A battle appeared to rage within him. “I should have been more honest. I haven’t been able to get you out of my head since we met. I want you, Chelle.”
Her breath left her in a whoosh. Part of her rejoiced at the news, but another part clung to anger as a last line of defense. “I suppose I should be flattered, but that adds my name to what sounds like a not-very-exclusive list.” She pursed her lips, then asked, “Is there even a charity event?”
He sighed. “Yes, and having you there would help me, but it’s not why I invited you. I would make your first time good, Chelle. So good.”
Chelle closed her eyes for a moment and gathered her thoughts. I want him. He wants me. God knows I’m old enough. What is stopping me? A little voice inside her whispered, You don’t want to be blended in with all the other women he had here. You want to matter. When she opened her eyes again, she said, “Chasing you around a wedding with a condom might have given you the wrong idea about me. I’m not that wild. There has to be at least a chance the man I finally sleep with could be the one. I don’t want to be just another woman on that couch.”
“Okay.”
Chelle’s eyes snapped to his. Wow, he agreed to that easily. Disappointingly so. “So I should probably fly home tonight.”
“No. You came all this way. We’ll find you a hotel you like, and then I’ll take you to dinner.”
Her mind was running in circles. He’s agreeing with me and being nice about it. So why do I want to kick him in the shin? “If I leave now, you could find another date for tonight. I’d hate to think of you spending the night alone on my account.”
“I have enough women to text that it shouldn’t be a problem.”
Chelle gasped, and Mason laughed.
“Chelle, I’m joking.”
She glared at him, not enjoying how easy it was to imagine him with another woman or how painful it was. “It’s not funny.”
He ducked down, kissed her briefly, and pulled her gently into his arms. She could feel his arousal. He’d said he wanted her, and his proof was hard and throbbing against her. “No, but your expression is. You’re adorable.”
She met his eyes. “I don’t want to be adorable.”
He bent and kissed her just below her ear. “What do you want to be?”
Chelle placed her hands on his shoulders to support herself. She felt as if she were melting into him. “Irresistible.”
His breath was hot on her ear. “You are.”
She tightened her grip on him. Am I? Or am I merely convenient? “I want to say yes, Mason. Part of me says I should just let go and do this. Part of me is scared. I’m sorry I’m sending you mixed signals.”
There was an expression in his eyes she couldn’t decipher. “What are you afraid of?”
“I always imagined my first time would be with a man who loved me. It’s strange letting go of that dream.” She cringed as she said it. “I sound like an idiot.”
Mason hugged her to his chest and rested his chin lightly against her forehead. “No. I’m the idiot. We need to get out of this hotel. Let’s go.”
She stepped back and glanced around. “What are they going to think when we ask to have my things packed up again, and they see drops of blood all over the place?”
“They’ve seen worse,” Mason said with a twinkle in his eye.
Chelle grabbed her purse and swung it in his direction, chastising him. She couldn’t tell if he was serious, but she still said, “You are so bad.”
“Women love that about me.” He winked at her.
Chelle led the way to the door and shook her head. She hadn’t meant to voice her thoughts, but she did. “I’d need more.”
“I know,” Mason said so softly Chelle wasn’t sure she’d heard him right. She looked back at him, but his expression gave nothing away.
What are we doing? I thought I knew, but now I’m not so sure.
One minute I want to slap Mason; the next I want to jump him.
He’d be perfectly happy showing me the joys of sex, then dropping me back at the airport on Sunday.
But I want . . .
That’s the problem.
I don’t know what I want.
Mason relaxed into an uncomfortable chair beside Chelle’s hotel bed. She’d insisted they choose a hotel that fit her budget because she was determined to pay her own way. He hadn’t stayed in a hotel room this small since . . . he couldn’t remember ever staying in less than a one-bedroom suite.
The small room did have its perks. She’d had to brush against him several times as she’d unpacked and chosen her clothing for the evening. In a moment of indecision, she had held one dress up in front of her, then another, and asked him to help her choose.
He’d been tempted to say neither, close the distance between them, and help her out of her sundress, but he was still reeling from what she’d said earlier. Having her was all he’d been able to think about since she’d said she was flying out to see him, but he’d never met a woman like her before. Each time he asked himself why a woman as beautiful as Chelle would still be a virgin, he didn’t like the answer. She wasn’t lying when she said she wanted it to mean something. To her, sex was more than something two adults could engage in recreationally. He didn’t want to be the one to disillusion her.
He thought about his first time. He had been eighteen and at the peak of his popularity. Irene had been his agent since he was seven years old. She’d gotten him movie deal after movie deal, scheduled all of his appearances, taken him from a middle-class unknown to an international household name.
He’d considered her the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Sophisticated. Intelligent. Untouchable. Until she’d taken him to her bed, and he’d fallen in love with her completely as only the young and foolish could do.
He hadn’t understood back then that sex could be used to control someone. She’d said she loved him. With her encouragement, he’d fired his father as his manager, severed legal ties with his parents, and given her greater access to his earnings. He’d been so besotted with her that had she asked him to kill for her, he’d probably be in jail for the crime to that day.
It had taken losing his mother to a prescription drug overdose to wake him up. No one had called it a suicide, and Mason had never been quite sure himself. His father had said that she had fallen into a deep depression since her final fight with Mason. He and his father had barely spoken since.
After his mother’s death, Mason had shut down, unable to work. Unable to think. When the movie he’d been working on fell behind schedule and he was threatened with lawsuits, Irene had quickly distanced herself from him, taking as much of his money with her as she could.
That had been Mason’s only venture into love.
Mason’s mind wandered to the dark place he’d fallen into after his mother’s death. He’d partied too much and had nearly repeated his mother’s tragedy more than once. It was his second stay in rehab that saved Mason. One of his counselors—he didn’t remember the man’s name—had turned harsh with him one day. He’d told him to stop blaming others; only he was responsible for his choices. Life could be cruel and senseless, but when people were faced with adversity, how they responded to it determined if they had what it took to survive.
“Do you want to survive, or do you want to join your mother? Take control of your life, Mason, before you lose it. No one can save you, and no one can destroy you. Only you have that power.”
The counselor’s words had resonated with Mason.
The next day, he had announced his retirement from the acting world and set himself free. He stopped trying to connect with his father and put aside his childhood fantasy of what family should be. He removed all expectations when it came to women. And he was happier.
His journey became about him and no one else.
Mason chose a college and created a whole new life for himself. He met Charles, and a solid friendship was born. He and Charles each wanted nothing more than to shed their past and p
rove to the world that they were a force to be reckoned with. Different backgrounds, different reasons, but they had more in common than either expected, and their friendship endured. Charles encouraged him to channel his anger toward causes where he could make a positive difference. While still in school, Mason lobbied for laws that would protect child actors and their assets. He encouraged Charles to put aside his middle-class, work boot–filled upbringing and act the part of the financial tycoon he’d become.
Through his causes, Mason met rich and powerful politicians and discovered they weren’t all the weasels the media made them out to be. Many had chosen the career because they believed in something bigger than themselves. Politics was a game. Some played it for honorable reasons and followed the rules. Some had their own agendas and made dirty backdoor deals. Mason entered that world with his eyes already open to the ugly potential within even those who claimed to be allies, and that proved to be a strength for him.
At twenty-five, Mason had used his connections to become one of the youngest state senators in California. Although he acknowledged that his name recognition had given him an advantage, he had worked hard to prove he deserved the leadership role. He kept his energy and his goals focused on the future. He could have used his influence to track down his old agent and exact some form of revenge. A woman in her late twenties didn’t sleep with a boy for the pleasure; she’d used sex to control him. Revenge, however, would mean opening a door to the past, and he had no desire to test whether it had the power to destroy him twice.
Chelle didn’t have a darker side. She still believed there was some good in everyone. Faith in humanity was something that was best shed, like a child’s first set of teeth. Someone would one day break Chelle’s heart and teach her how little the word love meant, but Mason didn’t want to be that person. Which didn’t mean he didn’t want to fuck her, but it did mean he shouldn’t allow himself to. His hands clenched into fists. I’m a mess.
“Mason?” Chelle called out from the bathroom.
He imagined her standing there, naked and still wet from the shower. He shifted as his trousers became uncomfortably tight in the front. “Yes?”
“I forgot to grab a bra when I came in here. Do you mind handing me one through the door? They’re in the top drawer of the bureau.”
He looked skyward. I’m really trying to do the right thing here.
He pushed himself out of the chair and opened the drawer she’d directed him to. Most of her underclothing was exactly as he would have imagined. Cotton with flowers. Innocent. Off to the side was a sheer black lace bra and thong. He picked them up and groaned. They were her get-lucky set. Every woman had them. Some women wore them all the time. He took a moment to picture her wearing only that sliver of lace.
“Did you find one?” Chelle called out from the bathroom.
“Trying to decide between the daisies and the roses.”
“Just grab anything. It won’t matter with this dress.”
Oh yes, it will.
Mason walked the black thong and bra over to the trash and almost dropped them in, but pocketed them instead. If he wasn’t going to see her in them, he’d be damned if some other man would. He returned to her underwear drawer and picked out a chaste cotton bra and shook his head with amusement at it. Mason went to the door of the bathroom. “This should work,” he said, both to her and to himself. If he needed to be reminded of her innocence, the flowery pattern was a modern-day chastity belt.
Chelle stuck a hand out and grabbed the bra. “Thank you. I would have come out for it, but I didn’t realize I had forgotten to grab one until I was in the shower. I thought this was better than sprinting out there in just a towel.”
It was painfully easy to fantasize about how Chelle would look in nothing more than a hotel towel. Mason turned on his heel and strode back across the room to where he had been sitting.
A few minutes later, Chelle entered the room in the simple black dress he’d told her he preferred. It was nice enough to be appropriate for the expensive restaurant he’d chosen, but had a high neckline and short sleeves that covered the delicate shoulders he’d spent too much time wanting to rain kisses across. She had pulled her blonde hair up into a loose knot he was more than a little tempted to release.
They stood there for a long moment lost in each other. Eventually, he broke the silence. “You clean up well.”
The smile she sent his way was tentative, but warm. “I wasn’t sure what to bring, but Sarah and Melanie went shopping with me for this trip. There aren’t many reasons to dress up when you live and work on a ranch. It’s nice to be out of jeans for once.”
Your tight little ass would look amazing in jeans. Just jeans. No top. Your pert little tits puckered and eager for my mouth. Mason cleared his throat. “Are you ready? We don’t want to miss our reservation. I have a car downstairs.”
She picked up a small clutch bag, then they walked out of the hotel room together. They stood side by side, somewhat awkwardly, in the elevator as it descended to the lobby. He told himself to keep his hands off her, but the lure of her was too strong. He rested one hand possessively on the small of her back as they exited the elevator. That slight connection was enough to have his heart racing in his chest.
She looked up at him as if she felt the same way.
Despite his good intentions, he lowered his mouth to hers briefly, allowing him just the briefest taste of the forbidden. When he raised his head, her cheeks were flushed, and yes shone in her eyes. Doing the right thing had never been so hard. He gently chucked her beneath the chin and said, “I’ll miss this when you’re gone.”
Her eyes darkened and he wanted to take the words back, but he didn’t. If she knew how much he wanted her, she might waver in her decision. He needed her to be strong. If that meant denting her feelings a little, it was preferable to how hurt she’d be if she fell for a man who was incapable of loving anyone.
Why am I torturing myself by taking her to dinner?
I can’t have her on her terms.
And she could never handle mine.
She smiled at him, already forgiving him and making him feel like more of an ass. He almost walked into the revolving exit door, but stopped at the last minute.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
I wish I knew.
Chapter Seven
As they walked into the restaurant Mason had chosen, Chelle stole a glance at him and wondered if he was as confused as she was. I told him I didn’t want to sleep with him, so why do I keep teasing him? Do I want him to want me so much I can’t say no?
Even if he did, how long would it last? A night? A week?
Could I handle something like that?
Mason escorted her through the restaurant, which looked very expensive. There wasn’t a man in sight who wasn’t wearing a tailored suit, nor was there a woman who wasn’t covered with blinding diamonds. She felt underdressed, but she doubted many noticed. All eyes were on Mason. He might have an ego the size of Texas, but she could see how he’d gotten it. Women stopped talking to their dates as he walked by and became embarrassingly starstruck. Men watched him, probably wanting to be him.
I could strip naked and dance on the table, and no one would notice. It was interesting to see what was valued in Mason’s world. Her father had always said a man’s measure was in how he treated his family. His strength was in his dedication to them, his toughness in his ability to protect those weaker than him. But Mason was adored for his strong jawline and his athletic build. He was envied for what he had, how he looked, and the power he wielded, not necessarily the man he was. Chelle wondered if that was all that was important to him.
After their drinks and meals were ordered, Chelle met Mason’s eyes across the table. He seemed oblivious to the amount of attention he was receiving from the other patrons. Of course, his first career had been on the big screen, so being the center of everyone’s attention was something he’d be used to. She realized she knew very little about him
outside of what he did for a living. Or outside of hotels. “Is your family in Sacramento, too?”
His expression turned guarded. “I don’t have much family.”
“What about your parents? Where do they live?”
He sat back, began to pick up a fork, then dropped it back to the table. “I’d rather hear about you. I get the sense that life on a ranch wasn’t what you had planned for yourself.”
Chelle wanted to push him to open up to her, but didn’t. She liked to think that if they could be nothing else, they could at least be friends. Trust and friendship were two things that were best not rushed. Not with animals. Not with people. “I don’t mind Fort Mavis. There’s something wonderful about knowing help is never more than a holler away. I don’t know what it’s like to walk down a street and not know the names of everyone I come across. It’s just that lately I’ve been thinking things could be good without being great. I might be wrong; maybe great isn’t attainable. I don’t know. But I started to feel trapped in my life. Sarah says I may realize there is nothing out here for me and decide that I love Fort Mavis, but I won’t know for sure if I don’t see what it’s like outside of Texas, will I? So that’s what I’m doing. I’m on an adventure.”
The flirtatious Mason from before had been replaced by a serious man who looked moved by what she was saying. “Sounds like a healthy approach to figuring out what you want.”
His praise warmed her heart. This wasn’t the empty flattery that came so easily to him. “Thank you, although I doubt my parents agree. They’re afraid I’ll write home that I’ve joined a traveling circus.”
Mason chuckled. “Do they know you’re out here visiting me?” He brushed his hand over her left one. “That you’re engaged?”
“No to both,” Chelle said with a guilty smile. “I left out some of the details of this vacation. My parents are good people, but I’d never hear the end of it if I tried to explain this to them.”
“You still live with them?”
Even though his tone hadn’t been judgmental, Chelle stiffened. “I had planned to go away to school, but it wasn’t meant to be.” She briefly told him the story of her grandfather and how she’d stayed to care for him. “I don’t regret a minute of it, though. I miss him every day. He was an open-minded man. I’d like to think he’s up there cheering me on as I try to figure out what I want to do next. My parents would love to see me marry locally and take over the family ranch. I don’t have the heart to tell them it’s not my dream. I don’t know where I’m meant to be, but have you ever gotten the feeling you’re still a work in progress?” Mason was watching her so quietly Chelle started to worry she’d talked so much he’d started daydreaming. “I’m sorry, I rattle on sometimes.”