Chapter 14

 

The ornate clock on the bedside cabinet showed 6:05 when I woke, the weight of Mason’s arm heavy across my chest. I turned my head and studied him while he slept. Even slack-jawed and snoring, Mason was incredibly handsome. I rolled my eyes, even though there was no one there to see. There I was being old fashioned again. Should a man be referred to as handsome in this day and age? Should I think of him as hot? Fit, maybe? Gorgeous? Fuckable? Mason was most definitely fuckable and I wasn’t sure that was even a real word.

Regardless of my insistence not to let things get that far, I had let him fuck me. In truth, after the second blowjob and a thorough rimming, I had been the one to practically beg him. Mason held back at first, but I’d used all my manly wiles to persuade him, desperate to feel him inside me. And, damn…it had been good. I was sore and aching, unaccustomed to bottoming these past eighteen months because Rufus didn’t like to top, but the discomfort I felt was actually a pleasant reminder of what had taken place.

I told myself I had no regrets, but what if Mason didn’t feel the same way? He’d drunk far more than me the night before. For all I knew, I was nothing but a drunken one-night-stand. Yes, he was the one who had done all the chasing, but he was rich and famous and I was a penniless nobody. What if he changed his mind about wanting me now that he’d had me? How awkward would that be, if he woke to find me still in his bed?

Carefully, I eased my body out from beneath his big, muscular arm, and slipped from the bed. Mason frowned, grunted, and settled again. Quickly, I gathered my clothes and carried them through to the other room to dress.

I retrieved my phone, offering up a silent prayer of gratitude that I still had some battery life remaining. I left Mason’s suite, closing the door behind me before finding Stefan’s number in my contacts.

“Are you okay?” Stefan answered on the first ring, as though he had been sitting on his phone and waiting for my call. It made me feel guilty for not ringing the night before to let them know I would be staying the night with Mason.

“I’m fine. Sorry, I would have let you know I wasn’t coming home, but I fell asleep.”

“Are you telling me all you did is sleep?” Stefan asked, teasing me.

“A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell,” I retorted. Especially not to his ex-lover’s best friend. Much as I liked and trusted Stefan, he had known Rufus a lot longer than he had known me. It wasn’t that I thought he would go running to Rufus with all the juicy details of my little indiscretion, but I didn’t want him to feel as though he had to keep secrets for me either.

“Well, I hope he’s treating you to breakfast.”

“Not exactly,” I sighed, feeling foolish now that I had to say it out loud. “I left while he was still asleep.”

“Eric –”

“Thing is,” I interrupted quickly, before Stefan could bawl me out for being an idiot. “I don’t really know where I am, and I have no idea how to get home.”

There was a long pause. I could picture Stefan shaking his head despairingly, probably with one of his trademark eye-rolls thrown in for good measure.

“Hold on,” he said eventually. “I’ll pass you over to Alex.”

Alex sounded sleepy and even more pissed off than usual, which would suggest my early morning alarm call was not appreciated. Fortunately, once I told him the name of the hotel, he said he knew where it was and that it would take him thirty minutes to get there.

I waited impatiently on the stone steps at the front entrance, ignoring the curious stares of the hotel staff, and keeping my fingers crossed that Alex would arrive before Mason came looking for me. As soon as his car pulled up at the bottom of the steps, I threw myself into the passenger seat and told him to get me the Hell out of there.

“He didn’t hurt you, did he?” Alex asked, once we had been driving for about five minutes. “Didn’t force you into anything?”

“No, it wasn’t like that.” I stared blankly out of the window, feeling tired and strangely deflated. “I already told Stefan, I meant to come home. I just fell asleep.”

“You sure? Because if you want me to give him a battering…”

“No, Alex!”

Sometimes, I thought Alex needed an outlet for all the pent-up aggression he had to work so hard to conceal from Stefan. I wasn’t about to let him work out his frustrations on Mason, however.

“I’m just saying,” Alex said. “I don’t care who he is. If you want me to go back there and kick his arse, I will.”

“And end up in prison? Stefan would love that.”

Alex’s knuckles were white where they gripped the steering wheel. I hoped his silence meant he was seriously considering what I had just said.

“Thanks for offering, Alex, but there’s no need for battering, arse kicking or any other form of violence. Mason hasn’t done anything to deserve it, and Stefan will never forgive me if I’m responsible for you getting locked up.”

My phone vibrated in my pocket. I pulled it out, not totally surprised to see a message from Mason. I hesitated to open it, afraid of what it might say. When I did, I couldn’t help the broad smile that split my face. Five words, short and to the point.

Come back. I miss you.

God, that man knew how to turn me upside down and inside out. As I suspected was his intent, those simple words had me wanting to rush back to the hotel and jump straight back into bed with him. I had to be strong though. It wasn’t that I wanted to toy with his emotions or lead him on – I just needed to be sure Mason was genuine.

“Are we going back?” Alex asked mildly.

He had to have seen my reaction to Mason’s text, so I was reasonably confident he was offering to turn around because he thought it was what I wanted now, and not because he still had it in mind to beat seven shades of shit out of Mason.

“No.” I shook my head. “This is all too much too fast, Alex. I feel like I need to clear my head before I see him. Will you just take me home, please?”

We were barely five minutes from home when Alex swung into a small carpark and switched off the engine. He got out of the car and walked over to a grass ridge overlooking the bay. Confused, I followed. We sat on either side of a wooden picnic bench, watching a lone dog walker stroll along the beach below us.

“Why have we stopped?” I asked, suddenly anxious he was about to tell me I had out-stayed my welcome in his and Stefan’s tiny apartment. I might have a job to go back to now, but I had nowhere to live. Plus, Mason said he’d have my car towed, so God only know where my belongings had ended up.

“This is a good place to clear your head,” Alex said simply.

Something in his tone told me that he was speaking from experience. I wondered how many times things had gotten so tense between him and Stefan that Alex had felt the need to escape. He was right about this place though. There was a café and a gift shop nearby. Probably, it got busier as the day went on, especially during the summer months, but for now, we had it to ourselves. It was peaceful, and quite beautiful, as we sat there looking out over the water, blue and sparkling in the early morning sun.

“Thing is, Eric,” Alex said awkwardly, making me think he had mentally built himself up to making whatever little pep talk he was about to deliver. “You have to work at it, especially in the beginning. Two people getting to know each other, learning what makes the other one tick, what makes them happy or what pisses them off – that takes time. Nobody ever said relationships are easy. But love should be. Loving someone shouldn’t be hard. And, if it is…then maybe you’re with the wrong person.”

Where the Hell had that come from? Alex was hardly known for his speech making abilities, even less so for coming out with anything deep or meaningful or discussing his emotions. I frowned, not entirely sure if he was referring to Mason and I, or Rufus – or him and Stefan. I hardly dared ask, but it seemed mean not to after he had done so much for me recently.

“Is everything okay with you and Stefan?”

“Yeah, ‘course it is.” His eyes were downcast and he picked absently at a splinter on the edge of the picnic table, making me think perhaps all was not quite as well in his relationship as he wanted me to believe. “We haven’t had it easy, you know that. Stef can be a bit of a princess at times, and I don’t always know how to deal with that. But I can act like a stupid, macho wanker at times too, and that’s hard on Stef.”

“He loves you.”

“I know.” Alex looked up, his expression fierce. “I love him too. That’s how we get through all the shit that life throws at us. Loving Stef is the easiest thing in the world. That’s how it should be for you too.”

“With Mason?” I asked doubtfully, finding it hard to believe I was being given relationship advice by Alex Gill of all people.

“Of course, Mason.” Alex arched an eyebrow. “Who do you think I mean? Rudolph?”

“Rufus.”

“Whatever. That money-grabbing, cheating, little shit was never right for you. He was only ever in it for what he could get out of you.”

“How do you know Mason will be any different?”

“Look, I don’t really know Mason. I admit that. I can’t say for sure that he won’t ever do the dirty on you, but I saw the way he looked at you last night. All those people, and you were the one he couldn’t take his eyes off. Plus, Mason doesn’t need you to pay his rent or put credit on his phone. He’s got his own money; a lot of which he spent on tracking you down these past couple of days.”

“What if he just wanted sex?” I asked despondently.

“Yeah, right.” Alex shot me an incredulous look, as if – out of the two of us – he couldn’t believe he was not the stupid one for once. “You really think you’re that fucking hot, Eric? You think you’re so irresistible that an internationally famous rock star – who could have man he wants – is going to chase you halfway across the country just to fuck you?”

I didn’t think that at all. Not for a moment. But I was a short, average looking guy. There was nothing special about me. That was why I found it so hard to get my head around the fact someone like Mason would ever want to be with me.

“Star struck,” Alex said, with a smug look.

“I am not!” I protested, annoyed. “I didn’t even know who he was when I met him.”

“Not you, moron.” Alex grinned across the table at me. “Him. Mason White is star struck by you.”

I opened my mouth to argue and closed it again when my phone vibrated with a new message. I have a gift for you. A gift? It was barely an hour since I had left him. How could Mason have bought something for me in that short time? And, whatever it was – should I accept it? I didn’t want him spending his money on me. More to the point, I didn’t want to give him the impression he could buy my affection. That would make me too much like Rufus for my liking.

Another message dropped into my box, quickly followed by a third. I read them both and burst out laughing. Turning the phone around, I showed the messages to Alex. He grinned.

“See? Totally star struck.”

I shoved the phone back into my pocket and we started back toward the car. As stupid as it sounded, Mason’s texts had left me feeling all warm and cosy inside. In his own unique – albeit rather lewd – manner, Mason had let me know he wasn’t trying to buy me after all. Not with monetary gifts at least.

Come and get your present, the second message said. And the third? Lashings of spunk.

Mason made me smile. He made me laugh. Whether or not he got to deliver his ‘present’ any time soon remained to be seen, but I had to give Mason a chance. I owed it to him to prove we could be more than a one night stand. I owed it to myself.