Chapter 17
SEVENTEEN
Nina
My mum only ever calls when she wants money. I know this. So why do I have such a hard time ignoring her name as it flashes on my screen?
“You’d think it would be easy to ignore her calls after what you told me.” I mutter, reclining back into the safe confinement of Mason’s chest.
He wraps me up in his arms, breathing me in. “You should do what you think is right. Either way, I’m here for you.”
“I don’t want to speak to her, but I feel bad if I ignore her. And then when I do answer her calls, I’m always left feeling shitty. You probably think I’m stupid for even entertaining her.”
“She’s your mother, maybe not morally, but genetically she will always be a part of you, and I accept that if it means there’s a you in the world.”
I dip my head back, looking at him upside down. “Smooth, Bossman.”
He chuckles, leaning forward to kiss me. “Can I kick them out yet?” He flicks his eyes towards our friends.
I follow his gaze, catching Elliot and Lucy deep in conversation.
Lucy has had a skinful this evening and I should get her to bed, but I know Elliot is harmless.
She seems to be herself around him, compared to the perfected Lucy she fronts to the rest of the world—not many people get that side of her.
“No, let them stay. This place is too big for the two of us, and I like them being here.”
He rests his chin on my shoulder. “Me too,” he admits.
I sigh and relax deeper into him, allowing my eyes to close and my mind to rest as I soak in the contentment that comes in that moment.
Strong hands lift me, pulling me from sleep. “Bedtime, angel.”
I open my eyes and I see that everyone has gone inside. A blanket is draped around me, and I am cradled in the warmth of strong arms.
“What time is it?” I ask into his neck.
“Late. I didn’t want to wake you,” he says, looking down at me adoringly.
I reach up, moving his hair from his forehead, his skin cool against my warm palm. “Mase, your freezing,” I scold, pulling the blanket from around me and draping it over his shoulders.
“I’m fine.” He shrugs off the material.
He walks us into the penthouse and drops me to my feet. Lance, Charlie, Megan and Scarlet, all sit around the sectional sofa watching a movie. Scarlet gets up when she sees us, rounding the sofa to hug me.
“Night, guys,” she says with a lopsided grin on her face.
“I hope you’ve had a good day, Scar, I know I have.” I yawn long and hard, lifting my hand to stifle it. I have no idea how long I’ve been asleep, but I feel exhausted.
“Thanks to you I have.” She pulls Mason in for a hug. “Big brother, you fuck this up, and I will seriously never forgive you,” she tells him, throwing me a wink over his shoulder. “Is Vinny still with Dad? He’s happy to stay?”
“Yeah, have a night off, Scar,” Mason tells her.
“Thank you,” she says, reaching out to squeeze my hand.
“You seem to make everyone you meet fall in love with you.”
We stand at the sinks in Mason’s en suite brushing our teeth, and I pause momentarily as his comment registers.
I side-eye him in the mirror, noting the panic that’s written across his face. Biting down on my toothbrush, I try to contain my amusement.
I step forward and rinse, then wipe my chin. “I do?”
“Yeah. Like my sister, Vinny and the boys,” he says, slightly muffled.
“Ah, your sister, Vinny and the boys.” I wait a beat before asking. “Have you ever been in love, Mase?”
“Me?” He doesn’t look at me, but I catch his brows raised high in the mirror, his toothbrush going a mile a minute in his hand.
“Yes, you,” I ask.
“Uh, I don’t think so.”
“Me neither.” I shrug, hooking the tips of my fingers into the crevice of my collarbone.
I wait for him to finish his teeth then step up to him, blinking slowly as I draw his lips into a deep kiss. The taste of mint and him is the perfect mix. “Although I think I could. One day. I don’t think I’m completely broken.” I give him a wink.
His face grows serious, not catching on to my playfulness. “You’re not broken. I have every faith that you will love someone someday.”
My eyes search his, my arms wrapping around his neck. “Someone?”
He smiles, looking off to the side and shaking his head.
I bite my lip, knowing he’s done with tiptoeing around the conversation.
He takes me by the waist and lifts me to sit on the counter between the two sinks.
“Me. You will love me one day because I have absolutely no clue how I could ever allow you not to. I don’t know what this is, Nina,” he gestures between us, “but the need to know you, protect you, know where you are and that you are safe. That? That, I have never in my life felt before. You consume me in a way that scares me because it’s new.
Every decision I’ve made since meeting you has had you at the centre of it. ”
I smooth my hand down his cheek as he leans in to kiss me, nudging my legs apart as he puts himself between them.
An overwhelming need to worship this man takes over me, and it has me pushing him back. I slide off the counter and fall to my feet.
Leaning in, I kiss him slowly, then run my hand down his chest and into the top of his boxers, wrapping my hand around his growing length.
He smiles cockily, and it sends a zap of pleasure straight between my legs. “Why are you smiling at me like that? You know what it gets you.” I tell him, popping my brows once.
He laughs as I give him back his own words. “Do I? I think I must have missed that one.”
“Hmm, then let me show you.”
His hands find my shoulders, and he pushes me to my knees as if he knows what’s coming. “Fuck, yes!”
His dark eyes hold mine as I take him into my mouth, and I try to be just as sexy for him but this man is too much.
I smile around him, unable to control myself.
He shakes his head, dropping it back for a moment before looking down at me when I begin sucking on the very tip, and in that moment, my Mase is gone.
He takes my ponytail, wrapping it tight around his fist as he grasps my jaw and squeezes, pushing himself to the back of my throat.
“Take me, angel,” he demands.
Mase
I find Lance riffling through the fridge when I enter my kitchen the next morning, which isn’t surprising considering it’s Lance. The man is always damn hungry.
“Sullivan. Eating all my fucking food as per?” I smirk, moving for the coffee machine.
“As if. Your cupboards are bare, Lowell. It’s sad.” He moves to the hob—carrying a stack of my food in one of his arms—checking the bacon in the pan. “How’d things go with your dad?” he asks at the same time that Charlie walks in.
“Shit. I should speak to Scar about it first.” I lean against the counter; my arms spread wide. I tip my chin at Charlie. “You off?”
“Yeah, I’ve got an eight thirty. Where did you sneak out to last night?” he asks Lance.
“Nowhere?” Lance frowns back at him, sliding himself onto the kitchen island.
“Well it wasn’t Elliot. Lowell?” he asks me.
“Not me, mate,” I tell him, both of us looking back to Lance.
He shrugs, taking a bite out the end of the dry baguette, not a care in the world.
“Probably Montgomery. I was surprised he wasn’t already in Lucy’s room when I went to bed last night,” I suggest.
Lance snickers, “Doubtful. She isn’t giving him an inch.” He chuckles to himself, smiling around his mouthful of food. “Ha. That’s what she said.”
Charlie rolls his eyes, moving to fill a travel mug with coffee. “So, I looked into that case on Joey Wilson. It was nothing. Was dropped a couple days after the report was made.”
“Do you have the case files?”
“The sheet of paper that tells me that there wasn’t enough evidence to take it to court let alone trial? Yes.”
“I want them.”
“Well you can’t have them. You can’t judge him based on something that might not have happened.”
“Where Nina is concerned, I will.”
“Does she know you had him looked up?” he questions.
“No.” I glare, knowing where this is going.
“Well, I think you should tell her. Would explain why you’ve been such a prick the last couple weeks.”
Charlie has always been the honest man out of us all. I suppose it comes with the job in some ways, but over the past four years he has become hell-bent with the need to make every situation untainted.
It’s what keeps me up at night, the thought of what I’ve done to the man who would never contemplate something so fucked.
“Yeah, I’ll tell her.”
His brows furrow, clearly not expecting me to agree. “Right, I’m out. I won’t see you before so enjoy Paris, man.” He cuffs me on the back and smiles.
I nod my head, pleased that he’s turned towards the door and can’t see my grimace.
Once he leaves, my eyes lift to Lance.
“Get out your head, Lowell. He’d never live with himself if you told him.”
“I know.”
“You did the right thing. It’s buried; move on.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose, thinking back to that night and what a fuckup it was.
“Has Cara been in touch?” he asks.
“No. She wouldn’t fucking dare.”
He nods his head. “I know you like this chick, but be fucking careful, you don’t need another Cara. That’s already cost you enough.”
“Nina is nothing like Cara.”
“Maybe. But do you really know her yet? Would she stay if she knew?” he spits.
I frown as his question settles in me.
Would she?
“I’ve got your back always, Mase. Just be smart.”
Nina
I stare at my reflection in the mirror, angry that I carry so much of her in my features.
The irony that the one person I want to forget is forever embedded in my DNA.
They say family runs deeper than blood, and that’s true.
But that doesn’t mean you can forget the genetics that makes you who you are.
My chest heaves as sweat runs down the dip in my back. I lower my chin, trying to get my breathing under control. My mother has consumed my thoughts all morning. Normally I can immerse myself in my dancing, allowing it to take me someplace else for a while. But today isn’t one of those days.