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“Order up. Table six.”
“I’m taking a break after this,” I tell Aurora so she can cover my tables, risking Grandma Rose having a conniption. I need ten minutes to take some deep breaths or I might scream. Waitressing isn’t new to me. I did plenty of it when I first moved and was waiting for auditions to come up. But I’d forgotten how draining it can be.
I drop off table six’s order, but before I can make my escape, I overhear something that stops me dead in my tracks.
“Heard there’s a developer buying that old theater.”
“Shame. That building’ll get torn down now.”
“Heard he wants to build some tourist trap box store.”
“Fuck, just what we need.”
The conversation between two old men might be merely a rumor, but it sends my pulse off the charts. I can’t seem to fill my lungs with oxygen. I’m going to hyperventilate. I weave through tables and patrons, rushing for the back door. It’s been eons since I’ve had a panic attack. Since a major audition that I completely flopped. I thought I’d moved past these episodes. But hearing about my precious theater being torn down and turned into a box store? My heart cracks in two.
I lean against the diner, close my eyes, and tilt my head toward the sky. I focus on my breathing, but it doesn’t do much for my sweaty palms or the tears threatening to fall. Before I ran away from my life here, that theater was thriving. I had big plans to bring in traveling shows and even produce some of the plays I’d written.
If only I’d known that leaving would cause its demise…
“Willow?” Mason’s deep voice sends shivers throughout my body, reminding me that the last time I saw him, he had his hand down my pants.
“Hey, Mason.” I don’t question how or why he appeared. I press my body harder against the diner, resisting the urge to fling myself in his arms. I don’t deserve the comfort I know he’ll offer me if I let him. I don’t deservehim. That thought is enough to set the first tears loose.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s nothing.” If the tears would stop falling, maybe he’d believe me. “Just taking a break.”
“People can be harsh,” he says gently, stepping close enough for the heat to radiate from his warm body. I want him closer. Ineedhim closer. My fingers itch to touch him. My lips buzz with memory. I want to forget the world and get lost in him. Though the hate sex is phenomenal, the hours-long love making is out of this world.
It’s this desperate desire that causes the confession to stumble from my lips. “I don’t have a lead role coming up.” I let out a heavy sigh and sniffle. “My agent fired me. Said I was missing that spark. Called me fat too—”
Mason’s hands are on my cheeks so fast it makes me dizzy. He lifts my chin until I’m meeting his gaze. There’s a fire burning in them, which only makes his fierce expression sexier. “You’re beautiful, Willow. Just the way you are. You’re sexy as hell, even if you drive me up a fucking wall half the time. Your fucking agent is an idiot.”
His lips crash against mine, his possessive kiss awakening things inside me I haven’t felt in years. I fist my hands in his shirt and surrender to him, even though I know it’s the most dangerous thing I can do. If I unleash my deepest, truest feelings for him, they’ll consume me. They’ll convince me to stay when my dreams are elsewhere.
It’s this fear of resenting him years down the road that gives me the strength to break apart the kiss.
“I have to get back inside,” I pant. It takes effort to keep my knees from buckling. How in the hell could I forget just how potent his kisses could be? “Aurora’s covering my tables.”
Mason scrubs a hand through his hair, messing it up just a little. Making my fingers yearn to do the same while I sit in his lap and ride his cock. “Willow, it’s not fair to look at me like that unless you’re trying to get fucked right now.”
“Out here?”
“Wouldn’t be the first time.”
Or even the second or third.
I reach for the doorknob, but Mason cages me in before I can turn it. He steals another heart-pounding kiss that leaves me soaking wet between my thighs. He squeezes my ass once, making me whimper with need, and turns away. Over his shoulder, he says, “I’ll leave my door unlocked tonight, babe.”
CHAPTER12
Mason
Itwist a cap off a bottle of Caribou Creek Pale Ale and settle in on the couch. It’s past eleven, and I should turn in for the night. I have to fly to Aurora Springs in the morning to pick up a small group of hunters. But I’m restless as hell. Willow Gray has my insides all jumbled. I can’t think straight when I’m around her, but I fucking hate it when we’re apart.
One heated kiss behind the diner hours ago has me hard as a rock. Or maybe it was the way she came on my hand last night outside the theater that has my balls turning blue. I’ve been hoping, like some sad fucking sap, that she’ll take me up on my offer tonight.
That she’ll come to me.
