Chapter 3
MASON
With remote fascination, I watch the battle on her face. She’s debating whether to come at me all guns blazing or pretend I don’t exist.
I don’t really mind which option she chooses.
She can walk out of here, and all I’ll feel is a modicum of disappointment.
Maybe more than a modicum. There’s something…
compelling about her. Something I should probably walk away from.
Maybe I’m drawn to her turmoil because I have the same storm raging inside me.
The need to smash, destroy, roar is a never-ending buzz beneath my skin.
I’ve learned the mechanics of letting it out.
The Amazon jungle has heard it a few times in the last six months. It was in the rage-soaked sweat from my skin that mixed with the straw and mud as I built the school and shelters in Roraima.
And I let it bleed out through the asphalt of the Pacific Coast Highway when the demons get too loud at 2a.m., and I slide behind the wheel of my Koenigsegg. Or in the converted basement of my L.A. house.
When all else fails… I fuck.
Normally, it takes about a year for the guilt and rage to come to a head.
This time, I’ve barely lasted six months.
I can feel the tempest gathering ever closer.
Hani, my facilitator at the exclusive service I use, was put on standby earlier this evening.
All it’ll take is a single phone call, and I can calm the storm. But I choose not to.
Not just yet.
I watch the woman in front of me in silence.
She has a brash strength about her that almost camouflages the gaping vortex of pain flowing from her.
Her goddess-like beauty perfects that disguise, until you choose to look beneath the surface.
I’m certainly finding it a little challenging to not gape at the wet tumble of caramel-blond hair that hangs in ropes about her face and shoulders, or the wide, sensual mouth that vacillates between a pout and a typical New Yorker’s sneer.
She’s stunning enough to stop any clear-thinking man in his tracks. For murkier-minded men like me, the allure and intrigue that shrouds her is a siren call, which howls its rapturous destruction.
And yet, I cannot look away. Not yet.
“I’ll take a drink minus the talking,” Keely finally responds, her chin raised in pointed defiance that I almost find amusing.
I nod and head to the kitchen. Her soft footsteps follow. “Hot or cold?” I ask when I walk past the center island.
She pauses. “Excuse me?”
“Coffee, water or club soda?” I look over my shoulder and that glare is back.
“I don’t want coffee,” she growls, and I’m once again fascinated by the rich, dominatrix quality of her voice, the no-nonsense way she ends every sentence, like she’s impatient with the words coming out of her mouth. “Or water,” she adds.
I open the fully stocked double fridge and take out two cans of soda. “Soda it is then.”
She watches the can I slide across the island like it’s an IED. I suppress laughter as she snaps, “Is this a joke?”
“What’s wrong? Did you think I was going to top up your already high alcohol intake with more booze?”
“What are you, the fucking booze monitor?” she throws back at me.
As I lift my own can to take a long swig, my hands itch with the need to teach her a lesson about her foul mouth.
I don’t plan to stick around after my meeting with Zach tomorrow.
But between now and then, if she continues to pique my interest, I might just grant her the spanking she richly deserves.
“I don’t keep any booze here.”
One sleekly outlined brow lifts. “Afraid you’ll fall off the wagon?” she taunts.
“Yes,” I answer truthfully.
Again, surprise and intrigue slide across her face. “Oh… okay.” Slowly, she reaches out and picks up the soda. One perfectly manicured finger toys with the rim, and something awakens inside me as I watch that finger.
“How long have you been sober?” she asks after a few minutes of silence.
“Ten years, two months, three weeks and five days.”
Her forehead creases for all of three seconds.
“You stopped drinking on Christmas Day?” she says, confirming my initial impression of her quick wit.
Why she chooses to hide her intelligence behind foul language and an abrasive manner isn’t a subject that particularly interests me.
But I find the whole package intriguing nonetheless.
“Yes.”
Her lips twitch, and I can tell she’s dying to ask me more.
The phone I left on the island earlier buzzes, and I step closer as her gaze drops. We both see the message clearly displayed on the screen.
Welcome back, Mr. S. Your usual selection is available when you are.
“Let me guess, that’s your dealer?” she jibes, without excusing herself for reading my message.
I shrug. “Of sorts.”
Her sea-green eyes widen, and I’m thrilled to have surprised her again. She doesn’t seem the sort to be easily shocked. “You don’t drink, but you do drugs?” she asks, condemnation brimming her tone. “Isn’t that swapping one addiction for another?”
“It is if you consider sex an addiction.”
Her mouth drops open, and she flicks a glance at the now dark screen. “So that was your… your…”
“It’s a service I use, yes.” I drain the last of the soda, my eyes tracing the color washing up her neck. “You’re blushing. Does that embarrass you?”
She cracks the top of the soda and pulls back the lid.
“That you get your sex through an escort service? Hell, no. Maybe I’m a little embarrassed for you.
” She gulps the soda slightly too fast, and several drops trickle down the side of her mouth.
She wipes it with the back of her hand and her color rises higher.
I smile. “Save your sympathy, Keely. I use the service for expediency. And because I detest the mindless games that society has imposed on an act that should have no frivolities.”
Her head tilts to one side, and she slams me with a speaking look. “That your fancy way of saying you don’t want to buy a girl dinner before you fuck her?”
“She can have all the dinner she wants. I just don’t see the need for tedious mores or the need to display false affection before the act.”
“So why not just club her over the head and drag her to your cave?”
“Why do it myself when my service more than meets those particular urges?”
She studies my face to see if I mean it literally. When she looks away, I can’t decide whether she’s satisfied with what she reads in my expression or not.
“So you gonna call them back?” she asks after another minute of thick silence.
“Do you want me to?” I ask.
Her breath catches. “Why the hell should I care?”
My gaze drops to the escalated rise and fall of her chest, then the belt of the robe that emphasizes her trim waist. Her excitement is as obvious as the condensation dripping down the soda can.
A touch of ennui seeps into my blood. “And you wonder why I find all this tedious?”
She frowns. “Perhaps if you took your time to make yourself clearer?—”
I crush my empty soda can in my fist, and she jumps at the sound. “You’re intelligent enough to know what’s going on between us, and yet you want me to spell out my feelings before you feel comfortable with admitting you want what you want. Isn’t that right?”
“Umm, no, wrong. I don’t give a rat’s ass about your feelings. And just because two people happen to find each other mildly attractive doesn’t mean they have to strip and fuck on the nearest flat surface.”
“Why not?” I counter.
“Because that would make them nothing more than base animals.”
“But I am a base animal. And so are you.”
“Keep your fucking insults to yourself, Rusty.” She glares hard enough to drill holes in me.
I take a deep breath to reel myself in. I remind myself that I’ve been out of the land of meaningless conversation and talking just for the sake of talking for over a year.
She’s ironically right in calling me Rusty .
I’m rusty when it comes to fitting back into society.
But I still want to teach her a lesson for that dirty mouth.
For making me want to see more of that saucy body she’s hiding under the robe.
And as long as I remain this close to her, exchanging words when I want to do something else entirely, that temptation will only grow.
I stalk toward the living room. “I need to get out of here.”
“You’re going back to the party?” she asks, trailing after me.
“God, no. If I have to smile and answer another question about my status on social media, I won’t be responsible for my actions,” I snarl.
“Wow, someone really went to town on your social skills, didn’t they?”
I don’t answer. I’ve reached the limit of my tolerance. I need to get out into some clean, clear air before it’s too late. I grab my leather jacket and punch my arms into it, wishing for the dead silence and the simple existence of Roraima.
My loafers are by the front entrance, and I shove my feet into them before I yank open the door.
“What the hell’s so urgent?” Keely asks, still following. “It can’t be your escort service situation since you left your phone back there.”
I suck in a breath and tunnel my fingers through my hair. “I just need to get some air, okay?” I step out and start to shut the door.
“Can I come with?”
I turn slowly, catch her gaze. “Are you sure you want to?” I don’t disguise the echoes of my turmoil.
She licks her lips and slowly nods. “Yes.”
My breath shudders out. I take in the short robe she’s wearing and the V-shaped gap at the front that shows a hint of her breasts. “I don’t have time to wait for you to change.” My gaze drops to her feet. “Or put on shoes.”
She replies with a shrug. “We’re not going far, are we?”
I don’t answer. I turn and skirt the pool. After a moment, I hear her behind me. The ennui evaporates from my veins, replaced by another equally dangerous drug.
Lust.
The unsettling kind. The kind that means I have to pay Hani double when I’m done with one of her girls. I quicken my steps and round the back of Zach’s house. Or the front, depending on how you view the property. I key in the code and the quadruple garage doors roll upward.
“You’re going out?” Keely asks.
I head for the indigo and black McLaren P1 GTR and slide behind the wheel. Throwing open the passenger door, I start counting silently. I reach eight before she slides into the seat.
I almost wish she didn’t. The moment she shuts the door and her scent engulfs me, I know I’m going to fuck her.
“Seatbelt,” I growl.
She complies.
I step on the gas, reversing in an expert arc that throws her against me.
“Whoa, easy there, Rusty,” she admonishes as she rights herself.
My jaw clenches, and my fingers curl around the cold steering wheel. “I’m keeping tally, Keely. For every time you call me that name.”
She laughs and fiddles with the climate control until warm air flows into the car. “And how exactly do you intend to get me back, seeing as you’re leaving tomorrow?”
The smile barely twitches on my lips. “The night is still young.”
“Umm, no, it kinda isn’t. It’s almost 1a.m.” Her voice holds a cautious delivery, as if she’s realizing just what she’s let herself in for.
I don’t respond as I quickly navigate the quiet streets on the outskirts of Montauk, letting the powerful engine beneath me growl and fly.
I drive fast and aggressively, and every now and then I hear her breath catch when I take a corner too quickly.
After about ten miles, the turmoil in my chest starts to calm.
In direct proportion, the turbulence in my pants is growing.
My cock has been hardening since she slid in barefoot beside me.
Seeing one fist clenched around the door handle and the other gripping the center console is not doing my libido any good either.
Nor is the rapid rise and fall of her chest, and the very visible outline of one breast playing peekaboo with the gaping robe.
A glance at the GPS shows a mile-long road, leading to a dead end coming up on the left.
I take the turn and floor the accelerator.
She slams back against her seat. “God, slow the fuck down, would you?”
“I’m keeping a tally of that, too.”
The needle rises to a hundred, then one-twenty. One-forty. Her breath shudders out. “You can keep all the goddamn tallies you want. If you make me dead just one day into my twenty-fifth year, I swear you’ll never have a moment of peace. I’ll haunt you until you beg me to kill you.”
My foot doesn’t lift from the pedal, but I glance at her. “Yesterday was your birthday?”
She visibly shakes as she sees the row of white oak trees that marks the end of the road. “Jesus, slow down, Rusty!”
“Answer my question.”
“What question? God! Yes, yesterday was my birthday.”
“What did you wish for?”
“Not to fucking die in a psycho’s car today!” Her fingers have turned white and her face is ashen with fright. One nipple is fully exposed and I feel the blood rushing through my veins.
“ Please! ” The word explodes from her lips. “Slow down,” she whispers. “Slow down, slow down, slow down !” The words trip over themselves.
“What about your foul language?” I ask, returning my eyes to the road.
“Fine. I won’t swear again!” She starts shaking her head frantically as the trees rush toward us. “God, no!” Her right hand clutches my thigh, digging in with a tight, nail-biting grip.
I narrow my eyes, scan the dashboard, then the tree line. After exactly three seconds, I transfer my foot from gas to brake.
The McLaren skids to a stop at the exact point where the road ends.
For several seconds, her breath gusts out in loud gulping heaves, her eyes frozen in wide-eyed fear.
Then she explodes at me. I easily block her blows, my arms gripping her as fear turns to anger.
“You are a FUCKING ASSHOLE!”