You Are My Reason - Willow Winters Page 0,31

at her silverware and then up to me. “I’d be using you,” she says as if she’s confessing a sin.

A bark of a laugh leaves me and my tense muscles relax.

“Use me, Jules.” I stare into her blue eyes flecked with silver, feeling the tension between us morph into something sweeter, something darker and depraved. “I want you to.”

Julia

It starts with a kiss.

Then dinners and dates.

It starts with a smile.

Your evenings run late.

It tempts and teases.

And makes you want more.

But it’s not how it starts,

When it can only end in war.

There’s something about him tonight. Something darker that I didn’t see before. It’s the way he looks at me like I should be running from him. It both scares me and lures me in.

Lifting the glass to my lips, my one and only glass, I finish off the sweet wine.

“Did you write today?” Mason asks. We’ve made a bit of small talk and light conversation. I’m still feeling him out. I thought I wanted this thing between us but the air changed a bit ago, and the tension is something else now. Like we’re at war, although I don’t know why.

“I did, yes.” Every bit of it was about Jace, though. Something I’d rather not bring up with Mason. I pick up my glass again, finding it empty and cursing internally.

I head off whatever other questions he has for me by saying, “Why dinner tonight and not just drinks after?” My voice is low, nearly accusatory, but unlike what happened earlier, he doesn’t seem to mind.

It takes a moment for him to respond, but he does. “Because I had to eat and so did you.”

He takes another bite of his steak and then asks, “Would you rather we were just having drinks tonight?”

“Yes.” My answer is immediate. He doesn’t seem taken aback. He’s calm, unmoving and unbothered.

“Why’s that?”

I can’t look him in the eyes as my fingers nervously move up and down the silverware. I don’t know how to put it out there. “How did you know my name?” I ask him.

“From the papers,” Mason says and then quickly takes a sip of his drink.

I nod my head. That’s how everyone knows me. “The papers?” I say, hoping he’ll elaborate.

“I’ve read a few things.”

“Then you may have me at a disadvantage. The papers know far too much about me,” I joke, seemingly innocent, but I’m sure he’s aware that I’m prodding.

“That’s possible, probable even.” He smirks at me, his brilliant smile adding to his charm. I try not to let it affect me, but I’m at his mercy whenever he looks at me like that. I consider the facts and list out all the reasons I have to end this. Maybe the conversation with Kat got to me more than I thought.

I’m vulnerable. Check.

I’ve never done this before. Check.

I don’t know that I’m okay with this. Check.

And a man like Mason could crush me. Check a thousand times.

“Well, all I know about you is that you’re a bit of player,” I say and dare to hold his gaze.

“I used to be, yes.”

“Used to?” There’s a tension between us. It’s hot to the touch and it makes me want to move closer to him, but I know that I need to keep my distance right now.

“Yes, used to. I mean it. I used to be … more unattached, then I met someone.”

“Oh.” I’m surprised by his confession and also by the immediate reaction I have to him meeting someone who made him want to settle down. Maybe all the thoughts and emotions are playing on my face, because Mason continues.

“She’s not in the picture anymore and it wasn’t anything serious at all.” He answers my questions before I have to ask them and I’m grateful for that. “It just changed things for me.”

I wish I could keep my expression neutral but I’ve never been very good at hiding what I’m feeling, and this mix of curiosity and even jealousy surely isn’t becoming. “So now you want someone to fuck and take to dinners?”

A deep rough chuckle vibrates up his chest and the way he smiles at me does something to me that makes me reconsider my list of reasons.

“Someone, no.” His eyes heat and he licks his bottom lip as he adds, “You, yes.”

I huff out a small breath and peer down at my nearly empty plate before looking back up to him.

“I want to take you out, bring you back home and lay you down in my bed.” He holds