the hardened peak, my hands going to his hair to rake through it.

  I held him to my breast, grinding my core against him at the same time, working us both up into a frenzy.

  “Mason, yes, please,” I murmured.

  His left hand drifted from my breast, down my waist and to the waistband of my jeans. Moving towards the middle, he found the button and popped it. Then he undid the zipper so that he could slip his fingers down the front to find my aching, wet core.

  The door opened. I froze.

  “Oh my god, Sasha!”

  It was Steph and she was horrified.

  Chapter Eighteen

  There was a long awkward moment where Mason continued to suckle my breast and slide his fingers along my moist center. And it still felt good. My body was begging me to just let go, to ride Mason’s hand towards my own satisfaction, but my brain just wasn’t having it. This wasn’t like when Clay watched us. He understood parts of the situation that Steph never could. And Clay also knew now that Mason and I had reached some sort of understanding, though he hadn’t been told outrig
ht.

  But Steph? All Steph was seeing was Mason blackmailing me into being a whore.

  “Jesus,” she breathed, her eyes huge as she looked at us. Then her expression began to shift to one of anger. “Get the hell off of—”

  “Steph, wait.”

  I covered my exposed breasts—well, breast, since Mason was still laving the other one with his tongue—and reached between us to grab his wrist. I tugged on it to get his hand out of my pants. For a second, he didn’t budge. It was more than obvious that he didn’t care if someone was watching us; he wanted me, damn everything else.

  “Mason,” I hissed.

  A moment later, he sighed against my breast, his hot breath cascading over my skin and making me shiver involuntarily. Then he pulled away and when I tugged on his wrist again, that too gave in. He removed his hand from my pants and I hoped to god that Steph couldn’t see that his fingers were shiny with my own natural lubricant.

  Reaching across Mason, I grabbed my t-shirt from the couch and quickly slipped it on. Then I moved to dismount Mason, not looking at Steph for fear of what I might see there.

  This isn’t going to be a fun conversation, I thought.

  I managed to get one foot on the floor, my leg under me, but then Mason’s large hand grabbed the other by the thigh. “Take care of this quickly,” he said in a low, husky voice, motioning towards Steph with a jerk of his head.

  I swallowed thickly and found myself nodding. My eyes momentarily darted to his lips. The movement caused them to form into a sultry smirk.

  He released my thigh then and let me stand fully while he settled further into the cushions and folded his arms behind his head, watching me.

  I didn’t have to be told I was blushing profusely as I zipped and buttoned my jeans. I could feel the burn on my cheeks. Turning away from Mason, I forced myself to walk towards the hallway where I could get a little privacy with Steph. When I didn’t hear any movements behind me, I reluctantly glanced up to see Steph. She was shooting daggers at Mason, her jaw clenched tightly in anger.

  “Steph, please. We need to talk.”

  Jesus, I sound like I’m about to break up with her.

  Steph hesitated. She didn’t seem thrilled with the idea of Mason being here at all, much less of finding us together on the couch as she did. The thought made me blush harder, embarrassed at being caught. It was like being sixteen all over again.

  Eventually, Steph ripped her gaze from Mason and followed me into the hall. As soon as there was a wall between us and Mason, she burst out, “What the hell is going on? I thought you guys never did your…you know, thing at home.”

  I winced. I’d told Steph about Mason’s deal, because what else could I do? Now, I was seriously regretting it. How would I explain that he was here now because I wanted him to be, not because he was an asshole demanding sexual favors in exchange for protection?

  Yeah, this’ll be a fun conversation.

  Still, I had to have it. So I squared my shoulders and lifted my chin. “This isn’t about the deal.”

  Steph’s brow furrowed and she folded her arms across her chest. “What?”

  “It’s not about the deal. I…I asked Mason to be here.”

  Well, I didn’t exactly ask him, but I wanted him here. I certainly hadn’t wanted him to leave.

  “You have got to be kidding me! I can’t believe he’s here! And if you wanted him here, then what the hell was…was that?”

  I shook my head. “It’s complicated Steph.”

  “Complicated? No, it’s disturbing! He’s a drug dealer!”

  I felt a spark of irritation at that. Not that he wasn’t a drug dealer. I just didn’t think of him like that specifically. He wasn’t some ratty, dirty gaunt man on a street corner peddling cocaine to a bunch of kids. He was a businessman offering a product to people who would pay.

  And, sure, that was definitely a little distorted in my mind, but to me there was a difference. I’d seen that difference tonight when I watched him forgive Clay. It hadn’t seemed like much from the outside, but I knew that really it had been huge.

  I was trying to figure out how to explain that to Steph when I thought of something. Why was Steph here?

  “What are you even doing here? You’re supposed to be watching Nick.” And now that I’d thought of my son, my world took a dive. “Jesus, is he okay?”

  Steph waved off my worries. “He’s with my friend at my apartment, clearing out my stash of gummy worms at poker ‘cause he can’t sleep. I’m here to pick up his teddy. Didn’t you get my text?”

  I made a face, squishing my nose up and pulling my lips together, squinting my eyes almost completely closed. I had gotten the text. Right before Billy pulled a gun on us and started shooting. “Shit. I’m sorry. I completely forgot about that. Things got…crazy tonight.”

  I briefly considered telling her about the dead bodies, but quickly rethought that train wreck. The less Steph knew about what had happened tonight, the safer she was. And the less likely she was to insist I go to the cops this time, corrupt or not.

  “Because of this?” she demanded, waving a hand at the wall to indicate the living room and Mason still on my couch.

  I was about to tell her that that hadn’t been it, but then I realized that that was the perfect excuse. And if I were honest with myself, it was also partially true. Mason had made tonight pretty nuts, dead bodies or no. “Well, yes. He really cares about me, Steph.”

  She let out a bitter laugh, very clearly not agreeing with me on this point. “Are you serious? Do you even hear yourself?”

  “Steph—” I began, but she quickly interrupted.

  “No, this is bullshit. He blackmailed you and coerced you. Not only did he do this so that he could store drugs in your perfectly legal store, but so that he could put his thing in your thing and do the dirty between the sheets! And that doesn’t even cover the fact that he burned down your store!”

  “Half,” I corrected automatically. “He burned down half the store. And now he’s paying for repairs.”

  “Because he’s storing drugs there!”

  I rubbed the bridge of my nose, feeling a headache begin there. I could see her point. From the outside, this whole thing was preposterous. No one falls for the man who used and manipulated her. And yet, I did. Or was in the process of doing so. “Steph, I know how this looks, okay? But things between us have…changed. We’re on the same page now.”

  “You’re being insane right now, Sasha. Seriously insane. I mean, like, Stockholming it to the max.”

  “He didn’t kidnap me for Christ’s sake,” I reminded her in irritation.

  “That’s about all he didn’t do!”

  I took a deep, slow breath, and tried again to explain. “I have feelings for him.”

  Her expression softened slightly as her shoulders slumped, though I would be stupid to assume that this fight was over. “Seriously? Please tell me you’re not one of those women who think they can change a bad boy. Like, he’s just this poor, wounded soul that needs a little TLC and you’re just the saint to give it to him.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Of course not. Mason’s an ass. He’ll always be an ass. But he’s also a fair man. And he sees us as partners. That’s more than any man has seen me as before. I know he’s not perfect, but he’s not the devil either.”

  She raised an eyebrow at me, suggesting she disagreed with that last part, but she didn’t say anything about it. “What about Nick? Are you seriously going to expose him to this kind of life?”

  A frown tugged at the corners of my mouth because Sasha had finally hit the nail on the head. Whether I wanted to take a walk on the wild side or not, did I really have any right to drag my son into that? And yet…“I’m not going to.”

  Steph’s eyebrows shot up into her hairline. “You’re not? So you’re going to end it with Mason?”

  I shook my head. “No. I’m not. But I’m going to set up some ground rules, the first and most important one being that Nick never
knows. Not now, not twenty years from now.”

  “You really think you can keep him out of this when you’re eyeball deep?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “Maybe. I don’t know. But I know that being a good girl hasn’t done shit for me. It’s gotten me in trouble and left me struggling to pay the bills. This gives me a chance to really do something with my life and I’ve got to take it.”

  Steph still didn’t look happy, but I could tell that I’d worn her down some. She glanced towards the doorway that led to the living room. She pursed her lips together for a moment, then let out a sigh. “Is there anything I can say that will make you come to your senses?”