Mr. Right Now (16 page)

“I’m not running.”

“Yes, you are.”

No, I’m not
. Casey barely bit back the lie. She wasn’t going to get into a childish Am Not, Are Too fight with Mason, especially not when he was right. She whirled away.

“Just think of me as the perfect woman. You can love me and leave me and I won’t care.”

Mason gripped her arm, turning her to face him. Anger burned in his eyes, turning the green to emerald and dilating his pupils. “If you only wanted the love ’em and leave ’em type, you would’ve jumped on Tyler’s bandwagon.”

“Tyler’s not my type,” she said, looking everywhere in the passageway but at Mason.

“We’re practically twins.”

She rolled her eyes and took a step backward. “Puh-leeze.” There were too many differences to count. Number one on the list being her attraction to Mason and unattraction to Tyler. If unattraction was even a word.

Mason pointed at his head. “Brown hair, green eyes. Same height, same basic build.”

Half the men in the world had his build. Didn’t mean a thing. She took another step back. How many rooms was she away from her own? “He’s pasty. You’re tanned.”

“So put him out on deck or stick him in one of the tanning beds in the workout room.” Mason took a step forward.

“You have a great five o’clock shadow.” She took another step back and saw her room number on the door. Thank God.

“Tell him not to shave.”

“He has nosebleeds.” Casey dug in her pocket for the room key. Her fingers caught her brush, the bra from last night, and a few tissues. Where was the damn key?

Mason advanced again. “Get him a tissue, and get yourself a better explanation. You don’t want a love ’em and leave ’em guy. That’s why you’re running so hard from Tyler toward me.”

Ah-ha! There it was. Casey didn’t answer. Instead, she stuck the card in her door lock and fled inside.

* * * *

Mason caught his foot between the door and the wall just before it slammed shut. He wasn’t going down like this, and he wasn’t going to let Casey get away with it either. She must feel something for him. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be running so hard.

Did he feel anything for her?

Impatiently, he pushed the question aside. This was about Casey’s feelings, not his. Stepping inside the room, Mason cleared his throat. “You haven’t answered my question yet.”

Casey whirled, anger, surprise and wanting warring together on her face. The combination was enchanting. “I didn’t realize there was a question hidden in your assumption that I was using you as a surrogate for Tyler.”

Was that what he had been doing? He didn’t think so. He was only trying to point out that the similarities between them could almost make them interchangeable. The argument didn’t seem so important all of a sudden. There was a wide bed not ten feet away. Mason wanted to know if Casey was as irresistible in a bed as she was in the more unusual places.

He reached behind him to lock the door and fasten the security chain. No interruptions. No more quickies. He was going to savor every single second until he made her scream.

“I don’t really care about your answer right now,” he said, advancing toward her with purpose in every stride. “We’ll get to that later. Right now I have another question.”

For a split second, fear shone in her eyes. As quickly as it came, it was gone, replaced by an emotion he couldn’t decipher. Instead of retreating from him, she stepped forward.

“What’s that?”

He traced a line down the side of her t-shirt, watched her nipples peak as his finger glided past her breast, and her stomach muscles clenched when both hands came to rest at her waist. He kept his thumbs moving in a circular pattern on the soft skin on either side of her belly button.

Her eyes closed briefly and she drew a harsh breath through her nose, exhaling out her mouth. “You said...you had...a question.” The words were shaky, her voice husky.

Question. What question? “How slow do you want me to go?”

No answer, only the slow nodding of her head. Mason smiled. Just the way he liked it. For the first time, he was going to enjoy Casey Cash from the tip of her toes to the crown of her head.

“Then we’ll take things slow this time.”

Without asking, he lifted her in his arms and laid her down gently on the bed. Slowly, he unfastened one sandal and then the next, freeing her pretty pink toenails. He dropped the shoes and headed farther north.

Her hands found his shoulders, urging him up. He resisted.

He flicked open the clasp of her skirt, pulling it down over her hips and depositing it with her shoes on the floor.

A purple silk thong was the only thing between his mouth and her soft mound. He breathed lightly and watched the purple darken with moisture.

She moaned.

His hands found the bottom of her shirt and pushed it up over her breasts. A matching lace and silk bra hid her breasts from him. He smiled. It would be gone soon enough.

Rising from the bed, she pulled the shirt over her head and tossed it to one side. “When you said ‘slow,’ I didn’t think you meant remedial,” she said and reached for his shirt.

She wanted to speed things up, but he didn’t want another fast and furious mating with her. He let her strip him of his shirt and jeans, but stopped her before she could reach inside his boxers. A few touches of her hand and all his willpower would go out the window.

“Not so fast. We’re going slow, remember?”

She leaned back against the pillows, smiled and said, “What if I don’t like it slow?”

Moving quickly, he entered the bathroom, grabbed the belt off her satin robe and returned to the room. He held it like a lasso. “I don’t think you have much choice.”

“You think I’m scared of a flimsy piece of material?” she asked, excitement lighting her eyes. “You don’t scare me, Mason.”

He chuckled, grabbed both her wrists and tied them to the headboard. “Maybe I should.” He traced two fingers down her ribcage, watching her skin quiver beneath his touch. “Now, where were we?”

Her hips bucked slightly. So that was what she wanted. Not quite yet.

With a flick of his thumb, he opened her bra and drew the lace edges across her sensitive nipples. She gasped with pleasure, her head rocking back against the pillows. For several moments, he allowed only the lace to touch her heated skin. When she was writhing uncontrollably beneath his hands, Mason replaced his hands with the bra, rolling her nipples between his thumb and forefinger.

“Oh, God.” The words were barely a whisper from her throat. “Mason,” she sighed. She strained against the belt, but he didn’t release her.

He trailed kisses down her chest and over her stomach, his hands never leaving her breasts. When he reached the thin purple silk covering her, he bit at the covering. His tongue teased her wet lips with the fabric.

She moved her hips, wanting a more thorough touch and not able to get it with her panties still in place.

He looked up, met her eyes and smiled.

“Please?” The words were a question as much as a plea, and he was happy to oblige.

Quickly, he pulled the panties from her and began again his trail of torture down her chest and stomach until his lips reached her.

Damn. She was so hot and wet he thought he would die. Pulling her folds gently apart, he found her clitoris with his tongue and began to slowly pulse against it. She moaned deep in her throat, her hips moving of their own volition now.

She was close. So damn close. Mason wanted to feel her come around him, and he made his move. Aligning their bodies, he thrust deep inside her.

Her eyes widened, pupils dilated. She pulled against her bindings again, but he only smiled. “Just feel it,” he instructed. “Let everything else fade to black.”

When she sank back into the pillows again, he began to move inside her. In. Out. Going deeper with every stroke. She whimpered when he placed his lips on hers, matching the stroke with his tongue in her mouth.

Her body tightened around him, the muscles in her torso freezing for a few seconds as her inner muscles began pulsating around him, and he drew his head back to watch her climax.

Eyes closed, the only sign of her orgasm was the relaxed muscles of her face. “Ahhhh,” was the only sound that escaped her mouth. Her climax reached, Mason galloped ahead to his own.

“I am begging you, January. Please let Tyler move in to one of the crew cabins. He’s okay with it. Aren’t you?” Casey hardened her voice on the last sentence. If he disagreed with her now, she would stuff him through the porthole and worry about the consequences later.

Tyler scrunched into the couch and crossed his legs at the ankle. He thumb-typed into his PDA as if it was the most important thing in his world. “Anything’s better than rooming with you.”

January looked from Casey to Tyler. “I suppose we can arrange a transfer. I would like him to at least
see
the crew cabins first. That way if it doesn’t meet his standards, we can come up with another option.”

The only other option Casey saw was Tyler sleeping on the deck. She’d hold that card and play it later. The door closed behind them and she flung herself onto the bed, covering her head with a pillow. What was she doing? Yelling at her supposed fiancé in the middle of the dining hall, having a fight with Mason in the passageway, sleeping with him again. And now begging January to move Tyler. None of it made sense. Well, except for moving Tyler. Where had her well-ordered, pre-Nate, boring, life gone?

Knock, knock
.

The sound was easily heard through the pillow layer. Someone wasn’t being quiet about wanting in. Probably Tyler. She should do the equivalent of throwing his clothes out on the lawn and toss his suitcase into the hall.

“Go away.”

“Come on, Casey. If you want to throw your boy-toy out, at least give me my stuff first,” Tyler said through the door. “If I’m going to be sleeping on deck the rest of the cruise, I’d like the best space available.”

She rolled her eyes. Right. The best space available. Why couldn’t he just go with the crew quarters idea? He’d meet some woman in a heartbeat and be sharing her room before the afternoon was over. “Come back later or I’ll throw your things out the porthole.” Assuming the porthole worked and she could open it. Casey wasn’t in need of sea air and rain this morning.

“You don’t want me to continue this conversation through a door.” Tyler knocked on the door again. “We’re attracting a crowd,” he said, anger evident in his voice even through a closed door.

Her shoulder muscles tightened. A crowd. Great. She was doing a
great
job of keeping a low profile on the ship. By now the reporter probably knew all her secrets and would be getting ready to text his story to the mainland. Her life would be tabloid fodder for days. Much longer than if she had just stayed holed up in her apartment.

Damn Jane’s idea anyway
.

She rose from the bed as another knock sounded.

“Come on, Casey. At least give me some tissue.”

She rolled her eyes heavenward. Great, she was giving the man another nosebleed. Picking up his bag and a box of tissue, she opened the door. “I thought you were going to see the ship doctor this morning?”

Tyler grabbed a tissue and threw his head back, staring at the ceiling. “He’s swabbed. Cad see be ’til this abternood.”