Without thinking, I smack it out of his hand and it hits the floor. I turn, running for the stairs but only run straight into the man I was trying to get away from.
Mason looks livid.
Chapter Twelve
Mason
I scoop Kennedy up in my arms, and for a moment I think she’s going to try and fight me. I can see she is fighting tears. Some have already left tracks on her soft porcelain skin. But like always, she melts into me and I carry her back inside, holding her as tight as I can.
I can’t fucking believe what Finn told me. I’d felt like my world dropped out from beneath my feet. I didn't even wait to hear more from him. I flew from my office, and when I saw the front door ajar, more panic shot through me. I knew I’d been a dick snapping at her to leave my office.
I watch as Finn walks out of our home and shakes his head, still not believing that I had believed him when he’d told me the assistant he’d gotten took care of all your needs. I kick the door closed behind us, leaving him and Brock standing in the hallway. I don’t care anything about them, though. The only thing I care about is my woman and trying to figure out why she’s all fired up. It can’t be over what Finn told me. Fuck, she probably already thought I was an asshole because I mauled her that day thinking I had every right to.
I do, I correct myself. I clench my jaw. She is fucking mine. Paid for or not, I can't let her go. Fuck, how have I messed this all up? I walk over to the sofa and sit down with her in my lap. She wiggles around like she is trying to get away from me, but she doesn’t make much of an effort.
“Sweetie.” I say the word softly. She looks at me, and a tear falls from her eye. It feels like someone is squeezing my heart with a fist.
“Don’t call me that. I’m not your sweetie,” she snaps at me. I have to fight a smile. I always knew that fire was there. She’s a fighter. She might melt when I get her in my hands, but in everything else in her life, she fights. With me, however, I don't want her to have to fight. I want to give her everything she’d ever need. She doesn't have to fight with me. “You’re getting another assistant. Will she be your sweetie, too?”
She heard me talking to Finn. I wonder what else she heard. Had she heard that I had no idea she wasn’t a paid whore? I think not. Her behavior right now tells me she thinks my hiring someone to fuck is an everyday occurrence for me.
“Well, I don’t think Jessie will like me calling him sweetie, but I’ll do it if it will get you to stop crying.” I try to tease her a little, desperate for the tears still forming in her eyes to dry up.
Her mouth falls open, and I steal the opportunity to kiss her. I pour everything I feel for her into the kiss, reminding her of the day we had together. This whole situation might have been fucked up from the start by me thinking she was something she wasn’t, but the truth is I knew what she was from the moment she stepped into my office. Mine. I felt it all the way down to the bones, and the past few days have shown nothing but that. Because I’m not acting like me anymore. I’m acting like a crazy man in love, doing everything I can to be close to this woman, making sure she can never leave me, no matter the price I have to pay to make that happen…like not showing up the fundraiser I should be at tonight. It might cost me a big deal, but I don’t fucking care. I’d burn my own company to the ground right now just to get a smile from her.
Her fingers dig into my hair and she kisses me back. I press her body deeper into mine as she moves to straddle me. I know where this is going, but I have to clear the air. I don’t want any of this bullshit between us anymore.
I pull my mouth away and rest my forehead against hers, trying to get myself under control. It’s something I lack around her. I don’t know how she does it, but she does. Even when she’s not near me, she rules my every thought. I obsess over her, wondering if she's eaten, gotten enough sleep, if she is thinking about leaving me.
I let my hands run up her body, coming to rest against her throat, feeling her pulse. I didn’t know the sensation could be so erotic, so soothing.
“I’ve never done this before.” She pulls back a little to look up at me. “I thought you were…” I can’t even say the word now. I’ve thought it repeatedly. Hooker. The word drives me crazy.
Her eyes search my face. “I haven’t been with a woman in a long time,” I admit. “Never someone I worked with.”
“But—”
I cut her off. “I thought you were something you weren’t. I was going to turn you away that day in my office. I’d spent the last few years dodging women, only wanting to work, but then you walked into my office and it was like years of buried desire came flooding to the surface, demanding to be let out, demanding to have you. Everything else in my life fell away, and you filled the space, the space I didn’t even know was empty.”