The Wingman (Alpha Men 1)

Daisy had both hands pressed to her lips, her huge eyes—magnified by her askew glasses—peering at him owlishly over her fingertips.

He owed her an explanation. But what could he say after that performance? He had a huge erection—there was no hiding the thing from her—and he knew she was aware of it by the way she was very pointedly keeping her eyes on his face. So much for keeping her oblivious to his attraction to her.

He finally ran out of English swear words and launched into French, which was only fair since it was Chris’s fault that they were in this position.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Mason had kissed her, properly kissed her, and seemed to regret it almost immediately afterward. So why kiss her in the first place? And he wasn’t unaffected by it. Even with her peripheral vision she could see how very not unaffected he was. He was still breathing heavily and swearing. Well, she assumed he was swearing, since he had moved on from French to something that sounded like Arabic—and he was quite determinedly not making eye contact with her. He was doing that thing, where he ran his hand over his scalp. She had recognized it as a nervous habit the first time she’d seen it, and judging by the number of times he was doing it now, he was very agitated.

He finally switched back to English.

“Okay, so I’m really competitive,” he said, which was literally the last thing she expected to hear from him in this moment. “And when you were going on about Chris and his lips . . .”

His voice trailed off, and it didn’t take a genius to put two and two together.

“Oh.” Wow.

“So it wasn’t really about you. Well, it kind of was. But not really.” Yeah, surprise, surprise . . . it was never really about her. What a—a jerk, seriously! One minute he’s chastising her for selling herself short, and the next he’s proving to her once again that she had reason to do so.

“I see.”

Damn it! Of course she believed this line of bullshit; the woman had very little self-esteem, so naturally Mason had to go and reinforce the low opinion she already had of herself. But he honestly did not see how telling her that he couldn’t keep his hands to himself around her would improve the situation at all.

He wanted to fuck her, get her out of his system, and move on. But it always came back to not wanting to hurt her. Even though he seemed to fail at that time and again. Judging from the look on her face right now, he’d done it again.

Yeah, he was a real fucking prince among men, wasn’t he?

There was nothing more to say. He turned the key and restarted the car, and the music kicked on. A more current playlist this time, but she kept her eyes fixed on the wet green world sliding by, not even tapping a foot to the beat.

As for Mason, well, it was another five miles before his erection finally subsided, and the feel of her hard, hot nipple faded from his palm.

The drive home felt like it took forever, while in reality it was only half an hour. The rain had let up when he finally brought the car to a stop outside her little house.

“I’m sorry. I was a bastard,” he said, and she was startled by the subdued words. His first since the kiss.

“You were.” His lips twitched at her easy agreement.

“I’m not really used to being friends with a woman,” he admitted. His eyes gleamed with sincerity, and she chewed her bottom lip thoughtfully before remembering his reaction to it earlier and immediately stopped.

“We barely know each other; I’m not sure we’re actually friends.” He looked a bit taken aback by her frank assessment.

“I enjoy your company. I like talking to you and hanging out with you. I think we have the beginnings of a pretty good friendship, Daisy.”

“Mason, you’re a great guy. Anybody else would have called me crazy when I first brought up this stupid idea and called it a day. But when this is over, we won’t see each other again, we won’t hang out, we won’t be friends. That’s the reality of our situation. And I’m okay with that.”

I’m not. The words hovered on the tip of Mason’s tongue but he swallowed them back. He had caused enough damage and confusion for one day.

“Let’s just see this thing through and be done with it,” she continued, and he nodded.

“Dinner tonight?”

“I usually have dinner with my family on Sunday.”

“I’ll take you.”

“Boundaries, Mason.”

“What about them?”

“You’re overstepping them again.”

“You’re going to need me there.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Think of all the questions they’ll have. Do you really want to lie to your family? Or would you prefer me to be there to deflect the questions and do the lying on your behalf?”