Chapter 21
21
PIA
Since my apartment wasn’t huge, I’d been able to pace the length of it at least four dozen times since Mason texted.
The last thing in the world I expected was for him to ask to come over. After last night, we’d hardly spoken. Fleeing the inn the first chance I got, which hadn’t gone unnoticed by my sister, I had said goodbye to my mother and Sophia and spent the rest of the day trying to recalibrate.
As I waited for him now, the same thoughts that had run through my head all afternoon flitted by again and again. He liked me. But not enough. I liked him, probably too much. He might not be staying, and for that matter, I might not either. So much uncertainty, but I’d already decided not to worry about things I couldn’t control. I came here to do my best possible work and turn Heritage Hill around, and that was what I would do.
Except, the new owner had my head spinning nearly twenty-four seven.
And that kiss? There was zero chance I’d be able to get that out of my head anytime soon. I looked down at my phone for the hundredth time since he’d first texted, just as a knock at my door nearly made me drop the phone.
I thought about changing but didn’t want to look like I’d tried too hard, so leggings and an oversized sweatshirt was how I’d kept it. With a French vanilla candle burning in the living room and the lights down low, as I liked them, it looked like I was planning a seduction in here.
I wasn’t. Mostly. Mason had made it clear the boss/employee line was one he didn’t want to cross. So then what was the talk about? Clearing the air between us so it wasn’t awkward? Might be a bit late for that.
I opened the door. A jeans and sweater-wearing Mason with just enough scruff to make him look even more menacing—and sexy—than usual filled the doorframe completely.
“Come on in,” I said, trying to sound casual. “Can I get you a drink?”
“Sure.” He closed the door behind him. “So this is your abode?”
“It’s small,” I said, heading to the kitchen. “And needs more decorating. But it’s convenient. Maybe a little too convenient with the coffee shop downstairs. I know you don’t drink wine but?—”
“I do,” he said. “Here and there. I’ll take whatever you’re drinking.”
Grabbing a second glass, I handed him a wine. “I had no idea you liked red wine.”
He took a sip. “There’s a lot about each other we don’t know.”
“True.” I took my own glass and tried to play it cool. Was likely failing. Why did my kitchen seem so much smaller with him in it? Without a word, I headed to the living room and sat on the only couch. Mason sat on the armchair and, unlike me, appeared totally relaxed. Not a care in the world. “So?”
“So,” he said, putting his glass on the table between us. “I want to know more.”
Blinking, I waited to see if he would elaborate.
“I want to know everything there is to know about you. Why do you care about the coffee shop being downstairs as if your ass wouldn’t perfectly fit in my hands no matter how many cinnamon buns you ate.”
Wait a minute. Did he literally just say that?
“Why did you let your asshole boss get the best of you? Why did you really take this job? All of it. But only after I spend the night learning every curve of that luscious body of yours. If you want that too.”
To say I was speechless was an understatement.
“And if you don’t… if you think our positions will make it impossible to explore this thing between us, I will be the picture of propriety.”
I put my wine down.
“Mason, I have no idea what to say. This isn’t at all what I expected.”
He leaned forward, still awfully casual, elbows resting on his knees as if he hadn’t just said he wanted to learn every curve of my body. “What did you think I was going to say?”
“That things didn’t need to be awkward between us. Stuff like that.”
He didn’t say another word. I’d gotten to know him a bit. It was like Mason only had so many words, so he used them carefully. And he’d certainly made his point clear.
The ball was in my court, so to speak. “It’s complicated, for sure.”
“It is,” he said.
“And will likely even get more so if we explore this.”
“Agreed.”
“But you want to anyway? I know the whole boss thing is a monkey wrench for you.”
“It is,” he admitted. “But I’m going with my gut on this one.”
“And what does your gut tell you?”
He stood up, closed the space between us and sat on the couch next to me. Reaching out his hand, Mason cupped my cheek. His thumb caressed it, jumbling my thoughts.
“That I’ve never wanted to get to know a woman more than you.”
I swallowed. “Get to know me, as in…?”
“As in, all of it.”
Words escaped me. So instead, I parted my lips in response, knowing already what I would say if speaking were actually possible.
His thumb inched toward my mouth. I opened wider. When his thumb got close enough, I darted my tongue out to touch it. Tease it.
Mason groaned.
I leaned into him, taking his entire thumb into my mouth. And I sucked. Used my tongue to show him what it would be like. What he could look forward to.
“Pia.” His voice was almost hoarse.
I loved it.
Pulling his thumb from me, Mason replaced it with his mouth. His lips crashed onto mine, immediately relentless. His tongue and lips in a perfectly balanced dance that had me grasping at his sweater, wanting so much more this time.
Clearly, he did too. Tugging on my sweatshirt, he tore it off in a heartbeat, barely pausing the kiss. While Mason’s hands roamed everywhere—my shoulders and back, to my chest, cupping both breasts through the lace fabric of my bra—I was just as explorative. I lifted his sweater, and Mason finished the job as he stood, then reached for me. I was pretty sure he said something, but I was too busy staring at more lines than I’d ever seen on a man in real life, except the first time I’d seen him without a shirt. He was absolutely shredded, all Army Ranger. Or cop. Or whatever had him working out hard enough to achieve—that.
“You’re sure about this?”
“No. But I want it anyway.”
What I really wanted was to touch him, so I indulged in the urge. “Do you go to a gym?”
“No,” he said, reaching around my back. “I have some weights in the basement of the inn.”
“Some weights?” I asked, tracing the lines of his abs as my bra strap popped free.
“Yeah.” Mason stared and then immediately cupped both breasts as if they were fine pieces of china. “Fuck me, you have magnificent tits.” His eyes lifted up to mine, an apology in them even though Mason didn’t apologize.
“I’m okay with it,” I said as his thumbs circled my nipples. “I don’t mind at all.”
He came closer, obliterating any distance between us. “What don’t you mind, Pia?” he asked, continuing to rub my nipples as my hands moved to his arms.
“The word you used.”
He smiled. I guessed someone liked me being suddenly shy. “Tits?”
I nodded.
“Are you telling me you want me to talk dirty, Pia?”
Mortified, since I’d never told any previous man such a thing, I looked down to where he continued to fondle me, quite expertly, I might add.
“Pia?”
I looked back up.
“Tell me. Say it.”
Nodding, I said, “Yes. I want you to talk dirty, Mason.”
“How dirty?” he said as one of his hands slid down the waistband of my leggings.
“Very,” I admitted.
His hand slipped lower and lower, Mason never taking his eyes from mine.
“And what should I do as I talk very dirty to you, sweet Pia?” As if I could answer with his fingers dipping even lower. “Should I slip one of my fingers inside, to see if you’re wet for me?”
He didn’t wait for an answer. “Mmm, so fucking wet. Maybe another finger, for good measure?”
Clearly he didn’t want an answer but was simply following my lead.
“Mason,” I groaned as his fingers began to move.
“Should I talk about how fucking much I’ve wanted to do this? To make you so wet for me that you would say my name just like that. Or if I’m being honest,” he said, continuing the sweet torture, “even louder. I want you to… call. My. Name.”
He was going to actually give me an orgasm this way. Sitting on my living room couch, his hands down my pants.
Unbelievable.
“Mason,” I said, louder.
“Not good enough,” he whispered, this time directly into my ear. “Guess I’ll just have to play with your clit too.”
His words, coupled with the fact that his thumb did exactly as he promised, meant Mason got exactly what he wished.
“Mason,” I cried, unable to hold back as the most easily wrought orgasm of my life took over my body.
“That’s it. Come all over my fingers.”
His words only intensified the throbbing between my legs. That and having wanted Mason to touch me since we met.
“Oh my God,” I said as the pulses ebbed. Except, I didn’t have time for an afterglow. Mason was already tugging down my pants. His kiss was so intense that I swear, if I wasn’t so busy unbuttoning and unzipping Mason’s jeans, I probably could have had another orgasm.
The second my hand found him, Mason’s intake of breath was all the reward I needed. When I began to stroke him, the fact that he began to lose control—the man who was always, always, in control—made me want to please him even more.
Mason broke off our kiss and helped me out by standing, removing his jeans and underwear, as I did the same and fully ditched my own.
“Fuck, Pia. Look at you.”
“Look at me?” I glanced down. He was hard, huge and so ready for me. “You’re like a sculpture, Mason. Oh,” I added. “I’m on the pill.”
It was as if the floodgates had been opened. He pulled me toward him, grabbed both ass cheeks with his hands, and squeezed. His mouth covered mine as I pulled him close, our movements almost frantic.
How he got me to the couch, I wasn’t sure. But as my head hit the pillow and I watched Mason use his knee to separate my legs, it hit me for the first time, somehow.
“We’re doing this,” I blurted as Mason’s fingers once again slipped inside me.
“This?” he asked, almost smiling. “In the interest of talking as dirty as my sweet Pia requested,” he said, a second finger joining the first as my hips lifted to meet him, “let’s call it what it is.”
Kneeling between my legs, with his dick so hard I couldn’t stop staring, Mason licked his lips as he continued to work magic between my legs. “I’m going to fuck you so damn hard, Pia, that when you scream my name this time it will make that last one sound like a kitten’s meow.”
Oh my God.
Just like that, his fingers were gone. Moving over me, he braced himself between my legs. I reached down to guide him into me, unable to wait any longer. “Please,” I said, bringing the tip of him to me. “Mason, please.”
“Tell. Me.”
“Oh God, no. Just do it. Please.”
“Do what, Pia?”
This was hard Mason. Ranger Mason. He would never relent.
“Fuck me, Mason,” I said.
And so he did. Thrusting into my absolutely drenching wetness—probably as wet as I’d ever been in my life—he buried himself full hilt. Grabbing onto his shoulders, when Mason’s lips found mine, I held on for dear life. He wasn’t gentle, but I didn’t need him to be. I needed the man who knew what he wanted, and at this moment, Mason wanted me.
I met every thrust, my hips swaying in perfect rhythm to his as Mason’s thumb found my clit and began to press and circle it. I wanted to call out, but his tongue mimicked our movements down below. No, not mimicked, anticipated. It was as if he was giving me a preview of every thrust.
My nails dug into him.
Lifting his head, Mason looked into my eyes, and I couldn’t decide which was hotter, his kisses or his stare. So intense.
With one thrust, so deep that the pleasure-pain line came close to being crossed, he paused.
“Are you gonna come for me again, sweet Pia?”
I tried to move my hips, but Mason wasn’t having any of it.
“Yes,” I said, trying again.
“You’re gonna call my name?”
“I am. Please, Mason.”
“Say it.”
“Mason.” He moved, finally.
“Again.”
“Mason,” I said, over and over as he thrust and used his thumb to bring me so close. “Mason,” I called, louder this time. Knowing he liked it. Wanting to please him. Wanting to find that ultimate pleasure again.
“Fuck, Mason. Yes.”
“That’s it,” he said, unrelenting. “Come all over my dick this time, just like you did my fingers.”
His words. His expression.
“Mason, I’m gonna come. So hard.”
“Good. That’s it. Come on, Pia.”
Every muscle in my body tensed and then I absolutely exploded. Taking away his hand, Mason buried himself so deeply inside me that I couldn’t tell where one of us started and the other finished.
His head tilted back as I continued to call his name. Mason made the most incredible low, sexy sound in his throat as he, presumably, came too.
“Fuck,” he said, not moving as my orgasm began to subside. “Jesus fucking Christ, Pia. I don’t know what the hell that was, but it felt really fucking good.”
He didn’t move just yet, and I didn’t want him to. I pulled Mason on top of me, wanting him to stay just a little bit longer.
“There’ve been a lot of fucks flying around here tonight.”
“Mmm.” He held himself up, so as not to crush me, but still I could feel Mason’s hard chest against my own as he did, unfortunately, pull out. “There could be more.”
Neither of us moved. Or spoke.
I’d just had sex with Mason Bennett. My boss. And it was really, really, really good.
“Count me in,” I said with a smile, wondering if I’d ever be able to get enough of him.
In response, Mason lowered his head and kissed me, the silent promise of more where that had come from ensuring it would be a long night ahead.