by Anya Summers
Garrett, being Garrett, must have sensed that Mason would fight him over Emily. And Garrett, being the better of them, had conceded.
Mason wasn’t sure if he would have been as gracious. In fact, he knew for damn sure he wouldn’t have been.
And now that he had touched her, felt the silken clasp of her heat squeeze him, tasted her honeyed nectar, he craved more. Mason wanted to claim her in truth. Have her wear his cuffs. Show her just how good his world could be.
He stroked her cheek tenderly with the back of his knuckles, a final caress before he retreated. Because he wouldn’t touch her again. He couldn’t. He had to remain firm in his stance on this matter. The stability of the lodge depended on his ability to keep his dick in his pants.
He never should have touched her. Not with the lodge struggling. The previous chef had been embezzling funds from them. The absolute last thing he needed was to get involved with the new one.
Emily’s eyes fluttered open. The heart-stopping smile she flashed his way caused his gut to clench. It was a mixture of satisfaction and unabashed invitation.
“Well, that was quite an introduction,” she murmured, sliding her tiny hands over his chest. They scorched him as if they were a brand.
He felt her caress down to the balls of his feet. It rocked him. Shook him. Yet he persisted. “Em, look—”
She stilled. Those eyes of hers—fuck, they killed him, time and again—became a turbulent sea of disbelief and blistered him with a glance. She asked, “Are you giving me the brush off? Then why bring me here of all places?”
Yeah, why had he? Because a part of him had wanted her in his bed, craved to have her here. And tonight, seeing her in his bed, her lips still swollen from his kisses, her body enough to make him weep and give thanks, stirred him in more ways than one. Mason was having a singularly difficult time coming up with an excuse to walk away from her. Especially when every facet of his being looked at her in his bed and registered that it was where she belonged.
Walking away from his desire for her was the right thing to do. She was his employee. The lodge came first. It had to supersede his wants.
“This never should have happened tonight. You work for me. It’s bad for business,” Mason stated regretfully, glad that he sounded resolved in the matter when he was anything but. He stood, putting a foot of space between them. A small distance, but it erected a barrier.
“If you’ll recall, I quit,” Emily said.
“You’re not quitting. I won’t let you. If I have to tie you to that stove, I will,” Mason swore.
She quirked an eyebrow and rose to a kneeling position. His flannel shirt dwarfed her and hung open down the front. It left her sensual body exposed. The hint of her ivory cleavage peeked through, taunting him with the fact that he hadn’t tasted her there yet. Her skirt, what there was of it, was still rucked around her waist, leaving her pussy exposed, the creamy white skin bare. He could still taste her essence on his tongue and hungered to lap at her pretty pink folds once more.
She still wore her black, heeled boots. They’d never gotten around to taking them off. In her half-dressed state, her hair tousled around her shoulders, Emily looked like a wicked Greek goddess sent down to tempt him.
He was so fucking hard, his dick strained against his jeans.
Then she opened her mouth and said, “You don’t own me, Mason. I can do what I want. And what I want, is this.”
Then her hand slid beneath the waistband of his jeans and wrapped around his dick.
He growled. And then she squeezed him. Mason struggled to fight the waves of need as they crashed over him. Everything inside him clamored to claim her, put his mark on her. Demanded he prove to her once and for all that he was in charge.
“You. Are. Not. Leaving,” he said through clenched teeth as she stroked him.
Her silken fingers gripped him and she cocked her head to the side. “You’re not the boss of me.”
“Yes. I. Am.”
“Then prove it,” she dared.
Emily’s words were an incendiary tossed on his resolve. Mason moved. Hauled Emily into his arms. He slanted his mouth over hers and reveled in her passionate whimpers against his mouth while she stroked him. She’d played with fire. Poked at him.
And now he wasn’t fucking letting her go. Not tonight, at least.
As he kissed her, he stripped her. Mason wanted her nude this time. He yanked his shirt and her leather vest off. Then shoved her skirt down over her hips. He palmed the firm globes of her ass and growled against her lips.
Lifting his mouth, he shifted her body until her torso was bent over the side of his bed. He yanked the skirt off but left the heeled boots on. She looked so fucking hot. The plump globes beckoned him.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you. This—” he swatted her rear, “—is for going to the club without my permission.”
At her yelp, he gave her a series of hard swats. “Those were for tossing kitchen tools at me.”
“And this,” he swatted the flesh of her labia. The pink swollen lips were wet with her desire. “Is to show that I am very much the boss of you. And this belongs to me now. You won’t fuck another while you are with me. Understood?”
Mason swished his fingers through her cunt, parting her, teasing her before he penetrated her with two fingers. Her musky scent invaded his nostrils. Her pussy gripped his digits as he plunged. He wanted her. Just like this.
“Oh god, Mason. Yes.” She wailed. She canted her hips. Her hands gripped the mattress.
His balls tautened. Fuck, she was so open and receptive to his touch.
“In here, you will call me Sir or Master,” Mason commanded. “Say it.”
“Yes, Sir,” she whimpered, tilting her hips up as he fingered her. Sawing his digits back and forth, a primitive, primal need swamped Mason. Hearing her utter those words caused his control to snap. He grabbed a condom from his nightstand and shoved his jeans down, freeing his erect shaft. He protected them both.
And then he buried his dick inside her dripping heat with a single, brutal thrust. He banded her arms behind her back. Pumping his hips, his dick glided through her grasping tissues. Mason didn’t hold back. Her moans drove him wild. And the way she took him, accepted him. Even as his need to fuck, hard and brutal, overrode his common sense. But she was right there with him. Her throaty wails filled his room.
“God, yes, Sir. More!” She keened.
Repeatedly, he pounded. Her sheath clenched around him, pulling him deep as he pistoned inside. Then her pussy quaked and her body shuddered.
“Mason, Sir,” she wailed.
He thrust. Sweat slicked his form. His balls drew taut. Pleasure arced along his spine as he exploded. He hammered inside her. Starbursts exploded in his field of vision. His knees nearly buckled and his hips slowed. He lay against her back, his breathing ragged, still embedded inside her. And knew, deep down, they weren’t finished by a long shot.
She whimpered when he finally withdrew his softening shaft from her body. As he stood, her body began sliding toward the floor. Before she hit the ground, he lifted her, laid her back down on his bed, and finally removed her boots.
Then he took care of her. Shucking his jeans and boxers on the way to the bathroom, he disposed of the condom and cleaned his dick off before returning with a warm washcloth that he ran between her legs, cleaning any excess fluids from her body. She gave him a sleepy smile. He tossed the washcloth in the nearby hamper. When he tried to move away, Emily’s small hand on his arm, tugging him into bed with her, stopped him.
He slid into bed beside her, where she wrapped her body around his like a pretzel. Mason wished he could say he didn’t like it. That it didn’t feel right. That she didn’t feel right, in his arms, her glorious hair spread around him like a cocoon, her body snuggled up against him. But he’d be lying.
Instead of leaving to sleep on the couch, he held her and watched her sleep so trustingly against him, she made him ache. For things that would likely
never be. Ache to keep her here beside him. Ache for a dream he hadn’t realized he wanted. But with Emily, he could see it all. Crystal clear.
And he wanted it with a fierceness that shattered him. Mason had no idea what to do about it, about her. And about the fact that while he’d demanded she acknowledge him as her Sir, it was he who had been mastered tonight.
Instead of doing the right thing, leaving her to sleep alone in his bed while he slept on the couch downstairs, he held her tighter. And as he drifted off, he couldn’t remember ever feeling as sated as he did with Emily beside him.
Chapter 14
Mason startled awake, wondering what the hell had woken him up so suddenly. In the blink of an eye, he recalled the events of the previous night. Emily had happened. His dick hardened at the memory of her flesh enveloping him, at gliding through her tight heat. He knew he shouldn’t want her again. But he did. He shifted and encountered empty space. Glancing around his room, lit with the hazy, gray half-light just before dawn, he realized he was alone. Emily had been the one to leave.
Her scent was on his sheets, on his flesh. And he craved her. Disappointment barreled through him at finding himself alone in an empty bed. He was uncomfortable with just how upset he was that she wasn’t still beside him.
Christ, he had it bad.
The aroma of her killer biscuits wafted into his room. His stomach growled, and he couldn’t stop the stupid grin that spread over his face. She’d made him breakfast. He slipped out of bed and pulled on a pair of boxers. After a brief stop in the bathroom to relieve himself, he headed down the stairs. Visions of taking her at the kitchen table before starting his day swam in his brain.
The wicked dream sputtered and died the moment he entered the kitchen. Instead of Emily’s sexy as hell body standing at the stove, preferably naked, Cole reclined in one of the chairs at the table, plowing through freshly made biscuits and eggs.
“Morning,” he said to Cole, watching his brother take another bite of what he knew were Emily’s biscuits. Those flaky, buttery soft, melt in your mouth biscuits.
Mason snatched two from the pan before his brother finished them all. Fucker. These were his biscuits.
“You sure you know what you’re doing?” Cole asked, staring him down with a pissy expression.
“It doesn’t concern you,” Mason said around a bite of pure doughy bliss, filling his coffee mug.
“Actually, when it comes to this place, as your partner, it does. We had agreed—anyone working here, even if they were members of the club, that we don’t bring that shit here. There are boundaries we agreed wouldn’t be crossed. And now, with the position we are in, you want to risk that? I sure as shit hope it’s worth it,” Cole replied, not hiding an ounce of his fury but blasting him with it. Cole shoved away from the table, the chair scraping against the tile floor as he shot Mason a disgusted glance.
Shame infiltrated his self-righteous and rather selfish stance. Emily’s biscuits turned to sawdust in his mouth. This was the second time he’d crossed the line. How could he for one second have forgotten the blundering mess they were in because of him?
The lodge was teetering on the brink of destruction and all he could seem to think about was how much he wanted Emily back in his bed. How right she’d felt plastered around his body. How much he yearned to hear her throaty moans as she came. How much he wanted to claim her, make her his submissive. But to what expense? All the torrid fantasies in the world wouldn’t matter if they lost the lodge due to his blunder. He couldn’t let his brother down again. He wouldn’t. Even if it killed him.
“You’re right. I wasn’t thinking,” Mason said, deflated. His heart ached at the loss. He’d held something perfect and incredible for a moment and been unprepared for the sudden loss of it; the potential for what could be shattered with the dawn. It cut him off at the knees because he wanted her, craved her still. Even after imbibing freely on her body last night, he yearned for more. He could still smell her on his flesh.
Cole put his empty plate and cup in the dishwasher. “At least not with the right head. I get it. She’s a looker. I think she could do really well here as our new chef and she might help us stay above water.”
“But?” Mason asked.
“What happens when you get tired of her? What impact will that have on the lodge? I know you well, Mase, you are not the settling down kind. And that one, she has permanence written all over her cute behind.”
“People change,” Mason said defensively.
“Not that much, they don’t,” Cole uttered, heading out past him and slamming the front door as he departed.
Mason stared after his brother for a minute and then took his coffee with him upstairs to shower. At one time, Mason might have been the love them and leave them type, the call for a good time type, with no desire to settle down or take anything seriously. Especially not getting so deeply involved with a woman that there was any hint of permanence to it. Then the bottom had been pulled out from beneath him. Somewhere, in the aftermath and fallout, he had changed. Mason wasn’t that guy anymore. Nor did he want to be.
Mason grimaced as he stepped in the shower. Cole was right though. They had agreed when beginning their partnership that they would never poach where they worked or bring it home with them. He’d broken those cardinal rules. Mason couldn’t take back what had already occurred. And, in truth, he didn’t regret surrendering to his desire for her. Except, knowing he couldn’t be with Emily, couldn’t continue whatever this was between them, would make the coming days and weeks being near her but unable to touch her, sheer utter torture. Because now he knew precisely how right she felt in his arms, knew the way she sounded when she came, and he craved more.
But he couldn’t let Cole down more than he already had. Mason owed it to his brother and their parents to ensure their dream didn’t disintegrate into dust over his poor choices.
And if his heart ached at the thought of never touching Emily again, he had no choice but to ignore it. The lodge was what mattered. Family mattered. His wants and desires came last.
Chapter 15
Emily started her day with a spring in her step. Who knew that multiple orgasms could turn her frown upside down? She cooked breakfast in her kitchen, humming as she did so, completely enamored with her new life.
Last night had changed things.
The way Mason had lost control, the way he’d dominated her, his hand on her sex, telling her that she belonged to him… her thighs trembled at the memory. It had been the most erotic, carnal night of her life. And her body heated like her broiler just thinking about it. Sex with Mason had been the best decision she’d ever made—next to moving here, of course.
All her naughty bits perked up and purred at the thought of being with him again.
She caught herself grinning. Cheesy grinning, too. The kind you don’t even realize you’re doing until someone points it out. Or you spy your reflection above the stove. She’d found her torn panties in the dry storage locker and had slipped them in her pocket.
She’d never look at the dry storage the same way again. It made her wonder what scintillating sexcapade he had planned for tonight. And a low burn settled in her gut.
As the morning sped by, with guests filing in for breakfast and placing orders, Emily tried not to think about the night before, catching herself more than once nearly burning breakfast. Which she never did. It was all Mason and the fluttery, melty response in her system when she did think about him. Which was damn near all the time. She couldn’t help it.
Thankfully, Faith was in helping her this morning, saving her from herself and the breakfast rush. The wait staff moved at a lightning pace. It was a beautiful fall day, and guests were heading out onto the trails or taking a horseback ride into the mountains.
After the breakfast rush, she went over the day’s special menu with Faith. Then they began prepping for the lunch rush. Tibby strolled in at eleven just as they were finishing the mid-morning meal prep. Orders for boxed lunc
hes were up.
By the time the lunch rush had ended, Emily had barely taken a break since she’d arrived that morning. Except one thing had become startlingly clear: Mason was avoiding her. He’d not come to the restaurant today to grab lunch, not even placed a to go order. It diminished the closeness she thought they had achieved last night, and it hurt.
Emily was not necessarily a woman men tended to want to keep. His absence in the restaurant resurrected some of her fears, that she was lacking an element that men found attractive and wanted to hold on to.
His avoidance of her smarted, more than she’d anticipated it would. She rubbed a hand over her chest to try and diffuse the ache setting up residence. They barely knew each other. She shouldn’t be upset that he had dialed things back without so much as a thanks for last night but we’re done here. Last night, he had acted as if he wanted more of her. Had pretended that she belonged to him. It made the brush off she was receiving today that much more pronounced.
Emily should just let it be. Worry about making this restaurant into her dream instead of the disappointment swimming in her chest. Chalk last night up to a climax filled extravaganza that was a once in a lifetime opportunity but was now over.
It would be a whole lot easier to do if she wasn’t so drawn to Mason. The man only had to look at her and she got wet. The way he’d held her after the virulent storm of the lovemaking in the dry storage locker had made her believe, even if only for the moment, that he cared. It made the way he’d screwed her brains literally into her toes more profound.
Granted, everything she was feeling, that he’d made her feel for him, could just be due to hormones and the fact that the man was a walking sex on a stick.
Yet, she didn’t think that was the reason. There was a potent connection between them. And it was much more than purely physical.