Page 66 of Mason

Or maybe it isn’t.

I should move. I should pull away, break whatever moment this is.

But I don’t.

Instead, I watch the way his eyesdarken, the way his breathdeepens, like he’s standing at the edge of somethingdangerous, something he knows he shouldn’t want—butdoesanyway.

His fingers brush against mine again, deliberate this time. A slow,testingtouch.

The heat of it travelsstraight through me, settling low, making my pulse stutter.

I swallow. “Mason?—”

He doesn’t let me finish.

One second, I’m sitting across from him, and the next?He’s in front of me.

Close.Tooclose.

One hand braces against the counter beside me, the other lifts—knuckles grazing my jaw, then my cheek, then lower, tracing the delicate curve of my neck.

Ishouldsay something.

Ishouldstop this before it spirals into something neither of us can walk back from.

Mason’s fingers tilt my chin up,barely a touch, but it might as well be afucking brandfor how much heat it sends through me. His breathghosts over my lips, the warmth of his hunger mixing with mine.

I don’t move away.

Ibreathe him in.

And wait for the moment he finally gives in.

This was supposed to bea line we didn’t cross.A temporary arrangement. Ano expectationskind of deal.

But that crumbles the second his lips crash against mine.

His mouth isdemanding, brutal,claiming me like I belong to him, like he’s been starving for this andfinally—finally—decided to take a bite.

I barely get a breath in before he has mepinnedagainst the kitchen bench, his body pressing into mine, hard andunforgiving.The counter digs into my hip, but I don’t care—I only care abouthim, the way his handsskate down my sides, gripping, taking.

I should have known this wouldn’t be gentle.

Mason doesn’t do gentle.

His hands aren’t soft—they’re rough anddemanding, fingers pressing into my waist, yanking me tighter against him. I can feel him—all of him—through the thin material of the sweats I borrowed,thick and heavy, and it sends a pulse of heatstraight between my thighs.

I moan against his mouth, and it’s like itsnapssomething inside him.

He grips my hip, lifts meclean off the floor, and I let out a sharp gasp as my back meets the cold wall, his weight pressing me into it like he wants tobury me inside it.

“Fuck,” he breathes against my neck, dragging his teeth across my pulse point before biting down just enough to make meshudder.“You’ve been driving me fucking crazy.”

I dig my nails into his back, feeling the flex of muscle beneath my fingertips, the barely-contained restraint in the way heholds me still.

“You’re the one that put up a wall and said no expectations,” I rasp, arching into him.

His breath stutters,just for a second, before he yanks my legs higher around his waist, grinding himself against me ina slow, devastating roll.

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