Price of a Kiss

by Linda Kage

  As his lashes opened slowly, the intent in his gaze made my body burn with all kinds of hormonal abnormalities, because it couldn’t possibly be normal for a girl to get this turned on from a mere remark.

  “You’re not.” Utterly aghast by what he was suggesting, my mouth fell open as he dipped his hand back into the jelly jar for more preservatives.

  “This may get a little sticky.” His grin looked wickedly pleased.

  “Mason,” I warned in a don’t-you-dare voice, even though my body was heating in all the right places, and the muscles deep in my abdomen were contracting and preparing themselves for another earth-shattering orgasm.

  He smeared one of my nipples and I gasped at the chill. But almost immediately, he leaned down and heated the area with a swipe of his tongue.

  My back arched off the tabletop, and I had to clutch the edge with both hands.

  “Incredible.” He moaned as he licked the last bit of strawberry off me. “But I know where this would taste even better.”

  When he peeled off my panties, I nearly shot off the table. “Mason, oh, my God. You can’t.”

  Could he?

  Holy shit, he could.

  He caught my hip as soon as I sat up. “Shh,” he murmured against my mouth just before he kissed me long and tenderly. His lips had the power to kill brain cells; it didn’t even occur to me to resist after that.

  I relaxed onto my back when he urged me down again. Then I opened my thighs when he nudged them apart.

  He straightened nonchalantly and stared at me all spread open as his personal feast. He wasn’t in any hurry to begin his meal, however. With a slow, sensual smile, he watched me while he picked up his glass of juice. I tensed, thinking he’d pour it on me and lick that off too. But he just took a long drink, his throat working as he swallowed.

  His eyes never left mine as he finally lowered the cup, sighed, and licked a droplet of orange off his full bottom lip.

  “Dear God.” I panted, unable to look away.

  His stare left my eyes to run over my completely exposed, waiting body. He examined me as if he were mentally mapping out everything he was going to do to me. I was already halfway gone into ecstasy land by the time he picked up the jar of jelly again. When he knelt between my legs and coated me with sugary strawberry wetness, I arched and squirmed, thrashing my head. Then I came hard against his mouth when he licked the glob of jam away.

  He didn’t stop there. Oh, no.

  Scooping up another finger full, he started all over again, building me back up. This time, he took his mouth off me and fingers out of me just before I could come.

  Replacing his tongue with something just as delicious, he pushed inside. My back bowed off the table as my thighs hugged him hard. Straightening to his full height, he hooked his arms under my knees and gazed down at me.

  “Christ.” He groaned, his eyes going unfocused. “You are so…”

  “Beautiful?” I tossed out the breathless guess. “Amazing? Fun?” I couldn’t come up with a fourth suggestion because I ended up crying out an orgasm instead.

  “Yes,” Mason hissed. His stomach muscles tensed as he thrust once more and shuddered inside me. “Yes.”

  ~$~

  Staring up at the ceiling in a dazed, sticky, satisfied mess, I wondered if one of Mason’s clients had ever taught him how amazing strawberry jam could be.

  I told myself it didn’t matter where he’d learned such a neat trick. It felt so good; it shouldn’t bother me. But it did. My heart felt charred and raw.

  How many women had he given this exact treatment? How much money had he earned from it? How special did that really make it between us?

  I hated how much this ate at me. What he’d been before he’d met me wasn’t significant to what we were building right here and now. But I was so incredibly jealous of every other female who’d ever touched him or wanted to touch him.

  Or looked at him.

  He landed on the table beside me, pink smears on the corner of his mouth as he beamed with pride. I was grateful my aunt and uncle were not spendthrifts—they had to buy the best of everything—so we didn’t cause the sturdy table to buckle under both our weights. It held us securely, and Mason looked so happy and content, I wanted to cry. Why did I have to have such unhappy thoughts when he was so pleased and satisfied?

  “I’ve always wanted to do something like that,” he said, sounding like a little boy who’d finally been allowed to drive the car.

  Instant relief consumed me. Oh, thank God. He hadn’t shared this intimacy with another woman.

  I rolled toward him and threw my arms around his neck. He snuggled into me with an approving sound and hugged me back.

  After kissing him lightly on the mouth, I said, “You know, we should do breakfast together more often.”

  His eyes sparkled. “You know, I totally agree.”

  ~$~

  It ended up, we did do breakfast together the next morning. Mason stayed all through Saturday. Yes, he let his mother know he wouldn’t be home.

  Since he’d been suspended from work and wasn’t allowed to go near the Country Club for a week, he stuck around my apartment, and we remained inseparable for the rest of that lazy afternoon. Borrowing my calculus book, he did his math assignment while I worked on Virology. And let me tell you, naked homework sessions are a blast. I sat on one end of the couch and he sat on the other as we kicked our feet up and rested them on each other’s stomachs…until this one time, my heel totally slipped just the teeny tiniest bit. It slid over his junk and kind of pressed against him harder that I probably should have. When I felt some swelling under my arch, well…my toes felt compelled to investigate further.

  After that, we didn’t get a whole lot of homework done. We did learn where the most sensitive places were on each other, however.

  But as all honeymoons must come to an end, ours did too. Sunday morning, Mason woke me with a full body massage. After stroking every inch of my body until I was a pile of yummy, relaxed mush, he had his wicked way with me. And I have to admit, I really, really liked his wicked ways.

  Kissing me as I drifted in a haze of semi-conscious post-coital bliss, he said, “I’ll make you a deal. If you promise not to move from this spot and stay exactly as you are until I get back, I’ll run out and find us some lattes.”

  I moaned in delight. “Sold.”

  He popped from the bed, looking way too energized for my taste. Once he tugged his clothes on—I know, boo hiss, clothes bad—he grinned and leaned down to kiss me goodbye.

  I’m fairly certain he meant it to be a quick peck goodbye, but…I couldn’t help myself. I sank my fingers into his hair—because I was actually allowed to touch it now, squee!—and opened my mouth under his, my teeth nipping at his bottom lip.

  Groaning, Mason crawled back onto the bed and pinned me immobile under the covers so he could take over.

  His eyes sparkled as he paused kissing me to grin. “So you want to tease, eh?”

  It took us another twenty minutes of teasing each other before he finally rolled out of bed again. “Don’t move,” he warned one last time before disappearing from my room. Footsteps, the jingle of keys, and the door closing marked his departure.

  I sighed, feeling a little lost without him near.

  It was sad, really. I’d had no idea a girl could become so addicted, so completely, and so quickly. With Jeremy—

  Oh, why did I keep comparing? There was no comparison. I’d always been a little leery of Jeremy, deep down, as if my soul recognized he was no good. But either Mason had my soul completely fooled, or he was the man for me. I voted for option number two, hands down.

  Feeling delicious and pleasantly sore in all the right places, I stretched languidly under the sheets just as a beep came from the nightstand.

  I frowned because my cell phone didn’t make that kind of boring tone. With a quick glance to the left, I discovered Mason had left his here. Worried it might be Dawn trying to reach him, I checked th
e ID.

  When I saw the caller was Landlady, my blood ran cold. I should’ve felt guilty for opening her text and reading his private message. But, nah, I totally didn’t.

  I have Jeremy Walden’s number dialed into my phone. Need you to come at ten tonight to keep me from pushing send.

  With a gasp, I dropped Mason’s phone.

  That bitch!

  I should’ve known she’d keep trying to use me as bait to blackmail him into sleeping with her. I mean, why didn’t everyone suspect that of their evil, cougar landlady?

  White-hot rage smoldered inside me. How dare she? How dare she hurt him like that?

  I knew Mason. And every visit he spent in her bedroom damaged him. It stripped away a part of him and transformed him into someone he despised.

  Well, that shit stopped now. No one hurt my man and got away with it. Mason wasn’t any woman’s play toy. Not any longer.

  He also wasn’t the only one who could sacrifice himself to protect the people he loved.

  So, that’s pretty much when I completely lost my mind.

  A plan formed in my head, and I just couldn’t shake it away. It would be risky, putting my own safety on the line. It’d be slightly illegal, but heck, I’d always wanted to know what breaking the law felt like.

  It might possibly blow up in my face too. But to free Mason of that woman forever, I had to try. And I didn’t experience one iota of regret as I made up my mind.

  Putting step one of Operation Save Mason into motion, I pushed reply and typed in “I’ll be there.” After sending “Mason’s” answer, I cleared both her text and my response from his phone completely.

  ~$~

  By the time Mason returned with both his hands full of lattes, I had dressed and moved to the front room, disregarding his request to stay put. After that text, though, I hadn’t been able to relax or remain naked a second longer.

  He knew something was wrong the moment he saw me. His face filled with trepidation. “What happened?”

  I didn’t want to lie to him, but I couldn’t tell him the truth, either, or he’d put a stop to my plans before I even started them.

  I decided to go with the tactic he’d used on Dawn.

  “One of your clients sent you a text message. I read it. Then deleted it.”

  See, total truth.

  He stared at me a moment before coming toward me. “Good. I’m glad you deleted it.” Sitting beside me, he placed the lattes on the coffee table before turning and taking both my hands. “But I don’t like this look on your face, Reese. Talk to me.”

  I shook my head, not sure what to say. I was still too rattled from the message, too rattled from the plans I’d made. Too rattled by everything.

  Licking my lips, I tried. “H-how often do you get a text like that?”

  He winced and glanced down at our interlaced fingers. “It’ll take a while for the word to get out that I’m done.”

  I nodded. “And how much longer after that will it take to convince all your clients that you’re really serious this time?”

  I don’t know where these words came from, or why I used such a scathing tone to deliver them. I didn’t want to pick a fight with Mason. I just wanted to gather him close and tell him I’d protect him always.

  But the idea of texts pouring into his phone for days and weeks, maybe months, from women wanting sex bothered me. So the words kept spewing from my mouth.

  “How long will they continue to slip you their business cards and tell you to call as soon as things between you and me get a little rough? I mean, how closely am I going to have to watch what I say? Because the first time I piss you off, you could just going running back to—”

  “Stop,” he demanded sharply and yanked me into a hard hug. “I’m not going to cheat on you, Reese. I will never do that. I tried the other way. For two years. I didn’t like it. I’m not going back. I just want you.” A tremor rattled through him and echoed into me. “Don’t break up with me already. It’s only been one day. That’s not enough, not nearly enough. Please don’t give up on us yet.”

  “I won’t.” Bursting into tears, I sobbed, “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I keep saying this stuff.” Holy crap, why was I getting so emotional? It wasn’t even close to my emotional time of the month. But I crawled into his lap and burrowed close. “I just want you too, Mason. I don’t want to break up with you. I don’t want to lose you at all.”

  “Shh.” He gathered me close and kissed my hair, rocking me gently back and forth. “You’re not going to lose me. It’s okay.”

  He swayed with me, letting me cry out my tears. When I finished, he wiped the wetness off my cheeks and kissed my nose, ticking the diamond stud with his lips.

  “I know it has to be damn near impossible for any woman to deal with a boyfriend who has a history like mine,” he admitted, “especially being that it’s a very recent history for me. And it isn’t fair to ask you to. But I need you to. If anyone can get over what I was, you can. You are so strong. You are so amazing. You are…everything.”

  See, was it any wonder I was so obsessed with this guy?

  I lifted my face from his neck and met his worried gaze. “I’ll get over it,” I assured him with utmost confidence.

  I didn’t care how hard it would be; I just knew I would get over his baggage. Because the alternative—losing him forever—would be unbearable.

  He nodded and kissed me, but I didn’t taste passion. This kiss was desperate and seeking; he needed reassurance that I wasn’t going to leave him. Kissing him back, I put my heart into it, and it seemed to pacify him.

  We held each other on the couch, just like that, for the longest time. But for the rest of the day, I sensed a distance between us. I knew it was tension on my part—worry about the evening to come—and I suspected for him, he was worried he could lose me at the drop of a hat.

  In an attempt to ease some awkwardness, I suggested we finish our Harry Potter movie marathon. We made it through three more videos before evening approached. That’s when I stretched, faked a yawn, and kicked him out—politely, of course—telling him he really needed to go home at some point before Dawn labeled me Son Corrupter of the Year.

  Seriously, though, I needed him gone so I could prepare for phase two of Operation Save Mason.

  He looked like a kicked puppy as I walked him to the door, but he didn’t beg his case to stay. Such a guy, he didn’t want to appear whipped or anything, I guess. I put a little extra oomph into my goodbye kiss, trying to convince him how much I loved him.

  But all the angst behind the glance he sent me before he jogged down the stairs and strode to his Jeep had me fisting a hand to my chest and wanting to call him back to confess everything. I watched from the opened door of my loft as he backed from the drive and disappeared down the street.

  Then I blew out a breath, pulled on my big-girl panties, and got to work.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  I dressed in all black. Remembering I’d left my car parked all weekend down the street from Mason’s house, I walked to my destination and arrived without a minute to spare.

  I figured the gate separating Mason’s back yard from Mrs. Garrison’s would be unlocked to allow him entrance for their ten o’clock rendezvous. And I was right. My heart pounded as I stole across her neatly trimmed lawn to her back door, which had also been left unlocked for him.

  Scared half out of my mind, and yet excited that the time was here—I was really freaking doing this—I eased the back door shut behind me, hoping she hadn’t heard me enter.

  Music played from somewhere on the second story. I paused, listening to the muffled jazzy tune I could barely hear over my own harsh breathing. I couldn’t believe I was seriously inside the devil’s den. The air was warm and sticky and made me feel slightly suffocated in my dark-from-head-to-toe clothes.

  Mind kicking into gear, I glanced around, not sure where to start my search.

  Come on, Reese, think. If you were the computer of a slutty middl
e-age cougar who liked to blackmail her neighbor boy into having sex with her, where would you hide out all day?

  My first guess would be the bedroom—obviously—but she was probably there right now, dolling herself up. For Mason.

  I gagged at the thought.

  He was so never going anywhere near that again.

  Motivated by the thought, I stepped forward and glanced cautiously through the doorway of the back laundry room and into a dimly lit, state-of-the-art kitchen. I almost passed out when I saw a closed laptop sitting on her bar.

  No freaking way. I couldn’t possibly be that lucky.

  Oh, well. I wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

  I darted into the kitchen and seated my rump onto a barstool in front of her Dell. After cracking my knuckles and rolling my shoulders as if to pop my neck, I held my breath and reached for the lid.

  No alarms sounded. No metal bars crashed down around me. No hidden trap in the floor opened up and dropped me into her dungeon below.

  I was in the witch’s computer. And the idiot witch hadn’t even set a password. Score.

  I stared sightlessly at her home screen a good minute, listening and practically waiting for footsteps, certain Mrs. Garrison would arrive now and murder me. But the first floor of the house remained silent.

  Finally, blowing out a breath, I focused on step three of Operation Save Mason.

  Clicking on the email icon, I rolled my eyes when I was sent straight to her inbox. Jesus, did the woman password protect nothing? You’d think she’d be a little more paranoid since she was so shady herself.

  I shrugged again. Her loss. My gain.

  Composing a new letter¸ I typed Jeremy’s address, j_walden@ymail.net, into the To box.

  In the subject line, I wrote: Looking for Teresa Nolan?

  And in the body of the message I typed in my new name and mailing address. I was just entering the town and state when I heard high heels on the stairs.