Excuse me? I lifted my hands, beyond insulted. “I haven’t made you choose anything. Have you ever once heard me ask you to make any kind of decision? I understand completely why you do this. You don’t have to choose.”
Mason closed his eyes and snuffled out a bitter sound. “Except I already have. I have declined every offer I’ve gotten lately because the only person I want is you.”
Hearing him openly admit it lit up my hope like the Griswold house at Christmas. “S-since when?”
Emotion swam in his eyes as he shook his head and glanced at me. “Since the night before we almost kissed in your apartment during Eva’s party.”
I gulped, overwhelmed with joy.
It was official then. He was no longer
a gigolo. He’d quit. For me.
I stepped away from the wall, but he croaked, “It might not last,” as if saying that threw up some kind of force field to keep me away.
Strangely enough, it worked. I stopped in my tracks. “What do you mean?”
Grief filled his face. “I tried getting out a year ago. I refused everyone for four months straight. But it didn’t change how people treated me. Then the bills started piling up. Not as bad as they had been before. But it worried me, made me fear that our lives would plummet again. Then one day, this client got so desperate, she offered me double my price to keep me from refusing. So…I agreed. And everyone else began to pay that price. Before I knew it, I was all the way back in again.” He looked at me and shook his head. “I want to say I’ll never go back to it, but I did before.”
I shook my head, maybe denying the whole situation, or maybe I was just that sure he wouldn’t go back.
Mason glanced at me, looking restless and edgy as he jiggled his knee. “I never should’ve told you how I felt. When I learned he was going to take you out, I should’ve just gritted my teeth and kept my mouth shut. At least we’d still be friends.”
I gave a small, helpless shrug. “But then we never would’ve kissed.”
His gaze lifted, and he actually smiled. “Yeah.” Except now he sounded more depressed than ever.
I pushed away from the wall and went to him, opening my arms and hugging him. He exhaled and wound me tight in his embrace, burying his face in my hair. “You are the most amazing person I’ve ever known. I love your spunk, your crazy thoughts on life, your caring soul.”
“And I love you, period,” I said.
He must’ve known I wasn’t going to take any kind of rejection from him, because he didn’t even attempt to pull away when I slid my mouth to his.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Everything transgressed from hug into kiss so seamlessly, I couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began. Mason sank his hands into my hair and held my head steady as his lips worshiped mine. After I shifted my face just enough to align our lips better, he moaned out a needy sound. His mouth wasn’t demanding but begging, and I couldn’t handle letting him beg. So I opened up, and we deepened the moment.
I couldn’t stop kissing him. Our mouths took on the intimate dance of getting to know each other, learning each hidden crevice and sensitive nook. One wet embrace bled into another, until we both had to come up for air. And even then, we held each other, our cheeks pressed firmly together as our hands skated over clothes until they found their way under them.
His chest was sleek and warm, so taut under my fingers. I needed to know every muscle and freckle he had. Catching the bottom of his shirt, I pulled it up. He lifted his arms to help me, and a second later, he was shirtless.
I sucked in a breath, just staring. “You are so…beautiful.”
He reached out and pulled me back to him. “Not nearly as beautiful as you.”
My fingers became addicted to touching him. He felt so good.
Mason pressed his mouth to my closed eyelids, my cheeks, my forehead, my chin. As he began down my neck, I slid my hands around to the base of his spine. Pressing my palms flat against heated flesh, I lowered them, dipping into the back waistband of his jeans.
He sucked in a breath and clutched my face with one palm. His other hand shifted up the inside of my shirt to my bra, and under the cup. Arching against him, I—
A ringing from his front pocket startled me into yelping. I tugged my fingers from his pants and jerked back.
Mason’s jaw went tense. He closed his eyes and cursed under his breath. Slowly, he slid his hand out from under my shirt. His gaze flickered up to watch my face as he made sure the backs of his fingers trailed along my abdomen before they left me. Only then did he yank his phone from his pocket. When he looked at the screen, his face drained of color.
I knew it was over then. Whatever farce of a relationship we’d just started had shattered. Because he had a client on the line.
Turning his back to me, Mason pressed the phone to his ear. He didn’t answer, but his caller must’ve known he was on the line because I heard a muted female voice saying something to him. A second later, he spun toward the nearest window and jerked the blinds down, nearly yanking them from the wall in his rush.