Page 35 of Writing Mr. Wrong

MASON

T hey settled into the living room, him on the sofa, her on the recliner. The air-conditioning was on, but sweat still trickled down his cheek.

“I told you I read,” he said. “A lot, actually, and in books, characters always know why they do things. Even if they act on impulse, they can look back and know why they did it. That’s not me.”

He ran his hand through his hair. “You never liked me saying I’m not very smart.

It isn’t only the dyslexia. No one expected me to be good at school.

The dumb jock and all that. They definitely didn’t want me to waste time studying when I could be practicing.

So I won’t say I’m stupid. I don’t think I am.

But whatever lets people understand why they do things? I don’t have that.”

She nodded, watching him, wary but patient.

“Sometimes,” he said, “when I try to think about things, something in my head shoves back. My stomach hurts, and my brain screams to just let it go. Don’t think about it. Don’t analyze it. I won’t be able to figure it out, so just stop.”

“When you think about what sort of things?”

“Things that make me feel bad.”

She didn’t answer. She was waiting for more. For an example.

Was he doing this? Fuck. Fine, yes, he was doing it.

He took a deep breath, steeling himself, and then said, “Like when I was little, and my parents would fight, and my mom would cry. I hated my dad. Hated him for how he made her feel. Hated him for how he made me…”

“How he made you feel.”

Mason shifted and waved that aside. “I’d be mad at him for making her cry, and then I’d get mad at her for not leaving him, and that made me feel bad, too. I just… I didn’t know what…”

“What to do with how you were feeling?”

“Maybe? When I was a kid, it was easier just to ignore that. Don’t think about it. Let my parents handle it. Not my problem, right?”

“It shouldn’t have been your problem,” she murmured. “You were a child.”

“Then I got older, and it wasn’t about my father hurting my mother’s feelings. I was the one…” Mason swallowed hard, feeling his throat constrict. “I was the one hurting people’s feelings, and most times, I didn’t know why I did. I didn’t mean to. Maybe my dad never meant to either. I don’t know.”

That was a lie. His dad liked hurting people. Mason had seen that malicious gleam in his eye. For his father, landing an insult was like hitting a slap shot, satisfying in a way Mason never understood.

“So you have no idea why you let your friends say it was a dare?” she said.

He squirmed. Could he say yes? Would she accept that? It’d be a lie, and hadn’t he already said he wouldn’t do that?

“I don’t know exactly why I did it,” he said. “I only know what I was feeling at the time.”

“Okay.”

He waited for her to tell him to go on. When she didn’t, he realized Gemma wasn’t going to demand he vomit out his feelings for her to dissect. Continuing had to be his decision.

“I know how I felt after the kiss,” he said. “Good. Really good. Like I’d scored a championship goal, and I was flying.”

She waited, still not prodding. But it wasn’t enough. He had to keep going.

“That night, after I got home from the game, all these thoughts came rushing at me. What was I doing? I didn’t have time for a girlfriend.

You were going off to university. You wouldn’t have time for me either.

And how was that supposed to work, me in the juniors while you were in university? I needed…”

He bent forward, hands running through his hair.

“I was seeing a sports psychologist to help me deal with the pressure. He always said that if I wanted a girlfriend, it had to be someone who supported me completely. Someone who understood that the game came first, and that if they were going to be in my life, any time they took from that, they had to give back by helping me. Making sure I ate right. Keeping my schedule. Answering my emails.”

“Acting as your personal assistant.”

“Everything was about getting into the NHL, and I’d never expect a girl to help me with that, so…” He shrugged. “No girlfriends. Just… you know.”

“Hookups.”

“I wanted more with you, but I’d never expect all the focus to be on me. You had your own goals.”

“Then you found out what your friends were saying…”

“And I was furious. I told them it wasn’t a dare, and they were being assholes, and stop that shit. They promised they would. But it was too late, and I knew I needed to say something. It took all day for me to work up the nerve, and when I did…”

He squeezed his eyes shut. “I don’t know what I wanted from that conversation, Gem. I really don’t. When you said it was no big deal… I’m not gonna lie. That hurt. But I also—” He swallowed. “I leapt on it, too. You didn’t feel the same way I did, and that stung, but also… I was relieved.”

There it was. The true confession. That he wasn’t just an asshole. He was also a coward.

He kept going. “I knew it wouldn’t work, and I didn’t have the guts to say that.

I wanted you, and when I realized I couldn’t have you, I felt like a little kid, stamping my feet and saying it wasn’t fair.

I was Mason Moretti. I should get what I want.

But if you didn’t want me back, then that was… ”

“The perfect solution,” she murmured.

“I didn’t really understand it all until now.

I remember this jumble of feelings, and I got caught up in all that, and when it ended, you were gone, and I felt…

I felt a lot of things, but mostly I felt like an asshole, and I hated that, so I told myself you were better off, and maybe you were, but that wasn’t my decision to make. ”

Silence. Then she whispered, “It really wasn’t.”

He nodded, his insides clenching, as if he’d hoped for another response, one that told him he’d done the right thing. Except he hadn’t.

“I…” Gemma took a deep breath. “I won’t say you were wrong about us. It wouldn’t have worked. We could have tried, and maybe that would have hurt even more, in the long run. Or you could have said you’d made a mistake, and that would also have hurt. The problem was how you did it.”

“You trusted me, and I betrayed that. I didn’t have the guts to say it wouldn’t work. I didn’t trust that you’d have seen that yourself. I just let that tide roll over us and make the decisions for me.”

She pulled her legs up under her. “I appreciate that, however it came about, you didn’t expect me to be that kind of girlfriend.

I could say that I wouldn’t have stood for it, but that’d be a lovely bit of self-delusion because I did stand for it, with my ex.

He needed the kind of wife who put his career first and worked in service of that.

The fact that you knew, even then, that that was wrong for me… ” She looked up at him. “Thank you.”

He let the silence fall. Then he said, “If you want to leave, I won’t stop you. I’d like to go along, if that’s okay.”

She shook her head. “I don’t want to leave.” Her gaze rose to his again. “Unless you’d like me to.”

He met her gaze and felt his heart clench. “I never wanted you to go, Gem. That was the problem.”

She stood and walked over to him. When he hesitated, she said, “May I?” and gestured at his lap. He nodded mutely and put out his arms, and she straddled his lap, her hands lacing behind his neck. Then she kissed him.

GEMMA

As Gemma kissed Mason, her hands dropped to the hem of his tank top. She tugged the shirt over his head and dropped it to the side. Then she ran her fingers down his chest and over his abdomen as she traced the muscles there.

“I had to take off your shirt that night I stayed over,” she said, her attention still on tracing those muscles.

“Camille had spilled wine on it and it was drenched, and it was really wrong to make you sleep that way,” she said.

“I had a good reason, but it felt like an excuse. I just really wanted to take your shirt off.”

He chuckled, the sound vibrating under her fingers.

“So I did take it off, as you may have noticed,” she said. “Which was a mistake.”

“A mistake?”

“Once I looked, I wanted to touch. I’ve spent the last few days wanting to touch. And you know what?” She leaned to his ear. “It was worth the wait.”

She only smiled and resumed her exploration, letting her fingers run over his biceps.

“Want to hear another dirty little secret?” she said.

“Absolutely.”

She leaned to his ear again. “When I had a bath in your apartment, I left the door unlocked.” She pulled back to run her fingers over his chest again. “Couldn’t quite bring myself to leave it open. But it was definitely unlocked. Just in case.”

A wicked grin sparked. “In case I woke up and walked in on you and whoops, you didn’t mean to leave that open.”

“It’s a sexy romance staple. Along with the hero really needing to take his shirt off. I was running through them all.”

“Except in the sexy romance version, I would have woken up and stumbled into the bathroom, which I didn’t do.”

“Probably for the best. Those scenes work much better in books.”

“True. If I really did open that door, I’d have been a gentleman and backed out fast. And probably not seen more than a bare arm.”

She sighed. “Exactly.”

“Well, since we’re sharing, wanna know my dirtier little secret from that night?”

Her brows shot up. “Absolutely.”

“Well, it started with seeing you in my bathrobe, which was incredibly hot. So hot I needed a shower. And I didn’t lock the door either. Instead, I enjoyed a nice long shower, imagining you coming in there and seeing me enjoying more than a nice long shower.”

She bit her lip, and his eyes sparked.

Now he was the one leaning toward her ear to whisper. “Which I did. I thoroughly enjoyed myself in that shower.”

Her cheeks went as hot as the rest of her. “And I missed it.”

“Probably for the best. Like you said, real life doesn’t quite work the same.”

“Me shrieking and backing out babbling apologies isn’t sexy?”

“Not my kind of sexy.”

“Good. Which is exactly what I would have done… and then spent the rest of the day forcing myself to wait until I was at home alone to replay the scene.” She tickled kisses up the side of his neck. “Over and over again.”

He groaned.

She kept kissing his neck and shoulders, until she realized she couldn’t quite do that and talk. Sadly. So she settled back and ran her fingers over his nipples again, enjoying his exhale of pleasure before her fingers ran down the rest of his chest.

“I dreamed of you the other night,” she said. “After I fell asleep outside. So many dreams of us. In bed. At the arena. Out on the deck furniture.”

That wicked grin. “Talking, right?”

“I do not remember any talking. And then I woke up to you having a shower, right on the other side of the wall, which meant I didn’t dare follow through on those sexy dreams. In case I wasn’t… quite as quiet as I needed to be.”

His breathing picked up.

“But then all I could do was think about you, naked on the other side of that wall.” She slid from his lap, her hands running down his chest. “Which did not help at all.” She eased his knees apart and knelt between them. Then her hands went to his waistband. “May I?”

When he hesitated, she looked up. “No?”

“Normally, hell yes, but if you’re going to do what I think you’re going to do…?” His fingers toyed with her hair. “Is it rude to ask for a rain check? ’Cause I’d kinda rather have you up here a little longer.”

Her cheeks flamed, but she nodded and let him draw her up onto his lap again, straddling him.

He tugged off her shirt and then expertly flipped open the front clasp on her bra. He pushed off the bra, but his hands went instead to her sides, running up them, his thumbs grazing across her breasts without stopping.

“Tell me again how you like my hands,” he said.

“Hmm?” Her eyes half closed as she fell into his touch, the slightly rough feel of his fingers on her skin.

“That night I carried you to bed. You woke up a little and said you liked my hands.”

She smiled. “I do. I have a thing for guys with hands like yours.” She met his gaze. “But I think that’s just because I knew a guy who had hands like that. A guy in high school, who picked me up with them and kissed me like I’d never been kissed.”

“Huh. I’m jealous.”

She laughed softly.

“Did he do this?” His hands cupped her breasts.

“Sadly, he did not.”

“This?” Those rough fingertips ran over her nipples, making her gasp, her back arching into his hands for more.

“He did not.”

“Probably just as well,” he mused. “As I may have mentioned, he was kinda shit at it back then.”

“Maybe, but he is outrageously good now.”

His grin lit up his whole face. “Outrageously?”

“Outrageously.”

“Well, he did work on it.” His hands slid under her arms and boosted her a little as his tongue went to her breasts, and after a few seconds of that, she forgot all about the conversation, startling a little when he continued.

“See, there was this girl in school that he really liked, and he didn’t want to disappoint her if he ever got another chance. ”

He looked her in the eye. “I’m crazy about you, Gem. Always have been. I’d say more, but I don’t want to scare you off.”

She wanted to say he couldn’t scare her off, but her heartbeat picked up, just a touch of panic igniting.

He moved his lips to her ear. “I’ll take it slow. I promise. I know you’ve been hurt. I know I’ve hurt you.”

She bit back a denial. No more of that. No more pretending she was okay when she wasn’t, that she felt less than she did, that he hadn’t hurt her, couldn’t hurt her again.

“I won’t,” he whispered, as if reading her thoughts. “But I know I’ve got a long way to go proving that. So I won’t tell you how I feel. But…”

He pulled back, looked her in the eye. “Last night was amazing, but it was also me showing off. Now that we know where we stand, can I do something different? Can I show you how I feel?”

Her cheeks heated, and she didn’t trust herself to speak, so she just nodded, and he pulled her into a kiss.