Spicy with a Side of Cranberry Sauce (11 page)

“Wh—”

“Shh,” she whispered.

He stilled and quieted. Soft murmurings came from the other room. She didn’t need any more encouragement to leave while Dad and Martha made up. Or made out.

“Kitchen.” She barely uttered the word aloud, but Mason stepped back with her, his arms firmly around her. They moved as they had on the dance floor, with him leading and her just a step behind. As one, they entered the kitchen, and the door swung closed. Mason didn’t release her, and she didn’t urge him to. He rested his chin on her head and ran his fingers against the fabric of her blue shirt. She quivered beneath his touch.

“So…your father called my mother
honey bun
,” he whispered against her hair.

She laughed. “So it would seem. He’s going to blame himself for Lewis storming off. And he’ll be right, you know?”

He shook her gently and then released her. She turned to look up into his blue eyes and handsome face.

“I think my mom was right, though. I don’t think any of us is ready for this.”

Could he mean that? Did he want nothing to do with her and Dad? The thought burned in her gut.

“I’m not sure what to say to that one. Martha’s been terrific. She’s wonderful, really. And maybe she’s not ready to fall in love again. Or ready to get married. But I don’t think Dad wants that. Not marriage, anyway.” She had to get him on her side. “Did you defend us to Lewis? Is that why he hit you?”

Mason pressed his lips into a straight line. What was it about his fight with Lewis that he didn’t want to tell her? “He’s just so certain that she belongs with my dad. That’s all.”

That wasn’t all, but she wouldn’t push him for details. Not now. She moved closer to him and rubbed his jaw. “How does it feel?”

“Sore, but I’ll be fine.”

She traced her fingers up his cheek, and his breath hitched. “It sounds like they might need to work through some things. Maybe we should give them a few minutes?” she said.

He nodded against her fingers. Heat laced his eyes as he pushed his cheek into her hand. She cupped his head and stood on tiptoe to kiss him gently. But when his hands snaked around her, she licked along his lips and then into the heat of his mouth as he opened it to her.

A moment later she was wrapped around him, and he was carrying her once again toward the stairs. She wiggled in his arms until he set her on her feet.

“Ah, God, this is killing me.” He panted. “My mother warned me off you. Told me to leave you alone, but I can’t.”

As he trapped her between the small strip of wall beside the stairs and his arms, she found it hard to breathe. “Neither can I.” She choked the words out.

They were inside his bedroom in a matter of seconds, and he closed the door.

“I’ve been waiting to get you up here since you slammed into my cart in the grocery store. Even when you were biting my head off in the kitchen.”

She grinned, tugged her shirt up over her head, and tossed it to the floor. Quickly followed by her bra. She moved her fingers lower to the button of her jeans.

“One day we’ll do this properly. With care and slowness.”

She hoped he was right. Because that sounded perfect. “Yes, but right now you need to take your pants off,” she said.

His shoulders shook with a deep belly laugh. “You Yanks. Always so forthright.”

“And don’t you forget it,” she said, pulling her pants and underwear down her legs. She threw them on her top and bra. When she stood again, he was tossing his pants aside as well. He gazed at her from top to bottom in the full light of his room as he unbuttoned his dress shirt and let it slide down his arms.

“You are beautiful.”

She returned the slow perusal, and when their eyes locked, she shivered.

“Bedside drawer,” he whispered. It took her body a moment to respond to her commands, but she slowly made her way to the side of the bed and opened the drawer. She found a pack of condoms and pulled one free. “Don’t want to tempt fate, after all.” His voice was close behind her.

Then his smooth fingers danced up the back of her knee, and she squirmed under his touch. His caress continued, sliding along her thigh and higher still to glide across the skin of her right ass cheek. His other hand reached around her and grabbed the condom from her hands.

“Won’t be long before they come looking for us,” she said. He was torturing her, making her wait for what she really wanted as he continued to assault her senses with his feather-like touch. She wanted to hurry them along. She was ready for a quickie. Already she could feel her core clenching with wet heat. Her plans of seducing him had left her craving him.

“You are incredibly impatient,” he said, his voice a slow drawl.

“Like you’re not,” she whispered when her ass came in contact with his sheathed cock. He traced his fingers up her inner thigh, and he used both hands to spread her thighs wider. She pushed her fingers down on the table to help stay balanced and grasped one pole of his four-poster bed. He bent over her and angled himself toward her core. He pushed inside halfway, and they both groaned.

“This is what happens when you set out to seduce someone,” he said.

She laughed and pushed back against him. But his hands on her hips held her still to his assault. He swiveled his hips, hitting her deep, and she cried out. He was punishing her for trying to seduce him. Just like he’d promised he would. And she loved it.

“Shh,” he commanded through clenched teeth.

Oh, right. Parents downstairs. She had to be quiet. It heightened the pleasure, making her tense, forcing her to concentrate more on keeping her body under her control, when all she wanted was to spiral out of control.

“Damn it, Mason. Hurry it up back there,” she said.

He chuckled and pushed farther into her. He was so deep from this angle, hitting her in all the right places. She met each forward thrust with a backward glide of her own, her fingers and arm muscles straining to keep her upright. She clamped her mouth closed against another moan as he rocked inside her. His sweat-slicked skin slid against hers as he leaned forward to kiss the side of her neck. He sucked and grazed her with his teeth, bringing her to the precipice of orgasm.

“Oh, I’m almost there.” Her voice was high, and he pulled nearly all the way from her, just touching the edges of her entrance.

“Well, we’ll just have to see what we can do about that, won’t we?” he teased.

She could hear the smile in his voice, though she couldn’t see his face. His tone made her grin like a fool even as frustration built inside her. The feel of latex against her skin was familiar as he thrust. She missed the skin-to-skin contact of their previous encounter, but as one hand moved up to tweak her right nipple and the other snaked around to flick her clit, she stopped caring.

“How’s that?”

She moaned in response, and he pulled back and surged forward again just as he squeezed both her nipple and her clit between his fingers. She sucked her lips between her teeth to keep from crying out as she orgasmed. Her arms shook as she tried to keep herself vertical. Mason grunted behind her as he joined her in bliss.

A moment later, she was lying in Mason’s arms in his bed. He nuzzled the back of her hair and slipped from her.

“Sorry, I couldn’t stand up for another second. Figured we could safely fall this way.”

She grinned and turned to face him. He kissed her slowly, caressing her body and face with his hands as his tongue danced with hers. She pulled back from the kiss. They only had a little time before they had to be back downstairs. “Hmm. Guess I get my cuddle after all this time.”

“Yeah, but only for a minute.” He smiled lazily and exuded such an air of contentment that she burrowed deeper into his touch, licking her way down his chest. “This is absolutely insane. You do get that, right?”

“Yes. But this moment, right here—you can’t tell me it isn’t worth the risk. I know my dad will freak if he finds out. Not sure how Martha will respond, but I’m guessing not well. None of that matters right now.” She looked up into his bright blue eyes, and she could see the wariness there, the fear of what would come next encroaching on his afterglow. What would it take to make him live in the moment with her?

“Mason?” Martha’s voice called.

His eyes went wide. “Shit!” He scrambled from the bed. She’d have to settle for thirty seconds of cuddling. At this rate, maybe she’d get a whole five minutes by the end of the weekend.

Mason pulled the condom off and threw it in the wastebasket. “I’ll go downstairs. You come down from the bathroom in a few minutes.” He hadn’t hidden a girl in the bedroom since he was a teenager. At least he didn’t ask this one to hide in the closet or under the bed. He yanked his boxers and pants on as Amy rushed from the bed and grabbed her clothes. She started pulling them on, and he couldn’t help but pause for a moment and admire her flushed skin as she moved.

He’d put that glow beneath the creamy whiteness, and he wanted to savor it, but he couldn’t.

“Coming, Mom,” he called out as he slid his arms into his shirt. He leaned over and kissed Amy on the cheek and then buttoned his shirt. After a quick glance in the mirror and a deep breath, he left his bedroom and headed down the stairs.

His mother was on the third step up, and she went back into the kitchen as he came down.

“Mason. What’s going on?”

Sheesh. He couldn’t hide anything from her hawk eyes. Raising four kids had given his mother a keen sixth sense. He shrugged. What could he say to that?

“Nothing. I just ran upstairs to check my phone. There’s been some intense stuff going on in the office. Where’s Amy?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I came in the kitchen to help finish cleaning up, and you were both gone.”

“Well, I left her in here cleaning while I ran upstairs.”

She narrowed her eyes. Would she buy it?

“So did you call your boss?”

He nodded as he moved toward the sink. After rolling up his sleeves, he plugged the left sink and poured in some soap, then flicked the water on.

“Yeah, Steve’s pissed. The new ad was supposed to be finished yesterday by my team, and it wasn’t done on time.” He rambled on about his hard-ass of a boss. Distracting her into scolding him about working too much should keep her off the train of thought of him and Amy missing together.

“Doesn’t he understand the meaning of the word
vacation
?” she said. Her tone was sharp. Score.

She walked over to the sink beside him as he started washing dishes. His fingers shook just slightly with the adrenaline still coursing through his arteries, and he hoped she didn’t notice, or attributed it to work-related stress if she did.

He set the washed dishes in the other sink so Mom could rinse them.

“Sorry,” Amy said from behind him. He turned to look at her as she came through the kitchen. “I completely flaked on cleanup duty as soon as you went upstairs.” She smiled. She’d stopped to touch up her makeup. Her chin and cheeks were pale once again, all trace of flush from their encounter gone. Not a hint of beard burn marred her skin either. “How goes it?”

“Fine,” Martha said. “Except for the fact that my son insists on taking work-related phone calls in the middle of my holiday.”

He glanced at Amy, widening his eyes, trying to tell her that this was their cover.

“Well, that’s no fun,” she said. “Maybe we should chuck his phone in the sink.”

He and Mom laughed, and Amy walked to the island behind them and began emptying leftovers into the plastic containers. James soon joined them in the kitchen, and they worked in silence for a few minutes. No one mentioned Lewis and his overly dramatic exit. For that Mason was grateful. He didn’t know how to find the balance between wanting to protect his mother, wanting to see her happy, and wanting Amy all at the same time. Everything seemed to pull him in different directions.

After cleaning, they sat down to have pie. Fortunately Amy sat across from him this time, in the seat Lewis had occupied for dinner. He was glad she was too far away to touch, but frustrated for the same reason. If he wasn’t careful, this woman would be his undoing. Every time Mom looked at him, a pang of guilt shot through him. He’d broken his promise, and he was now lying to her about two things. Both lies were by omission, but that didn’t make him feel any better.

Maybe he was just like his father.

He shoved that repulsive thought away and forced himself to accept the warmth of family that surrounded him. Mom and James seemed to have come to some kind of agreement when Mason and Amy had been otherwise occupied. The four of them slipped into a comfortable rhythm of conversation, eating, and cleaning for the rest of the night. Before he knew it, they were all heading upstairs after an exhausting day to go to sleep.

Mason fell into bed, fatigue weighing even more heavily on his body than the guilt. Mom deserved better from him. He closed his eyes and tried to force his mind into the same state of tiredness as his body. But that was impossible. All the ideas and emotions he’d been putting off through the day swamped him at once. He needed to see Amy again, if only to talk to her.

Honestly, though, he wasn’t sure he could be in the same room alone with her and do anything resembling talking. And he was almost tired of having quiet sex with her. Well, not really. Because quiet sex with Amy was a hell of a lot better than no sex at all. But she’d pulled herself back from letting go fully both times they’d been together. She was such a wild spirit, such a force of nature. He wanted to hear her when she really let herself get lost in lovemaking.

He strained his ears. The house was quiet. Asleep. Could he successfully sneak down the hall into his sister’s old room where Amy was staying? Would she already be asleep? He didn’t even have her number to text and ask if she also lay awake wondering what the hell they were doing. He opened his eyes. Sleep wouldn’t be coming to him anytime soon. Not until he talked with Amy. And explained why it was important they stopped sleeping together.

She was worried about ruining things for her dad. He understood that. But she didn’t seem inclined to let that stop her. How could he make her see he felt like he was betraying his mother every time he met up with Amy in secret, without making her feel like it was her fault? The last thing he wanted was to make her feel bad. But he didn’t think he could keep sneaking around.