Page 79 of Mason

Suddenly, I’m afraid. Terrified that I can’t handle this man. That I’m completely, totally, and utterly over my head. I’m all of twenty. He’s… I don’t even know how old he is. I don’t know him.

What am I doing? Why am I here?

The questions swirl in a cyclone. I’m so caught up in my head that when he pulls out and flips me over, I shriek.

“Are you okay?” he asks, pulling away as if he’s snapped me in two. He looms above, his chest heaving and forehead dotted in sweat.

“Totally fine,” I lie, plastering on a fake smile. “Just wasn’t expecting that.”

He laughs, dipping to meet my lips with a blazing kiss. “Rule one of being with me, Emily: expect the unexpected.”

I almost groan at the cheesiness, but don’t get a chance. He thrusts himself inside once more, stealing the air from my lungs.

This angle isn’t as punishing, and he sticks to short, shallow strokes. His fingers pick up the pace and pressure on my most sensitive of places, and while the ache remains, the rising pull inside takes center stage, shoving aside anxieties and making room for a new wave of pleasure that sweeps through. It isn’t long until I’m crying out, my fingers flexing into his forearms as I fall to pieces, giving in to the orgasm that pulses to my core.

He’s not far behind, his breaths coming quick pants and his thrusts falling more off beat. He rises to his knees and lifts my hips, sinking in deeper and deeper until I swear I’ll burst. He does instead, letting out a groan as his entire body jerks with his finish.

Tumbling forward, his body forms a safe haven. A wall of muscle, man, and raw strength. I’m wrapped in Mason. His scent. His sweat. His sex.

We stay together gasping, trading a peppering of kisses over one another until he rolls onto his side with a grunt. “I’m totally going to have a noise complaint in my mailbox tomorrow.”

I smirk against the pillow. “It was worth it.”

Am I sore? Yes.

Incredibly? Oh, yeah.

Semi-terrified of what’s to come? Maybe.

But I wouldn’t change a thing. A weightlessness flows through me, relieving a hidden burden and breaking invisible chains. The doom and gloom are gone, replaced with a hum of control over myself. My body. My choices. I wanted to do this, and I did. For the first time, I’ve done something completely for me and only me, not looking at how it benefits the family or my standing with a suitor.

Fuck, this pretty much soils me according to tradition, but I don’t feel filthy. I feel strong. Empowered. Emboldened. I want to flip a finger to the masses and run around screaming fuck the patriarchy, but that’s not exactly safe given the current situation.

“It definitely was,” he agrees. “I think you took part of my soul with that last orgasm.” His fingers trace zig zags over the scar on my shoulder, a thin line all that remains from the grazing shot first fired at me, a tiny thing compared to the one on his.

“I’ll think about giving it back.”

He laughs, sitting up and swinging his legs over the side of the bed to rest them on the floor. “On second thought, I’d have to have one in the first place for that to happen.”

“You have a soul. Shut up.”

I sit up, too, self-conscious about laying in his bed alone. Sex sounded like it’s followed by cuddles, but maybe that’s fiction like those insta-orgasms in movies where women explode from just the tip entering straight away. Even with just a taste of sex, I have serious questions about that craziness. I’m relatively sure that if I hadn’t ridden on his face beforehand, I would’ve cried a hundred times over already.

“Did I hurt you?”

I glance over at him and find him frowning at the condom; the material streaked with red. It’s not a bloodbath by any means, but it’s definitely noticeable, and that likely means it’s on his sheets too. Shit.

“Oh, uh,” I say, drawing an absolute blank at the worst time. “Maybe?”

“Shit. I’m sorry. Stay there.”

He pads out of the room stark naked, giving me an uninterrupted view of his backside, which I appreciate with its hard lines and his cute pasty white butt, but it also sends a sense of dread through me. More scars. Dozens of them. Big. Small. Round. Straight. They riddle his body.

There’s commotion in a distant bathroom. Cabinets opening. A sink running. And then he’s back, entering the room with a washcloth and nudging my thighs apart. “Lean back.”

I do, though it’s a little awkward when he gently wipes me with the cloth down there. I stare at the ceiling, counting the swirls in the white paint to fend off embarrassment.

“Sorry about that.”

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