Letters to the Baumgarters Read online

  And I swear to God, it’s really not my fault he spent the night. He bought a one-way ticket and he didn’t even book a room! What was I supposed to do, send him out onto the streets alone? He doesn’t know a word of Italian—you should hear his accent, or lack thereof. Eek! But nothing happened. Well, mostly nothing.

  Okay, okay, I admit, we, uh… we reconciled a little bit. Part of it was the wine. That was my fault. And, you guys, he brought me Ho-Hos! (No jokes, I mean it!) It’s one of those weird, occasional indulgences of mine that I really miss. He knows me so well. It’s hard to say no to a man who does something like that—not to mention the whole International flight to see me thing. But I think it was mostly the wine.

  Of course, now this complicates things with Nico a bit. To say the least. I’m not sure what to say to him, if anything. And Mason says he wants to stay for a while, but I don’t know what that means exactly. “Let’s just see where things go,” is what he said. I should have been mad at him, to tell you the truth. I should have slammed the door in his face and told him to go home. I mean, that’s what I should have done, right? Isn’t that what you would want me to do?

  But I just couldn’t. So now he’s here, and I’m not quite sure what to do about that…

  * * * *

  “Dani?” Mason’s voice beckoned me back from the siren-call of Ho-Ho’s in my little kitchen. I licked the chocolate off my fingers, tucking my letter to the Baumgartners away, and padded back into the bedroom, still nude. “What time is it?”

  “Midnight.” I sat on the edge of the bed, the little lamp on the night stand illuminating his sleepy face, eyes still half-closed—but his gaze was on my body, already hungry. Still hungry. “You’re still on American time.”

  “Come back to bed.” His hand moved, warm, over my hip, still familiar, even though it had been so long. I couldn’t believe how easily I had fallen into bed with him, how easily I was falling... Maybe that thing about absence making the heart growing fonder really was true. Not that I had ever really stopped loving Mason. I’d divorced him knowing I would probably continue to love him for the rest of my life—but love didn’t always solve everything.

  “What are you doing here?” I murmured the question, running my hand through the soft, sandy bristle of his short-cut hair, so different from Nico’s thick, dark curls. Thinking of Nico made my stomach lurch with guilt. I didn’t want to think about what my actions tonight might be doing to him, to our budding relationship. It hurt my head—and my heart—too much.

  “This.” He reached for me and I went to him, relieved, without any more thought at all.

  I couldn’t believe how quickly we had plunged into this, how easy it felt, being in his arms. Sex had always been something we were good at, from the very beginning. At least until Isabella. Then, things had started falling apart and we just couldn’t put it all back together again. That was probably why we’d ended up here, in bed, on his first night in Italy. We were good here. It was outside of bed that was the problem.

  “I want you.” His breath was hot in my ear, his hands large and warm, moving over my back, drawing me near.

  “Again?” I teased, reaching down to check, and sure enough, finding him half-hard, beginning to fill my hand.

  “Always.” He kissed me, his mouth sliding deliciously across mine. Everything about him was familiar and new at the same time, and I reveled in it—the hard press of his chest, the solid weight of his hips as we rolled on the bed, the well-defined muscles of his arms and shoulders and back under my hands.

  “I want to taste you.”

  I moaned in anticipation as he kissed his way down my breasts.

  We’d been quick the first time, too quick, tearing at each other’s clothes on the way to the bed, our lust too intense for niceties like foreplay. Seeing Mason sitting on the front stoop waiting for me had broken something open in my chest. A part of me that had been stuck and frozen solid was beginning to melt.

  “God I love your tits.” He pressed my breasts together in his big hands, getting my nipples as close as he could, and tracing figure-eights there like a skater on a loop, over and over. I whimpered, trying to stay quiet, my pussy throbbing, anticipating the wet lash of his tongue between my legs.

  My belly quivered, goosebumps rising on my flesh as he breathed his way down my belly, pausing to lick the jut of my hipbone, following the curve down toward my thigh. I spread my legs for him, offering myself to him completely. I was his, I had always been his. How could I have ever believed any different? Time and distance, pain and separation, that all disappeared the moment his skin met mine.

  “Oh god, it’s so smooth.” His fingers brushed my lips, soft and swollen, parting them at the top of my cleft so he could look at me. “So fucking beautiful.”

  I went up on my elbows so I could look down and watch. He smiled, knowing how much I loved to see his tongue lap at me, and began kissing my clit, soft, gentle kisses that sent electric shocks through my pelvis.

  “Tease.” I slid my palm over his head. His sandy hair was bristly and short—there was nothing to hold onto—so I slipped my hand behind his neck and pressed his mouth to my pussy. He didn’t resist, letting me guide him, rocking my hips against the soft worry of his tongue, back and forth, round and round. “Oh god, yes, like that…”

  But he knew. There was no need to tell him what I liked, what I didn’t. His mouth knew just the right places, the exact timing I wanted, needed, moving faster, matching my breath. The excitement rose in my belly like a glorious phoenix from the ashes of a Persian mystery, something waiting to be reborn.

  “Mason,” I gasped, my fingers looking for something to hold onto and finding only the soft stubble of his hair. My nails dug into his shoulders and my hips shot up off the bed as my climax found me, zeroing in on my pelvis and shaking me like a kitten in the mouth of a pitbull. Mason hung onto my hips, licking my pussy fast and hard, holding me tight as I bucked on the mattress, biting the flesh of my forearm to keep from screaming in release.

  “Oh fuck.” I gasped, rolling away from his persistent mouth. He followed me, nipping at the soft curve of my ass, his hands roaming the length of my body as I stretched out on my tummy on the bed. I moaned into a pillow when he grabbed my hips, lifting my ass and using the head of his cock to search for entrance.

  I clung to the sheet, my hands balling into fists as he found what he was looking for, rocking his hips forward and sliding his cock deep into me. I heard his sharp intake of breath, felt the way his fingers dug into my hips, and knew he was far closer to coming than he wanted to be. I smiled, closing my eyes and rhythmically squeezing the muscles of my pussy.

  “Ohhh god,” he moaned, his grip tightening. “You brat!”

  “Feel good?” I teased, squeezing faster, harder, trying to mimic the hard flutter of my orgasm. He groaned in response, pulling out almost completely, leaving just the head of his cock at the opening of my pussy.

  “Are you determined to make me come?”

  “Eventually.” I reached back to feel him, slick and hard.

  “It’s gonna be sooner rather than later if you keep that up.”

  My hand cupped his balls, rolling them gently. “Come all you want, we’ll make more.”

  “Brat,” he said again, slapping my ass and making me squeal. I giggled as he turned me onto my back, but then my mouth was too full to do much of anything else except suck his cock. He knelt over me and fed me his dick, inch by delicious inch. When I’d caught a good rhythm, he let his hips do the work, fucking my mouth, his thumbs grazing my nipples, making my pussy ache at the loss of his cock.

  I gasped when he pulled out of my mouth, rubbing the head over my lips. They felt swollen and even a little numb, but I didn’t care. I licked at the sensitive ridge of his cock, tracing the pulse of his veins, his dick so full it had turned magenta in color. I grabbed him in my hand, watching his face as I stroked him against my tits. His eyes lit up, a slow smile spreading.

  “You want t
hese?” I pressed my breasts together around his length, feeling his hips already beginning to move. “You want to fuck these pretty tits?”

  “Spit on my dick,” he ordered, shoving his cock up toward my mouth. I did as he requested, rubbing my saliva into the head and down into my cleavage. “Oh yeah. That’s so fucking good!”

  His cock rode the ridge of my breastbone, his hands cupping and kneading the flesh of my breasts as he began to fuck them. With each pass, I tried to capture the head of his cock with my mouth, eager to taste the pre-cum developing at the tip.

  “You like having your tits fucked, don’t you, baby?” He thumbed my nipples, sending heat down between my thighs.

  “Yes,” I admitted, wedging my hand under him, searching for my clit. It seemed so far away, but it was still begging to be touched. Finally, I reached my destination. God, I was wet. Soaked. My fingers followed the groove of my pussy like a Slip-N-Slide, up and down, as Mason used my tits for his pleasure.

  The feel of him rocking my whole body, my nipples hard, my breasts squeezed tightly around his cock, made me crazy with lust. I rubbed my clit furiously, trying to catch up to him. He was panting, sweat beading on his chest, sheening his belly. I wanted to lick it off, tongue his navel, but couldn’t reach. I could barely reach the head of his dick as it neared my mouth, but I put forth the effort, rewarded with a low growl every time I caught it between my lips.

  “Where do you want me to come?” he panted, eyes half-closed.

  “In my pussy,” I insisted, plunging my own fingers into my hole, aching to feel his cock there. “Please. Fuck me. Do it, fuck me!”

  He surprised me, rolling to his back and pulling me on top of him.

  “Come on, Dani,” he urged. “Ride me.”

  I found his cock trapped between us and slid down his length, sighing blissfully when I felt him bottom out. I rested there, just rocking, feeling him shift deep inside of me. He groaned, biting his lip, his thumbs digging into my hips as we began to rock together. I leaned over to kiss him, wanting more, sucking his tongue into my mouth.

  We moved together in perfect rhythm. Mason’s fingers found my clit, knowing just what I needed, flicking it faster and faster as we chased down the finish line like two race horses, panting and slick with sweat. I felt the first tremor of my climax beginning in my thighs. They tightened and quivered at his hips, his cock plunging deep into my pussy, his tongue into my mouth.

  I couldn’t stop it and didn’t want to try. My pussy clamped down violently onto his cock, all sound receding as I came, the feeling so intense I had to break our kiss and bury my face into the crook of his neck, as if I could hide from the sensation. My toes curled under his thighs, my arms wrapping themselves around his neck as he pounded up into me like a jackhammer, making my teeth rattle.

  “Gonna come,” he growled, wrapping his arms around my waist and shoving himself up so far into me I thought I could taste him at the back of my throat. “Oh fuck, Dani, I’m gonna come inside you!”

  I cried out at the brutal force of his orgasm, still recovering from my own, his hips lifting me off the bed, his cock convulsing wildly inside of me, filling me with heat. The strength of it left me breathless and I hung onto him, quivering with emotion, as we slowly came back down to some semblance of reality.

  It was a while before I could think, let alone speak, but eventually my mind remembered what my body couldn’t seem to hold onto. This was my ex-husband—and he was my ex for a reason. Many of them. And all of those reasons came flooding back, along with the memory of Nico the last time I’d seen him, leaving him standing at his front stoop, and I felt suddenly overwhelmed with it all.

  “Mason?”

  “Hmm?”

  I traced his navel with my fingernail. “What are you doing here, really…?”

  “I told you. I have business here.”

  I shook my head in disbelief. “In Italy?”

  “I’m bringing the chain to Europe,” he explained. His father owned a popular restaurant franchise in the states. I supposed it was plausible. But the Mason I had left back in the states had few ambitions aside from getting to the next level playing Dungeons and Dragons with his friends. Who was this Mason, the one who arrived in a business suit?

  I laughed. “Just what Italy needs—hamburgers and fries.”

  “Listen, Ms. Ho-Ho…” He reached over to tickle me and I giggled, pushing his hands away. It was hard to stay serious—so hard to resist him.

  “Who are you calling a ho?” I protested.

  He kissed me hard on the lips, smiling down at me. “God, I missed you.”

  “I missed you too.”

  “Really?”

  “Obviously. You wouldn’t be in my bed right now if I hadn’t missed you, Mason,” I reminded him. “But I have bad news. You can’t stay here. We’re not supposed to members of the opposite sex in our rooms.”

  “That’s okay,” he said, pulling me close again. “I need to get my own place.”

  I raised my head to look at him in the dimness. Who was this man and what had he done with my husband? Er—ex-husband. “How long are you staying?”

  “At least a month. I have to finalize plans here, find some prime real estate for our locations.”

  “A month.” I blinked. When I’d left, I didn’t think he was even on track to graduate, but here he was, talking business as if it was second nature. “You’re really here just for business?”

  “Well…” He cleared his throat and I waited, just looking at him. “Expanding into Europe was kind of my idea…” he admitted. “And… so was starting in Italy.”

  “So you came to see me.” I would have denied the thrill that went through me at the thought, but it was there nonetheless.

  “Is that bad?” He kissed the top of my head.

  “No.” I settled my cheek against his chest. “Yes… I don’t know.” I paused, thinking, and decided to just come out and ask. “What happened, Mason?”

  “What do you mean?”

  I hesitated. “When I left, you weren’t too interested in much of anything, except hanging out with Darron and playing D&D. Now you’re here in Italy talking about expanding your father’s business. So… what happened?”

  He was quiet for a moment, and then his arms tightened around me and he said, “I lost you. That’s what happened.”

  I could barely breathe.

  “You weren’t the only one hurting you know,” he reminded me, his voice low. “But you leaving… that was a wake-up call for me. At first, I tried to just keep doing what I’d always done. What my parents wanted me to do.” He sounded angry, bitter. I winced. “But I couldn’t. You took my whole world with you, and I had to get it back. At least, I had to try.”

  “How did you know I’d take you back?”

  “I didn’t.” He chuckled. “I’m as surprised as you are that I’m here in your bed, you know.”

  “Are you?”

  “I fully expected you to slam the door in my face.”

  I laughed. “And you came anyway?”

  “Yes.” His arms tightened around me.

  I was thinking about Nico. Mason felt so good, familiar—comfortable. Being in his arms was like coming home. But what was I going to do? I couldn’t just drop everything because Mason had come for me. Besides, the problems we’d always dealt with would resurface, I was sure of it. Why wouldn’t they?

  Unless Mason really had changed…

  I sighed. “I just don’t know how this is going to work.”

  “Let’s just see where things go, okay?” His fingertips brushed over my arm and shoulder, making me shiver. “I’ll be here. We can talk. Take it one day at a time. See what happens.”

  I shrugged, doubtful still. “If you say so.”

  “I also wanted to ask you a favor…”

  “Uh-oh.” I rolled my eyes. “Here we go.”

  “Doubting Thomas.” He laughed. “Actually, I’d like to offer you a job.”

  “A… job?” />
  “I need an interpreter,” he explained. “I’m going to hire one anyway, but I thought you might like the extra cash.”

  I half-sat, blinking at him. “Is this a bribe?”

  “No strings attached, I promise.” He crossed his heart. “Would you be willing to work with me?”

  “I don’t know.” I frowned.

  “Work on us?”

  “Oh, Mason…” I snuggled up again, closing my eyes, wishing I could believe.

  “Let’s sleep on it.” He kissed my forehead and that’s just what we did.

  * * * *

  “Phone.” Mason nudged me but I was only half-awake. I buried my head under my pillow and snuggled more deeply under the covers. “Dani, phone.”

  It was only when he reached for it that I reacted, practically leaping over him to grab it. I fell onto the floor, still naked, shivering in the transition from warm covers to cold air.

  “Hello?” I gasped, already dragging the phone on its long cord toward the bathroom.

  “Morning, bella.” The sound of Nico’s voice made me flush and I closed the door behind me.

  “Hi.” I whispered.

  “Did I wake you? It’s almost noon.”

  “Is it?” I blinked at the sunlight streaming through my bathroom window. I’d been up far too late, and had been woken up, several times, in the middle of the night. Of course, I couldn’t exactly tell him what I’d been doing, now could I?

  “Are you sick?”

  “No, I’m fine,” I protested.

  “You sound hoarse.”

  Of course I did. I was whispering. “I should go.”

  “But I want to talk to you.”

  Mason knocked on the door. “Dani?”

  Oh crap.

  “Later,” I whispered, closing my eyes and praying for a miracle. “Meet me at the Mood Café in an hour.”

  I hung up the phone just as Mason knocked again, louder this time. “Dani, are you okay?”

  “Fine!” I called brightly, standing and opening the door.