The physical pleasure wasn’t what she craved from him, although every glide of his tongue and every shift of his fingers left her dizzy with need that was oddly satisfying. She moved her hips against him, relishing their journey together until his mouth traveled below her belly button.
A bit of panic shimmied through her. “No—I—” She tried to inch away from him. “I don’t, I mean I’ve never…done that.” Asher hadn’t been interested in paying attention to her that way and she’d never had the nerve to ask.
A corner of Mason’s mouth tipped in a smirk that relaxed her guard and almost made her laugh. For as long as she had known him, she knew she’d never seen that expression on his face—an impish mix of passion, need, and triumph.
“We don’t have to.” He didn’t blink or break eye contact, but he did lower his mouth to her. Slowly. Deliberately. Until one long, sensual caress of his tongue made her gasp.
In this dream, where nothing was as it seemed and where she could pretend to be someone who didn’t have the inhibitions she normally had, she let her head fall back.
The slick of his tongue twirled against her, and waves of excitement caught her by surprise.
“Should I stop?” he asked with a whisper.
With her eyes closed, she couldn’t see if he was smiling, but she heard it in his voice.
“Ah, no.” She giggled. Without his mouth against her, the need was not nearly as gratifying. She slipped her hand through his hair and guided him back to her, this time feeling a bit of the mischievous smirk she’d seen earlier. She had never felt like this—so worshipped, like a Greek goddess. Wanted. Cherished.
One turn of intensity led to another, and she arched against him, unable and unwilling to fight the powerful rush of pleasure that ripped through her.
She breathed heavy and lifted herself to see Mason’s light ginger eyes bright and glassy, his expression as full of the satisfaction she felt. He dragged his kisses along her stomach and up to her breast, and she floated in the blissful wake of her release. For all she knew, she might actually be floating—her dreams at the manor surprised her. Tonight was no exception.
She thought for a quick minute about tomorrow, how he would bring her breakfast and how differently she would feel about him after such closeness. She fought the heartbreak she knew would come soon enough.
He nipped and sucked at her neck, just above her collarbone, and she lifted her hips, pressing herself against him. Good God, he was hot and hard, and she—
Hard. Hard. Hard limits.
Damn it, she was supposed to be watching her time!
She searched around the room for a clock and finally found an antique one on the wall. The slim gold pendulum tick-tocked back and forth with a loud clicking noise. The nanny she had seen earlier sat in a rocking chair below the clock, her foot pushed against a wooden cradle that held a very small baby. They were oblivious to her, as the past always was in this place, then they faded from view.
If the clock told the correct time, then maybe she had been asleep for an hour and a half? She wasn’t sure. She had gotten so caught up—
“I wasn’t planning on this,” he whispered against her ear. “I don’t have a condom.”
She glanced to where the clock had been. She needed to wake up soon. It wasn’t wise to run her time right up to the deadline.
“It’s okay,” she said.
“You’re on birth control?”
She thought for a moment. Yes, right now she was on the best kind of birth control. It was called virtual reality. No risk of pregnancy whatsoever.
“No, but that’s the beauty of a dream, everything is ideal.”
He frowned as though he didn’t understand. “You feel pretty real to me.” He balanced himself on one arm and licked at her neck in a way that made her back arch.
“This is all a dream, Mason. You’ll realize that soon enough.” She wrapped her legs around him, reveling in the feeling of his belly against hers.
“Are you saying we’re safe?”
“Yes, very safe.”
“Thank God.” He went on to tell her that he hadn’t been with anyone since before he’d come home, that he’d known for a long time that she was the only one for him.
Yes, an ideal dream.
When he finally pushed inside of her, she gasped.
As did he. “Oh, God.”
The sheer intensity of their togetherness created a stillness, a mark in time that she knew would echo through their relationship. Things would be different between them when she woke, she was certain. And maybe that meant this wasn’t right, although this…this was worth it.
It was an indelicate observation, but she couldn’t help but notice. Being with Mason was so different from being with Asher. He put her ex to shame in so many ways. Thank you, dear God.
They moved together, their sweat-slicked bodies entwined, their cadence silently choreographed by a driving need to get closer still. Like a distant whisper, she could hear the once-very-real promise of their future together in each kiss, in the tightness of his embrace, and in the boldness of their dance.
For as much as she cautioned herself to be wise and not to linger in this idea of something more, she couldn’t help but lean into the flow of its forceful current. All that they could have shared grew with excitement from a murmur to a shout—an extreme fantasy that it could be once again. When the wave finally swept her under, she gladly fell while cradled in the safety of Mason’s arms and with the sound of his groan buried into the crook of her neck.
A while later, Mason leaned to the side, his leg draped over hers. Their breathing had finally slowed, his finger traced the curves of her body, his gaze kept her mesmerized and locked in the moment. Until the nanny reappeared and caught Layla’s eye; she leaned over the cradle and patted the baby’s chest. What must have been the original light fixture now hung from the medallion that no longer showed signs of age. White curtains that Layla had never seen before blew into the room with a breeze from the open window. The nanny lifted her chin and breathed deeply.
“What the hell?” Mason asked.
Layla faced him. He stared at the area where the nanny and the baby had just been. “Did you see that?”
She shrugged with a smile. “You know how dreams are. Strange things happen.”
He glanced across the room again and then back to her. “Why do you keep saying this is a dream?” He squinted at her neck.
“What is it?” Layla asked.
He traced a finger over a spot just above her collarbone. “I think I may have left a mark.”
She touched the area. “Are you sure?”
“No. Might just be a shadow.” His tongue drew over the spot, and he sealed it with a kiss. “You know my grandfather used to say that when you find the right woman, you’ll just want to eat her up.” His planted more kisses along her neck. “Apparently, he was right.”
She giggled, and he positioned himself on top of her again, his smile brightening. “Of course, he also said that some days, you’ll wish you had.”
She tilted her head back and laughed aloud. A strange dizzying sensation flooded her as though her world shifted on its axis. The clock on the other side of the room tick-tocked, tick-tocked more loudly than before. She suddenly realized the time—two hours and fifteen minutes had passed.
“Oh my gosh!” She panicked and pushed him off her. “I have to go! I have to wake up now!” She thought of her girls, how she needed to take care of them and how much they depended on her. She glanced at the clock again to make sure she got the time right. The baby was gone from the cradle and the nanny was fading.
She grabbed him by the shoulders and hoped she could scare him awake. “Wake up!!”
With a none-to-subtle yank to her mid-section, she was back in the summer quarters on the same couch where she had fallen asleep. It was the same couch where she and Mason had made love, and the same couch where he wasn’t anymore.
She leaned to the edge with her head
in her hands. It ached as though she’d been hit with a bat. Her body was weak, as if she had left some essential part of herself behind. She’d stayed too long. Just as she had been warned not to do.
She glanced toward the second floor where, most likely, Mason was still sleeping. Or maybe he sat almost upright as she did, aching from the absence of what could have been between them. Her hand trailed over her breast, and she remembered Mason’s touch, the feel of his mouth, and the force of his body. Yes, staying so long had been a risk, and being with him like that might have crossed some sort of line. But, she decided, it was all well worth it.
She lifted her head gingerly to check the clock on the wall.
It wasn’t there.
18
Although the coastal sun shone bright at seven in the morning, Mason was focused on the way he had seen Layla the night before. Her cheeks flushed, her long hair tousled, and her lips bee stung and well kissed.
God help him. This helluva dream wouldn’t let him go.
He could still taste her sugary skin, and he could still smell the honeysuckle scent of her neck as though they had really been together. He remembered the way she looked at him, the way she moved over him, the way they came together in a quake that could have taken the house down. The ending was abrupt and jarring and knocked him clean off the couch.
One minute she was beneath him, rocking against his body, or laughing and smiling. The next, she was gone. He woke up alone, and with his boxers damp and glued to his legs—something that hadn’t happened since he was in high school.
He turned his truck onto the gravel and shell driveway that wound in front of Alcott Manor. The seatbelt was fastened across the coffee and breakfast he’d picked up at The Early Rooster Cafe, and he placed a protective hand over it on the turn because he had promised Layla this breakfast.
“That’s the sign of a good man,” his father had always said. “A promise kept.” Of course, that was also a standard that got him into trouble now and then.
Ancient, curved oak tree branches swayed and dipped in the early morning breeze like long fingers that welcomed him toward the manor. Iced water poured over the inside of his stomach, as it always did when he approached this property.
The project had been fraught with problems. And he had to fight that not-alone feeling when he was inside. There were subtle breezes in empty, closed rooms, as if someone had passed by. Occasional thumps and bumps when no one else was around. Objects moving that shouldn’t, like the chandelier that had nearly fallen on him and Layla.
Ghosts, his mother had suggested, he refused to agree. Believing that sort of nonsense didn’t get the house repairs finished, it didn’t help him meet his deadlines, and it didn’t help him with Layla. However, each morning he did have to bear down before he went inside the house, as though he braced himself to fight through something ugly and hateful. He couldn’t explain that and had decided that he didn’t need to.
Truth be known, he would be glad when this job was done so he could get back to simple homebuilding and away from the tragic history he shared with Alcott Manor.
Working this job had served its purpose. It gave him an easy road into Layla’s life and a way to restart his father’s homebuilding business. But he liked a predictable order to his work, the kind that kept the chaos out of his life.
He cursed when the black Porsche convertible came into view. He quickly focused his mind and guarded his thoughts of Layla, kept them in a secret place where they would be safe.
The owner of the car waved from the front porch and broadened her princess-perfect smile when she saw him. Jordan was a bombshell alright. Strangely, the older she got, the more she resembled her sister. Blonde and tan with red lips and narrow hips. Every boy’s dream, every man’s wish.
She was complex in many ways, and her moods too often shifted with the tides, not that it was evident in the way she dressed. Like the blouse she wore today, with its soft pink color and the ruffles at the ends of her sleeves. She wore it to fool men into thinking that she didn’t have any sharp edges, that her personality was all rounded and gentle.
When they were in high school he had wanted her older sister, Brooke, more than he wanted to breathe. She would appear in the school hallway, in that short black cheerleader outfit, and the noise around him would just fall away. He might have been late for a class or on his way to football practice, but when she had looked at him with those brown eyes, his insides turned to mush. He had been pulled to her by a force he couldn't control, one he didn’t entirely understand.
After Brooke died, he’d thought Jordan had something of the same effect on him. She leaned against the front pillar of Alcott Manor and waved to him as if she had been waiting her entire life for him. She knew men responded to that.
“Hey, Mason.” Her voice was low and sweet in this early morning.
He scanned the area to see if Layla and the girls were around, but he didn't see them. He hoped he could get rid of Jordan before Layla and the girls appeared. These were two women who didn’t need to have a reunion.
He tipped his head in a small nod of recognition. You had to be careful with women like her. He learned that a long time ago. Girls like Jordan Williams enjoyed the chase and the climb. But once she captured her prey, once she reached the pinnacle, she got restless. And that’s when the problems began.
“Hey, Jordan. What brings you out so early this morning?” He rounded the back of his truck and unloaded the supplies he’d packed earlier, ignored her slightly as if they did this exchange every morning. As if they didn’t have a past. As if he didn’t have breakfast in his car for the woman he’d had hot make-believe sex with the night before.
“My water heater is acting up again. Could you stop by tonight and take a look at it?”
She did this as a hook, he knew, asking for his help and triggering some knight in shining armor gene that he thought was embedded in his DNA. He was convinced it was some leftover response from the medieval period that, more often than not, just got him into trouble. Much like fight-or-flight from the cavemen days that didn’t help as much as it stressed people out in modern times. He had taken care of this woman too much over the years. Honored promises he didn’t think he had actually made. She needed to take care of herself now.
He glanced at her without meeting her eyes before he turned and unloaded another box. Her hair was freshly washed and curled into waves that fell around the curve of her breasts. Although he wasn’t close to her, he could smell the scent of white soap, lotion, and perfume. He’d never known her to be a gal who tolerated a cold shower, and he suspected there wasn’t anything wrong with her water heater.
“Can’t today. I have to help my mom with some house repairs after work.” Which wasn’t entirely true. He hoped to spend time with Layla, maybe get to know her daughters.
“Oh.” Her bottom lip pouted, and he remembered the days when he would run his thumb over it.
He stood on the porch, with a box under his right arm, a bag of breakfast items tucked in the crook of his other arm and a to go box with two hot coffees.
“Please? I could really use the help.” She squinted her eyes as if she tried to focus. Her vision had been compromised as a result of her injury from the campout, and he knew she still had trouble recognizing some written words. These lasting injuries were the reason she didn’t work much, and certainly why he had continued to take care of her for too long after she had been hurt.
She ran the nail of her middle finger over his chest, her head tilted just so. “I just thought maybe we could enjoy a late night snack and some wine? Why don’t you come over after you visit with your mom? You look so stressed.”
He moved away from her hand. It wasn’t the first time she had extended this kind of invitation to him. Since she had returned to Charleston, she had asked him over several times—to take yet another whack at the (relationship) cat or just so she wouldn’t feel alone, he wasn’t sure.
“Can’t tonight.” He knew sh
e expected him to ask for a rain check and to stroke her like a house cat until she didn’t feel disappointed anymore. But he didn’t. He wouldn’t.
“You sure?” She ran her finger down the lined center of his abs and tucked it into the front waistband of his jeans. “I’ll wait up for you.” She tugged him toward her and bit half of her lower lip.
“No, Jordan.” He nudged her hand away with the box he held. “And knock that off, we’re not that way anymore. Besides, my workers are here.” He and Jordan had dated when they both lived in New York, for a while and for longer than they should have. It wasn’t a relationship that necessarily should have been, he realized soon enough that the both of them were just working out their grief over Brooke’s murder.
“They’ll be jealous of you. C’mon, don’t be this way.” She reached for his waistband again.
“Stop.” He backed her off with his firm tone and a strong glare, and she pouted again. “This is a professional environment.”
“You’re building things. It’s not a professional environment. This space isn’t like your first career where you wore those beautiful suits every day. All polished and pretty.”
“Yeah, well. This is a professional environment, and those pretty suits about strangled the life out of me.”
“You looked good in them.”
“And that’s what mattered most.” Mason’s arms were starting to ache from the supplies he held. He managed to put the box and the breakfast items on the porch and decided he would walk Jordan to her car. He didn’t think she would leave otherwise.
“Listen, Daddy won his mayoral race again and he wants to help you. He says that if your father’s construction business is what you insist on doing, then he’ll make sure you get first pick of the city’s building contracts.”
“Seriously?” After he and Jordan had broken up, he was sure that her dad would try to limit his ability to get work. Not the other way around.
A Murder at Alcott Manor Page 14
