by Inara Scott
Probably.
…
Mason met her at the door Tuesday morning and handed her a cup of his incredible coffee—cream and sugar, just the way she liked it—and then stayed for a few minutes as she got settled and put her things down. He complained a little about his partner Nate’s obsession with early morning meetings, contemplated the leftovers she’d brought for lunch, and then left before she could tell if he was being seductive Mason, funny Mason, or real guy Mason.
Regardless of which Mason he was, he evidently hadn’t noticed the fact that she’d stopped at a drug store on the way home the night before and bought a fresh tube of mascara. Which put her in a foul mood that lasted most of the morning.
She had just pulled a slice of leftover pizza out of the microwave for dinner that evening when he surprised her by walking through the door. She glanced at her phone and then at him. “It’s only six thirty. What are you doing here?”
“Last time I checked, I live here,” he said drily, dropping his keys on the table by the door. He must have come from the gym because he wore a gray T-shirt that was dark with sweat and a pair of basketball shorts and shoes. Sweat curled the hair at the nape of his neck.
And really, sweat should be gross, right? It shouldn’t make her feel like a cat in heat.
It definitely shouldn’t make her think about taking off sweaty clothes and taking showers.
Together.
Wick gave a good shake before sitting down at Mason’s feet and looking up at him in quiet, well-behaved adoration. Mason stared at the dog for a moment, then back at Tess. “Did you just take him out or something? This thing where he greets me quietly at the door is starting to freak me out.”
“He’s feeling mellow. Lots of walks will do that. Just so you know, I’m going to start switching him over to a different food with no corn, to see if that helps with his allergies. I called his vet, and she’s okay with us tapering him off the steroids as well. That could help with the constant peeing.”
“You can take him off those?” Mason cocked his head in surprise. “Alli was insistent that he had to stay on them.”
“We can’t take him off right away, but we can definitely taper him off. Long-term steroid use isn’t a good idea if it can be avoided. Your sister must have misunderstood what the vet had intended.”
“I wish I could say I didn’t believe it, but that’s so like Alli.” He sighed and pulled the waist of his shirt up to wipe his face, forcing her to look at the six-pack abs she had known were hiding underneath.
Damn it, they were just as good as she had imagined.
Tess’s stomach was flopping around like she’d swallowed a live goldfish, so she forced herself to stare at Wick instead of those magical abs. “Ah, did you want me to stay, then? Or should I go?”
“Stay.” He set down a sports duffle bag by the door and walked over to the coat closet. “I’m going out for dinner. Just came home to shower first.”
Aaand there he went with the shower. Because she needed to picture him there.
Naked.
Really, it was too much.
“You sure do work a lot.”
“Not work,” he grunted, as he bent forward and pulled off a sneaker.
It took just a moment to sink in, and she hooted to cover the surge of jealousy. “A date, huh? Who’s the lucky lady?”
He pulled off the other sneaker in silence.
“You do know her name, don’t you?” The taunt was out of her mouth before she could stop it. One of a long line of things she should have been mature enough to restrain herself from saying.
He shot her a look of golden fire. “I don’t think you know her. You don’t exactly run in the same circles.”
“Well, that’s just mean.” She stuck her nose in the air and started to set her pizza down on the counter, then realized she didn’t have a plate. She had no idea if grease stained marble, but she definitely didn’t want to find out, so she grabbed a plate from the cupboard and set it on the counter with her pizza before turning around. “And you should be in a much better mood if you’re going on a date.”
“Maybe I would be, if my apartment didn’t look like it’d been hit by a tornado.”
She glanced around guiltily, noting her things scattered around the room in disarray. Her computer was open on the couch, her books in a messy pile beside it. A stack of papers sat on the dining room table where she’d been reviewing some notes. There were dishes in the sink from her lunch and a half-drunk bottle of diet soda on the counter. Her jacket, which she’d washed in Mason’s sparkly new washing machine, along with a few other pieces of laundry, was heaped in a pile on an armchair by the sofa. And where exactly had she left her hat?
Her gaze darted around the room—where was her baseball hat? A thought curled her toes in horror. Wick had taken to grabbing the hat and running off with it, in a game only a mastiff could love. She had a horrible, sinking feeling where he might have left it.
His favorite spot in the whole house.
The spot she’d been too embarrassed to look at too closely.
Right in the middle of Mason’s king-sized bed.
…
Mason threw his sneakers in the closet and headed for his bathroom. He wasn’t mad, he told himself, though there really seemed to be no other way to explain his inability to stop grinding his teeth together. After all, who would he have to be mad at? Little Miss Sunshine, who’d taken over his apartment so thoroughly it felt like he was coming home to a wife? That made absolutely no sense. He was paying her an ungodly amount of money to be in the apartment for twelve hours a day, and he’d explicitly told her that she should make herself at home. But still, she didn’t have to look so dammed comfortable, standing there in the kitchen, barefoot and adorable with her hair falling loose around her shoulders in a chestnut cloud that caught the light when she spun around.
And it definitely shouldn’t have felt so dammed good not to have to come home to a sterile, empty apartment, and instead find a pair of full, pink lips turned in a naughty smile as she taunted him. She was nothing like the women he dated. Short where they were tall, messy where they were neat, all big eyes and attitude and full breasts pushing against the V of her sweater. He should be able to dismiss her from his mind, not spend all day wondering what she was doing, or imagining her in his bedroom searching for a stash of “ribbed for her pleasure” in the bedside table.
You do know her name, don’t you?
She was like some kind of dammed homing device, centering in on the one thing he didn’t want to admit. Because the truth was, he still couldn’t remember who exactly he was going out with, and that was the most irritating thing of all. He had an appointment on his calendar—a reminder that he’d made reservations for two at Trestle—and he had a vague memory of a woman who was tall, beautiful, blond, and put together in a way that the annoying urchin in his kitchen never would be.
But that was it.
He turned on the shower and stripped off his clothes. This week sucked. He had a mountain of work to do, and he was getting increasingly concerned that the fuel cell kids Nate and Connor were so excited about were a bad bet. Something about the deal was bothering him, and he wasn’t even sure exactly what it was. He would have cancelled his date to spend a little more time with his research, but it didn’t feel right to call a woman whose name he didn’t even remember to cancel a date at the last minute. Besides, what would he have done if he got her on the phone? Never say her name? What if she had a roommate that answered the phone, or a friend? What if he tried to brazen his way through and she figured it out?
He’d probably become a meme. The guy who thought he was a stud but couldn’t remember his date’s name. If Nate ever found out, he’d never let it go. Mason would be the butt of every bad joke for years to come.
Hot water sluiced over his back, and he grabbed the shampoo. He soaped down quickly, rinsed off, and got out of the shower before the mirror even had time to fog up. He wrapped a towel a
round his waist, then shaved with grim efficiency. He had just started to open the door to his bedroom when he heard a squeak from the other side.
“Sorry, sorry! Don’t come in! Hold on just a second!”
His nasty mood slipped away at the horror and shame in her voice. He looped his towel low around his waist and opened the door. “Can I help you find something?”
She was standing in the middle of his bedroom, holding a baseball hat in one hand. Her eyes were squeezed tightly shut as a flush spread across her cheeks all the way down her neck.
“Oh, er, no, I was…I was just…” Her mouth flopped open and then closed in a mix of embarrassment and panic. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen anything quite as perfect. “It was Wick,” she said finally, her voice tiny and weak. “He took my hat. And I was just retrieving it. That’s all.”
He walked over to where she stood next to the bed. “It’s okay,” he whispered, leaning in toward her. “Everything’s covered.”
She opened her eyes and her gaze immediately darted from his chest to a spot somewhat lower, then sprang back up to his face. He allowed himself a tiny smile. “So you’re in my bedroom because of Wick?”
“It’s not like I would come in here otherwise.”
He took half a step closer, noting the tiny flutter of her hands and the rising color in her cheeks.
“Of course not,” he agreed.
“It’s so funny, what dogs will do! Wick is so proud of himself, you’d think he’d never seen a baseball hat before!” She was babbling incoherently now.
“I certainly don’t wear them,” he said. “Come to think of it, Alli doesn’t either.”
She took a step back, her eyes flicking from his towel to his face. “I swear, I never come in here. I just assume all my clients have cameras on me all the time. I’d never touch anything of yours, except maybe the kitchen and the laundry, but you said that was okay.” She licked her lips, taking another awkward step back as she spoke.
“Absolutely okay.” He moved his hand to the knot holding his towel together, just to see what she would do. Her eyes, those big round windows to everything she felt, widened, and then she blushed a deeper shade of red. It was remarkable.
She had no poker face.
Literally, none.
“I guess I better let you get dressed then,” she said, inching toward the kitchen, chest rising and falling unevenly.
She wanted him. As plain as the heat in her face and the rise and fall of her breath, she wanted him.
He stole a look at her lips right as she licked them again, the flash of her pink tongue sending an electric current right to his groin.
And then he was undone.
Because the truth was that she wasn’t the only one wanting.
He wanted to taste her lips and explore her enticing mouth. He wanted to slide his hand under her shirt and let his fingers touch the delicate skin of her belly. He wanted to press her against the wall and let his body ride against hers.
And, judging by the way her nipples had appeared against the thin fabric of her sweater, she wanted it, too.
“Mason…” Her voice was somewhere between a warning and a sigh.
“Did you leave anything else in here?” he said huskily. “Anything I can help you find?”
She shook her head, wordless. “I…I think…I think I should go.”
He shrugged. “If you say so.” With a wicked smile, he loosened the knot on his towel and let it slip down an inch. “But let me know if you want to stay.”
Her gaze shot to his waist and then lower, where his body was helpfully demonstrating his enjoyment of the moment. With a tiny moan, she fled out the door and down the hall. He smiled and turned back to his closet.
Not a good idea? They’d see about that.
Chapter Six
For the next week, Tess rode the elevator to Mason’s apartment every morning in a fog of dizzy awareness, taking repeated deep breaths and reminding herself how she wasn’t going to sleep with him. He was her boss, after all. And she needed this job. And how incredibly weird would it be to sleep with him, and then have him pay her four hundred dollars a day?
She answered her own question—very, very weird.
No, one thing was absolutely clear. She could not sleep with Mason Coleman.
But maybe we could sleep with him in a couple of weeks? When the job’s done? her lady parts asked hopefully.
We will talk about that later, her rational mind replied. Much, much later.
He met her each morning with a cup of coffee. They made small talk about what they planned to do that day as she unloaded her bags. His day usually involved meetings; hers involved lots of studying in between her dog walking. In the evening, he came home and walked Wick with her, supposedly because he wanted to learn how to train him. And Wick was definitely improving. They were still tapering him off the meds, but he was already needing to go out less and enjoying it more when he did. He wasn’t barking anymore to be let out and was slowly learning to heel.
Though she resisted admitting it, even to herself, she’d come to love their evening walks. Each day, she saw a new piece of Mason, and she found herself sharing another piece of herself. He asked about her classes, the dogs she walked, and her job at the vet clinic. When she retaliated with her own twenty questions about his life, he told her about his latest clients, stories about when he and Connor and Nate were in college together, and what a screwup his little sister was.
It was altogether too damn comfortable. Except, of course, for the part where he’d touch her arm, and every part of her body would be instantly filled with longing. That wasn’t comfortable at all.
She found herself staring at his lips when he talked, and then she’d look away and blush, because he always seemed to know exactly when she’d lose track of their conversation. And his lips would twitch with humor and something else.
Something far more dangerous.
The worst part was, she didn’t even know how much of it was real and how much was part of some grand seduction.
And she wasn’t sure if he knew, either.
On Saturday, he asked her to stay late, because he had a charity event to attend. She endured seeing him come home from the gym in his sweaty T-shirt and then had to survive the sound of the shower and him in his bedroom just afterward. The memory of him wearing nothing but a towel almost made her whimper in remembered delight.
When he came out a short time later, wearing a tuxedo, she choked on her sip of diet soda.
“You okay?” he asked, as he gathered his keys and phone. God help her, she’d seen a man in a suit before, but having dropped out well before prom, she’d never seen a formal tuxedo in the flesh.
Her body turned to goo. At least, the lower part of her body. The upper part coughed and struggled for breath. Because, of course she’d make a fool of herself when he looked like a magazine cover. Of course she would.
His tuxedo jacket followed precisely along the lines of his shoulders and narrow waist. His shirt was crisp white, shoes a shiny black, and there was a line of white cuff at the edge of his sleeve just the way she’d seen it in red-carpet pictures. To top it all off, he had paired the traditional jacket with a skinny black tie, so he looked somehow both formal and like he knew it was all for show and refused to take himself too seriously.
Tess pushed back from the dining room table so she could cough more effectively. Not fair. The man should not be able to take just twenty minutes to shave and shower and put on a suit and look like that.
Like every woman’s fantasy.
“Fine,” she wheezed. “Just got some down the wrong pipe.”
He walked over and took her hands and pulled her to standing. Her heart jolted because up close, he wasn’t just a mouthwatering picture of sinfully sexy, masculine grace, he also smelled good. Musky and spicy, with a hint of “I know you want me” just for fun.
He raised her hands over her head. “I read somewhere that you’re supposed to do this when y
ou’re choking.”
Tess wanted to protest. She really did. But somehow once he touched her she lost her ability to put together coherent words.
At least she stopped coughing.
“Surprisingly effective,” he murmured. Deftly, he captured both her wrists in one large hand, and slid the other down her spine, pausing at her lower back and resting on the waistband of her jeans. “You aren’t feeling dizzy, are you?”
She shook her head, unable to speak.
“I wonder if I can think up any other doctor moves while I have you here,” he mused, glancing from her lips to the top of her chest. “Maybe some kind of exam? Just to make sure you’re all right.”
Don’t look in his eyes, she counseled herself, forcing her gaze instead to the sheen of his black silk tie. Just imagine he’s Kaa from The Jungle Book. And you’re Mowgli!
Her breath rose in her chest. That was when she noticed that having her hands above her head elevated her breasts and put them within one deep breath of touching him.
And he’d noticed it, too, the bastard.
As she sucked in a lungful of air, he watched appreciatively, a smile playing around the corners of his mouth. She jerked her hands from his grasp, but instead of pushing away she found herself holding onto his shoulders, the material of his suit smooth and cool under her fingertips.
“Let me know if you start feeling lightheaded.” He lowered his head, his breath touching her cheek. Her fingers tightened as she struggled to breathe. “I’m sure I can help with that, too.”
“Mason, what are you doing?” When the words emerged, they were husky and altogether too welcoming.
He moved in closer, settling his hands around her waist. She wore her usual T-shirt, which now felt shockingly thin and flimsy, the heat of him burning through the soft cotton fabric. A heartbeat throbbed in her stomach.
“I’m checking your breathing,” he said. “Making sure everything is in working order before I go.”
He paused. His eyes found hers. She felt him wait for her to protest. To pull away. When she did not, he moved closer.
