Chapter 27
“Just like every other fucking whore does.”
Yes, no. You! After Mason had thoroughly fucked me on all fours on his bed, he had me up against his window, and again in his sumptuous shower while jets of water hit us from ridiculous angles.
There is my parent’s mustard-brown shower, and there is Mason Mercer’s spa experience.
I shivered a little more every time a new blast of warm water hit my overstimulated skin, knowing he’d compared their amenities with his.
“I can go back to my room if I’m keeping you awake. I wanted to earlier, but you didn’t want me t—”
“I want you to stay with me.” His words are spoken into the crook of my neck, and I melt.
“I understand.”
“No, Bri, I don’t think you do.”
His soft palm fans across my stomach under the sheets and comforter. When he pulls me closer to him, my back flush with his front, I gasp. He’s hard again.
“I don’t want sex,” he clarifies. “I mean, I do, but I want to just lie here with you more. I want to hold you and talk to you like normal people do.”
Um, okay. I mean, I’m fairly normal. And I signed a contract stating I’d do pretty much anything he wanted. I can listen to his sexy, sleep-mussed timbre while he holds me. I’d do that for free.
“I want to talk to you about Trystan. Why I wanted him at your parents’ house for Thanksgiving. I need to share some things with you that matter. If that’s okay?”
I attempt to turn in his arms, but his hold prevents it.
He’s intent on delivering whatever he has to say into my hair.
And that’s more than fine. That he’s sharing such an important, intimate part of himself with me is unprecedented.
Four hours ago, he was railing into me and calling me a whore. The man is a paradox.
“Trystan doesn’t have anyone. His family cut him off.”
When he doesn’t elaborate, I fear he’s fallen back asleep. Only he scoops some hair from the side of my face before playing with the curled ends.
“I offered him a job because he needed someone. Let’s just say I couldn’t be that person, but I could give him work at least. I don’t give a fuck that he wears his hair a little longer. Its hair, not fucking IP law. I’m fed up with being forced into the machinations of the media machine.”
My heartbeat echoes into the silence like an unwelcome intruder’s footsteps. Am I ready for vulnerable Mason?
“It’s the same with mining, but at least Mitch is his own boss to some extent.
Me? I’m always the goldfish in the fucking bowl.
Michael did it better or faster, and Magnus invented it.
I can’t win. And the longer this goes on, I’m not sure I want to.
Seeing your family today made me realize just how much I despise mine. ”
Oh, my heart. It’s still beating while trying not to shatter. Here I was fixated on our shower tiles, and the man is amid a crisis of clarity.
“What else would you do?” Again, his silence holds a weighted pause, as if he doesn’t consider his words, they might be held against him in some capacity.
I would never. His family are fucking assholes, granted.
Except for Nic, Fraze, and the kids. But family is blood.
How can you distance yourself from your own kin?
“I’d trade currency on a laptop. Moored somewhere where the water is so clear, you can see the bottom for meters, not feet. Where the weather warms my bare skin and there’s enough wind to luff the sails.” Is he recalling our time on the yacht?
“I’m glad you offered Trystan a job. Sounds like he needed it.”
“Yes and no,” he begins. “He needed it, and he hated that he needed it. Needed me. He can’t access his trust fund because there are all these stipulations.
Dozens of them. It was always going to be a win for the house, no matter what its cards were.
He was screwed before the river card was even turned.
Trys was supposed to be a certain way. Fuck—all of us are, I suppose.
We carry the weight of family lines and legacies.
Certain curated expectations. He needed to get out of jail, and perhaps I had a key. ”