Spring Forward (Superbia Springs Book 1)

by Rachel Kane

  Mason’s brow furrowed, and he started to say something, but instead just repeated that single word: “Yeah?”

  “I know you don’t know me, and I guess I could be barking up the wrong tree anyway, and it’s stupid to even ask this, especially since I’m about to leave town, but maybe because I’m leaving town it’s a little easier to ask, but would you, maybe, do you think you might—”

  Their hands had not released each other, and Mason used that fact to pull Liam close. There in the shadows of the parking lot, away from prying eyes, their lips met.

  It was absolutely forbidden, and the worst idea on earth, and it crackled like electricity all through Liam’s body. It was like his entire self was suddenly awake, alert, alive.

  Mason’s lips were so soft, compared to how rough he was otherwise. His kiss was at first tentative, exploring, as though he weren’t sure he was allowed to do this, but Liam let his body melt against him, let him know it was okay.

  Just this once, couldn’t he make a bad decision?

  Couldn’t he have one mistake, all to himself?

  He felt a hand behind him, Mason’s free hand at the small of his back, pulling him in close. Impossible to miss the hardness already starting in Mason’s jeans, as Liam angled his hips forward.

  “This is so wrong,” Mason whispered.

  “I know,” said Liam. “Believe me, I know.”

  “It doesn’t mean anything, don’t get the wrong idea, I’m not—”

  Whatever Mason was about to say next was silenced by Liam’s mouth, by lips and tongues touching and retreating, the sense of the words lost in a murmur of pleasure as Liam ground himself against Mason.

  “Can we go to your place?” Liam whispered. “Everybody’s in my motel room tonight.”

  Mason shook his head. “Nah, not mine, my dad’s— Wait. I know a place.”

  Of course he did. They both did. A place where they could have a moment’s solitude, where they could have this mistake, this bad decision, this wrong idea, in peace, all to themselves.

  The ride to Superbia Springs was some of the sweetest agony Liam had ever felt. He kept leaning over to kiss Mason, trying to keep his eyes on the road, trying to be conscientious, but it was so hard the way Mason was stroking his thigh, his hand working up even further.

  They didn’t dare speak. They knew to utter a word was to break the spell. Liam didn’t even bother trying to open the door, he had no free hands, tangling himself in Mason’s arms there on the porch, letting himself be shoved back to the wall, letting himself be pressed tight by Mason’s bigger, stronger body, his masculine scent setting off a cascade of pleasure in the back of Liam’s mind, that primitive part that responded to the promise of sweat and pounding.

  The night was warm, and yet when Mason pushed up Liam’s shirt, exposing his skin, he felt chill-bumps rise, like every inch of him was trying to get closer to Mason. His nipples hardened, as though the mere brush of the air were enough to excite him, before Mason’s rough hands came up and his thumbs brushed against Liam. He would have shuddered himself right to the ground, had Mason not been there to steady him.

  “Goddamn,” muttered Mason, looking down at Liam’s taut belly, tracing its ridges with his fingers. “Look at you. You’re perfect.”

  “I— I—”

  “Perfect,” he insisted. “All I want to do is fuck you, man. I’ve wanted to do it since the first second I saw you.”

  It was honestly too much to hear, right at this second. Liam wanted it. God knows, he wanted it more than he’d wanted anything in a long time. But his mind wouldn’t shut down, wouldn’t just let him enjoy it, without speaking.

  “Listen,” he said, and he felt the distance between them grow. It might have been imperceptible, had anyone been watching them, but he felt it, mere molecules of atmosphere between them, just enough to feel.

  “I’m sorry, you’re right, I—”

  “No, no, let me say something,” Liam said. “Look, I wouldn’t do this, except I know I’m leaving town, I know I’ll never see you again, so this is no strings, right? Just tell me that. I want this so much…but it needs to be no-strings.”

  Mason got closer, began kissing Liam’s ear. His harsh whisper said, “Whatever you say, yes, no strings, I don’t expect anything out of you, I promise.”

  “And I…don’t have anything. With me. You know. Protection. Do you?”

  Mason’s laugh was as amused as it was frustrated. “Nooo… I don’t really do this kinda thing.”

  You could keep nuzzling my throat like that forever though, if you wanted to.

  Liam gasped, and wrapped his arms around Mason’s neck. “You mean this isn’t a service you offer all your customers?”

  One of his legs slid up and around Mason’s waist, and the man took the hint instantly, moving his hands down to cup Liam’s ass, letting Liam hold on with both arms and legs, only his back pressed against the wall, as Mason thrust his cock against him, several layers of denim and cotton keeping them from the contact they really, truly wanted.

  In another world, another set of circumstances, Liam would’ve thrown caution to the wind, would’ve let this powerful stranger just fuck him raw, right there. Would’ve let him in with no condom, no lube, nothing but the rough sharp pain of skin against skin, gritted teeth and whimpers of grateful agony. Even the thought of it sent his mind raging with desire, wishing, wishing.

  And clearly Mason wanted it too. His thrusts were not mere pantomime, he was rubbing his cock hungrily against Liam, clearly wanting in, wanting the rules to change.

  Why not? Liam asked himself. Why can’t I be thoughtless just for one night? Everyone else does it all the time. Just once won’t hurt anything. Why don’t I just give myself up to this, let myself be carried away, and not think of the consequences until tomorrow?

  With a long, frustrated sigh, he put his weight on Mason’s shoulders, unlinking his legs and letting his feet come back to the porch. Now he pushed Mason away…still leaving his hands on those broad, muscular shoulders.

  “I can’t,” Liam said. “Don’t get me wrong, I want to. But…”

  His hard-on was throbbing so hard it felt like it might rip his pants, might just destroy everything in its path, in its quest for Mason. As it was, he felt like he’d leaked a gallon of precum already.

  Mason closed his eyes and shook his head. “Yeah. Yeah. I get it.”

  “Life is different when you’re a dad,” Liam said. “And sometimes I hate that difference, and wish I could just be stupid and irresponsible again.”

  Unexpectedly, Mason pulled him close. So close that again their cocks were touching, and he could feel that Mason’s erection had not yet abated; it was still going strong down there. “Don’t think like that,” Mason said. “I know too many guys who don’t care about the future, who don’t care about the people around them. Damn, half of what makes you so hot, is how much I can tell you care about everything. Don’t lose that.”

  “You don’t hold it against me?”

  “All I want to hold against you is my damned cock.”

  Liam’s hand slid down and gave Mason’s hardness a squeeze. “I owe you one, okay?”

  “Damn right you do. I’m gonna start carrying rubbers and lube in my tool box, so I’m ready next time I see you.”

  Next time I see you.

  The words brought home the fact that there would be no next time. That this was only a stolen moment out of two lives going in completely different directions. Liam felt cheated, like he deserved more, deserved another shot at this, but maybe that was just his sexual frustration talking.

  There was nothing for him here. This wasn’t home.

  Home was a city full of strangers he couldn’t connect to, a job he could do on autopilot, and a family that loved him but couldn’t fulfill that one empty place in his life, a man-shaped void that had been there ever since Richard.

  “All right then,” he said. “See you next time.”

  They both knew it
was a lie. They understood it, but it was better than telling each other the truth.

  “Oh,” said Judah, when Liam delivered the news.

  “It’s the right choice,” said Noah.

  Mama just hummed and continued to pack up Roo’s things. “We may as well get on the road now,” she said. “No sense in waiting until tomorrow. We’ll get some caffeine in us and head back.”

  Liam could tell she meant something else by that. But she’d gone into Practical Mama mode, which now featured the new Ultra-Practical Grandma as well, and he knew he wasn’t going to get anything from her, any reaction at all about his decision.

  “I guess I can’t talk you out of it?” asked Judah.

  Liam held out the estimate, and his brother’s eyes widened. He shook his head, and started his own packing. They’d planned to stay the night, but Mama was ready to go, and honestly Liam was too. Better to escape now, spend the night on the road, letting Roo be happy in her car seat, her favorite place to sleep, than to stay in the cramped motel another night.

  “I never even got to check out the scene,” said Noah.

  “There is no scene,” said Liam. “It’s just a bar.”

  “A bar full of sexy construction workers like Mason?”

  “Mason’s not—” He wasn’t sure what he would’ve said next, but Noah’s laugh cut him off anyway.

  Oh, hell, he knows. I don’t know how he does, but he knows. His friend had always been able to pick up on when Liam was attracted to someone, sometimes long before Liam had realized it himself. Now he just had to pray Noah wouldn’t make it the sole topic of conversation on the drive back.

  Home, then. No time for a lengthy goodbye to Superbia Springs. No time for a real goodbye to Mason Lee Tisdale.

  Just escaping into the night like bandits.

  12

  Mason

  “You know, if you sabotaged all your other projects the way you do your love life,” said Alex, “half the town would’ve collapsed in flames by now.”

  “What I like about you is how helpful and objective your advice is,” said Mason, not making eye contact with his friend. He pretended to look at the new release shelf, even though his eyes were focused elsewhere, somewhere far away.

  “He was right there, and you let him go?”

  “How many times can I explain it? I’m not like you, I don’t carry a portable sex dungeon everywhere I go.”

  He hadn’t realized Liam was leaving as quickly as he did. The news came in the next day, while Mason was trying to make up his mind whether to drop by the motel for one last quick goodbye: Liam had cut out the night before, packing up his friends and family and getting on the road before midnight.

  He’d missed his chance.

  And that whole day, and now today as well, his mind circled the idea of what he could’ve done differently, what he could’ve said to make Liam stay, at least a day or two longer.

  Alex made a show of dusting shelves, but it was as much an illusion as Mason’s perusing of the new releases. He could tell Alex was frustrated with him, but his friend cared too much to launch directly into an attack.

  Hopefully.

  “I think you could learn something from this experience,” Alex said. So much for not launching directly.

  “Yeah, I’ve learned to stop hoping for anything to happen between me and another guy. Because it’s never going to. I’m cursed or something.”

  “Or you’re artificially limiting your prospects by being in the closet, so you can’t date anybody that you can’t tuck away from public view—”

  “Damn it, Alex, I don’t want to talk about that. That’s not even relevant. Liam didn’t care whether I was out of the closet or not.”

  “I’m not talking about Liam, I’m talking about the next guy, who may or may not exist, depending on whether you insist on keeping this part of yourself all bottled up like a big secret!”

  The next guy.

  What a terrible phrase.

  What did it even mean?

  He didn’t know Liam very well, that was true, but in a lot of ways, he was the whole package. Hot as hell, clearly practical instead of flighty, and capable of caring deeply for people, as evidenced by him bringing his whole crew down to help him make a decision.

  What could the next guy offer?

  More pointless drama. More secrecy, as Mason scrambled to have a life that nobody in town could see. If nothing else, being in the closet meant spending a lot more on gas money, as he drove from town to town, getting as far as he possibly could from the people at home.

  He couldn’t say that to Alex, though. Alex would be all, and see, you being in the closet is bad for the environment, too.

  “I just wish I could’ve gotten him to stay in town for another day or two.”

  “So you could get laid.”

  “So I could get to know him!”

  Alex shook his head. “Get to know him? Mason, don’t you see what a contradiction that is? As long as you’re hiding your true self from the world, you don’t get to know anybody. You can use them for sex, something secret and temporary, but you don’t have the right to ask for more.”

  “I’m not asking for more, I’m asking for some— Argh! Why am I even talking to you about this?”

  “Because Toby doesn’t get up this time of morning, leaving me your only daytime friend.”

  “I wish I could just buy the damn house from Liam. That would make him come back.”

  Alex laughed. “You have a fortune you’ve forgotten to mention to me? Recent lottery win?”

  “It all sucks so much. Not only do I miss my chance at him, but you know whoever buys the place is going to tear it down. Nobody wants a freaking museum-piece of a mansion.”

  He waited for Alex’s response, but none came. He finally looked over at his friend, who was staring out the shop window at the street beyond…but he could tell, he wasn’t really looking at the street. He recognized that look: Alex was putting together A Plan.

  “You better go ahead and tell me whatever’s on your mind,” said Mason.

  “A museum-piece, that’s what you called it,” said Alex. “But what you mean is that, for our town, that house is a landmark. A historical one.”

  “Well, sure. It’s also probably haunted—”

  “No, be serious a second. If it’s a historical landmark…what if there’s grant money to fix it up?”

  Mason shook his head. “Grant money?”

  “I don’t know, maybe it’s stupid, but what if there were some money out there to get the place fixed up? Then maybe your secret lover—”

  “He’s not my secret—”

  “Then maybe your new pal wouldn’t have to sell.”

  “Are you serious? Are you being absolutely serious right now? You’re not just imagining something that doesn’t exist?”

  Alex held up his hand to shush his friend. “I’m trying to remember… I know I’ve seen something about this. Let me think about it, okay? Let me do some digging.”

  “Alex, that would be so great if it worked, what if, what if—”

  “I’m not promising anything! And besides, it might not exist, the house might not qualify, Liam might not care, I mean a million things could go wrong. So don’t get your hopes up yet. But get out of here and let me think. Don’t you have work to do?”

  Mason put his hand on Alex’s shoulder and squeezed. “You really are my best friend. If you think of anything—”

  “Best friend? Better than Toby? Toby, who gives you free beer?”

  “This is better than free beer.”

  “Shoo, then, and let me think!”

  Speaking of ancient buildings that would take a fortune to renovate, the Red Cat really wasn’t set up for high-speed networking. Built in the height of the 50s Cold War panic, it could’ve easily survived earthquakes, zombies, or herds of stampeding elephants, but instead of a convenient drop ceiling like at Alex’s bookshop, all the wiring here was underneath…down in the bomb shelter.<
br />
  Mason stood at the door of the steps, flashlight in hand. “You’re sure you want me to go down there?”

  Renee peeked over his shoulder. “That’s where the wires are.”

  “Yeah, but it’s…dark.” He shone his light down, and the darkness seemed to absorb the beam.

  “Your daddy used to go down there to fix the pumps and the boilers and all.”

  She followed him down the creaking steps. He had his hand out to steady himself, as though the old wooden stairs might collapse at any minute. Of course they wouldn’t. Whatever atomic-age preservative the wood had been treated with, these steps would last a thousand years. His fingers passed a dark line on the wall, a sign of the flood of ‘96. He’d been a kid then, but still remembered the news stories, men out in boats helping rescue people’s pets, school canceled… His dad had been so busy after that, sometimes it seemed like he’d fixed up every building in town.

  The white circle of his flashlight beam played against empty shelves, ancient pipes, the sump pump and the drains.

  Scary? No, this wasn’t scary. Seeing the workings of the old building put him in a totally different mindset. He felt at home, tracing the wires that traveled from spot to spot above him, the junction boxes and insulators. He smiled at the phone line, thick copper bell-wire from before he was born. It was like a history lesson down here.

  Work could help him forget. Could help him put everything in context. He might’ve missed some chance with Liam, but it wasn’t a big deal. Men came and men went, and he’d only known Liam for a few short hours, so why cry over it? Simple: He wouldn’t. That spark he’d felt was nothing but unfulfilled horniness—especially unfulfilled after that night on the porch, but it wasn’t like he longed for Liam or anything.

  That would be silly.

  “I was sorry to hear about that cute boy leaving town,” Renee said from beside him, staring up at the wires. “I thought for sure you two were hitting it off.”