Page 12 of Hot Ice, Tennessee (Hard Spot Saloon #2)

12

JESSE

Mason gave me a molten glare the moment he entered my room. I was kicking off my shoes in the corner, and he gently shut the door behind him.

“Left me out there to run after you?” he asked.

“You made your way in here just fine.”

“I don’t understand you. You tell me you don’t want to fuck anyone, but you bring me back here like I’m some prize you found while out on a hunt?”

The whiskey was still making my whole world fuzzy, but in a deep, warm way that was causing me to feel way too fucking good. I didn’t exactly know what my plan was anymore, but I’d enjoyed walking into this house proudly holding hands with Mason. That was a feeling I could get used to.

The light was low in my bedroom, lit only by the small glowing lamp on my desk and the ambient light coming in from the second-floor windows. Mason looked obscenely good. He always did, but tonight, he’d come right from that fancy party and he cleaned up so well, even if I also liked him in his usual flannel, too. His button-up shirt hugged his body in all the right places—the sides of his abs and his biceps, especially.

He had a slightly ticked off look on his face that only made me want to push his buttons more, too.

“I’m not going to fuck you,” I said. When I saw the brief flare of disappointment in his eyes, I decided to relent. “ Yet .”

His cheeks went pink at my compliment, even though he was still trying to give me a hard stare.

“Where did you even come from?” Mason asked softly, shaking his head.

“Don’t know. Maybe aliens dropped me onto a hockey rink when I was a baby, or something.”

“Are you calling yourself some kind of hockey Superman?”

I sat down on the edge of my bed. “More like a hockey Batman. Dark, lone wolf, and I like the nighttime.”

Mason puffed out a laugh. He took off his shoes, coming over to stand over me, looking down. I reached a hand out to his waist, untucking a little portion of his shirt and gently stroking my thumb across his smooth skin there.

“I have to be honest about something,” Mason finally said.

“Tell me,” I said. I pulled back and hitched my fingers under the hem of my shirt, popping it off and leaning back on the bed. I liked the way Mason’s eyes surveyed my torso before he spoke again.

“If you fuck me, I’m going to have a crush on you,” he said, point blank. “And I know you don’t want that.”

“I’d be flattered.”

“Flattered and then freaked out,” he said. “I’m not trying to fall for a guy who’s 21, unavailable, and completely off-limits to me, anyway. Your cock may as well be… in a cage, or something.”

“Trust me, it isn’t in a cage.”

My heart was in one, maybe, until you came into my life and started fucking with everything.

“You know what I mean, though.”

“You didn’t exactly say you were in the market for anything either, Cowboy Fuckboy,” I told him. “Why would you care about a crush when you like to fuck anything that waltzes into the Hard Spot and winks at you?”

He rolled his eyes. “The guys at the bar say that shit about me because they think it’s funny. They know I’m a flirt. But they don’t know what’s actually behind it.”

I pinned him with my gaze. “And what’s that?”

“I’m lonely,” he said, his eyes looking off toward my lamp.

I swallowed. “I see.”

He reached his hands up behind his head, stretching. “I fucked around all year because I needed to feel… something. Anything,” Mason explained. “But no, I don’t just want any guy.”

“What do you want?”

“Love,” he blurted out, giving me a hopeless look. “I don’t just want love, I want to be knocked on my ass with love. I know I don’t deserve it, and I need to get my own goddamn life back on track before I could ever be someone truly lovable, but of course that’s what I really want.”

My heart kicked up into high-gear.

I’d said something similar to Elliot, many months ago, pleading with him to just make me feel loved . It was something he could never provide. Not in the way I needed.

Hearing those words on Mason’s lips stoked a smoldering fire in me that I’d thought must have long died out.

Knocked on my ass with love .

I thought I’d buried the idea of that even being possible for me, too.

“I see,” I told him gently.

He looked wrecked. “I know I’m a mess,” he said, his voice bitter with disappointment.

He really thought that that would scare me away? I guess I was the reason for that—I’d told him I was incapable of any sort of relationship right now, because I was so convinced that was what was best.

“Well,” I told him. “If you’re a mess, then I am, too.”

I reached for his hips again and pulled him down onto me at the edge of the bed. He straddled me, letting his knees sink into the mattress next to each edge of my thighs.

His eyes were wild as he looked at me.

So full of raw emotion—all of the things he usually kept behind closed doors, projecting an unbothered, fun-loving attitude to the world. I was seeing all of him, now, though, and the fact that he trusted me with it? That felt like a gift.

I gripped the sides of his hair, gently pulling him into a kiss.

He melted into me. His hands found their way down to my exposed skin, skating along the sides of my body. When he reached my back he gave it a hard scratch with his nails.

“So good. Do that again,” I said.

He scratched at me, going from my back and wrapping around to my hips, leaving red trails.

“Fuck, I’m not supposed to want you,” he murmured against my lips. But as I tilted my head back a little more and looked in his eyes, he seemed to rethink it and go in for a kiss all over again.

He smelled so good, like the fresh summer scent of the outdoors and the shampoo I was starting to get too familiar with. I felt the weight of him sink against me and I wanted him even closer. It felt like a pressure valve was finally releasing in me after something had been bottled up for way too long.

Mason wanted me.

Not on some secret, covert camping trip, where he hid me from the rest of the world like Elliot used to do. Not only on his terms, but on mine, too.

I want you, too, Mason.

He was beautiful chaos.

A lonesome cowboy who still partied like an animal.

A gold-hearted softie who could still banter and roast me all night.

And a person who loved everyone around him so much that he forgot to love himself—the colorful, sexy, infuriating, irresistible person he was.

From the moment I met him it had felt like Mason was on an urge to undo all of my sanity, all with a sweet smile on his face. Now, it was working. I couldn’t help myself when I was around him, and now that he was here on top of me I was reduced to nothing but pure desire. I needed to show him how worthy he was.

“Needed this,” I said, my voice coming out as a whisper.

He looked good, lit by the dim light at my bedside table behind me. His rainstorm blue eyes looked more soulful than ever. I’d heard the phrase getting lost in someone’s eyes but I’d never actually felt it as much as when I was with Mason.

“Why am I still wearing clothes?” he finally asked.

I hummed. “Great question. Off.”

He obliged in a moment. I helped him unbutton each of the buttons on the front of his fancy shirt. Once it was loose I leaned in and kissed the soft skin at the center of his chest, and he shrugged off the shirt, tossing it away.

I breathed in his scent and his heat . I had an animalistic urge to be rough with him but I also had just as strong of a desire to take care of him, to treat him like something precious, because he was.

He was insistent, though. He slid off of me and then undid his pants with no ceremony, too, shoving away all of the clothing he had on below his waist.

He was naked now, his cock out in front of him, hard and thick. He grabbed it at the root, his balls pressed up behind his fist, and I was distracted for a moment by the memory of making him come.

Good God.

“I want to see you, too,” he murmured softly, giving his cock one last long stroke to the tip before he let it go.

He moved his hand between my legs, feeling for the bulge beneath my pants, laying strokes with his palm along my cock.

“You’re so good.” I barely knew how to form other words right now but I knew Mason responded very well to praise.

My mind flashed back to something he’d messaged me: I will absolutely fucking worship you, Jesse.

My cock throbbed at the memory, and at my view of Mason right now, between my legs, finally making it a reality.

Nobody had ever treated me quite like this.

He wasn’t rushed. He wasn’t guilty. He wasn’t looking at me like I was a means to an end, just to get his rocks off, impersonal and uncaring.

He was right here with me . Every stroke and squeeze he laid onto my cock through my pants was enough to make me rut up against his hand, and I watched him like I was hypnotized, taking his time and slowly teasing me. When his fingers reached the top of my pants and he started to work the button and zipper open, I sprawled back onto the bed and he knelt between my spread legs. I nodded at him, encouraging him to continue and loving the look on his face as he did.

He pulled down my pants and boxer briefs in one smooth motion, briefly standing to yank them off and toss them aside. My cock bobbed free and as Mason saw it for the first time, he let out a groan that must have been audible all the way down the hall.

“Jesse,” he uttered, looking down at my cock. “You’re blessed with a body like that and your cock is that perfect, too?”

“Give me a fucking break. Yours looks like it should be in a painting. Maybe it should be in the encyclopedia under the entry for huge fucking cocks .”

He laughed, his beautiful, charming smile coming out on full display.

“I like you when you’re drunk.”

“I like you all the time,” I told him. “And I promise I’m not that drunk, Mason.”

“I taste the whiskey on your tongue. And that fucking lollipop that you knew looked good in your mouth.”

“Thought you might like the strawberry,” I told him. I reached down to stroke the soft, barely visible hair along his thigh. “Get your ass down on this bed.”

“Yes, sir,” he said in a coy tone, maybe trying to sound like he was half-joking—but I knew goddamn well that he liked saying that kind of thing to me.

I got up and moved to the edge of the bed as he lay down on it. In another moment I was between his legs, propping my arms beneath his thighs and leaning in toward his cock.

I licked a slow, wet stripe all the way from his balls, up the shaft of his cock, and onto his lower stomach. He moaned at the sudden contact and went pliant in my arms, relaxing into me. I teased him just like that a few times, letting my tongue slide along his shaft but never taking his cock fully into my mouth. Right when he was getting desperate for more I stood up.

I was in front of him at the edge of the bed. “Come here,” I told him, grabbing one of his hands and pulling him close.

He knew what I meant without me even having to ask. He sat on his knees on the edge of the mattress and leaned forward, sighing softly as he moved toward my cock. As he leaned in and gently kissed the skin on my upper thigh, I realized I was shaking, just slightly, at the prospect of this.

Mason’s skin tone looked golden in the low light. I ran my hands along his shoulders, marveling at their softness.

I hadn’t known just how badly I’d wanted this. I trusted him, even though I thought I couldn’t trust anyone. There was no logical reasoning behind it, but the feeling was real—and for the first time I realized I wasn’t afraid.

He was kissing lower now, against my balls and the base of my cock, gently stroking his soft cheek against the base. He kissed, dry and light, along my shaft in little pecks, until he reached the tip of my cock.

I was leaking precum and he moved his lips along it, making them glisten in the light. I ran my thumb along his lower lip, slicking it, and he pulled my thumb into his mouth and gave it a little suck.

My cock throbbed, insistent, but I had all the patience in the world right now. When his lips finally slid around my tip and he sucked me into his mouth, I sighed and let out a small groan, bringing a hand behind his head.

“Perfect,” I said.

Downstairs somewhere, the guys had turned up the music. The resulting bass came through the air, but it seemed like a far-off world that Mason and I were insulated from in here. He hummed around my cock and the vibration was just another point of pleasure. He took the rest of me in slowly, luxuriating in the moment, sliding his mouth over each inch. I bucked my hips forward into his mouth and he moaned around me.

He seemed to like it. A moment later he looked up at me from under his lashes, sinking my cock deep into his throat all at once again.

God, what is he doing to me?

He pulled off in a moment. “I want you inside me,” he said, an insistence in his voice.

“I know,” I said, stroking my palm along the side of his head.

“You going to tease me about it and make me beg?”

“Your eyes are doing plenty of begging while your mouth’s around my cock, babe.

He groaned. His eyes fluttered shut as I gently gripped his hair at the back of his head.

“God,” he whispered.

“I just don’t know if you’re ready yet.”

His eyes opened in an instant, and he gave me another insistent look.

“I’ve been ready since the night we met, and—fuck, I shouldn’t be saying this. I would have bent over for you in the back of your goddamn car. Do you even have the slightest idea about the dreams I’ve had about you? About us? Not that I should have said that, either. Fuck.”

I pulled in a breath through my nostrils, trying to calm the silent riot of butterflies that were now fluttering in my stomach.

“On your knees for me,” I told him, stepping back to grab a condom and lube from my nightstand.

His hands and knees made little divots on the bed. As I walked back over, I could hardly believe how lucky I’d gotten.

He looked every bit a man.

It was one thing to have somebody on all fours for you on your bed, but when it was someone as strong and masculine as Mason, it was something else entirely. It was like he was deciding to give me a gift, choosing to give me control, and trusting me to use it well.

That was all I’d wanted, for so long.

He turned and looked at me from over his shoulder, a little look of mischief in his eyes now.

“This good enough for you, Daddy?”

I groaned, reaching down to fist the base of my cock. “Told you not to call me that.”

“But your eyes do plenty of asking for it.”

I took a step forward and gave him a firm little smack on his ass and he smiled even as his eyes widened from the sudden contact.

“You liked that?” I asked.

“You can give it to me harder than that,” he said, a little challenge in his eyes. “I liked it, but I think I deserve a little more.”

Goddamn . I pulled my hand back a little further and gave him a solid smack on the back of his ass, and his resulting moan was even more of a reward, this time.

“You’re so good,” I whispered. “Taking it like that.”

“Thank you.”

I popped open the cap on my bottle of lube and worked the smooth liquid across my fingers. Mason’s ass was up on the bed and I got down on the bed over him, leaning forward to press a trail of kisses from the middle of his spine down to his ass. His skin was supple but his muscles were firm and hard, and when I spread his ass to let my slick fingers come down onto his hole, he pushed back against me right away.

“Fuck yes,” he muttered. “Give me two.”

“No chance.”

I’d barely pushed into him at all yet, and I could tell that he was tight as hell.

“Just do it,” he said. “I can take it.”

I was seriously doubtful of that but I gave it a try, gently sliding my fingers on his hole before slowly pressing two past his tight ring.

“Fucking goddamnit,” he cursed under his breath, but when I tried to slide them back out again, he reached behind and smacked my arm.

I couldn’t help but laugh. “You are so needy.”

“No I’m not. Give me two.”

“I like needy,” I reassured him. “I fucking love needy. Do you need my fingers inside you, baby?”

He let out a low sigh. “God, yes.”

“I know you do.”

I pushed two inside him again, going slower than he’d probably have liked but this time, not stopping. I knew it was a tight fit but I also had learned that Mason wasn’t afraid of a little pain—in fact, he seemed to enjoy it when it wasn’t too much. He started to sink back onto my fingers as well, pushing his ass back, showing me how much he could take.

“Good Lord, I missed that,” he uttered, sinking as far back onto me as he could. “Sex-free summer is never happening again.”

“You need to be fucked that badly, huh?”

“Yes. Yes I do.”

That was something I was starting to love about Mason—he knew what he wanted in bed, and he had virtually no shame in saying it. There would never be second-guessing with him. No doubt.

I reached around his hips, feeling for his cock in front of me, and finally connected with it. I closed my fist around his erection with one hand as my fingers pushed into his ass with the other, and a string of curses slipped out of his mouth.

“ Jesse ,” he muttered in a broken whisper that was hotter than hell.

“Yes?”

“You—you are so —”

His words broke off into another moan as I pushed hard into him again with my fingers, stroking his cock in tandem.

“Hate you,” he whispered.

“No you don’t.”

“I really, really don’t,” he said even louder, his cock throbbing in my fist. I took away my hand after I felt it, wanting to draw it out further, to edge him along. I pulled my fingers out of him a moment later, too, and when he turned to protest, I just gave him another quick swat on his ass.

I could still feel the liquor coursing through me, but the intoxicating feeling of being with Mason like this was a stronger drug.

I ripped open the condom wrapper and started to slide it on. I heard the guys downstairs chanting along to some song, and I was happy to hear that they were occupied far the fuck away from here. Once the condom was over my cock, I took a pause, gripping myself as I looked down at Mason.

An urge flared through me as he turned his neck to look back at me.

“Tell me you want me,” I said, my voice coming out a little raw and husky.

“Jesse,” he replied. “Sometimes I feel like wanting you is all I can fucking do anymore.”

I dipped low and leaned over, moving to catch his mouth in a kiss. I’d planned on it being a quick thing, but the moment my mouth was on his I was hungry again.

My tongue came out against his, the exact type of hot, wet contact I was craving so goddamn badly. I moaned into his mouth and he sucked in a breath, opening for me even further and kissing me deeply. I sucked on his lower lip, trailing my tongue along its ridge.

I could have stayed in that kiss for hours. All fucking night. But Mason’s ass was also shoved up against the side of my body and the insistence of my cock was too hard to ignore.

Before I broke off the kiss I put a hand up to his neck, just gently, with the amount of pressure I knew he loved.

I felt the vibration of his moan on my palm.

“I know you do this all the time, but I didn’t know how badly I needed it,” I whispered as I let my hand roam upward from his neck to his hair.

“There’s nobody like you,” he said. “This is on another… you are on another level.”

“You deserve it.”

“Nobody else knows how to touch me like that. And if they try, it doesn’t feel half as good.”

I hummed near his ear, trying not to let it get to my head. “I am going to fuck you so hard.”

His voice was low and desperate. “Promise?”

“This might hurt,” I told him as I leaned back, gripping my cock and lining the tip up with his hole. I could have stayed down there with him forever but I was also determined not to let this moment pass us by.

“Please,” he said.

I pushed into him gently, and even though I’d worked him open with my fingers, he was tighter than hell around my tip. I’d never been harder in my life, but no matter how rough Mason liked it, I wasn’t going to push into him fast enough to ever really hurt him. Mason shifted his angle beneath me, turning his body into the right position to take me deeper, and I watched him with a quiet awe.

“Fuck, just like that—” Mason said with a hitch in his breath as I worked in past the tip. He groaned a little and I knew the size of it must have hurt, but he wasn’t stopping, and definitely didn’t seem bothered by it.

“Doing so well, baby,” I said, surprised by the tenderness in my own tone. I’d never talked to someone like that before—all the little names that slipped out of my mouth, all of the praise I lavished on him when he deserved it so much.

Since when did I even feel things like that?

Tender little moments and something closer to hopeless romance than my usual removed independence?

That was something that existed uniquely for him, apparently.

Something he brought out in me, and a part of myself I hadn’t even known.

“God, why are you so thick? ” he uttered, and I felt a smile land on my lips. I gripped his hips, digging my fingers into his skin.

“Because you’re tight as a vise. Hips up.”

I pulled gently on him and he repositioned, allowing me to comfortably sink an inch deeper inside.

“That’s good. Really good. Push harder.”

It was surprisingly easy to get the rest of my length into him, and a moment later, I’d pushed into him all the way to the base of my cock. I was totally buried inside him now. He groaned as he felt the tops of my thighs meet his ass, and some strange surge of pride rolled through me.

“ Look at you,” I said, my voice ragged. “Taking all of my cock.”

I ran an open palm down his spine, marveling at the sight of it.

He tightened around me, giving my cock a quick squeeze. It sent a wave of pleasure through every cell of my body, and I had to tamper a quick urge to fuck him hard all at once.

When he turned to look at me again he looked deeply satisfied. There was a thin sheen of sweat on him now, and his eyes were half-lidded, their pretty blue not looking quite as innocent, now.

“I think you can take more,” I said softly. “I can really fuck you, if you’re ready.”

Something smoldered in his eyes. “Want to find out?”