Page 66 of Fallen Hero

Still, I had him beat. But I was thinking my condition was easier than his because I didn’t know what I was missing.

Now might’ve been a good time to tell him my secret. But I wasn’t ready. Maybe tonight on the balcony I’d find the courage to repay his trust by giving him something no one else knew.

“Do you understand?”

I wasn’t sure why he cared if I understood his reasons for not having sex. That seemed like a rather personal choice, and from what I knew of Mason and by his own admission, he didn’t give a shit what people thought of him or his choices.

But still, I whispered, “Yeah, I understand.”

“No, Calli, baby, do you understand why it’d be torture, you sitting next to me in that robe with your long-ass legs? That my mind would go to how they’d feel wrapped around me. That first night, carrying you to bed, feeling your hands on my chest. Then last night, getting a good look at your tits after dreaming about what they’d feel like in my hands, in my mouth.

“Then I get your mouth and your sweet tongue, but I can’t move. Can’t touch you. Can’t kiss you back. Can’t give you what you were really asking for because if I make a move and take that too far and freak you out, I’d never be able to live with myself.

“Haven’t fucked a woman in ten years, Calli. Haven’t touched a woman either. Haven’t allowed a woman to touch me. I feel the temptation of you in my dick. I wanted you to take what you needed, but, baby, it was the best kind of fucking torture given by you.”

I stopped trying to get away and dropped my forehead to his chest.

I was the worst.

A tease.

“I’m so sorry. That wasn’t cool of me to use you like that. Tempt you to do something you didn’t want to do.”

His hand let go of my arm and he slid it around my back.

Mason Hughes was hugging me.

Damn, that felt good. I couldn’t remember the last time someone hugged me. Maybe my dad before he died. My mom in one of the rare times I saw her when she was only drunk and hadn’t slipped into blitzed.

“Did it seem to you like I didn’t want to be there? I got a mouth, sweetness, I know how to use it. If I didn’t want you touching me, I would’ve said something.”

I bet he did know what to do with his mouth.

I really wanted to find out all the ways he could use it.

Now, that was completely off the table, and not just because I was a pathetic virgin and wouldn’t know what to do with a man like Mason. If I were ever to try sex, it’d have to be with a geeky IT guy who had less muscle mass than me and wouldn’t care if I fumbled my way through the experience.

“What’s on your mind?” he asked the top of my head.

I wasn’t going to tell him about my impending sexcapades with my imaginary geek.

“I’m embarrassed. And I have to admit that, last night, I wore the robe again because I caught you staring at my legs the first night, and it felt good. It felt normal, instead of the skeevy way men usually stare at me. It felt clean and good, and I wanted to feel that again. I didn’t think about how selfish it was.”

“It wasn’t selfish.”

“It makes me a tease, Mase. And that’s not cool.”

I felt his body shake against mine. Stupidly I pushed closer, hoping to absorb more of Mason. More memories to take with me when I lost him.

“I’d tell you you’re the best kinda tease, baby, but I know you’d take that the wrong way, so what I’ll tell you instead is, I didn’t mind. And if I have a choice, it’ll be you in the robe on our balcony again tonight. If I had another choice, it’d be you sharing my lounger, taking from me whatever it is you need with the knowledge you’re safe to take it. You want to be the only one touching, touch. You want to kiss me, kiss me. You want more, we’ll talk. But Calli . . . you have to talk to me, not run away.”

“You’d let me kiss you?”

“Fuck yeah.”

“Touch you?”

“Anything above the belt, it’s all yours. You wanna go lower, we’ll have to discuss that.”