Page 6 of Mason
Slowly, everyone files out of the room, leaving Bear, Mason, and me with her as she stubbornly waits on the couch for us to speak, not giving up her true thoughts on what transpired.
I walk up to her and bend at the waist, grabbing her chin. My lips twist as I murmur softly, “I hope you’ll decide to take that lesson and learn it now, because every time I need to reteach you, the consequence you reap will be worse. Whenever you leave this house, one of us will be with you. You won’t leave our sight unless you’re in class.” We engage in a stare off so intense, I’m surprised to find I’m unsure who the winner will be.
“You should probably head upstairs and decompress.” Bear gestures in the general direction of the entryway. “Take the stairs up to the landing, go left and all the way down the hall. The last bedroom on the right is yours.”
I figured Bear would come to the same conclusion I already had about which room should be hers, but Mason jerks beside me, frowning. His eyes implore me to put her somewhere different, and I think I get why and wish there were another option, but we only have so many open rooms. She’ll stay near us so we can watch her the way we need to.
Lennon’s eyes flick from Mason to Bear, and finally to me before she pushes to her feet. “Just so you know, you may be willing to blindly obey Daddy Valentine, but blind obedience isn’t something that sits well with me. I’ll play nice for now, but you’d better fucking believe I’ve been through enough shit that you willneverbreak me.”
She spins on her heel, and we watch as she stalks from the room.
“She’s a fuckin’ spitfire.” Mason gives me a wicked grin. “I think I like it.”
Bear shakes his head. “No, she’s going to be a fuckin’ handful.”
Ignoring Mason’s asshole response, I hiss out a long breath. “No shit.”
FOUR
LENNON
I’d loveto know what they said after I walked out, but something tells me it’d just piss me off. I grab my suitcase from beside the door where Tristan had left it upon our arrival, which seems like days ago. Putting in the time dealing with these guys is doing weird things to my head.
At the foot of the stairs, I scoop up my abandoned flip-flops, then heft my suitcase along with me as I ascend to the second floor. These guys don’t know me, and I don’t have any idea what Tristan has told Duke, but fuck. I’m no whore. And I’m not after their fucking money. I don’t deserve to have every single thing I do compared with my mother’s actions. How would I have been privy to most of it as a younger teen? In truth, I still have no idea what she did that was so wrong.
A bit of commotion reaches my ears as I get to the top of the staircase, but it’s all coming from the opposite end of the hall. It seems like the other two new guys have rooms in the far wing of the house. I suppose you’d call it a wing, since they live in such fancy digs. I turn and head in the opposite direction. There are several doors leading off the main hallway, but the big guy had told me to go all the way down, and I’m the last room on the right.
I don’t know what to make of him. Bear is huge and seems kinda nice, but I could totally be reading that wrong. It’s way too early in whatever game we’re about to play to determine anything. He’s definitely strong, though. Burly. Maybe a football or rugby player? He seems the type that would delight in tackling someone. I wonder if I’ll have a bruise on my lower abdomen from the ride I took on his shoulder back up to the house.
Mason? Honestly, he seems like a straight-up psycho. Who the hell grabs someone by the throat the first time they meet them? But even so, there’s something about him that intrigues me. I need to keep a lid on that spark of interest because he seems like the type capable of pure havoc.
And Duke is just fucking Duke. We’ve never gotten along since our parents were married. I find it irritating that he gets under my skin the way he does. I don’t claim to understand him because I don’t know the first thing about him, except that he’s been attending school here and any time he was home on break he’d spent it sniping at me. It’s almost as if he doesn’t remember me from before.
But now that I’m stuck under his thumb, it’s going to shift the power dynamic between us even farther in his direction. I hope I’m wrong, but I’m nervous that I’m right, and Duke is about to take a serious bite out of me.
I pass by quite a few doors on my way to my room. There’s one directly in front of me, but now I can’t quite remember if they said I’m right at the very end of the hall or if I’m at the very end on the right. I feel like it was the latter, but I pull open the one on the end just to take a quick peek.
A huge flight of stairs leads upward, so I seriously doubt this is my room. Probably just attic storage. I pull the door shut and, pivoting to my right, give a cursory glance at the enormous door and let myself in. My jaw drops. It takes me a few seconds, but I huff out a laugh at the way my mouth is still hanging open. I should have known that the room would boast insanely high ceilings from the size of the door but jeez. It looks like eighteen feet, easy. Slowly, I close myself in, then wander the gorgeous room I’ve been appointed. There’s a big bed dead center on the back wall with nightstands on either side and one of those padded headboards. I can imagine piling my pillows against it and reading in bed for hours.
I’m delighted to find both a window seat on the left side of the bed and a glass-paned door that leads to a balcony on the right. Wandering over, I glance outside, noting that I have a great view of the pool patio where we’re supposed to gather later, and it looks like the building on the far side might be a pool house. I crane my neck, noticing the balcony extends pretty far to the right, so I’m likely sharing it with the occupant of the room beside mine. I go to reach for the doorknob, but then remember something one of the guys—Bear, I think it was—had said earlier about leveling up and one of the things to be earned was an alarm code. So… I wonder if it’ll go off when I open this door, or if it’s simply the downstairs exits that remain armed all the time.
Rather than doing something dumb and risking inciting the wrath of the brotherhood, I tuck the question away for later and turn to my left, scanning the far side of the room. I have a small couch and a TV mounted to the wall.And, oh shit, is that what I think it is?Wandering over, I throw open the door to find a gorgeous bathroom of my own, all sleek lines and shiny fixtures. There’s even a closet tucked inside. I’m a little in awe of the entire setup.
I don’t have a clue what Mason’s issue was about me staying in this room—it’d been obvious from the shutters going down behind his eyes that he wasn’t pleased—but I’m unsure if I care because this is a really nice place to be forced to live for the foreseeable future. Maybe he’s my neighbor and doesn’t want to share his balcony.
As I’m looking around, I catch my reflection in the mirror over the sink and stop in my tracks.What the hell?Duke wasn’t messing with me. There really are marks on my neck. Mason. He put his hand on my neck and squeezed, but this is… black. With my hand shaking, I stare as my finger traces over the discoloration on my throat.Wait, what?I lean in, realizing whatever is there is smudging all over. My brows pinch, and I glance down at my finger, rubbing it with the pad of my thumb. It’s some sort of chalk—no, maybe pencil lead? Or charcoal? My brain does a bit of a short circuit, thrown back into those few seconds when he had me pressed up against the door. Really, what the fuck was all that about? Am I here to punish him? I don’t evenknowhim. I glance down at my tank top because it’s belatedly occurring to me that he had his hand squarely between my breasts before he slid it up to my throat. If my tank hadn’t been black, Duke would have seen a whole lot more than the prints on my neck. No wonder he asked if I was “already hard at work.”Fuck.
I exhale harshly, then carefully sweep my hair back, making a loose knot at the nape of my neck. There’s soap in a dispenser at the side of the sink, so I run water over my fingertips, then quickly scrub the residue off my skin.
The last thing I need is for these dudes to think I’m their plaything, here to do whatever they please.
* * *
Two hours later,I’ve unpacked and changed into a simple white T-shirt and a fresh pair of shorts. I check my phone and see it’s five until eight. Slipping on my flip-flops, I pull the door open, only to suck in my breath. Mason stands on the other side, hands on his jean-clad hips. He looks up at me from under hooded eyes, his lashes inky dark like his charcoal-coated fingertips. His gaze zeroes in on my neck, and I swear his lips quirk the smallest bit with silent amusement.
“I washed up. Thanks for touching me with your filthy fingers.”
He smirks and lifts his hands, showing me they’re clean before he silently reaches for me and guides my face to the side, elongating my neck. The way he’s studying me, assessing me—it’s completely unnerving. I swallow hard, and his knowing eyes watch my throat work, a ghost of a smile twitching to his full lips. He has really great cheekbones and is devastatingly, dangerously good-looking.
