The Price of Mason (Forbidden Men 10)

“So… I tried to contact you last night,” she murmured discreetly.

I watched Reese spread a deep purple over Sarah’s eyelids.

“I know you saw the message,” Patricia added.

Blush was dabbled to my sister’s cheeks.

“You can’t ignore me forever.”

Oh, yes, I could.

“Do you even care what your sweet, innocent babysitter is hiding?”

Honestly, I didn’t care what Reese might or might not be hiding. Nothing could make her worse than the woman sitting next to me now. She was bright color in my black and white world, and I’d most likely defend her and stand beside her no matter what she’d done or hadn’t done. She could end up being just as big a prostitute as I was, and I just wouldn’t give a fuck. Reese was still Reese, no matter how her past had played out, and I loved her no matter what.

Shit…

Wait, what had I just said up there in my head?

Patricia sniffed next to me, her gaze on Reese. “She’s quite the attention seeker, isn’t she? Stealing the limelight away from your sister on her birthday.”

This time, I turned to glower at her.

She didn’t have a clue, not a single fucking clue how awesome Reese was for my sister.

Before I could tell her to go to hell and never come back, Sarah and her friends started screaming, hopping up on the cushions as not to touch the floor. Then Reese yelped my name in a panic.

As she cried out for someone to save Sarah, I lurched to my feet, trying to figure out what was causing the uproar, because I couldn’t spot the source of their terror at all.

“What the hell?” I said. “What’s wrong?”

Five females started in at once, telling me something I couldn’t understand but their frantic gestures toward the floor at least directed me where to look.

“Oh,” I said, blowing out a relieved breath when I spotted it. “It’s just a wolf spider.”

Reese gaped at me as if I’d lost my mind. “I wasn’t asking what kind it was,” she screeched in outrage. “Just kill it!”

Wow, she was insistent. And ruthless. But this bloodthirsty, kill-it side was cute. I cracked up. “It’s harmless. Jeez, Reese. I thought you would be more of a humanitarian than this.”

“Not when

it comes to gross, hairy, eight-legged freaks. That thing is bigger than me.”

I rolled my eyes. “It is not.”

She drew in a long breath as if she was about to bitch me out for laughing at her fear, which only made her even more adorable, when suddenly she screamed and clutched one of Sarah’s classmates.

“Oh my God! It moved. Kill it, kill it, kill it.”

When Sarah and her friends started shrieking along with her, I finally had mercy—on them, not the spider—and I stomped my foot down, only to lift my shoe, exposing squished arachnid guts.

“Handled,” I reported.

Reese yelled, “Oh my God, thank you.” Then she jumped off the couch and straight into my arms. I wasn’t expecting her to do that, so I had to grapple to catch her before we both crashed to the floor.

Her breasts smashed into my chest and her face was inches from mine when she gave an overly exaggerated sigh and announced, “Mason Lowe,” in a dramatic, falsetto voice, “you’re my hero.”

I chuckled and rolled my eyes, setting her back on the floor before I did something stupid, like kiss her in front of everyone. “You’re such a dork,” I said, loving that feature most about her.