Page 38 of Mason

Mason

It takes twenty pots of fucking water to make the tub warm enough to sit Little Miss Mouthpiece in it comfortably. I have to use the dented saucepan missing a handle that Dixon left in the cabinet, carrying it back and forth from the tub to the fireplace while Emily watches silently from the floor.

She hasn’t said a peep since I let her know she isn’t getting off easy. The handcuffs and chain will remain in use, but I’ll have to get a little crafty to make sure she doesn’t pull off a repeat performance. Hopefully, there’s a hardware store nearby.

When the tub’s ready, I come out of the bathroom, and her lip trembles when I look her way. “Rub-a-dub-dub, kid.”

She hesitates at first, but eventually tries to stand, crying out when her bloodied feet bear her full weight. She’s warmed up now that we’ve been inside for a while, meaning every nerve is back to firing at full capacity and registering the trauma her forest run put them through.

Now that she’s standing, I have a clear view of the damage, too, and it isn’t pretty. Punctures and scratches mar her legs from the knees down, her skin transformed into a canvas of pain. There’s an outline of blood droplets and smears where she sat on the floor.

“Jesus Christ,” I mutter, crossing the room just as she flops back to floorboards, unable to take the pain of standing any longer.

She holds up her hands in front of her face as if she’s fending off blows. “No, please, no! Just give me a minute and I’ll try again!”

“I’ll carry you,” I offer, offended that she thinks I’ll hit her. I’ve never hit a woman in my life. Aside from slapping her ass. But that doesn’t count.

She still shrinks away when I reach for her, squealing as I scoop her up and pull her against my chest, careful to only grip around her arms and upper thighs, avoiding the tender area low on her legs.

She smells like me as I carry her into the bathroom, my suit jacket rubbing my cologne all over her body, marking her. I hate that I like the brand even more now that it's mixed with her natural scent.

“It’s not boiling, is it?” she asks when I near the tub. She can’t see that the water isn’t steaming, the light from the fireplace trickling through the doorway barely gives the room more than a soft glow.

“Nope. Lukewarm. I can add more hot water when you get in.” I was more concerned with getting her in the water sooner rather than later.

“You can set me down here.” She points at the space next to the tub, but that’s a no go. If she can barely stand, there’s no way in hell that she can climb into the tub. That’ll be torture.

“I’ll put you in. Relax.”

She stiffens in my arms. “I don’t want to get the coat wet. It’s all I have to wear.”

Fuck. “I’ll give you my shirt.”

I have a t-shirt under my button-down. That’ll keep me warm until morning while the coat dries in front of the fire. I’ll take the blanket. She’ll use the sleeping bag. Problem solved.

“I think I should keep the coat dry,” she protests. “You don’t know how cold it gets in here at night. We both need all the layers we can get.”

“We have a fire,” I point out, though I know damn well that I only have four logs to last all night. Not exactly the most realistic scenario of keeping this place toasty.

She chews her lip, worry straining her face in the dim light. “If you stand me up in the tub, I can take it off. But you need to promise you’ll close your eyes.”

“Didn’t take you for the modest type,” I tease, leaning to lower her feet-first into the water.

She hisses as her flesh makes contact with the water, looping her arms around my neck. “Easy, easy!”

I let her adjust to the water until she’s submerged to her calves and her feet touch the bottom of the tub. “You good?”

She nods, but her arms remain around my neck, anchoring me to her. “I just need a second. Please.”

The easy thing to do would be to push her away and watch her suffer after the hell of an afternoon she put me through, but I don’t. Instead, I let her go at her own pace, watching as she musters up the nerve to slip her arms from around my neck and rest all of her weight onto her feet.

“Please turn around,” she begs, moving her fingers to the coat’s buttons.

I do as she asks out of respect, hearing her sniffles before the coat falls to the wooden floor in a plop. There’s the telltale shift in water as she lowers herself in.

“Do you need more hot water?” I ask.

“Yes, please.” It comes out in a squeak.

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