Page 47 of Mason
Mason told him that I was hungry. And then disappeared? Recovering from the surprise that he’d done something nice for me—and still thrown off by the fact that Bear told Mason about us—I shake my head, mumbling, “No, this is great. Thanks.”
Lowering his voice, he murmurs, “Did everything go okay with Duke? He didn’t act like an ass, did he? Because I will kickhis,if he did.”
I swallow down my humiliation, figuring I can at least fill him in on Duke. “No. He was fine. Just kept drunkenly repeating himself. He had a lot of questions for me. But I highly doubt he remembers anything. He was out of it.”
Bear nods, concern etching his rugged features. “Mason?”
I swallow, my eyes locking with his. There are way too many people around to say a damn word about any of it. My jaw works to the side and locks. “I spoke with him.”
A flicker of surprise crosses his face, and his head tilts to the side. I’m certain he’s picking up on my overwhelmed state of mind and maybe even the fact that I’m upset because a second later, he cups the back of my neck, his thumb grazing my jaw. His gruff voice hits me square in the chest. “We’ll talk later, okay?”
I stiffen at first, but then have to bite my lip as warmth flows through me from head to toe at his touch. “We don’t have to, really. I’m good.” I pull away from him and head over to the kitchen table.
“Lennon?” I hear the confusion in his voice and feel his eyes burning into my back as I begin shoveling breakfast into my mouth. I hold up my hand and shake my head. I just can’t. Not right now.
Just a few seconds later, Duke appears. “Leaving in two.” I assume he’s talking to me since I’m still eating my breakfast, so I nod, stab my last piece of egg, and pop it into my mouth. I covertly watch him while I chew. Oh yeah. He’s moving stiffly, and his face looks painful. He’s totally grumpy—hungover badly, I’m guessing.
Mason hadn’t seemed nearly as affected by whatever they were drinking this morning. Everyone’s different, though, and has different tolerances. And since they were in Mason’s domain, I’d wager he’d been consuming something he drinks all the time… and even if it were something Duke likes to partake in, too, maybe they consumed more than he’s used to. I have a feeling Mason poaches his liver on a regular basis with whatever they drank.
I don’t even know why I’m thinking about it, or why I care. Frustrated with myself—and fucking everything—I pick up my plate and fork and take them to the sink. Quickly rinsing and stowing them in the dishwasher, I then retrieve my bag from the floor.
“You might try squatting instead of bending over, Stella. No need to show the goods off to more brothers than you already have. Are you going for some sort of record?”
My mouth drops open as I smooth down the back of my dress, indignation spilling through my veins.Fuck, does he know, too? How could he?I whirl on Duke, my eyes wide. Little does he realize, after speaking with Mason, I’ve already reached my limit of what I’ll take from cocky assholes today, so I let myself rip into him. “Oh, I’m sorry, did you see something you liked and you’re too—”
He cuts off my question when he grabs my chin, taking my breath away as he tips my head back. “Nah, Stella Bella. If you think for one second I want sloppy seconds, trashy thirds, or filthy fourths, you’re fucking deluding yourself.”
Bear groans, “Jesus Christ, Duke, that was uncalled for.”
“You bet your ass it was.” I glare at Duke, wishing I could shoot flaming darts at him from my eyeballs. My face burns hot, humiliation pumping through me at an alarming rate. I wrench myself from his hold. I’m going to choose to think maybe he isn’t aware of the rest of the mess I made last night and simply hit dangerously close to the truth. “What’s crawled up your ass and died this morning? The next time you get drunk, and I’m asked to keep an eye on you, I’ll go with my gut and let you choke on your own vomit.” I’m so angry, I can’t focus.
“Damn,” one stupidly brave soul huffs out, which is followed by a whole lot of snickering, as well as whispered cautions to shut up. Fuck me, the entire brotherhood is watching us. Listening.
“Let’s do this somewhere else,” Bear grits, shaking his head, his jaw rigid.
I take off for the front door. “Fuck this.”
“Stella, get your ass back here,” Duke shouts from behind me.
I flip him off over my shoulder and keep going, charging out the front door and down the steps, the alarm system beeping behind me. “Fucking asshole,” I groan out, securing my backpack over my shoulders just as the alarm blares to life. I give a little smirk.Good.I don’t know for sure what happens when it goes off, but I have a suspicion that Tristan, at the very least, gets a call from the security company. I don’t even fucking care.
There are some shouts from behind me, but I pay them no attention and continue down the driveway.Fuck.They have me so twisted up I can’t think straight.
* * *
I needtime alone to collect myself before I have to deal with Duke again. I’m not looking forward to seeing him. Not in the slightest. Not any of them, honestly. I’d been so livid when I left the house, and they weren’t really keen on the fact that I’d started down the driveway on foot, especially after I set off the security alarm. Well, too fucking bad. That makes us all unhappy campers today.
I shouldn’t have given in when they stopped the SUV beside me. I should have kept going. For all I cared, they could have followed me going three miles an hour the entire way to campus. In the end, though, Bear had pulled off and forced me to get into the SUV. He made sure I understood that in no uncertain terms was I going to be allowed to walk on my own to campus.
The stern but unfailingly kind look in his eyes is what finally did it; I’d cracked and given in. Even so, the entire way to campus, I’d refused to meet any of their gazes. I’d still been grumpy when Bear showed up to walk me from the science building to Cabot Hall for my history class, and I’m not any less so now.
I can hold a grudge with the best of them and so badly want to say fuck it and just take off, but I can’t, so I dash down the lecture hall stairs after my history class lets out and flee to the bathroom at the end of the hall that I’d discovered the first day I had this class. I hightail it inside, knowing Duke will be waiting for me on the steps of the building in the next five minutes. His final class of the day is across the quad from mine, but he’d warned me earlier that he has a lab on Thursdays and has to get back to campus for it after he drops me off at home. I can’t be late.
He can try to talk to me all he wants but fuck that and fuck him. I’d lost sleep thinking about how both he and Mason had ended up beaten and bruised—even if it’d been as a result of their own hands—because of something I started. I keep telling myself that if I’d just stayed put and left Mason to his tantrum, none of this would have ever happened. If it hadn’t, I wouldn’t be having daydreams of marking all my clothing with a scarlet S forslut.
I’m still sitting on the toilet when the lights go off and the odd sound of metal scraping on metal reaches my ears, then there’s the distinctclickof the door being locked.
“Hello, is someone there? Sorry, I’m still in here.”
