The NSC Boxset: Heart of Stone (99 page)

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”

I shook my head in frustration. “You really have no idea do you?” I scoffed sadly. I swung my legs out of bed and walked over to the wardrobe and pulled out a blanket that was stored in the bottom.

“Where are you going?” He huffed with confusion written all over his stern face.

“To sleep on the couch,” I informed him.

His hand grabbed my arm and I flinched but he didn’t remove it. “WILL YOU FUCKING TALK TO ME!!” he roared. I bit my lip in shock and hurt at his insensitive attitude towards me after being two seconds away from being raped.

Tears flooded my eyes and I held his eyes. “I needed you Mason, I needed you to hold me, I needed you to make me feel safe, I needed you to stop the tears and tell me everything was alright. I needed the comfort of your words and your love and tenderness. I just fucking needed
you
tonight but . . .” I stopped shouting at him to just stare at him. “But YOU needed to sort
your
feelings out first and then have the fucking nerve to come back, roaring fucking drunk, coked up and expecting to fuck me after I’ve been nearly raped!” I whispered with a sob.

He glared at me. “What the fuck do you want me to do? I finished him! What more do you want?” he raged.

I laughed bitterly. “Did you finish him because he hurt me or did you finish him because he’d dared to touch your property?”

His mouth opened then snapped shut and I nodded. “I thought so.” I sighed heavily and turned to the door.

“Don’t you dare fucking leave this room. Don’t treat me like fucking shit because I’ve killed somebody, so have you Ava . . . twice,” he shouted, slamming the door shut before he spun me round, trapping me in his frame against the door, his glare fierce.

“Yes I have Mason. I killed Dean for Katie and I killed Lee for
you
Mason, not for me!” I screamed at him.

“Bullshit Ava, you killed Lee because he raped and stalked you!” he scoffed. I shook my head with both sadness and ire.

“No Mason, I killed Lee for
you
because of how much he hurt you when he sent you those photos . . . not for me. FOR YOU! Whatever he did to me, it wasn’t enough for me to kill him, until I looked in your eyes in that warehouse and I knew he’d killed you inside by showing you, by forcing those images into your head! That’s why I shot him, because of how he hurt you! YOU Mason!”

His hands remained on the door but his eyes widened at my words. “Move,” I warned. I was gulping for breath. I was so mad I thought I might kill him if I got my hands on him.

“No, not until we have talked . . . Do you know what it did to me to see you . . . like
that?
Bent over in some fucking toilets while that . . . that fucking animal had his . . . his fucking dirty, filthy fucking hands all over you?” he cried.

“Yes Mason and you finished him because of how he made you feel, not for how he had made
me
feel,” I bit back. His eyes darkened, the fury building. I had to get out, get away from him. “I—said—move,” I lowered my voice just a fraction to forewarn him of my rage building. He continued to glare at me. The fire and anger in his eyes didn’t frighten me, it saddened me.

I cupped his highly ill-timed erection in my hand and squeezed. “I told you to move,” I whispered coldly, still squeezing.

I could see a drop of sweat on his forehead rolling down towards the bridge of his nose. “Ava . . .” he warned but I continued crushing and twisting. He bit into his lower lip, flinching against the pain. “Shit Ava, stop.” He winced as I carried on and raised my eyebrows in question.

“For fucks sake, Ava!” he bellowed and stood aside as he slammed his fist against the wall.

“Thank you!” I snapped and left the room, traipsing downstairs glumly.

I curled up on the couch, pulling the blanket over me and stared at the remaining embers glowing in the fire. He had hurt me so much tonight. He didn’t finish Tom for what he had done to me, only for himself, to make himself feel better, to ease
his
suffering and rage.

Even Greg had admitted this when he said ‘
He HAS to take care of it Ava, he won’t be worth living with if he doesn’t’
and then to go out and get bloody drunk before returning to me when it should be obvious that I would need his support was just unbelievable. What the hell was wrong with him?

I shivered as I pictured Tom’s snarl, his hands around my throat, squeezing the life out of me. My face stuck into the vanity as he raised my dress. What the hell was wrong with me? Why me, all the time?

A tear slipped free and then another, until I was sobbing quietly into the cushion. I couldn’t free the images from my mind, bringing back the memories of that night 5 years ago; being held against the wall with a hand around my throat, being taken from behind, the hard grip of my hair, the feeling of filthy paws all over me, touching me and taking from me.

The nausea rose again and I flung the blanket off and darted for the bathroom, just making it as I vomited and tremors racked through me.

“Fuck!” I spluttered into the bowl again. I couldn’t stop the damn images from swarming my thoughts, the feeling of his hands on me and the sensation of his finger swiping up my most private parts. The vomit came again as I felt somebody pull my hair back and Courtney whispering shush to me.

She pulled me against her and stroked my back as I wept, the tremors still flooding me. “I need to clean him away,” I told her as I couldn’t stop shaking.

“Ava, babe, I’m here. Come on let’s get you in the bath,” she said softly as she started to fill the tub and then settled beside me again.

“I heard you rowing with Mason,” she said softly and I snorted.

“Oh yeah, he’d rather go and get blind drunk than come back and comfort me,” I said sadly, hugging my knees in front of me. “When did Greg get back?” I asked as an afterthought.

She shrugged. “About an hour after we returned, why?”

“Was he drunk?”

I looked at her and she cringed under my scrutiny. “No,” she answered slowly.

“Mason came back thirty fucking minutes ago, smashed!” I fumed, “So where the hell has he been?” Fresh tears flowed at his apparent emotional distance and that hurt more than anything else that had happened tonight.

Courtney tipped her head sadly at me. “Come on babe, baths ready.” She pulled me up and stripped me down, helping me into the bath and sat on the floor beside me as I cried and scrubbed and cried and scrubbed at my crawling skin, still heaving and shaking as I tried to remove all evidence of Tom’s hands.

“Shush, Ava” she whispered as she stroked my hair.

The door opened and Mason stood in the doorway, his eyes narrowed on me but then softened and filled with love and regret.

He pulled a large towel off the radiator and held it out. “Stand,” he demanded bluntly but softly. I did. He wrapped the towel around me and lifted me into his arms, carrying me tightly against his hard and solid body to the bedroom without uttering a single word.

He set me down in the middle of the room and proceeded to rub me dry, never taking his eyes off mine.

When I was dry he retrieved his soft blue t-shirt from his drawer, the one I had claimed before and slipped it over my head and lifted me again, laying me gently onto the bed.

The bed dipped as I felt him climb in behind me and pull me tight against him again. “Sleep,” his said softly as he stroked my belly and pulled my hair to the side so he could rest his nose in the crook behind my ear.

I sighed, relaxing against him. This was all I needed, not a revenge killing, not a screaming match, not his drunken fury but simply his arms around me, protecting and holding me.

“I’m sorry baby, I’m so sorry,” he whispered in my ear. I didn’t answer but snuggled deeper into him and nodded as he placed a gentle kiss in the dip behind my ear. “I love you.”

He was really trying and my heart softened. I truly hadn’t took into consideration how he must have felt, walking into that bathroom and finding me bent over a sink, my arse on display and a fucking animal trying to rape me. It must have tortured him. Mason was a strong willed man and had the deep need to protect me. I know he had thought he had failed me but it was really my fault for getting myself in that situation by humiliating Tom at the booth.

I sighed heavily. “Thank you,” I whispered to him.

He stilled slightly, his firm chest pressing deeper into the arc of my back. “What for?”

“For saving me.” I replied and he exhaled heavily.

I could read him like a book.

“You didn’t fail to protect me, Mason. You saved me just in time. It was my fault he did what he did.” He turned me onto my back and loomed over me, sliding his hand into my hair behind my ear.

“No Ava! Don’t
ever
say that!” he insisted as his eyes flicked over the desolation on my face, his own despair at my words clearly displayed.

“But it was, I was in a mood and should have just ignored him but I humiliated him in front of his friends.” I sobbed and he wrapped me tight. “He touched me, Mason. He put his fingers on me.” I shuddered and I felt him tense and take a calming breath.

“It’s okay baby, it’s over now,” he soothed as he pulled my head into the crooked of his neck.

“I love you,” I said and I felt his smile.

“I love you, my little warrior,” he breathed. “Now go to sleep or Santa won’t come,” he scolded. I chuckled and snuggled in to him.

“Ava” he whispered.

“Mmmm,” I hummed against my deepening content and drowsiness.

“Merry Christmas, baby,” he kissed my head.

“Merry Christmas, Mason.” I replied softly and planted a kiss on his chest.

CHAPTER 18

“MMMM” I BREATHED, wriggling my bum into the pressure that was forming inside me. My eyes were still asleep but my body was humming with stimulation. “Oooh, yeahhh” I moaned again, my hips gyrating of their own accord. The throb was building rapidly, the sparks zapping my nerve endings throughout my body.

A quick flick against my clitoris and my eyes shot open to find Mason’s beautiful face between my thighs. “Oh fuck!” I moaned as my orgasm exploded through me at the erotic sight of his tongue working feverishly at me.

“Merry Christmas, Gorgeous!” I grinned as he looked at me through his long lashes and gave me lazy grin.

“And a very Merry Christmas to you too, baby.”

I stroked his face as he climbed up the bed and rested his forehead against mine. “I didn’t in my wildest dreams expect to be here with you on Christmas morning.” I sighed earnestly as a happy tear pooled in the corner of my eye.

Mason leant down and kissed the tear, transferring it to his lips. “No tears today, baby.” He placed another small kiss on my cheek and then another at the corner of my mouth as his knee nudged my legs open and he slowly entered me, inch by inch, slowly and oh so very gently.

His warm puff of breath hit my lips with his moan. “You feel so good, Ava.” He gazed straight into my eyes, possessing my very being as he slowly pulled back and held himself at my entrance and then leisurely pressed back in, rotating his hips as he plunged gradually.

“Mmmm, that is
sooo
good.” My man was loving me this morning; his perception of what I needed was spot on!

“You like this baby? You like slow, lazy sex?” I arched my back in pleasure as he circled his hips slowly, stroking against my clitoris with his pelvis.

“I like how
you
make me feel, Mason,” I groaned as he leisurely made love to me.

His teeth nibbled my shoulder blade as his hand gently massaged my breast. “Holy Jesus,” I moaned as my climax came close.

“Well that’s appropriate today,” Mason grinned against my shoulder.

I smiled as I clenched round him. “Come for me Ava, give me what you’ve got baby” he moaned as his thrusts hardened a little and he drove all the way in, pushing himself tightly into me as he bit my shoulder gently.

“
Mason!”
I cried as I detonated into a toe-curling orgasm that triggered my lovers and he rammed into me fully.

“
I love you, Ava!
” he cried as he bucked and shuddered inside me.

His forehead came to rest on mine again as we panted, eyes closed and sweat dripping. “Wow,” I whispered, amazed at how smooth slow lazy sex had sated me. I liked the hard rough sex but this morning I had needed the gentle love making and Mason had understood that entirely.

He rolled right over, holding me against him so I was laid on top of him. I kissed him adoringly, a slow tender kiss as I sucked on his bottom lip and nibbled it lightly.

“I love you Mason, so much. You’re my protector, my lover, my life, my soul and my heart.” I suckled on his neck, tasting his skin with a dip of my tongue. “You’re mine!” I claimed and bit his beautiful neck, the need to mark him and claim him overpowering me.

“Yes Ava, always yours,” he moaned and pulled me further into his neck “Bite me baby. Own me” He tasted amazing and all mine.

What the hell was that?

I reared back as my eyes shot open to greet Mason’s wide eyes. “Oh my god,” I grinned as a huge beam erupted on Mason’s face as it came again; A tiny but definite kick in my stomach.

“Did you feel it?” I asked him. He nodded happily and chuckled. He cupped my face and kissed me joyfully as we both laughed as another onslaught began.

“Do you think there’s some sibling rivalry already?” I chuckled as he rolled me over onto my back and settled his head against my stomach.

“Hey peanuts, stop fighting. The way your mother eats there’s definitely enough food to go round,” Mason said to my belly and kissed it twice.

“Hey,” I giggled slapping him playfully on the back. “Actually there’s nothing in there at the moment. They’re probably battering on the walls demanding breakfast.” I grinned as he laughed heartily. I loved his laugh, he made my tummy do a happy dance and my heart swell knowing at this moment in time he was happy and with me whilst he was happy.

“Well hell, we better feed them before war breaks out in there,” he smiled up at me and kissed his babies again.

I sat up and held his hand before he climbed off the bed. “I have your gift first, before we go downstairs,” I said shyly, all of a sudden nervous of my present to him.