Tempted by love

Chapter 8

Chapter 8

The early sun of yet another day streamed through the windows on each side of the bed. The intense light was disrupting my sleep causing me to flutter my eyes open where my consciousness caught up with me and I remembered that I was in Mason’s bed. Everything inside the room smelt precisely like him. I sat up so fast it caused my head to spin, looking intently at my surroundings. There was no Mason next to me and I was absolutely sure I had fallen asleep with him next to me. I still remembered the soft hum of his breathing, the warmth of his body next to me. “Mason?” I called out sleep still wrapped in my soft voice.

A gruff grunt came from my left side and I turned to look. Mason was half turned towards me, placing a shirt over his bare back, covering his snaking black tattoo that covered his shoulder blade. I thoughtlessly threw myself across the room, scrambling out and off the bed, and the back of my hand touched Mason’s forehead. Mason gazed down at me, his eyebrows pulled together. “How are you feeling? You don’t seem to be burning up a fever anymore.”                     

He removed my hand off his skin with his own. “Yeah, I feel better.”

He chuckled at my fretted behavior.                 

I padded back to the bed, neatened out the comforter, and fluffed out the pillows.

I cleared my throat out, feeling the sudden awkwardness of having spent the night in his room.

I was sure if I was feeling this way then Mason must have even feel worse, maybe he even regretted asking me to stay the night with him. I could see the unemotional glowering. I tried balancing on my toes to try and release the pressure of nervousness inside me. “Oh well, that’s a good thing. Um…uh…yeah I think I should go get breakfast ready.”

Suddenly he chuckled, making me frown. “Your hair looks like a haystack…it looks good on you, really.” 

I stuck my tongue out at him and my hands automatically shot out to comb through the blonde mess. “At least I don’t look like a walking zombie. You know half dead and alive,” I mocked with a grin, pointing out to his wounds.  

“And, here I thought zombies were fiction. At least now we know where the idea sprung from.” he scoffed.

“They didn’t look so fictional in Taken Over. But, then you wouldn’t know what I’m talking about, right? Because considering that blank look on your face it seems you don’t watch that many movies?” I noted, watching the unrecognizable look shimmer off his face when I put him back on track to hat I was referring to. “It was an awesome movie. You should watch it sometime. I’m sure you’ll like it. It’s filled with action and horror scenes. It’s not your typical chick flick. I know guys hate that stuff.”  

I dared to look back at him standing there with his hands tucked in the pockets of his gray sweatpants and white t-shirt that fit him snug, his black tattoo creeping up and peeked out near his neck. The sunlight bounced off his brown chocolate hair.

My cheeks flushed pink because I had been caught staring when he cocked an eyebrow up. I was scared to find that he might chase me off, but instead he was studying me with a deep curiosity, a content smile sprawled across his face. The blush deepened and I quickly turned away. “We hardly have time to indulge in material obsessions as a soldier,” he admitted, his voice hovering suddenly close behind me.       

“You have lots of time now,” I took a deep breath in, my fingers playing with the edge of my silky night shorts. The warm hot flutters raced down my spine “Who knows when my father will come back, if he ever does?”

“Yeah sure.”

“I should go now.” I nodded a leaving gesture to him. I left him standing there, his dark eyes never left me. I skipped to the bathroom, my emotions unrecognizable. I didn’t know myself, inside or out. It was all because of him. Mason was stirring something inside me and I could see it on the face in the mirror, the girl was practically a stranger to me – eyes a glow and bright, a shade of pink flushed across my cheekbones, a soft smile.