She drew a breath to laugh, but inhaled sweet shaving cream underscored by pure masculinity. Mason didn’t use cologne. Didn’t go for fancy or expensive. Just him. Anything more would be overkill. But she doubted he knew that.
He deepened the kiss again, and she focused on the sensation of his mouth against hers—the firm rasp and seal and broken gasp of his touch. The past few days had tormented her with sensations; now she wanted fulfillment. She wanted this, wanted to be able to lose herself, just once as she’d never allowed herself before, and this was the man with whom she could.
“Cari,” he murmured against her.
She nodded, breath broken, in answer. Just Mason.
He initiated a conversation in an old language she didn’t know, but in spite of the thumping of her heart, found she could understand perfectly. His mouth said, I want you. I need you. I’m hungry for you. And she responded by wrapping an arm around his neck and repeating the words back in her own feminine dialect.
This was just the beginning. She knew it. Every nerve was sparkling, her blood going golden again in anticipation.
And with the currents of energy came a dark stirring, like a panic. Cari lifted herself above it. Denied the surge of Shadow. Closed herself viciously to any unwanted company. No magic tonight. Not that kind, at least.
She gave him her body with an upward arch, and took his, an arm around to his back, nails scoring for purchase, a hand fisted in his hair. She wanted one night away from her constant companion. A night with someone she knew she shouldn’t trust, but did anyway.
And he lifted her, his mouth sliding to her neck. His teeth snagged her ear and she cringed and giggled.
“Ticklish, eh?” He said it as if storing up weaknesses to exploit.
“Don’t you dare,” she warned.
He laid her across the bed the wrong way, and she wondered how he thought this was going to work with half his big, long body hanging off the side of the bed. But he was cleverer than she, because with one push of his arm the blanket and sheet fell off the foot of the bed.
“I’m always cold,” she told him. A girl sometimes needed an artfully-placed sheet.
“I’ll cover you.”
Oh.
Thwarted. Now there was no way to hide the worst of her healing scars. On a man they looked like heroic bullet wounds, and his were even faked. Hers were just ugly.
He must have noticed her nerves. In one fluid gesture, he stripped off her sweatshirt. The sudden change in temperature made her nipples harden. Of course he noticed that, too. Mason noticed everything.
He stroked the underside of one of her breasts with the back of his fingertips. She tensed. Exposed. She was used to hiding in so many ways. Shadow was her refuge. But then he bowed his head and blew warm air across that same bit of sensitive skin, and her tightened muscles quivered. Her core fluttered, an ache beating between her legs.
He looked up again, black gaze sharp, assessing. One side of his mouth curled in satisfaction. “Interesting.”
His mouth moved down to her hip. The heat from his breath warmed her, but when he raked his teeth down a dip beneath her belly button, she surprised herself by whimpering aloud.
His gaze flicked up to assess her again, lingering on her lips before his own stretched into a wide grin. “Excellent.”
And then she knew what he was after, and it was too late to back out, to get him to stop, to throw up walls between them. What had she been thinking? This was Mason. He was going to unlock her body’s every secret, find her out, and then there’d be nowhere she could hide. He was after mastery.
He slid a little lower and blew heat onto her bare abdomen. She clutched inside, wet and hot already, effortlessly, and barely noticed that her sweatpants and underwear were gone. He was moving again. With one arm under her shoulders, he maneuvered her onto the pillows, semi correcting their position. But she understood now—the bed no longer had an up/down orientation. The covers were gone, the pillows soon to be askew. This place was merely a soft tableau upon which Mason would know her. And by now she’d fully realized he planned to investigate her thoroughly.
And if she had an iota of sense or courage left, she’d learn him too. Mason Stray, hers for the night. She couldn’t believe it. This kind of thing didn’t happen to her, and yet, she was pretty sure it had been her idea. She’d lost a chance once, she wasn’t about to lose it again. He’d get as good as he gave.
She went for the base of his neck, where flexed muscles met and crossed, and she stroked with her mouth. Kissed him there, more tentatively than she’d have liked. Made herself tremble, but his breathing cut off, mid-inhalation. A small victory, but hers nonetheless.
He lifted her arm and heated the tender skin on the inside of her elbow, just above one of her recent scars. The touch made her ache differently, to feel so beautiful, when she was obviously flawed in that spot. He was smiling as he dragged his mouth up her arm and began a dual exploration—breath at her nape, which she knew was a tactical diversion, a hand skimming down low across her belly, to the curve of her hip to coax her closer.
She found herself straddling one of his legs, her hot core flush against his thigh. Shocked, she rocked her hips in protest and collusion, perilous beats of pleasure traveling to her toes and collecting deep.
He remained braced above her, discovering with heat first, then a rough hand on willing skin. She didn’t tense when he tried the underside of her breast again. She inhaled and lifted into his palm, which earned her a groan from him. He was careful with her hurts and possessive of her secret places, priming with soft strokes that incited recklessness.
She grabbed hold of his hair and possessed him, too, by kissing him deep and hard, with the pent-up yearning of years. His weight came down and his torso went flush with her bare breasts, sizzling with impossible heat. She might not have the bedroom skills others did, but when he finally drew back, his eyes were dark and hungry, as if he’d gone without for too long himself, maybe his whole life. He looked at her with the longing of a hundred years.
It was his fault—she fought angry tears—because he’d stayed with Liv. He’d chosen Liv, when Cari had wanted him more than anything. She would’ve run away with him. She would’ve left House and family behind just to feel like this. How could he know just how to touch her now and not know that she’d been crazy about him?
He adjusted his position and she was sorry to lose his thigh pressing at her most intimate place, but then his body centered, and a scorching hot weight dropped between her legs. But it was the expression on Mason’s face, the thoughts behind his eyes that told her he was no stranger to regrets, and he was bent on settling some old scores right now.
She was shaking, slick with want, and perspiring with the fight against it. Her breath was ragged, her body willingly opening up to him. She licked her lips to tell him, wait, but his mouth came down and spoke against hers again, so fluently she couldn’t mistake his meaning. His kiss said, You’re mine. And I’ll have all of you. We’ve been waiting too long.
She agreed, and told him so by lifting a knee to bring him even closer. Shockingly close, because this was Mason, who knew her darkest secret and still touched her like that.
His hand worked her hip to a tilt. In one deep stroke, he assumed the weight of her frustrations and worries, the many cares that burdened her life, so that all that remained was startling brightness and pleasure. She clasped him tightly to her, fisting her hand in his hair, and rode him right back. His flushed, primal expression told her that he was just as affected. Higher and higher he drove them until they were well past any firework atmosphere. He took her to the brink of the world, the elemental fire of beginnings and endings. He rocked with her, strained with her, groaned as her leg curled around him to take him even deeper. She’d never felt more powerful. The bliss was sweet and dizzy, her flesh simmering on the brink.