And that was the other thing. As much as I cared for Mason and wanted this to happen, wanted this to go forward—he was a big part of the reason my life was actually in danger. The Scarluccis had been threatening me before and I knew it was a matter of time before they tried to take me out, but not like this. They hadn’t hated me before; it was just business. Now, Mason had made it personal. I was an enemy of theirs.
And I was inclined to be angry with him. I was furious with him, but yet, I couldn’t feel furious. The rage, the bitter anger that I had for him over the mess he’d gotten me into—it just wasn’t there. When I looked at him, all I saw was a wonderful man that I found myself falling harder and harder for. I did not see anything else.
But the kiss happening the way it did---it triggered a few uncomfortable feelings inside of me. This didn’t feel right. I didn’t know why, but I wanted to get back to my room.
So, I’d left fairly abruptly and came back to my room to take a shower in my private bathroom. I loved that. Having my own private shower anytime I wanted and only working part days. I was starting to think I’d finally found the life for me.
But it came with strings, most noticeably, Mason.
And would that have been so bad? I didn’t think so. Then why did I run away after the kiss. It was a perfect kiss. His sweet, soft lips on mine… his warm mouth… I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I wanted to go back and do the kiss again, I wanted it to go deeper, and to keep going until we were both so worked up that we would just ravage each other again. Was that still an option? Or had I messed that up?
I could only imagine what Mason must have been thinking. He was nervous. I made him nervous. That was the only thing about us that I had really been able to figure out. There was no reason for me to make him nervous, as far as I could tell, but I did. He was nervous in my presence and thinking about this made me happy. I loved the power it gave me. I was not used to having that kind of power over men that made me nervous.
I finished the shower and got out to dry off. I felt rejuvenated completely, as if nothing had happened earlier. And it wasn’t the thing with Mason, or drudging up all the painful emotions that were draining me dry. It was holding the gun in my hand. It wasn’t so much the gun itself, as the idea that I had been driven that far by my fear and my circumstances. By picking up the gun, I felt like I was making a choice with myself. If it came down to that and I had to save my life or someone else’s, I had no excuses not to act. If I had a gun, then I had the power to at least try to stop it.
That was a huge responsibility and I felt the weight of it crushing me down. Was I ready for that? No. But I didn’t have a choice. Mason was right. If someone had not shown up yesterday to rescue me when they did, I would have been killed. I couldn’t always count on that.
I dried off and stepped back into my bedroom to change. It was now about four in the afternoon. I thought I could hear Toby playing downstairs, but I wasn’t sure. I hoped someone was looking after the little guy and he was ok.
I’d just finished putting on my jeans and a nice t-shirt when my phone rang. I froze. No one was supposed to know where I was and I hadn’t answered my phone since arriving at Mason’s. In fact, I thought I’d turned the ringer off.
I picked up the phone to see that it was Marla who was calling me. I wanted to answer it. She was my best friend. We were practically sisters. I kept nothing from her. But I couldn’t tell her where I was. If I did I’d be putting her in danger. I knew she was probably worried about me though, and if I didn’t reach out to her she might go to the police to file a report. I would have if the situations were reversed.
But I couldn’t have the cops or anyone else looking into where I was. Mason and I hadn’t actually spoken much about this or come up with a good game plan on how to handle this, then again it was pretty obvious that we were both doing this on the fly here.