“Come here.” He reaches for my arm. His voice is hard, angry.

Like he has a right.

I step back. “No! You tell me right now where you’ve been! Where have you been, Mason? With her? Where!”

Tears spill down my cheeks in heavy drops. My lip trembles.

It’s strange how quickly your mind can conjure up the worst possible scenario. Self-harm at its finest. Mason and this woman, images of them together, intimate, laughing. It’s all I can imagine when I look at him right now.

In a movement too fast for me to avoid, he grabs my arm above my elbow with one hand while his other seals to my waist. “You’re making a scene. There are children around,” he whispers harshly against my hair, moving me across the pavement.

I hear the soft click of the iron gate opening.

Turning my head, I look back at the sea of eyes on me as Mason pulls me away from the seating area. Away from her.

“Like I give a fuck. Who is she?” I growl, trying to get away, pushing against his chest and, at the same time, wanting to bury my face there and cry this out. “Where have you been? What the fuck is this?”

He presses my back against the heated brick covering the side of the building. I look around us, at the building behind Mason. I inhale the dank, musky air.

He’s pulled me into the alley. An alley, just like before, when he first kissed me.

Bending down, he flattens his hands on either side of my face and closes in on me. “What’s the problem, Brooke? Are you upset?”

I inhale a sharp breath. What the fuck?

“Am I upset? Are you kidding?”

“No, I’m not. Do you think I’m with that woman? Do you care that I am?”

“What?” I whisper, fresh tears rimming my eyelids as I look up at him. “Are you?”

Bile rises in my throat.

He stares at me, not answering, his eyes distant and detached, but underneath them, dark smudges shadow his skin.

Instinctively, I go to reach for him, but flatten my hand against my side when I remember what he’s put me through. “Where have you been?” I ask, my cheeks burning. “You just disappeared on me.”

“You said you needed a minute.” His voice is cold. Impassive.

That bloody fucking minute.

I break, sending more tears down my face, my hands drawing into fists and pounding against his solid chest. “A minute, Mason. A minute! Not two days. Fuck you! You were my best friend and you just stopped talking to me. Why did you do that?”

He flinches, his eyes as round as quarters as they search my face. Grabbing my wrists, which go limp in response to his touch, he presses closer.

“What else was I to you? Was that it?” he asks.

I shake my head. “No,” I whisper, my body melting against the brick. I feel like I could collapse right now.

“What else?” He wipes a tear from my cheek. His breath bathes my face. “Fuck, Brooke. Tell me. What else was I?”

“Mine.”

The word shocks us both. Him more than me. I swear he stops breathing. I accepted this possessiveness over Mason two nights ago. This right to him. I know what I want. But saying it, hearing it out loud when I’ve never felt this way before, that’s what startles me.

Hearing my feelings at all is what startles him.

I drop my gaze to his dark cotton tee. “And I thought I was yours. I want to be.” I squeeze his hip, pushing off the wall. It’s my turn to press closer. Selfishly, my hands travel up his sides and around his back, dipping under his shirt.

Mine.

God, I missed his body. Two days feels like two years.

I stroke the hard curves of his muscles and the trail of his spine. I flatten my cheek to his chest. “Am I?” I quietly ask. “Am I yours?”

“Fuck,” he moans, crushing me against him, his long arms snaking around my body. Muscles tensing in relief and longing. With a sharp exhale, he nuzzles my hair. “You’re mine, sweet girl. So fucking mine. I just wanted to hear you say it.”

I close my eyes. Relief weighs down my frame, forming me to him. I’m so close but I want closer.

“You didn’t even call me.”

“I know. It’s not because I didn’t want to. Trust me. After that text the other day, I turned my phone off so I wouldn’t. I needed you to come to me, Brooke. I wanted you to admit what this was.”

“You were just going to wait?”

“Yeah. But only until Friday.” He leans back and cups my cheek. “I gave your stubbornness a deadline. I wouldn’t be able to wait any longer than that.”

Friday? Jesus, what would I have looked like by then?

I fist his shirt, going up on my toes, not giving him an option one way or the other as I whisper across his lips, “kiss me.”

I’m taking this.

With a growl, Mason seals our mouths together, our bodies. His length hardening against my stomach. He sucks on my tongue and kneads my ass, fingers digging at my flesh.

I gasp and arch further into him.

“Say it again,” he begs, kissing my jaw. “God, Brooke. Say it.”

I moan when he bites my neck. “That you’re my best friend?”

He leans away, and I giggle at his expression.

Fuck, he’s so adorable. Moody Mason.

I lunge at him again and wrap my arms around his neck, my feet dangling in the air.

He grumbles against my mouth.

“Oh. That you’re mine? And I’m yours? Is that what you want me to say?”

He nods. “Baby, please.”

“I am yours,” I whisper between soft kisses. “I have been. It just took me a minute.”

Laughing, he leans back and drops his forehead against mine. “Longest fucking minute of my life. You had me worried.”

“I had you worried?” I twitch in his arms until he lowers me. “Who the fuck is that redhead?” I ask, poking him in the chest.

His mouth falls open. “Ah, fuck. I forgot. Come on.” He grabs my hand and pulls me out of the alley.

“Erection,” I grate out behind him.

He turns his head. “What’s that?”

“You have an erection.” I tug on his hand.

“Shit.” He spins around just before we reach the fence and the herd of people. He winks at me as he discreetly adjusts himself. “Thanks, gorgeous. That could’ve been embarrassing, yeah?”

My heart melts at that one stupid word. I grab his face and kiss him hard.

“Mm,” he moans and squeezes my shoulders, gently easing me off. “Now you’re just making things worse.”

Smiling through a shrug, I take his hand again and allow him to willingly pull me this time through the crowded seating area outside the café. We stop at the table he was occupying before my outburst.

I look at the redhead, and the man now sitting next to her. His arm thrown behind her back. Her hand resting on his thigh.

Oh.

Nice, Brooke. Very nice.

Mason gestures at the couple. “These are some mates of mine from Alabama. Tessa, and her boyfriend, Luke. They came up to see my studio and do some sightseeing.” He looks down at me, smirking. “You remember me mentioning Tessa, right, sweetheart?”

“Mm.” I nod through tightly pinched lips.

Chuckling, Mason wraps his arm around my waist and pulls me against his side. He looks at his friends. “And this is my Brooke.”