by Roxy Wilson
“I stand by it.”
“It wasn’t meant to happen the first or the second time, either! Clearly neither of us has any self-control around each other.”
“Do you love him?”
“God, Justin.” I ran a hand through my hair. “You can’t just ask me that.”
“Oh, fuck, you do.”
“No! I don’t even know him anymore.” That wasn’t entirely true, but it was relevant enough to my feelings to be a real issue. “He’s attractive and I have needs.”
Justin rolled his eyes. “That’s bull. There are tons of guys in this town who’d give their right arm to sleep with you.”
“I missed him,” I blurted out, instantly feeling ashamed, but I couldn’t stop it once it was out. “I got the guy I was head over heels in love with back from the dead. Tell me how I’m supposed to deal with that?”
My brother leaned across the wooden bench, putting a hand over my arm. “I know, sis. I’m just worried about you, that’s all.”
Ever since we were kids, Justin had looked out for me. He punched out the boy down the street who used to pull my pigtails; he held my hand as I told my parents I was pregnant with a dead man’s child at sixteen; and when I was raising my baby, he was always there, doing diaper runs and taking over when I was so tired I could barely keep my eyes open.
When Mason had come into my life, Justin had been wary, but when he realized how much Mason loved me, he’d learned to trust Mason to the core.
That trust had been broken with Mason’s lies, though, and I knew how much it’d hurt my brother, even if he never showed it.
“I know you’ll never stop worrying about me,” I told Justin. “But you said you trusted me to make good decisions. Just trust me to handle this, please?”
He nodded, giving my arm a final squeeze before letting go. “Okay, I’ll stop whining at you.”
“Good.” I smiled. “Now let’s get dessert.”
I called Daisy back to the table, and actually felt my appetite return a little in time for cake. After we paid the bill, Justin climbed into his car with Daisy, and I was left alone in the parking lot, watching them drive away.
For the first time in a long, long time I felt lonely.
Anna was on her honeymoon, Justin was taking Daisy to see our parents overnight, and the diner was in the hands of my weekend staff.
And I was stuck here, too anxious to leave town in case something happened with Mason, some new development I’d need to know about.
I got in my own car, slumping at the wheel. My phone tempted me, the knowledge that Mason was only a phone call away something I couldn’t not think about.
You’re not dating, I told myself sternly. Calling him up to spend time with him felt a lot like dating. He’d done it to me a couple of days ago and look how that had ended. The other night had been strange; we kept getting close and then pulling away, and Mason had definitely pulled away.
Maybe he wouldn’t even want to see me. I felt kind of pathetic, yearning after him so badly.
Despite myself, I quickly grabbed up my phone anyway. If he acted like an ass, then so be it.
“Hey,” came Mason’s voice, warm on the line.
“Hey.” I was pretty much stuck at that. “Um. How are you?”
“I’m okay.”
“Are you… busy?”
He laughed. “Kinda. Are you busy?”
He was making fun of me and it helped me realize I was being ridiculous; there was no reason to be afraid of what he’d think if I called him. We were so far past that.
“I’m in a parking lot deciding what the hell to do with the rest of my day,” I told him dryly.
“I was gonna spend the day drunk in a dive bar on First, so your parking lot thing doesn’t sound so bad.”
That was more revealing than Mason probably intended it to be.
“Daisy’s gone off with Justin to our parents’ place,” I said, and realized that was far more revealing than I’d intended it to be, too.
“Sounds lonely.”
“I suppose I could always walk around my house naked without having to worry about anyone knocking on my door.”
Mason chuckled deeply. “Well, in that case, I might have to alter my plans.” He already had me grinning to myself like an idiot; how the hell did he do that? “That is, if you don’t mind the company.”
“I could squeeze you in.”
“I have to meet with someone this afternoon, but I can swing by your place later?”
“Okay. That sounds good.”
We hung up and I sighed, tipping my back against the headrest. I couldn’t believe how much better I felt, knowing I could see him later. It had taken so little time between me not wanting to be anywhere near him and actively seeking out his company that my head was constantly reeling with every tiny shift in our relationship.
I grabbed some groceries at the local store, visited the diner to check on things, and then went home to put the stuff in the fridge.
Later on, when I was sure Justin had gotten to our parents’ place safely, I video called my brother to catch up with them.
My dad’s face swam into the picture as he snatched the phone from Justin.
“Your mother wants to know how come you couldn’t get your ass out here with your brother?” he griped, and I chuckled as my mom nudged him.
“Ignore your father,” she told me. “He misses you and doesn’t know how to say it.”
“I know, Mom. Dad, I miss you too.”
My father grumbled. I saw Daisy drawing in the background and Justin reading the paper. I felt sad that I couldn’t be there, but I had a hell of a consolation prize coming around later.
“I have work things to do,” I explained to my father, hoping Justin would back me up if they started to grill him later.
“Sometimes I wish we’d sold that damn diner so you two didn’t have to deal with it.”
“I love the diner, Dad. Don’t say that.”
If he only knew that Mason had been in there just nights ago. Recklessly, I thought about telling him, but I wouldn’t put it past my parents to drive all the way here themselves just to chew Mason out for what he’d done.
We wrapped up our conversation in good spirits, though, and then I finished up some chores around the house until Mason knocked on my door.
I wasn’t naked, but I could tell he was part-expecting it.
“You changed your plans, too,” he said slyly, and I laughed.
“For now.”
I let him in, but barely one step through the door he seemed uncomfortable. I realized that the last time he’d been at my place, I’d walked into Daisy’s room to find him crying in there.
It had shaken me to the core.
I wondered if he was remembering it, now. As he eyed the photographs lining my hallway, his daughter and sister staring down at him from all the events and family vacations he’d missed, I suspected that was the case.
“We could head out,” I offered, grabbing a sweater off the stand. “Go for a walk.”
“How about a drive?” he suggested.
I grinned; that sounded perfect. I’d spent too long in my empty house of late anyway.
We climbed into his car and started along the road. As teenagers, we used to drive for miles sometimes—mostly getting to know each other, often making out in the backseat by the woods. We had sex a couple times, too, but I pushed that out of my head, trying to heed Justin’s words from earlier, if nothing else but to shut him up and tell him I tried.
“Do you remember when you first came to work at the diner?” I asked Mason, wanting to share my nostalgia with him.
He chuckled. “Yeah.”
“In your ripped jeans and baseball cap,” I recalled.
“God, don’t remind me.” Mason turned the car onto the country back roads, winding slowly up into the hills on the outskirts of town. “I remember the first time I saw you.”
“Yeah?” I asked eagerly.
“In y
our little waitress uniform, coffee all down your apron.”
I looked at him but his profile gave away nothing but amusement. “You remember that?”
I certainly didn’t.
Mason smirked. In the waning evening light, he looked like some bad boy out of a movie—one arm leant out of the rolled-down window, his dark hair caught in the breeze, those full lips pursed in a cocky smile.
I wondered if he knew what a striking picture he made; everywhere he went, he caught people’s eye. It had always been that way. When he’d asked me out, I’d been both wary and thrilled. I knew his reputation, but after working with him, I’d seen how sweet and kind he really was. And he was the hottest guy in town.
That certainly hadn’t changed.
“I remember ’cause I thought to myself: damn, that chick’s got a nice rack,” Mason told me.
I choked on my own laughter. “Tell me that’s not the first thing you thought about me.”
“Sad, but true.”
I hit him on the arm with the back of my hand. “You little pervert.”
Mason shrugged. “I was.” And then, more seriously, he told me, “Afterwards, though, I just wanted to take you out and treat you right.”
I smiled fondly. “I remember you asking me out.”
“I was shit scared, I tell you.”
“You? Scared?”
Mason quickly glanced at me. “Yeah, your dad kept catching me looking at you and he kept giving me the stink-eye and I knew if I screwed up, he’d have my balls.”
“That sounds like my dad.”
If Dad only knew…
“I wonder what he’d think now,” Mason said, self-deprecation creeping into his voice.
I shuddered a little. How would my parents react to the news of what Mason did? I’d never be able to tell them the whole story, but a man faking his own death and leaving their pregnant daughter to pick up the pieces wouldn’t exactly go down very well, regardless of the other details.
They’d mourned him, too. He was like a son to them when he and Anna became homeless after the death of their elderly aunt, their only other guardian.
“Would you even wanna find out?” I asked, trying to sound nonchalant.
Mason drove on and said nothing. He knew what I was really asking.
The scenery passed us in waves of shadowy trees and dotted farmhouse silhouettes. The Fosters’ ranch was up here, once upon a time, before it burned down. Mason avoided that area, though, driving us along the winding roads as the moon came all the way up and the stars blinked in full force.
I turned us away from the subject of parents and back to reminiscing. I was surprised by how much Mason remembered of his old life.
“I’m still me,” he said simply. “My memories didn’t just disappear when I walked away. Sometimes I think it’d be easier if they had.”
“What do you mean?”
He fell silent again, giving the road a renewed focus. Eventually, he shook his head. “I swear there used to be turnoff here somewhere.”
I wanted to push the issue—I wanted to push a lot of issues, in fact—but I didn’t. Mason never did react well to being pushed. I felt I even had some right to, after everything, but it didn’t seem fair to wield that right like a weapon.
If Mason wanted to talk, he’d talk.
I looked out of the window. We were high up now, the town a twinkling scatter of lights below us, getting farther and farther away. He was taking us away from civilization, it seemed.
“Where are you even going?” I asked.
“Nowhere,” Mason said. “I like to drive around sometimes.”
“You still do that?”
“Don’t get much opportunity in New York.” He shrugged. “But when I’m on a job, yeah.”
Mason used to go for drives when he was stressed out or upset. When his mother was killed, he jacked a neighbor’s car and went for a joyride, being too young to own one of his own.
Some things really did never change. I’d told Justin earlier that I couldn’t possibly love Mason because I didn’t know him, but Mason was making it difficult to keep up that protest. He just kept demolishing all of the preconceived notions about him that I’d built up since the day of Anna’s crashed wedding.
As we sped through the country roads, past the thick trees and open fields, I found it more and more difficult to take my eyes off him. My hand crept out like a thing possessed, touching his thigh, spreading over the denim.
I watched him swallow and lick his lips in profile.
“You’re like two people, you know that?” I said suddenly, my voice coming out without any forethought.
“How’s that?”
“When you came back, all I could see was the hitman,” I admitted. “And he’s terrifying and sexy and I hate myself for thinking that.”
Mason stared ahead for a moment. “And who’s the other guy?”
“Just you. Mason who laughs and jokes and likes to drive his troubles away.”
My hand tightened on his thigh, slipping over and between his legs. It was reckless, but that was what he made me feel: total reckless abandon.
The car slowed and it seemed he had enough sense to try to find a place to park. I felt the anticipation in my stomach, knowing exactly why.
“It’s not like you’re ever gonna stop being a hitman, right?” I prompted, my fingertips finding the shape of his cock under his jeans.
“Taryn,” he sighed.
“What?” I said lightly, curling my hand over him. “It’s just a question.”
“You can’t ask me that.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s none of your fucking business,” he snapped, and then he winced. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—”
I pressed down with the flat of my palm and felt his cock stiffen, cutting off his apology.
I didn’t care. He could get angry all he wanted, but all it meant was that he was thinking things through and coming up with conclusions that made him question himself.
“I can’t figure out which of those guys you are,” I told him in a low voice, rubbing his stiffening cock through the denim until he gasped.
“Whichever’s gonna get me laid right now.”
I scoffed, biting my lip. If I didn’t want him so bad, I might have stopped touching him just to make him suffer, but I hadn’t gotten to have him the other night and like I told Justin—I had needs.
Between a patch of cherry blossoms, in a wide ditch off the side of the fairly obscure road, Mason finally came to a stop.
The heel of my hand brought him to full hardness and, with the feeling of seclusion and being shrouded in darkness a heady mixture, I leaned over, pressing my mouth against his ear. “Show me the hitman.”
He yanked me from my seat and into his lap, gripping my hips with his hands like branding irons.
Our mouths hovered close and Mason bit my lower lip between his teeth, dragging it outwards. “You sure about that?” he growled.
“Yes.”
I already felt yielding against him. I knew I was playing with fire, asking for this side of him, but I wanted it.
“Is this why you wanted to see me tonight?” he asked slyly. “Finish what we started at the diner?”
“No,” I said honestly.
Mason frowned, wrapping an arm around my waist. “Then why? Tell me.”
The intensity of his gaze caught me off guard. I didn’t know if I could lie to him, and my mouth moved before I was fully ready.
“Because I wanted to spend time with you.”
His features went slack and he blinked. Quickly, Mason shook his head, making a fist in my hair and pulling me in for a brutal kiss that stole my breath away.
He broke away, murmuring against my mouth, “Get on your knees.”
My breath hitched. I swallowed, spit flooding my mouth at the thought, and I slipped off Mason’s lap and to my knees in the cramped foot well, pulling at his button and zipper and freeing his hard…Click here to co
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