I smile from ear to ear. I may have just figured out how to keep her here after all—that is if her gargantuan-sized stubborn streak doesn’t interfere. “Yes. If you fall in love with me, you move to New York. If you don’t, you go back to Charlie and your life as a wanderer without a single argument from me.”
She scrunches her eyes. Well at least it’s not an outright ‘no.’ She’s actually thinking about it.
“But what’s in it for me? Let’s say . . . hypothetically, because it will never happen, that I fall for you. You win the bet and I move to New York. But if I win the bet, I go back to my life which I already plan on doing anyway. So you see, I don’t stand to gain anything by winning.”
She has a point. I think on it a beat. “Okay. I win—you move to New York. You win—you get whatever you want. Just like the marathon. You don’t even have to tell me now. The sky’s the limit.”
She contemplates my offer. “What if I want to keep traveling the world? In style.”
I laugh. “Anything means anything, Princess.”
She rolls her eyes, knowing full well she walked right into that one. “Fine. But your bank account may be about to take a huge nose dive. If you think child support is bad, wait until you see the damage I can do at a spa in Dubai.”
“It’s a deal.” I go to extend my hand, but realize we never let go. I lean close, bringing my lips down to just above her ear. I’ve every intention of winning this bet. It may just be the most important wager of my life. I draw out my words and let my hot breath flow over her ear. “Game fucking on.”
chapter seventeen
piper
I would never do it. Take money from Mason. But it’ll be fun to see him squirm about it.
It’s not going to happen—me falling in love with him. With anyone. I’ve only ever been in love one time. For one day. With one person. One moment even, before everything was taken away.
My dreams have changed lately. They give me a glimpse of what my life might be like if that fateful day never would have happened. If the choices I made were different. If I could be like every other twenty-two-year-old woman.
The nightmares, although becoming fewer, still plague me. They alternate between the versions where I fight my predators, and the ones where I don’t. Years ago when I first started having the dreams, I never fought. Not one time. My mind simply played that fateful night over and over again with frightening clarity.
Maybe I’ll never know which version of my nightmare was real. Maybe I’ll never know what really happened that night—being sentenced to a life of what-ifs and could-have-beens.
And even though Mason will never win the bet, I’ll always be grateful that he allowed me to dream again. Dreams like when I was a little girl. Fairy tales that are so far out of my reach, it’s laughable. But dreams nonetheless.
One might say I was stupid to take the bet, especially given my history with them. But bets have kind of become our thing. Small or big, they always seem to work their way into our conversations. Last week, he bet he would beat me in bowling. I think the man is determined to find all my weaknesses; all the things I miss when I’m overseas. He won, of course—I mean, come on, I hadn’t bowled in over five years—earning him tonight’s romantic dinner at a fine French restaurant.
The sommelier brings two glasses of champagne, placing them between us on the elegantly-appointed table. I eye my glass, willing myself to pick it up and take a drink. It’s a simple task really, one that billions and billions of people do every day.
Pick it up, Piper.
Pick. It. Up.
I reach over with a shaky hand, imploring my fingers to wrap around the stem and bring the glass to meet Mason’s as he so patiently waits for me to do.
I awkwardly grasp the glass while I bring my eyes to meet his—to watch his expression as I pretend to catch the base of the glass on my bread plate, tipping and spilling the entire contents all over the beautiful tablecloth. “Oh, shit,” I say, feigning the accident.
For a moment, he studies me. He studies me as if he suspects my action was deliberate. But I’m well practiced. A master of clumsiness so to speak. There is no way he could know. He studies me, but he doesn’t judge me. His eyes are soft, not accusing. Sympathetic, not embarrassed.
He finally turns his attention to the spill, using his napkin to soak up the mess before it cascades from the table onto the floor. The waiter hurries over to finish the job and Mason asks if we can have our own bottle of it brought to the table, “just in case.” He winks at me.
“Piper, I’m not sure if you’ve ever made this observation about yourself, but you are quite clumsy when it comes to drinking.”
I smile and shrug. Most men—most people—just get annoyed with me and my accidents. Mason is different. He treats it as one of those quirky things that endears you to another. “It’s too bad we can’t all be as skilled and adept with our hands as you are.”
The sommelier, a petite female delivering our bottle, blushes horribly, looking very uncomfortable to have been privy to that part of our conversation. I quickly run the words through my head again and realize the reason.
“Football,” I spit out at the flustered woman. “He plays football. You know, with his hands? Ugh . . .” I cover my embarrassed face with my hands as Mason laughs right through the pop of the cork.
He picks up my glass, holding it out to me carefully and with meticulous caution.
I smirk at him as I take it from him, our fingers lightly brushing each other’s as the glass exchanges hands. My breath hitches at the touch and it’s not lost on me that he notices.
Mason ever-so-gently clinks his glass to mine, but before he drinks, he asks, “Are you moving to New York yet?”
I shake my head as my eyes intentionally roll to the ceiling. “No, Mason, I’m not in love with you.”
“Yet.” He smiles, taking his drink.
“Ever,” I rebuff.
He checks his watch. “I still have six weeks, Piper. Never say never.”
“I didn’t say never. I said ever. But whatever—it won’t happen.” I take a bite of the scrumptious canape placed before me. “But I’ll sure as hell enjoy being fed like a queen while you try.”
He laughs and I try to ignore his crystal-blue gaze warming into a heated stare as he watches me eat.
After our Chateaubriand gets served, I ask him, “So how’s training camp going?”
“It’s not called training camp this time of year. We’re still in off-season conditioning. Full blown training camp doesn’t start until late July. That’s when we turn our lives over to the league for six or seven months. To end conditioning, we have a mini-camp in mid-June and then we have free time until we report to training camp.”
“So you get the month of July off?” I ask.
“Technically, yes. But we still work with our trainers and sometimes we attend pre-season functions. Mostly it’s just six weeks of stress and anticipation of the upcoming season.”
“When do you find out if you get the starting position? Do you have a tryout or something?”
He chuckles, confirming just how little I know of American football. “No. I won’t get the starting position as long as Henley is around. He’s a Heisman-winning player. He’s popular with the fans and managers. But mainly, he’s just one hell of a quarterback.”
His words make me wonder, causing my brow to furrow. “Then why stay here in New York if you know you won’t get the job?”
“He’ll have to leave sometime. The guy is forty-one years old which is practically elderly in this sport. He was supposed to retire this year but changed his mind after the playoffs. I suspect it won’t be long. One more season, maybe two.” He looks out the windows, out onto the many lit-up buildings that tower over the busy streets. “I love it here. I love New York. And while I wait, I’m getting stronger. Better. So that when I do get the job, I’ll secure a future for me and Hailey right here where I want to be.”
“Won’t it be su
rreal for Hailey, growing up with a famous father?”
“I don’t know. I mean, I did a lot of my growing up without a father at all. Whatever happens and wherever my career takes me, I swore the day Hailey was born not to let it affect her or our relationship. Sometimes that can be hard with Cassidy holding the reigns most of the time.”
“Speaking of Cassidy,” I say, finding the perfect opportunity to extract information without seeming too interested.
“Can we not speak of her while we’re on a date, Piper? Thinking of her will completely get my mind off that incredible dress you’re wearing. You look beautiful tonight. You look beautiful all the time, but wow . . . that dress.”
I find it hard to hold in my smile watching him attempt to not look at my breasts. It’s another borrowed dress, and it shows off a bit more cleavage than I’m used to advertising. But it’s fancy and appropriate for the venue. Mason is nothing but chivalrous as he keeps his attention on my face, my arms, my hands. Anything but my boobs. I wonder if he made a bet with himself to not look directly at my chest this evening. I try to imagine what he will reward himself with if he wins.
Tingles pulse through my nerves thinking about what that could entail. Anxiety follows the thoughts as I take another drink from my champagne flute.
“Let’s talk about Hailey instead,” he says. “I have her this weekend and I was wondering if you’d like to join us for a picnic tomorrow afternoon.”
“You have Hailey this weekend?” I ask. “Who’s with her now?”
“She’s at my neighbor’s apartment. I trade babysitting for football tickets.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Sitter too expensive for you? I thought you professional athletes were rolling in money.”
“I can afford a lot of things, Piper. That doesn’t mean I have to spend money on them. Plus, it’s a lot more fun figuring out how to barter for what I need.”
Amazement, or maybe amusement, flashes across my face. His words make me think of Charlie and my life abroad. “I spend a lot of time bartering.”
His face falls, his smiling gaze going dead sober. “Uh, not to sound like I don’t think you have many talents, because I’m sure you do, but what exactly do you barter with?”
I know what he’s thinking. And he’d be right if Charlie were sitting across the table from him instead of me. She has gotten us plenty of meal tickets and free stays by letting men use her. “I barter with my time. I run errands for people, sometimes work in their shops or bars for a free stay in the flat above. Once we lived with an old guy in Wales for a few months, just because he wanted company. His wife had recently passed away and he lived in this huge castle-like home. He gave us a place to stay and three hot meals a day, just so someone was there. We played Monopoly with him every Sunday night.”
He looks slightly shocked. “And that’s all he wanted, companions?”
“Yes. That’s all.” Then I tease, “Well, what he and Charlie did behind closed doors, I couldn’t tell you. But for a ninety-year-old man, I’d say he’s got stamina.”
His mouth drops open and his eyes fill with rage as if I’d said I was whoring myself out.
I laugh. “I’m only kidding, Mason. God, if you could see your face right now. Mr. Longfellow was quite the gentleman. And more than a little feeble. I assure you, it was all very proper.”
“Longfellow, huh?” he chuckles, lightening his mood. He reaches across the table and runs his fingertip along the bridge of my nose, down to my tiny piercing. “And what did you have to do to get this?”
I feel his touch throughout my entire body and I pray he doesn’t sense the way my pulse shoots up as if I’d just started a race. I try to control my breathing, but with the way he’s looking at me right now, my entire autonomic nervous system just went into overdrive.
He drops his hand back to the table, close to where mine rests, and I find myself willing him to inch it over and put it on me. Right now, in this moment, my body is winning the war over my mind. And my body craves his touch.
I must have been staring at our hands too long. Or Mason is a mind reader. Because he moves his hand towards mine and threads two of his fingers around two of mine. It’s almost the way childhood friends might hold hands, light and casual, but . . . holy crap . . . it’s anything but. Every feeling I had on top of the Empire State Building last week comes rushing back. The words he spoke ring in my ears. What if you fall in love with me, will you move to New York then?
This foreign feeling rushing through my body like a tidal wave—it’s not love. That I’m sure of. But what is it . . . Lust? . . . Desire? I’m positive I’m the only living twenty-two-year-old on earth who can’t discern these emotions.
“Piper?”
Oh, hell. He must think I’m an imbecile. “Right, my piercing. Uh, remember how I said I would work for shop owners? Mrs. Kranstein owned a boutique and spa in Berlin. I worked for her for about a month.”
“A month?” he questions. “Just how many piercings do you have? And, um . . . where are they?”
I can’t help my face-splitting smile. I’m just not sure it’s the result of his joke, or the way his thumb is now lightly caressing the back of my hand. “Just the nose. Well, and these.” I lift my free hand and point to my ears.
“Well, I like it—the nose piercing. Not too over the top and pretentious. It’s subtle. Intriguing. Sexy.”
More of those indescribable emotions course through me. I’ve never wanted a man to call me such things. I’ve never before strived to be such things.
I’m also one-hundred-percent sure I’m in for disappointment. I’ll disappoint him when he touches me. I’ll disappoint my sisters when they find out what a failure I am. I’ll disappoint my parents if I never make something of my life.
But more importantly, I’ll disappoint me if I don’t even try. So when he asks me once again to spend tomorrow afternoon with Hailey and him, I agree.
~ ~ ~
When we return to Skylar’s, I see through the sidelight that the townhouse is dark. Only the lights over the stove illuminate the kitchen in a soft glow. Skylar and Griffin must have turned in early. Little Aaron has been wearing them out.
Mason comes up behind me. His fingertips trail down my arms, sending quivers of anticipation charging through me. He takes my hand in his. “I’ll walk you in. Just to get you settled.”
The three glasses of champagne I had tonight unite and decide that allowing him inside after our date is not an abhorrent idea after all.
As I walk to the kitchen to deposit my purse on the counter, every hair on my neck is acutely aware of how he follows me, step for step. I steady myself against the cold granite, wondering if I can handle what comes next.
Kissing—that’s what comes next.
I slowly turn around keeping my eyes glued to the ground. I’ve kissed a few men over the past few years. Kissing is safe. Kissing doesn’t scare me. Probably because it’s the one thing that doesn’t plague my dreams. My lips belong to me, not them. It’s the stuff after the kissing that terrifies me.
Still, those I’ve kissed in the past didn’t stick around for an encore. And I could hardly blame them. Each benign encounter felt like a kiss from my father. No excitement. No fireworks. They were plain. Unexciting. Ordinary.
Part of me hates the thought of ruining what Mason and I have. Once we kiss, everything will change. It will be awkward and forced. I will stiffen like a board. He will pull away, feigning some kind of forgotten appointment or family emergency. It happens. Every time. Just because kissing is safe doesn’t mean I’m any good at it.
When I was little, before my life went to shit, I used to practice kissing my handheld mirror. I imagine the men who have endured my kisses have a similar experience—feeling as if they are kissing something inanimate. Empty.
“Don’t think about it, Piper. Just do it.”
Mason’s voice startles me, reminding me I’m not alone. It’s now I realize I’ve been staring at his lips. This whole time, I�
��ve been mindlessly staring at his full, firm, inviting lips, probably looking like a feline in heat.
“Mason, I’m not sure—”
Before I can tell him all the reasons for not wanting to ruin what has become a beautiful friendship, his lips meet mine.
And I don’t stiffen.
I melt.
I melt into his firm yet soft lips, the heat from them searing through my body, a tornado destroying everything in its path, leaving me utterly destroyed in its wake. Ruined for any other lips that may try to claim mine in the future.
Every atom in my small universe is focused on the movement of his mouth against mine. Every particle of my being is hoping he won’t ever stop. Every thought that infiltrates my head gives me reasons to pull away.
But I don’t.
I don’t.
Realization consumes me. I want this. I want him. I want normal.
Instead of my mind flashing forward to what usually happens next, causing me to freak out and send them running, my thoughts wander aimlessly, recalling small moments in time from the past few months. Moments like when I first saw Mason in the airport and my knees went weak. Moments like when he protected me in the parking garage and at the marathon. Moments I watched him at the gym when he was unaware of my admiration.
Before I fully comprehend what’s happening, our tongues mingle together in a perfectly choreographed dance that has me feeling it all the way down to my toes. He’s tasting me, feasting on my mouth, devouring my lips. He breaks the kiss and our lungs simultaneously fill with the oxygen we’ve deprived them. His lips go on to find my neck, and I’m absolutely sure he can feel my racing heartbeat under his prodding mouth.
A sigh, that sounds more like a mewl, unwittingly escapes my throat as my head falls back to give him more room to work. His hand comes around behind me, pressing him tightly against me, his strong chest flattening my breasts. His hard groin against my belly.
I feel the panic climbing my spine like rungs of a ladder. It’s fighting with the warm tingling sensations shooting through each arm, leg, finger and toe.
Black Roses (A Mitchell Sisters Novel) Page 15
