Chapter Twenty-One
Mason lifted his head to look down at me.
I was mesmerized by the sight. Big, beautiful Mason Hughes on top of me, connected bodily, skin to skin. As amazing as the sight was, I needed more. My breasts felt full and heavy, my nipples were ultrasensitive from Mason’s mouth, and my core clenched and ached at the same time.
“Calista,” Mason groaned, sounding pained.
“I need . . .” I trailed off, unable to communicate what I needed.
Mason eased out of me. “I know what you need.”
All right, okay, yes, he knew what I needed. That felt good. He slowly pushed back in, and that felt better.
“Okay?” he asked.
“Oh yeah,” I breathed.
Mason gave me a few more slow, sluggish, languid strokes. The ache intensified. I was hot and shivering at the same time. I felt restless. My skin tingled.
“I need to move, baby. You ready for more?” His rough, hoarse voice sent a tremor through me.
“Yes.”
Mason’s lips went to my neck. I tilted my head back, giving him better access. His tongue blazed a trail down to my throat, and there, he told me in that same coarse, raw voice that made my blood heat, “Wrap your legs around me.”
I did as I was told. Then something amazing happened—Mason slid deeper.
Now that felt great. Overwhelmingly, astoundingly great.
“Fuck, Calli, you feel beautiful.”
So did he, but my breath left my lungs in a whoosh, taking my voice with it when his hand skimmed over my breast. All thoughts vanished when his thrusts became more powerful—deeper, not faster. His thumb strummed my nipple. I arched, wanting more of something I didn’t understand.
Instinctively, my hips surged up. “Oh my God.”
Tremors shot through me. My legs tightened. My hands decided to get in the game, moving around to his back where hard, smooth, hot skin awaited. I could feel his tension under my palms, muscles coiled, straining to keep control.
I didn’t want Mason’s control. I wanted him to feel what he was giving me.
“More,” I whimpered.
His fingers captured my nipple, his thrusts turned into drives, the tension in his back tightened. The throbbing between my legs became unbearable. I squirmed with each plunge of his cock, grinding, reaching, craving.
Mason groaned against my throat. I felt the vibration.
I memorized it. I locked it away to revisit it later—every feeling, every thrust, every breath, every groan, touch, kiss.
They were mine for eternity. I could lose everything, I could never have it again, but I’d never lose this. I’d never forget.
“Christ,” he rasped. “So fucking beautiful. Nothing better than your sleek, tight pussy taking my cock.”
I felt a rush of wet. My breath hitched. My orgasm floated just out of reach. I felt like I was going to come out of my skin, fevered, frantic, desperate.
“Look at me, baby.”
I opened my eyes, not remembering when I closed them, but happy he’d ordered them open. No, seeing the stark desire swirling in his eyes, the normal jade green now emerald, I was ecstatic.
“You’re gonna let go and come with me,” he told me with a swivel of his hips, grinding down hard.
That desperate feeling strengthened with each drive of his cock. My pulse went wild. The air around me felt like I was in a sauna, hot and humid and hard to breathe.
“Mason,” I pleaded, trembling all over.
He forged deeper, harder, faster, angled his thrusts just right.
Then everything disappeared, his hot skin under my palms, the air in my lungs, my legs, his eyes. All that was left was the sweetest euphoria I’d ever experienced. An explosion that swept me away into a place where all I could feel was intense pleasure.
“That’s it, Calli. Fuck, baby, fuck!”
I sucked in breath, only to have it stolen again when Mason’s thrusts turned ruthless, uncontrolled, brutal.
“Oh my God!”
Every nerve was alive with sensation. My inner muscles clenched and clutched, greedy for more.
For the first time in my life, I felt alive. I gloried in it, succumbed to the bliss, flew apart, and danced in the flames.
Mason buried his face in my neck and groaned. Two more thrusts, he planted himself to the root, and he followed me into ecstasy with his body jolting, his cock jerking, his heart pounding against my chest.
Together.
Connected.
For one beautiful moment in time, I had everything.
I had Mason.
The exquisiteness of it was branded on my skin for only me to know.
My brain slowly came back on station. If this was the only time I was going to have this, I was taking everything I could.
With that in mind, my hands went back to exploring.
The tension had eased from his frame, but he was still hot—hard muscle under silky, damp skin.
God, I loved how he felt, his weight, his lips on my neck, his cock, his hands.
I wanted to keep him, stay with him, have this for always.
But he wasn’t mine to keep.
Later, I would miss this.
Mason slowly lifted his head. His gaze immediately found mine.
Searching in his Mason way, looking for something that was not there.
I would not tell him this was a mistake, because it wasn’t.
I wouldn’t apologize because I wasn’t sorry he’d given me something I’d never forget. I wouldn’t regret a single second.
I knew he found what he needed when he brushed his lips over mine, finishing with a soft kiss to the corner of my mouth. It was sweet, made sweeter when lips moved to my temple and kissed me there, then to my forehead, my other cheek, and my jaw.
Who knew Mason Hughes could be tender, peppering my face with kisses? I wouldn’t have guessed, but now that I’d been on the receiving end of all that tenderness, I gloried in that too.
He shifted, taking away some of his weight, and his hand came up to brush some errant strands of hair off my face.
“Unwrap, baby, so I can get you cleaned up.”
I didn’t unwrap. I tightened my legs, and my muscles clenched in a new, frightening way.
“Calli,” he moaned. “Christ, baby, you already milked every last drop out of me.”
I didn’t understand what he was saying. Obviously, he read my confusion because he went on to explain, and that, too, was frightening.
“When you tighten like that, I feel it. Just not those long, sexy legs holding me close, but inside.”
“Oh.”
He was quiet for a second. His eyes roaming my face, taking me in, not in study but in something else.
“I took you rough,” he whispered.
He had. It was glor-ee-ous. I couldn’t help the clench.
“Jesus,” he grunted. “Your pussy is a miracle.”
Not exactly a flowery compliment but a damn sexy one.
“I need to pull out, baby.”
That was disappointing.
“What if I don’t want you to?” I asked sheepishly.
Now that the desire was at a simmer instead of a rolling boil ready to scald me, it was easy to remember up until a little bit ago, I’d been a virgin. And just because I no longer carried that particular card, I still had no experience in what happened next.
Mason swept his thumb over my cheek. “Trust me, sweetness, the last thing I want is to lose your tight, wet heat. But I’ve got a few more seconds before I’m hard again.”
That didn’t sound like a bad thing. “And?”
A slow, lazy smile formed. No, a slow, lazy, satisfied smirk formed.
He didn’t answer. Instead, he told me, “You’re crazy beautiful, Calista.”
“You’re crazy hot, Mason,” I returned.
“I took—”
All right. Enough was enough.
“You didn’t take anything,” I interrupted. “It was mine to give, and I gave it to you. You didn’t hurt me.”
“Baby, your scream said otherwise. And if that didn’t do it, the tears brimming in your eyes would’ve.”
I had to give him that.
“It was a shock. A pinch of pain. But you didn’t hurt me.” He looked unconvinced, so I added, “I promise, Mason.”
“Okay, Calli. You trusted me with that, now I need you to trust me again and unwrap so I can see to you.”
That sounded scary. But I unlocked my ankles. He slowly slid out. I groaned. He moaned. As soon as I lost him, he scooted down and pressed his mouth between my breasts, then another to my belly, and one more lower still, right above where my panties would’ve been if I’d been wearing them.
I felt that in my womb.
“Be back,” he told me, as he exited the bed and hitched up his sweats. But he didn’t walk away until he yanked the corner of the comforter up and covered my naked body.
I watched him disappear into the bathroom, thinking there was something erotic about me being fully nude, while he’d only had me pull his sweats down far enough to free his cock.
I’d had sex with Mason with his pants pulled down to his thighs.
Frantic. Desperate. Desire fueled.
Now that was the way to lose your virginity.
Mason came back into the room, his lean hips and six-pack on display.
All of that was hot, but it was his chest and shoulders that had me enthralled.
And his biceps. He was muscled and cut all over, but I had a special affinity for his chest and arms; the former was the first part of him I’d touched.
And those arms had carried me to bed—twice now.
Two times I’d been carried by Mason—two times I’d been safe there.
He stopped by the side of the bed, stared down at me but didn’t speak. I gave him a few seconds of silence before fear inched in.
The slap of reality hit me.
I haven’t fucked a woman in ten years.
Just because I didn’t regret what we’d done didn’t mean he didn’t.
“Everything okay?” I whispered.
“Better than a dream,” he mumbled, like he wasn’t talking to me. “You ready to trust me some more?”
“Yes.”
Without preamble, the covers were thrown off me. Mason scooped me up off the mattress. My arms went around his neck, and he made his way into the bathroom.
Three times.
In a perfect world, there’d be hundreds more.
But the world sucked, so I’d remember this time too.
He set me on my feet next to the partially filled bathtub.
I tried not to allow my disappointment to show. He was taking care of me by running me a bath, but I wasn’t ready for him to leave.
Do not get clingy, I warned myself.