He shrugs. “Something like that. Needed a job to get my parents off my ass and to get the hell out of the house sometimes.”
“So, cleaning pools? That actually sounds fun, and hey, it beats a stuffy office and a suit, right?”
“Exactly.” He grins. “That and it’s making my parents lose their fucking minds.”
I smile and roll my eyes. “Mason, I didn’t peg you for the troublemaker type.”
“Guilty,” he growls.
I shiver. Yeah, me too—of lusting after him like a horny teenager. My eyes slide over his bronzed muscles again, and I swallow. Stop it, I tell myself again. He’s like twelve.
I roll my eyes at myself. No, he’s like twenty-one. Perfectly legal. Perfectly yummy. Perfectly completely inappropriate, utterly off-limits, and scandalously tempting. My face burns, and I quickly yank my eyes away from him. Yeah, I need to get my shit together, and I need to get it together now. Before I make an ass of myself, or before friendly banter with Mason Dunn turns into flirting.
…God, why did I see what I saw last night?
“Well, look, I won’t get in your way—”
“You’re not in my way.”
He purrs the words out lowly, and when I look at him, his eyes are sliding over me, shamelessly. I blush, feeling his gaze slip over my skin, from my breasts all the way down to my feet, and then inching back up my legs to center on my bottoms. I bite at my lower lip, and heat pools between my legs.
“Feel free to stay, Miss Hughes. Won’t bother me.” There’s a little smirk at the end that hints at just how “not bothered” Mason would be about me laying out in a bikini while he works. It’s actually a tempting though, until I remember that I’m not actually insane.
“Uh, well, I actually need to go inside and make a call anyways,” I blurt out, trying to sound casual. “Sooo, yeah. Do what you gotta do!”
Do what you gotta do? What the fuck is wrong with me?
“Suit yourself,” he shrugs. “You know where to find me. Shouldn’t take too long.”
“Oh, take your time!” I smile.
His eyes drag over me and burn right into mine. I feel myself gasp as my heart races.
“I plan on it,” he growls quietly.
Oooookay, I need to walk away. Right now. Without another word, I turn, and I walk as quickly as I can back into the house. I close the door to the kitchen and sink against it, my heart racing and my mind spinning. I swallow, and I move through the house into my office, also at the back of the house. I tell myself not to, but I don’t listen to me at all as I walk over to the windows and crank the blinds open just a little bit.
From here, I can see out through the leaves of a palm tree into the backyard. I watch as Mason unpacks his stuff and starts messing with the filter on the side of the pool. He stands and fires up the vacuum-looking thing, and drops the sucker part down into the pool attached to a pole. I shiver, and I watch his muscles coil under the hot sun as he pushes it back and forth across the bottom of the pool. His muscles ripple with every thrust of those big arms, and I groan.
Fuck, he’s perfect. The aching, dull throb in my pussy from before comes back even stronger, and I moan quietly when my thighs squeeze together. My eyes drink in the sight of Mason prowling around the pool like a sexy as fuck jungle cat or something, and my body reacts with a mind of its own. My nipples pucker to hard points under my top, and my pussy floods my bottoms with slick desire. Before I can stop myself, I’m pushing my fingers down under the spandex again, and I don’t stop until they slide wetly over my eager pussy.
I gasp, panting as my finger rolls over my aching clit. I stand there in the dark, like a creep, shameless touching myself while I watch the twenty-one-year-old utter stud from next door. I moan, and I imagine that it’s him touching me—that it’s his hands sliding between my thighs to stroke my eager pussy. I whimper, and my eyes close as the pleasure floods through me. I grip the windowsill and lean against it, grinding my hand against my pussy. I rock my hips, and my arousal grows bigger and hotter as my body starts to clench tight.
I open my eyes, and suddenly, I jolt.
Wait, where the hell is he? I frown and peer out into the backyard, but I can’t spot Mason anywhere. His pool cleaning stuff is still lying there, but the object of my fantasy himself seems to be—
“Hey, Miss Hughes?”
I almost have a freaking heart attack when I hear his voice from inside the house, right outside my office door. In a millisecond, I’m yanking my hand out of my bikini just as he walks right in—still shirtless, still hot as sin. His eyes slide over me like they did outside, but in here, alone in a small room with him, it somehow feels even sexier, or naughtier. More illicit.
Mason smirks. “Interrupting anything?”
“Nope!”
Too fast. Way too fast, I groan to myself.
“Um, I was just…” I look up and swallow. “That book,” I lie, pointing to the bookshelf above the windows. “I was just trying to reach it.”