Betting on You (15 page)

She had to tell Lark what she’d found. She had to
show
her.

There was no other choice.

By the time Aria found the evidence she had hoped didn’t exist, Lark had already left with Mason for their fifth date. She debated calling Lark and telling her the truth over the phone, but decided it wasn’t right to spring something like that on her when she was alone with Mason, miles from home, with no one there to back her up if things got messy.

So instead, she sent a text, warning Lark that she had some bad news and that Lark should come home as soon as possible.

And then she stuck her phone in her pocket and waited.

Felicity got up from her nap and they played in the backyard with her toys for over an hour, and Aria waited. She put on
Blue’s Clues
for Felicity and whipped up a lemon meringue pie for desert, while Melody made chicken stir-fry for supper, and waited. She fed Felicity and gave her a bath and spread out toys for the baby on the floor of their room while she folded clothes, and waited.

She read Felicity a bedtime story and put her to bed and went downstairs to read and wait for Lark, but Felicity’s eleven thirty feeding came and went and still Lark didn’t respond to her text.

She didn’t respond, and she didn’t come home.

By twelve-thirty, Aria realized Lark might not be coming home at all and made her way slowly to bed where she ended her day the same way she began it, lying staring at the ceiling, certain something terrible was about to happen.

Chapter Thirteen

Date Five

The musical—a dark comedy about competitive table tennis that somehow managed to be fun to watch—was much less torturous than Mason had been expecting. The mojitos and appetizers at Damon’s afterward were flat out amazing, and the walk through downtown Atlanta as the sun set and the street musicians played and the restaurants began to light up for the night was completely atmospheric.

Not that they needed atmosphere.

They were creating their own atmosphere.

All day long, it had felt like he and Lark were drifting through the world in some kind of protective bubble. Nothing bad could touch them. Not traffic, not the hellish parking situation that led to them paying forty dollars to park in a hotel’s garage, not the four-year-old behind them who kept kicking their seats, not even the thunderstorm that blew through around eight o’clock, turning the sky dark just as they were talking about heading back to Summerville.

They were too happy, too tipsy on mojitos and drunk on each other to let anything bring them down.

“It’s getting pretty nasty out there. Could make the drive home dangerous,” Lark said, eyeing the leaking sky from beneath the parking garage’s overhang. “Think it’s going to keep it up for awhile?”

Mason tightened the arm wrapped around her shoulders, pulling her closer to his side. “I don’t know. If it gets too bad we can always pull over somewhere between here and there. Get a coffee or something and wait it out.”

“We could.” Lark hummed beneath her breath.

A thinking hum.

“Yes?” he asked, smiling as she turned to look up at him, a mischievous light in her eye.

“I was thinking…” She leaned closer, until her lips were only inches from his and it was hard to think about anything but how much he wanted to kiss her, how he didn’t think he could wait another day to taste her again.

“Yes,” he prompted again, when she let the silence trail on.

“I was thinking that we’ve already paid for parking at the hotel, so…” She pursed her lips. “Well, maybe it would be a good idea if we just went ahead and…got a room.”

“Got a room,” he repeated, wanting to make one hundred percent sure he’d heard her correctly, that his hopeful ears weren’t playing tricks on him.

Lark nodded. “I’m ready to get a room. Aren’t you?”

“I am completely ready to get a room,” Mason said. “I can’t think of anything I’ve ever wanted more than getting a room. Ever.”

“Ever?” Lark asked with a nervous giggle.

“Ever ever,” Mason said, grinning as he took her hand and pulled her toward the entrance to the lobby.

A few minutes later, they were at the front desk being booked into a room on the top floor. A few minutes after that, they were in the hotel shop buying toothbrushes and toothpaste and…condoms.

Condoms. Because he and Lark were finally going to be together. After all the years of dating and waiting and even more years spent living apart from the girl he loved, wondering if this dream was ever going to become a reality, wondering if he’d ever be with Lark like this, it was finally going to happen.

The ride up to their room seemed to last a thousand years, and the walk down the hall a second thousand. But then, Mason was sliding the key card into the slot and the green light on the door flashed—a sign if he had ever seen one—and he and Lark were alone in a beautiful room with a view of the city sparkling twenty stories below, and nothing to do but get their clothes off and their hands on each other.

Mason put their bag from the shop on the nightstand and wandered back to the desk on the other side of the room before turning to face Lark, feeling a little nervous. It was hard to believe this was really happening. She was so beautiful, so magical, so good, and his. Finally his.

He wanted this night to be perfect. This wasn’t just their first time together, but also, he hoped, their last time sleeping with someone new. He never wanted to touch another woman. He wanted it to be Lark’s lips he kissed goodnight from tonight until the day they put him in the ground.

This was it, one of the biggest moments of his life, and he was suddenly feeling the pressure.

“Well,” he said, with a deep breath. “Here we are.”

Lark nodded and a smile gentled her lips. “Yes. We are. Are you nervous?”

“No,” Mason lied.

Lark narrowed her eyes playfully. “Are you sure? Because you look a little nervous.” Before he could respond, her fingers moved to the top of her red dress, slowing slipping the button at the top through its hole, robbing him of his capacity for speech.

“But there’s no reason to be,” she continued, undoing another button and another, until she reached the final button near the waist and the front of her dress gaped open, revealing a black satin bra and the creamy swell of her breasts, making Mason’s heart beat so fast he could feel it slamming into his ribs like a fist.

Lark held his eyes as she reached for the zipper on the side of her dress and dragged it down with a smooth buzz that seemed too loud in the almost silent room. The only sounds were that zipper, the gentle patter of rain on the windows, and the blood pumping too fast through his veins.

“I mean…” She trailed off as she began bunching the skirt of her dress into her hands, revealing more smooth, pale thigh with every passing second. “We both know you’ve done this before.”

Mason swallowed, finally finding his voice. “No, I haven’t. Not with someone I love like this. Not with you.”

Lark paused with her dress bunched so high he caught a glimpse of matching black panties. “Me, either,” she whispered, eyes shining. “I love you, Mason.”

“And I love—” His words ended in a swiftly drawn breath as Lark lifted her arms, drawing her dress over her head in one smooth motion.

Mason saw the filmy red fabric float to the ground from the corner of his eye, but his attention was all for Lark. Lark, standing in front of him in nothing but a bra and tiny black underwear that made her skimpy bathing suit from the other day seem positively modest in comparison, all her curves on display, every dip and hollow practically begging for his lips to explore them. The black satin emphasized the pale beauty of her skin, making her seem to glow in the dim light. Like a goddess, something too beautiful to be of the everyday world.

“Okay,” she said, fingers tangling in front of her. “Now you’re making me nervous.”

“You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

She blew air out from between pursed lips. “I am not. I need to lose fifteen pounds. Or twenty,” she said, eyes darting from the ceiling to the door. “But I probably won’t ever lose a pound because I love food too much, and I feel healthy the way I am, so I don’t see why I should—”

“You’re perfect the way you are,” Mason said, crossing the room to her in three long steps, gathering her into his arms, his pulse leaping as his hands found the soft skin where her waist began to curve into her hips and squeezed just hard enough to make Lark’s eyes darken.

“You don’t need to lose a pound,” he continued, drawing her closer, his hands skimming up and down her sides, from her hips to the sides of her breasts and back again as he backed her toward the bed. “In fact, I’d be angry if you did.”

“Is that right?” Lark asked in a breathy voice. Her knees hit the bed and she scooted on top, sliding back toward the pillows as Mason kicked off his shoes and pulled at his socks. “Well, I wouldn’t want to make you angry.”

“No, you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.” He quickly worked open the buttons on his shirt, shrugged it off, and reached for the bottom of his undershirt, tugging it impatiently over his head.

“But I do,” Lark said, chest rising and falling faster as her gaze skimmed down his bare chest to where his hands were busy at the close of his pants. “Your eyes do sexy, flashy things when you’re angry.”

“Sexy, flashy things?” He held her eyes as he dropped his pants to the ground and stepped out of them, wearing nothing but black boxer briefs that he knew did nothing to conceal how she affected him.

“Yep,” she breathed, reaching a hand toward him. “Now, get up here. I really need to touch you. Everywhere.”

She didn’t have to ask him twice. A second later, he was on the bed with Lark beneath him, her arms wrapped around his neck as their lips met for the first time in four long years.

Warm, soft skin, met warmer, softer skin and for a second Mason forgot how to breathe. Her kiss was like an electrical storm sweeping through his nervous system, short-circuiting the usual pathways, leaving him to hack out a new way to feel, a new way to experience what she did to him.

Their mouths moved slowly at first, testing, exploring, and then the tip of her tongue teased along Mason’s bottom lip and slow was a thing of the past. Mouths opened and heads angled and soon Mason was lost in the taste of her, the feel of her mouth so alive against his own, the softness of her body as she squirmed beneath him, hips lifting, legs parting to wrap around his waist, drawing him tight to the heat between her thighs.

He groaned, pressing against her, the thin barriers of his boxers and her panties too much and not enough at the same time.

“Wait,” he said through gritted teeth, pulling away, putting a few inches of air between them. “We have to slow down.”

“I don’t want to slow down,” Lark said, pulling at his neck, urging him closer once more. “I want you.”

“And I want you, you have no idea how much,” Mason said, scooting down and reaching behind her back to unhook her bra, using both hands, knowing he was already too unsteady to manage it with just one. “But I still have unfinished business.”

Lark arched her back, giving him easier access to the close of her bra, bringing her breasts within inches of his mouth in the process. He groaned again as he freed the hooks from their clasps and pulled the bra off Lark’s arms before tossing it to the floor.

There she was, bare to his mouth for the very first time. Back when they were dating, he’d touched Lark just about everywhere, but always under the bra or over the panties. They’d never let themselves get more than partially undressed, knowing they wouldn’t be able to keep their promise to wait until they were engaged and living together if all their clothes came off.

But now… Now…

Mason closed his eyes for a second and opened them again, still not completely sure this wasn’t a dream. She was even more beautiful than he’d imagined. Her full breasts a creamy white, and her nipples the palest shade of pink drawn into tight points that practically begged for him to taste them.

He dropped his head, brushing soft kisses to the petal soft underside of her breast, bringing his mouth to hover just above her nipple before drawing her into his mouth.

“God, Mason.” Lark’s breath shuddered out as she drove shaking fingers through his hair, urging him closer. “That feels… I can’t even describe it.”

Mason sucked with a gentle pressure, teasing her with slow circles of his tongue until she whimpered and her fingers fisted in his hair.

“Please,” Lark begged. “Please, Mason.”

“I’m not finished yet,” Mason said, ignoring the throbbing, aching, almost bruised sensation between his legs.

He wanted Lark so badly it was painful, but he didn’t want to rush. He wanted to take his time, drive her to the very edge, until she was so ready that there would be no doubt that he’d feel her body grip him as he pushed inside her wet heat. He wanted her to come with him moving inside her, to come so hard the force of her orgasm would banish the memory of any man but him.

He might not be her first, but he was going to be her last, and he was going to make sure tonight was a night neither of them would ever forget.