CHAPTER FOUR

“Shit!”

As Mason cursed from obvious shock and reeled around, I squeaked out my own surprise and leapt back, freaked because I’d been caught ogling him. We gaped at each other with wide eyes through the opened doorway of the bathroom.

I know, I know. He was naked under that strip of terrycloth—please, God, don’t remind me. The ladylike thing to do in this situation would have been—let me repeat, ~would have been~—to instantly turn away and apologize for intruding into his shower time, and then flee in mortified embarrassment as fast as my legs could carry me. I fully realized that.

But seriously. He was ~naked~ under that terrycloth. Hello. Fully clothed, Mason Lowe was one hell of a yumsicle. But shirtless, he was simply indescribable. Since I’m so giving, however, I will certainly attempt to describe him to the best of my ability, even though it’ll be ~such~ a hardship.

The white towel draped around his waist was loose and had slipped just enough to hang low, showcasing his flat, toned abdomen. A light sprinkle of dark hair growing around his innie bellybutton stretched down, disappearing under the towel, making me want to lick my lips and purr—or more to the point, it made me want to lick those perfect abs and that enticing happy trail.

And brace yourself for this one, ladies: He had a tattoo. I know. I almost spontaneously combusted right then and there. Stretching across his left bulging hip muscle was an honest to God tattoo. It said one, maybe two, words in what looked to be one of those impossible-to-read fonts. And it was somewhat obscured by the beginning of that aggravating towel.

Unable to help myself—hey, you try to restrain with a half-naked, tattooed Mason Lowe in front of you—I tilted my head to the side and leaned forward, squinting in an effort to read—

He snatched up a handful of towel, pulling it snug around his hips and lifting the waistline enough to hide his tattoo completely—the fun hater. Grabbing the door with his other hand as if he was going to slam it in my face, he demanded, “What the hell are you doing here?”

I looked up at his face, and Lord have mercy, I suddenly realized I’d totally neglected to check out the upper half of him. Yeah, I can’t believe I almost missed out on that eye-party, either.

With his hair wet, his thick locks looked extra dark—almost black—and curled even more around his ears and neck. Water droplets dripped off the clumped strands and splashed down the side of his face and throat. More beads streaked across his chest, some having the good sense to cling possessively to his über-defined guns and pecs. Not that I blamed them. If I was a droplet of water and had the great fortune of landing on Mason Lowe, I’d cleave to his muscles too.

He still had that rugged sharp face I adored, but his cheekbones and the cleft in his chin looked extra pronounced in the florescent glow of the bathroom light, while his eyes took on a dreamy silver hue.

A very pissed off dreamy silver hue.

Scowling at me, he lifted his thick eyebrows as if to say, ~“Well?”~ which reminded me I hadn’t answered his question yet.

Whoops.

“I…I’m babysitting.” Duh.

But he looked so condemning, as if he thought I’d purposely snuck into his house and had staked out this very bathroom just to catch a peek of him in a towel and try to read his tattoo. It got my dander up.

I scowled back, growing defensive. “What the hell are you doing, taking a shower with the door ~wide open~ while I’m babysitting?” I set my hands on my hips and arched my own eyebrows.

Yeah, answer that one, buddy.

“I didn’t know you were ~here~,” he snapped back. “And the latch doesn’t work. I shut it as best as I could, but it still floats open when the exhaust fan is on.”

Oh. Hmm, maybe that’s what Dawn had told me: that the door latch—not the toilet—was broken. My bad.

But that still didn’t excuse his crotchety attitude.

I tried—really—to keep my stare above his neck, but that was like plopping someone onto the ledge of a hundred-story skyscraper and telling them not to look down.

I so looked down. And yep, he was still sexy from head to toe.

He cleared his throat in a disgusted, do-you-mind kind of way.

Busted. I jerked my gaze back up.

“Isn’t my mom home yet?” he asked when he finally had my attention on his face.

When he made it sound as if it were my fault that she wasn’t, I huffed out an impatient breath. “Apparently not.”

But really, what a tragedy. A guy with his level of hotness turning out to be a rude jerk was like stumbling across a steaming hot strip of perfectly fried bacon only to turn it over and realize it had mold growing on it. Not cool.

“I fell asleep on the couch after putting Sarah to bed and no one woke me. Wouldn’t she have woken me if she’d come home?”

“She must be working overtime for someone, then.” He closed his eyes and silently mouthed something, but I’d never been good at reading lips, so I had no clue what he said. Finally, he sighed as if forfeiting a mental battle he was having with himself and ran a hand through his thick, wet, dark hair. “Well, I didn’t know you were here, okay,” he said, not for the first time, but at least he sounded defensive instead of offended this time.

It was minimal progress if you ask me. Now…if I’d had control over his lines, I would’ve had him apologizing profusely for snapping at me by now.

“And I didn’t know you were here either,” I smarted back. “You scared the crap out of me. When I woke up and heard something back here, I thought a burglar had broken in.”

The incredulous look he sent me told me he wasn’t buying it. “You thought someone broke in…to use the shower?”

“I didn’t hear the water running. Jeez.” And now I sounded just as defensive as he did. But really. “I only heard doors, or drawers, or something opening and shutting. I didn’t know what was going on.”

He glanced at the doll in my hand that I still held as a weapon. “Well, swell. I suppose I should feel so much better now, knowing Sarah is safe in your hands. If someone breaks in, you can just wield your doll there and play tea party with them to death.”

Oh, no, he didn’t.

Instead of bringing up Mr. Taser and Mace Man hanging out in my purse, I scowled. “Hey! I’ll have you know the plastic head on this doll is ~pretty~ hard. Trust me. Your sister caught me in the noggin with it earlier.” I sank my fingers into my hair and immediately found the tender goose egg she’d left behind. With a wince, I added, “You just wait. After they finish with all the gun bans, they’ll be outlawing these suckers next.”

I waved the doll for emphasis. Its limp body lobbed back and forth in a pathetic attempt at intimidation.

Mason didn’t even crack a smile at my joke. Watching me rub the side of my head, he blinked, looking horrified. “She hit you?”

“Oh, not on purpose, no. It’s nothing,” I dropped my hand from my hair. “No big whoop. We were having a good time. She was excited. Arms started flailing a little too wildly.” I mean, how could they not when I’d been wailing, ~‘Give me back my golden arm?’~ “But it’s all good. Don’t worry about it.”

He studied me a moment longer. I couldn’t read one discernible thought from his guarded expression. Then he shook his head as if to clear his thoughts and turned his attention away from me. “I guess I should pay you. My mom said eight dollars an hour, right?”

He continued to hold the towel in place as he bent to pick up a pair of rumpled, discarded Khakis off the floor. But as he shifted, the terrycloth stretched down in the back, and I swear I saw a peek of crack.

Oh, how I could become addicted to crack, especially when those two taut, tanned globes hugging that blessed crevice molded so perfectly to the back of his towel. They were like twin mounds of ecstasy.

Not noticing me gobbling up his rear end, he dug a hand into the pocket of his pants until he came up with a thick wad of cash. I lurched a step back, gaping at the bills he pulled free. Dear God, I sooo did not want to know where he’d gotten that money.

Whether it was true or not, Eva’s rumor about him being a gigolo had me rattled.

“Umm…” I panicked. “D-don’t worry about it. I’ll just square it up with Dawn later.”

He tilted his head as he eyed me, dissecting me to bits with his penetrating gaze. “Trust me.” He waved the cash in his hand. “You’re going to get paid from these exact bills right here. Does it really matter whether I give them to you now or if I pass them along to my mother, who probably won’t remember to give them to you until next week…if not later?”

I stalled, still not wanting to touch his allegedly dirty money. But I really had earned that cash tonight. I wouldn’t be surprised if I was nominated into the babysitter hall of fame after the way I’d pampered Sarah—excluding the first few minutes of the evening, of course.

Still, it was kind of sad to realize he was taking on this kind of responsibility for his sibling. My older sister had certainly never worried about paying my babysitters before. I wondered what kind of weight had been thrust onto Mason Lowe’s shoulders so early in his life.

His eyes narrowed with defiance, daring me to reject his offer as he peeled back two twenties and handed them to me.

“Well…when you put it that way....” I tried to sound all nonchalant, but I knew he could tell how not-casual I felt about taking his money.

A little sick to my stomach, I felt this irrepressible need to turn on my heels and escape. But slowly, I reached out and slipped the bills from his long fingers, making sure not to touch his heated skin in the process. “Thanks.”

When a surprisingly feminine smell caught my senses after the cash passed hands, I twitched my nose. Lifting the twenties to my nostrils, I inhaled deeply.

Mason’s brows burrowed as he sent me a perplexed frown.

I blushed. “Sorry. I just…They smell like…Is that…Chanel No. 5?”

As his face blanched of color, I knew immediately. Everything Eva had said about him was absolutely true. Rich women paid him for sex. My skin prickled with a chilling awareness, realizing exactly what kind of things he’d done to earn this cash.

His jaw bulged. “I wouldn’t know,” he bit out from between clenched teeth. “I don’t ask.”

I wanted to drop the tainted, illegally gained funds. But holy guacamole. I was standing in the doorway of a steamy bathroom, staring at an honest-to-God gigolo who was wet and naked and covered by nothing but a bath towel. This was so going in the Christmas letter I was going to write to all my girlfriends.

The whole situation must’ve affected me way more than I realized, because without planning what I was going to say, I blurted, “What ~do~ you ask, then?”

He shrugged and studied me with a mocking kind of insolence. “Not much. My clients aren’t exactly the shy type. They tell me what they want and typically don’t leave a lot of room for questions.”

My mouth fell open.

Oh. My. God.

“Oh, wow. So you’re actually admitting you’re a…a…”

He straightened pulling back slightly. “What? Haven’t you heard the rumors? As tight as you appeared to be with Eva Mercer on campus the other day, I would’ve assumed she’d told you every dirty detail about me by now.”

I sputtered and flushed hard. “I…Yeah…I mean, she told me some crazy gossip, but…I’m not sure if I believed any of it.”

He didn’t confirm or deny. He just watched me, waiting for my next move.

I figured people had two distinct responses to him: They either got as far away from him as feasibly possible or they moved closer in an effort to find out just how good he was at his job.

I did neither.

“Does your mom know?” I asked, rooted to the spot.

Dawn seemed way too nice—and moral—to allow her son to do such a thing.

He glanced away, and I once again caught a glimpse of the regret I’d seen on his face when I’d first spotted him in the bathroom. “I have a feeling she suspects.”

Whoa. This was big. This was so big. “This is just…” I shook my head, not sure what to say. “Yeah.”

Poor Dawn. She seemed so nice. If I were her and knew my twenty-year-old son was selling his body for sex, I’d—well, I wasn’t too certain what I’d do. It was obvious they could use more money, but this seemed kind of extreme.

I settled him with a probing stare. “Doesn’t it bother you that she knows—”

“No, it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside,” he snapped with a glare. “Jesus. How do you think I feel about her knowing?”

All righty, then.

I opened my mouth to apologize, but he shook his head. “No. No more. The question and answer portion of this evening is over. You have your babysitting money, and I’m home to stay with Sarah. You can go.”

“I…” Realizing enough was enough, I nodded. “Okay.”

Ducking my head, I turned away, barely pausing to collect my things before I hurried from the house.