“Mason and Logan. Are you a complete idiot? She told them. Shit. Fuck.” Kate went through a slew of curse words. “They came in here and took them.”

“Oh crap.”

“Exactly.”

“You think they did anything else?” Parker questioned, a small twinge of fear crept into her tone.

Kate laughed now. “Probably.” It came out sounding like she was being strangled. “We’re screwed. She told Mason. He’s going to screw us.”

“Calm down,” Natalie clipped out. “Let’s calm down and think about this. We’re not screwed yet.”

“We are. We sooo are. He’s going to do something horrible to us. I know it. We’re so screwed.”

“No, we’re not. He has no idea what we were going to do—”

“Yes, he did,” Kate continued yell. “It’s why he came here in the first place. I can’t believe that bitch told him.”

“I would, if I was her,” Jasmine commented. “I mean, come on. We’re mean. You can’t blame the girl.”

“Whose side are you on?” Kate and Natalie said at the same time.

There was silence before she replied, “Yours. My friends.”

“Then act like it.”

“So what?” Natalie spoke up again. “We’ll be fine. They took her clothes back. Whoop de doo. We can still hurt her. We do have other things planned.”

“I know.” I could imagine Kate now. She was biting the inside of her cheek, thinking over everything that we could’ve done to her house. She sighed. “Shit. Fine. Come on. Let’s go to Tate’s and put the camcorder in place and then go to Cake’s garage for the other stuff.”

“Wait,” Parker stopped them, “so we’re not putting those pictures on the internet?”

“We can’t,” Kate snapped at her, her voice heavy with sarcasm. “We don’t have the mannequin, and we don’t have her clothes. We have nothing else on her.”

“Can’t we just use someone else’s clothes and put her name on it?”

“Not without the f**king doll, and using her clothes is the whole point. It’s the added insult that it’s her real clothes. Unless one of you guys want to dress up and let us take pictures of you?”

There was silence in the room.

Kate bit out a harsh laugh. “I didn’t think so.”

“Let’s use other pictures and put her face on it?”

“Using her real clothes is the whole point. Did you get anything from Nate’s house before they moved out?”

“No. Mason locked their bedroom during the parties, and I couldn’t find anything else in the house.”

“Of course he does. They have huge parties.”

“Whatever. Let’s move on. We’ll do the thing that we were planning to do next week, this week instead.”

“Are you sure that’s smart? You just said that we’re screwed. Mason knows and now we don’t have the pictures.”

I pressed my ear closer against the wall. Their voices faded when Kate commented, “It doesn’t matter. I’m going to beat her ass one way or another.”

Their car doors closed. I turned and headed into the woods to where my Escalade was parked. When I got into my car, Logan put his phone away and looked up. “You learn anything?”

“Nothing we didn’t know except that we have to put her down.”

Logan nodded and lifted his fist in the air. I met it with mine. As I reversed the car, I asked, “Can you text Sam for me? Tell her we’re fine, but we won’t get back till late.”

“Already did it.”

I threw my brother a frown, but Logan wasn’t paying attention. He went back to texting on his phone.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

I had no idea what they did, but Mason smelled like smoke when he passed through our room to the bathroom. The shower turned on a second later. Getting out of bed and padding barefoot behind him, he was already under the spray when I got there. His clothes were in a pile on the floor so I put them into the laundry bin. Then I leaned against the counter, and our eyes met through the glass door. He didn’t smile or say hello. He stared at me, and I stared back as he continued bathing. Lifting his arms, the water cascaded over his shoulders and down his chest. I could see every inch of him, not that any of it was a surprise anymore, but the hunger was there. Always there.

He smirked, still watching me. I licked my lips.

The wait for him took forever. I was burning up by the time he turned the water off and stepped out. The towels were behind me and he reached past me, leaning into me at the same time. His chest touched mine and he paused. His arm was stretched behind me, but as I turned to meet his gaze, he was looking right at me. Just there. Within reach. I closed my eyes and inhaled when his breath coated my skin. It was a caress of its own. Then a throaty murmur escaped me, “Mason …”

He pulled away and dried himself off.

My eyelids opened, but I was caught and held by his gaze again.

My chest lifted as I inhaled another deep breath. My br**sts grew heavy under my thin top. They wanted his touch. Without a bra, he could see their reaction. It took one more second as he finished drying off before he dropped the towel again and stepped close to me.

His hands found my hips.

My eyes closed. My head went down.

Home. Finally.

“Sam,” he murmured from an inch away. His lips were there, right there for me to taste.

“What?” I could barely talk.

“She won’t hurt you.” His hand lifted.

When it touched my neck, my heart jumped into my throat, and my blood began pumping.

He moved it around my neck and cupped the back of my head. I was held, anchored in his hand. It was strong, so sure. My heart was racing now and my chest was heaving up and down. I was struggling to breathe. The knot in me started to loosen. It always did when he made me feel like this. Safe. Then a lump formed in my throat, and I had to bite down on my lip. I would either become a sobbing mess or I’d throw myself at him. I wasn’t sure which one I wanted.

He decided for me.

Mason pulled me into his chest. His arms wrapped around me, and I felt his head bend down. He rested his forehead on my shoulder, so I did the same. My hands lifted to his hips, but then with a sob, I wrapped them around his waist.