Page 25 of Fun and Games

"This coming from the girl with three jobs," Mason said.

"It's not like I want to be working all the time," I said, although it was true I did like to keep busy. Being left alone to my thoughts was less than ideal. "I want to experience lots of different things, that's all. I don't want to waste my life. I want to live it."

"That's a good philosophy." Mason stretched his arms above his head. His t-shirt rode up, exposing a strip of bare skin, that delicious V of his lower torso, with a light dusting of hair leading down to…

I snapped my eyes back up. I'd already been caught watching him sleep. I didn't want him to also catch me ogling his package, even if I had already gotten up close and personal with it.

He lowered his arms and rotated his shoulders while stretching his neck from side to side. I heard a pop.

"I'm getting old," he said. "I used to be able to sleep when I was crammed onto a chair in the back of a tour bus, no problem."

"You're not old," I said. "You're what, mid-twenties?"

"Twenty-five."

"You're only two years older than me. You can't call yourself old."

"I did the wholework hard, party hardthing for years," he said. "Sometimes I feel twice my age."

"What was it like?" I asked, settling back on the sofa. "That whole rock star life."

"I wasn't the rock star, Connor was," he reminded me. "But I was close enough I got to experience it first hand. Some of the parties I went to…" He let out a whistle. "Let's just say I'm surprised no one ever broke their neck or worse."

"Sounds fun," I said.

"It was, most of the time," he said. "As long as you had a good group of people surrounding you, people you could trust, then it was great."

"Was that a problem?" I asked. "Not being able to trust people?"

Mason's lips pressed together. "It was a problem sometimes, yeah." He grabbed the remote from where it had fallen to the floor and turned off the still-glowing TV. "How's your back doing?"

"Not bad," I said. "I do yoga, so I'm pretty limber."

"I know," he smirked. "I enjoyed how flexible you were."

"My feet are asleep, though." I lifted my knees one by one and jiggled my feet to try and get some feeling back into them. I winced as the tingle intensified into pins and needles.

"Let me help with that," he said, patting his thighs. "Put them up here."

I swung my feet up and put them in his lap. He took them in his hands and began massaging them. I groaned, half-pleasure and half-pain.

"Does it feel okay?" he asked. "I can't tell whether that's a good sound or a bad sound."

"It hurts, but in a good way," I said with a soft sigh.

"Are you secretly a little masochist?" he asked. "Are you getting off on this?"

"Mmmm," I hummed as I closed my eyes and leaned back against the sofa arm.

I couldn't lie, the effect Mason had on me was nearly instantaneous. His hands wandered from my instep, to my heel, and then to my ankle. His fingers brushed along my calves, and I couldn't help wishing he would go higher.

He dug his thumbs into a particularly sore spot, and I let out a quiet moan.

"Are you doing that on purpose?" he asked.

I peeled my eyes open.

"Doing what?" I asked.