Chapter 22 Needy #2
Maybe I should find someone else to take me the way I need to be taken, bruise me like I need to be bruised… But something tells me no one would do it as well as Mason, and besides, I don’t want anyone else. All I want is him, and I can’t let him go just yet.
Later that day, I see Mason and Tess swimming in the pool, and an idea forms in my mind—an idea I can’t even put a name to yet. It’s primal, dirty, something I can barely even picture.
Just a feeling. A need.
I sneak through the upstairs hallway and open Mason’s door just a crack, then I slip inside.
I haven’t been in his room without him ever since the time I looked for that popsicle funnel, and that time didn’t end well. He caught me. I can’t get caught again.
Without thinking, I grab a shirt from the bed, one he wore to the gym yesterday. I bring it to my nose and inhale deeply. Oh, fuck.
A tingle runs down my spine, through my whole body. A heady rush I can’t put a name to. My cock plumps up in my shorts, and my eyes roll back. I take another sniff, burying my face in the armpit of his shirt, and a strangled sound escapes my lips, almost a sob.
Shit. I trail my hand down to my crotch and palm myself there, suddenly feeling desperate enough to get myself off right here and now. It’s wrong, it’s dirty, but I can’t help it with the smell of him in my nostrils and the reminder of all the things we’ve done in his bed…
There’s the creak of footsteps behind me, and I yelp when a voice says, “It’s not nighttime yet, puppy. Too desperate to stay away?”
I spin around to see Mason leaning against the doorway, arms crossed. “I-I wasn’t—”
“Wasn’t what?” He takes a step forward. “Sniffing my shirts? Getting hard from the smell of my sweat?”
I shake my head desperately, cheeks burning.
“Looks like someone wants a treat.” He takes a step closer, and for once, I don’t step back. I just stand there, mouth open, eyes inevitably glancing down toward his crotch. “But have you earned it?” He stops, a smirk tugging at the corner of his lips.
I frown as I contemplate his words.
Earned it? Hell yeah, I’ve earned it! I’ve endured every little tease and every taunting smirk. I’ve put my friendship with Oliver in danger. I’ve put myself in danger. He can’t pretend I haven’t earned it. What more does he want from me?
Please give it to me. Please give me my treat. The thoughts cross my mind, but I refuse to beg after the way he’s treated me. I force myself to close my mouth and swallow the spit that’s pooled on my tongue.
“Go on, Lane,” Mason says, and he steps away to let me pass. “Scuttle back to Oliver.”
Lane. Not puppy. For some infuriating, fucked-up reason, him calling me by my actual name feels like part of his passive-aggressive bullshit. When he finally calls me puppy again, it’ll feel like a reward.
I turn around to “scuttle back to Oliver,” like he said. Another realization strikes me, and I turn around to face Mason once again.
“Wait… is that why you’re angry with me? Because I chose Oliver over you?”
Mason looks a little stunned, but he gathers himself quickly and shrugs. “Maybe.”
Maybe. More like, Yeah, definitely. Did I hurt his feelings? Is that it? Is he really that irrational?
“We agreed to keep it a secret,” I remind him.
Mason shrugs again. “Your idea. Not mine.”
“Then… what are we supposed to do?”
He looks me straight in the eye, pinning me with his gaze. “I want you to prove it to me.”
“Prove what?”
“That you’re mine. Not his.”
My mouth drops open. “But I… But we… We’re not like that!” The meaning is twofold: Oliver and I are just friends, and Mason and I are just… we’re just—
“Doesn’t matter.”
His words are like a punch to the gut. I can’t stop being friends with Oliver just because Mason and I are…
um, whatever we are. Two things can be true at once: I can value my friendship with Oliver, and I can be helpless to my desire to let Mason take me apart.
Right? But Mason doesn’t seem to understand that.
It’s not like he’s my boyfriend. We’re not dating—not really.
Although in retrospect, that day out with the ice cream felt a lot like a date…
To be honest, this whole thing is weirdly flattering: Mason getting all grumpy if I choose Oliver over him. Needy is what he is. He might not realize it himself, but that’s how he comes across. Well, that, and possessive and toxic as fuck.
He wants me to prove he’s more important to me than Oliver is, or what? Even if it were true—which it’s not—how the hell am I supposed to prove it?
“What… do you want me to do?” I ask slowly, mouth dry.
Mason takes a step toward me, and I gulp as he lifts his hand and thumbs at my choker, tracing the black velvet band all the way back to my neck. My skin breaks out in goosebumps, and I close my eyes, shivering all over. Why does he have this effect on me even when I’m pissed at him?
When he speaks, his voice is sultry and low, full of dangerous promises. “Tomorrow, I’ll leave a few gifts under your pillow. I want you to wear them tomorrow night.”
Oh. Relief, anticipation, and anxiety swirl through me in equal measure.
Relief, because he still wants me. Anticipation, for what he’s planning.
And anxiety, for everything else: our secrecy, his increasing control over me—my feelings, my body, what happens between us and when—and the lack of control I seem to hold over him.
I wanted this, I remind myself. I wanted to be used and taken roughly, like that boy in the porno, but I can’t push away the feeling that I’m giving Mason so much of myself, crossing so many of my boundaries, while he gives me very little in return.
What he does give is so conditional, it’s a whisper and a shadow of what he expects me to give him.