Page 19 of Mason Wilder
“It was.” Lucas took a swig of his beer. “I love the way this song turned out. Sindy and I worked on it a little last night, but I never expected both you and Tessa to change it up, too. It all just came together. That’s what happens when you have four people who work together the way we do. We can easily transition into subtle changes. It’s like we know exactly what each other are thinking.”
If only. That’s what Mason thought, until Tessa blindsided him with the truth. “Did you hear that spin Tessa put on the vocals?” It was another shocker from this girl he thought he knew so well.
“Yeah.” Lucas raised his brows. “She really jumped into it. But that’s my sister. What’d you think of the way we twisted the riff? Sindy loved how intricate some of the patterns were. She actually listened to me when I explained how I came up with them.”
As Mason tipped the bottle to his lips and took a sip of beer, movement from the other side of the pool caught his attention. It was Tessa, padding across the stamped concrete with her bare feet wearing a short beach robe.
“Don’t worry, big brother,” she called to Lucas. “I’m only taking a quick swim. I’m not gonna barge in on your guy time.”
“OK by me.” Lucas shrugged indifferently, and continued to explain the reasoning behind changing the riff.
But Mason wasn’t listening. Not because he wasn’t interested, because he was watching Tessa. She was acting remarkably unaffected. The contrast from her initial reaction to his rejection was too contradictory. She was overcompensating. He was worried about her, and he wanted to make sure she was all right.
He glanced at Lucas, worried his best friend noticed that he’d been focusing on Tessa. But Lucas was engrossed in explaining the intricate details of chord progression and the balance of notes in the melody of the new song. When Lucas was discussing music theory, a meteor could fall from the sky and land right next to him and the guy wouldn’t have blinked.
Mason returned his gaze to Tessa. She walked around the long end of the pool, the sprawling neck of the guitar that ran a good 25 feet in length. Her short silky robe flapped in the breeze, exposing her upper thighs. She skipped over something on the concrete, causing a gust to raise the hem of her robe and reveal the curve of one butt cheek. Mason quickly averted his eyes. He pretended to pay attention to his best friend for a few seconds, and then his eyes drifted back to Tessa. She had rounded the neck of the guitar-shaped pool and was headed toward where Mason and Lucas stood. With a bounce in her step, she smiled at them as she past. “Hi, Mason,” she said cheerfully. Way too cheerfully. And it was odd that she greeted him when they’d just spent several hours together in the studio.
“Hey.” His eyes followed her as she rounded the other end of the pool – the round body of the guitar – where the water was deepest. She climbed onto the diving board and walked to the end. Eyes straight ahead, she untied the belt to her short silky robe. He noticed that it was the same fabric as the top she had displayed the other night at dinner. Had she made the robe, too? She let the robe fall off her shoulders and tossed it behind her where it floated down to the concrete. The gold foil bikini she wore made his eyes pop. There were jeweled accents along the cleavage that accentuated her small perky breasts and sparkled in the light of the sun, making a prism. There were more jewels on the high leg openings of the skimpy bottom that made her legs look twice as long. Her skin was tanned a deep bronze. She must have spent a day in the sun yesterday, and the hue of her complexion contrasted beautifully with the metallic color of her swimsuit, which glimmered in the sunlight along with the jewels. She looked more beautiful than he’d ever seen, as if she belonged on a magazine cover or in an ad for suntan lotion.
She positioned her toes at the end of the board and took a few deep breaths. She pulled at the sides of her bikini bottom, lifting them higher and elongating her legs. She adjusted the strings at the back of her neck, straightened her arms at her sides and rolled her shoulders. Meanwhile, Lucas kept on talking, not even noticing that Mason’s eyes hadn’t left his sister. Tessa knew he was watching her, though, and the little show at the end of the board was clearly for his benefit. She raised her arms over her head in a delicate arc, bounced off the end of the board and slipped into the water with grace.
Lucas tapped Mason on the arm with his beer bottle. “I guess I’m boring you with music theory again.”
Mason’s eyes snapped back to his best friend.
“I wish someone got it like I did. I was hoping that person would be Sindy, but she turned out to be another lost soul.” Lucas drained his beer. “I’m getting a refill. Want one?”
“Yeah. Sure.” As Lucas headed into the house, Mason watched Tessa through the blur of the water. Her hair fanned out like black feathers while she moved underneath the surface. Her arms and legs created ripples on top of the water. She swam halfway down the length of the pool before she popped up for air, then swam back toward him. She shot up from the water and lifted herself onto the cement in front of him in one quick motion.
Squeezing the water from her hair, she smiled at him. “The water is beautiful.”
The tiny bikini, adorned with gems, sparkled brightly now that they were wet, and Mason’s eyes washed over her. Droplets of water cascaded down her taut body. Running on the beach and swimming left her arms and legs well-toned, without an ounce of fat. He’d never noticed how attractive she was before.
“I love this pool. Don’t you?”
Mason’s gaze shot up to Tessa’s face. “Uh. Um. It’s one of a kind. Who else has a 50-foot guitar-shaped swimming pool with purple lighting?”
She picked up a towel that was folded on the chaise lounge next to her and tied it around her waist. “See ya later.”
Mason watched her walk toward the house. She had a swagger to her gate, and her hips sashayed as she made her way around the perimeter of the pool. When she got to the sliders, she stopped and looked back at him, the corner of her mouth curling into a smile. She pulled the towel from around her waist with one hand, which exposed her bare butt cheeks in the skimpy thong he never expected her to be wearing. He stared at the perfect globes of her ass, firm and tan, with two little dimples sitting at the small of her back. Then she slipped inside and out of view.
Mason ran his hand through his short bristly hair, still shocked at the display he just witnessed. “Christ.”
