CHAPTER EIGHT
She stared at him for a long while, giving the question the gravity it deserved.
“I see a man who enjoys the company of women but prefers not to get too attached to them. Falling in love makes you vulnerable, and I see a man who doesn’t like having any vulnerabilities. I see a man who’s never really content with what he has, no matter how perfect it seems, and is always searching for something newer or better.”
He drained his glass and put it down on the table carefully.
“All that?” he mused. “From what? Just three days’ acquaintance?”
“Well, we have been on a ‘getting to know you’ intensive crash course.” She forced the flippant words past her dry throat and took a sip of her own wine to ease her hoarseness somewhat.
“I suppose we have. Shall I tell you what I see when I look at you?”
“Oh, please don’t.” The words were soft and pleading, and Daisy was ashamed by how unevenly they tumbled from her lips. “I didn’t mean to offend you, Mason.”
“I’m not offended,” he said, emptying the rest of the wine into his glass and draining half of it before continuing on. “Just impressed by your remarkable powers of observation.”
He said he wasn’t offended, yet there was something about the stiffness of his shoulders and the cadence of his voice that told her that her comments had touched a nerve. She cursed the glass of wine that had loosened her tongue and futilely wished her words back.
“I also see a man who has gone out of his way to help a complete stranger save face in front of her family and friends,” she tacked on desperately, and he smiled, a cold, cynical movement of his lips that was a terrible caricature of his usual smile.
“You could argue that my motivations are completely self-serving,” he pointed out.
“I don’t see how they could be. You’re only doing this because you allowed your conscience and guilt to get the better of you.”
“Yeah? Or maybe I’m doing it because I want to fuck you senseless, and this is all a means to that end.”
Daisy gasped, his mocking words slamming against her fragile defenses like boulders. Why would he say something like that? It was heartbreakingly disappointing to discover that he was just like everybody else after all and Daisy was the butt of yet another stupid male joke she couldn’t even begin to comprehend.
“That’s not very funny,” she fumed, and he shrugged, hooking an elbow over the back of his chair and leaning back indolently.
“I’ll say not,” he agreed easily. “I’ve been a walking hard-on for days.”
Daisy felt her cheeks heating at his words, and she glared at him, absolutely furious.
“You don’t believe me,” he said, his face and voice revealing absolutely nothing.
“Of course I don’t believe you,” she snapped. “Mason, on Friday your brother had to practically beg you to talk to me. And today you’re telling me you want me . . . sexually?”
Mason tried to bite back a grin at the quaint phrasing and the hushed way she said sexually, like the word was dirty and forbidden. He shouldn’t have said what he did, but her wholly accurate assessment of his personality had sent him into defense mode, and he had lashed back with a truth that he knew would make her uncomfortable. He had also known she wouldn’t believe him for a second. Still, to have that knowledge confirmed was annoying as hell. He wanted her to believe him, tell him she wanted him back, and then he wanted them to go upstairs and have hot, raunchy sex. The kind that was wet and steamy and dirty and left you wrung out and strung out afterward.
“That’s exactly what I’m telling you,” he said, injecting a healthy dose of sangfroid into his voice. He didn’t want to scare her off completely.
“Well, I’m telling you I don’t believe you, and I told you before, I don’t appreciate being the butt of someone’s stupid joke.”
This again. He should have known she’d think he was having a bit of fun at her expense. The fact that she knew that Spencer had practically forced him to speak to her on Friday didn’t help his cause either.
Mason knew he was foolish to actually verbalize his desire. Better to stick to the “rules,” no matter how crazy they seemed.
“Sorry I upset you,” he muttered. “I guess I overstepped a little.”
“A little?”
“A lot.” His admission mollified her for a moment, and she took another gulp of wine.
“I should probably get going,” she said.
“You haven’t even had dessert yet.”
“I’ve lost my appetite.”
“Look, I’m really sorry about what I said. You just . . .” He shook his head and figured a strictly edited version of the truth would probably be his best defense here. “I didn’t like what you said. About me. It hit too close to home. I often feel like an ungrateful bastard because just when something seems perfect, I find a way to deliberately fuck it up. Vashti seemed perfect for me—gorgeous, intelligent, funny—but when she started talking about moving in together, I called the whole thing off. Said I didn’t love her.”