Authors: J. Daniels
I tilt my head to look at him.
Clean shaven, freshly showered, no signs of distress or obvious heartache in his eyes. He appears well rested and as stunningly attractive as ever.
I barely brushed my hair this morning and I’m not even sure my clothes match.
All of the pain I’m feeling shifts and centralizes in my chest. I squirm in his arms.
“Put me down right now! God, look at you! You should be destroyed! You should be the one crying and miserable, and instead you look like this? Get off of me! I said I can walk. I can walk.”
His eyes widen. Agony slips over him like a cloak.
I mentally question if I just slapped him in the face somehow, flailing about like I did.
That’s exactly how he looks.
“I am,” he whispers harshly, his body tensing against mine.
I still in his arms.
“I am miserable. I have been, but I’m holding you. I’m touching you and I can’t help the way my heart reacts to that. I’m sorry. Know that I’ve been in Hell, Brooke. Know that the past few days have been the darkest of my life. Every second we’ve been apart, I’ve been drowning.”
“But you look fine,” I tell him. “You don’t look miserable.”
You don’t look like me.
“That’s only because I know something you don’t.”
“What?”
His lip twitches. “Let’s get you cleaned up first. That cut needs some cleaning out. I have that first aid kit in my loft. It has what we need.” He cradles me closer, dropping his head to breathe in my hair. “I have so much I want to say to you. So much I need to say. Let me do this first, yeah? Let me heal you, Brooke.”
Let him heal me. Is it even possible? I feel damaged beyond repair.
Closing my eyes and surrendering once again, I let my head fall against his chest.
The ground moves beneath me. I feel like I’m floating. Mason’s hold is gentle yet secure, preventing any bumping or jarring as he maneuvers us. I hear the light traffic on the street, the soft scrape of a key fitting into a lock. I smell the earthy scent of the studio and Mason’s clean soap.
I tilt my head up and rub my face into his neck. Fuck it. If it turns out I’m dreaming, I want this to be a really good fucking dream.
He ascends the stairs, shifting his arm underneath my knees. The door opens. I lift my head and look around his loft as he carries me to the bed.
It looks how it always looks. Tidy. I’m not sure you can see the floor of my bedroom anymore. I’ve stopped caring about neatness and organization. I’m barely sleeping in there anyway.
One thing seems out of place and catches my attention as he sits me on the edge of the mattress.
I stare at the tent in the corner of the room. It takes up the majority of the floor space near the window and bends awkwardly against the ceiling.
“Have you been sleeping in that?” I ask, wincing when I push my palms against the mattress, forgetting about my injuries. “Ow.”
“Yeah. I might get rid of my bed. I rather like it in there.” Mason grabs my wrists, turning my hands over to examine me. “Let me grab my kit. Don’t move.”
I watch him pad into the bathroom, his running shorts hanging low on his hips. He returns seconds later with his kit and a bottle of disinfectant.
“Would you really get rid of your bed?”
He kneels in front of me, pouring some of the liquid onto a square piece of gauze. “Depends.”
“On?” I hiss through my teeth when he presses the cold gauze against my knee. My leg jerks. “Shit. That stings.”
“Sorry. I need to clean it out. You might have dirt in it.” He lifts the gauze and blows over my knee again. Our eyes lock. “Better?”
Christ, it just got a thousand degrees hotter in here.
Swallowing thickly, I nod. “Mm. A little.”
“I’ll be quick.”
He presses the pad against my skin again, lifting and moving it over my knee. I pinch my eyes shut and grit my teeth.
“You said it depends. What does it depend on?” I ask again, blowing out quick breaths and distracting my mind from the pain.
I am curious. Maybe it depends on him needing a new mattress and he doesn’t feel like purchasing another one. Maybe he’s debating on going rogue and drifting away from all uses of modern civilization.
Why would someone give up a bed for a tent?
“Depends on you,” he answers casually.
The sound of something tearing opens my eyes, or maybe it’s his response. He applies a bandage over my knee and looks up.
“Why would it depend on me?” I ask.
I watch his neck roll with a heavy swallow. He grabs another piece of gauze and pours some disinfectant on it, then holds onto the back of my hand as he presses the gauze against my palm.
It doesn’t sting nearly as bad as my knee did. I barely react to it, or maybe I’m just too engrossed in the vague man in front of me.
“Mason,” I press him.
He clears his throat. “If you want us to have a bed, or if you’re happier in the tent,” he explains as he cleans out my cut and moves to my other hand. His eyes focused on his task. “I’m not sure we can have both in here and be able to move around easily. It’s a bit tight in that corner. And I was thinking, if we got rid of the bed and set the tent up over here, we can fit your dresser and anything else you want to have. Whatever you want.”
I blink several times, trying to absorb and understand what he’s just said, but there’s no way . . . is he really suggesting what I think he’s suggesting?
He looks up at me after he’s finished and discarded the gauze. “Do you want bandages on your hands too? I wasn’t sure.”
“Did you just ask me to move in with you?”
Mason stares at me, his expression indecipherable. He doesn’t respond.
I swallow and blush instantly. My gaze lowers to my lap.
Oh, my God. It’s official. I’m crazy. I’m imagining conversations now.
“I did,” Mason finally says after what feels like an eternity of silence.
I slowly look up.
“That’s what I’m asking. I mean, it makes sense, yeah? I’m going to spend my life with you. You’re my forever, and I thought this would be a good way to ease you into agreeing to marry me, just in case that idea terrifies you. I’ll do it proper, I swear, Brooke. You deserve that. I’m just warming you up to it.”
My mouth falls open. Heat floods my face and my neck as my eyes struggle to focus on anything in front of me. “I think I need to sit down.”
“You are sitting down.”
“Well, then maybe I should stand up.”
He pushes lightly against my shoulder. “Your knee. Rest it for a minute.”
Frustrated, I swat at his hand. “Stop! Just stop, okay?” I yell, startling him a bit.
He drops his hand and nods, looking cautious.
Tears fill my eyes as I slowly fall apart. “I don’t understand what’s happening. Friday you let go of me. You promised you would never let go of me, Mason, and then I don’t hear anything from you for days. I thought this was over.” I shove against his chest. “I thought this was over! I’ve been dying and what the fuck have you been doing? Planning our life together? Are you serious?” I blink, sending fat tears down my face.
Hesitantly, he reaches up and wipes his knuckles along my cheek. “I’ve been dying too.”
“How?” I ask, watching him shift closer.
“The only time I left this room was to go to the liquor store,” he tells me in a somber voice, brushing my hair out of my face. “I’ve been drunk up through yesterday, Brooke. Black-out drunk. I don’t remember most of it. I canceled all of my classes and smashed my phone against the wall.”
“Why? So I wouldn’t call you?”
He shakes his head. “So I wouldn’t call
you
. God, I would’ve been bloody ecstatic if you would’ve called me. I came close. I nearly texted you a few times and I knew I shouldn’t. You hated me, but I missed you so fucking much.” He holds my face, tears brimming his eyes now. “So fucking much, Brooke. Every second you were away from me I longed for you. That distance killed me.”
I sniffle, thinking back to that night, to all the things that were said and the question that broke us.
“I fucked up,” Mason whispers, blinking and sending his own tears down his face, moving so close to me I can feel his breath on my skin. “I saw that disc, what was on it, and I . . . I lost it. Baby, I lost it. I couldn’t see you. I couldn’t hear what I was saying or how it sounded. I have never felt any of the things I feel for you for anyone else. I’ve never felt possessive before, but that night I wanted to find that guy and kill him for touching you. I would’ve killed him, Brooke.”
“Mason.” I clutch at his shirt, crying harder.
“You’re mine, and I saw you with someone else and that fucked with my head. I know I have no right to be that way. I know you were with him before you even met me, but fuck, Brooke, I feel like you’ve been mine for longer than we’ve known each other. You brought me here.” His hold on me tightens. “
You brought me here
.”
The devastation, the agony and regret in his voice, it’s ripping me apart. I can’t help but feel some blame for this.
And I missed him too.
I slide my hands to his face, ignoring the burn in my palms. “I’m sorry about that disc.”
“No.” He wipes away more of my tears. “I’m the one who’s sorry, Brooke. More sorry than I will ever be able to express to you. This is on me. I hate what I’ve done. I hate that I made you feel any less than how I think of you. I hate that you thought this was over. It could never be over for me. God, even when you said this never mattered and I meant nothing, I still loved you. That will never change. I will never let go of you.”
I drop my head, letting more tears fall. “I only said those things because I thought that was what you believed. I didn’t mean them.”
“I didn’t mean what I said either, sweetheart.”
Mason guides my chin up, sliding his body between my legs, cupping my face and making sure I look at him.
“I will never let go of you, Brooke. I told you the day we met that I wouldn’t be able to. I warned you then. You remember?”
“Yes,” I quietly reply, tears dripping off my jaw. “You made me so nervous. I think my heart knew who you were that day and it scared me.”
“Baby,” he murmurs, sliding his mouth over mine and pressing, melting us together.
He guides my head with his hand, tilting me to deepen the kiss, licking along my lip and moaning when I open for him.
We kiss and we kiss and we kiss, but it’s so much more than that. I can feel his apology on his mouth. I can taste it on his tongue. His sadness and his guilt, I swallow it and give him my own.
It’s the best and worst kiss of my life, because I know what we went through to have it.
I fist Mason’s shirt and pull him closer. “I like that tent,” I tell him, sucking on his lip. “Maybe enough to give up the bed.”
He smiles. “It’s so lonely in there without you.”
“Take me in there now.”
“Yeah?” He leans away. “Can your injury handle my lovin’?”
Laughing, I kiss his jaw. “You can be sweet, yeah?”
Smiling that gorgeous smile that nearly stops my heart at the same time as filling it, he stands and helps me to my feet.
“I can be sweet for you.”
Mason assists me to the tent. I can put most of my weight on my knee, but not all of it. I have a small limp. Nothing that would prevent me from doing my job.
Thank Christ.
With some assistance, I push the flap aside on the tent and hobble inside. Falling onto my hip, I grab the stuffed koala off the sleeping bag and hug him to my chest.
Oh, my God. Has he been sleeping with this? My heart might burst.
Mason ducks his head and steps inside the tent. He taps the koala on the head. “He’s not so bad. Seems docile compared to his mates.”
I’m smiling, laughing through my pinched lips, until Mason reaches behind him and strips off his shirt.
His shoes and socks follow.
I loosen my hold on the koala and it rolls out of my lap and onto the tent floor. I gaze down at the impressive bulge in Mason’s shorts.
My mouth waters. I am literally salivating at the thought of his cock in or anywhere near my body.
Preferably in. At least touching. I mean, I’ll look at that masterpiece all goddamn day, but here, right now, I need to feel it.
Mason crouches beside me and kisses just below my ear.
“I love you,” he whispers. “You with me, sweet girl?”
I close my eyes, nodding, fighting the biggest smile of my life.
“Yes.”
I raise my arms and he strips my shirt over my head. My bra follows.
“Lie back,” he instructs, popping the button on my jeans as I stretch out beneath him.
He’s careful not to brush against my knee as he pulls down my pants. My jeans are discarded. I lift my hips, tugging at the string of my thong, biting my lip when Mason slides them down my legs and tosses them over his head.
He crawls over me. I tuck my fingers inside the waistband of his shorts and tug them down to mid thigh, my toes helping. My breath bursts against his neck. I lick and bite it, running my tongue up to his jaw.
His cock slides against my slit. I feel his hand between my legs, positioning himself.
My legs tremble.
“You’re dripping,” he murmurs, kissing my cheek as he slides in the first inch. “You feel how hard I am?”
I gasp, nodding and clawing at his back. He fills me slowly, stretching me perfectly. I squeeze his neck and lift my legs higher.
The pain in my knee is forgotten. Goose bumps break out across my flesh.
Mason thrusts into me, his pace measured and adoring. He whispers his sorry over and over against my lips, his voice growing incredibly quiet. When I stop hearing it, I close my eyes and feel his mouth moving the words his soul is screaming at me.
No apology has ever been felt like this.
He tells me he’s mine, his body, his heart. I worship him with my hands, roaming over the beautiful planes of his back, squeezing and rubbing his muscles, his trim hips and his ass. I press my lips everywhere, his face, his neck, his shoulders. I tell him that I’m his and I always have been. When he hears my declaration, he moans and fucks me harder. My pussy clenches around him and soaks his cock. Wetness leaks to my ass.