Page 76 of Unromance

The realization raced through her with a physical shudder, and suddenly she didn’t care about ruining the moment, because somehow, in their weird, twisted mission,hewas ruiningher. Easing off him, she flopped gracelessly against the mattress, too stunned to do anything else. She couldn’t think about this while he was still inside her.

Oblivious to her mental spiral, he sank into the mattress next to her, also staring up at the ceiling.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. Rule #1: No feelings. She’d put that into place forhim, not her. And yes, she knew she had feelings, but she hadn’t realized how big they were until now, until the thought of him leaving for LA made her chest ache. She squeezed her eyes shut, a tear leaking out unbidden. She buried her face into the pillow to hide it.

Mason placed a kiss to her shoulder. “What are you thinking about right now?”

“The Killers,” she mumbled into pillow.

A surprised laugh bubbled out of Mason. “What?”

“It started out with a one-night stand, how did it end up like this?” she half sang, in her best impersonation of “Mr. Brightside.”

The bed shook with Mason’s laughter, and she was grateful he’d interpreted that as a joke and not the existential crisis that it was.

“I love your mind,” he murmured, placing a kiss to her temple before easing out of bed to dispose of the condom.

The only thing that scared Sawyer more than catching feelings was getting a UTI, so she forced herself out of bed and followed Mason into the bathroom. He ran a washcloth under warm water for her and planted an all-too-sweet kiss to her forehead before leaving her alone to pee. Meeting her own hollow gaze in the mirror, she took a deep, shaky breath.

It was going to be fine. She was going to be fine. She always knew she’d have to let him go eventually. For now, she wanted to be selfish. She hadn’t felt this way in a long time, and she wanted to snuggle down deeper into it. She wanted to spend their remaining time together fogging up car windows and dragging their hands through the condensation, pointedly ignoring that they were heading straight for the ship-sinking iceberg that was her doing something as dumb as catching big feelings for someone moving halfway across the country.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

GRAY SWEATPANTS– You know the ones.

Mason woke her up with lazy kisses. “Good morning,” he breathed into her hair.

“Good morning,” she murmured sleepily back.

She’d slept naked. She never slept naked, hating the way her skin stuck to itself. However, she didn’t hate the feeling of Mason behind her, wrapped around her. She stretched like a cat in sunshine, relishing the tightness of her muscles after what they’d done in the middle of the night. The sun was fully risen now, a peek of it visible around the edges of Mason’s blackout curtains.

“What time is it?”

Mason reached blindly for his phone, nearly knocking it off the bedside table and catching it at the last minute.

“Ten,” he said. She could see the moment he reached the same conclusion she did.

“Brunch,” they said in unison.

Mason jumped out of bed before turning back and scooping her up, carrying them both into the shower. At the first spray of cold water, they both screamed. Passing soap and shampoo back and forth, they washed the evidence of last night from their bodies, an easy rhythm like they’d done this a million times.

It wasn’t until she got out of the shower that she realized her dilemma. She had no clothes. She loved last night’s dress, but there was no way she was putting it back on. It was too early to mess with that much dress. The boning of the corset meant she hadn’t worn a bra, so all she had was last night’s underwear, and she wasn’t putting those back on either.

Sensing her mental dilemma, Mason rifled through his dresser, tossing her a T-shirt and sweatpants. She tugged them on, tightening the drawstring of the pants and fantasizing about a bed-headed Mason wearing them slung low over his hips.

“What’re you thinking about over there?” he said with a crooked grin, waiting until she made eye contact to slowly zip up his jeans.

“How good you would look in these sweatpants.” Crossing over to him, she slid her hands into his back pockets.

He grinned down at her, resting his forehead against hers. “We’re already late,” he reminded her, brushing his lips across hers. “Should we be later?”

With a groan, she pulled back. “No. We can make up for it later.” She didn’t miss the way his eyes lit up at the wordlater.

The one thing she couldn’t borrow from Mason was shoes, so she resigned herself to strapping her heels on, because there was no way she was going barefoot down the streets of Chicago. She rolled the legs of the sweatpants up so they wouldn’t drag on the ground, and struck a pose.

Gold heels. Gray sweatpants. Black T-shirt.

Mason’s dark eyes swept over her from head to toe, once, twice. “You are the sexiest woman I’ve ever seen,” he said around a laugh.

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