Price of a Kiss

by Linda Kage

  “Mason? What’re you doing? Where are you going?”

  “I’m leaving. What does it look like I’m doing?”

  And just as quickly as the panic came, it dissolved into pissed off outrage. Slamming my hand over his half-finished calculus paper that had fluttered across the table, I jerked it out of his grasp as soon as he reached for it. When he glared at me, I scowled. “So if you can’t have me, then I’m not allowed to date anyone? Is that what you’re saying? My God, Mason. Do you realize how much of a douche bag you sound like right now?”

  “Yes, damn it!”

  The admission came so freely from his lips, I blinked, startled to actually hear him confirm it.

  Chest heaving, he sent me that tortured, haggard look of his again. “I realize exactly what I sound like. And I’m trying to stop, Reese.” His voice broke. “I’m trying here. Jesus, why do you think I’m taking off right now? If I stay, I’m only going to say something worse.”

  I think his agony got to me more than my own. Tears filled my eyes. When I blinked them away, he choked out a sound of misery.

  “Christ, don’t cry.”

  I probably should’ve warned him that once I started with the waterworks, they didn’t just dry up on command.

  “What do you want me to do?” I sobbed. “Do you want me to call it off? Tell him no?”

  I have no idea what happened to all my girl power. A guy I couldn’t have was acting like a butt because I was going to spend a little time with another man. I should be cussing him up one wall and down the next for his asshole attitude. But there I sat, in tears and begging to know what I could do to make him happy.

  Man, I was whipped.

  His face contorted and turned an angry red as if he was going to start bawling right along with me. But then his features cleared and he shook his head savagely. “No. Don’t call it off. I want you to be happy. I’m sorry for being a drama queen. Okay? I want you to have fun with…whomever. Just have fun and be happy. Keep being you.”

  More tears filled my eyes. Cursing under his breath, he practically leaped across the table to snag his homework out of my hand. Crumpling it in his fist, he shoved it into his bag.

  “I have to go,” he muttered, swiping the palm of his hands across his eyes before he rushed off as if the hounds of hell were after him.

  As I watched him stride away, it struck me how much I’d hurt him by agreeing to go on a date with Ethan. That hadn’t been my intention at all. I’d only wanted to save myself from getting hurt. I’d wanted to force Reese Randall to move on with her life. But watching him in pain ripped me up inside.

  I was in love with him.

  Dear God.

  I was in love with a gigolo.

  It was crazy insane; I was fully aware of that. But this was Mason. My spider killer. My leftover food vacuum. My fellow Harry Potter fan. He was my soul mate. It was easy to look past the gigolo detail when I was with him.

  And so it was easy for me to scramble off my bench and fight for him.

  Though he hadn’t actually run away, he’d been moving fast when he’d left. Chasing him, I entered the main building, only to spot him nowhere in the glass-ceilinged main atrium. I glanced left down one hall with no luck. When I looked the other way, I saw his retreating back and took off in hot pursuit.

  “Mason!”

  He heard me and slowed to a stop but didn’t turn around.

  “I can’t believe you just walked away from me like that,” I began to rail as soon as I was ten feet away. “We are so not done talking about this.”

  He whirled around, catching me by surprise. I gasped when he grasped my arm, his grip hot and firm but not painful. Spinning me toward an opened nearby doorway, he corralled me into an empty classroom and slammed the door shut to pin me against it.

  The breath rushed from my lungs as his body pressed into mine. He felt…oh, my God…really nice. Warm, protective, muscled, male. My insides wept from the beauty of it.

  With a tortured groan, he lightly pounded his forehead to the door and our cheeks brushed by each other. Then he bowed his face and rested his chin on top of my shoulder.

  “Was he in your apartment all night? Did he sleep on your couch? Did he touch you? Did he kiss you?” Another sound escaped him. A kind of sob, kind of curse. Grazing the side of my neck, he shifted his fingers around lightly until he found my scar. “Did you tell him the secret behind this?”

  “No. Mason, stop.” It was killing me to listen to his misery. When I cupped his cheek, he lifted his forehead from the door to look down at me.

  His whole body shuddered, and I knew it was from regret. “God. Reese, I’m trying to be cool about this. I’m trying not to blow off the handle. And I know I’m failing. But damn…”

  His thumb traced the curve of my cheekbone until he swiped away some moisture from my recent sob fest.

  A look of utter wonder and sadness crossed his face.

  Then he shook his head and gritted his teeth. “This sucks. He can ask you out and take you to dinner and try to steal a goodnight kiss. He can go as far into it as you’ll let him take you. And I can’t even compete.” He grinned, though his eyes were still full of agony. “I think I fell for you the moment I heard you laugh across the campus courtyard. When I looked over and saw you, I knew. You were something different. Something incredible. I knew from that first glance that nothing was ever going to be the same again. You were…a complete game changer. Even when I realized you were sitting with Eva and might be like her, I didn’t care. I wanted to know everything about you.”

  I shook my head, too amazed to think clearly. “And here I thought you hated me from that first glance.”

  He shook his head. “I never hated you. You just scared the shit out of me, so I tried to stay away. I was afraid to get to know you because I wanted to so badly. I thought surely you couldn’t be as good as I’d already built you up to be in my head. Except every time I turned around, there you were, and you ended up being better than I ever imagined.” His grin fell. “The more I got to know you, the more I knew I should stay away. I could only hurt you. But I could never quite stay far enough away.”

  As if he couldn’t stay away now either, he sank closer, his breath caressing my lips. When his eyes slid closed, I knew he was going to kiss me. I wanted it more than my next meal, but I needed to be certain of one thing first.

  “Are you still a gigolo?”

  He froze, then drew in a breath and pulled back to send me a ragged look, begging me not to go there. “I’ll always be a gigolo, Reese.”

  My chest collapsed in on my lungs. “No.” I shook my head. “No, I don’t believe that. You can stop. You can—”

  “Don’t you get it yet?” He stepped away some more until we no longer touched. “It doesn’t matter if I stop or not. This stigma, this curse, will never go away. Eighty years from now, people will read my obituary and say, ‘Mason Lowe? Wasn’t he that gigolo?’ God!” He squeezed his eyes closed and whipped his hand through his hair, grabbing fistfuls. “That even rhymes. They’ll probably make a damn limerick out of me and I’ll become an immortal prostitute.”

  He began to turn away but I caught his arm. “Mason, I don’t care about your reputation. I don’t like your past, but I don’t care about that either. All I want to know about is right now. So right now…are you still having sex with other women?”

  He dropped his hand from his head and studied me. I had the strangest notion he was debating with himself over whether he should lie or not. Then he winced and glanced away. “Well, I think you do care about my reputation. Ethan Riker is pristine white and you agreed to go on a date with him, didn’t you?”

  That wasn’t fair. I clenched my teeth. “Mason.”

  When I reached for his arm, he lifted it to ward me back. “Don’t. It's fine, okay. I'm not the type to bring home to your parents. I get it.”

  "No, you don't get it!" Growling out my frustrations, I flashed my teeth at him. "Just shut up for a second.
"

  Blowing out a harassed breath, I massaged my aching temples. We were arguing two totally different points, and it was confusing me. I wanted to tell him I'd be proud to show him off to my mom and dad, but I had to know if he was honestly free from a certain lifestyle first.

  After arching my eyebrows at him in warning to silently tell him not to stray off the topic again, I took a breath and started fresh.

  “In the library that day,” I said, trying a different tact, “you told Dr. Janison you weren’t scheduling any more clients.”

  His face paled, making his eyes sparkle like polished silver. “Jesus, do you have elephant ears? You weren’t supposed to hear that.”

  “Well, I did. And it made me think…I thought you were…retiring. But then…then you came to my apartment and started in about almost getting caught by a husband, and I wasn’t sure anymore.”

  Mason closed his eyes and bowed his head. “I lied about the husband. I haven’t…I haven’t taken a client since…”

  “Since when?”

  He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Yes! It does.” When he sent me a sharp glance, I snarled at the obstinate ass. “So why did you lie about the husband thing then? What really happened there?”

  He winced. “Nothing. I turned down a persistent woman wanting services, and she got nasty, that’s all. She called me...” He wrinkled his face into a grimace. “She called me some names. Nothing I hadn’t heard before, but it left me stewing afterward, and I wanted to…I had to…I just needed to see you. I needed to be around someone who didn’t think of me that way.”

  When he glanced at me, tears filled my eyes. “Oh, Mason,” I whispered. “Why didn’t you just tell me the truth?”

  He took another step back, putting more space between us. “Because if I’d told you the truth and you knew I’d stopping whoring myself out for money, I was scared you’d let me do things to you that I was dying to do.”

  I pressed my hand to my aching temples. “Okay, let me get this straight. You stopped your…practice because you wanted me, and then you turned around and lied about it, making me think you were still doing it in order to keep me away.”

  He gulped. “Maybe.”

  Damn it! Would he just give me a straight answer?

  I sent him an irritated glower. “That makes no sense. If you stopped so you could have me, then why did you lie to keep me away?”

  “I didn’t stop so I could have you. I know I can never have you.”

  I frowned. “What? Why can’t you ever have me?”

  “Because,” he sputtered, sending me an incredulous look as if he thought I shouldn’t even have to ask such a ridiculous question. “We just went over this. I could never deserve you. You’re too good for me. You’re out of my reach. You’re…you’re Reese Randall.”

  “You’re wrong. I’m not.” I wasn’t really Reese Randall, and I certainly wasn’t out of his reach. “All you have to do is stretch out your hand, Mason.” Pressing my palm against my chest, I whispered, “I’m right here.”

  He shook his head. “I can’t. I’m tainted.”

  “No.” To my own doom, I stepped away from the door, going to him, my arms outstretched to hold him and soothe his wounded soul.

  But he dodged around me and darted toward the escape. Yanking the door open, he paused and turned just enough to address me but not look at me. “I thought we could just be friends. But we can’t. I won’t be sitting with you at lunch anymore. I won’t be doing anything with you anymore. I hope you enjoy your date.”

  When he slipped from the empty classroom, he left the door hanging open.

  His departure annihilated me. And let me tell you, the gloomy, miserable, angst-ridden look so did not look good on me.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The rest of the day passed in a blur. After my fight—or whatever it was—with Mason, I drove home and skipped my afternoon classes. Eva did too. She and Alec had broken up, and when she saw my car pull into the drive, she arrived at my apartment to cry on my shoulder.

  I think consoling her was the only thing that kept me from sobbing for myself. It felt as if I’d lost Mason forever.

  God, maybe I had.

  When E. curled up on my couch and took a nap, I called Ethan and broke off my plans with him, since I knew that was going to be a flop before it even started.

  He didn’t seem too surprised, though he did have the grace to sound disappointed. “Lowe didn’t take the news well, did he?”

  I couldn’t think up a reason to lie, so I shook my head. “No, he didn’t.”

  After a moment of silence, Ethan said, “You know, you don’t have to turn me down just because he…” He must’ve realized he was about to say something that would totally offend me because he stopped abruptly, his words fading into a sad chuckle. “Right. Good luck with him, then.”

  Good luck. Yeah, I needed more than luck to get Mason back. I needed a freaking miracle. Or maybe a crowbar to beat some sense into him. Or maybe I needed to beat some sense into myself, because hell, I couldn’t tell which one of us was being the stupidest right now.

  The only good thing about all this was that I was too heartbroken over Mason to worry about my paranoia over Jeremy. I still locked all my doors and checked my purse for my mace and Taser, but at least my fear had settled back down to the level it had been before my mom’s fateful phone call.

  Damn, had that only been last Saturday that she had called? So much had happened in the past six days. So many people had been hurt.

  To avoid the pain, I decided to keep going and follow my typical routine, hoping the regularity of my actions could settle me into a blank state of blissful oblivion.

  At my regular babysitting time, I arrived at Dawn’s house, opening the front door without knocking and stepping inside. The television ran the evening news with the volume turned low.

  I thought about calling a greeting but decided to go the sneaky route and surprise Sarah. She did like the attention of people jumping out at her and screeching, “Boo.”

  I had a feeling my little buddy was the type who would adore bloody, slasher, horror movies, but I wasn’t ready to go there quite yet, mostly because I was definitely not that type. Give me romantic comedy any day of the week. Or Harry Potter; that was about as dark as I got.

  As I moved down the narrow passage toward the kitchen, I approached Sarah’s bedroom and noticed immediately that across the hallway, Mason’s bedroom door hung open.

  He never left his door open. What was more, there was someone talking inside his room.

  I paused. He wasn’t home, was he? Crap. I hadn’t paid enough attention when I’d pulled to the curb to remember if his Jeep had been sitting in the driveway or not. I wasn’t sure if I could face him right now without breaking down and weeping.

  But I was curious to know what his room looked like. I crept forward, stepping easily so the creak midway down the hall didn’t give away my presence.

  The lights were off inside, but I knew he—or someone—was in there when I heard bedsprings squeak.

  The talking paused, only to start again. The voice sounded vaguely familiar, even as muffled as it was. I scanned the dark blue walls before I had a full glimpse inside, surprised he wasn’t the messy type. He didn’t hang many pictures and he didn’t have a cluttered floor. I wouldn’t have called the space stark, but he definitely wasn’t a junk collector.

  Then I saw his bed with a plaid comforter thrown neatly over the mattress. Mason sat on the edge, his feet on the floor as he focused all his attention on his cell phone he held in his lap. He was watching a video where a fuzzy image shifted across the small screen.

  “…be Eva instead,” the pitchy phone speakers blared out my voice. “Good morning, Mason. Looking good today. What say we skip classes and have some...fun.”

  My mouth dropped open as I watched a grin spread across his face. He wiped his thumb over the phone screen, touching the video version of me.


  Oh, my God. He hadn’t deleted that stupid, impulsively made video yet?

  Oh, my God, times two. Was he watching it again?

  I clapped my hand over my mouth because my grin kept spreading wider and wider as a smile consumed me. My eyes grew watery.

  He loved me.

  If this didn’t prove he loved me, nothing did.

  Mason Lowe loved me.

  Sensing my presence, he lifted his face. When he saw me, his eyes grew big. He dropped his phone screen-down on his bed and surged to his feet. “Reese! What’re you doing here?”

  He was dressed to go to work, his brown loafers adorning his size-twelve feet and his pale blue Country Club shirt tucked into his pleated slacks. I had to look away because staring at him made me feel achy and full of depressing angst.

  “It’s Friday,” I said blankly and shook my head, confused. “I always babysit on Friday.”

  “But...” He glanced down at his watch. “Shit. I’m running late.”

  I watched him scurry around to grab his cell phone and wallet. When he turned toward the doorway to find me blocking his path, and not budging, he faltered, looking a little panicked and trapped.

  “I thought you might like to know I cancelled my date.”

  Eyes flaring with liquid heat, he grasped my elbow. “What? I told you, you didn’t have to do that. Why did you cancel? Did he do something to you? Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. I just…I can’t go out with him.”

  “You…” Mason stepped even closer, right into my personal space, his clean, musky scent invading my senses. “Why?”

  I turned my face aside and wiggled my elbow out if his grip. “Now who’s playing dumb?”

  “Jesus.” He spun away, ripping his hands through his hair. “I knew I shouldn’t have said anything to you. I swear to God, I’m sorry. I was a jealous tool, and you deserve to date and be happy and…and live your life however you want.”

  His love for me showed through every pore of his being. I could tell it killed him to say this, but he honestly thought it was for the best to let me go.

  At that moment, I knew. I would do whatever I had to do to make him mine. “Well, thank you, Mason,” I said, gifting him with a bright smile. “I’m so glad I have your approval to live my life however I want, because I plan to do just that.”