7. Mason

Mason

H annah’s crying when she opens the door, but it’s not the first thing I notice.

It’s the busted lip.

“What happened?” I grit, stepping into the foyer of the oversized mansion and taking her chin in my hand to inspect the damage.

“It’s Missy,” she shivers. “She’s lost her mind.”

Of course. The evil twin.

“What did she do?”

“She’s been banging her head against the wall and she lost it. She attacked me. She was talking about demons,” she stammers, voice choked with the tears still streaming down her face. “I’m sorry, I just didn’t know what to do. No one would answer me,” she rushes.

I step closer to her and she winces when I raise my hand. My blood simmers beneath the surface of the meaning behind that. She expects pain, but when I wipe the tears from under her eyes, she sucks in a shaky breath.

“Take me to her.”

Carefully, she nods. Right on cue, something shatters somewhere upstairs, causing her to jump into me.

“She’s in her room,” Hannah says softly.

I step up the stairs, a sniffling Hannah on my tail, and take a left at her instruction. It’s not hard to find the room. I can smell it from here. A sickeningly sweet odor, like burning herbs and unwashed skin.

Makes my fucking skin crawl.

“Please be careful. She’s dangerous,” Hannah whispers, her little hand holding onto mine when I step into the door.

Funny, but not funny in a laughing way. Funny in a dangerous one because I like the way her fingers feel in mine.

That’s new.

“So am I.”

Her eyes widen, but she doesn’t say anything when I step toward the room, releasing her.

“Missy,” I call, cautiously stepping into the doorway. It’s dark, save for the moonlight streaming through the window.

“Get out!” Melissa screeches and seconds later, a lamp flies at my head. I step out of the way just in time, spinning to find her huddled in the corner like some kind of forgotten feral beast. She doesn’t have a stitch of clothing on and her hair is a wild, matted mess against the moonlight in the window behind her.

Fucking hell.

“Missy, stop acting like an idiot and talk to us.”

I’m sure it’s not the recommended form of communication for dealing with a murderous psychopath, but it’s all I’ve got.

“I said, get out,” she hisses, throwing a pillow my direction next. I want to pick it up and throw it back, but I know that’s probably not conducive to talking her down from whatever proverbial ledge she’s on.

“I can’t do that, Missy.”

“Mason,” Hannah whimpers behind me when Melissa growls like a deranged puppy dog. She tugs on my hand, but I stay put. I’m not leaving her here if her sister’s gone off the fucking deep end.

“Hannah . . .” Melissa snickers, getting onto her hands and knees. “Take a sip, Hannah. It’ll feel so good.”

Hannah steps back into the wall behind me, eyes going wide at the little bottle in Melissa’s hand.

“Stay here.” I drop Hannah’s hand and step into the room, ignoring Melissa’s angry fists when she tries to bat me away from her and pluck the bottle out of her hand.

“You bastard!” she screeches, launching herself off the floor. I manage to turn away before she produces a goddamn steak knife, making a poor attempt to lunge at me and throw her onto the bed.

“Hannah, get something to tie her down,” I grit, peeling the knife out of Melissa’s hand and pinning her down.

“Get off me!” Melissa thrashes underneath me, rearing her head and smashing it back against the mattress.

“ Hannah .” Hannah’s eyes wide with fear and locked on Melissa finally snap to mine and she darts into motion, rushing to the dresser and rifling through drawers.

“I’ll fucking kill you.”

“I’d love to see you try,” I murmur, voice strained from holding her down.

Listen, I’m a big guy. I’m six-foot-five, two hundred and fifty pounds and I can deadlift a transmission without any problems.

Tell me why I’m struggling to hold down a little five-foot-five woman who can’t weigh any more than a wet dishrag?

“Tie her hands to the bed.”

“Isn’t that mean?” Hannah breathes, stalling.

“She tried to stab me. I hardly think it’s mean.”

Hannah nods, sidestepping around Melissa and wrapping a scarf around the hand that I’m holding, then the bedpost. Her hands shake while she ties the other off in a knot, her bottom lip trembling as Melissa spews all manner of disgusting threats at me.

“ Pig. Your mother’s a slut. She’s going to get what’s coming to her. Your sisters, too.”

“It’s done.”

I step off the bed, my muscles tight from holding Melissa down and pull Hannah back when Melissa tries to lunge a kick in her direction.

Definitely not the best experience I’ve had with a girl naked underneath me.

“Come.” I pull Hannah from where she’s rooted in place and lead her to the bathroom off Melissa’s room.

“What is that?” Hannah asks, eyeing the little bottle in my hand.

I hold it up, inspecting it in the light. It looks like a shooter—if standard liquor was the bright green color of acid. I pop the cork, smelling the contents and my stomach churns.

“It looks like poison,” Hannah says softly when I screw the lid back on.

“Absinthe,” I murmur. I didn’t know anyone still drank the shit.

“I thought that was fake.” Hannah’s brows knit together.

“No. Though what they sell in stores is diluted. This . . . appears to be mixed with something.”

“ Heaven . . .” Melissa chimes from her bed like she’s on another fucking astral plane. Hannah’s spine stiffens and she turns back to look at her sister.

I step back out of the bathroom, holding up the bottle for Melissa to see.

“I need you to tell me what’s in this.”

Melissa just cackles.

“What is it?”

“Black Dahlia.”

My spine stiffens, the sound of my stepfather’s voice like nails on a dusty chalkboard.

Melissa, on the other hand, gasps softly, the evil puppy act dropping almost completely.

“You came for me.”

I grimace, putting myself between Parker and Hannah when he steps in the room, eyes trained on Melissa tied in the bed.

“What did you do to her?”

“What did you do to her?” I retort, holding up the bottle. “This has your name written all over it.”

He doesn’t deny it. Sick fuck.

“The black dahlia is harmless . . . if taken correctly.”

“And if taken in correctly?” Hannah chimes from behind me. She steps beside me and I have to restrain myself from pulling her back. “Is she in danger?” she asks, voice softer.

Parker regards her for a moment like you might regard a fine art piece.

I fucking hate it.

Probably because I know that if he touched her, killing him would be the only painless thing I do to him.

“No,” he says turning back to Melissa who’s desperately trying to reach for him despite her hands shackled to the bed by a pair of ugly scarves. “Though she will need rest. A lot of it.” He sinks down on the side of the bed, wiping a stray tear from under her eye.

Too bad he’s never shown this much kindness to my mother.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Parker.”

“We all have our vices, Mason,” he murmurs darkly, his eyes flashing to Hannah.

Fucking prick.

“Why do they call it the black dahlia?” Hannah asks quietly, completely oblivious to what Parker just said.

“Because someone drank a whole bottle and tried—and nearly succeeded—in skinning themselves alive.”

Hannah falls back a step, her face going white.

“What the fuck is in it?”

Parker shrugs. He couldn’t care less.

“A bit of ecstasy. A bit of extra wormwood. Whatever else she decided to add to it. It’s highly effective in helping with depression.”

“Looks like it,” Hannah sneers.

“I’m taking her home.”

“You aren’t taking her anywhere,” Hannah declares, head held high and lips pursed.

“Let him,” I murmur quietly. It’s better she goes with Parker than stays here with Hannah where she can slit her throat in the middle of the night.

Hannah opens her mouth to argue, but I wrap an arm around her waist and pull her toward the door. It’s intimate. It’s too close, but I’ll be damned if I let go of her until I get her out of harm’s way and I know, once Parker unties those scarves, there’s no telling what Melissa might do.

“Come on,” I tell her, gripping her chin and turning her eyes back to mine when she stops to look back at Parker and Melissa. Her green eyes are filled with worry. Worry I can’t stop, but I can understand.

That helpless feeling when your family is in danger and you’re fucking powerless to stop it.

I lead her down to the foyer and not even five minutes later, Parker is escorting Melissa downstairs, wrapped in a blanket. His dark gaze pierces into mine as if warning me, but I’m past giving a shit.

He’s been trying to get rid of me for years. It’s unfortunate for him that he hasn’t succeeded.

“I’ll be in touch,” he murmurs and then the door shuts behind him.

“Thank you . . . for coming. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t.”

Hannah hands me a beer before nestling into the opposite end of the couch and tucking her knees up to her chest.

Those fucking legs. They’ve been burned into my brain since I got here. Taunting me.

It was a mistake to come here. An even bigger one to stick around after Parker left. Now, with the empty house, I should be leaving, but . . . like a moth to a flame, I can’t seem to stay away.

Even if she pisses me off, there’s some masochistic, fucked-up part of me that still wants to be here. Like a moment with Hannah is a friendly handout from God.

Right before he kicks me in the dick again, of course.

“Stop thanking me, Hannah.”

She opens her mouth to apologize, but stops, popping the top on her own beer instead. “I don’t know who these belong to, but they can spare a couple right?”

“Why do you live here?”

She stares at me a beat, swallowing some of the cheap beer and wincing when it hits the back of her tongue.

I almost chuckle. Seems California’s princess doesn’t like the taste.

“Where else is there to live?” she challenges.

“I’d have to think anywhere would be better than here.”

She shrugs. “I wouldn’t know. I’ve thought about moving out a few times, I just . . . my mother’s not the easiest person to get along with, but she’d be on her own. With Missy staying here most of the time.”

“She’s not your responsibility.”

“Maybe not,” she offers. “But she’s still my mother.”

“A mother who beats you.”

Hannah fixes me with a look.

“She doesn’t beat me. She’s just . . . I don’t know.”

“What about your father?”

“Gone,” she says. “He left with his mistress back in Virginia when we were kids. Haven’t seen him since.”

It’s dangerous to ask questions like this. Questions I’m not even sure I want the answer to. Still . . . the nagging little voice in the back of my head forces me, because it’s fucking Hannah and I’ve never been good at following the rules. Not where she’s concerned.

“Funny,” she chuckles humorlessly. “Our families keep intertwining even if they hate each other. We’re like the LA version of the Montague's and the Capulet's.”

“Your sister is the mistress of my stepfather. It seems our families are intertwined already.”

Hannah shifts on the couch, taking another drink and otherwise, looks uncomfortable.

“Missy hasn’t always been like this, you know? She used to be . . . more normal, I guess.”

“Does your mother know?”

“Well . . . we’re not really supposed to speak about it. She’s always been a little different. A little more headstrong. She and Mom can fight for hours.” She shakes her head. “Is your family like that or is mine just crazy?”

“All families are crazy.”

“Yeah,” she muses, voice low and soft. Finally, she tears her eyes to mine and I can’t fucking look away. “Is that what it’s like? Being in love?”

She looks like a little deer in this light. Timid and fragile. The freckles on her nose make her look younger than she is. Too soft and sweet for someone like me. Unfortunately for her, my cock doesn’t seem to care.

“I couldn’t tell you.”

She shrugs.

“If it is, I don’t want to experience it.”

“Hannah . . . This isn’t—”

“No. We aren’t the modern-day Romeo and Juliet,” she says, eyes trained on the expensive rug on the floor. Thing’s as cold and uniform as the rest of the house. And then, just to drive the knife a little further, “I don’t want to be.”

I grit my teeth so hard I fear they may crack. I want to tell her I know she’s lying. We both know it, but I also know she’s right. I don’t want something serious, and we’re both already in well over our heads by now.

Even if I could look past the shit with Parker and Melissa. Her mother. Her unwillingness to get out from under her mother’s thumb, there’s still that nagging voice in the back of my head telling me she’s too fucking good for me.

She’s too sweet. Too innocent. Too fucking perfect. I’d break her. Ruin her until I’m the only one she’d see because that’s what guys like me do to girls like her.

We claim them. Keep them addicted to us so they can’t see what kind of monsters we really are.

I have to face the fact that I’ll lose her because she’s got responsibilities I’m not willing to accept as my own.

And that someday, someone else will.

I want to kill him, whoever he is. Beat him to the punch, before he can rip her away from me again.

When I don’t say anything, Hannah takes another drink of her beer, wincing when it hits the back of her tongue.

“This tastes awful. I don’t know why people drink it.”

“I knew you wouldn’t like it.”

She eyes me pointedly. “And you do?”

I shrug. “It’s a means to an end. That’s why anyone drinks it.”

“Well, you can have it,” she murmurs, leaning forward and placing it on the coffee table in front of me.

“I need to leave. Got to get up early. Been here long enough as it is.”

She rolls her eyes. “You act like the FBI is going to leap out from behind the bookcase. It’s just us.”

“Yeah, and your mother doesn’t like me.”

She snickers, a breathy sound that goes straight to my dick.

“She doesn’t like anyone. Especially not attractive men who stick up for her daughters.”

“I see. She doesn’t like men who her daughters have a little crush on.” I chuckle darkly as she leans back against the mass of throw pillows, her foot resting on the cushion between us.

Let me fucking tell you, I’ve never given a single shit about someone’s foot until I saw the red polish on hers.

Her eyes lock with mine, half-lidded and hazy. “Maybe I just wanted to piss her off.”

“That it?” Don’t ask me why. Maybe she spiked my beer or some shit, but I reach out, my fingers brushing over her calf. Goosebumps rise in their wake and Hannah’s eyes widen at my touch. “That why you’re still wearing my flannel?”

Her tongue darts out to lick her bottom lip and my cock pulses at the motion.

Fuck me.

What the hell am I doing?

“It’s warm. This house gets cold,” she lies quietly when my hand travels higher on her skin, almost reaching her knee before I drop it back down to her foot. In a flash, I yank her upright and forward until her ass is resting on the middle cushion and her foot’s in my lap.

Fuck, this has already gone too far.

Her breath hitches when we come face to face, my hand on her knee hooked over mine and her fingers dancing across the skin on the back of my arm.

She feels so good. Soft and warm. My cock throbs with the need to bury myself inside her, forget all the shit that’s happened and make her mine. Even if only for a night.

“Prove it.”

“Prove what?” she asks, voice barely above a whisper.

She must realize what I’m saying because she pauses for a moment, eyes sliding down to my lips. I can feel her heartbeat hammering in the pulse point behind her knee. Funnily enough, it matches my own.

She swallows hard, slipping closer and I can taste the mint mixed with the beer and something so her, my blood simmers in my veins.

“If you didn’t care, prove it, little doe.”

Her gaze narrows at the challenge. Like she’s as determined as I am to prove to herself that there’s nothing there, but a deep understanding that we’re just two people in a long line of bullshit.

Gently, she places her hand on the back of the couch, rising up and closer to me. I watch her, cock hardening to the point of pain in my jeans.

This is probably the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.

Still, I don’t stop her.

Carefully, she closes the gap between us and neither of us breathes. She brushes her lips over mine, and I realize, I’m fucking done for.

Hannah tastes exactly as I thought she would. Like honey and sweetness and everything I’ve been fucking dreaming about for a year.

She pulls back just enough to catch her breath in the air between us, eyes closed.

So, I follow her.

That was . . . not what I expected.

And now she’s got me by the balls.

I bridge the gap between us, my hand slipping into her hair and tugging her lips back to mine and she whimpers into my mouth.

Fuck. Me.

I slip my tongue in her mouth when her hands come to rest on my shoulders, flexing over the material of my t-shirt. I circle her back with my arm when those hands slide up to fist the short roots of my hair.

I pull her closer to me until she’s straddling me and a breathy moan leaves her lips.

Kissing Hannah is a bad idea. This thing between us will only end one way. I need to stop and I’ll be damned if I don’t try to talk myself into it, but when her pajama-clad pussy brushes the denim over my cock, that same voice of reason shuts right the fuck up.

I break away from her kiss, nipping a line down to the side of her neck and sucking the flesh below her ear into my mouth. She whimpers, fingers tightening in my shirt as she arches her neck to give me more room.

“ Fuck, little doe,” I grind out between my teeth, hand on her ass while I grind her overtop my cock. She gasps at the friction, lips parted and her eyes screwed shut. “Look at me.”

She opens her eyes, her bright green gaze locking with mine, and it’s at that moment, I know I’ve just signed my fucking death warrant.

And then, a throat clears.

In a flash, Hannah pushes me away, scrambling off my lap and falling to her ass on the couch beside me.

“I came because you said it was an emergency,” Michael says, eyes twitching back and forth between Hannah and me. “But it seems you’ve got all the help you need.”

Hannah wipes the corner of her lip, face flaming.

“Michael,” Hannah grits between her teeth. “Don’t.”

“I’m afraid she already knows, Hannah,” Michael chimes as if he’s a disappointed dad.

“She doesn’t need your permission,” I mutter, stepping in front of Hannah. She may trust this cuck.

I don’t.

“It’s fine, Michael,” Hannah warns, putting a hand on my stomach. “Come on,” she says softly. “I’ll walk you out.”

I step out onto the landing, shooting Michael a wink before I go and Hannah follows, oblivious. She shuts the front door behind her quietly, pausing to wrap her arms around herself a few feet back.

“You going to be okay here by yourself?”

There’s a twinkle in her eyes. A flash so quick I almost don’t notice it.

Fear. Worry?

“I’ll be okay. Michael will probably be here . . . and the guards.”

There’s a tension in the air that wasn’t there before and now, I can’t get the taste of her lips off my tongue.

“He your boyfriend?”

She narrows her gaze. “No.”

“You sure he knows that?”

“Michael’s been my best friend since we were kids. We grew up together. He’s just acting like a protective older brother.”

Yeah, sure he is.

She chuckles sheepishly. “Guess I better let you go. I know you said you get up early.”

I nod, though it was a lie to get her away from me. Back when I could fucking think rationally.

“Yeah.”

I shove my hands in my pockets because if I don’t, I run the risk of reaching for her.

She looks up at me with those big green eyes and those freckles on her nose under the pale glow of the porch light and all I can think about is how badly I want to taste her again.

“I’ll be back tomorrow to check on you.”

She smiles softly. I’m digging my own grave.

. . . I can taste her on my tongue. Feel her in my veins like heroin.

It’s become a problem I’m not sure I’m man enough to handle.

“Goodnight, little doe.”

I turn and leave before she can pull me back in.

Tomorrow. I’ll come back tomorrow.

I drive home in silence, the trek from Bel Air to North Inglewood seeming to pass by in a blur because I can’t get her out of my head. Not to mention, the shit Melissa is on, Parker, what her mother’s going to do when she finds out I had her precious daughter in the palm of my hand.

I scrub a hand through my hair and I’m annoyed to find my hand shaking. Fucking hell.

Tomorrow, I’ll put an end to this . . . if I can. I’ll check on her and then back off because while it feels like Hannah fucking Gaines was made for me, I know she wasn’t.

I resign myself to the fact that shit just fucking sucks when I get home, parking in the drive in front of my house. What used to be Dad’s house.

The place is small, especially compared to the Gaines’ estate, but it’s home. It’s where I grew up until Dad passed and it’s where I’ve lived since Gran signed it over to me before she passed. It’s got everything I need. Three bedrooms. A nice backyard. It’s right across the alleyway from the shop, so the commute can’t be beat and it even has a garage out back where Dad’s old Challenger is stored.

Seeing the cold, harsh interior of Laura Gaines' LA mansion, tonight only solidified for me that I’m not cut out for life behind that kind of wealth. For that life.

And her daughter’s not cut out for mine.

The streets are quiet tonight. Damn near silent as I unlock the front door to the house.

I pause at the front door. The crickets are quiet.

Someone’s watching me.

Carefully, I unlock the door, and step inside, watching my back as I go, but no one’s there.

But it’s when I turn around and notice the light over the stove is off that I fucking know, someone’s here.

A throat clears behind me and I reach for the gun at my back before the deafening sound of a pistol clicks only inches from the back of my head.

And then I notice all the fucking people coming out of the dark shadows of my house.

Well, fuck.

“On the ground.” Someone shoves me down, and I go, falling to my knees with a grunt.

“Got to hand it to you, it’s not easy to surprise me.”

A chuckle sounds from behind me, and the cold steel of a barrel presses to the back of my head.

“Want to tell me what you want?”

The gun is pressed harder to my head as a warning.

“Move an inch, and this bullet goes through your skull.”

“Funnily enough, you’re the second person who’s threatened to kill me tonight. And she was actually dangerous.”

A fist connects with my mouth, and I snarl through the blood staining my gums.

“What’s the matter?” A man chuckles from the shadows. His heavy boots scuff along my floor, black eyes glinting in the night. He flashes a smile, teeth shining menacingly in the moonlight streaming through the window. He pauses in the center of the room as more men step from the darkness. “You don’t look happy to see me?”

“Not ready for guests. Didn’t even get the punch bowl out.”

The man just snickers, ignoring my taunt as the room chuckles around me.

“ él es chistoso. ”

More demented laughter sounds through the room.

“I think you and I are going to get along just fine, Mason Carpenter. Don’t you?”

“I’m pretty hard to get along with.”

The devil in front of me chuckles.

“So it seems.” He kneels down in front of me, his voice dropping to a quiet growl. “Pity, you pissed off the wrong person.”