Chapter Six
Mason heard her moving around in the kitchen. How could Hannah function when every muscle in his body ached? He rolled, opening one eye to read the display. Nine fifteen. Late, but not too late considering he woke her up at least once last night for another round. Maybe twice. With Hannah, it was hard to tell dreams from reality.
Throwing off the blankets, he sat and slowly stretched, allowing his body to adjust to the new day and work out the kinks from the most amazing night of his life. He hadn’t just dreamed her up. She was real, and if he heard right, cussing in the kitchen.
He thought about going out there naked like he would at home, but he stepped into his boxer briefs instead. He couldn’t tell just what she had going on out there.
He found her digging through the refrigerator in search of something. From the looks of the carnage in the paper bag beside her, she wasn’t having much luck.
“Need some help?” he asked, leaning over the door. She wore a different robe, a steely blue flannel one. Not a good sign.
She looked up at him with a forced grin. “I’m sorry if I woke you.”
He retreated to the counter, not sure what to expect from the cool demeanor. She closed the refrigerator, walked the bag to the door, and then circled back into the kitchen. She stood in front of the sink, crossed her arms across her chest, and blew out a long breath.
He stared hard at her, willing her to meet his gaze. When she did, he saw it—morning-after remorse. It kicked him in the gut. He stepped to her and wrapped his arms around her stiff body.
“I know what you must think of me after that little stunt I pulled last night,” she whispered. “I wish you knew me better, because I’m not really like that.”
“Like what?” He pulled back to look at her and lifted her chin from where she’d buried her face in his chest. “Sexy, confident, and daring?”
“You are really being nice about this.” She wriggled free, turned, and grabbed a mug from the cupboard.
“I’ll warn you,” he said and cleared his throat. “If you tell me you regret it, it just might kill me.”
Her timid gaze met his again. “I’ve never been with somebody so soon. I’m a little turned around this morning.”
He nodded, hoping to assuage her embarrassment. “Maybe if you eat something, you’ll feel better. I know I’m starving.”
She smiled back. “Me, too. That’s what prompted my little cleaning episode. I was looking for something to eat, but there’s nothing but ancient take-out containers in my fridge.”
He grinned, finally finding the edge he needed. “Lucky for you, I can cook, and I only live upstairs.” He took her hand and headed her to the door.
“You want me to walk upstairs dressed, or undressed, like this?”
His gaze traveled up and down the robe. It covered her more completely than anything he’d seen her in yesterday. But her nipples tented the soft fabric, reminding him she wore nothing beneath it. “I do, I really do.”
…
No one caught them climbing the stairs in their underwear. Thank goodness for small favors. If there was a kinky neighbor, cruising around in her bathrobe was asking for trouble. But she couldn’t resist as Mason dropped her keys in her bathrobe pocket and pulled her out the door.
She didn’t seem to be able to resist Mason at all, come to think of it. The man had come over to try and accommodate her frenzied work schedule, and she’d jumped him as soon as she had the chance. She hadn’t been shy about it, either. Teasing and taunting and tempting.
Neither of the other men she’d been involved with would have ever played along with her little game. Or given her five orgasms before sunrise. Her body still hummed from the experience. It gave him a power over her she wasn’t comfortable with. Now that Mason knew just how much she liked sex, would he use it to manipulate her?
She swallowed hard as Mason opened the door to his apartment. He probably thought she was easy for immediately tumbling into bed with him. He might expect her to be like last night every time. She usually held back, but he fueled a fire she always tried to hide.
As he shut the door behind her, she surveyed his apartment. It seemed larger than hers, though the square footage must be identical. Instead of having a hallway and two bedrooms, his had a larger living area with open doors leading to the bedroom and bath. Two black leather sofas cornered to face an entertainment center on the opposite wall. The coffee table between them overflowed with magazines.
“You can have a seat, or you can help me in the kitchen.” He released her hand and walked into a kitchen identical to her own. Except Mason obviously used more than just the microwave.
Stainless steel pots and pans hung from a pot rack over the sink. A bowl of fruit sat on top of a large wooden cutting board covering the part of the counter she and Kate used to sort the mail. He opened the fridge, and she took in the colors of the produce and containers jammed inside. Her mouth watered at the sight of milk and orange juice and bread and butter.
A person could actually live here.
“What’s your pleasure?” he asked without removing his head from the fridge. “Omelets, French toast, waffles, pancakes?”
Was this a restaurant or an apartment? “You’ll make me waffles?”
Mason turned, lifting her gaze with his own. “Anything you want.”
“My dad used to make us waffles on Sunday mornings to get us to go with Mom to church,” she said, stepping into the kitchen.
“Waffles it is.” He began opening containers and dumping powders without using anything but his hands to measure.
“Do you have peanut butter?” she asked hesitantly. He spun and magically produced a jar of creamy and a jar of chunky on the counter before her.
“Did you plan this?” She laughed, cocking her hip against the counter.
“I wish I’d thought of it,” he said with a shrug. “My mom always spoiled us with a stocked kitchen. I got a little too used to it, I guess.”
“How many of you are there?” It stung to realize how little she knew about a man she’d been so intimate with.
He turned and smiled, that single dimple melting her resolve to stay cool. “There’s just one of me. But there are five McNally boys.”
Five of them? “God bless your mother.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” he said as Hannah watched his hands. Strong, skillful, purposeful hands that could pleasure, protect, and provide. “She’ll never admit it, but she always wanted a girl. When my brother Ryan and his wife had Rianna two years ago, Mom nearly came out of her skin with excitement. She even retired when Ryan’s wife went back to work, just to have Rianna to herself every day.”
She didn’t want to discuss babies with him. Things were on fast-forward with them already. Back to safer subjects. “Your mother taught you to cook?”
He nodded. “I think she felt guilty about introducing so much testosterone into the world, so she made sure we all cook, make our beds, and iron our own shirts. She’s almost militant about it.”
She watched him moving effortlessly about the small space. It was like dancing, the way he coordinated his movements. “My sister, Molly, she has a firehouse cookbook she swears by. Do you have to cook a lot at work?”
“Not really. We all take turns. Cooking here is easy. At work it’s harder because you have to be able to stop at any point. It’s frustrating.” His gaze met hers, realizing the connection to last night. “Challenging,” he corrected himself. “I love a good challenge.”
She hadn’t been much of a challenge last night the way she’d dragged him to her bedroom. But Mason relaxed her, made her feel safe and comfortable with just a glance. He seemed to be following through on his promise that it wouldn’t be just one night. Maybe for the next six weeks, she’d let her inhibitions go and be the daring sex kitten she’d been last night. She heard a spoon drop and looked up to find Mason right in front of her.
“You’re doing that debating thing again.” He leaned down and slowly kissed her neck. He smelled so good, like sex and chocolate, and was that banana?
“I don’t even know when I’m doing it.” She stilled his hands as they reached for the belt of her bathrobe. “I thought you were going to make me a waffle.”
“Right.” He pulled away with a slow grin and returned to his task. She smiled at the tent in the front of his boxer briefs. “What time do you have to be at work today?”
She technically wasn’t scheduled to start until two, but she always went in by eleven on the nights she worked the closing shift. The clock on his microwave showed half past nine. No time for anything but breakfast and a shower, alone, if she wanted to get there by eleven.
“Not until two.” The store wouldn’t fall apart without her for a few hours. She might even be more productive tonight with a spring in her step.
Mason turned arching an eyebrow. “What time are you off?”
Was he trying to keep tabs on her or just figuring out how long until he got laid again? She hated how she couldn’t keep her mind from going there, from overanalyzing every move he made. Her ability to trust had been shattered, but he had been perfect ever since that first kiss. She wanted more of that, more of him. “I’ll be done around eleven, but I work at five tomorrow morning. I need to actually sleep tonight.” Alone. To think about just what I’ve gotten myself into here.
“I have to be in Saturday by seven. When are you off Sunday?”
“The store closes at eight. Do you want me to print you out a copy of my schedule?” she teased.
He didn’t catch the joke. “I can’t wait until Thursday,” he said, setting glasses of orange juice on his kitchen table. He unloaded more things from the cupboards and refrigerator. Maple syrup, butter, whipped cream.
Whipped cream? Was he tempting her with condiments the way she’d teased him last night? If she weren’t so damn hungry, she might have him for breakfast instead.
She sat in one of the two chairs at the small table and watched as Mason moved about the kitchen in his underwear. She’d never shared a more intimately domestic moment with a man. How did this happen so fast?
Just as quickly, Mason slipped her waffle in front of her and slid into the chair across the table. Hannah’s stomach growled. She focused on fueling her body. She’d need energy for all she had in mind.
She slathered chunky peanut butter across the steaming waffle just as she used to when she was a kid. Crunchy peanut butter and creamy melting chocolate chips, sweet banana, and crispy waffle exploded in her mouth, and an involuntary moan escaped her throat.
Mason laughed, rubbing his foot against her bare calf as he dug in to his own waffle. “I definitely don’t get that reaction at work.”
Hannah held herself in check, forcing herself to eat slowly and not seem like a starved animal. For a girl used to getting most of her sustenance from the vending machine in the break room, this was a rare piece of heaven.
“I can make you another one,” Mason offered. Looking up, Hannah noticed he’d only half finished with his. And she’d been trying to go slow.
She shook her head. “Thanks for making breakfast. It was really nice of you.”
“Anytime, anywhere, anything,” he said as he finished his plate.
“That’s quite a line. Do you use it often?” Her gut clenched at her automatic response. He deserved better, but she didn’t know how to be that trusting again.
“It’s not a line, Hannah.” He shook his head, rose from the table, and took their plates to the sink. “I never pegged you for insecure.”
Adrenaline raced through her at the word. That word. How many times had Marty used it as a knife to cut off her questions? “I’m going to go get ready for work.”
He spun around, one hand clutching chocolate syrup, the other whipped cream. The man looked like an advertisement for sin. She wanted to reach for him almost as much as she wanted to run. Almost.
“Already? Give me a second and I’ll go with you.”
“I can make it down a flight of stairs by myself.”
She made her way to the door, not realizing his bare feet followed silently behind her until his warm hand slid across her belly and pulled her back against him. “Don’t leave like this.”
…
Hannah turned, caught between his body and the door. He knew how it might look. How she might feel. But something was going on in her head that didn’t bode well for him, for them, and he couldn’t let her walk away.
He swallowed hard, watched as her breath hitched, her breasts rising and falling rapidly between them. He watched the battle behind her eyes, for the first time not loving the fire he saw there.
“Something has been wrong since you woke up, and I don’t want you to go until we fix it.”
She stopped breathing, and he held his breath, too. He’d pushed her too far, too fast last night. He’d known it as it happened, but he hadn’t been able to help himself. She was just so beautiful, and her smile was kryptonite to his better judgment. He brushed her smooth cheek, and she looked up at him with wide, innocent eyes.
He needed her to feel safe, to know he wanted more than just last night. A soft, gentle good-morning kiss like he should have given her earlier would do the trick. As he leaned in, she ducked under his arm, and away from the door.
“Is this how it usually works for you?” Hannah snapped at him. “You make breakfast for a woman so she’ll sleep with you again?”
“Is this how you usually handle the morning after?” he replied, mocking her tone. “I made breakfast because we were hungry, no ulterior motives.”
“Right,” she drew the word out. “Like last night you just stopped by to compare schedules.”
“You want to tell me what this is about? Because I really don’t think it has anything to do with me.”
“Derek’s the shrink, not you,” she said, plopping down on his couch. The crinkle of leather filled the silence as she tucked her feet beneath her, carefully wrapping her robe around her naked body.
Mason stepped to the foot of the coffee table, sure she’d bolt if he tried to sit down next to her. “What’s wrong?” he asked, wanting to wrap his hands around the neck of whoever had hurt her badly enough to make her this fearful, this suspicious.
“I don’t know you,” she almost whispered as she examined her fingernails. “I don’t know you, and I had sex with you, and I’m a little freaked out about it, okay?”
He cocked his head to the side as he studied her. “That’s what last night felt like to you? Like strangers having sex?” Her eyes told him it felt like an entirely different emotion, and he understood that, because it overwhelmed him, too. But what had him excited, triggered a fear in her.
She hugged her knees tighter and looked up at him. “How many women have you been with?”
A woman could never be satisfied with an answer to that question. “I’m thirty-two. I’m hardly a virgin.”
She looked away and huffed. “Yeah, I could tell.”
“Now that’s a cheap shot. I’m trying to figure this out, and you’re being rude.” What happened to his sweet, soft Hannah, and how was he supposed to get rid of this suspicious, abrasive version?
“And calling me insecure was so nice.” She laid her head against her knees.
His stomach clenched with the realization he’d hurt her with those words. She looked so innocent and small curled on his couch, trying to get a grip on what she felt.
“I’m sorry if it hurt you. It was an observation, not a dig.” He felt the pain and fear radiating from her, warning him to tread carefully instead of react to her barbs. “You’re so confident about everything that I never expected you to be intimidated by anything.”
She took in two deep breaths, seeming to prepare herself for something. Her voice was barely more than a whisper. “My hormones overruled my head last night. You probably think I do that kind of thing all the time, but I never have. And I doubt I’ll ever be able to pull it off again.”
“I figured,” he said, inching closer to her.
“What? How?” Her eyes widened.
“Your reaction this morning was a dead giveaway, but I knew last night.” Kneeling beside her, he rubbed his fingers across the toes peeking from below her robe. “You turned off all the lights and sometimes your hands shook.”
She closed her eyes and pressed her lips together until they were white. “And I thought I was embarrassed before.”
“Hannah, you have nothing to be embarrassed about. You’re every man’s fantasy. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed last night.”
“I wanted it more than you did,” she admitted, relaxing her grip on her knees.
“I don’t think that’s humanly possible.” He smiled up at her.
She let out a long, sad sigh. “I just wish we knew each other better. I don’t even know your middle name.”
“What?” He laughed.
“It’s a girl thing. You want to know about the man you’re sleeping with, even his middle name.”
“So if you knew more about me, you’d feel better?” As she nodded, he began to have some hope his horniness last night hadn’t ruined everything. “Okay, twenty questions. The only rule is you can’t ask me anything you won’t answer yourself.”
“Twenty questions?”
He didn’t have much more faith in it than she did, but it was all that came to mind. “Yes, and we can start with middle names. Mine’s Mason, what’s yours?”
“What?”
“Mason is my middle name.”
“What’s your first name then?”
“You have to play by the rules, Hannah,” he said, climbing onto the couch next to her. “You answer my question, and then you get to ask one of your own.”
“Fine, but you better not laugh. It’s Faye. Now what is your first name?” She smiled.
“Hannah Faye, I like it. But you can’t laugh, either. It was my grandfather’s name, and he died while my mom was pregnant, so I got stuck with it.” He paused for effect and then whispered, “Francis.” He smiled as she winced.
“It doesn’t fit you at all.”
“That’s because it’s not my name, it’s his. Where did yours come from?”
“Are you sure you want to use one of your questions?” Her grin came back in full as she turned to face him on the couch, tucking her legs beneath her. “I didn’t ask for that little history lesson, so it doesn’t count toward mine.”
He didn’t know whether to shake his head or nod. “Are you always going to beat me at my own game?”
“Plan on it.”
…
Tension evaporated off Hannah’s body as they talked. Maybe she hadn’t been a complete idiot to sleep with Mason. As he let her peek beneath his made-for-sin exterior, she realized he was actually very sweet.
He could’ve tossed her aside for her vamp imitation last night and her attack of conscience this morning. But he had stayed the course, made her a delicious breakfast, and offered to play twenty questions just to make her feel better. With that and his stellar performance in bed last night, a girl needed to be careful or she’d find herself in way too deep.
“My turn,” Mason said, extending their game that should’ve ended fifteen questions ago. “Have you ever been engaged?”
“Why is it all of your questions are about relationships and mine are about personal history?”
“Relationships are personal history.” He somehow made a shrug seem confident. “You want me to go first?”
She didn’t want to know about the women he’d been with before but nodded anyway.
“Never. Never even needed to say I love you.”
Hannah had only heard I love you from a man who clearly hadn’t, a jerk who’d used the phrase just to get her to sleep with him. She swallowed hard, hoping that wasn’t happening again. She wanted more from Mason, more than casual, more than sexual blackmail.
She’d been so touched when Marty had confessed his love. She hadn’t loved him, but she’d always wanted someone to be as devoted to her as he seemed. Too bad the snake had been incapable of truth.
“Where did you just go?” Mason asked, dancing his fingers lazily across her arm.
“I’ve never been engaged, either.” She ignored his question with what she hoped was a carefree smile. It wasn’t a lie. She’d thought things with Marty were headed that way but had realized too late it was impossible. He was already married and had been the entire time.
“And my second question? Where did you go just now?”
“It’s not your turn.” Hannah scrambled for a question good enough to distract him. “Where did you have your first kiss?”
“Hannah, come on, what was that about?” His deep-blue gaze pinned her to the couch as he wrapped his fingers around her wrist.
“You don’t like my question? I thought you wanted to talk about relationships.” She didn’t want him to know how completely she’d been fooled, how easily he could do the same thing.
“Fine. Seventh grade, Denise London, Spin the Bottle, she bit me.”
“She bit you?” Hannah stifled a giggle.
“Your turn,” he said without smiling, blinking, or releasing his grip.
She squirmed beneath the pressure. “It was my sophomore year, Nathan Brady, touchdown at the football game Friday night. My sister told my folks, and I ended up grounded for two weeks.”
“Why?”
“I was only fifteen. We weren’t allowed to date until we were sixteen. Nice girls don’t kiss boys they aren’t dating, so I was busted by default.”
“That’s harsh. Now it’s my turn.”
“You just had your turn. You asked me why.”
Mason pulled on her wrist, pulling her closer. “Tell me where you went when I asked you if you’ve been engaged.”
His eyes were so intent they had a steely quality. He wasn’t going to let it go, and she wasn’t going there. “I need to shower and get ready for work.”
“When the game is over.”
“Mason. The game ended about twenty questions ago.” She tried to pull away, but he held firm. “Let it go, or I shower alone.”
“What?” he asked, releasing her immediately.
“You do have a shower, don’t you?” Hannah asked, standing and willing her hands not to shake as she extended one to him. She could do this. If Mason liked sex half as much as she did, he’d take the bait. He’d forget all about her little lapse, and she’d forget everything for a moment.
Hannah watched Mason’s eyes as he studied her, weighing her proposition. She wondered if this was what her eyes did that he liked so much. She wasn’t sure she liked it. It looked like he might say no.
Without dropping her gaze or taking her hand, Mason rose from the couch, gave her a dastardly grin, and dropped his boxers.
She’d thought he was magnificent last night, but some things were even better in the light. Standing there in all his glory, she couldn’t help but lick her lips. She reached for him, but he caught her wrist.
“Your turn.” His voice vibrated through her.
He released her hand, and she met his dare and dropped her robe to the floor. His gaze centered on the white cotton panties she’d slipped on this morning.
“I love the way you tease me.” He stepped toward her, picked her up, and threw her over his shoulder.
“Mason!” She giggled, bouncing against his back as he carried her to the bathroom.