23. Mason
Chapter 23
Mason
F or the rest of the walk and during dinner, Sophia tries to get me to tell her the secret that I dangled in front of her, but I remain strong.
“You know,” I say as we finish dessert. “Until today, I thought Spike was the most curious creature on this planet, but you might give him a run for his kibble.”
In fact, I bet if I had a secret juicy enough, I could get her to sell me the team… except I don’t seem to care about that as much anymore.
She bats her eyelashes at me. “Curiosity is my only vice.”
I scan the table with its scattered remains of dessert. “Yeah. Totally.”
She stands up. “Fine. I like my sweets. And I will sleep in on occasion.”
Figures. Just as I’m getting up, she mentions herself in bed, so here I am walking her to her suite with a major hard-on.
As we walk, the wind must pick up because I can feel the movement of the ship, a soft rocking underneath us. Hopefully, she can’t feel it, and I don’t tell her about it lest I trigger any sort of nocebo seasickness. I just watch her closely to see if she feels unwell—which turns out to be a mistake.
Looking at her is doing bad things to the aforementioned hard-on.
When we reach her door, she clears her throat. “Thank you. It was a nice day, all things considered.”
My gaze drops to her lips, and I step closer, my heart pounding faster as her sweet scent reaches my nostrils. “Why don’t we make it even nicer?”
She vehemently shakes her head. “Sorry. No. I’ve got to go.”
With that, she slides her key over her door, but too fast again. After some fussing, she gets the door open and rushes inside as if being chased by a puck flying at a hundred miles per hour.
Fuck. Did I misread the situation so completely? I thought she would at least kiss me, but she acted like I’d contracted leprosy.
Entering my own suite, I take a cold shower—which does nothing for my Sophia-inspired lust, so I fist my cock as a plan B, thinking of her the whole time but especially when I come.
Despite all that, when I get into bed, Sophia is on my mind, and sleep refuses to come—which forces me to do something I suck at: examine my feelings.
It doesn’t take me long to understand just how fucked I am.
When it comes to Sophia, buying the team isn’t my main goal anymore… because I want her more.
I know it’s stupid. She’s the team owner, is much too young for me, and most importantly, she might not even want me like that—as evidenced by the kiss that never happened. What she calls F-Day might’ve been a drunken mistake on her part, and maybe it wasn’t as good for her as it was for me—though she sure sounded like she enjoyed herself.
And here I go. Hard. Again.
Fuck me sideways.
In the morning, Sophia shows up for breakfast at the same restaurant as yesterday, which is a good sign. If she were looking to avoid me, she could’ve gone to the other restaurant—though she could’ve decided that I’d think she’d be elsewhere based on reverse psychology.
“Hey.” She beams at me.
Okay, a smile isn’t what one does when one is unhappy you guessed her whereabouts correctly.
“How’d you sleep?” she asks.
“Like a rock.” As in, my cock was as hard as a rock, thanks to a certain someone and her perfect breasts.
She grabs a plate and, as expected, loads it with all the most sugar-laden options on display.
We resume some of the get-to-know-you conversation, and among other things, I learn that she’s always had trouble insulting people. I’ll probably regret it later, but I offer to help her improve her skills and then teach her some of the gems from the repertoire my team and I use on the ice.
“I’ve thought of an activity we could do,” she says when the lesson is over. “It’s not watching nature, but it will happen in nature, a forest to be precise. I hope that’s okay with you?”
As long as she’s there, I don’t care what we do. “Sounds mysterious. Will you tell me what it is?”
She grins at me triumphantly. “Ziplining.”