“You okay?” Mason asked. “Any regrets?”
“I’m doing well, and no regrets. A bit shocked by my behavior, but that’s on me, not you.”
“What did you do that was out of character?”
“Sex on the patio, for starters.”
He smiled. “That was unexpected and very nice.”
“It was. But...” She paused, thinking she should have planned this conversation better. “Mason, there’s something about you. I’ll admit that. You’re very appealing, and being around you makes me feel really good.” She sucked in a breath. “But maybe we should slow things down a little.”
His gaze never wavered. “We should. Your kids just showed up, and there’s a lot happening. We have time. I’m not going anywhere.”
“You’re not mad?”
“No.” He lightly touched her arm. “And while I won’t talk about how wet and swollen you were, I’ll be thinking about it.” He leaned toward her and lowered his voice. “A lot.”
She shivered, liking the need that built up inside of her. “That surprises me,” she admitted, trying not to smile. “I would have thought you’d be remembering how it felt when I sucked your dick.”
The surprise and appreciation in his expression were a nice reward for speaking her mind.
“Damn,” he murmured. “You just keep getting better and better. For what it’s worth, I’ll be thinking about you sucking on my dick more than I should.”
“Good.”
It occurred to her that it would be really easy to slide onto his lap and feel how aroused he was. From there it was a quick journey to getting naked. She wanted to explore all of him and have him do the same with her. She wanted—
“What you’re thinking is killing me.”
She blinked, drawn back to the present. “How did you know?”
He sagged back against the sofa and closed his eyes. “Lover, it is all over your face.”
Lover. The single word caught her by surprise. There was need in his voice, but also affection. Lover. She’d never thought of herself that way. As someone’s lover. A wife, a girlfriend, a companion, but not a lover.
“Thank you, Mason,” she whispered, then kissed him. She briefly rested her hand on his thick erection before hurrying out of the room. Safely in the hallway, she paused to smile.
She was going to be his lover, and it would be glorious.
* * *
Mason gave up on sleep a little after midnight. He couldn’t stop thinking about Robyn, which meant he was constantly hard, and that didn’t help the situation at all. Plus the whole eight million dollars thing had his mind racing. He pulled on sweats and a T-shirt and made his way to his office. While he doubted he could work, maybe reading research material would put him to sleep on the ugly sofa.
He’d barely opened the box of notes when Austin walked into his office.
“I saw the light,” the kid said. “You’re up late.”
“So are you.”
“I’m on a mission. Want to join me?”
“Sure.”
They went up one of the back staircases, climbing two floors before heading down a hallway. Austin led the way to yet another staircase, one Mason didn’t think he’d used before. The passage narrowed until it ended at a big metal door. Austin lifted the bar securing it, then pushed out onto a section of roof.
The night was cool and clear. This part of the roof was flat, about thirty by thirty, with wrought iron fencing to keep them safe. But what really caught his attention was an odd little building right in the center.
Mason followed Austin inside and saw a large telescope pointing at the sky.
“Your own observatory,” Mason said.
Austin nodded as he began opening panels to allow them to see the stars. “Harlow and I found it when we were kids. Lillian had forgotten it was here. She got some guy out to make sure it was working, then had a professional from UC Santa Barbara teach me how to use it. Since that summer, I’ve studied up on astronomy a little. I’ve also gotten decent at celestial navigation.” He grinned. “Not that I’d want to cross the ocean using it.”
“Sailors used to.”
“Brave men.”
Once the panels were open, Austin approached the telescope. “In a couple of weeks, we’ll start to see the Perseids meteor shower. It’s a good show. And if you want to get up early, we can see Venus and Mars just before dawn.” He made a few adjustments. “But tonight, we’re going to look at Antares. That’s in Scorpio.”
He looked through the telescope and made another adjustment. “The midnight culmination of Antares is around June first. That’s when it’s highest in the sky at midnight.” Austin flashed him a grin. “I respect when the name of something tells you what it is.”
“That would help.”
“The farther south you are, the easier it is to see Antares. In the Southern Hemisphere, it’s visible all year long. For us, it’s just a summer fling.”
He stepped back so Mason could look through the telescope. He saw a bright, reddish star.
“It looks like Mars,” he said.
Austin nodded. “It does.”
Mason looked in the telescope again. “You come up here a lot?”
“When I’m here, a few times a week. The sky is always changing. We get lots of clouds, but when it’s clear, it’s beautiful.”
“How about Florida?”
“I don’t have a telescope there. How’d you end up in the army?”
“In my hometown, it was the military or the coal mine.”
“I don’t think I could work underground.”
“Me, either. Like you said before, it takes a brave individual.”
“So you chose the army.”
Mason nodded, wondering if this was why Austin had sought him out. “I wanted to be part of something, see the world.”
“Did you?”
“Much of it.”
Austin looked at him. “Still, not much of a choice.”
“I could have gone to work at the local gas station. Getting out of town was better.”
“I get that. I have too many opportunities. My mom’s always telling me I can do anything.”
“So you went to work for your dad?”