“Shoot.” Allie grabbed some paper napkins from the sideboard. “Well, I guess my clumsiness is no longer in doubt.”
“You were discomposed,” Alan said as he took some of the napkins and helped her wipe up the water. He flashed a quick grin. “Which, if I’m being honest, is a salve to my wounded ego.”
Because Allie couldn’t deny it – and because she also didn’t want to encourage any further discussion or advances in that direction – she turned to toss the wet napkins into the trash. She’d already emptied it for the night, but wet napkins wouldn’t attract varmints.
Then she started grabbing the flowers that lay like fallen soldiers on the tabletop. Sarah cut them from the garden to use as centerpieces, and they were mostly wilted anyway.
But when her hand closed around a yellow gerbera daisy, she froze.
Alan paused in the act of mopping up the last of the water. Glancing at her, his face set into hard lines.
“Let me get those.” His gentle tone was at odds with his flinty expression. “You’ve had enough to deal with lately without being reminded of it visibly. Seems like whoever picked the flowers could have chosen different ones.”
“Sarah cuts them from the garden every couple days,” she told him mechanically. “The bouquets are assorted, depending upon what happened to be blooming at the time.”
He grimaced at the flowers. “At least it wasn’t baby’s breath, I guess. Sorry,” he said when she glanced up at him. “I just hate seeing that expression on your face.”
She shook her head. “I’m fine. Really.”
He studied her, apparently wanting to assess her well-being for himself.
“If you’re sure.”
She managed a smile. “I am.”
Alan nodded, and then tossed the flowers into the trash. “Can I walk you to your car?”
“That won’t be necessary,” came a familiar, clipped voice from behind her. Allie whirled around to see Mason standing at the bottom of the porch steps.
“Mason!” Her heart gave a familiar leap, but then her cheeks heated to scalding when she considered what had just happened. She wondered exactly how much of her exchange with Alan Mason had seen.
“Allison.” He cocked a single eyebrow in her direction, an expression that never failed to erase cogent thought from Allie’s brain. Who knew that eyebrows could be so damn sexy?
“Barger.” Mason’s tone was decidedly less enthusiastic as he addressed the other man.
Allie pursed her lips. If she had to guess, she’d wager he’d seen quite a bit.
“Armitage.” Equally thrilled, Alan leveled him a cool-eyed stare. The testosterone-off continued until Allie cleared her throat.
“Well. Thank you for stopping by,” she told Alan.
“If only I had a hat for you to hand me,” he murmured, but his smile took the sting from the words. “Just remember what I said.”
He left then, nodding at Mason as he passed by him.
Elaborately casual, Mason returned the nod with a little salute. Allie felt like she was watching two birds of disparate species trying to determine which one had the more impressive plumage.
Because it was such a ridiculous image, she laughed.
Mason’s second eyebrow rose to join the first.
“Sorry,” she said, waving a hand. “Just a little mental field trip.”
Mason climbed the steps to join her on the porch. Clad in worn jeans and a gray T-shirt, darkened nearly to black where it clung to him with sweat, he looked more like an exceptionally attractive construction worker than the elegant British thespian who’d wined and dined – and bedded – her in Savannah.
Even his expression as he looked at her was rather… rough.
Allie’s heart started to beat a little faster.
He kept coming toward her, moving with the athletic, single-minded purpose of a large feral cat. His eyes – those beautiful honey colored eyes – were the eyes of a predator.
Instinctively Allie backed up a step, found herself standing against the wall in much the same place as she’d been with Alan.
Without saying a word, Mason slapped both palms against the wall, hemming her in between his forearms.
Allie swallowed.
“I… guess you saw what Alan… did.”
Mason’s gaze locked on her mouth.
“Mason,” she began when he didn’t say anything. She couldn’t tell if he was angry. “I hope you don’t think that I –”
“Shhh.” Mason placed his thumb against her mouth. Then he slid it over her bottom lip before slipping it inside her mouth. Allie’s eyes widened, blood thundering through her veins as she tried to gauge his mood. She sucked on his thumb, watched his nostrils flare before he lifted his eyes toward hers.
Allie gasped. Mason looked… primitive.
Before she knew what was happening, he’d taken his thumb away, replacing it with his mouth. But this was no ordinary kiss. This was something deeper, something wild and raw and far beyond the physical.
His mouth took hers, owning, possessing and one hand snaked down to roughly squeeze her bottom before pulling her up onto her toes. Her skirt slid up her thighs as her legs opened, and Mason positioned himself between them, pushing into her so that her back scraped against the clapboards.
It was a pain barely felt, as her senses were overwhelmed with the weight of his big body pinning her to the wall, the feel of his skin, slickened with sweat, the heat of his mouth as it moved to her neck like the searing of a brand.
Allie’s head dropped to the side, allowing him better access, and she vaguely felt her purse sliding down her arm to spill onto the floor. The air carried the scent of smoking meat from the barbeque place down the street, and somewhere a car horn honked, followed by a burst of laughter from a group walking by on the sidewalk. Some remote part of her brain considered the fact that though the Dust Jacket was closed for the evening, and that they were around back, it was nonetheless a rather public spot.
“Mason,” she said, trying to muster sufficient brain cells to mention that they may want to take this over to his place. But then one of his hands closed around her breast, thumb rolling over her nipple, while the other found its way beneath the elastic of her panties. Two long fingers plunged inside her and Allie’s hips instinctively matched their rhythm. And she must have been imagining things because it sure seemed like he had a third hand that was…
“Oh God,” she cried. The orgasm slammed into her, seemingly out of nowhere. Allie rode it out until her muscles went soft and pliant as hot wax. If Mason hadn’t been holding her, she would have slid to the ground in a puddle.
“That’s more like it,” he murmured in her ear before closing his teeth around her lobe.
Then he scooped her up, holding her against his chest as he strode purposely toward the cottage. She lay in his arms with all of the turgidity of a sack of rice.
Allie finally managed to pry one eye open, encountering the brownish-gold stubble along Mason’s jaw. He hadn’t shaved for the past few days, and was looking quite piratical.
“Looks like I’ve been shanghaied after all,” she noted.
“Aye, madam,” he agreed, adopting a coarse, sea-faring accent. “But if you please the captain well he might spare ye from the plank.”
“A lady likes to know she has options.”
“Yer options,” he continued as he opened the door, sidled in, and then kicked it shut behind them “consist of whether ye’d prefer the table or the floor for yer deflowering.”
“I don’t know,” she frowned, even as her pulse began to leap with excitement. “Both of them sound rather… hard.”
“Oh, they be hard alright.”
Allie found herself dumped rather unceremoniously onto the kitchen counter. She glanced down at the cheery blue tile. “This,” she pointed out “is neither floor nor table.”
“I’m not sure the table is sturdy enough for what I plan to do.”
“Oh,” Allie said, glancing over Mason’s should
er at the round oak table. It wasn’t large, but it certainly looked to be adequately constructed. “Well –”
Her blouse was torn open with an audible rip.
“Mason!” She looked down, startled by the sight of her lace covered breasts rising between the tattered remnants of pale blue silk.
“Captain,” he corrected, with just the slightest shimmer of humor in his eyes. “It wouldn’t be a proper shanghai without a bodice ripping, aye?”
Before she could decide whether to laugh or to sink her teeth into some vulnerable part of his anatomy in retaliation, Mason moved between her thighs, taking her mouth in a way that both dominated and persuaded.
She threaded her fingers through his hair, damp from his exertions. His own nimble fingers unhooked her bra with a practiced twist, his mouth working its way down her throat, her chest, to explore what he’d recently uncovered. He sucked her breast into his mouth, and then gave the nipple a light nip.
Allie jumped, clutching him more tightly. Sliding his hands up the length of her thighs, he pushed her skirt higher, hooked his thumbs beneath the straps of her underwear, pulling them off in one quick yank.
Mason unzipped his jeans, pushed them down his legs, and set the pace to plunder.
Allie’s hand flailed out, knocking something from the counter. His fingers dug into her hips with bruising force as he pounded into her, his need bordering on desperation. Like a ship tossed on a stormy sea, Allie could only hold on, anchoring her legs around his waist as he plunged in a furious rhythm. Her head knocked against the cabinet and Mason jerked her forward, taking her mouth with the same ferocity that he was taking her with his body.
She cried out, and if the first orgasm had caught her by surprise, this one was no less explosive for being expected.
Mason’s head dropped back, his body shuddering violently in completion.
Allie fell forward, cheek landing against the damp fabric of his T-shirt. He smelled like sweat and sex and man.
She drew in a dazed breath, her body throbbing.
She’d just been… ravaged.
“Gives new meaning to swabbing the deck,” she murmured.
Mason chuckled, the sound vibrating beneath her cheek. He took her head between his hands, lifted her face and studied it. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
“I liked it.”
His eyes flared. “Good. I didn’t want to have to apologize.”
“Why should you?”
“I was a little rougher than I would have liked.”
“I’m not a Hummel figurine,” she reminded him.
“No, you’re far less sinister.” But he winced. “I was annoyed,” he told her. “I wanted to flatten that arsehole, but since I didn’t fancy another night in jail, I’m afraid I channeled my anger into –”
Allie placed a finger against his lips. “I said I liked it.” She lifted her arms around his neck. “It’s not every day a woman gets her very own pirate, after all.”
He kissed her then, and unless she was very much mistaken, his swab was already beginning to show an interest in her deck again.
“Perhaps I could interest you in a private tour of the captain’s quarters,” he said, tilting his head toward the loft.
“Only if you promise to show me your Jolly Roger.”
Mason laughed, and then squeezed her in a fierce hug. “Is it any wonder I’m mad for you?”
He pulled back – pulled out – and Allie was suddenly very cognizant of the wetness between her legs. Seeming to read her mind, Mason glanced down. He snatched some paper towels off the roll on the counter, frowning.
He’d been extremely conscientious about condom usage during their stay in Savannah, so she was quick to set his mind at ease. “It’s okay. I’m on the pill. And I haven’t been with anyone since Wesley. In case you’re… concerned.”
A line formed between his brows. “I gather you realize that I’ve been far from chaste.”
Allie didn’t particularly want to think about his legions of women right now. “Mason –”
“No. let me say this,” he interrupted. “Those walls that we discussed previously, I’ve lived behind them so long that somewhere along the line I forgot that they were only a façade. I’d change their appearance from time to time, try out a new paint, and new pattern, but I… lost track of the substance that lay behind them. I lost myself.”
He looked up. “Last year, after we met, I realized that I was no better than a prop in my own life. After I left here, I went back to London, back to work. But when I was offstage or off-set, rather than partying with the crowd – a role of a different sort – I took time away. By myself. I went hiking in the countryside. I bagged a few Munros in Scotland. I swore off alcohol and women.”
He stared at her a moment. Then he reached up a hand, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.
“Because I couldn’t stop thinking of you. And I knew I couldn’t do anything about it until I… it sounds utterly naff when I say it aloud, but I needed to figure out who I was. And if that man was worthy of you.”
Allie was utterly at a loss as to what to say.
“I’m not entirely sure of either of those things, but I’m doing something about it anyway. Because I love you.”
Allie was thankful that she was still sitting. Her mouth opened. Closed. She felt like a hooked fish that had been yanked out of the water and was trying to figure out what the hell just happened.
Mason’s gaze turned rueful. “Don’t tell me I’ve blown my most important line.”
“What?”
He tilted his head to indicate their surroundings. “Not the most romantic of settings.” Then he glanced meaningfully at their state of partial undress. “And I believe there’s some sort of common wisdom about never declaring yourself immediately following sex.”
Allie blinked. Her heart was so full she wasn’t sure if she could speak, but she managed to pull herself together. “Mason,” she said, cupping his face in her hands this time. “We could be on top of the Eiffel Tower or in a gondola in Venice or watching the sun set on a beach in St. Lucia, and it wouldn’t make a bit of difference. It’s not the where or the how that matters. It’s the who. The line was delivered perfectly because you said it. And just for the record, I think I know who you are. And that man is more than worthy.”
His gaze softened on hers. “I do hope this isn’t a monologue, however.”
“What? Oh.” Allie smiled and shook her head. “Are you kidding me? I love you. Of course I love you.” How could she not?
His kiss this time was all tenderness and promise. Then he simply held her for the longest while.
When they broke apart, he helped her off the counter. “I will apologize for your shirt.”
Allie glanced down at the tattered remnants. “I guess you’ll have to make it up to me. This time I can be the captain and you can be my cabin boy.”
“Sounds kinky.”
“I hope so.”
Mason’s grin was pure delight. “Allow me to just secure the door, madam, so as to avoid untimely interruptions.” He moved to flip the lock.
“Shoot,” Allie said, the mention of securing doors having reminded her. “I left my purse on the porch.”
“I’ll go get it,” Mason said. “Considering your current state of dishabille.”
Allie considered the whipped cream she’d left in the refrigerator. “Actually, there’s something I need to, um, check on in the store. If you can lend me a shirt, I’ll go.”
He cocked that damn eyebrow again. “Why do I have the feeling you’re up to something?”
“Because I am.”
“Is this something to do with my… duties as cabin boy?”
“Absolutely.”
Lips twitching, Mason strolled over to the small closet next to the bathroom and withdrew a crisp white dress shirt. “At your service, madam.”
“Oh, you will be,” she promised, buttoning up the shirt.
Feeling saucy and satisfied and
slightly lightheaded, Allie practically floated along the path that wound through the garden toward the Dust Jacket’s back porch. In fact, she was so lightheaded that she had to pause by a clump of hydrangeas. Allie drew in a deep breath, filled with the mingled scents of barbeque, flowers and the crisp, clean scent of Mason’s shirt. Beneath it all, she smelled the muskiness of their recent lovemaking.
He loved her. Allie closed her eyes as she absorbed that reality. She felt like Dorothy, having dropped from a black and white world into a wonderland bursting with color. The fact that he’d done so much soul searching over the past year because he wanted to make sure he was worthy of her love was almost impossible to believe. Beautiful, sexy, talented, witty Mason Armitage was in love with her.
And God help her, but she was in love with him.
Allie hugged herself right there amidst the hydrangeas.
Practically skipping the rest of the way, Allie climbed the back porch steps, incredibly relieved to see that her purse was right where she’d dropped it. Crime wasn’t exactly rampant in Sweetwater, but between Sarah’s thwarted abduction last year and her own brush with violent theft, Allie was – understandably, she thought – wary. Leaving her purse and its contents on the porch hadn’t exactly been the brightest thing she’d ever done.
Although admittedly, she’d been rather distracted at the time.
Thinking of that distraction – which was currently waiting back at the cottage to distract her again – Allie scooped up the lipstick which had rolled out of her purse when she’d dropped it, retrieved her keys and let herself into the kitchen.
The tub of whipped cream beckoned her when she opened the refrigerator. “Why yes, I am about to use you for completely nefarious purposes,” she told it. Allie considered the fact that she was addressing an inanimate object. “At least you’re not a candlestick or a teapot.” Because the plans she had for this evening were decidedly un-Disney.
Snagging the plastic tub, Allie tucked it under her arm and locked up again, carefully tucking her keys into the outer pocket of her purse.
As she did so, Alan’s caution regarding the unknown location of her original set of keys and the crazy things that people sometimes do intruded upon her mental happy place.
Admit One (Sweetwater Book 2) Page 28
