Page 50 of Played
“What? Oh. Uh, okay.” He runs a hand over his buzz cut and blinks, confused. If I didn’t know him better, I’d say he looks a little hurt, but I do know him. All too well.
He removes the condom. “Can I use your bathroom?”
“Yeah.” I avoid his gaze while I fasten up my pants. I don’t have a meeting, and the sneaky little fuck has access to my calendar. But I’m the chief operating officer. I can have meetings that come out of nowhere and aren’t on my schedule.
After the water shuts off, he emerges a few moments later, looking far too handsome for his own good. “Maybe we can go over that stuff tomorrow, then?”
I nod, distracted. “Yeah.”
“Everything okay?”
I should say everything is fine and let him leave, but I am clearly a masochist. “No. It’s not. You can’t keep fucking doing this.”
His brow furrows. “I can’t keep doing what, Mason? Because if you’re referring to what just happened, you were a very willing participant.”
“I was. I know that we can’t keep doing this, but also you—yeah, you. You come in here and you…” I stop talking. He what? He dominates me? He leaves me covered in my own cum? Fuck, I sound like an idiot. “You make me feel like that stupid sixteen-year-old kid again.”
His frown deepens. “What’s wrong with that?”
“I don’t like him, King. I did everything in my power to stop being that guy. That needy little fuckboy who craved your attention.”
Hurt flashes over his face. “You were never that to me. You were?—”
“Stop!” I cut him off. “It can’t happen again. At least not like this.”
“What do you mean not like this?” His pleading tone sparks something in me, reminding me I’m not that needy teenage boy desperate for his affection. I’m Mason fucking James.
I move forward until we’re inches apart and I’m looking him in the eye. “If we do this in the future, it will be me fucking you. That is the only way this happens again.”
His lip curls. “Then it will never happen. You know I don’t do that.”
I do know that, and it stings like a motherfucker. If I can be that for him, why can’t he do the same for me? I won’t let him see how much it hurts me though. “Then I guess this is it,” I say, shrugging.
He growls, opens his mouth like he’s about to say something, then stalks out of my office, slamming the door behind him on the way out. When he’s gone, I sink into my chair and let out a long, slow breath. Looks like that’s the end of me and King Blackthorn. Again.
It hurts, but not as much as last time. I’m tougher now. Stronger in every way. I keep telling myself that while I go through the applications for our new vice president of marketingrole. Combing through the sea of willing and eager young potential employees is as good a distraction as any.
Chapter
Twenty-Five
KING
Iread the words on the screen again. This must be my third attempt at the same email, and the content still isn’t sinking in. Frustrated, I shake my head and command myself to stop thinking about Mason fucking James and get my mind back in the game.
Cassidy Jones deserves so much more than what I’m giving her. But he is so damn distracting. Everything about him gets under my skin in all the worst and best ways. Every time I see him, all I can think about is having my hands on him or my cock inside him. I’d give him another blowjob if that’s what it took to be close to him, and that should tell me all I need to know about how bad I have it for him. Because I get head; I rarely give it.
But Mason… The mere thought of swallowing his thick cock makes my mouth water. What in the ever-living fuck is wrong with me? I have no idea how much longer I can go on working with him and not end up buried inside him. But he has made it abundantly clear that his ridiculous ultimatum still stands. It’s been a week since he made it, and despite us being alone and in close proximity at least half a dozen times since then, he’s been nothing but professional, and curt with it.
My cell vibrates, and the message that lights up on the screen does nothing to curb my frustration or clear my head.
We need to discuss this will and come to some arrangement that will suit everyone.
No hint of affection. No loving kiss. Not that I should expect anything like that—she’s only the woman that gave birth to me. The woman whose body I ruined, as she reminded me countless times when I was growing up. Why would anything change now just because her father is dead and I’m the only living blood relative she has left in the world?
Fucking hell, get ahold of yourself.My mother being a robot with less warmth inside her than the cold heart of a lizard is not a new development. I need to stop feeling sorry for myself and grow the fuck up. With a final glance at the screen in front of me, I close the laptop. Maybe a visit to my parents’ house is better than combing through the last year of Cassidy’s emails anyway. So far all I’ve found are complaints to her landlord and annoying newsletters from various chain restaurants and beauty websites. Not a lot of personal stuff on there at all, which isn’t too surprising given that most people under the age of forty no longer use email as a form of personal communication. Everything is WhatsApp and Snapchat now, and those servers are much harder to access than email.
Some good old-fashioned detective work in the form of talking to Curtis Jones’s prime suspect is the way to go.
