Chapter Thirteen
It had been a special kind of hell since leaving Nicole and Aaron’s apartment that night. Mason hadn’t known whether to text Nicole and tell her what it was he’d seen or if he should have done something more than walk away. He couldn’t afford another assault charge on his name, especially against that same kid that had been such a big deal last time…he couldn’t afford to have even less contact with Nicole when they’d been adjusting things so well. Only he wasn’t adjusting any better now, he wasn’t sticking in the frame that he had concocted with the help of Dr. Friedrich, he was thinking about how bad Aaron really was for Nicole, and about how much better he would be in his place. He’d had that woman, who certainly wasn’t Nicole, tied up to the bed that they shared, something that Mason was sure that Nicole didn’t know about herself. Just like he was sure Aaron wasn’t planning on telling her any time soon, and that was on top of the rest of the issues that had already been outlined between them in Mason’s eyes.
It was just the idea of even less contact than he was allotted now to have with her. Not that there had been much in the days following his discovery. He didn’t know what to say to her, or what he was even allowed to say to her. He didn’t know how to broach any of the things that had been occupying his thought process since seeing Aaron and that girl. So he hadn’t said anything, even to the text messages he had received asking him what was going on. Something that had apparently become enough of a big deal for Nicole to have asked Marie, if the text he’d gotten from her was anything to go by. Checking in on him, she said, but it coincided too closely to Nicole’s last unanswered text for him not to think that she had gone and said something of some sort to her mother about all of it.
Which was enough to leave him paranoid, only not even a full two hours after receiving that line of questioning came the text from Nicole announcing her impending, Aaron free visit…. And the one from Paul asking if he would be available to be at the house when she got in so they didn’t have to leave the house unlocked after, yet again, Nicole announced her losing her copy of the house key. So this was what he’d been doing, sitting in the Carter’s empty house, thinking too closely on all of the different aspects of what he now knew and what that meant. How to break it to Nicole, waiting on her to show up so he could start that entire process…and thinking it would have been a lot less work in the long run just to have videotaped the whole thing he’d witnessed to send to her while she was at work rather than hold off like he had. Hindsight was twenty-twenty though, even if his planning beforehand hadn’t been nearly so clear, or if he’d even had a plan, he couldn’t remember much past the searing irritation and following numbing series of questions that he had for himself concerning the whole ordeal.
What he did remember was too visual of imagery of Aaron buried deep inside the female he had there, which was something he had no actual wish to replay in his head again and again- and something he couldn’t erase from his memory no matter how hard he tried. His shoulders were wound too tightly, muscles bunched up beneath his skin hard enough that they were almost driving his shoulders to up beneath his ears. Just like the muscles along his spine and his ass nearly asleep from how long he’d been sitting on the couch. The television wasn’t on, there was no food from still waiting on Marie and Paul to bring it by later tonight. So he was just sitting…eye twitching when the notification on his phone went off, fully expecting it to be Nicole with some reason that she wasn’t going to be coming home, but even more surprised when it was Aaron’s name that popped up on his screen.
Not that he’d ever saved his name to his phone, which meant that Nicole must have saved it there last time he had let her play on that app she liked. ‘Thnx 4 lookin out. Guess we’re even for the whole almost killing me thing.’ The words swimming in front of his eyes again and again until they almost blurred. He didn’t know what he was supposed to say to that, he sure as hell wasn’t keeping his silence for Aaron. Hell no, he wasn’t even keeping his silence for Nicole… He hadn’t said anything for his own reasons, selfish and convoluted as they were… his fingers hovering over keyboard and trying to formulate a response right up until the sound of the front door opening interrupted him.
“Mason? I see your car in the driveway, you owe me!” Called out loud enough that he would have been able to hear it even if he’d been upstairs instead of in the living room. Then Nicole’s laugh following her words and preceding him pocketing that phone entirely, shoving off of the couch and following that laughter until he could see her, struggling with extracting herself out of that gray coat and kicking the door closed behind her at the same time.
“Goddamnit Mason, don’t just stand there, where’s my apology? Where’s my help? Oh, damnit!” Her whole body nearly toppling off to one side with the contortions she was putting herself through. “Why didn’t you come out to the apartment? You didn’t even give me a reason you know, you just said you weren’t coming- and why aren’t you answering my texts? You didn’t even answer my text about coming ho- oh crap.” And again, toppling at least this time to the other side with another mumbled series of cursing and only her one arm freed from the now twisted fabric she was trying to get off of herself.
“Well you didn’t ask,” he answered, hand pulling at the bottom of his face to hide the laughter there despite her inability to see it beyond that sweater covering her face, just like it was covering whatever mumbled response she gave to that, nearly elbowing him in the eye with her free arm when he tried getting behind her. “And you’re not exactly letting me Nic.” Hands capturing her shoulders to stop all of her flailing movements and slide up beneath the fabric in an attempt to free her from it. “There we go.” Fingers twisting to get that other arm out, careful not to pull her hair too much, watching her face all flushed slowly appear. Not that it took much more than fully getting her head out of the sweater before he recognized that flush, eyes running along the profile of her face, her eyes boring a hole into the corner of his jaw and refusing to move.
She wasn’t flushed from the effort of getting out of the sweater, she was blushing, her teeth catching at the corner of her lips like they were forcing his gaze there. He needed to move, and he knew it, just like he knew he needed to open his mouth and tell her any one of the things he’d meant to start off with telling her. Instead, he was leaning in, hands dropping that sweater somewhere behind her and closing around her hips instead, whole body hauled off center towards his own before she could do much more than jerk her gaze up to his in question. Not that there was one there long—her fingers fitting against his chest and the rush of air that left her lips hitting somewhere just on the center of his chin. He dropped his face more center to hers, his lips opening to catch that next breath, ragged inhale of his own filling what little silence there was left.
It was a bad idea, the likelihood of him getting hit, of things taking a drastic turn for the worst and his whole life being upended by her reacting unfavorably was so high that it should have been enough of a deterrent to keep him from so much as attempting the move. It should have been enough to stop his hands from pushing her back into the closet door where he was supposed to have hung her sweater up in. It served as balance now, her lips lighting back to life beneath his and dismissing whatever worry that she might not want him to be doing exactly what it was he was doing. Her lips opening under his and the noise that left his throat nearly choked from the force of her using the very door he’d pushed her into to push back into him.
There were plenty of other things he should have done, but her body was pushing up into his and it took only a slight shift of his thigh, pushing between the both of her own to lift her off of her feet entirely, thighs wrapping somewhere around his hips and centering there. It was broken, the breath pushed from his mouth into hers, fingers wrapping around her thigh as far as they would go and hauling her even more centered where he wanted her, hips forcing her climbing ones back into the door with a groan. He couldn’t have stopped himself if Marie and Paul had walked through that door right then, his other hand climbing from the side of her thigh and up her back, fabric turning to skin and tongue pressing against the soft line of her lips until they opened.
Her mouth tasted like honey and mint, fingers pushing up the back of his neck and into the hair there more insistently than anyone who was actually trying to protest could do, that soft, breathy noise that left her encouraging his body to push her even further back into that door. He wanted… too many things at once, grunt of encouragement when her hips swiveled into his, and his whole body lifted back from that door, dragging her with him. He wanted out of the hallway, wanted to feel more of her than what little he could fit his hands onto while holding her up, “Nicole,” moaned into her hair when he moved his lips away from hers to see the layout of the house well enough to navigate it. He didn’t know where he was going, walking without any set plan, even less of one when her teeth scraped against the column of his throat in response.
He was half tempted to just carry her upstairs, half tempted to take her to his childhood room, but the stairs were too steep and the walk was too long, he didn’t have the patience to do any of it. He didn’t have the strength to do all of the things he wanted to do with her while standing in the hallway—half stumbling the both of them into the living room with an amused grunt turned moan as her lips moved further down his neck, tongue tracing the skin along one of his veins and nearly forcing him to dead drop her weight and his both into the couch,. His knee pressing into the couch between her thighs and forcing his lips back up to hers. Not that there was much forcing to do with it, hands pulling at his hair until he found her lips again, strangled groan again and his body dropped to the couch entirely, body turned so he sat next to her instead of leaning just over her. Her hands twisting around the angles of his face again and her lips turning even more insistent.
He still didn’t know how it had ended with his lips attached to hers from helping her out of her jacket, and he wasn’t complaining either with Nicole’s body twisting and scrambling until she was up and over him and her thighs spreading. His brain only just catching up to the fact that it was fabric he was bunching up in his fingers, that skirt riding up her thighs until there was no fabric left between the top of his denim clad thighs and the back of her own. The heat of her skin burning into his jeans… and the long, drawn out moan that vibrated out of her throat nearly made him forget himself entirely, hips lifting up into hers and his fingers abandoning that fabric of her skirt entirely for the skin of her thighs instead. She was warm, thighs twitching under the skin of his palms, little body grinding back down into his own, and everything about that moment felt right, teeth dragging against her bottom lip until he could pull her even closer.
“Mason… please,” breathy little moan into his lips, her fingers wrapping up in his shirt, pulling at the fabric like she could pull it up over his head, but her hips were moving too consistently, grinding down into him with messy pushes of her lips back into his as well. She wasn’t saying no, there was no part of her that was saying no, even when his knuckles drug along that one line of fabric remaining between him and Nicole beneath her skirt. “Pl-l-” stuttered out of her mouth and into the side of his face instead, his lips tracing the path down the side of Nicole’s jaw and further, tongue and teeth playing at the skin until they met the side of her throat.
He only needed to hear that please one more time, his knuckles pressing up into her underwear and dragging, twisting until his thumb could push into that fabric instead, moisture seeping through and onto his skin almost choking that breath in the back of his throat. He only needed to hear her say please one more time, hips lifting up into her beneath his thumb, rubbing small, slow circles while she shook above him, his tongue tracing further down her throat as her head dropped back onto her shoulders. She looked like a goddess, messy hair sticking out at odd angles from where his fingers had drug through it, face flushed a deep red, and her lips parted just as wide as her eyes were squeezed shut. He could feel her muscles, twitching above him, his other hand finally lifting off of her thigh and running that line of skin up, passing where his other hand was still nestled between her thighs and wresting the bottom of her shirt out of the top of her skirt. He wasn’t being careful enough, thumb pushing against the buttons that held it together and ignoring the pinging sound as several of them were removed from the shirt entirely, shooting off somewhere down along the floor by the couch.
He didn’t have the patience to wait, teeth scraping from skin to fabric, pulling it between his teeth as his hand worked up from the bottom of her shirt, tongue pushing out along the line of skin that was exposed from him doing so, lace of her bra half catching on her teeth before he moved even further. She tasted like goddamn sunshine, breaking from her neck only long enough to look down at that shirt and the remaining two buttons holding the top of it together. Too much, olive skin on display and the red lace of her bra nearly stopping his thought process entirely, hand rotating to fit his palm over just one of those red cups and tightening, groan following her moan and filling the space around them.
He’d never wanted her as much as he did in that moment, thumb pushing even further into the warmth nestled between her thighs and stuttering to a complete stop when that fabric was forced to the side, round of his thumb connecting with that slick flesh and her whole body freezing up above him.