“Close the door behind you,” she says, trying to keep her voice as casual as possible.
As soon as the click of the door sounds, there’s a huge figure at her back, reaching past her to turn off the tap at the sink. “C’mon,” he says, tugging her arm.
June follows him into the bedroom. Nervous and afraid.
When they reach the room, she closes the door behind her. Then moves around the room, closing the windows like she did in the kitchen, and then slides the patio door closed.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Mason growls in her ear after she draws the curtains shut, blocking the scene of Jordan kicking his ball outside. “With that stunt at lunch? Telling the kid to close the door behind him? Shutting me up in here? You’re pushing all my fucking buttons today, aren’t you?”
“Mason, I…” she starts to explain.
“No, the time for talk is over, sweetness.”
Tipping her face up with one large hand, he captures her mouth with an angry grunt. The room is much warmer with the windows and doors closed, but suddenly she’s suffused with a different sort of heat as he knocks her head back with his hard, insistent kiss.
“Do you know how long I been dealing with that shit? Nobody ever tried to cure me. Nobody but you—fuck, I need inside you…you ready for me?”
June might not have been, but for the feel of his fingers at the V of her legs. Testing her to make sure. It does something to her, makes her want whatever punishment he’s about to mete out. She’s wet, the feel of his heavy chest on her back making her wild with need.
“Put me in,” he whispers roughly.
She finds herself whimpering, “No, take me. Please, Mason, just…”
She doesn’t have to ask twice. He pushes into her warmth. Then hooks one meaty forearm around her neck. Keeping her there as he ruts like an animal from behind.
June comes fast in this position, his relentless cock pulling the orgasm out of her in a keening wail. But for him, it’s not nearly enough. He pulls out with a curse.
“I want in deeper. Want inside you like you’ve already wormed yourself inside me.”
She has no idea what he means. But it feels like the most erotic poetry when he guides her over to the bed. Grabs her by the hips and all but slings her on top of him.
In this position, he doesn’t have to ask her to put him in. Her pussy slides up his thick length, finding home without any guidance from either of them.
“C’mon, sweetness, c’mon,” he grinds out. “Give me all of you.”
She does and without any reservation. This is new for June. Being on top. Completely new. And he’s right about it filling her deeper. He’s so far inside her, it feels like their bodies are rolling together as one as she gets closer, closer. The pressure builds, and then…
“Mason!” she screams, unable to stay silent. The orgasm is so intense. And then he blasts into her, his warm seed bathing her insides with its sticky wetness.
“I thought you was supposed to be one of them quiet girls,” he says when she collapses against his chest.
And June laughs because, “I was a lot of stuff. Before I met you.”
“You got any thoughts about Christmas?”
The question comes later that night. After they’ve gone to bed and enjoyed their second session of sex behind closed doors. This time with June biting down on Mason’s arm, so as not to disturb Jordan in the next room.
The question is so out of the blue, it takes her brain a moment to catch up. “Christmas?” she asks.
“Yeah, it’s coming up,” he says. Voice casual but more gruff than usual.
“Yes, after Halloween….and Thanksgiving.” Which reminds her, “I want to make Jordan a big Thanksgiving meal this year. And you, too…if you plan to be here.”
“I’ll be here. D’s trying to get me to go to Seattle for Thanksgiving, but his old lady is fucking insane. And by fucking insane I mean vegan. I’ll be damned if I will pass up a home cooked meal for tofurkey or whatever goddamn nonsense she got planned.”
“Uh…okay…” June giggles. Actually giggles. “Then I’ll get us a turkey.”
“Sounds like a plan. And after Thanksgiving? What about Christmas? What you got planned?”
She laughs again.
“Why are you laughing when I’m asking you serious questions?”
“Because I didn’t expect you’d be so into holiday planning,” she answers honestly. “It doesn’t seem like you.”
June can’t see him in the dark, but she’s pretty sure he’s smirking when he answers, “I was a lot of stuff. Before I met you.”
The reminder of her earlier words tugs at her heart. June rises up on one arm, reaching between Mason’s legs to take his soft length in her hand.
It’s not soft for long.
“Sweetness…” he growls low in his throat.
It feels like a threat, sounds like a warning. But like this morning, she ignores it completely.
She wants him. Again. Like the slut Razo always claimed she was, even though she never wanted him. Not like this. She never even got wet for that creep.
Mason’s hard now. June pulls, just enough to get him to turn towards her.
Then she puts him inside.
He responds with a sharp groan. Like she’s hurting him…
Right before he gathers her in his arms, holds her tight as he pumps into her below. Taking back his power.
But soon they’re both too far gone to care who’s in charge. Who’s dominating who. Who’s controlling what. And the kiss, when it comes, feels like it’s both their ideas.
“You’re killing me, sweetness,” he says. “Killing me…”
Mason’s dick jerks, sending another warm flood through her. This is the first time he’s come before her. It’s her fault, she knows, because she practically molested him when he was least expecting it.
But it doesn’t matter. Knowing she’s undone him, stripped him of his control…it does something to her. Soon she’s coming, too. Joining him in this weird new relationship they seem to be forging (and figuring out) together.
Chapter 24
Something totally strange happens over the course of the next month. Something June never expected could happen. Not to her. Not in this lifetime.
Things start going even better than planned.
In October, she takes her GED test and finds out within three hours that she passed. They celebrate with a big camping trip—Mason’s suggestion. Obviously. But as it turns out, sleeping outdoors in the back of a truck isn’t nearly as bad as June thought it would be. Especially when she has huge Mason on one side, and the boy she loves more than life itself on the other, both keeping her warm as she drifts off to sleep.
Only to be gently shaken awake a few hours later.
It’s Mason, standing outside the truck, and pressing a huge finger to his lips.
“C’mon,” he whispers. “I wanna show you something. Don’t wake the kid.”
He gives her these commands, even as he reaches down and lifts her over the side of the truck as if she doesn’t weigh a thing. As if whatever they’re doing has already been decided.
They walk hand in hand through the woods, Mason seeming to know on instinct where he’s going in the darkness. But then suddenly, it’s not so dark. They emerge from the trees to a lake blanketed by a million, billion stars. A large reddish moon all but sits on top of the calm water, turning the blue black night an eerie purple.
“They call that a blood moon back in Tennessee,” Mason explains behind her. “Rumor has it if you get scratched or bit by a wolf during a blood moon, you’ll turn into a werewolf.”
Of course, right then some night critter chooses that moment to rustle in the nearby brush. June jumps like a teenager in a horror movie.
“Don’t worry, June. I got you,” Mason says, wrapping his arms around her from behind.
She relaxes. He has her. With him, she’s safe.
Are you falling in love? the ravens, w
ho’ve now taken up permanent residence inside her, ask.
The question feels like way too much to ponder during a midnight field trip.
“Maybe we should get Jordan,” she says. “He loves spooky stories and I’d hate for him to miss this—”
Mason puts an end to that notion with a kiss.
And soon after, June discovers how it feels to make love in a billion-star hotel, with nothing but a leather jacket beneath her, and Mason above her, framed by a blood red moon.
Pretty damn good. That’s how it feels.
In November, June discovers Jordan is doing well in school. According to his teacher, October brought a sea change to the quality of his schoolwork.
“Please let me know what you’ve been doing for him at home,” the teacher says during the first parent-teacher conference June’s ever dared go to. “I’m always looking for good ideas to share with other parents.”
Mrs. Winder is round and kind and dressed in a long skirt paired with a hand-crocheted sweater vest. She’s only one missed hair color appointment away from looking exactly like Mrs. Claus. So June isn’t sure how to explain the magic Mason has brought to Jordan’s world. How renovating the barn, and helping Mason restore a rusty old motorcycle they brought home like a stray dog, has improved the boy’s ability to focus way more than his ongoing obsession with soccer ever has.
So June just answers the teacher’s question with a shrug and a sheepish smile.
In any case, Mrs. Winder is ecstatic about his progress, even if it can’t quite be explained by the extremely quiet woman she believes to be Jordan’s young mother. “I’m going to put him on a more advance curriculum for the winter semester. And if this keeps up, and if he’s willing to go to summer school, I’m pretty sure we can advance him to fifth grade next year.”
“But what about Soccer camp?” Jordan whines when June returns home to share the good news. “You promised I could go!”
“C’mon, kid. Let’s go out to the barn and work on our bike while June gets dinner done.” Mason verbally heads Jordan off at the pass, as he often does when the boy tries to bully June into complying with his wishes. Then he gently herds Jordan out the door by blocking his view of June and moving resolutely forward until the boy is all but forced to leave the kitchen completely.
June watches them from the kitchen window. Although they both have their backs to her, she can see Mason doing most of the talking while Jordan either shakes his head or nods.
Later, when they finally return for dinner, Jordan says, “All right, I’ll go to summer school.”
“What did he say to you?” she asks him afterwards, when it’s just the two of them washing up at the sink while Mason uses the bathroom.
He shrugs. “That it’s the least I can do since it’s important to you, and other than him, there’s nobody else on this earth who really gives two shits about me.”
She winces. “He said that?”
Another shrug. “Yeah. But it’s true. You two are the only family I got.”
Family…
June opens her mouth to deny it. Mason’s past is always a factor that keeps her absolute trust in him out of reach. Jordan doesn’t know about all the bad history between black and white the way she does. He’s far too young, his friends far too open-minded. Plus, he watches way too much Power Rangers to know how skin color can make or break a person, depending on where they’re from.
And as for them being a family…June wants to warn Jordan not to get too close, because in her experience, family has a way of dissolving right before your eyes. That’s why she’s never put a label on what Jordan is to her.
But then June closes her mouth. Truth is, that’s her experience. Not Jordan’s. Fact is—and here’s what really makes her brain stutter—Mason has never let the boy down. Never raised a hand or his voice to him—even if he does need to work on all that cursing.
And try as she might to deny it…she can kind of see the three of them the way Jordan does.
A family. They may not necessarily look like one. But somehow, that’s what they’ve become in the months since Mason moved in.
The next day, June nearly clears out the lifestyle magazine section of Cal-Mart to find recipes for the perfect Thanksgiving dinner.
She spends the following week putting together a menu, then quietly spends just about all of Thanksgiving morning and afternoon preparing it while Mason and Jordan watch European soccer games via satellite. Or as Mason puts it as they sit down at the kitchen table, “Wasted damn near the whole day watching FC Barcelona fucking shit the bed against them Frenchies. But that’s okay,” he assures Jordan. “You know Roma won’t let us down.”
After subsisting on little more than corn chips, dip, beer (in Mason’s case), and juice all day, the two barely give June’s gorgeous dinner an appreciative glance before falling on top of it like hungry animals.
But later, when there’s barely anything left but bones and a few sad dregs of cranberry sauce, Jordan declares it the best Thanksgiving dinner he’s ever had, and Mason calls it a “damn sight better than fucking tofurkey.”
“Mason, you need to work on not cussing around me so much,” Jordan tells him with a frank shake of his small head. “I’m only a kid. I don’t need to be hearing all that.”
“Fuck you,” Mason answers. “Eat your pie.”
It’s definitely not the most heartwarming scene many might witness that Thanksgiving, but June has to turn her head away to keep from crying.
Jordan’s words, “I’m only a kid…”
Less than a year ago, he never would have said that, never would have even tried to defend his childhood status. His life has been so very hard…and his obvious contentment with his new life makes all her effort preparing dinner completely worth it.
Well, that and the “thank you, June” tongue down Mason gives her later that night. It goes on so long, and so relentlessly, she has to scream into her pillow when the orgasm overtakes her so as not to wake Jordan.
And even then, he’s still licking at her folds, his strong shoulders pushing into the backs of her thighs as his tongue laps up her cream, punishing her clit until she feels her stomach clench with renewed electricity. That’s the only warning she gets before a second orgasm wipes her out.
“I know you don’t want me to ever just lie here while you’re on top of me,” she pants up at him. “But I don’t think I got it in me to do anything else after that.”
It’s not a complaint, more like a joke than anything else. Because they both know June will rally. Tap into an extra energy reserve if it means doing by Mason as good as he’s done by her.
But he doesn’t laugh. “’S okay,” he mumbles, coming up to drop down beside her. “Let’s skip me tonight.”
Now it’s June’s turn to go still. “Mason…what’s wrong.”
“Nothin’.”
“Mason…”
“I said I’m fine,” he snaps.
That makes her sit up, because there are two things Mason hasn’t done yet in all the time they’ve been going at it: miss his turn, and snap at her for no reason.
“Mason. Tell me, what’s going on?” she demands, her ravens flapping in alarm.
“Nothing,” he insists, slinging a meaty forearm over his eyes.
“Mason…” she tries again. “You’re scaring me. What’s wrong?”
“Nothin’,” he repeats—but then maybe realizing she’s not going to let it go, he admits, “I want to open the doors. And all the windows.” He lets out a shuddering breath. “Really, really bad.”
He wants to open the windows…
At first she feels insulted. He doesn’t want to have sex with her because she’s no longer willing to live with him in a freezing cold house? But then she takes a breath and does what she’s been trying to do a lot more of lately: give him some credit.
Instead of assuming the worst, June thinks about how Mason hasn’t once complained about the windows and doors since that dinner back in October
. In fact, this is the first time it’s come up. She also can’t help but notice how his usually obscene cock droops disinterested and fallow between his legs. Hmmm…
“Did something…?” she stops, searching for the right word. “Did something trigger you?”
“Yeah, I guess you could say that,” he answers from beneath his arm.
June’s not the talking type. Everyone knows it. And Mason’s mental state—it’s not her business to pry into his private inner world. She wonders if she should drop it.
Nonetheless, she says, “You want to talk about it?”
“No,” he answers. Blunt. Voice little more than a rough scrape across the air.
She settles back into the crook of his arm. Plays with the hairs on his chest. “What would you say if I said you have to talk about it?”
“That it’s bullshit.”
“No, actually it’s not. Thing is, I’m not sleeping in a bed with someone who won’t, um…” Again June has to search for the right word, this time going back nearly a decade to that other lifetime. “Communicate.”
Now he goes still. The arm around her stiffening, like he’s thinking of pulling away. “June, you ain’t told me two things about you I could rub together into any kind of story, and you expect me to tell you all my stuff?”
She flinches. Mason’s right. June knows she’s not exactly the world’s best communicator. Not even close. And she’s lucky to have found someone who’s okay with that. She should let it go. Just let it go…
Instead she says, “My life was perfect.”
“What?” The sudden topic change seems to throw Mason for a loop.
“My life…before Razo. It was perfect. That’s why I speak this way. Because I grew up in Bluebriar—a small suburb outside Little Rock. I had a mom and a dad. They were both teachers, him by choice—her because her art career didn’t really work out. Mom “failed out of New York City”—that’s what she used to say. But it worked out for her in the end because she met my dad when she moved back to Arkansas.”
It hurts to talk about this, to talk about the fairytale before the nightmare. June is nearly struck dumb by the sadness and regret that pierces her heart as she talks about her parents for the first time in nearly ten years, but she continues. Determined to share her story, so Mason will open up with her.
His to Own: 50 Loving States, Arkansas Page 16
