Chapter Ten
Mason
"What are you doing?"
"Ahh!" Olive screams, whipping around to face me with her hands up like she's some kind of goddamn ninja instead of a five-foot-five brunette who wears PJs that match her dog's.
"You scared me."
"I can see that." I lean against the counter, eyeing her up and down. "What are you doing?"
"Making dinner."
"You hate cooking."
"I don't hate it."
I snort, taking a step toward her. "You're a shit liar, Olive. I've lived beside you for two weeks. You order more delivery than any other human alive."
"Well, maybe I just wanted to do something nice for you," she mutters defensively.
"Appreciate that, baby," I murmur, trapping her up against the counter. "But you don't have to cook for me. You don't have to clean for me, do my laundry, run errands for me, or any of the other shit you've been trying to do the last few days, either."
"I'm just being nice."
"No." I hook my hands around her waist, hauling her up to plant her ass on the island. "You're being weird."
"Am not," she lies, avoiding my gaze.
I crane her head back, forcing her to look at me. "Talk to me, Rebel. What's going on?"
"Nothing."
"Is this moving too fast for you? Do I need to learn to keep my hands to myself?
Spend more time at my own goddamn house?
" Doing either of those things might actually kill me.
I'm so in love with this wild woman, I can't even breathe through it most days.
But if that's what she needs, I'll find a way to do it.
"What?" Tears well in her eyes, her bottom lip quivering. "You don't want to be here?"
"That's not what I said. I asked what you want from me, baby."
"I want you to stay!" she cries. "I'm trying to behave so you do."
Jesus.
I take a beat, trying to process what she's just said. And then I get pissed. I crank the knob on the stove, turning it off, and then snatch her off the counter, holding her up against my chest as I stomp down the hall to my office.
"What are you doing?" she cries, squirming in my arms. "Let me go."
I ignore her, ripping her shirt off over her head. Her bra goes next, and then her skirt and tiny pair of panties. Once she's naked, I sit, dragging her down on my lap. She fights me like a little hellcat, growling and hissing.
It'd be cute if I weren't so pissed.
"Settle down," I growl, swatting her on the ass.
"You settle down!" she retorts, poking me in the chest.
"Are you Paulina now, baby?"
She jabs me again.
I chuckle, gathering her hands up. She tries to get them free, so I haul her closer, kissing her until she melts against me. Only when she's still do I let her up for air.
"I don't want whatever idealized version of you that you think you need to be in order for me to stay, Olive," I growl against her lips.
"That's not the woman I fell in love with.
I fell for the wild woman who tells random strangers that she's stealing mail, accuses her next-door neighbor of being a serial killer, and calls the cops on his crazy bird.
I fell for the woman who gets fired up about Heathcliff, thinks Aeschylus sounds like a sneeze, and who believes that good and love always triumph in the end, just like in her favorite book.
I want the woman who wears matching PJs and has spa days with her dog, and plots against me with my bird.
That's the Olive I fell in love with. That's the woman who has always been good enough for me to stay, from the first fucking day, baby. "
"Mason," she whimpers.
"I know people were assholes to you in the past. I know how carefully you guard your heart and how afraid you are to let people in because of it, but I'm not them, Rebel.
I'm your man, and I'm not going anywhere.
Hell itself couldn't drag me away from you.
" I tip her head back, forcing her to meet my gaze.
"I'm so fucking in love with you and every wild thing you say and do. I'm not going anywhere."
Her lips part slightly, her expression part awe, part hope. "You love me?"
"Like fucking crazy," I growl. "So I need you to deal with this and stop acting like someone body-swapped you for a 1950s housewife, because that shit isn't you, and it's pissing me off."
"I hate cooking," she mumbles.
I chuckle, stroking her cheek. "I know you do."
"I hate doing your laundry, too. Your jeans are like 900 pounds when they're wet, Mason."
"You let me worry about my laundry. I'll cook every night. I don't care. But you aren't going to twist yourself into pretzels trying to be whoever it is you think you need to be to keep me here, Rebel. I'm precisely where I want to be, and I'm not going anywhere."
Her gaze flits across my face. "You really love me?"
I tug open the desk drawer, pulling out the little box hidden inside. "I bought this for you the morning after we slept together the first time," I say, swallowing hard. "I knew it was too soon to put it on your finger, but I wanted to do it."
I flip the box open, revealing the diamond ring nestled inside.
"Holy shit," she breathes, staring at it with wide eyes.
"This is how serious I am about staying, Rebel," I murmur, plucking it from the box. "Whenever you're ready, it's going on your finger."
"What…" She trails off, licking her lips. Her gaze flickers from the ring to my face and then back like she's watching a ping-pong match. "What if I'm ready now?"
"Don't say it if you don't mean it," I rasp. "Because I'll have this ring on your finger so goddamn fast, your head will spin."
"But I mean it, Mason," she whispers, her eyes watery as she looks at me again.
"That's why I've been freaking out so much.
It was easy to deal with being ghosted or having a date arrested before, because none of them mattered.
They were just guys I barely knew. They didn't mean anything.
But you mean something. If you left, it'd break my heart because… because…"
"Say it."
"Because I love you."
Jesus.
"I've never felt this way before, and I'm afraid I'll mess it up." Her bottom lip quivers. "I don't want to mess it up. I do that a lot, you know. I'm kind of a disaster."
"No, you're perfect, exactly the kind of chaos that was missing from my life. I don't love you because you're just like everyone else, Olive. I love you because you're not like anyone else. You're you. You can't mess that up, baby. It's not possible."
"I love you." She chokes on a sob.
I press my forehead to hers, slipping my ring on her finger.
"You d-didn't ask me," she sniffles, staring at it.
"Hold your horses," I mutter, shifting her to drag my cock out.
The bastard is already hard and aching, just begging for another taste of her.
He's never satisfied. No matter how many times a day I'm inside her, I always want more.
I place myself between her legs, rocking her against me so my cock drags against her clit.
Her head falls back on a moan.
I keep going, not letting up until she's trembling on my lap. And then I lift her just enough to drag her onto my cock. We both moan as she sinks down on me, taking me all the way to the hilt.
"Marry me," I groan, my hands locked around her waist when she's right where I want her—dripping and writhing all over my cock. "Say you'll be mine for the rest of my life, Rebel."
"Yes," she chokes, her nails digging into my shoulders. "Yes, Mason."
Fuck.
I lift her and then slam her down on me again and then again, fucking wild for her. I can't stop. I just fucking…lose it, fucking up into her like my life depends on it.
She shouts my name, her inner muscles clenching around me as she comes all over my cock.
I still don't stop. I can't. I flip her over, pinning her between me and the desk with her ass in the air. Her cheeks jiggle as I slam back inside her, craning her head back at the same time.
"You look beautiful wearing nothing but my ring and your pleasure, Olive," I growl, smacking her ass as I drive into her in relentless strikes, determined to make her come apart for me again. "You like knowing how fucking wild I am for you?"
"I love it!" she sobs. "I love it so much, Mason."
"Good." I plaster myself to her back, planting my lips against her ear. "I was made for you, Rebel. I'll spend the rest of my life proving that you belong to me, every single day, in every single way." I nip her skin, just hard enough so she feels it. "I love you."
She shatters with the sweetest whimper, her cunt locking down on my cock like a vise. I fuck her through it, wringing out every last quiver and aftershock before I plant myself deep, letting her sweet voice and the way she shakes tip me over the edge with her.
"I love you, Mason."
My damn knees threaten to buckle.
I collapse back in the chair, dragging her down with me. My arms are around her, holding her so tightly I know she can't breathe, but I can't let her go, either.
"You're everything to me," I breathe, kissing everywhere I can reach. "Absolutely everything. Don't you dare change on me."
"Promise," she sighs, melting against me.
We sit in silence for a long moment, trying to catch our breath.
"Asshole!" Paulina shrieks into the silence. "Woof, woof, asshole!"
"Jesus Christ," I mutter.
Olive's body shakes against mine, her laughter spilling out across my office. "Um, I think your bird wants you to go get Oscar for her, Mason."
I just tip my head back, looking up at the ceiling. "She's never going to stop calling me that, is she?"
"Nope," Olive says, giggling. "It's your name now."
"That's what I figured," I sigh.