Price of a Kiss (Forbidden Men 1)

Since I was already there, I went ahead and took a shower, then realized too late I’d forgotten to bring fresh clothes in with me to change into. When I snuck the door open, I expected him to be up and alert. But he was still dead to the world and mummified in my sheets. I skipped across the floor to my closet and picked out an outfit in hyper speed.

Mason hadn’t so much as stirred.

When a naughty touch of inspiration hit me, I couldn’t stop myself. I watched the prone lump on the bed, the back of his head turned my way, as I dropped my towel to the floor. And the bastard still had no clue what kind of show I was putting on for him.

Oh, well. It was probably for the best he didn’t wake up and—oopsie—catch me changing. We were just friends.

He looked as if he might snooze for another millennium or so, so I jotted a quick note—in case something shocking happened and he actually opened his eyes while I was gone—and told him I was going out to get some breakfast.

When I returned, his Jeep still sat in the drive but my apartment was quiet. I crept to my room, almost worried he’d risen and left anyway. The day had brightened considerably, and the sun had snuck in through the closed blinds to spray down on my bed, spotlighting a masterpiece.

Mason had rolled onto his back in my absence. The sheets had shifted down to the bottom of his ribcage. And holy cappuccino and white chocolate mocha espresso, he was shirtless!

Yeah, he’d been shirtless all night long while I’d been lying next to him…and I’d had no clue.

Wow.

Just…wow.

I gazed at him in all his shirtless glory—on my bed, squee!—and was beyond tempted to pull out my cell phone to snap off a few (dozen) pictures to keep forever and ever.

But…he might not appreciate that.

Damn, sometimes being friends with a total hottie could suck. You couldn’t take nearly naked pictures of them while they were passed out on your bed against their permission without getting a serious case of the guilties.

It didn’t keep me from looking though. So, I looked and looked.

And looked.

Then, like a Harry Potter lightning bolt, an idea struck me. What if he wasn’t just shirtless under that sheet? What if he was completely naked?

Oh, this I had to know.

Since he was dead to the world and seemed like a really deep sleeper, I went on a fact-gathering mission. Purely academic curiosity, of course.

After setting the two lattes I was holding on my dresser, I grasped the edge of the sheets covering him and inched them very, very slowly down his sleek, tapered and tanned torso. My attention darted between his face and his chest, taking in every inch of the sexy, sculpted pecs I exposed.

When I came to the beginnings of his tattoo, I brightened, forgetting about the pants mystery for a second.

Maybe I could read what it said today. I tugged a little more insistently on the sheet and discovered at the same moment that he was still wearing his underwear but no pants and his tattoo said Make Me.

I gasped.

After last night, those two words made so much sense. I could see him feeling trapped and rebellious, living a life where women told him exactly what to do to pleasure them and thinking this was his only form of giving them the finger.

He wanted to break free and live his own life. He wanted control over himself.

I suddenly understood why I’d always felt connected to him. We were similar souls who’d been made to feel repressed. After years of Jeremy telling me how to wear my hair, what kind of clothes to buy, what kind of food to eat, I had grown the same rebellious, “make me” attitude.

The sad thing was, Mason was still living under his suppression, and he had the means to break free; he just wouldn’t. He wouldn’t stop doing what he was doing until he knew without a doubt that his mother and sister were going to be okay. But oh, Mason, you poor deluded thing. They’ve already made you.

His tat also reminded me I was acting like every other woman out there, treating him like a sex object by sneaking a stolen peek at him. Tears stung my eyes. I was about to cover him back up, give him back his dignity, but at the last second, I reached out and touched the dried ink embedded into his skin, silently apologizing for my part in making him this way.

He sucked in a breath at my touch and rolled toward me, onto his stomach, where he winced and buried his face in my pillow.

No, I didn’t plan on washing that pillowcase ever again, now that you mention it. Sex object or not, he was still Mason, and I would relish every little scent he left behind on my bed.

Retreating to the doorway, I wiped my cheeks dry and snagged up both cups as if I’d just then come into the room. “Rise and shine, sleeping beauty.” By my perky tone of voice, you’d never guess I’d just been on the brink of weeping my eyes out.