Chapter Fifteen
“Calli, your phone’s ringing,” Fallon yelled over the music.
Crap.
I stopped the heavy bag from swinging and was working off my gloves on the way across the gym.
Fallon met me in the doorway. “Want me to answer it on speaker?”
I blew out a breath to calm my heart rate. I didn’t need to sound like a sex worker while I took a call from Amir. “Yeah,” I wheezed out.
Fallon slid his finger over the screen and put the call on speaker.
“Hello?” I greeted cooly.
“Zara Hawthorne?” a woman with a British accent asked.
Game time. Exit Calista Ventura, enter Zara Hawthorne.
My glaze slid to Fallon. His brow raised in question. I shook my head and answered the woman. “Yes. May I ask who’s calling?”
“This is Mr. Bakir’s secretary. He’s asked I inform you dinner tonight will be at Cé LA VI at nine. Do you know the Sky View hotel?”
“Indeed, I do.”
As a matter of fact, I could see the buildings from my bedroom’s balcony.
“Tower Two. Level fifty-four,” she went on to explain. “Do you need a car sent to retrieve you?”
I caught sight of Mason making his way down the hallway toward the gym—toward me.
After last night’s latest mental break, whereupon I thought it was a good idea to kiss the man, I’d successfully avoided him all day. Now I was stuck, with no avenue to escape.
“No, thank you. But if you could, please inform Mr. Bakir I will have my security detail with me. My driver will stay with the car; however, two of my men will escort me to dinner. They will be discreet,” I finished, with my eyes locked on Mason’s in warning.
His responding smirk told me we were in for a rip-roaring fight after I finished my call.
“That won’t be necessary, Miss Hawthorne. Security is provided.”
Mason’s eyes narrowed.
I cleared my throat.
“That’s a lovely offer. However, I’m a woman, as are you, so I think you will understand when I tell you my guards do not leave my side. If there is an issue with my personal detail joining this evening, please let me know within the hour so I can attend to other business.”
“Yes, Miss Hawthorne.”
Fallon disconnected the call and smiled at me. “Damn. Ice Queen Zara Hawthorne in the house. I was staring right at you and yet I was still wondering where our Calli went.”
No sooner did “our Calli” come out of Fallon’s mouth, Mason growled.
“Was that not to your liking, hotshot?”
“Wanna give us a minute, brother?”
Fallon handed me my phone. “Sure. I’ll go get the popcorn ready. If Mommy and Daddy are going to fight, I need a snack.”
“Please don’t ever call me Mommy again,” I begged.
“You sure? I looked up that website you mentioned.” The man wagged his brows . . . actually wiggled them while he smiled.
I couldn’t remember what website I’d mentioned, and I wasn’t going to dig my current hole deeper, not that I had the chance before Mason growled again.
Oh boy.
Fallon started down the hall, and it was on the tip of my tongue to beg him to come back.
Mason didn’t look happy. After a full sweep of my body, he looked unhappier.
I glanced down to see why he was frowning.
Gym shorts and a sports bra and one boxing glove still on, the other under my armpit.
Admittedly, that was gross. I was sweaty and shouldn’t be shoving things in my armpit to hold them, but it didn’t explain the frown.
“What’s wrong now?”
“You’re avoiding me.”
I took a step back. Which was the wrong thing to do. That gave Mason room to walk in and shut the door.
Trapped in a room with Mason.
This was different. This wasn’t our balcony. Our cone of silence didn’t extend to the gym. Anything I said here could and would be used against me.
“Mason.”
“Calli.”
I could tell him I’d been busy all day going over files, but he’d ask me what files, and I didn’t want him to know. I could lie and tell him I’d had a headache and lazed in bed all day, but he’d call me on it.
“You’re right, I have been.”
His torso swung back like I’d stuck him.
Which reminded me, I needed to take my gloves off and think of what I was going to do if Amir came back and told me dinner was off.
Tom would be pissed.
Tom could go fuck a duck.
I walked to the mini kitchen and tossed my glove on the counter, set my phone next to the glove, and got to work on the other.
“Why?”
Was he really going to play dumb?
“I didn’t take you as obtuse,” I told him, as I yanked off my other glove and tossed it with its match.
“Obtuse?” he asked from closer.
I turned around, not expecting him to be that close.
“Do you mind stepping back?”
He didn’t budge.
Fine. He wanted to play it this way, I’d play.
In here, I wasn’t Calli.
“I’ve been avoiding you because I don’t like to admit when I’ve made a mistake. So I sulk, then, after I’m done, I face it and make sure I never repeat it. So now that you’re here, I can face it and move on.”
“Which part of last night was a mistake?”
I remained silent. He knew, and I wasn’t going to be bullied into saying it.
“We’re alone in here,” he pointed out. “Cone of silence, sweetness. Tell me, which part was a mistake?”
Mason stared down at me.
I glared up at him with my shoulders stiff.
“Was you telling me your favorite songwriter is Stevie Nicks a mistake?”
Jerk.
“Me telling you something that only two other people know, was that a mistake?”
Only two other people?
He told me a secret-secret, not just something he doesn’t want common knowledge.
Ho-lee shit.
“Mase—”
“Or was it you brushing your fingers over my lips? Or was it your sweet kiss? Because, baby, that wasn’t a mistake. It was pure fucking torture, but trust me, I know a mistake when I make one, and that sure as fuck was no mistake.”
I felt my face heat.
Torture?
It was that bad?
Fuck Tom and his op. Screw Jason Anderson, I’d find another way to take him down. I needed to leave. I could be in London in ten hours. Far away from Mason and my horrible kiss.
“Jesus. What the hell is going on in your head?”
“Nothing. I apologized last night, but that was before I knew it was torture. So I say it again, I’m really sorry.”
I moved quickly to get around Mason. He moved quicker and grabbed me by my upper arm and hauled me to his chest.
“What’s happening right now?” he asked.
“Nothing. I want to—”
“Explain to me what’s going on.”
“Let me go.”
Instead of doing what I’d asked, he studied me in his Mason way. Meaning I had his full, undivided attention and his eyes were roaming my face. When they landed on mine, I knew I was in trouble.
“I see you misunderstood what I said. So let me rectify that.”
No way in hell I wanted him to rectify anything.
“Let me go,” I repeated.
He again ignored my demand and doubled down, tightening his hand around my bicep and pulling me closer.
“I told you most of the story last night, but I didn’t tell you everything. That being, I haven’t slept with a woman in ten years.”
“I could guess that when you were clear on all of those women being nothing but—”
“No, Calli. I haven’t fucked a woman in ten years.”
I felt myself blinking—rapidly. I opened my mouth to say something but snapped it closed. When I reopened it, still nothing.
I tried again, and this time words came out. Unfortunately, they weren’t very eloquent. “Um. What?”
“You heard me.”
“How’s that possible? I mean, I know how. But, um, why?”
“A smart man reevaluates his life choices when some rando tracks him down to tell him she’s pregnant.”
Mason has a child? Tom didn’t include that in his dossier.
“You—”
“No. But for seven months until the baby was born, I was sweating bullets. Me and three other guys had to submit DNA for the who’s-the-daddy lottery drawing.
The kid wasn’t mine, but it was the reality check I needed.
Condoms break, and then I’d be stuck with a baby mama I didn’t remember banging.
But worse, my kid would be the result of a meaningless orgasm that, for me, had long ago stopped feeling all that great.
After that scare, I haven’t touched a woman. ”
Ten years. No sex.
Still, I had him beat. But I was thinking my condition was easier than his because I didn’t know what I was missing.
Now might’ve been a good time to tell him my secret. But I wasn’t ready. Maybe tonight on the balcony I’d find the courage to repay his trust by giving him something no one else knew.
“Do you understand?”
I wasn’t sure why he cared if I understood his reasons for not having sex. That seemed like a rather personal choice, and from what I knew of Mason and by his own admission, he didn’t give a shit what people thought of him or his choices.
But still, I whispered, “Yeah, I understand.”
“No, Calli, baby, do you understand why it’d be torture, you sitting next to me in that robe with your long-ass legs?
That my mind would go to how they’d feel wrapped around me.
That first night, carrying you to bed, feeling your hands on my chest. Then last night, getting a good look at your tits after dreaming about what they’d feel like in my hands, in my mouth.
“Then I get your mouth and your sweet tongue, but I can’t move. Can’t touch you. Can’t kiss you back. Can’t give you what you were really asking for because if I make a move and take that too far and freak you out, I’d never be able to live with myself.
“Haven’t fucked a woman in ten years, Calli. Haven’t touched a woman either. Haven’t allowed a woman to touch me. I feel the temptation of you in my dick. I wanted you to take what you needed, but, baby, it was the best kind of fucking torture given by you.”
I stopped trying to get away and dropped my forehead to his chest.
I was the worst.
A tease.
“I’m so sorry. That wasn’t cool of me to use you like that. Tempt you to do something you didn’t want to do.”
His hand let go of my arm and he slid it around my back.
Mason Hughes was hugging me.
Damn, that felt good. I couldn’t remember the last time someone hugged me. Maybe my dad before he died. My mom in one of the rare times I saw her when she was only drunk and hadn’t slipped into blitzed.
“Did it seem to you like I didn’t want to be there? I got a mouth, sweetness, I know how to use it. If I didn’t want you touching me, I would’ve said something.”
I bet he did know what to do with his mouth.
I really wanted to find out all the ways he could use it.
Now, that was completely off the table, and not just because I was a pathetic virgin and wouldn’t know what to do with a man like Mason. If I were ever to try sex, it’d have to be with a geeky IT guy who had less muscle mass than me and wouldn’t care if I fumbled my way through the experience.
“What’s on your mind?” he asked the top of my head.
I wasn’t going to tell him about my impending sexcapades with my imaginary geek.
“I’m embarrassed. And I have to admit that, last night, I wore the robe again because I caught you staring at my legs the first night, and it felt good.
It felt normal, instead of the skeevy way men usually stare at me.
It felt clean and good, and I wanted to feel that again.
I didn’t think about how selfish it was. ”
“It wasn’t selfish.”
“It makes me a tease, Mase. And that’s not cool.”
I felt his body shake against mine. Stupidly I pushed closer, hoping to absorb more of Mason. More memories to take with me when I lost him.
“I’d tell you you’re the best kinda tease, baby, but I know you’d take that the wrong way, so what I’ll tell you instead is, I didn’t mind.
And if I have a choice, it’ll be you in the robe on our balcony again tonight.
If I had another choice, it’d be you sharing my lounger, taking from me whatever it is you need with the knowledge you’re safe to take it.
You want to be the only one touching, touch.
You want to kiss me, kiss me. You want more, we’ll talk.
But Calli . . . you have to talk to me, not run away. ”
“You’d let me kiss you?”
“Fuck yeah.”
“Touch you?”
“Anything above the belt, it’s all yours. You wanna go lower, we’ll have to discuss that.”
Safe.
He’d make it safe for me to touch.
To kiss.
I lifted my forehead off his chest. As soon as I did, I caught his green eyes staring down at me.
He was serious.
Dead-ass serious.
He’d bend his rules for me.
Ten years, no women by his own vow, and he’d let me touch and kiss him.
“Mase—”
My phone ringing cut off the rest of what I was going to say.
He gave me a squeeze and stepped back. “You need to answer that.”
I twisted, grabbed my phone, checked the caller ID, and answered, “Hello?”
“Miss Hawthorne,” the British woman greeted. “Under the circumstances, Mr. Bakir will make an exception for you. One guard may accompany you into the dining room. The others must be discreet and not enter the restaurant.”
“That will be fine.”
“Is there anything else you require?”
“No. Thank you.”
I dropped my phone, made sure the call was disconnected, and informed Mason, “One guard in the restaurant.”
“That’ll be me,” he informed me back. “Fallon will post outside the door. Pete will stay with the car.”
“Is it weird the restaurant Amir picked is one we can see from the apartment?”
“If you’re asking if he knows where you’re staying, possible but unlikely.
But it wouldn’t matter if he did. You’re in a luxury penthouse.
If we were staying at the Best Western in a shitty thirty-dollar-a-night room and he knew, that’d be a problem.
But you up in the sky with your three guards, not unusual, nothing to question.
And the restaurant he chose is a hot spot, a place to throw money around and be seen doing it.
I’d have questions if he wanted to take you someplace quiet.
He also knows taking you to a club like he does with the men isn’t going to work. Women and booze won’t impress you.”
Mason was right. I was being paranoid because Jason was already in Dubai and close.
“Okay.”
“Are we straight with everything else?”
I would not blush like a schoolgirl.
“We’re straight.”
Mason’s smile came slowly, and when it fully formed, it was lazy. Pantie melting. Dangerously sexy. Thigh-clenching, mind-dizzyingly beautiful.
“You’re gonna stop avoiding me?”
Um. No. I was going to avoid him the rest of the afternoon while I took a long, hot bath and gave in to the fantasy of Mason and what his mouth could do.
Then I’d get down to mission prep. But before I could concentrate on my assignment, I needed to relieve the ache.
I had to find a way to release the constant throbbing that wasn’t only between my legs but around my heart.
Vagina first.
Mission second.
Heart later.