The Price of Mason (Forbidden Men 10)

“Done.” I lifted her up, so I could work on opening her jeans.

“I’m serious, Mason.” Stroking my hair so I’d look up at her, she met my gaze with solemn blue eyes. “This thing between us is bigger than anything I’ve ever experienced before. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“Teresa,” I murmured, saying her real name so she’d know I meant every word I said. “You’re in my blood. I’d have to bleed out completely and die before I could give you up. I’m not going to stop loving you.”

Her chest heaved as she drew in the impact of my words. And even though her eyes smiled with love, she managed a cringe. “That’s a little morbid, Hotness, but I’ll take it.”

“You better,” I growled, shedding her jeans down her thighs, “because I’m giving you all that I am.”

She opened my jeans in return and started to sink down on top of me. I loved taking her bare. And since she’d gone on birth control and I’d gotten thoroughly checked out, that’s all we did now. My mouth literally watered in anticipation of that first thrust.

“I guess that makes us even then,” she answered before impaling herself, making me groan through the overwhelming pleasure.

Six Months Later

Ellamore, Illinois

“Is it just me, or is it really fucking weird that those two are hooking up?”

Pausing my search under the counter of the bar where I now worked, I glanced up at one of my new coworkers who’d come over to lean on the bar directly beside me so he could ask me that very question.

I wrinkled my brow, utterly confused. “What two?”

Bartending was the first job I’d found since moving to Ellamore with Reese. And it was just in the nick of time too. I’d been right about my mother; she’d been more than ready to leave Waterford and start over in Illinois. And Reese had been right about her mom finding mine a position at the hotel she managed. But I’d also been right about the money situation.

After moving across the country, getting Mom and Sarah set up in a cozy bungalow-style house, finding an apartment for me and Reese, and then taking in her pregnant cousin, who had shown up on our doorstep a few months back with no place else to go, most of my reserve had run dry.

I tried not to panic about that, but Reese had to calm me down more often than she probably should’ve because we were still making it through okay. And she’d even done some research to find us some government-aided assistance for Sarah’s expenses, so that was helpful. The tips here weren’t bad, either—not quite as lush as hush money from senators and their kinky wives—but we were getting by. That was, we’d get by as long as I wasn’t fired for being unable to mix a good, stiff drink because I seriously sucked at bartending.

My new coworkers ragged on me constantly because of my sorry skills, but for some reason, that only made me feel more included than excluded from their group.

They were an interesting mix of guys—most of them football jocks of all things—but they meshed more like family than colleagues. I had a good feeling about them, especially after last week when they’d had my back when the dreaded event had happened.

Ten—whose real name was Oren, but his last name was Tenning, so he’d been dubbed Ten—snagged a toothpick and plucked a cherry from the garnish tray before popping it into his mouth. Nodding his head toward a table in the back, he answered with, “Those two.”

I lifted up just enough to peer over the counter, where I spotted another coworker of ours: Noel. From what I’d gathered, he and Ten were roommates. Since Noel wasn’t scheduled to work tonight, he was here as a customer, enjoying his evening with a lovely lady companion. The weird part in all of that was that Noel was a student at the university where Reese and I had enrolled this semester, and the lady with him was his, mine, Reese’s, and even Ten’s English professor.

Their whole taboo relationship would’ve made me shudder in horror and remember my own experiences with Reese’s professor back at Waterford, except this professor seemed like she was the very opposite of Monica Janison. Something about Dr. Kavanagh reminded me of Reese. She had a certain youth, and purity—or maybe it was innocence—I couldn’t quite describe. She just wasn’t as jaded and evil as Dr. Janison. Whatever it was about her, it was a quality I liked, so I was actually rooting for Noel and Kavanagh to last…somehow.

“You think he calls her Dr. Kavanagh while he’s doing her?” Ten wondered, appearing perplexed by the scene before him. Squinting, he tilted his head to the side as if he were trying to picture them in different positions.

Noel laughed at something Dr. Kavanagh said before he reached out to lovingly tuck a piece of her hair behind her ear as if he needed an excuse to touch her. Ten blinked and shook his head, looking dazed.

“I seriously doubt it,” I answered, ducking my head back under the counter and shoving aside a bottle of Jack to see if my wallet had fallen behind it.

“It’s just so weird,” Ten repeated, unable to stop staring. “He seems to really like her.”

“Yeah,” I agreed dryly. “Weird. A man and a woman like each other. Whoever would’ve guessed such a crazy phenomenon was actually possible?”

Dammit. Where had I left my wallet? I hadn’t been able to find it anywhere at home. I was so sure I’d left it here somewhere.

Ten scowled at me and kicked my leg with his foot. “I’m just saying, it’s Gamble. You didn’t know him before he went all relationship committed like this. This is just so unlike him to focus on one, single chick. And she’s our fucking teacher, man. That’s got ‘doomed’ written all over it. If they get caught, he’ll get kicked off the team and lose his scholarship, and his entire future will be fucked, right along with his little brothers’ and sister’s futures too. You know he sends money home to them, right? He’s the only thing helping them get by.”

“Really?” I looked up in surprise, not aware Noel had younger siblings he took care of. It made me think of Sarah and all the shit I’d gone through to help take care of her. Feeling a sudden kinship with my new coworker, I glanced over the counter toward Noel again. He was holding Dr. Kavanagh’s hand now, saying something that made her smile and duck her head bashfully.

“Huh,” I murmured softly. “I didn’t know that.”

“Well, it’s true,” Ten spat. “And on top of all that, he’s going to get his fucking heart broken. Why would he risk so much? Because how the fuck are they really going to work?”