I closed my eyes and bit my lips.
Then I opened my eyes and whispered, “I’m sorry.” Eric got up and grabbed my hand. “Come to the living room.”
Not letting go of my hand, he led me to the equal y impersonal living room. He sat on the couch then he pul ed me down on his lap.
I should have resisted but I didn’t. I also didn’t resist when he pushed me so my back was to the couch, my head was on the padded arm rest and he was on his elbow at my side. My ass was stil in his lap, my legs over his thighs, his other arm lying loose across my bel y.
Somehow this intimate position felt more comfortable and reassuring than sexual and predatory. I figured it had a lot to do with the worried, gentle look on Eric’s face.
“I’m tryin’ to figure out how you spent so much time with Mason, fel deep for the guy and don’t know who his fuckin’
father is,” Eric said to me.
I was trying to figure that out too.
Though, if I was honest, I knew the answer.
Because I was a big, screaming loser.
When I didn’t say anything, Eric went on, “Preston Mason is loaded. Stinking rich. He’s got shitloads of money.”
“I kinda guessed that with the limo and the suit.” Eric smiled, it was a good smile and some girl some day would be super lucky when he smiled at her like that.
Unfortunately, that girl was not going to be me.
“As rich as you think anyone can be, sweetheart, he’s richer.”
That was a little surprising considering I could think of being filthy rich.
“Yeah?” I asked.
“Yeah. And he didn’t get where he is because he’s a nice man, either.”
I pul ed in breath and before I could reconsider or even think of what a bitch it made me that I was laying on Eric’s couch with Eric and playing at his feelings for me in this whole fiasco, I said, “He told me Mace was responsible for his sister’s murder.”
Something in Eric’s eyes flashed and I didn’t like it, mainly because his face got tight along with the flash and he looked supremely pissed off.
“What?” I used the hated word again but Eric stayed silent then, as humiliating as it was in outing how shal ow my relationship with Mace had been, I shared, “I didn’t even know Mace had a sister much less that she was murdered.” I knew this, too, surprised Eric. The anger went out of his face and he shook his head. Then his face went soft again.
“Figure I had you, warm and wil ing in my bed, I wouldn’t talk about my sister’s kidnapping and murder either.” My breath felt like exploring the coast of Maine and I felt my eyes go huge.
“Kidnapping?” I breathed.
“Oh fuck,” Eric muttered before he looked at my knees.
My hand went to his face and I turned him to look at me.
“What the fuck happened to Mace’s sister?” Eric watched me then he did it some more then he sighed and it was heavy.
“I’m gonna let Mason tel you this story.”
“Mace and I are done,” I replied quickly.
His mouth formed a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
When he spoke, his voice was sweet but weirdly sad.
“Sweetheart, as much as it kil s me to admit it, you aren’t done. And it’s his story to tel .” I opened my mouth to speak but he shook his head. “It’s his to tel , Stel a. It isn’t pretty and if he didn’t share it with you, he didn’t for a reason. But I got no doubt he’d planned to get around to it eventual y, the time’s got to be right for that kind of shit. The time isn’t right when you find a good woman. You don’t want to lay your shit on her up front and freak her out.”
This made sense.
And any story that involved a jerky asshole of a father and a kidnapped and murdered sister was definitely shit you didn’t want to lay on anyone, good woman or not.
I was already freaked out and I didn’t know what the ef happened!
What I did know was that I would have known because Mace was going to tel me that morning.
I closed my eyes and turned my head away from Eric.
“I’m such an idiot,” I whispered.
Eric moved, stretching to lie by me ful out on the couch.
His arms moved around me to pul me ful frontal, his legs tangled with mine and I pressed my face into his chest.
After a few minutes of holding me, Eric asked, “You want me to take you back to him?”
I did.
I definitely did.
And I definitely knew that I’d been wrong about Eric.
He was a good guy.
A good guy I was using and another good guy I’d never have because I was thinking I was exactly as stupid as Preston Mason thought I was.
I answered, “Mace and I are over.”
Eric’s arms got tighter and his voice got lower and I could swear I heard a hint of anger when he asked, “What did Preston Mason do to you in that car?”