Page 72 of Freaks Of Nature

“At the shop?”At this hour?

“No.” Mason hesitates, looming over me but no longer touching. “A different job. We freelance.”

They have second jobs?

The way his eyes darken before they pull away suggests I don’t want to know what it entails.

Perhapsthisis the job that really pays their bills. The bikes. The house.

I slide my hands up his neck, pulling him back into me. “You are so different from your brother,” I remark.Despite the occasional slip of the tongue.

He traces my cheek with his gloved fingertips. “And that’s a bad thing?”

“No. But…”

“But Ash goes down smooth where as I am anacquired taste?”

“Yeah,” I agree with a soft laugh.

“And do you?”

“Do I what?”

He lowers his mouth to mine. “Like the taste of me?” he asks, the words feathering across my lips in a murmur.

“Mmmhm.”

His eyes drop to the source of my hum. Mason angles his head more, his nose brushing my cheek, and I expect him to kiss me, but instead he straightens.

“Here’s your key,” he says, fishing the small metal object from the front pocket of his jeans. “After your shift tomorrow, get your ass in your car and drive to our place. Don’t make me come get you.”

He plants a quick kiss on my lips and stalls for a heartbeat, our eyes locking, a grin pulling at his mouth.

When he swings around and rips the door open, I note that it wasn’t locked. Did I forget to turn the bolt, or did he really make a copy of my key?

I wouldn’t put it past him to sneak in while I’m asleep.

“Wait!” I straighten off the wall. “Are you just gonna leave that there?”

Hand on the door, Mason’s brow furrows, and he looks at me like he doesn’t know what I’m referring to. Then his stare shifts to where mine gestured beside my head.

I swear there’s a flicker of confusion on his face as to how his knife ended up in the wall in the first place before he steps forward and yanks it free.

I can see the effort it takes in the tension of his body. He really jammed it in there.

“Sorry about that,” he says, retracting the blade and storing it back in his pocket. “I got carried away.” He shrugs, then spins around to take off.

Carried away and then some,I muse.

Mace

When the fuck did I draw the knife?

I weave in and out of traffic, my heart racing. It’s not the first time I’ve done something I can’t recall—not the first time my hands have acted on their own. If my mind blocked out that part, what else is missing?

I walk my memory through the whole thing again, from cracking open the electrical box outside to finding the one for her apartment to cutting the wires… The knife was in my hand for all that, but I put it back in my pocket before picking the locks.

IknowI did.