Chapter 42 Mason
MASON
“So, this is it? You are just going to vanish?” Hugo raises a suspicious brow.
I’m leaving.
Fort, my home where she left her prints everywhere, doesn’t feel mine anymore. How can it? She isn’t here. So, I’m going to the one place that’ll accept me with open arms and no judgment. Sicily.
Ever since I made the call to my grandfather, then never showed up, he has been hounding me to visit. I thought I would do one better. Putting a few countries between her and me suddenly feels like the smartest decision I’ve made in a long time.
“I’m not moving to Antarctica, arsehole.” I toss my packed bag on the floor. “Besides, don’t tell me you fuckers won’t infiltrate the minute I settle in. This one is always looking for an excuse to get out of Fort.”
“Well, yeah.” Hugo snorts. “Of course I’ll be there. Have you seen your cousins? And then there’s the beach and the ports, and your cousins in bikinis.”
“Yeah, great location for disposing bodies, too,” James chortles.
“Right, get the fuck out of here. Or you’ll make me late. Again. Nannu only loves me enough to be disappointed once.”
“Don’t put that on us, fucker,” Hugo grunts. “You have your wildcat girlfriend to blame for that.”
Hugo didn’t touch me, but girlfriend feels like a punch to the gut. James catches my expression, as he always does, and leads Hugo out with a pat on my back, leaving me alone with none other than the God of misery.
“I guess the day we were all dreading is here.” Kane half-smiles. “You’re going full red.”
“At least I’ll be in my element.” I grin, lifting a shoulder.
“Try not to die,” Kane says, laying it on thick before he heads out after James and Hugo.
Once they leave, I slide open the balcony door at the Ritz and step out.
The city glows beneath, car lights smearing into streaks.
The night air washes my face, cold enough to sting.
There is something about the buzzing hum of the city that fucks with my head.
It’s too much fucking noise. Too much clutter.
But also, too easy to fall into the chaos.
The lingering nicotine-laced air pulls at me like an old bruise, begging for one final taste. But that’s how it begins. One. Just one more fucking time.
Thud, thud.
My head snaps to the banging on the door.
It grows louder as I walk up to it. “What now?” I bark, ready to thump whichever one of them has come back. But when the door opens, I freeze.
Her electric ice-blues hit me right in the chest.
The fuck is she doing here? I let her the fuck go. What more can I give her?
“Are you seriously letting me go?” Eva croaks, streaming with tears. I instinctively reach for her face and wipe one under her eye. She smacks my hand away. “I asked you a question.”
“Isn’t that what you want?” I put my hands in my pockets.
“Since when do you care what I want?” She takes a step closer.
“Since you turned into a fucking ghost.” My gaze traces her from head to toe.
“It’s that easy?” Her voice vibrates between us. “You’re not even going to fight me?”
“I call every day.” I lift a shoulder.
“You didn’t tonight,” she says, like an accusation.
I stare at her, my seared chest rising and falling with quiet desperation. What is she doing to me? I did the fucking impossible. Must she torture me now, too? Not that I don’t deserve it all. But there is only so long I can hold the reins to the beast that wants to break free and crawl inside her.
“So, what now?” she asks when I don’t speak. “You’re going to marry Lottie? Move her into our bed?”
“Maybe.” I shrug.
Her nostrils flare, chin trembling. Then she raises a hand and slaps me across the face. I saw it coming, but didn’t dare stop it. She has the right to hit me. She has every right. Period.
I crack my jaw then look at her streaming eyes, letting my grin slip. Which earns me another hit, but this time I grab her wrist an inch from my face and pull her in.
“You’ll hurt your hand.”
“Never mind my hand, you broke my heart, Mason,” she sobs. “You did the one thing you swore you would never do. Was that a lie, too? Was I just some pawn in our families’ games?”
Every word out of her mouth sends heat ripping through my veins. I grab her waist and pull her into me.
“You think it was easy for me to walk away from you today? When you ached like that and looked like this? You don’t think I have plotted kidnapping you every single day since you left me?
I can’t sleep in my bed, can’t wear my fucking jacket because it still smells like you.
I can’t even scorch my agony in cigarettes because of the shit you said. ”
She holds my gaze, tears cascading down her cheeks like a punishment I’m forced to witness, but not allowed to heal.
“I would do anything for you, Eva.” My fingers curl around her hip, a muscle ticking in my jaw at how thin she feels. “Just tell me what it is you want.”
She stares at me for a brief moment, then rises onto her toes and drops a peck on my lips. The warmth of her touch, which I have been craving for too long, freezes me in place.
“Don’t fuck with me, Eva,” I grit out, my lips barely moving. “I deserve everything you throw at me, but I can’t do this again. I won’t. If you come back to me, I’m barricading the fucking doors. You will never leave me again.”
She smiles through her tears and places a hand on my chest, pushing me into the room, then crosses the threshold and takes her time locking the door and hooking the chain.
“Done,” she murmurs. And I’m a goner.
I crush my mouth to hers. Her arms snake around my back, claiming me with a quiet insistence, as I lift her into my arms and carry her in.
My hands slope down the length of her, ripping the heels off her feet, my fangs digging into her soft lips so deep, I draw blood.
I drink in her earthy taste and something else.
Something too fucking familiar that trickles down to my lungs, turning my vision red.
I yank her head back. Hard.
“Did you kiss another man?” I hiss against her mouth. Her brows scrunch. “Why do you taste of smoke?”
“It’s mine,” she replies with a secret smile and brushes my lower lip with a finger. “I was craving your taste.”
“Fuck me.” My tongue darts out to lick her lip. I thought she hated my guts all this time. “Well, you aren’t the only one with cravings.”
She smiles wider and starts to press her lips to mine again, but I turn her around and shove her onto the bed.
She lands on her hands and knees. Flinging her dress up, I rip off her panties—the thin silk that has the audacity to keep her from me—then lick the length of her sweet, dripping pussy and drink in my real addiction, her delicious arousal that tastes like my darkest sin.
The evidence she’s still mine. My mouth seals around her opening, and I suck so hard, her back arches.
“Mason,” she purrs. Fuck, I forgot how much I love to hear her moan my name. “I need you inside me.” She reaches for my belt.
She turns around on her knees, her fingers curling around the buckle, before she yanks my belt open. I unfasten my trousers, pull out my hard cock, then throw her onto the mattress and follow, thrusting into her heat. Her chest heaves against mine.
I don’t take it easy. I don’t wait for her to adjust. I can’t wait a second longer to be inside this woman, who owns me so completely, I’m a hollow vessel without her. She is my frenzy, my madness. Everything starts and ends with her.
Her cunt clenches around me, starving for me, just like I am for her. I drive into her, savoring every inch of her, using up the last tether of my restraint.
“I shouldn’t even be around you, princess. The way I’m feeling… the monster inside me wants to tear you apart.”
“Let me have it,” she moans. “I crave your beast, too. I always have. Even when you broke into my room and tied me up, part of me hoped you would tear down my pretense and fuck me awake.”
“Fuck, don’t say shit like that,” I growl, kissing her neck, then marking it with my teeth, and making her whimper. “If you see the worst of me, you’ll be bolting for the door again.”
“I’ve already locked it.” She palms my face. “I know you think you need to hide from me because I can’t love all of you. But I already do. Every mad corner, including that stupid red brain of yours. Let me show you how wrong you are. Fuck me, Mas—”
Her words end in a scream as the nuts and bolts go flying off the shackles, and I lose the reins to the war building inside me.
She pulls my T-shirt off as my fingers tear and rip at the black fabric wrapped around her, letting nothing remain between us but the blistering heat of our bodies.
Then I ram into her cunt with every ounce of my might, and she screams my name, her body obeying my every thought.
I twist her nipple, pounding into her spot. She whimpers and moans and screams in my favorite erotic voice, digging her nails into my flesh and pulling me closer.
Even after weeks that felt like fucking years, she molds into me like she never left these arms. The same way her eyes roll back in her head, the way she drools when I take her beyond her limits, and the obedience.
The fucking obedience. She begs to come again and again until I let her.
Then, she pulls me closer for more. Usually, this is when she begs me to stop.
But tonight, she doesn’t.
“Jesus Christ, I’m never leaving your cunt.”
“Your cunt,” she whispers, driving me fucking insane. “Promise me you won’t leave me again.”
“Not a fucking chance, princess,” I growl.
The thought of her, lying in her silk, wet for me when I was a foot away, makes me go harder, yearning to fuck her very soul. Too much fucking time wasted because I couldn’t give her what she needed—her choice.
The fuck did I know there was a chance in hell she would choose me? Well, she had her choice. She made it. Thank fuck. With one foot across that threshold, she saved my fucking life, whatever that was worth without her.
She is never leaving my sight again. I won’t fucking allow it.
“Fuck, princess. I love you so much.”
“I thought you didn’t do easy.”
I chuckle. “Loving you is not easy, little dove. Keeping you from hurting yourself, watching you leave, and not being able to steal you back, then walking away from you… It’s the hardest fucking thing I’ve ever had to do.”
“Mason,” she croaks and pulls me to her lips.
My balls tighten, eager to fill her in, but I stop myself.
The monster inside me thirsts for more and more of her.
I pull her onto the floor and fuck her on all fours, fisting her hair in a faux ponytail, then against the glass wall shimmering with city lights, then make her bounce on my cock, carrying her in my arms, while her neon blues shine and roll back into her head.
She falls apart around my cock again, kissing me raw and drawing the strongest orgasm from me.
Then I carry her to the bath and soak in her warmth, her sandalwood scent. And because I still can’t get enough of her, and she refuses to beg me to stop, I fuck her again in the bath, until all the water splashes out of the tub and she’s shivering in my arms.
She folds into me as I wipe her down with a towel and wrap her unacceptably thin frame, covered in my marks, in a robe.
“Time for bed, princess,” I mutter, lifting her in my arms and taking her to bed.
And then I do what I never thought I would be able to do again.
I watch her sleep.
My little dove.
My Queen.
Mine.