He turns on his heel and storms up the stairs, leaving me alone and reeling.

I draw in one ragged breath after another, but my blood simmers with . . . something. Anger? Yes. I am so fucking pissed.

I cling to that and storm after him. I find him on the second-floor balcony pouring a glass of bourbon, as if this is just another night, as if he didn’t just throw my painful past in my face.

“You know, once you were my friend,” I say. “And maybe that’s what I miss most about us. Maybe instead of judging me for my decisions, you could try being my friend again.”

He puts his glass down on the table, his eyes locking on mine before he slowly stalks toward me.

I lift my chin, refusing to back down, because dammit, I shouldn’t have to apologize for wanting Mason’s friendship. Is that so terrible?

But my defiant stance doesn’t faze him and he keeps coming, one step at a time, until he’s finally up against that bubble he prefers to keep between us. He takes another step and he’s inside it, but still not nearly as close as I want him. He takes another, and if I had the courage, I could reach out and touch him. Another step and he’s so close that he has to bend his head down to maintain eye contact. So close that if I lift onto my toes, I could brush my lips against his.

I almost do, if only because fighting with him makes me feel as if there’s something broken in me, and I want it to be over. I miss the soft stroke of his lips against mine. I miss the sound of his sweet murmurs as he unbuttoned my pants and slid my underwear off my hips. I miss the sex, but more than that, I miss the way he’d hold me after. He held me in a way no one else had ever bothered to. Not even Nic. Mason would pull me against him, my back to his chest, and he’d snuggle against me until I could feel the warmth of his breath against my bare shoulder.

I want all of that again, and what breaks my heart the most is if I’d known when I took that deal with his father—if I could have seen into the future and gotten a glimpse of exactly what I was giving up—I still would have done it. I did what I had to do.

Mason’s eyes drop to my mouth. “I don’t want to be your friend, Bailey.”

“Yeah,” I whisper. “You’re making that really clear. All or nothing, am I right?”

His jaw hardens, and I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but he moves even closer. My back’s against the sliding glass door, and his body presses into mine. He shifts until his thigh is between my legs, and then he lifts a hand to my hair, sliding his thumb up my neck until he’s cupping my jaw. I want to melt because I’ve missed this so damn much. I’ve missed him so damn much.

“I’ve never wanted to be your friend,” he says, shaking his head. And it’s a blow to the heart I’m not sure I’m strong enough to endure. When I told him we could be lovers but nothing more, we were friends…best friends. Then he moved down here and shut me out.

“I’m sorry my friendship was such a burden.” Fuck, even my sarcasm sounds weak, but this whole conversation has me vulnerable.

“It wasn’t a burden. It was a daily reminder of what I couldn’t have. I thought that if I quit fucking you it wouldn’t hurt so much that you refused to be mine.” His thumb traces my bottom lip, and I tremble. “I thought if I could get the memory of your taste out of my head that maybe I’d be okay with being your buddy.” He sneers the word, his face twisting in disgust, but when the sneer falls away, it leaves raw need in its wake. “But I was wrong. I don’t want to be your friend, because that means you’re only giving me part of yourself, and I am the spoiled bastard you say I am. What was your word? Privileged?”

He dips his head down and turns his face to the side, sweeping the tip of his nose over the tip of mine. “I don’t want your friendship unless it comes with your body. And I don’t want your body unless it comes with your heart.” He dips a little farther and brushes his lips so softly against mine that I almost wonder if I’m imagining it. Maybe he isn’t touching me at all. Maybe the sensation is nothing more than air passing between our mouths.

He’s chipping at the walls I keep erected around my heart. And what happens when they’re gone? What happens when he sees me for who I really am?

“You say you want to be my friend,” he says, “but friends don’t lie to each other. They don’t hide their pasts.” His hand falls from my hair. I brace myself for his retreat, but he doesn’t back away. Instead, he finds the hem of my dress and slides up my thigh, then between my legs until he reaches my cotton panties. “Is this it, then? Is this all you want from me?”

His knuckles skim across my center, and I should stop him. Fuck. I should stop him. I know what he’s trying to do, what he’s trying to say, and how I’ll feel when this is over. But all I can think is how I feel right now. How it finally feels to have him this close—his heat, his touch.

All I can think is that if the rest of my life is going to be some sucky, lonely series of if-onlys and what-ifs, dragging from one day to the next, I just want this moment for as long as it can last. Maybe I’ll wrap it up and hold on to it. Keep it for later when I can untuck it and examine the heat of his breath against my neck or the gentle graze of his fingertips along the lace edge of my panties.

He nips at my ear with his teeth, and I moan. His breath has gone shallow, and I can feel the tension building in him—that push and pull of wanting and knowing you shouldn’t want. It’s easy for me to recognize, because I’ve lived in that limbo for almost four years. Wanting him, knowing I can’t have him.

“Fuck.” Now his voice is shaking, too. “Tell me to walk away.” Even as he says it, his fingers graze my inner thighs and tuck beneath the edge of my panties. “Tell me you don’t want this, or I’m going to stand here and fuck you with my hand until I hear you scream, until I feel you fall apart.”

I arch my back, shifting my hips into his touch, encouraging him with my body. He yanks my panties down in a single, swift tug and cups me. When he catches my clit between two fingers, I bite my lip.

“Nah, you don’t get off that easy, Bailey. You have to tell me what you want. I’m sick of guessing. Tell me to walk away, or tell me to get you off.” He closes his eyes. “Damn, I’ve missed the way you feel on my fingers.”

I stay silent, and he backs away. It’s not even a full step. The retreat was mere inches, yet it’s still too far. He holds my gaze, but I don’t have the courage to speak.

Reaching behind me, he opens the sliding glass door then steps around me to go inside.

I pull up my panties and chase after him. I’m wound up. My body is full and tight. I feel so vulnerable and needy, but this ache has nothing to do with sex and everything to do with him. “Mason.” When he doesn’t face me, I grab his wrist.

He spins, and his eyes scan my face, as they have so many times, looking for the secrets I can’t tell him, looking for the truth that would break his heart.

“Touch me,” I say. Because I’m weak. Because unlike him, I’ll take something over nothing. I’m the starving stray cat who will gobble up the scraps of food when I know damn well it’ll only remind me how empty I am, when I know damn well it’ll only make me ache for more.

He steps forward, so fast and so close, one hand returning between my legs, the other at the back of my neck, tilting my face to his. He presses his mouth to mine. No more gentle brush of lips, no more faintly caressing fingertips. If every touch before was a question, this is a declaration.

His mouth is hot on mine, his kisses alternating between fast and slow, deep and shallow, as if he wants more and wants it now, as if he’s greedy for it but is trying to slow himself down.

After years of telling myself I can’t have this, that I can’t have him, after years of him pushing me away every time we got close, the faintest touch of his hand could push me over the edge.

His fingers slip under my panties, and his groan tangles with mine when he slides a finger along my wet heat and then inside. “Jesus, Bailey.” I gasp as he adds a second finger and drives into me, fucking me with his hand. “So good,” he murmurs. “You feel so good.”

He’s claiming me, claiming my mouth as he slides his tongue inside and kisses me as he hasn’t kissed me for years. Claiming my body as he teases my clit with his thumb. Claiming my neck as he trails his lips down lower and sucks on the sensitive skin across my collarbone.

He’s branding me. Mine. Mine. Mine. And I wish it could be true. I wish I could be his, not just for this moment, but for always.

 

I shouldn’t be touching her. I shouldn’t be tasting her lips or coaxing those sweet little moans from her mouth. I’d be a fucking liar if I said I wasn’t hoping we’d get here, but I didn’t want it to happen like this. Not with her lies still hanging in the air like burnt plastic, and her nowhere closer to opening up to me than she was four years ago.

I break the kiss and lean my forehead against hers, my hand still working between her legs, because I’m helpless. I want her too much, and after years of forcing myself to keep my distance, I’ve become powerless when she’s too close.

“Tell me to stop,” I whisper, and I know I sound like a broken record. I sound like some traumatized kid who needs to test his own limitations.

“I don’t want you to.” She slides her hand behind my neck and brings my lips down to hers. I don’t know if it’s her mouth or mine that’s so unyielding, if it’s her moan or mine that echoes off the walls. “Mason, take what I can give you. My body is yours.”

My thoughts snap back together like a spring. I didn’t think I could stop without her asking me to, but her reminder that this is where she draws the line is better than a cold shower and a kick to the balls.

I pull away and swallow hard. “We need to go or we’ll be late.”