Entwined Secrets (6 page)

His eyes lock with mine. I can’t help thinking that he’s more exposed to me now than ever before. The dark secret he carries is very close to the surface now. This is how it makes him feel. He wants me to know.

Mason is laying himself bare to me, expressing his feelings without saying anything at all, the moment before penetration. The moment before he loses himself inside me, when his mind stops thinking and his body takes over.

I pull his face forward and kiss him with abandon, smudging paint onto his face. Mason lifts me off the counter and I instinctively wrap my legs around his back, gripping his shoulders at the same time. Then, before I realize it, he’s plunged inside of me. I surround him, enveloping this attentive man, and take him completely.

Mason has lingered for almost seven days. We’ve lain with each other to distraction during that time, to our great and mutual pleasure, but this is something else. Something more dangerous and precarious. My heart is pounding.

The honesty of this feeling is setting off all kinds of alarms in my head. Alarms that are getting louder. Alarms that are desperate to be heard.

I ignore them all.

I could say the words that siphon Mason’s lust, like I did last night, and let my coven know I’m lying with a man again. I could, but I don’t. Still rebelling.

I keep kissing him instead. I can’t kiss him fast enough for some reason. Suddenly I want to swallow him whole. My lips are failing me. They aren’t doing what I want them to do, but that doesn’t stop me from trying.

I drive my fingers through his hair. I want to take away the pain Mason hides from me. The loneliness he felt before we met. I want to smother it from his heart and lighten whatever burden he is carrying.

Mason has shown me his secret today, tucked away for an entire week behind fun and frivolity. This isn’t superficial anymore, and he knows it too. Is no less surprised than I am. This was unplanned. We’re both off balance.

Oh, Mason, what have we done? This wasn’t supposed to be anything more than a fling. Wasn’t that our unspoken agreement? Now we’ve gone and turned it into something else.

Dammit. I should have made it clear what I wanted from the start, but I didn’t. Now it’s become something more. A relationship with possibilities. This potential for anything exists now, and there’s little to be done about it.

Mason holds me up in his arms. I gaze at his face as he lifts and lowers me, leaving me breathless with each thrust. I wrap my fingers behind his neck, lean back, and swivel my hips provocatively. Mason measures his breath, trying to hold back.

I push my engorged nub against his stomach, wanting him to let go. Wanting him to not care about my orgasm, to simply take his pleasure from my body. Give in to that urge.

The good lovers service you first. The bad ones only take care of themselves. Every man is selfish sooner or later. They try to stay in the room, but the feeling overwhelms them, and they disappear.

Mason’s eyes starts to close. His face strains. It won’t be long now.

Then his eyes bolt open again. He senses my gaze and meets it head-on, lucid again. He wants me to know it. I almost had him but he brought himself back.

Mason carries me to a bathroom wall, pushes my back against it, and changes his angle inside me. He becomes an unforgiving hammer against the back of my sheath, knowing I love this feeling. It’s the off switch for my brain.

My arms float above my head. I try to touch the ceiling, bouncing up and down on his root. Mason throbs inside of me. Throbs, but doesn’t release. The bastard! He’s taking advantage of the tight fit. He’s trying to drive me wild, and it’s working.

Wait. It
is
working. Mason is doing to me what I was just doing to him!

My eyes snap open. I need to control myself, turn the tide against him, and chip away at his discipline. I reach for the upper shower crossbar and pull us away from the wall, my legs still wrapped around him.

The glass door is open. I duck under the bar and keep Mason inside me, supporting much of my own weight now. Now I can milk him with my legs.

I crank my hips in a circle and tighten every thigh muscle, savoring his length between my legs. Mason grabs my hips, no longer needing to hold me up, and begins to pummel me with abandon. His eyes go lazy with yearning. Good, that means I’m winning.

It’s hard to hold myself up on the bar, but it feels like Mason’s close. I just need to keep this up for a few more seconds. I can get him there. Mason is clearly enjoying the position. He’s breathing heavily, but I am too. My cheeks are full of air, and I breathe through the exhaustion of hanging here.

That’s when Mason notices my fatigue. His hands move under my back and take up my weight again. A good thing, too. I was about to fall.

Mason kneels on the bathroom floor, bringing me with him. It’s the same way we made love that first time on the embankment beside the river. The landscape I’ve been painting for him. The landscape he painted on me today.

Wait, did I just say
made love
?

Focus, Jess! You’re having a fling with a really hot guy, that’s all. A man who takes care of you when you’re painting. Who shops for groceries when they’re running low. Who paints your body with the focus of a Dutch Master. Who understands how to live with you without getting in your way.

A man who understands you on a fundamental level and trumps every other guy you have ever known.

Dammit!

Mason is looking up at me curiously. It’s as if he can hear the turmoil in my head. I shake my head, trying to dislodge the thoughts, but they aren’t going anywhere. He’s cradling my entire ribcage in his large hands, which I love. The size of him compared to me.

I place my hands on his shoulders and loop my hips, stroking him with my nethers. There’s no use fighting it anymore. I’m not turning off his brain any more than he’s turning off mine. We both gave it a shot. We both failed.

He wants me to join him. To meet him halfway. Mason doesn’t want to fuck me. He wants to make love to me. And if I have to come clean… if I must be honest with myself… I want that too.

I stand up off his lap, turn around, and lower myself down again, sidesaddling him. Eager to have him back inside me again. I twist around and plant a kiss on his waiting lips.

I keep my eyes open, wanting to see how he will react, if he can sense the difference. The change in me. I am officially dropping my façade, Mason Boone. I am no longer a good-time girl. I am giving myself to you. All of me. Mind and body. Is this what you want?

My eyes make the point. It should be clear through my gaze, but Mason has to figure it out for himself. He has to get there on his own. Two can play this wordless game.

If Mason is going to talk to me without using words, then I’m going to do the same. I’m practiced at this form of communication. Fluent. Until now, however, I never met anybody who could speak it as well. This is when I find out whether Mason understands me like I understand him.

That’s when he leans over slightly, keeps his warm brown eyes open, and kisses me more tenderly than I ever thought possible.

A swarm of butterflies erupts in my belly.

Oh, Mason. Oh bloody hellions, Mason. Where did you come from?

He slips one arm under my legs and his other around my back, cradling me. Mason stands up, lifting me off him, and carries me to the standing shower. It feels like I’m flying, like we’re crossing a threshold.

Mason places me on my feet and reaches back to close the door behind us. The shadow is just big enough for the both of us.

He turns the handle and uses his body to shield me from the cold water until it warms up. Then he takes a bar of soap, spins it around in his hands, and kneels in front of me. Mason is going to clean the paint off my body. He’s going to wash me with the same attention to detail with which he painted me in the first place.

His hands run up and down my front, from my toes to my neck, scrubbing the paint wherever he finds it. He doesn’t scratch me once. His touch is gentle, but rigorous. Every fleck of paint is removed. It’s more like a massage than a cleaning, one that is sorely needed. I didn’t realize how much until now.

Mason finds all the places where my body craves the attention of his hands. No prompting from me whatsoever. I don’t want this scrubbing to end, and lucky for me, for the longest time it doesn’t feel like it ever will.

I lose track of time, and Mason is thorough. I eventually have to brace myself, holding on to the shower neck for support until he finishes me off.

My face is last. He uses the shower sponge and is almost unbearably tender. He washes the creases of my nostrils, the hollow under my lips, the space behind my ears. Then he takes the showerhead and rinses me off, stroking my brunette curls straight.

He douses my flesh until nothing but pink skin remains. The shallow basin of the shower is a pool of color beneath our feet. I’m kind of sad it’s over, but glad I took a picture.

Mason hangs up the showerhead and turns back to me. He is no longer the painter. I am no longer a canvas. It’s just the two of us alone in the shower.

That’s when, without warning, his hand goes straight to my neck and he pins me against the shower wall.

“I tried, Jess,” he says in a strained growl. “I tried to keep him at bay.”

Mason is not quite choking me, but his strength is monstrous. His other hand grabs my breast roughly. Is this the same man I spent the past week getting to know? The kindness of that man is nowhere to be seen. I stand before a muscular stranger instead, naked and at his mercy.

His mouth falls to the breast in his hand, suckling my nipple. He flicks it with his tongue until it becomes erect, then takes the flesh between his teeth and pulls. I gasp at the pain and pleasure commingling. Mason is all surprises today.

His fingers deftly slip between my legs and press for more access. It’s not hard to find. I’m already aroused from his ministrations, and instantly accept him. His digits push against the roof of my cavern, draw back against the button, and then push over and over again.

Mason is eager now—impatient, even. Like a man stepping out of the desert. This feels like starvation being sated.

Mason spins my body around and pushes me up against the shower wall. He grabs both wrists and raises them above my head, holding them in one of his meaty hands. I knew he was strong, but I didn’t know how strong until this moment. I couldn’t break loose if I tried, but I don’t. I’m still too surprised by what’s going on.

Mason slaps his length against my ass, bouncing himself against my backside. Exciting my flesh. Getting me ready for what comes next.

He slides his member until the head peeks out between my legs. The veins are more distended with blood than I’ve ever seen. This is exciting for him in an entirely new way. Not just that, but he’s showing off, pleased with how aroused he is.

Mason wants me to know that he’s in complete control of my body. That I’m his to command. He pulls his appendage back from between my legs and ploughs himself up my fitted sheath, except it’s a not a perfect fit anymore.

My eyes bolt open. Mason was already a snug before, but this… this is unprecedented. Not just for him, but for me too. His width actually forces my legs apart. My nethers can barely accommodate him. Mason is so much bigger than before.

It doesn’t slow Mason down in the least. His rhythm is energized and wild. His tight ballsac slaps up against me from behind. I realize now that Mason was warning me about this. The dark secret he keeps bottled up. The feral side of his personality.

I’m seeing it for the first time now.

Suddenly my hands are free. Mason wheels me around by the hips until my face is pressed against the shower door. I have no choice but to brace myself against the glass. The shower pelts my back as the water runs down between us. Fortunately, I’m not even close to drying out yet. My girl has every intention of making sure I’m kept moist and wet.

Mason slams against the back of my cavern. The little shocks I used to feel when he did that are more like bolts of lightning now. My breath can’t keep up with him. My nethers, however, have other ideas.

A shock wave is growing within me. It ripples outward across the surface of my freshly scrubbed skin. Not only am I going to come all over Mason’s impossibly large
imposition
, but it’s going to feel incredible.

My face flushes, but he can’t see that. Mason has no way of knowing if I am actually aroused or frightened by his dark secret. Not that it would matter to him either way right now.

The eruption bursts out of me unbidden. I shriek like a banshee as the orgasm rips through my body. There’s no choice in the matter, no ability to hold back. Mason is taking me by force and I’m loving it.

That’s when the vision falls on me.

My world of steam and water resolves to perfect diamond clarity. I am looking through the shower glass, out the bathroom door, into my bedroom, at the canvas that I have been working on for the past week.

There, in the place where I haven’t painted anything yet, where I had just decided to add a new detail in the foreground, is the deer, already completed.

Then, emerging out of the forest in the background, where the embankment overlooks the river, a wolf stalks into view.

I get it. This is all my doing. I tempted this loner into my life, like a maiden eager to shed her peasant dress.

I’m beginning to suspect that there’s more to Mason than meets the eye, but for right now, I intend to enjoy every moment.

Growling during sex is such a turn-on. It’s always been a trigger for me, the primal sound of a man’s lust. Guttural. Rising up from deep within him, especially when he releases. The way he inflates the moment beforehand, hardening to powerful rigidity, right before he throbs out of himself in pulsing waves. Launching himself inside me.

The growl lets me know he’s satisfied. It’s the perfect barometer for pleasure. First, it lets me know that he’s in touch with his baser nature. Second, that he’s pleased with his conquest. That I’m wanted. All of which is confirmed by how firm and unbending he becomes. I savor that moment, that animalistic sound, especially when he’s already serviced my pleasure. And Mason has most definitely done that.