Veiled Desire (2 page)

Her fingers were going to be busy tonight.

Mason Barrett leaned back against his bathroom door and frowned down at his erection.

That had been one of the sexiest, most erotic things he’d ever done. And he hadn’t even touched the woman.

The steam from the running shower curled around him, licking against his fevered flesh. The mirror was already completely covered in steam. He could only see a vague form of himself. Leyla had received a much clearer shot of his body. Mason exhaled and wrapped his hand around his cock.

He’d been exhausted when he’d come home from a long shift at the E.R., wanting nothing more than to strip out of his rumpled clothes, drink a beer, get rid of his fellow resident yammering on the phone and catch a game on TV.

He’d only done the first two when he caught Leyla sitting on her porch swing, staring right at him. Or more appropriately, at his body. Her porch and house were dark, but their homes were close enough that the light from his living room clearly illuminated her.

His first instinct had been embarrassment. Underwear modeling wasn’t exactly something he listed on his resume. In that minute, though, he’d glimpsed the same hunger on her face that he often felt when he was near her. Using the split-second decision skills that he honed at work, he’d decided to see how far she would take it.

Far, he’d found out. The stripping-to-his-skin brilliance had been the work of the devil inside him. When he’d glanced over at her, she’d been obviously affected. Her eyes were closed, but she was practically panting, her small breasts visibly rising and falling. Poor thing.

He smiled without humor, his palm smoothing over the sensitive head of his dick. He knew exactly how she felt. He’d felt the same way last Labor Day, when he, Sasha and Leyla had gone to Sarasota for the weekend.

She’d forgotten her bathing suit, so she’d had to purchase one from a gift shop. Normally, she wore conservative black one-pieces, usually covered with a pair of shorts. He didn’t know if it had been necessity or some evil streak that had prompted her to purchase and wear the bright red bikini.

He stroked his cock now harder, rougher, just thinking about it. When she’d walked up to his chair in that suit, it had been like she had reached out and stripped whatever filters had been over his eyes. Suddenly she wasn’t just prim and tidy Leyla, his best friend’s big sister, his own surrogate sister. She was tiny and petite, but her fragile curves had filled out that suit perfectly. The wet spandex had clung to her firm teacup-sized tits so well, he could have measured her nipples, even though they hadn’t been hard. The bottom had sleeked over her small round ass, and her belly, while not muscular, had looked flat and soft.

Her waist-length dark brown hair had been lit by red highlights, her skin glowing from the sun, her big eyes soft and luminous. No longer someone’s sister, in his eyes, she’d transformed into a sexy, hot, amazing woman.

In his fantasies, he’d gotten up off that lounger, pulled her up against him, shoved those scraps of red aside, tongued her nipples until they were hard, fucked her against the hot sand…

His spine tingled. His breath hissed out between his clenched teeth, and he grabbed a tissue from the vanity to cover himself when he came. The pleasure was nice, but God, he was sick of jerking off to thoughts of Leyla.

Since he’d seen her in that getup, it was the only sex he’d had. After more people had started to arrive on the beach, it had been like she lost her nerve to wear the daring suit. Her skin had flushed, but not from the heat of the sun, and she’d pulled on an oversized T-shirt, concealing her luscious little booty.

Too late, too bad, so sad. His view of her had shifted, and he couldn’t take it back. He’d awkwardly made his excuses and left, trying to conceal his boner behind a towel. After he’d beat off, the shame and recriminations had come.

He’d known Leyla since he was ten. His single dad, and Leyla and Sasha’s parents, had died together in a car crash when he and Sasha were sixteen. He’d practically moved into their house, and twenty-year-old Leyla had been their rock. He’d thought of her the same way Sasha did, as a motherly big sister.

No, wait, he’d never quite put the same halo and wings on Leyla that Sasha did. One of their mutual friends had asked Mason if it was their family’s Iranian culture that influenced Sasha to treat Leyla with so much reverence. Mason didn’t think so. As a cop, Sash ran into women from all walks of life, and he treated them all with respect, but not to such a ridiculous level. To Sasha, Leyla was inviolate, and Leyla did a pretty good job of living up to that standard. She didn’t sleep around with men she wasn’t in a relationship with—and those were few, as far as he could tell, a fiancé years ago and casual dates since then—she didn’t dress in an overtly sexual manner, and if she’d ever sown any wild oats, she’d done it far away from their sight.

Busy with school and then work, he’d never been much of a player, but after he’d noticed Leyla, no other woman would do. He’d sought her out, trying to make sense of his feelings. When he’d heard that the house behind hers was for rent, he’d made up some sort of nonsense about the apartment he was living in, broke his lease and moved in.

Mason snorted. He was one lock of hair away from being a stalker.

He couldn’t help it though. Living close together, he’d taken every opportunity he could to throw himself in her path. Every minute he spent with her alone, he’d realized that glimpse of her on the beach had been right. She wasn’t a saint. She was a woman, a warm, passionate, sexy woman. It amazed him that it had taken him so long to realize that.

He’d started to wonder if she’d ever see him as anything but the roly-poly ten-year-old who’d put frogs in her bed. Until tonight. Until he’d seen that hungry, needy arousal on her face. Because she was looking at him, at his body.

Mason’s mouth firmed. It wasn’t just wishful thinking. She couldn’t fake that kind of desire. He’d be damned if he’d wait another six months while she struggled with her feelings. He’d had some half-baked plan to do something drastic this Valentine’s Day anyway, and dinner was the perfect excuse. He’d seduce her, overcome whatever worries she might have, until she couldn’t think past the fact that she needed him.

Like he needed her.

Leyla felt a little guilty for ducking out of the insanity that was retail right before a holiday. Not guilty enough to go back inside, though.

She leaned against the brick wall of the building. Ten minutes. They can hold the fort for ten minutes. Then you can go back inside and deal with crazy customers.

Her pocket vibrated and she pulled the phone out. Mason.

Would she ever be able to think of him clothed? Or had last night’s peeping incident completely ruined her for life?

She was tempted to just stick the thing back in her pocket, but it would drive her crazy for the rest of the day. Leyla was physically incapable of not answering Sasha’s and Mason’s calls, and they were well aware of that. She’d never grown out of the fear that something had happened to one or both of them. She laughingly told them it was leftover trauma from when they’d tried to jump off the roof or microwave aluminum as children. In actuality, it was too similar to the way she’d learned about their parents’ deaths, her uncle’s tear-ravaged voice telling her to come home.

She clicked the talk button. “What’s up?”

“Hey. Sorry to call you at work. Do you mind if I use my emergency key to get into your house?”

They had swapped their spare keys when he’d moved in. Normally she would have said yes without hesitation, but now she frantically tried to remember if she had anything embarrassing lying out. A bra drying on her bathroom doorknob? Her vibrator lying on her bed? Explicit erotic romance novels strewn over her couch? “Do you need something?”

His voice turned slightly mischievous. “I have a gift for you. Please? I’ll be in and out quickly.”

Leyla capitulated, a bit curious. “Okay. Go ahead.”

“Thanks.”

She felt a little embarrassed that she’d even questioned him, particularly since he was apparently leaving something for her. “And um, you know you don’t have to ask. You can just come in. Even if I’m not there.”

He was silent for a moment. She fidgeted with a loose thread on the hem of her shirt. Was that going over the bounds of friendship? Surely not. “Thanks. Same here. Come in whenever.”

“Leyla, we need you back inside.”

She glanced over her shoulder at her sales assistant and tried not to feel as though she’d been caught smoking by the school principal. Playing hooky and chatting on the cell phone? Shame on her. “Sure. Um, thanks, sir, for all your help with that computer issue.”

Mason chuckled. “No problem. Talk to you later.”

The day passed in a blur of silk and satin. By the time she trudged through her door at ten, she’d almost forgotten about Mason’s phone call.

Luckily, he’d left a note right on her kitchen island. With a small smile, she dropped her purse and picked up the notepad. His handwriting was abysmal—typical doctor, he liked to boast—but she was able to make out the words. Check your fridge.

Her fridge? She opened her fridge to find her yogurts and wilting head of lettuce pushed to the side to make way for a small cooler. Leyla pulled the soft bag out and placed it on her counter.

Each dish inside was individually and neatly packed. A tossed salad, fettuccine alfredo and a large slice of chocolate cake. And another note, as well: I don’t care how tired you are, eat it!

The words blurred in front of her, and she had to blink the tears away. This was…so sweet. No one, not even her loving brother, had done something so obviously caring for her without her asking in a long time. He’d known she had worked like a dog all day and would be hungry, so he’d provided food he knew she loved. Simple as that.

She ate the salad while the pasta heated up in her microwave. Her first bite of the fettuccine confirmed her suspicions: homemade. She was always a bit in awe of Mason’s culinary skills. Cooking was one of her more dreaded chores.

She nibbled—okay, scarfed down—the cake as she wandered into the living room. Mason’s house lay dark and deserted, and she experienced a bit of a let down. Night calls. They would have opposite schedules for the next couple of days.

She had to show him her gratitude and appreciation somehow, though. How?

~ * ~

Mason groaned and slapped at the offending alarm on his nightstand.

Why had he set the alarm? He had all day to sleep. For that matter, when had he set his alarm? He’d been awake all night, so all he’d had energy to do when he came in was toe off his shoes and fall into bed.

Mason rose up on his elbows and blinked at his nightstand. The alarm clock was blurry but silent. Four in the afternoon? He still had a couple of hours to sleep.

The ringing was coming from his front door, interspaced by heavy knocks. He stumbled out of his room and tried to right himself against the wall. Sleeping was his friend. He hadn’t had so much as a wink of it the night before. Didn’t matter if it was the Fourth of July or Christmas, taking night calls the week before any major holiday was a nightmare in the E.R. He’d had three suicide attempts, one fatal, and then a whole host of other patients who seemed to want to just come in for trivial matters because the evening was more convenient and they wanted to go out to dinner over the weekend.

The fogginess receded as he made his way to the front door. The pounding stopped just a minute before he unlatched and threw open the door.

He found Sasha about to step off the porch. His friend turned and relief flared in his eyes before he spoke into the cell phone at his ear. “Never mind. He just answered the door. Yeah, thanks. Yes, he looks fine, don’t worry.” Sasha thumbed the phone off and narrowed his dark eyes. “What the hell took you so long to answer?”

Mason glared back. He was tired, damn it. “I was sleeping. I had to work all night.”

Sasha didn’t pay much attention to his forbidding expression. He shouldered right past him into the small foyer. “Next time keep your phone next to you. Your car was in your driveway, and you weren’t answering for a solid ten minutes. I was about to break into your back door.”

I was worried. His friend was too macho to say the words, no doubt, but they lingered between them. Mason’s anger deflated a bit. Sash had always been a bit overprotective and suspicious, but becoming a cop had only exacerbated those tendencies. Other than Leyla, Mason knew Sasha considered him the only family he had, and the feeling was mutual. “I did give you a key for a reason, you know.”

“I left it at home. I have Leyla’s so I called her to see if she had yours, but she said it was with her.”

“You called Leyla? Why the fuck did you do that? You know she worries.” She tried to hide it, but he knew how much she dreaded bad news over the phone.

Sasha cast him a strange look. “I told her you were fine before I hung up. Relax.” Dismissing the conversation, he strolled through the kitchen and then stopped. “Did you turn over a new leaf or something? I’ve never seen your place so tidy.”

Tidy? Mason frowned and followed Sasha into his kitchen.

If he didn’t know better, he would swear a little army of elves had come in while he was sleeping. His counter was empty, the pile of dirty dishes in the sink gone, the papers on his breakfast table stacked in rows. What the hell?

Sasha walked over to the table and stroked a finger over the wild rose in a small bud vase sitting in the center. He glanced at Mason under his thick eyelashes. “Did I need to bring you flowers?”

“Fuck you.” His reply was automatic, his gaze caught on the orange and yellow petals. It had come from Leyla’s backyard. He’d helped her plant the bush. She’d done this?

Sasha picked up the bundled newspaper on the table. “You were dead tired, but still managed to pick up the newspaper this morning?” He flashed the date at him.

He didn’t get the paper, but Leyla did. This morning, she must have gotten up early and done all of this. A rush of warmth filled his chest, but he tried to focus on Sasha’s question. Damn cop eyes. “Yeah. I got it this morning.” He walked farther into the room and caught a flash of pink on the barren counter. He did not own pink Post-Its.

Casually, like his heart wasn’t hopping in his chest, he strolled over and covered the note with his hand. When Sasha glanced down at the paper, he curled his hand around it and slipped it into the back pocket of his scrubs. If Leyla had written something to him, it was nobody’s business but the two of theirs.

It’s not a love letter. You realize this, right?

Didn’t matter. It was his.

“So why are you harassing me anyway?”

Sasha dropped the paper to the table with a sigh. “I’m worried about Leyla.”

His heart stopped. “Is something wrong with her?”

“Nah. Not health wise, at least. She seems weird lately.”

“Weird…how?”

“Distracted. Like she has something on her mind.” Sasha shook his head. “I’m worried that the holiday might be depressing her, that she might be lonely.”

This was it. The perfect opening. “You think she needs a man?”

“Hell no.”

Mason tried not to look as deflated as he felt. “Oh.”

Sasha ran his fingers through his short black curls. If it was possible for such a large and powerfully built man to look helpless, Sasha was there. “What if someone takes advantage of her when she’s in this vulnerable state? That’s what I can’t stop thinking about.”

“Would it be so bad?”

“What?”

“You know. If Leyla was seeing someone.”

A scowl crossed Sasha’s face. “I’m not a chauvinist. I think it’s fine for Leyla to see anyone she wants.”

His best friend’s words were saying one thing, his clenched fists another. “She’s going to have a steady relationship again one of these days, you know.”

“I get that.” Sasha stuck his hands in his back pockets. “I just want to make sure it’s with someone who will treat her like she deserves.”

“Someone you like. Someone you respect.”

“Yeah. Right.”

When they’d been eleven, he and Sasha had cut their palms, mixed their blood and made a solemn vow of honesty. The code of blood brothers urged him to confess all right now. Sash, I’ve been lusting after your big sister for a while. She’s really hot. While I was doing that, I kind of sort of fell madly in love with her. Would you like some coffee?

It wasn’t just his sense of self-preservation that stopped him—though he could imagine Sasha’s powerful fist flying at anyone who used the words “lust” and “sister” in the same sentence. Mainly, it felt wrong to confess all to Sasha first. Leyla and he were the principals in this equation. He needed to talk to her first.

Still, he couldn’t resist testing the waters. “Maybe she’ll end up dating one of your friends. Can’t have fault with that, right?”

Sasha stared at him for a minute and then chuckled. “Yeah, okay. Get real. Who’s she gonna fall for? Bruno? Alex?”

Me.
“It could happen.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Why not?”

Sasha waved a hand, dismissing him. “For one thing, most of our friends are younger than her. Leyla’s so mature. She needs someone in their late thirties. Maybe forties. Someone who won’t dick her around, just marry her and keep her happy.”

Fuck, now he was getting irritated. And just a tiny bit jealous of this perfect mate Sasha had apparently conjured for his sister. “I think Leyla could use a bit of fun in her life. She had to grow up way too fast.” So had he, but he didn’t have that super-serious core Leyla had. What the hell was she going to do with a tight-assed older man? Someone who was too set in their ways to coax Leyla out of her shell? Screw that.

“Nah. Trust me. She’d wind up just playing mommy to the guy if he was our age. You know how maternal she is.”

Mason stared at Sasha. Maternal. Like cleaning-up-a-kitchen and throwing-some-flowers-around and placing-his-paper-on-the-table maternal. Like always-picking-up-his-phone-calls maternal.

Maybe it hadn’t been hunger on her face when she’d looked at him through his window. Maybe it had been disgust, like if a mom saw her son naked. No, surely not.

Christ. Maternal.

As his stomach rolled a bit, he tried to pay attention to Sasha’s words. “Maybe I will ask around at work or the gym, see if I can’t find out if anyone’s single.” Sasha’s smile was just a bit evil. “I’ll run their background check up and down first, of course.” He walked over and slapped Mason on the back. “Thanks for the idea, buddy.”

“No problem.” The irony of him being credited for Sasha playing matchmaker for his sister and some random guy was not lost on him.

“In the meantime, I was going to see if I could call off my date on Valentine’s and spend time with Leyla. I don’t want her feeling—”

“No!”

Sasha blinked at him.

He tried to moderate his tone. “I mean, your girl will be pissed.”

“Eh. We’re not that serious. Honestly, when she suggested it, I didn’t even realize what night it was.”

Sasha may not be serious, but Mason was willing to bet the woman wasn’t so blasé. “You don’t have to worry. Leyla and I made plans.”

He waited for Sasha to jump into his usual suspicious mode, a bit relieved to have the truth out there, but instead, his friend shook his head and walked over to him. He tensed, expecting a punch.

Sasha’s hand came down on his shoulder and he squeezed. His face was sober. “Wow. I’m the luckiest guy. I can’t tell you how happy I am that you’re looking out for Leyla. I rest a lot easier at night knowing someone I trust is right here for her.”

Damn, but that blood-brother bond was thick. He smiled weakly as the thumbscrews of guilt twisted a bit tighter. “Thanks. She’s important to me too.” Sasha couldn’t know how much. “Hey, I need to shower.” He tried to imperceptibly remove Sasha’s hand from his shoulder. All that misplaced faith and gratitude had a way of making a man itchy.

“No problem. I’ll see myself out. Thanks again.”

Mason mumbled a goodbye. He waited until the door shut behind his friend before digging in his pocket for the note. Dinner was perfect. I can’t cook like you, but I tried. Sleep first, then eat.

A smile lifted some of his depression, and he opened his fridge. His blue cooler sat on the top shelf. He withdrew it and set it on his counter.