36. Callie
Chapter thirty-six
Mason pats Navie’s back as he sways with her, talking sweetly in her ear where she’s milk-drunk on his shoulder.
The man has assumed the dad role, and I have zero complaints.
Watching them together makes my heart burst. She loves him so much, and he loves her back, in the same way I craved to receive from my own father.
It really shows that intention is everything.
If people want to show up, they will. And sometimes, the people we don’t expect go out of their way to prove their loyalty.
Mason lowers Navie into the cot in his lounge room.
This is the first time we’re staying at his place.
It’s only a one-bedroom penthouse, but there’s a corner of the room, not too close to the windows, where he’s set up a cot and a simple change table.
A mobile with blue hearts and gold stars hangs over Navie’s head.
I stand from my spot on the couch, where Mason just gave Navie her bottle while I expressed another one. Mason often gets up before me to feed her in the morning when he stays at my house, but I’ve never caught him doing it.
Everything about the simple act has my heart beating in overdrive. I can’t take how he is with her; it all feels too good to be true. I don’t mourn the lack of her biological father in her life, not when she so clearly already has one that would move mountains for her.
My chest meets his back as I wind my arms around his middle. His hands rest on the sidewalls of the cot as he stares down at my daughter with a smile.
“You’re so good to her,” I whisper. “To both of us.”
His hand covers mine, thumb running back and forth over my wrist.
“You say that like it’s a hard thing to do.”
I rest my cheek against his muscled back. “My dad certainly made it feel that way. My ex, too.”
“What happened with your ex?” he asks, and my stomach clenches. “I know he went to jail, but how did your relationship turn out the way it did?”
I hug him tighter, dragging his mint and patchouli cologne into my lungs as I breathe him in.
“We got together when we were sixteen. It started like any other high school romance. We were together for four months, then broke up for a month, then we were together for three years. We broke up again when a girl he’d hooked up with during our separation said they’d slept together again.
He said she was jealous, and I believed him because we were in a good place.
I had no reason not to.” Mason’s hand tightens over mine, reassuring me of his presence.
“Then he started hanging out with these guys I really didn’t like; crass, shitty values, just the kind of people you can tell aren’t really going anywhere, and they’re content to take you down with them.
“Derek stopped wanting to spend time together, and I saw him out one night, that same girl hanging around him, and he was not denying her attention. We broke up again, but it was hard to get myself out of his orbit. Sometimes it’s too easy to get comfortable in a situation, even if you see it’s not right, because you don’t know how to start over and see an alternative.
I witnessed my mum doing the same thing for years.
“We were on and off again for the better part of three years, and that’s when I couldn’t deny the cheating. He had such a good way of using my emotions against me and convincing me that the good times outweighed the bad.
“I had been saving since high school for my own place. I wanted something I could undoubtedly call my own. Derek found out about the account I had, which I stupidly hadn’t changed my bank details for since the last time we’d broken up.
I used the same passwords for everything.
He drained nearly thirteen thousand dollars from my account.
He owed it to some dealer in the city because he sampled too much of the product he was meant to be selling.
I didn’t realise that was how bad the company he’d been keeping was, but he fell out with that dealer and found another.
He wasn’t familiar with the city, fucked up, and got caught for possession.
The week after he was arrested was when I found out I was pregnant.
I’d like to say I was smart enough to be done with him before that, but it wasn’t until I realised I was bringing life into the world, one that I was solely responsible for loving and protecting, that I realised I had to cut him out of my life for good. Not just for Navie but for me too.”
Mason turns in my arms, his large, warm hands cupping my cheeks as he stares down at me with a soul-deep intensity I could never have imagined from anyone.
“You’re amazing,” he says. My lips twist, feeling awkward with the direct praise.
“The way you never give up, never let people keep you down or tell you that you can’t go for something you want—that’s what I first noticed about you.
You live so unapologetically. Messy, and real, and open. You teach me to do the same.”
“Pretty sure you were perfect before I came along.” I chuckle.
Mason’s gaze turns intense, his soft smile gone, replaced by desire. In a second, he’s gripping behind my thighs and lifting me over his shoulder.
I squeak before slapping a hand to my mouth, so I don’t wake Navie as Mason walks us into his bedroom.
When the door is closed, he crosses the room as he pulls me down his body, making every inch touch. Cool glass touches my back when my feet reach the floor, and Mason sinks to his knees in front of me.
He kisses the inside of my knee as his hands trail down my calf, lifting my ankle and placing it on his thigh.
“Are your feet sore?” he asks, tackling the buckle of my red heels.
I wasn’t sure what to wear for dinner tonight.
I knew it was at his grandparents’ house, and my mind just kept going to movies I’ve seen where the rich folk wore suits to dinner, even in their own home.
I couldn’t imagine Mason and his siblings like that, but just to be safe, I opted for fitted blue jeans and a pink off-the-shoulder blouse that cinched over my chest, paired with the heels I wore from our date night, that I know Mason loved.
I shake my head. “They’re okay. Thankfully, there was a lot of sitting tonight.”
He brings my foot to his lips, kissing my instep before setting it on the ground and switching to the other. I never knew having a man take off your shoes could be so erotic.
My head falls to the window I’m pressed up against, my hands searching for something to hold on to as Mason’s hands glide up my legs, his nose trailing up my body as he breathes me in.
His lips hover over mine, without giving in to the need to close the distance, and he lifts my blouse over my head, leaving me in a deep plum satin balconette bra. It’s not my normal, comfortable nursing bra, but Mason makes me feel so sexy, and I wanted to indulge in that.
He still doesn’t kiss me, just keeps tormenting me with his mouth a breath away, as if he’s about to give in at any second, then he pops the button on my jeans, easing the fabric down until he’s on his knees again. He tosses my clothes behind him, then props my leg over his shoulder.
His thumb teases my clit through the fabric. My knee tightens over his shoulder as one hand buries into his hair. One kiss, then another over the sheer lace before he’s hooking his fingers underneath and tugging it to the side, exposing me to him.
Mason likes to take his time working me up, but there’s no time for slow and steady tonight.
He swipes his tongue from my entrance to my clit, sucking the hard bud in his mouth before pulling back, then painting his tongue all over me.
He’s insatiable. Claiming. His hands pull at my arse, just so he can get closer.
It feels as though he’s drowning, gasping for air, but that’s not what will save him. It’s my orgasm he needs.
Realising just how much I pushed love and affection out of my life before Mason has me desperate to claim him straight back. I need him like air. A frantic hunger igniting in my soul, determined to be bound to him irrevocably. Eternally.
“You’re such a good boy, eating me like this,” I praise. “Do you want me to come on your tongue, Mason?”
He looks up at me from under his lashes just as he makes a long, deliberate swipe through my centre, ending with rapid flicks over my clit.
I cry out, my legs growing weak the longer I stand. I grab his head with both hands, fucking myself over his mouth. Mason’s hands shift up my back, steadying him as he throws my other leg over his shoulder. I’m pinned to the window as he devours me on his knees.
“Oh fuuuuck.” My thighs shake around his head as my orgasm takes over.
I don’t even have a chance to catch my breath before my feet are placed on the floor, and Mason’s big hands are gripping my waist and spinning me around. I can hear him frantically undressing behind me as I rest my forehead against the cool glass.
His chest is warm against me as his hand caresses the back of my neck.
“It’s time for you to be a good girl now, Callie baby.” He guides me down until my pussy is exposed to him. The head of his pierced cock rubs back and forth over my entrance. His grip tightens on the curve where my neck meets my shoulder as his tip eases inside. “Show me how good you take my cock.”
He holsters my hip and slams into me. A ragged cry tears through my lungs, the room filling with the wet slap of skin against skin and Mason’s rising moans. His piercing tickles the nerves inside, sending me on a fast track to euphoria.
I slam a hand against the window, powerless to silence my carnal cries as bliss riots through every limb like a pinball in a machine.
Mason fucks me hard and deep, and right when I think I’m going to come again, he reaches around and smacks my sensitive pussy.
“That’s it, Callie baby. You’re almost there.
” He groans as he keeps tapping my clit, and I collapse forward.
His hand glides up my chest, lifting me to lean back on him.
I wrap a hand around his wrist, where he leaves it, loosely collaring my throat as his other hand strums my clit.
His thrusts keep up a punishing pace, and I hold my breath until one long wail falls from my lips.
Mason slips out of me, spinning me around until he’s bracketing my face in his hands as he kisses me, and walks me backwards until my knees hit the edge of his bed.
I sit down, letting my hands roam over the ridges and grooves of muscles that glisten with sweat.
“Get them out for me.” He tips his chin at my chest.
I unclasp the bra and toss it aside. “Is this how you want me?” I ask.
Mason steps between my parted thighs and pushes his cock between my breasts as I hold them together. His eyes are locked on the scene. I roll and rub my nipples until they start to tingle. As Mason pulls back, I pinch the ends, letting milk flow onto his cock.
“Ohhh, fuck. That’s just as hot as I thought it’d be,” he pants, thrusting a little faster.
I keep squeezing, getting him wet with me.
“Yes, baby. Oh, fuck, I’m gonna come.” He hisses as his hips snap, slipping through milk and the release I already left on his cock.
“Mark me, Mason. Show me I’m yours.”
He groans as his body stills, and then his cum coats my chest. He watches with rapt attention, whimpering as he decorates my skin.
He brings a finger up to my chest, wetting his lips as he draws over me, and I feel the distinct pattern of the letter M.
“Mason?” I ask with a satisfied smirk.
“Mine.”