Chapter Twenty-Five Mason
Chapter Twenty-Five
Mason
Cameron kisses me deliberately, and it’s not a sensation I’ve felt in years. Liam might’ve once held me this way, like I was a valuable artifact. A high-quality gemstone that needed to be treated with care.
But then he began to test my fragility—a scratch was fine, so long as I remained intact.
He pushed harder, though. Bits and pieces flaked away, followed by masses that disintegrated in his palms. Over a few years, he had nothing to hold but the dust of my remains.
It still shimmered, though, so he didn’t mind that there was little substance left to cling to.
Cameron and I should’ve studied longer, maybe.
I have a job to do—get this boy on the field so they can make the playoffs.
The scout is coming this week to observe, and I’m not even sure Cameron remembers.
After everything I’ve learned, I can’t help but wonder just how invested he is in football.
He mentioned yesterday that he only used it as a form of escapism before he came here.
So what does it mean to him now? Why did he go back to it?
We definitely should’ve studied longer. But his waist feels good notched against mine, and his arm looks so sturdy braced on the bed beside my head, and the warmth of his hand is electrifying on the curve of my waist beneath my shirt. Or his shirt, which has noticeably fallen away from my shoulder.
Liam kissed me with devotion in the early stages of our relationship. Over time, his lips stopped worshipping, and instead bit, gnawed, and bruised. Cameron means every movement he takes. The way his lips caress mine is achingly hot, and leaves my stomach in fluttering shambles.
Despite the glaring fractures in my soul, he makes me feel desirable. Like there’s something about me worth claiming.
I wasn’t sure I could be intimate with someone after Liam. I fumbled for excuses to avoid it, because I knew the weather would be warm or because I could still feel phantom pain from our previous rounds. Kissing became something I winced away from, and his touch made me fidget with discomfort.
This isn’t like that. I can feel Cameron’s intentions.
As his hand presses up the length of my waist and rib cage, dragging my shirt with it, my agitated heart nearly overloads.
He knows what he’s doing, taking his time, fully conscientious of every shift of his body.
He’s not acting out of his own desire—he’s also testing the waters to see what I like.
I tighten my knees around the flare of his hips. This is how it’s meant to feel, isn’t it? Though his left arm does the work to suspend him above me, his fingertips rest near my hair, which he threads and twirls between his knuckles with gentle reverence, like every strand is precious to him.
How did I not realize something was missing? When did Liam stop caring about the way I felt? How could I go back to him now that I know there are others who can care about me, who are willing to wait and be patient for me to open up?
I’m feeling selfish, and maybe that’s okay. I crunch my fists around Cameron’s T-shirt, tugging up. He makes a noise of surprise, but pauses a kiss so I can slide it over his head, leaving his midsection bare. “Too much fabric,” I say, smiling guiltily.
He returns this with a boyish one of his own. “If you want to see me naked, just say so.”
“I basically have,” I point out. “At Ravi’s party. You were drenched in your underwear. Didn’t leave much room for imagination.”
Cameron’s grin only widens. “So you were looking.”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” I say with a smirk, flicking his nose. “You took me by surprise when I walked in. Your junk was right there, staring me in the face.”
“Maybe my junk just wanted to say hello.”
“Oh, it did. Trust me.”
Cameron bursts into surprised laughter, and it makes me feel warm and cozy.
He laughs the way flames crackle in a firepit.
“I’m going to kiss you until you can’t stand it,” he whispers, and he plunges back down before I can stammer through a witty retort, working my lips like he wants to devour me.
His skin is soft and smells like warm vanilla bodywash.
His muscles flex tantalizingly beneath my touch, bones shifting, blood pumping, heart throbbing.
My hands entice him. I can feel how he reacts to me—the tremble of his skin when I graze his hip with my fingertips, my touch featherlight. The tightening of his stomach muscles when I arch up against his chest. The sigh when I scratch a line down his spine with my index finger.
Did Liam ever react like this, like the mere sensation of my touch was intoxicating? I don’t think he cared much about my hands, despite how forcefully he restrained them.
Cameron is fully aware of my touch, and it’s invigorating.
Even though I’m lying beneath his weight, I feel like I have control.
This heightens when I give an experimental push, and he obeys the command, rolling onto his back so I’m the one hovering over him.
He’s wearing that same playful smile from earlier that only deepens the flush in my cheeks.
“What?” I demand. “I’ve never gotten to straddle someone.”
“Nothing. You’re cute, is all.”
“I’d rather be sexy right now,” I admit.
“You are.”
I blink at him in surprise. When he notices, he makes an exasperated hand gesture.
“Like, you’re sitting on my waist wearing my clothes, and the shirt is falling off your shoulders, and your hair is rumpled up and you smell like my bodywash. It’s making things very difficult for me.”
That warm rush floods my stomach. Liam used words like “cute” and “adorable” and “pretty” but rarely things like “sexy.” It always made me more conscious of our age gap—I wanted to mature faster.
“What’s difficult about this?” I ask, bending over so the loose fabric of my shirt grazes Cameron’s bare chest, and our faces hover inches apart.
His fingertips trace an enticing trail up from the outsides of my thighs, to the curves of my hips, to the sides of my waist. “The fact that we’re only friends with kissing benefits until Friday,” he mumbles, eyes lingering on my lips.
I nudge my nose against his, smirking. “I told you to ask me out.”
He sighs, maybe regretting his decision.
Then he reaches up suddenly, hands fumbling around the back of my neck.
A heavy weight disappears from my shoulders as he unclasps the aquamarine necklace dangling between us and sets it aside.
I didn’t realize I was still wearing it. “Do you even like jewelry?” he mutters.
“Mm…I don’t mind it.”
He catches my jawline and pulls me into a fervent kiss.
Maybe he just remembered he said he’d kiss me until I couldn’t stand it.
And I can stand it quite a bit, so he has a lot of work to do.
I won’t make it easy, either. Cameron is fun to torment.
So I tug and nip, testing his limits to try to make him throw in the towel.
And maybe I move my hips suggestively a few times to draw out groans of frustration.
How far can I push him? Even being wrapped in his charm, I feel nagging suspicion.
Part of me wants to see if I should do something to genuinely irritate him, just to see his reaction.
What if I accidentally elbow him or knock my teeth against his?
On the field, he punched someone for making him angry.
I’d be lying if I said that moment hasn’t been lingering in my mind.
Yet Cameron has made me feel precious in a way Liam maybe never did.
But I saw the strength behind his fist. The way it nearly flattened that football player.
Cameron is a reactionary person. He’s big, too—not as looming as Liam because of the age gap, but stronger than a typical high schooler, thanks to his incessant training.
And I’m still learning the ins and outs of his real personality.
What if there’s a dangerous part of him I haven’t seen yet?
“Mason?”
I blink, and suddenly my face is framed between Cameron’s hands, and he’s massaging beaded tears from my cheeks with his thumbs. When did I start crying? Why?
“Fuck,” I whisper, wrenching back so I’m sitting upright on his navel, smearing my hands over my drippy eyes. “Sorry. I don’t mean to keep crying in front of you.”
Cameron’s shifting off his back, though, drawing himself up to sit propped against the headrest. “Did I make you uncomfortable?” he asks.
“No, of course not…Sorry…”
“Don’t apologize.” He taps the backs of my wrists, which are still sprawled over my face, hiding my humiliation. “Can I help?”
He sounds so sweet and supportive. Am I allowed to say it? I told him I’m comfortable being alone with him, so won’t he get angry if I suddenly change my mind? We’ve been kissing for so long—isn’t it ridiculous how out of nowhere this feeling is?
Cameron plucks my trembling hands away from my face, then draws both to his lips and kisses the divots between my knuckles.
He sprawls one of my palms over his mouth, kissing along the engraved lines, then shifts farther down until he’s at the veins of my wrist. He moves to my other hand and treats it with the same care.
“I’m…I just…” It’s all I can manage to croak.
“You can say it.”
His voice is encouraging. Even so, my heart burns with terrified anticipation, and it only causes my face to become wetter and splotchy. Bile stings my throat.
“I’m scared of you,” I breathe.
Cameron doesn’t react to this. His mouth is still grazing the base of my palm.
“Sorry. I’m sorry. I just d-don’t want to get h—” I wrench my shirt over my face so he can’t see as the weight of a thousand hands curl around my heart, wringing it. “If you get mad, what am I supposed to do? I can’t…”
The panic closes around my throat. Slowly, Cameron’s arms curl around my waist, and he collects me into his chest, wrapping me against him.
For several seconds, he strokes my hair, his grip never relenting.
Eventually, he says, “I know promises probably won’t reassure you. The truth is…I don’t know what to say.”
He pauses. I lie limp against him, forehead buried in the crook of his neck.
“You’ve been hurt over and over by someone you love,” he whispers, breath fluttering the hair around my ear.
“Even if you know I won’t hurt you, that fear might never leave.
It’s okay. I’ll never be upset with you for feeling that way.
” He fans his palm up the back of my neck, eliciting pleasant tingles.
“I’ll do anything I can to make you feel safe.
And I’ll try to remember that sometimes, it may not be enough. ”
My tears stain his skin and roll down the curve of his shoulder. He’s speaking so softly, it makes my chest ache. “Lot of baggage,” I mumble into his neck.
Cameron snickers, to my surprise. “Good thing my shoulders are so muscular.”
I tug my face back to look him in the eye. I don’t miss the way he goes to catch my tears with his thumbs again, like he can’t help himself. “Sometimes you say the sweetest things,” I murmur. “And sometimes you make me want to shove those painted rocks in your mouth. There’s never a happy medium.”
“Love me for who I am, water boy.”
“Who said anything about love, quarterback?”
He narrows his eyes, and I smile sweetly, to which he scowls in defeat. “Can I kiss you again?” he demands. I know why he sounds irritated—it’s not because I interrupted us. He’s annoyed that he wants to keep kissing me, even after I’ve sassed him.
“If you must,” I say with a drawling sigh. “Though my mouth kind of hurts.”
“Doesn’t have to be your mouth.” He twists, upsetting my balance and nudging me onto my back.
He props himself over me with one arm, using the other to stroke my hair away from my face.
He kisses the center of my forehead. His lips graze a path to my temple.
Then to my wet cheekbone. The flat of my chin, the line of my jaw.
Each kiss lingers sweetly, and when he finds the arch of my neck, a sense of warm calmness washes over me.
It’s nice, being kissed like every inch of me matters.
Like there’s not a single part of me that doesn’t deserve attention.
He’s at the hollow of my exposed collarbone, and I feel the surprising, hot scrape of his tongue against my skin.
My breath noticeably shortens, and so he torments that spot a little longer, pouring his heat into me, until I’m appropriately flushed and he moves along.
He nudges my shirt up and continues kissing, gentle and slow yet deep and deliberate.
I feel like I’m being worshipped. It seems strange, letting a boy I only partially know do something like this.
Would Liam have kissed me like this if I had asked?
Maybe, but I don’t think he would’ve done it with Cameron’s level of care.
Cameron makes his way to my rib cage before making the jump to my thigh.
He pushes the bottom of my pants up over my knee, then kisses me there, carefully moving up my skin until his lips are against my ankle.
“You have cute feet,” he says, setting my left leg down and scooping up my right.
He sprawls my toes back and kisses my foot, which sends more pink hues climbing into my face.
“You have a foot kink, don’t you?” I ask in dismay.
“Nah, yours are just cute. I want to bite them.”
And he does, the absolute creep. I squawk in horror, trying to wriggle my ankle out of his grip, but he holds fast to it with a gleaming grin and sinks his teeth into the other side, enough that it tickles.
“I don’t exist for your fetishes!” I cry out, but he’s already moved to my ankle, and then my calf, nearly shuddering with laughter.
I throw an arm over my face, my ears burning.
By the time he finds my mouth again, I’ve fallen asleep under the kind touch of his lips.