The Mason Dixon Line (A Horizons Novel) (6 page)

“Oh my God, let go of him!” Carolyn
shouted. Jimmy ignored her, pulling Mason down and ramming his head into the
side of the bar before delivering three quick punches to his face.

With a shout, Mason wrenched himself free and
kicked Jimmy in the crotch. Jimmy bent double and clutched himself. A low
shriek came from his hunched-over figure.

Hair askew, glasses gone, red-faced, Mason
looked miles away from the guy who’d been sketching with great deliberation
moments ago.

“Come on!” she yelled. Jimmy looked like he
was about to throw up. Good time to beat a retreat.

Carolyn snatched up one box of food: the
other had opened and spilled a burger and fries everywhere.

“I don’t have my glasses!”

Jimmy’s friends had overcome their shock
and were approaching now, eager to help their buddy. Drink Up, Bitches took a
step toward Mason.

“Who cares? Come on before we get killed!”

“I can’t drive without them.”

Scanning the room, she pointed at the
glasses perched safely on the bar top. “There they are!”

He retrieved them and put them on. Carolyn
grabbed his arm and dragged him toward the door.

“Thanks, Delores, sorry for the mess!” he
called over his shoulder.

Unbelievable. They were one step ahead of a
group ass-kicking and he was making polite conversation. “You’re a piece of
work, you know that?”

“That’s what they tell me.”

“Are you okay?” Thank God the urgency of
the situation finally seemed to have dawned on Mason, who had pulled out of the
lot with a shriek of rubber and never looked back.

That job had been left to Carolyn, who
peeked into the rear view mirror every few moments to make sure no one had
followed them. So far, so good.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Anybody coming?”

“Nope.” She stared at Mason. “Dude, you are
crazy. They must have been impressed enough with your fighting skills that they
didn’t want to pursue you.” She shook her head. Her hands still trembled.

“My aunt made me take tae kwon do when I
was a teenager. Said it would help me learn discipline.”

“I don’t think it worked.” Her stomach
still hadn’t completely dropped out of her throat where it had surged during
the fight.

He laughed. “No, but I learned how to kick
somebody in the balls, which is something.”

“Whatever. I’m glad we got out of there
alive.”

She’d completely lost her appetite, so she
let Mason have her food. He munched her chicken tenders and fries as he drove.

He gestured to the box with a half-eaten
fry. “Pretty good. I’m impressed with Hogs and Chicks. It’s a good place. Sure
you don’t want some?”

“No thanks.” They turned down the road to
the cabin and silence fell again. He parked in the clearing. A light rain had
started to fall and the interior of the car was warm and dim.

He moved to open the door, but she put a
hand on his arm.

“Did you mean what you said?” Her suddenly
dry mouth made it hard to force the words out.

“Mean what?” He turned to look at her.
Drying blood trickled down from his split lower lip. The glare on his glasses
obscured his eyes. She wanted to take them off, so she could see his eyes, see
what he was thinking.

“What you said back there.” He didn’t
respond. Damn him, he wasn’t going to make this easy. “About me being
beautiful. About me being out of Jimmy’s league. Out of your league.” Her heart
had nearly skipped out of her chest when he’d spoken those words, and not just
because she’d sensed Jimmy was about to pound him.

“Oh, that.” He cleared his throat and
turned to face forward. Even in the dimness, she could have sworn he reddened. “Well,
sure. I mean it’s pretty obvious, objectively speaking, that you’re attractive.”
He looked at her again, with a wave of his hand that seemed to take in . . .
what? Her face? Her body? “And it doesn’t say much to say you’re out of Jimmy’s
league. I mean, any woman with a pulse and half a brain would be too good for
that idiot. And the half-brain might be optional.”

“Oh.” She came down to earth with a thud.
He didn’t find
her
in particular
attractive. She was
objectively
attractive. Thin, busty, with clear skin. Even features. Blonde. The kind of
thing guys responded to without a thought, probably because it was plugged into
their genetic code or something.

So much for fishing for compliments. She
should have known Mason would be too clueless, or too stubborn, to gratify her
with a little praise. “How’s your face?” From the side, she could see his eye
had started to swell.

“A little sore. I’ll live.”

She shook her head. “You’re lucky he didn’t
do worse. What were you thinking, anyway?”

He lifted a shoulder, rotating it and
wincing as if he’d pulled something. The movement pulled his trench coat tight
across his chest. “I couldn’t stand the way he was acting toward you, like you
were his.”

She drew back. “You’re kidding.”

He looked at her. “No, I’m not.”

“Huh.” Would she ever understand him? “But
you were so busy working on your sketch, I didn’t think you even noticed him
hitting on me. I thought I was on my own.” She’d wondered how far he would let
Jimmy go before he made any attempt to help.

He could have put down his damn pen,
engaged in conversation, and let everyone in the room know that he at least had
an interest in whether Jimmy threw her over his shoulder and carried her off to
his double-wide.

“I had to finish my sketch.” His eyes dropped.
“Sorry. I have trouble focusing on something to begin with. Then when I do get
focused, I have a lot of trouble letting it go.”

“That’s it? You couldn’t let go?” What the—”
. . . Her pulse raced. “Are you kidding me? You were content to sit there and let
me deal with that asshole myself because you couldn’t tear yourself away from
your drawing? I was scared shitless and you wanted to finish your doodle?” She slapped
the dashboard.

His face already looked like a piece of raw
meat. Lucky for him, she was too softhearted to add to his misery by walloping
him upside the head again.

“It’s a hyperfocus thing. I don’t really
have a choice. Drawing is one of my areas of hyperfocus. It’s good, because I’ve
drawn obsessively for so many years, I’ve gotten very good at it and it’s given
me a way to earn a living. A way that I love. But I do obsess over it. I’m
sorry if I scared you.”

He sounded so sincere, facing her with a
hangdog expression. “I’m sorry I left you to twist in the wind. I knew he was
being a jerk, but I didn’t know you were scared. I thought you would be okay
without me. It never occurred to me you could need
me
.”

She knew she was being unfair. Jimmy had
been bugging her, true, but she hadn’t truly been frightened until the fists
started flying. Everything that happened after that had colored her impression
of everything that happened before.

She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry for
going off on you. That fight shook me up, I guess.”

“Apology accepted.” He tilted his head to
study her. “I didn’t think it would be any big deal to you. I meant what I said
earlier. You’re beautiful. You’re used to guys hitting on you, surely.”

“Well, yeah, sometimes,” she admitted. “But
not when I’m in a strange place and getting a definite
Deliverance
vibe.”

They both laughed softly. Suddenly the car’s
interior felt very small. Intimate.

She lifted one hand and pulled off his
glasses, setting them on the dash. Gingerly, she touched the swelling around
his eye. Even the gentle exploration made him wince. “You’d better get some ice
on that.”

“If it makes this thing feel better, fine.
Damn.” He closed his eyes. “Jimmy may be a mouth-breather, but he packs a hell
of a punch.”

“That’s the thing about mouth-breathers. They’re
good at hitting people. You shouldn’t have popped off to him like that.”

His eyes opened wide, afire with resentment.
“I told you, I didn’t like the way he was talking about you.”

A tender feeling bloomed in her chest. Her
mouth twisted in a wry smile. Why did she feel like crying? “My knight in
shining armor. Better late than never.”

“Yeah. Story of my life.”

“Did you mean it when you said I was way
out of your league, too?”

His lips curved into a smile. “What do you
think?”

She tilted her head to one side, assessing.
True, he was a nerd, but he was a hot nerd in his way. Something about that
close-cropped cut and those glasses made her want to play the sexpot, to see if
she could crack him, tempt him beyond his ability to resist. “I think you do
okay with the ladies.”

“Yeah, right.”

Without thinking, she leaned forward and
pressed her lips, soft as a butterfly, above his swollen eye.

She paused a fraction of a second, waiting
to see how he would take that.

“If you’re trying to kiss it to make it
better, you missed,” he said, his voice uneven.

“Oh. Sorry.” She moved a fraction lower and
kissed his bruised lid. His breath drew in and she pulled back a bit. “Did I
hurt you?”

“Not really. You still missed the sorest
spot though.”

“I see.” She drew back, surprised by this
new playful side of him, the side that teased and tempted. She pressed a series
of kisses down the bridge of his nose, against a scratch on his cheek, taking
care to be gentle. “Did I get the sorest spot yet?”

“Not yet, but you’re getting warmer.”

“Definitely,” she said on a breath. “Getting
much warmer.” Desire crept like a cat through her body. She’d been keeping her
spine stiff to hold her upper body off of his, but now she let it relax,
melting against him. He groaned when her breasts pressed against his chest.

Her lips drifted down his face, moving down
his cheeks and then out to his ear. She placed a series of tiny kisses along
his jaw.

His breath sucked in. “Sorry,” she
whispered. She’d hit a sore spot on his jaw. She brushed the bruise with the
tip of her tongue, smiling at the tiny sound he made. Her lips hovered over his
mouth.

“Hot,” he whispered on a low breath that
sent shivers along her skin. “Burning hot.”

“Yes,” she breathed, leaning forward to
capture his mouth, taking care with his injury.

Her lips explored his swollen, bruised
mouth with all the gentleness she could muster. She brought her hand to his
chest, slipping between the buttons of his trench coat. His Flaming Lips T-shirt
thwarted her. Damn it, she wanted to feel his skin against hers, but all these
layers and their cramped quarters made it impossible.

Without warning, he groaned and took charge
of the kiss. He came across the gearshift and pushed her back into her seat.
She hadn’t bothered with a coat. With a click, her seat belt slipped free. He slid
his hands under her sweater.

His lips drifted away from hers. He took
her earlobe in his mouth, nipping it gently. The tug of his teeth sent a shot
of heat directly to her breasts. Eager to feel his strong solid body against
hers, she stirred against him.

How did a geek get this kind of body
anyway?

She hadn’t wanted a man so much in ages.
She wasn’t drunk. She wasn’t lonely. And she didn’t feel bad about touching
him, or letting him touch her in return.

He leaned toward her and then stopped,
muffling a curse.

“What?”

“The damn steering wheel—” He twisted,
stopped, and reached between her feet. “Lean back.”

She complied, muffling a squeal as her seat
slid back. He moved his hand to the far side of her seat, feeling for
something. “Hold on.”

He pulled something that tilted the seat
back.

“This is weird,” she said, now lying nearly
prone in the passenger seat of his Subaru. He was kind of killing the mood.

“That’s what all the ladies say to me.”

She couldn’t restrain a laugh. “I thought
you never scored with girls.”

“Well, once or twice, maybe,” he said, scooting
from under the steering wheel and moving to lie partially atop her.

His weight was welcome and warm. She
normally went for muscle-bound guys, who loomed over her and overwhelmed her.
Mason’s body was different: He was bigger than her, fit and solid, but not
huge.

“I’m very fond of this sweater,” he said. “But
I’d really like to see you without it.”

Her hands went to the hem, but she
hesitated. Suddenly she wasn’t sure. Despite what some of her friends thought,
she didn’t have a
lot
of casual sex.
And when she did, she’d usually had a few drinks to ease her nerves, and she
always made sure it was in a situation she could escape from. Guys you met in
bars never complained when you slipped out while they slept.

If she slept with Mason, she couldn’t sneak
out in the morning. They’d still have a book project to work on together.
Things could get weird, fast.

She had a bad track record with guys. What
if this was another mistake?

Sweat popped out on her upper lip.

“Ahhh, I don’t know—”

“What?” He tugged the lowest button on her
shirt free and slid his hand across her ribs. She shivered in response. Maybe
one more minute under his intoxicating touch . . .

Her reason made another grasp at taking
control.

“Maybe this isn’t a great idea. I mean, we
have to work together.”

“So?” She could feel his hardness against
her leg. A part of her wanted to reach down, stroke and explore him, to watch
him flame up and go crazy under her touch.

She could do that to him. She knew she
could. His attitude toward her had softened, even as his dick had hardened. He
might not approve of her, but he couldn’t disguise his attraction. The
challenge was almost impossible to resist.

The glimmer of her topaz ring caught her
eye. It wasn’t paid off.

She needed the money from this project to
make a dent in her balance. Otherwise, she’d be asking her dad for another
loan, and she couldn’t face that.

She had to be smart for once and do the
responsible thing.

She visualized her credit card statement,
and calling her dad the next time she couldn’t make her minimum payment. If
that wasn’t a boner-shrinker, so to speak, she didn’t know what was.