“Nicholas has been with me from the start. He’s more like an uncle, a father figure really. Do you have any family?” he asks me.
I shake my head silently, keeping my eyes on Mason the whole time as he pulls out of the garage and navigates city traffic like everything else he touches.
With complete confidence and mastery.
Thinking about my own lack of family and friends I sigh, not even thinking to tell him which way to go until I realize he’s almost at my place.
“How did you…?” I start to ask, but he only shrugs, and even though I don’t want to, I remember the map of my city block in red on his computer.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Mason
I mean every word when I tell her I can wait, that there’s no rush for me to claim her properly. But I have to have a cold shower, and look up at the ceiling, quickly washing and avoiding the aching hard on I still have from pleasuring her again.
Like a mantra, I tell myself that today is all about Jules, what she wants.
I need to earn her. She has to want me as much as I want and need her.
Come to think of it, every day is going to be about Jules. If she’ll let me.
I know she will. She’s just shy and probably still in a little bit of shock from that damned auction business last night.
By the time she’s ready to go, I reluctantly bundle her in a robe and head for her apartment so she can pick up whatever she needs to feel more like herself.
As much as I’d like to see her in nothing but a robe all day, with nothing underneath I get it that she wants some of her own stuff to feel comfortable.
It also means she’s coming back home with me.
Doesn’t it?
Before I even realize, we’re a few blocks from the soup kitchen, and I know her building from memorizing her address on her employee file.
She seems taken aback that I know the way, but a sly smile plays on her lips.
Like she knows I’ve done my research on her.
Which I have.
Once I see it from the outside… once I actually set foot in the building…
My mind’s made up.
Jules is coming home with me, no matter what. I won’t have my girl staying in a place like this a minute longer than she has to, just long enough to get her clothes.
“Elevators are broken,” she chimes, and we climb the five flights to her floor, which is admittedly, not as terrible looking as the others we pass.
Even watching her climb the stairs, in my robe, watching her fine ass sway as she takes two, sometimes three steps at once isn’t enough to make me like this.
Not one bit.
Once at her door, she registers my annoyance. “It’s not Thorne tower, or whatever you call that place, but it’s home,” she says, sounding a little hurt by my judgment, which I can’t disguise.
I follow her inside, and am surprised at how clean, neat, and tidy the place is.
I know home is what you make it, but really? If you have to build a house of sticks next to a swamp, it’s always gonna have that vibe about it.
“Love me, love my house,” she chimes nervousness as she flits about, picking up stray items and taking off into what I guess is her bedroom.
The whole place is the size of my bathroom, maybe smaller. But with Jules in it, her knick-knacks, and her pleasing scent, I can’t help but feel like I can handle staying for a little while.
I poke around a little, finding an old style answering machine with a flashing light showing she has some messages.
She re-appears a moment later in sweat pants and a baggy sweater. Her hair brushed and tied back, making her look even younger.
Fresher.
Making me feel old by comparison until I feel my dick twitching inside my suit pants, which she notices, blushing.
“They still make these?” I ask, motioning to the answering machine.
“Oh, that old thing, it came with the apartment, phone, and utilities are included. It’s about the only thing that does work though...” she says, trailing off as she notices the messages.
“I never get any calls through,” she adds, and leaning past me, she presses a button and I hear the scratchy but familiar voice of an older woman.
“Jules? Uh… I hope you don’t mind. I got your number from your building super, we hadn’t seen you at the kitchen in a while, I hope you’re okay. I suppose you’ve heard, we’re being bought out by that Thorne Company. Anyway, the man himself was here today. Only a few weeks left, drop in, or at least call back so I know you’re okay. It’s Florence.”
I can feel my pulse thundering in the silence. My mouth goes dry and my palms start to sweat.
I try to swallow, but I’m worried it’ll be too loud in the silence.
It’s deafening.
Jules stands frozen, facing away from me. She doesn’t bother to turn around when she says it either.
“I think you’d better go, Mason.”
I don’t budge.
The ink isn’t dry, or maybe hasn’t even been applied to the deal I’ve set up to counter my own company’s purchase of this whole neighborhood just yet. But it’s still as good as mine.
Jules is mine.
I won’t have Jules or anyone else telling me to leave until she knows the truth either.
A truth I’ve been trying to keep from her, I admit. But only so it didn’t hurt her feelings.
If I hadn’t gone to that damned soup kitchen I never would have found out, but because I did, there’s all this now.
She turns her head, her eyes red with tears.
“I said you’d better go, Mr. Thorne,” she says coldly, and I feel a pain in my chest that cuts to my very soul.
“I won’t,” I tell her calmly. “Not until you hear me out. Not until I explain-”
“There’s nothing to explain,” she continues, cutting
