Page 35 of I Heart Mason Cartwright
Willow
Morning comes early.P-Tink drags me out of bed as the sun is coming up so we can go on our morning walk/run. I run, she walks. But only because my running pace is still too slow for her. There are trails near the house that we go to, which she loves. I’d let her run free, but I don’t yet trust her with squirrels or other such wildlife that we may encounter along the way.
We reach the path and she immediately begins howling.
“P-Tink, quiet!” I tug on her leash to get her attention. The last thing I need is her waking all the neighbors at oh dark thirty. She stops howling and pauses to sniff at a tree. I use the time to adjust my earbuds and change the music I’m listening to. The leash slips. P-Tink takes off running, howling as she goes.
“Dammit, Janet!” I take off after her, going as fast as I can without killing myself.
I round a corner in the trail and run smack-dab into a wall of sweaty flesh.
“Ooof!” I bounce back. Strong arms prevent me from falling on my butt. P-Tink bounces around me yelping. My hands rest on the chest in front of me. The bare chest of minimal hair and maximum muscle. I look up the chest, to the neck, and finally the face.
“Mason?”
“You okay?” he asks, his hands still on my arms. My bare arms. My hands are on his bare chest, his hands are on my bare arms. All I can think about is how good it would feel if everything were bare. All of him with all of me, bare skin against bare skin, my body warms from the middle and up.
“Willow?” he asks again, using one hand to push the loosened hair from my face, his eyes search mine. “Are you okay?”
I nod, not looking away.
“What are you doing here?” I ask finally.
“I was running until P-Tink came in for a blind tackle,” he laughs.
That shakes me out of my brief fantasy.
“Oh gosh, are you okay?” I ask, looking him up and then down.
Big mistake.
His torso is long, and his shorts are not. He has something close to a six-pack with a light trail of hair leading down into his shorts. Those v-things that only guys in movies have mirror one another on either side of his hips. I can see the outline of his penis in his shorts. And his legs are beautiful. Lean with perfectly shaped calves, big muscular thighs, light smatterings of hair.
My god, is nothing on this man flawed? My mouth waters. Literally.
Why does AshLynn get the good ones?
Ha—not nearly enough body hair to interest Zach. I smirk to myself.
“Fell on my ass, I’m fine,” he says.
“Oh no, are you sure you’re okay, let me see?” I spin him around and am brushing dirt and leaves from his bare back and covered bottom before I realize what I’m doing. I gasp, step back, cover my mouth with my hand, and close my eyes.
I hear him turn, but I keep my eyes closed. Which he mistakes for something else.
“You sureyou’reokay?” he asks.
“Uh huh, yep, just groped my sister’s fiancé, but hey, no biggie, right.”
“Half sister,” he says.
I open my eyes, he’s smiling. So, I do too. “Half sister,” I repeat.
“It will be our little secret,” he says.
I nod.
“You want some company on your walk?” Mason asks.
