I couldn’t take my eyes off him either.
Then with a barked curse, Mase buried his face against my neck and groaned. I wrapped my arms around him and held him tight, relishing the shudders rolling through his muscled body. I loved it, feeling this strong man unravel for me.
When he finally lifted his head, he wasn’t grinning like usual, he looked serious. As serious as he looked last night when he told me he never wanted this to end.
Nerves fluttered behind my ribs.
“You have work this morning, right?” he said.
“Yeah, and I better get up and get ready or I’ll be late.”
He kissed me and rolled to the side so I could get out of bed, but when I slid to the side, he reached out and grabbed my wrist. I paused and turned back.
His thumb swiped over my inner wrist. “You free for lunch?”
“What’s going on?” My belly was suddenly in knots.
“Can you meet me here? I’m on late shift tonight, so I won’t get to see you until tomorrow.”
“Sure. What time?”
Another swipe of his thumb over my wrist. “I don’t start work until this afternoon, so whenever you can get here is fine.”
I looked into his eyes, and he was still so serious but was giving nothing away. “I have a few bookings this morning, but then a bit of a break. It’ll probably be closer to one.”
“Sounds good.” He climbed out of bed. “You got time for a shower?”
“With you? Um…as awesome as that sounds, I’ll have to pass or I’ll never get to work.”
He grinned, wide and sexy as hell. “You’re probably right about that. You go get ready and I’ll take Jimmy for a walk.” He kissed the top of my head. “Catch you later.”
“Later, Sheriff.”
I got back to Mase’s house a couple of hours later. My last client was a seventy-five-year-old woman. She’d always wanted a tattoo and decided to go for it for her birthday. She’d gotten pink roses around her wrist, her favorite flower and something to remember her late husband. He’d bought them for her every year on their anniversary.
We’d talked the whole session.
It’d made me miss my gran even more, her laugher, her words of wisdom, our long talks. Conversations about life and love, of making the most of the time we had on this earth and not letting the good slip through your fingers. Of being happy.
Right now, Mase was my good. He was my happy.
Maybe we didn’t have to end? Maybe there was a future for us.
I’d had a last-minute cancellation, so I’d made it home an hour earlier than expected. He was right, we did need to talk. Perhaps he was feeling the same way?
I opened the gate and walked into the yard. Jimmy came running to greet me, a big, goofy doggy smile on his face, his tongue lolling out the side. I patted and loved on him and he danced around me, following me toward the back door.
Voices drifted out from inside. Mase was in the kitchen, and he wasn’t alone. The other voice was most definitely female. I froze as he said something, his tone low, gentle. His guest laughed. It was a pretty laugh. Could laughs be pretty? This one was. There was an intimacy in their tones as they continued to talk that made my stomach knot.
Because I instinctively knew who he was with, who he was talking to in that tone, the one he sometimes used with me.
Don’t look, walk away now.
But I couldn’t stop myself from moving closer, from peering through the open door.
Mase had his arms around a gorgeous brunette, and she was smiling up at him. Her arms around him as well. They were hugging, and the way they looked at each other was like—two people in love.
I backed up and bumped into a lawn chair.
Mase turned my way and froze, surprise crossing his features.
I wasn’t meant to be here, not yet. He thought he still had an hour. Or his ex had shown up and he’d forgotten about me completely. Either option wasn’t great.
“Trix.”
He never called me Trix. Ever. I was always Trixie or kitten, or occasionally baby. But he never called me Trix.
Janie looked me over, curiosity clear in her brown eyes. “Are you going to introduce us, Mason?”
Mason? She called him Mason. That was even worse. I was going to fucking throw up. Was that why he liked me using his full name? Because it made him think of Janie? Because that’s what she’d called him?
I lifted a hand and waved like a complete idiot. “Sorry to, uh, interrupt…I ah, I just…”
“This is Trixie,” Mase said. “That’s her trailer, and Jimmy’s her dog.”
She smiled. “I’m Janie, Mase’s wife.”
Not his ex-wife, his wife. Okay, yep, I was seriously going to throw up. I’d walked in on his actual reconciliation with her, hadn’t I? That’s what this was. I thought this might happen eventually, after what Quinn said, but months, maybe even a year or two down the line. Not hours after I was in his bed—and not right in front of me.
I struggled to reconcile what I was seeing with the man who had held me and kissed me, who had made love to me last night and again this morning.
That was sex, not love.
That’s all it’d ever been.
Mase did care for me, I truly believed that. But I’d been fooling myself, holding out hope in a secret place deep in my heart that he could feel the same for me. But that was never going to happen.
Maybe he hadn’t even admitted it to himself, or maybe he’d known all along, but Mase had only been killing time with me while he waited for Janie.
And now she was back.
“Yeah…ah, thanks…for watching Jimmy.” I took a step back, stumbling down the small step behind me and nearly falling on my ass.
Mase rushed forward and grabbed my arm. “Careful.” His eyes found mine, trying to communicate something.
I didn’t care what it was right
