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“Sleep okay, Sean?”
“Uh, yeah. I didn’t mean to…”
She caught Mason as he shook his head at Sean and their guest thankfully dropped it. “Breakfast should be ready soon. What do you say I give you a tour of the house? About thirty minutes sound good, Lib?”
She bit her lip hard and nodded, unable to face them. When she heard their retreating footsteps fade into the foyer she sagged in relief. This was exactly why kitchens were meant for cooking and not much else!
Chapter Five
Sean followed silently behind Mason as he led the way through the echoing foyer and up the floating staircase, each step a suspended plank providing an airiness to the space that Sean considered quite fitting with the simplistic style and clean lines of the house. It struck him as odd, how some parts of the house seemed so warm and others so cold.
Some rooms, like the guestroom he stayed in, were furnished in warm wood tones and plush fabrics that combined shades of sea green and robin’s egg blue to perfection while others were so monochromatically done he felt as though he should be wearing a hospital gown and preparing for a medical procedure.
The dark stained wood steps gave way to pristine white carpet running through the second floor hall. There wasn’t a spec of lint on the rug, nor a footprint, or stain, or smudge anywhere. This wasn’t a cream color rug in the white family either. No, this was pure ass white. Maybe it was brand new or something.
They turned into a small nook with an inset door. Mason opened it and Sean followed him inside and then froze. Holy fucking shit. They were standing in a guy palace.
Heavy leather club chairs faced a seventy-inch LED flat screen. Behind them was a red felt top pool table that, by the looks of the detailed undercarriage, was custom made. A large oak desk, equally detailed, sat off to the right. The room was large enough that furniture could sit cockeyed in the middle of different areas of the space and still look right, as if creating airy sections and rooms without walls within one generous space. But it was the back of the room that had him drooling.
The entire back wall was covered with top shelf liquors beautifully displayed in front of the mirrored back. Overhead racks in the cabinets dangled snifters and goblets and martini glasses of all kinds of shapes and sizes. In front of the wall was a twenty-foot brass railed saloon style bar fitted with ten leather stools, each complete with brass grommets. The taps peeking over the top of the polished wood showed all names of expensive imports.
“Jesus Christ, you’ve turned into James Bond. Either that or I’ve just entered the bat cave.”
“This is my office, or study as Lib likes to call it. This is one of my domains in the house. You’re welcome in here whenever you’d like while you’re our guest.”
Sean didn’t know if he should say something about what he’d walked into in the kitchen. Mase’s tone was clipped. His words were friendly, but his mannerisms clearly showed he would rather be fucking his wife right now than giving him a tour.
Sean walked over to the bar and ran a hand over the smooth top. “This is really nice, Mase. You must be a kick ass surgeon.”
“I do all right.”
“Alright in this economy doesn’t reflect this. Dude, I’m paying you a compliment. Take it. This is fucking beautiful.”
A little of the hostility left Mase’s expression. “Thank you. Come on, I’ll show you something you’ll like even more.”
Sean smiled, a little more at ease now that they were talking and Mase was acting more like himself again. He followed him down the hall and to a nondescript door. “What’s this?”
“It doesn’t look fancy from here, but that’s because it’s soundproof.” Mason opened the door and stepped into a dark space. There was no echo to the room and the air felt a few degrees cooler than the rest of the house. Their footsteps were muffled by the flat, sponge-like carpet and the silent darkness made him extremely aware of their proximity.
“Shut the door and just bear with me for a sec,” Mase said as he picked something up off a nearby piece of furniture.
Sean shut the door and was bombarded with Mase’s memorable and suddenly familiar scent. Realizing he’d misplaced this memory, he quickly seized it and cataloged it back in a pleasant part of his mind where it belonged. As shameless as a kleptomaniac, Sean inhaled Mason’s deep scent, stealing it, without requiring any rational cause, for himself. Nostalgic emotions tickled the peripheral of his mind at the familiar spice of Ralph Lauren cologne and Ivory soap. Mason smelled exactly the same. He was suddenly self-conscious of his breathing, but before he could develop a complex, a roar of sound circled the room scaring the piss out of him.
