Page 63 of The Lonely Road

Mason reaches for the soap, lathers it between his palms, and starts to wash me, beginning at my shoulders and working down.

Each stroke is deliberate, a worship.

No one has ever cleaned me like this before. It is strangely intimate, and I’ve never felt so naked.

He tips my chin up from time to time, his thumb tracing my jaw, and kisses me, like he can’t get enough of me.

I turn in his arms, straddling him in the tub, water sloshing up the sides.

He is hard again.

I felt him when he washed me, but the sight of his erection makes my breath hitch.

He runs his fingers through my hair, massaging my scalp, combing out the knots. I close my eyes, content to let him take care of me, to surrender for a moment.

When I open them again, Mason is looking at me with something softer than lust. A crooked, secret smile, as if he now knows something he didn’t before—like he knows something that I don’t.

He kisses my nose, my cheek, every inch of my face until I giggle. His arms lock tight around me, drawing me in. “You’re beautiful, Taya.”

My throat goes tight. I want to crack a joke, to deflect, but the words tangle on my tongue. Instead, I find his mouth with mine and kiss him hard, pouring everything I feel into the press of our lips.

We stay in the water until it cools, until our skin prunes.

Then, Mason wraps me in a towel and dries my hair with surprising tenderness. When I reach for moisturizer because if I don’t, my skin will turn into scales, he takes it from me and massages it into my skin from neck to toe. It’s romantic, yes, but it’s also organic, unplanned, perfect.

The sheets are cool when we get in. This time we make love slow and unhurried—a lazy burn instead of an explosion.

He lets me taste him, lets me hold him in my mouth, arouse him. When he’s about to come, he pushes me away gently and then lies on his back. “Ride me, sweetheart.”

He holds my gaze, both of us refusing to look away, as we make love again.

When I come apart one more time, it is quieter, like falling, and Mason follows me, groaning my name into the hollow of my neck.

After, he pulls the duvet over us, and we lie tangled into one another.

“Goodnight, Counselor.” He kisses my forehead.

“Goodnight, Mr. Brooks.” I kiss the shoulder my cheek is resting on.

I listen to the silence, to his heartbeat, to the sound of my own pulse skipping and stuttering in my chest. I’ve never felt so raw, so seen. I don’t know what will happen in the morning, or next week, or ever—but right now, in this bed, with Mason’s arms banded around me, I let myself believe in something soft. Something good.

I drift off, finally, my last thought a ridiculously giddy hope that he’ll still be there when I wake up.

CHAPTER 15

mason

She makes eggs.

I didn’t expect that.

No, that’s not true. I don’t know what I expected—coffee, maybe, the efficient morning of a woman who has a full practice and several cases in active litigation and no reason to feed a man she’s known for a month.

But she makes eggs—scrambled with green chile, cotija cheese, and parsley from the herb pot on the windowsill that makes the whole kitchen smell like spring.

There’s a choreographed grace to how she moves in the kitchen.

She knows where everything is without looking for it.