Trying not to betray too much of my excitement, I push off the door and advance toward him slowly, noticing the glossy, eight-by-ten photograph sitting beside him on the table for the first time.
It’s a photograph of…me.
Mase notices me eyeing the photograph and shifts uncomfortably in his seat. “Listen, I don’t want to offend you. I’m sure you’re a nice girl. I’m sure you’re pretty and all, but…” He massages both knees roughly, like he desperately needs a way to occupy his hands. “I’ll be calling you Ripley. That’s who I’ll be fucking.”
Unadulterated happiness strikes my belly like a gong. Wow. Oh wow. Now I know for sure I’ve made the right decision. I haven’t been imagining the connection between me and Mase. It’s real. Remembering myself, I nod, but say nothing.
“I haven’t, uh…been with anyone in a while. Not since right after I got out of prison,” he says, his laughter tinged with strain. “After I met her…I just couldn’t anymore.”
My heart is going a million miles an hour. I want to throw myself into his arms and confess my love. Praise him for waiting for me. And I would do those things if I thought he’d drop his worries and be with me. But there are reasons he’s come to a brothel and not to me. He thinks us being together is wrong. So I can’t reveal my identity just yet. Not until we’re at the point of no return and his resistance to the idea of us has been crumbled.
Mase is staring at the picture. It’s one that was taken quite a while ago.
I’m in my cheerleading costume, looking back flirtatiously over my shoulder.
Bad, bad Uncle Mase.
“I don’t know why you’re wearing the mask. This is a small town. Maybe you don’t want your identity getting out there,” he says gruffly, running his fingers over the photograph’s surface. “Whatever the reason is, I’m glad. It’ll make picturing her easier.”
Every cell in my body tilts when Mase stands to his full, considerable height, carrying the picture over to the headboard of the bed, propping it between a pillow and the headboard. It excites me in a way I’m not expecting, this plan of his. To stare at my picture while he uses a warm body in frustration. And lord, must he be frustrated. A virile man like Mase not having sex for four years? His grumpiness is beginning to make a lot more sense.
Mase draws my attention when he lowers the zipper of his jeans. Staring at the picture of me in my cheerleading uniform, he reaches into the opening, winces, and starts to fondle himself roughly, his hard grunts filling the room. “I know you’re a virgin,” he says on a harsh breath. “You sucked a man off before?”
I’m supposed to respond? How can I even speak when I’m watching my uncle masturbate to a picture of me? How often does he do this? My nipples are in painful little pebbles, liquid warmth spreading on the seam of my panties. Flushed and beginning to tremble, I remember he asked me a question. You sucked a man off before?
He glances up in time to see my headshake.
“Come sit on the edge of the bed,” he instructs me, reluctantly taking his hand out of his jeans, leaving his bulky erection straining inside the denim. “You probably won’t have long to practice. I never make it longer than a few minutes looking at that picture.”
Catching myself mid-sway, I nod again.
“You don’t say much,” he comments dryly.
Distract him before he makes you speak. On unsteady legs, I go toward the right side of the bed, keeping my head down in case the darkness of the room and the mask aren’t enough to conceal my face. I try to make myself breathe evenly as I sit down in front of Mase, putting my mouth even with his lap. He reaches past me and adjusts the photo so he can see it better, then he shoves a hand back into his jeans, taking out his fisted erection. The first time his shaft made an appearance in my bedroom, I was too shocked to savor the sight, but now I trace every vein with my gaze and memorize every ridge.
His thumb presses to the middle of my bottom lip, tugging it down and guiding his thickness to my mouth at the same time. “Ah, fuck. Open up for me, Ripley, sweetheart.” His smooth head pushes past my teeth and fills my mouth, his salt and musk flavor hitting me in the back of the throat. My cheeks and the corners of my lips stretch to allow his size inside, his hand flying to the back of my skull to hold me steady. “This is the dick you’ve been teasing,” he rasps, canting his hips up and back, slicking out of my mouth and groaning his way back in, stretching me further this time. “Thought of doing this more times than I can count. Thought of doing it even when I was sitting right next to your father.”