Page 27 of Sapphire Spring

“Okay. Let’s get you inside, Formula One.”

The giant man’s considerable weight shifted onto Naser’sshoulders the minute he got him to his feet, and suddenly it felt like theirwalk back to the house would take hours.

“I’msorreNas.”

“Were you trying to hurt yourself, Mason?”

“Wannasaysorrree.” Mason stumbledforward, and they almost went down together until Naser planted his legs firmlyin the sand and bent slightly at the waist.

“Uh huh. Let’s get you inside.”

“I was…” Mason cleared his throat, then let loose severalhacking coughs. “I was gonna go back… Back to hotel… Tell you I’msorrreeee.”

Sohe wasn’t trying to drownhimself.

Had he really been planning to drive back to Sapphire Coveand apologize? In his condition, that idea would have been as dangerous as drivingstraight into the surf.

They’d reached the back door before Naser could answer.Mounting the floating metal staircase to the second floor was easier thancrossing the sand, so long as Naser didn’t look down. The stairs had no risers,and it was a clear drop straight through to the house’s foyer below. Thensuddenly they’d stumbled together into a sprawling master suite where a heavyset of ripple-fold drapes had been pushed back, revealing an open deck dooroffering a sweeping view of the beach they’d just crossed. The bedside lampswere still on, casting a gentle glow across the plush, cream-colored carpet. Heguided Mason to the edge of his bed, sat him down on the side, and took a stepback.

“Sorree,” Mason slurred.

Get out,Naser thought,get out now.

“For what?” Naser asked.

And then suddenly Mason had taken his hand, and the nextthing Naser knew, the silky comforter was rising up all around him and MasonWorther’sweight and brawn was pressing into him, and thenthe tips of their noses weretouchingand Mason wasgently gripping Naser’s wrists as he spread his arms out on either side of hishead.

MasonWortheris on me. I amunder MasonWorther. What the hell is happening?

He didn’t feel pinned down, exactly. Just enfolded in a big,sloppy embrace. Any illusion that Mason might have deliriously mistaken Naserfor someone else vanished when he found himself looking up into the man’s bigblue eyes. The guy gently chewed his bottom lip as if their sudden proximityhad sobered him up a little. Naser thought he should say something, but he wasthunderously unsure of what it should be.

Get off me.

Kiss me.

Wreck my ass, trash.

All three seemed equally likely to trip off his tongue.Sohe decided to say nothing.

Mason spoke first. “Reason Ialwaysssspushed you into lockers is’cause… Is’causeI wanted to fuck youagainst them.”

Naser felt his mouth open in shock and his cheeks tense in away that told him his eyes had gone saucer wide. That’s when Mason kissed him.

Naser felt knocked out of his flesh, as if the thoughtMasonWortheris kissing mewas so big it crowdedeverything else from his body, including his soul. Then the unrestrained,deliciously messy power of Mason’s kisses drew him back inside his skin. Thehunger coming from Mason pulled something from Naser he couldn’t contain,something that was tangled all through his sexuality, a sexuality that had beenshaped by the mind games wielded against him by men like the one kissing himnow.

A riot of voices in his head screamed at him. They soundedlike his mom, like Connor. Like anyone who’d ever cared about him. MasonWortherwas a bully. Who cared if his father had turned himinto one? More importantly, he was drunk. Blackout drunk, from the looks of it.Naser should stop, run, and forget. In exactly that order.

Instead, he was writhing against Mason’s rhythmic pressure,trying to match the man’s serpentine moves with his own. Another few seconds ofthis, and a familiar switch would be flicked, and Naser would loop his legsaround Mason’s lower back, grinding his erection into Mason’s crotch. If Masonwas experienced enough with men to read the signs, he would know what itmeant—that everything inside of Naser was relaxing, opening, melting, and thatNaser had started to imagine what it would feel like to be filled with Mason’scock. And that meant he was craving it.

It was coming. It was close. That sense that every inch ofhis body would soon give way to the hungry and willful spinelessness ofsubmission, a submission that had always been central to his desire.

One of his legs, he realized, was hovering in the air aboveMason’s lower back.

Oh,shit.

He straightened it instead and forced it to the comforter.

When Mason felt him stiffen, he went still, pulling back. Hestudied Naser with slitted eyes, but his lips were still puckered. They couldresume kissing the second Naser gave the word, his face seemed to say.

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