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“Please stop saying that. It’s not fair.” His dark eyes pierce mine. “I know what I want, and I want you two to be mywhole life.”
My lungs deflate.
Jesus. This is torture.
My smile is sad. “Maybe that’s what you want now, but that could change. You could want kids of your own one day, and then Deaton will be?—”
“I won’t,” he swears. “He will only ever feel how I see him, and how I see him is asmine. I won’t give him reason to question that. Never. I want to be what he lost because I love him. I want to be the most important man in his life, and I can do that without overshadowing the man who was supposed to be.”
“This is what I mean,” I whisper. “You are so ready to go all in, and I love that, but I can’t. I have to protect himjust in case. I know it’s not fair, but I have so much to learn about being a good parent. This is me trying to do that.”
“I need him, Payton.”
“I’m not taking him from you. You can see him and talk to him whenever you want. It’s just…” Reaching up, I press my palms into his chest. “Mase, you need to do what you came here to do. Play football, enjoy college, and then maybe later?—”
“You’ve said ‘yet’ and ‘later,’ but you haven’t said what those words mean for us.” He scowls, but there’s tension he tries to fight, a thread of promise threatening to unravel. “Are you saying no to us, or are you asking me to wait?”
I swallow. “I could never ask you to wait.”
He presses into me, his knuckle under my chin, eyes narrowed. “But do youwantme to wait? If it were up to you, if you held all the cards in your hand, what would you want me to do?”
“Mason.”
“Answer me, Pretty Little,” he demands. “No what-ifs, no maybes or maybe nots. You can’t be selfish, but if you could, if you were, would you ask me to wait? Would you want me to wait?” His voice lowers, breaking with his words. “Would you want me at all?”
There’s a crack behind my ribs, an invisible cord desperately fighting for a way to reach for him, begging to tie us together, to lock itself so deep inside him nothing and no one could ever tear it out.
“Mase.”
“Answer me,” he breathes.
“Yes.”
Mason needs no other explanation, that one word like liquid, heated hope, filling him to the brim and driving him forward. His lips crash against mine in a kiss so desperate, I feel the tethers tie him tighter to my soul.
He kisses me like a man possessed.Obsessed.
And I think he is.
He takes my mouth with a fiery passion so intense it’s like I’m on the outside looking in, the feeling so out of body and intoxicating, I can’t breathe. My entire body tingles, my knees giving out. Mason is right there to catch me, wrapping me in his strong, capable arms and caging me closer.
“You have no idea what you mean to me.” Mason’s forehead presses into mine. “I’m going to wait, Pretty Little.”
“It might take a long time.”
“I don’t care. I’m telling you right now, I could never want anyone the way I want you. This. I can wait. I will wait.”
I give a wobbly smile. “I would like that.”
A shuddered breath escapes him, visible tension leaving his body at my confession.
“Will you tell me?” he whispers. “When you know you’re ready, when you even think you might be, will you tell me?”
“You’ll be the first know.”
He holds my eyes captive, a sharp fierceness I’ve never seen before. “You said things won’t change for me and D. I’ll still see you and him. We’ll still talk. You’re saying when you’re ready, I’ll be the first to know.”
I nod.
