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Gabi
“I can’t believe you are dragging me here,” Kylie whined as they pulled up to the Finch house the next morning. “Mason will be here, you’re not alone or anything.”
She didn’t bother to offer that Mason was exactly the reason she didn’t want to be alone. “It won’t be long,” she assured her. “We’re just doing some measurements, and he wanted to ask me some questions about the design.”
Kylie eyed her over the top of her sunglasses. “And this couldn’t have happened over the phone?”
Groaning, she ignored her friend and pushed open the door of the car to find Mason pulling up beside them in a beautiful black, sexy pick-up truck.
She kicked herself. Trucks were not sexy. But Lord above, Mason was. He looked as if he had just showered, and he hopped down out of the cab with such ease that she very definitely felt the movement between her legs. She must have whimpered because Kylie nudged her hard.
“Good morning, ladies,” he said, grinning that perfect grin of his as he buckled his tool belt around his chiseled hips. She wished she were as lucky as that fucking belt.
“Good morning, Mason,” Kylie chirped happily, not the least bit ashamed to enjoy the view.
“Morning,” was the best she could do while she was fighting the urge to run and pole vault right onto him. She didn’t think he’d mind, but the neighbors might.
“Thanks for meeting me here,” he told them. “It shouldn’t take long.”
“It’s no problem.” This was Kylie again. “Gabi’s schedule is wide open so, really, any time you need to meet to discuss designs, should work.”
Gabi kicked her solidly in the shin. Mason just raised an eyebrow and said, “Is that so?”
“I’m going to kill you,” she promised Kylie as she walked into the house behind Mason. “Dead. You’ll be so very dead.”
Her friend simply smiled and patted the top of her head like a small child.
When they entered the master suite, Gabi’s breath caught. The walls had been painted and it was the most beautiful shade of antique turquoise she had ever seen. It had turned out even more beautiful than she had imagined.
“Wow,” Kylie breathed. “I’ll be honest, I thought you were wrong about this color, but clearly, you weren’t.”
“Beautiful,” Mason said so genuinely as he looked around, that it made Gabi’s heart pause. She could feel the reds starting to gather forces for a march up her face.
He pulled the design for the room from his back pocket and unfolded it. After studying it for a moment, he looked up. “This is the feature wall, correct?” he asked, pointing to the correct wall.
She nodded.
He grinned at her. “Perfect. Before we get started, I’m just going to retake the measurements.”
“You don’t need to,” she said, finding her voice. “They’re precise.”
He gave her a look that made her instantly defensive. As if she, a mere girl, couldn’t take precise measurements.
“I’m sure they are,” he said in the most irritating, placating way, “but I’d rather take my own.”
Gabi opened her mouth to tell him where to shove his measurements, but Kylie just cleared her throat and said, “Hey, guys, since you have this covered, I’m going to go out to the car and make some calls.”
Gabi stared at her traitorous friend. How dare she leave her with this man?
Kylie simply shrugged. “I’ve got work to do too,” she explained, and then left her alone with Mason.
“You don’t need to be offended,” he assured her when she turned back around. “I would retake my own measurements. It’s my job.”
She didn’t answer, just crossed her arms angrily and tried not to watch his perfectly formed backside as he bent and stretched. Good Lord, the muscles on this man ... She had to bite her lip.
“So how long have you known Kylie?” he asked, pulling her from a particularly dirty fantasy involving him in just his tool belt.
“Since childhood,” she answered grumpily. “We were neighbors.”
Mason chuckled. “I bet that was fun.”
Gabi smiled to herself as she thought about their unlikely pairing. The moment she met Kylie at eight years old, she was absolutely positive they would never work as friends, and now here they were, decades later, still inseparable. “It was a rocky start, but then after Kylie’s dad left, I helped her through it, and now we’re like sisters.”
“Do you have any?”
“Any what?”
“Sisters?”
“Oh.” She tried to ignore how warm his simple questions made her. Did he really want to know, or was he just trying to fill the silence? “Only child,” she answered. “It’s just me and my dad. What about you?”
“Two asshole brothers,” he answered, turning around to give her a wink that made her entire body melt.
She giggled despite herself.
“I’m the middle child,” he told her.
“I would have guessed you were the baby,” she threw at him with a small smile.
“Ouch,” he said, turning around with an exaggerated expression. “That cut me, Gabi.”
She just smiled and said pertly, “Maybe next time, you’ll use my measurements, then.”
His eyes flashed with something, and she felt the temperature in the room rise a thousand degrees as the most delicious smile she had ever seen spread his lips.
Her heart stopped, and something in her body pulled toward him.
She stood there stupidly with wide eyes, and when he set the measuring tape down and took a step toward her, she melted entirely.
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Mason
He couldn’t take it anymore. He had to kiss her. There would be no more wondering. If her mouth tasted anywhere as delicious as it sounded, he might not ever stop.
He approached her slowly, eyes hooded, never breaking contact with hers. She shuffled backward slightly, but the lift of her chest told him all he needed to know about what she wanted. There was a clear getaway, and he would never force her to kiss him, but she wanted it. It was all over her face. Her tiny steps backward were just a dance.
Eventually she bumped up against the wall and stopped. He kept advancing. “I like your mouth, Gabi.”
She just stared at him, a delicious shade of pink. Her tongue darted out to wet her lips, and he felt his cock harden further. Fuck.
“And I’m going to taste it, okay?”
She blinked.
“I’ve wanted to since we met,” he told her, closing the last inch between them. He brought his hands up her neck slowly, her skin felt like satin. “Ever since the day you came into my shop, all I can think about is tasting you.” She shivered, and when he ran his thumb over her bottom lip, she gasped hungrily.
The passion in that one little gasp ignited something in him. Pushing her against the wall with his body, he dipped his head toward her and caught her trembling lips with his.
The moment they made contact, she sighed and opened for him, surprising him with her eagerness. He met her move for move, delving his tongue deep inside her, luxuriating in the feel of her tongue against his. He couldn’t breathe. He didn’t want to. Everything about kissing this woman was perfect.
He needed more of her. Deepening his kiss, he drew his hands up her neck and buried them in her silken hair. He could feel her delicate fingers trailing down his chest toward his waist. Her touch felt so incredibly sinful that all he wanted to do was throw her over his shoulder and just disappear inside of her.
He had never felt quite like this from just a kiss. Still, he wanted more; he needed more. He untangled his hands from her hair and slid them down her backside. He groaned aloud when he finally had her ass in his hands. It was just as perfect as he thought it would be.
Gabi separated from him with a gasp but dove back toward his mouth with a growl, she stretched her hands across the muscles of his back, her fingernails dug in with need. Her passion, her absolute abandon, shocked and aroused him so fully, he couldn’t think at all.
It took Kylie fully slamming the front door and making all sorts of unnecessary noise to pull them apart.
They were both standing there, chests heaving, utterly red, when Kylie appeared in the doorway with a knowing smile. “How’s it going in here?” she asked in an overly bright voice. “About finished? I’d love to get back to the office.”
Gabi looked at him with wide eyes and turned even redder, he loved that fucking blush of hers.
He cleared his throat and finally found the ability to speak, “Yeah, we’re all done, I think. Got all the measurements and everything.”
“I’m sure you did,” Kylie said with a wink and then grabbed Gabi’s hand. “I’m going to take her now if you don’t mind. She seems to be broken anyway.”
This finally drew a scowl from his gorgeous redhead.
And he did mind. He minded a lot. Because he wasn’t done, not by a long shot. “Of course,” he said agreeably, wondering how on earth he was going to make it through the rest of the day now that he had the taste of her lips on his and the memory of her body in his hands.
“Maybe we’ll run into you soon,” Kylie suggested, ignoring Gabi’s death stare. “We’re going to be at the Cubs-Cards game Friday, it would be sooo weird to bump into you there.”
Mason grinned and resisted the urge to sweep Kylie up into a hug. “That would be quite the coincidence, wouldn’t it?”
“Indeed,” she answered and shuffled her still-silent friend out of the room.
When they were gone, Mason wiped a hand down his face and then groaned when he looked down to find his cock still fully, painfully erect. No wonder Kylie had been so amused.
But God above, he couldn’t help it. Gabi was perfect. And to find out she liked baseball too? Fuck. She couldn’t be real. Could she? Not with the way she kissed. No man was that lucky.
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Gabi
“I don’t think the paint on those walls was quite dry,” Kylie told her as they walked to her car.
Gabi was furiously embarrassed and hadn’t been able to even look her friend in the face. “Why do you say that?” she asked, opening the car door without looking up.
“Well, the same color is all over your ass and a little in your hair.”
Gabi gasped and looked at her rear end. Sure enough, there were smudges of that perfect antique turquoise on her pants and in the ends of her hair when she pulled it over her shoulder. She groaned out loud.
Kylie opened the trunk and threw an old towel at her. “Here, cover the seat.”
Growling a string of curses she’d never used before, Gabi caught it, covered her seat, and slumped into the car with her arms crossed.
Why had she suddenly turned into a horny sixteen-year-old? If he had suggested they fuck right there on the floor, she would have done it without a second thought. The idea terrified and so scintillated her, she didn’t think her skin would ever return to its normal color.
Kylie just laughed when she plopped into the driver’s seat and put the key in the ignition. “That must have been one hell of a kiss,” she muttered.
Hands over her face, Gabi settled back into the seat and let out a groan.
“For the record, I’m a teensy jealous.”
“I shouldn’t have kissed him, Ky,” she said through her fingers. “It was like I was on fire all of the sudden and ... and had never been touched by a man.”
Kylie looked at her as they backed out of the driveway. “It’s partly true, my dear. Matt was no man, and you’ve had no one else in three years. It’s about time. Even your body knows it.”
Hoo, boy, did it ever. If her feminine bits had their way, he would already be inside her. It was as if they were screaming his name. She still felt hot from his kiss. It was so masterful, so in charge, that just the memory made her dampen yet again. “I know,” she said quietly. “I’m just afraid.”
“Why?”
She pondered that question while Kylie peeled off down the street. Really, what would it hurt to have a little fun? She’d earned it, right?
But her heart. She couldn’t lose that again, and being with Mason might be like chucking it down a giant black hole.
She just shrugged.
Kylie didn’t push her but smiled. “I can’t wait for the game on Friday.”
Ugh. She had forgotten about that stunt for a few blissful moments. “I hate you, Ky.”
“I know, but you won’t for long, especially since you have me to thank for that kiss.”
Gabi didn’t answer, she simply looked out her window, resigned to a night of heated fantasies and very little sleep. The man was like catnip, and her inner sex-kitten wanted more. So much more.