Page 135 of Gin and Lava

I slip my fingers behind his neck and start to massage, pulling him toward me and trying to smooth over the moment. Sex is the one thing that makes sense between me and Mason. It makes everything else fade away.

“Why don’t we distract ourselves with … something else?” I drop a hand to the front of his pants. “Preferably your giant—”

Mason snatches up my wrist. “As much as I don’t want to saynoto you groping my cock, it feels like I should.”

“Why?”

“Naomi, you can use me as your fake boyfriend to make your ex jealous,” Mason says, his eyes getting stern. “But you really shouldn’t use me as a coping mechanism and a distraction.”

“I want you, Mason. How is that a distraction?”

“Cause you don’t know what you actually want,” he says, pushing my hand back to my chest.

“Yes, I do,” I say annoyed, pulling him closer with the hand that’s still around his neck. “I want you to make me feel deliriously turned on just like you did this afternoon when I couldn’t get enough of your cock.”

Mason pulls both my arms off of him.

“You know,” he says, “every time we’ve been together it was because you actually wantedme. It wasn’t to forget him.”

“That’s not what this is!”

“No?”

I stare at Mason in the dark. He frowns. He doesn’t believe me.

I mean, it’s not serious between us. It’s sex. Hot—out of my mind—sex. Isn’t that the point? To be out of my mind, to be present, and forget everything else? When did the rules of this arrangement change?

“Look, if I was him,” Mason says quietly, “I’d want you back, too. You’re gorgeous and fun and you care about your friends. You’re the whole package, Naomi, even with your past. And if you want to be with him, then he ought to know that. I understand thatwe’renot something real. I understand that you expect me to just take you against this tree and thank my lucky stars that you’re even paying attention to me. But I’m not going to be your distraction. Figure out what you want.”

I stare at him dumbfounded.

“And if that’s him,” Mason continues, “that’s fine. If it’s not him, and you want to go back to having fun, that’s fine too. But you don’t get to fuck me while you’re thinking about him. Got it?”

Intensity passes through Mason’s eyes. He’s serious.

We can have a fake relationship, but we can’t fake fuck around?Thathas to be real somehow?

“I didn’t mean it like that,” I say sheepishly as he walks past me toward the beach house.

“I know you didn’t mean it like that,” he says honestly. “But figure your shit out, Tate. I can still pretend to be your fake boyfriend—for the wedding, or whatever—but the sex part … well, that just seems to make everything more complicated. So, maybe we shouldn’t.”

I stare at him surprised. “Mason?” I ask tentatively, squinting at him. “Do—do you have feelings for me?”

He turns and looks back at me, his face dark. I can’t tell if that expression is anger or frustration or something else altogether. I want him to make a joke and say something rude, something likeIf by feelings, I mean he likes watching me come on his cock, then yes, he’s fucking in love.

“We’re friends, Naomi,” Mason says instead. “I just want you to be happy.”

“Right,” I say softly. “But do you have—?”

“I think you deserve a whole lot better than him,” Mason interrupts, pointing to where we left Sam on the beach. “And I think you deserve a whole lot better than some asshole who talks shit,” he points at himself, “and only makes you hot because he’s got a big dick.”

“Mason—”

“You could have any guy you want, Naomi. The question is when are you going to realize that? Because when you do, you might also realize you don’t need any guy to make you feel good about yourself.”

“Like my mom?” I toss back, angrily. “Is that what you’re saying? I’m just like her?”

Mason holds my gaze, taking all that anger and fury from me and not backing away from the fact that I never want to be my mother. I’ve tried my whole life to avoid her shadow, but here he is saying that’s inevitable, that I’m bound to wind up making her same mistakes!

---