lady and end it with a good night kiss before you fuck the easy girl to get off!”
His hands shoot out and grip my shoulders, pulling me to his chest so quickly a whoosh of air rushes from my lungs.
I squirm to get out of his hold. “Let me go.”
He presses his lips to my neck, his nose just under my ear, breathing me in. “Fuck . . . stop. Why are you doing this?”
“What?” Why? Um, besides walking in on the guy I kissed and let feel me up on a date with another woman? God, I’m such a hypocrite. I have no right to feel as possessive as I do, and yet . . .
“You misunderstood what you saw in there.” His big hands slide around my back and down to link just above my ass.
My traitorous body curls deep into his chest. “Mason, you’re on a date. The only misunderstanding was me thinking . . . thinking . . .” That we were more. How could I be so stupid?
He pulls back, and the anger I saw in his face is replaced with a tenderness that I feel in my chest. “Thinking what?”
I shake my head. “Nothing.”
At the sound of a throat clearing, my gaze darts to Angel, her expression soft. “I think you’re in good hands.” A tiny smile tugs at her lips. “I’m gonna head back inside.”
My cheeks heat and I nod. “Okay.”
“Thanks, Angel. We’ll be there in a sec.” She heads back into the club, and Mason forks his fingers into my hair to cup my jaw, locking me in a determined blue stare. “She doesn’t need to worry. You’ll always be safe with me.”
I believe Mason would protect me from harm, but he has no idea how vulnerable he’s made my heart. “Am I?” I choke out the words, shocked at how seeing him with another woman has reduced me to this kind of violent jealousy.
His grip is firm, unrelenting. “I care about you, Trix. I care about you enough to want to strangle every man who’s had the pleasure of touching you, to follow you home like a damn stalker, to walk away from you when all I want to do is strip you down and bury myself inside you. I care about you enough to ask you out on a real date and to chase after you when you run away.” He shrugs. “I care about you enough to forgive you for breaking my phone.”
My lips twitch, and I hope he sees it as a grin I’m fighting and not the torrential downpour of tears his words have evoked.
His hands cup my face. “Let me explain. Then you can decide if my offense is worth walking away from me for. Deal?”
I nod into his big palms, and my heart flutters as a soft smile tilts his lips. “Deal.”
“Okay.” He takes my hand. “Come on.”
Ten
Mason
Holy shit! That was close. For a second there, while she tossed out insults like arrows, I thought I’d lost her. I thought she’d never calm down enough to let me explain.
The crap she says about herself makes me sick to my stomach. That a woman this beautiful could have such little respect for her body is astounding. I take her belittling herself as a personal insult. I almost grin at the challenge she’s set before me, to prove to her that she’s so much more than the “easy stripper.” Her body and the honor of pleasuring it should be a prize to be won, not a tool to be passed around as she claimed the other night. My competitive nature digs in, hell bent on proving her wrong.
I take purposeful steps back to my table, making sure to stay at her side rather than drag her behind me.
As we get closer, she stops. “Oh . . .”
Ta-da! Now she understands.
I encourage her to walk with me with a gentle tug on her arm and tuck her to my side as we step up to the table.
“You’re back.” Eve’s smiling between Trix and me, her hand interweaved with Cameron’s.
“We are.” I squeeze the tense girl at my side. “I’d like you guys to meet Trix. Trix, this is Cameron Kyle, my boss, and Eve, his girlfriend.”
I can almost feel the heat of her blush against my skin as she burrows deeper into me. “Hi, nice to meet you guys.”
Cameron’s glare moves between us, and his jaw gets soft. “You too.”