Freeze Frame Read online

  “You make her nervous,” Dill explained.

  “I’m just gonna go,” Mason said, easing toward the door. His face looked pale, and he moved with a delicately quiet tread.

  “You can’t leave, sweetie. You’re half the guest of honor,” Mom explained.

  Uh oh. “What do you mean by that?” Dill asked her.

  She pouted. “The bachelor party. Flora, Ian, Sage, and Joe still need to get here. Your dad is coming later tonight. Then we can have the party.”

  “You all are insane,” Mason muttered. His throat sounded dry.

  Dill shut the front door, stood in front of it to keep Mason from walking out.

  “But I hired strippers,” Mom whined.

  “She hired strippers,” Dill repeated for him, starting to smile. What a circus they must look like to him.

  “Exactly,” she said. “You two go to the backroom and make hot wild manlove until the others get here. We won’t bother you at all.” She laced her fingers together under her chin and blinked at them expectantly.

  “Mom, layoff. You’re freaking both of us out,” Dill warned.

  “I’m being supportive.”

  “You’re being weird,” Willow joined in.

  “And embarrassing. Please don’t ever do this to me,” Invisible Fauna pleaded.

  “They’re getting married,” Mom insisted.

  “Did the faery court tell you that?” Willow asked. “Because I have a few things to set straight with them, and I’m pretty sure Fauna feels the same way.”

  “I’m shaking my head in agreement,” Fauna narrated.

  “Even if they did tell you, don’t you think you should let things develop naturally or risk screwing them up?” Willow dropped her hands on her hips. “The poor tattooed guy is freaking out.”

  Dill glanced at Mason. Yep, the poor tattooed guy was freaking out. His eyes were widened as though to take in the full spectrum of domestic confusion as his attention bounced from one speaker to the next.

  “I’m with Willow on this one. Mason is sexy as hell, but I’m trying to save his life right now, not sleep with him,” Dill said.

  Two women and one invisible sister stared him down with incredulity. He could feel Fauna’s skepticism.

  Dill shifted uncomfortably. “I didn’t say I would turn him down, I just said it wasn’t my primary goal at the moment.”

  “I’m high, aren’t I? You gave me something…a hallucinogenic or some shit,” Mason said, more to himself than to the others.

  Willow walked over to Mason and peered into his face. Mason leaned back, holding his ground but clearly not wanting her too close, either. “You’d like an easy explanation wouldn’t you?” Her steady gaze turned to Dill. “God, don’t you wonder what he’s thinking right now? I wish Sage would hurry up and get here so we could ask him.”

  “Fuck. You have a mind reader?” Mason correctly deduced.

  “Mm,” she agreed, looking at Mason. “And a transporter. If you play your cards right, humor Mom, I betcha Flora will take you home when the party is over.”

  “That means what? Fucking your brother?” Mason bit out.

  Willow raised her brows, not backing down from the venom in his words. Dill smiled supportively at her. Fauna shimmered into view again, looking on with fascination. Mom hummed from the kitchen having lost interest for the benefits of putting on tea and whipping out several sizes of candles and votives to decorate the doily covered bar top.

  God it feels great to come home to family, Dill thought, his chest filling with love and pride. Ridiculous, but great.

  “Only if you want to,” Willow pushed back on Mason. “I’m guessing you do.”

  Even Dill could see the burn of a rare blush rise from Mason’s bare shoulders, up his neck and heat his ears.

  “I’ll just bet—” Her words cut off as Willow became an armoire.

  “Holy shit!” Mason swore. He stepped back, straight into Dill’s arms. It wasn’t like he could step forward. Willow blocked his immediate path.

  Dill took his wrist and turned Mason around in the cramped space between cabin door and sisterly armoire. “She does that. We all do things without warning,” he said gently. Feeling a little giddy for having Mason listen to him complacently, he added, “Just don’t twist her knobs while she’s in this form. She doesn’t take kindly to uninvited advances.”

  “This is really messed up, man.” Mason looked exhausted.

  “C’mon. You said you wanted answers. Let’s go get you some and leave these three out here to continue the bickering,” Dill offered. He slid his hand down to link fingers with Mason. When Mason resisted the gentle tug, Dill met his gaze. “Talk. Without sex.”

  * * * *

  Mason relaxed and let himself be led around the armoire and down the hall to the bedroom at the end, which had started this whole freak show. This is exactly why he didn’t do relationships, Mason reasoned. Too much baggage. Some people did drugs and beat the shit out of each other. Some turned into furniture.

  Behind him, Dill closed the bedroom door, and silence engulfed them like a blessed blanket of peace. Mason walked to the edge of the bed and sat down. Dill stayed where he’d left him.

  “I’m confused,” Mason confessed, dropping his head in his hands. “What the hell is going on, Dill?”

  “I guess you would be confused.”

  Dill came over and sat down beside him, leaving a good foot of space. Mason appreciated it. After the bombardment of new experiences and realities, he needed the distance to look over the rubble of his defenses. Did he want them back up? Was it a question worth asking? Could he trust Dill not to take advantage of the insecurity he had to be seeing? Did he want him to take advantage and lose himself in sex and the smell of another man who wanted him and wanted to take care of him?

  But no, that wasn’t what was really happening here, was it? Dill had been hired to—what? To protect him? To watch him? To keep him alive? To drive him insane? Mason felt shaken to the core. Nothing he’d believed about the way things were, were. It was like he’d been dropped into a fantastical storyline, and he didn’t know how to maneuver his way through the resulting changes.

  “Faeries, huh?” Mason broke the silence with the obvious question.

  “Yeah.”

  Mason swung his head to the side, waiting for Dill to elaborate.

  “Mom is a faery. Dad is a scientist. He came out here to do some research on plant healing properties and regeneration. What he found was my mom skinny-dipping. They got married and had five of us who are half-breeds. Since we’re faery, the faery court granted us each an ability which never quite works right.” He shrugged. “It’s always been annoying, but none of us are alone, and we’re pretty tight as families go.”

  “Break it down for me. You freeze time…”

  “I freeze time. Willow transforms into anything wooden. Flora transports herself. Fauna disappears. Sage reads minds. Dad is just Dad and Mom heals. She’s good with anything natural, like growing things, and the faeries tell her things. Sometimes, it’s nothing but lies, and sometimes it’s real. She’d say they’re both right and wrong and I say, that’s a faery’s way of circular reasoning.”

  “She’s healed me twice?” Mason asked.

  “Yep.”

  “No offense, but I’m not marrying you.”

  “I didn’t ask,” Dill said.

  “No, I guess you didn’t.” For some reason, that made Mason relax. Maybe it was because Dill wasn’t forcing the issue and didn’t fall into line with his mother’s crazy prediction. Whatever it was, it gave him comfort.

  “Back in my apartment you acted like you knew about the time freezing thing. You weren’t surprised. What you said was, you freeze time. How did you know that?”

  “It was hard to miss.”

  “No, actually it isn’t. Time stops, everything stops, awareness stops. When it ends, things resume as they were with no one knowing unless I leave something out of place. So, how did you know?”r />
  “Hey, I’m the guy with the questions you promised to answer, remember me?” Mason asked.

  “I’ll answer yours. You answer mine,” Dill pressed.

  Mason watched him through narrowing eyes of consideration. His lips pursed slightly and Dill found himself thinking about the way those lips felt on his.

  Mason nodded, finally. “Deal. Me first.”

  Dill settled in, leaning back on his hands and stretching his feet out. He crossed them at the ankle and waited for the first volley. “Shoot.”

  “Why are you following me?”

  “I was hired to,” Dill answered.

  “There’s more to it than that. You have to give me something to go on.”

  Dill shrugged a shoulder. “I’ll give you what I can. Some of it is confidential. Some of it I don’t know. I was hired to obtain a sample of your DNA. That was the whole contract.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. My directions were to take it to a particular lab for testing. Then the contract would be over, and Harper Security would be paid.”

  “Who paid you?” Mason asked, turning to bend and tuck one leg behind the knee of the other.

  “That’s confidential, and even if I could tell you, some of it is sketchy since the client has a contact hired to speak for his interests. Sage handles the negotiations, not me. I get called in when freezing things might get handy.”

  “You said you can’t control it,” Mason reminded him.

  Dill thought about that for a minute. He was pretty sure he’d told Mason it didn’t work right all the time, not that he couldn’t control it. It was true that he couldn’t, but inadequacy wasn’t the kind of picture he wanted to paint for Mason.

  “When it happens, I can take advantage of it on a case,” he answered, skirting the issue.

  “Since that was your contract and you had me bleeding in your apartment, it’s safe to say you got your sample, right?” Mason’s mouth looked tight, as though he wasn’t pleased with the thought.

  Dill nodded. “I got it.”

  “Then why did you keep following me?”

  “The contract was extended after someone tried to end your life. The client didn’t seem to think it was a fluke,” Dill said.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. I sent in the sample. I reported the events. We were hired to continue watch until the results were discovered and we were called off.”

  “Have you been called off?” Mason asked.

  “No.” Dill sat up, mirroring Mason’s position so that they faced each other. “My turn.”

  “I’m not done.”

  “I know. But since you like to run, I want to know certain things before you try to ditch me again.”

  Mason rubbed his palm over his scalp.

  “Still bald,” Dill told him.

  Mason smiled ruefully. “I need a razor.”

  “I’ll get you one when we’re done talking,” Dill offered. “How did you know I froze time?”

  “You and the rest of the world were frozen while I wasn’t,” he answered.

  “Nice try, but I’m not buying it. You told me before the freeze that you knew me, and I was the one who froze time. How did you know that?” Dill asked with increasing interest.

  “I remember it.”

  “Remember what, exactly?” Dill asked.

  “Not moving and you circling around me, staring at me.”

  “That’s not possible. No one is aware when time freezes,” Dill protested.

  “I was. Just like I’m aware that when you did it again at my flat, you checked out my ass.”

  Dill swallowed hard. He’d heard everything? That would explain why Mason knew his gift wasn’t reliable. He’d apologized back at the apartment for not knowing when the freeze would happen. “Well, shit.”

  “I don’t appreciate being frozen in place for anyone’s inspection.”

  “Calm your ruffled feathers. It wasn’t on purpose, and in two cases, it saved your life,” Dill argued.

  Mason’s eyes took on a wary squint, the outer corners crinkling slightly as he scanned Dill’s face. Then cautiously reaching up, he slid his fingers into Dill’s hair and pulled him in.

  Not frantic or rushed, Dill had plenty of time to resist if he’d wanted to. He didn’t, though, enjoying the tentative bid for acceptance he felt certain Mason wasn’t aware of. It was like the dawning of some new experience Mason let him see. There wasn’t anything that would make Dill mess that up.

  Their lips touched, skimmed across each other, held, dissolved, and parted.

  “I think and feel when you freeze me,” Mason murmured. “If you freeze me in the middle of an orgasm, will it draw out the pleasure?”

  God, what a hot prospect that would be. “Is this one of your burning questions?” Dill asked.

  “It’s a question that makes me burn for an answer.”

  “Then, I don’t know.”

  “Do you want to kiss me?” Mason asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Good.”

  “Only if you let me. Otherwise, waiting would suck,” Dill confessed.

  “Don’t wait.”

  “I thought you didn’t want to have sex with me.”

  “Now we’re talking sex? I thought this was about a kiss,” Mason said, his black eyes dancing with mischief.

  It was a good look for him. Sexy, dangerous, wicked, playful, and fucking tough. Yeah, he wanted a lot more than a kiss from the tattooed extremist.

  “You’re a bad idea, Dill Harper. You make things seem possible that have no way of working out.”

  “Later, I’m gonna ask you to explain that,” Dill promised. “Now, I’m taking whatever you’ll give me.”

  Dill tipped his chin up, closing the scant distance between them. Mason tasted salty and vaguely sweet, like the faraway tang of metal. It made Dill think of cold autumn afternoons and rolling in a pile of leaves, of holding Mason tightly to the music of a distant creaking swing set.

  It was strange and gripping. How a man who hadn’t had much of a childhood could make Dill think of every fond memory and new ones he hoped to create, was beyond him. He wished he could give some of that back to him, let Mason feel what he could have if he gave Dill half a chance.

  “I still have questions,” Mason said, breathing heavily.

  “Ask.”

  “Who’s trying to kill me and why?”

  Dill searched Mason’s heavily lidded eyes. He was rebuilding the wall, trying to separate himself from caring about why his life would be at risk and why he should trust Dill in knowing the answers. It was as readable as a book and had a lot of the same hallmarks as Sage’s look before he met Joe and knew that he would be safe with him.

  Ironic that he’d see something so familiar in a man he knew so little about. Yet it was there.

  “I don’t have that answer yet, but I’ll find out,” Dill said thickly.

  “Why? I’m just a contract for you.”

  “You’re a lot more than that.”

  “Really?” Mason’s question was loaded with skepticism and he leaned away from Dill to deliver it. “This I have to hear. What more am I than your contract, and if you say, my next lay, I’m over this faery mistake.”

  The words stung but Dill knew they were said in defense. He sighed, knowing too, that he’d have to make a confession of his own. Turning the power over to Mason went against every instinct of self-preservation he possessed. He’d do it anyway. He needed Mason’s trust if he wanted to help him.

  Dill sat up, preparing himself for Mason’s harsh mockery. He’d enjoy this one, Dill was certain of it. “I have this…God.” Dill paused, feeling stupid. “This crush on you.” He shook his head and looked up at the ceiling. “I can’t explain it, and you aren’t even my usual type.”

  “What’s your usual type?” Mason asked in an uncharacteristically soft voice.

  “Twinks. They’re easy to love and leave.” He laughed at himself, ruefully. “I know how
that sounds, and it’s exactly how it should sound. I’m not much of one for commitment. I knew the minute I saw you that I was in trouble.”

  “Why do I trouble you?”

  “You ask a lot of questions,” Dill complained. Hadn’t he been stripped bare enough for one day?

  “You told me you had the answers.”

  Dill met his look. His answer seemed intensely interesting to Mason. Dill’s breath caught on a strange half-hiccup. That look made his cock tingle hopefully. Did Mason have any idea what his smallest expressions did to him? Jesus.

  “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” Dill asked.

  “Maybe.”

  “You’re trouble because you’re the kind of guy I can’t dismiss easily. Falling for you means I’m in for a lifetime of tumbling through the endless rabbit hole. If you aren’t there to catch me at the bottom, I don’t want to step over the edge in the first place.”

  He’d been studying his jean leg as the silence ticked past.

  “Speechless, are you?” Dill said, feeling the dread of rejection.

  Looking up, he saw that Mason was frozen. His expression curious, yet amused. Great. Nothing like having another man’s amusement frozen for you to study at your leisure. Of course, he hadn’t heard any of that—or had he? He’d heard the other times, hadn’t he?

  “Mason? Can you hear me?”

  Chapter Six

  Yeah, Mason could hear him. Couldn’t answer for shit, though. He hadn’t heard Dill string that many words together before. Between that, the confession, and the funny way Mason’s chest ached, he was at a loss for something important to say, anyway. Just as well. He’d probably fuck up the answer like he fucked up everything else. He’d say something stupid like, “Cool.”

  And that would be the best a guy like Mason could offer him.

  So Dill dated twinks because they weren’t an emotional challenge. That’s what he’d been saying, right? That’s what all those fancy feeling words had meant? He wanted Mason and was afraid to take the chance? Mason kind of liked that. Kind of turned him on. Fuck, it turned him on a lot.

  Couldn’t do anything about it frozen.

  “You’re easy on the eyes,” Dill said. He smiled a sexy little half-smile. His blue eyes seemed to darken. “Since you’re frozen, I can say whatever I want and you have to listen. This could be handy.”