Rumor Has It (Limelight) (13 page)

I couldn’t deny it. It’d been years since I’d seen her like that and it had brought me back to when I was young. I refused to let my emotions get involved anymore where my mom was concerned though. There was only so many times you could allow someone to tear you apart emotionally like that.

“I’ve been protecting them from her since they were born. It was easy when they were younger but they’re older now and if she relapses...”

“Hopefully she’ll get the help she needs.”

“Let’s not talk about this anymore. We never got to finish our conversation at your place earlier.”

Ellie looked away from me and down at the water. I didn’t take it as a good sign.

“I like you, Mason. I just—”

“I like you, too. That’s all that matters then.”

“Wait. Let me finish.” She took a deep breath and soldiered on. “I’m sure you can understand why I have no desire to put my life in the spotlight any more than it’s already been lately.”

I nodded.

“I’ve decided I do like you and we should keep seeing each other while you’re in town.”

I took a step toward her. She put a hand up to signal me to stop.

“That said, I want to try and keep it on the down low. I’ll deal with the fallout, if there is any, but the less the better for me.”

I smiled. I didn’t understand why the hell she’d want to associate with me after what she’d seen of my life today, but I wasn’t stupid enough to question it.

“Can I kiss you now?” I asked.

Her tongue darted across her bottom lip and she nodded her head. This day just got a whole lot better.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

I stood in the corner of the pool as Mason crept toward me; going so slow his movements only caused the faintest ripple on top of the water. Those ripples reached me and splashed up over my breasts and I could feel my nipples tighten. Mason noticed, too. His eyes moved from mine down to my chest and I saw his nostrils flare as he took in a breath.

To my dismay when he reached me he didn’t touch me. He lingered close enough that I could feel his body heat, only an inch or two away, and I wanted to launch myself on to him. I was desperate for the feel of his skin against mine.

He reached one hand up to the nape of my neck. I thought he would pull me in to kiss him and my body tensed, ready for it. Instead his other hand came up to my breast and moved the triangle of my bikini top to the side so that my breast was exposed. He’d done it in such a way that he’d barely made contact with my skin. I let out a small moan from the back of my throat out of frustration.

“Quiet. I want to take you in.”

Normally I’d be offended by a guy telling me to be quiet but he did it in such a way that it only made me hotter. He repeated the process with the other breast and I couldn’t help it. I let out a soft moan again.

“You keep making sounds like that and I’ll draw this out even longer. Is that what you want?”

“No. God, no,” I whispered.

He stood admiring my breasts. “Beautiful. God, you are so damn beautiful.”

Finally after what felt like forever he leaned down and took a nipple into his mouth, his hand on my neck gripping me harder when I tried to close my eyes and move my head back. He ran his tongue around the puckered nub and pulled it out with his teeth as he backed away. I let out a little cry at the pleasure the slight pain had given me. He looked up to me and his eyes were fierce.

“Quiet, Ellie. I don’t want to hear a sound out of you until I tell you or I’m going to stop what I’m doing. Understand?”

I nodded. I didn’t dare say yes out loud for fear he really would stop. That was the last thing I wanted him to do.

He moved to my other breast and paid it the same attention. The hand that had been at my neck skimmed my stomach and moved beneath my bikini bottom quickly finding my most intimate spot. He gently applied pressure and began moving his fingers flat against me in a circular motion. I bit my lip to keep from crying out at the sensation. I couldn’t help but grind my hips into him, my hands clutching at the hard muscles of his shoulders. Tension began humming in my core and I was close to the brink. He must have known because he moved his hand further down and pushed one of his fingers inside me.

“Fuuuck,” he moaned.

He moved up from my breasts to take my mouth with his in a crushing, possessive kiss. Our tongues both fighting for control until I acquiesced and let him set the pace. His tongue darted in and out of my mouth mimicking what his two fingers were doing in my core. My hands moved over his head trying to get a grip but there was nothing to grab, his hair was shaved to short.

I was near to bursting. The ministrations of his fingers had me almost there but I needed some pressure on my clit to take me home.

Suddenly his mouth and his fingers were gone, nothing but an empty void left behind. I opened my eyes in panic and Mason grabbed me around the waist and hauled me up onto the edge of the pool. He grabbed the sides of my bikini bottoms and wrenched them off. I lifted my butt off the decking so he could get them all the way down my legs. He was in a hurry now, a man starved. He threw the bottoms behind him without any regard for where they’d end up.

His strong hands pushed my thighs apart. Instead of feeling self-conscious I felt sexy, ready for anything. He looked into my eyes, his own heated and full of lust.

“Now you can make noise. I want to hear you scream my name when you come for me.”

Holy. Crap.

I started to move my hands behind me so I could lay down when he grabbed my wrist.

“No. Sit up and watch.” He placed my legs over his shoulders and leaned in, licking from the top to bottom of my sex. I moaned. Loudly.

I sat there with my breasts out of my bikini, looking down as Mason’s head moved in between my legs. It was the most erotic thing I’d seen in all my life. His perfectly shaped head between my thighs, his tongue lapping at me.

His mouth moved up to concentrate on my clit and he slowly slid a finger inside me again, then two.

“Oh, Mason.” I had his head in a death grip while my hips moved rhythmically against his face. His fingers plunged in and out of me at a punishing pace. He sucked my clit in between his lips and it was all too much. My orgasm took me hard and fast and I bucked against him, crying out his name.

I’d only received oral sex a couple of times before, and I’d never been able to finish from it. I’d always been mildly embarrassed about receiving it and couldn’t seem to stay in the moment and relax enough to orgasm. I hadn’t had that problem with Mason. In fact, I couldn’t get enough. I’d just had the orgasm of my life but I still wanted nothing more than for him to bury himself deeply inside me.

He moved back a bit, taking me by the waist and pulling me back into the water. He pressed against me and kissed me passionately, gripping my hair with both hands. I could feel his stiff arousal pressing against my belly and I moved my hand down his rock hard abs toward the prize.

He abruptly pulled away. “No, Ellie. Tonight is just about you.”

“But I want you,” I said reaching out and trying to touch him again. I could hear the slight whine to my voice even in my lustful state.

He grabbed my hand and put it down by my side.

“I can’t tell you what it means to me that you went to Texas with me today. You didn’t have to put yourself in the middle of all that and deal with my family shit.” He straightened my bikini top so my chest was covered once again.

“The look on your face when you got the call. I just….I know what it’s like to have your mom disappoint you. To feel like the parent to your own parent.”

“I know you do.” He brushed a stray hair off my cheek and tucked it behind my ear, then leaned in to kiss me. This kiss was tender and full of emotion and understanding. When we were done he placed a light kiss on my forehead.

I was a goner. The forehead kiss was like my kryptonite and whatever feelings I had been trying to deny came rushing forward.

“I should take you home. It’s late and you’ve had a long day,” he said.

“I don’t want to go home.” I put my arms around his neck and looked into those hazel and green eyes that brought out the minx in me. My nipples were still hard and I brushed them against his bare chest. I knew he could feel them through my bathing suit.

His hands were on my hips trying to push me away. “Ellie, you don’t have to do this.”

“I know I don’t. I want to.” I didn’t have any time to spare. He’d be gone in a few short weeks and I wanted to cram every ounce of pleasure into them that I could. At this point the ten-date rule was a distant memory.

His ran his hands over the top of his head and blew out a breath.

“I don’t have any condoms. Usually I’d carry some on me but I didn’t really think I’d need any on this trip.”

I tried my best to ignore the part about him normally having them around and all it implied. I felt more disappointed than I should and I knew my bottom lip was sticking out like I was two years old.

Mason threw his head back and laughed. “Sorry, babe. My bad.”

“Well, I still don’t want to go home.”

“You can stay the night. No problem there but no guarantees I’ll be able to keep my hands off you. You might not get much sleep.”

Satisfied, I pushed up onto my tippy toes and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. “Good answer.” I sauntered out of the pool and made my way across the deck to the chair with the towels on it, my bikini bottom still floating in the pool.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

I awoke to a lush, warm body next to me. Ellie was draped across her side of the bed, stomach down. The t-shirt she’d borrowed to sleep in had ridden up to her waist exposing her bright pink thong and perfect ass.

Yesterday had been one hell of a ride. I needed to figure out how to deal with my mom long-term but I wasn’t going to dwell on that now. It only brought out the worst in me. I’d wait until Ellie left to think about it.

While she warmed my bed I wanted to worship at the altar that was Ellie. My hands itched to run over her ass and taste what lay between. Last night had been beyond what I’d hoped for on the plane ride home. We seemed to be in a good place at the moment. With my schedule nothing could last between us, but I wasn’t going to waste time worrying about it.
Carpe diem
, and all that.

Ellie looked peaceful with her dark hair spilled across the pillow. I wondered if she was a morning person. Did she wake up chipper and raring to go, or was she grumpy until she got her first cup of coffee? There was so much I wanted to know about this girl it was ridiculous.

I could think of a few really interesting ways to wake her up. Maybe with a back massage…or maybe I’d pull that pink thong down her legs and nibble between her thighs…or I could push that t-shirt all the way up and over her head, roll her over and massage her front. Great, now I was hard.

I can’t believe I hadn’t brought condoms with me. It had to be the first time I hadn’t had any on me since I was fourteen. What an idiot. I’d sure as hell be visiting a drug store today.

Nothing more physical had happened when we’d gone to bed. We’d had a long day so I settled for having her tucked into my body as we drifted off to sleep. There was something nice about that, too.

My cell phone’s shrill ring echoed from the bathroom counter. Ellie shifted on the bed and murmured. I bounded off the bed, trying to answer the call before it woke her up. I couldn’t have that. Not if I wanted to enact one of my carefully thought out fantasies on how to wake her.

Rushing into the bathroom I grabbed the phone and hit the answer button before looking to see who it was.

“Mason,” Troy boomed through the earpiece.

“Hey, man. What’s up? I’m kinda busy right now.”

“What the hell is going on? Why weren’t you answering your phone last night?”

“I was busy. Why?” I said with an edge to my voice. Troy may have been my manager but he wasn’t my caretaker and I didn’t like when he treated me like I was
his
employee.

“Oh, nothing much. I just got a call from the
National Examiner
asking if I had any comment about your mom being picked up for drunk and disorderly and property damage. Not to mention they wanted to know about the girl you were with. What. The. Hell. Is. Going. On?”

Shit. I’d meant to give Troy the heads-up yesterday but I’d had two very different women on my mind and for two very different reasons. Still, it wasn’t like me to forget to inform my manager of a potential PR nightmare coming our way.

“Sorry, man. I was gassed after everything with my mom yesterday and I forgot to give you a call.”

“Well, we need to talk to your publicist to figure out how we’re going to handle this situation with your mom. The girl…who’s she?”

“Her name’s Ellie. But I don’t want that released. In fact I want you to do whatever it takes to make sure none of this gets out. I don’t want my mom’s issues becoming tabloid fodder. If it hits the papers Justin and Olivia are bound to find out. There were some photographers taking pictures when we left. Buy the pictures. Tell them Ellie’s a sober companion or counselor, whatever, and that her picture can’t be in the media to keep the privacy of her clients.”