Chapter 13 – Mason
Chapter
Thirteen
MASON
Istare out my office window, admiring the incredible view of the Hudson.
It’s the kind you could get used to when you see it almost every day, but when you really pay attention and look at it, it will take your breath away.
I’ve been lucky enough to travel the world, but there’s nowhere quite like New York.
There’s a knock at my open door, and my secretary says, “Mr. Blackthorn is here to see you, sir.” Deborah only calls me sir when I have an unfamiliar visitor. Outside of that, we’re very informal.
“Show him in.”
I brace myself and turn around. True to his word, he’s wearing a suit and tie. I expected him to look out of place, maybe a little uncomfortable given how well he rocked the laid-back vibe yesterday, but he looks just as good in a suit. Damn him.
He glances around the room like he’s expecting an ambush. “I thought I was reporting to Elijah?”
“Elijah has taken a last-minute trip, so you’ll be dealing with me. You think you can handle that?”
He arches an eyebrow. “Do you think you can?”
Looks like he’s still the same cocky fuck who humiliated me eighteen years ago. The fact that he has the nerve to walk in here like nothing happened was proof enough of that. I sit at my desk and he takes that as a cue to sit opposite me.
“So what’s your strategy?” I ask.
He licks his bottom lip. An unwanted and incredibly inappropriate memory flashes through my brain.
“You have four hundred employees,” he says. “I’m going to comb through all of their work emails and—”
“All the emails for all four hundred of them?”
Smirking, he raises his eyebrows. “I have a program I use. I’ll input some specific keywords, and then I’ll use that to narrow down my suspect pool.”
I want to ask how exactly he’ll do that, but frankly, I don’t have time and I don’t want to appear too interested in what he does in the event it’s misconstrued as interest in him. Which it absolutely is not.
King Worthington, now Blackthorn. Who came back to New York to look after his sick grandfather. Drake has never seen him with a woman or a guy. He’s not married. No kids? Yeah, I have no interest in him at all.
His rich voice cuts through my racing thoughts. “Anything else you’d like to know, Mason?”
I clear my throat. “What about after you narrow down your suspects?”
“I’ll be spending a lot of time here at the office, getting to know people, their habits, their personal lives. Anything that will give me clues as to who they really are.”
“You said you’re good at reading people.”
He nods. “I am.”
Conceited douchebag. “And you think that will be enough? Sounds like what any PI might do. Drake said you were better than most.”
He leans forward, his eyes burning into mine. “I am, Mason. I’ll be doing plenty, don’t worry about that. You don’t need to question my methods, but I can promise you results.”
God, he is such a cocky fuck. How is it he’s sitting in my office, the one that my company owns, yet I still feel like he’s the one in charge?
I roll my neck and remind myself who I am.
I’ve dealt with much more powerful and intimidating people than King.
“You’ll report to me with updates on your progress every day. ”
He smirks. “Whatever you wish, Mason.”
I wish you’d get the hell out of New York and crawl back to whatever hole in Chicago you slid out of. I jerk my chin at the door and say, “That will be all.”
He bristles. I lock my hands behind my head and smile. Welcome to my world, King.
This is now the sixth time King has sat across from me at the end of the day, giving me an update on his progress.
Elijah’s back from the Seychelles, but for some reason I have remained King’s point of contact.
Neither of us has objected or made any attempts to change the status quo, which either makes both of us masochists or completely fucked up.
His eyes rake over me, and his hungry gaze feels like a caress on my skin.
I stare back at him just as intently. At the bulging muscles of his biceps straining for freedom against his shirt sleeves, at the dark ink etched on his skin, visible beneath the stark white fabric.
The shadow of stubble on his jaw that gets at least two shades darker by the end of the day.
This has to be wildly inappropriate, the way we sit here eye-fucking each other. But as long as neither of us acknowledges that it’s happening, then we can both pretend it’s not.
King has made clear progress on the case, but I’m impatient. I want to know who the piece of shit is that betrayed me and my family. Who used their trusted position to sell our hard work.
It frustrates the fuck out of me, and I clearly don’t disguise it well because he says, “I know it feels slow and laborious, and I guess it is, but it’s going to take time.”
“You said it would take less than three months.”
“It’s been less than two weeks, Mason.”
Annoyance bubbling over, I push back my chair and go to make myself a coffee. And like he’s done the past three days, King comes to stand beside me. Not too close, but close enough that I feel his body heat.
“You want one?” I grumble. I didn’t offer him one the first few days, but my inherent good manners must have gotten the better of me, and by Monday of this week, I was offering him a cup.
He refused. He agreed on Tuesday, stood beside me and watched on Wednesday, then helped by pouring his own sugar yesterday.
And now we sound like we’re trapped in a Craig David song.
I still hate King, even if I do find him absurdly attractive, but I’m not an animal. I can suppress my baser desires for a few weeks. And I suppose if I’m going to have to work with him for the foreseeable future, I can at least be civil.
“Yeah,” he replies to my offer of coffee, his voice so low it’s almost a growl.
His fingers brush the back of my hand when he reaches for the sugar, sending heat traveling up my forearm.
I bite down on the inside of my cheek and pray I didn’t show any outward reaction.
It’s simply muscle memory, that’s all. Nothing more.
He reaches for the spoon next, and it happens again, our little fingers brushing together, creating a palpable crackle of electricity. He did that on purpose.
He gives me a sideways glance. “Cream?”
Motherfucker.
He pours a splash into each of our mugs without me having to answer, and I stir before handing him one.
Like the past three days, we drink our coffee in silence, eye-fucking each other over the rims of our mugs now rather than across the desk.
I definitely do imagine what it would be like if I had a real fuck-it moment and threw my mug on the floor before pinning him to the wall by his throat.
I’d hold him in place while I let my mouth and hands wander all the places my eyes do.
Especially his cock, which I already know from experience is huge and lined with thick, lickable veins.
I don’t let my eyes wander there often, but when I do, fuck if I don’t see the outline of that monster in his suit pants.
He drains his mug and places it back on the tray.
And then he stares at me, his top lip trapped between his teeth like he wants to say something.
Or maybe he’s thinking about pinning me to the wall by my throat, and that scenario isn’t any less appealing to me than the one I’ve been playing out in my head.
“I guess I’ll see you Monday” is what he eventually says. All that thinking to tell me he’ll see me Monday?
Swallowing my disappointment, I nod.
“Goodnight, Mason.” Is that disappointment I hear in his voice too? Or am I imagining it?
He walks out of my office, and I let out a long breath and scrub a hand through my hair. Whatever that was, his leaving is for the best. Even if my body remembers how good we were together, my brain will never let me get past the hurt he caused. I can never trust him like that again.
My dick is just going to have to get with the program. King Blackthorn’s perfect body and monster cock don’t negate the fact that he’s a giant douchebag and therefore totally off-limits.