Page 72 of Excite Me

“Anything you want.”

I stared at him in awe and nodded. Things weren’t perfect. They were far from it, but this was what I wanted. For the first time in my entire life, I got to choose who I was with and who I could be happy with. And I finally had a man who was mine.

“I’m going to shower first,” Michael said, kissing me. “Care to join me?”

I pushed him toward our bathroom. “Maybe later,” I said.

There was so much schoolwork that had piled up these past few weeks that I had to do. I was taking summer classes to catch up on my missed first semester.

“I have to do some work for school.”

“There’s always room.” He winked and walked back into the bathroom, his back muscles flexing.

If I didn’t have self-restraint, I’d hop right into the shower with him and let him take me the rest of the day.

But I had shit to do—shit that would help me get a better future. So, I plopped down at the kitchen table and opened my laptop. All of my missed work from the past week popped up along with emails from some of my professors, asking me how my mother was doing.

I started on my psych homework, reading through the textbook and trying to concentrate. My phone buzzed on the table, and I glanced at it, seeing Mason’s number pop up on the screen. I opened the phone, reading the message. He hadn’t texted me in a couple of weeks. Why was he sudden—

Mason: Can I see you?

Almost a second later, another message appeared.

Mason: Please, I want to talk.

I rolled my eyes and shut the phone off, so it wouldn’t be a distraction. I didn’t want to delete the conversation or his number, so if I needed to, I could provide Melissa with proof that he wouldn’t ever appreciate her. I doubted she’d actually believe me, but it was worth a shot.

After silencing my phone, I continued reading about different abnormalities in the brain, trying to understand what was happening to Mom and her memory. But someone obviously didn’t want me to study today because they knocked on the front door.

I raised my brow and glanced at the door, eyeing it to see if it was Mason. He would be the one to show up and ruin my entire life. When I caught a glimpse of Melissa’s blonde hair through one of the door windows, I hopped up from my seat and walked down the stairs.

I didn’t really like answering other people’s doors, but Michael was in the shower, washing off from that amazing sex. When I opened the door though, it wasn’t Melissa.

I sucked in a deep breath, my eyes widening at the woman standing before me. I hadn’t seen her in years, but she hadn’t changed one bit. Melissa’s mother stood at the front door, a Gucci purse hanging off her forearm and a fake smile plastered on her face.

“Hi, Mia. Is Michael home?”