Restraint (Mason Family 1)

“You’re getting in so deep,” I warn myself.

I know she’s leaving and going back to her career. It’s more than a job to her. It matters. She has a fucking degree to practice law. She’s not going to throw all that into the wind and stay here.

I don’t even necessarily want her to stay.

Do I?

I don’t know what I want.

I know that having her in my home makes me want to come home. I know that seeing her hanging out with my brothers settles me. I know that the idea of curling up in my bed next to her in a few minutes is something that I’ve looked forward to since I left this morning.

But I also know that all of this shit has caused my work to slip. And I can’t have that.

“And that brings me right back to reality.”

I tug on my wet hair and feel the burn in my scalp.

There are a million things I need to be doing tonight instead of going to bed with Blaire. I need to go over our proposal to Landry. I need to call Wade and see what he decided to do today. I need to pore over the dollars and cents and make sure I’m investing my family’s wealth in the right way.

No woman is worth losing millions of dollars over.

Period.

I can’t risk it.

My heart sinks as the water shuts off.

Just enjoy it while you can.

Blaire comes around the corner with a white towel wrapped around her body. Her hair is still wet, but towel-dried enough that it’s not dripping. Her skin is flushed from the heat of the shower, and I want nothing more than to pause time.

“Hey,” she says softly. “I figured you’d be asleep by now.”

“I have to go downstairs and work a little bit first.”

“I get that.”

She walks across the room and stands in front of me. Her lips twist around as if she’s trying to figure out what to say. It’s only when she glances over her shoulder and then back at my bed that I realize what she’s thinking.

She doesn’t know where to go.

“Come up here,” I tell her as I scoot back toward the headboard.

A few seconds later, she’s crawling across the mattress. I stretch out and open my arms so she can curl up next to me.

She doesn’t hesitate. Her body molds to mine as her head rests on my shoulder. My fingertips trickle down the length of her arm, taking in the softness of her skin.

The room is quiet. The air is humid from the shower but cool. I kick the blanket folded on the edge of the bed up and tuck it around us.

Blaire yawns. It’s a quiet, sweet sound that lulls me into a state of relaxation too.

“Thank you for taking me tonight,” she whispers. “It was a lot of fun.”

“It was, wasn’t it?”

“I’d forgotten what it was like to have fun.”

Her body moves as I chuckle.

“How can you forget how to have fun?” I ask.

“I don’t know. I remember doing fun things a long time ago. I guess it’s been so long that I forgot how.”

“That’s sad, Blaire.”

“I know.” She burrows closer. “But tonight was fun. That’s what matters.”

I bend my face toward her hair and breathe her in.

I know she has to leave, but I’m going to miss this.

“Your brothers remind me of mine,” she says. “Yours are better mannered. Aside from that, they’re really cut from the same cloth.”

“You mean they’re all heathens?”

She laughs. “Yes. Except Wade. I like him a lot.”

“You don’t like the others? Wait until Boone hears this.”

“That’s not what I meant. I just mean that Wade is really interesting. We had a nice conversation.”

She traces the lines on my stomach. Each stroke makes me shiver.

“I had a thought while I was in the shower,” she says cautiously.

“What’s that?”

She leans back and looks at me. “I don’t know anything about what you guys do. I want to make that clear.”

“Go on …”

“Well, Wade was talking to me a little bit about your Landry project and how you need to maximize the revenue to justify the cost.”

I pull my brows together.

Is she actually going to talk shop with me?

“I read an article on the flight here,” she says. “It was saying how the Observation Decks create more revenue for the Empire State Building than the office space. I understand that the views won’t be the same. I mean, the Empire State Building has views of New York City. But, Wade mentioned needing an environmentally-friendly design, and I just thought that maybe you could implement something like this …”

I stare at her. My jaw is probably dropped.

Holy shit.

“Do you think that could work?” she asks.

“Oh, absolutely.” I twist in bed so I can see her better. “You might be on to something. Depending on how we position the buildings …” I imagine Wade’s latest set of plans. “If we move the one structure to the other side, there would be a clear view of the ocean. If we raise the building a few more stories …”