Undeniably Married (Boston’s Irresistible Billionaires Book 4)

“This is not what I had in mind. You said the beach!” I yell over the wind whipping through my hair and pounding my ears. I’m jostled about in the front seat of Mason’s souped-up Bronco Raptor, which has no doors or roof and took a forklift to get me up into the seat because the tires are so big and the truck is so high off the ground. Still, it’s a very cool car. Truck. Whatever.

An excited “Eep” flees my lungs as we go over another big bump, and I fly up in my seat only to snag sharply on the harness and slam back down.

My stomach is doing somersaults, and I’m glad Mason suggested we wait to eat until we get to the beach. I’ve never done anything like this before. It’s exhilarating and terrifying all at once.

“We’re almost there,” he calls back to me. “Just hold on. We’re going to hit the dunes in a minute.”

“Ah!” I cry as he quickly jerks the wheel to fishtail the back of the truck. It flings me left and then right, and I come so close to falling out the side, it’s not even funny. My hair is filled with sand, and no doubt I’m going to look like I’ve been electrocuted. If I survive this, that is. At least my glasses are protecting my eyes. The car swerves again, and I scream. He’s been doing that a lot to get that same reaction out of me. “Oh my god! I hate you!”

“You love me. Trust me. I’ve got you, princess. This is supposed to be fun. Let yourself enjoy it.”

Let myself enjoy it.

I close my eyes for a beat and feel the harness tight against my chest. Mason told me that even if we roll, which he promised me we wouldn’t, the harness as well as the support beams of the truck would keep us from falling out or getting hurt.

Trust him, he says.

Fine. I’ll trust him, but only because he seems to know what he’s doing and hasn’t let me down yet.

My eyes open, and I allow a smile to crack my lips.

“There’s my girl. Let’s do this!” he yells as we go over another dune, and I throw my left hand up in the air while holding on for dear life with my right.

And when I allow myself to relax and get into it, he’s right. This is fun. Better than any roller coaster I’ve ever been on.

I never knew Cape Cod had driving beaches. I’m holding onto the oh-shit bar as the warm sun and salty air surround me. It’s a perfect day, and a little escape is exactly what I needed.

“Here we go!”

Oh my god. Oh my god! I bite into my lip as a nervous bubble hits me square in the chest at the sight before me. “Mason, that’s huge! It’s too big.”

“Don’t worry, you can take it, princess. I’ve experienced that firsthand.”

I laugh despite myself and grip the inside rim of the seat and the oh-shit bar. Mason speeds up and heads straight for the large mountain of sand and grass. We hit it at top speed and go flying up and even catching some freaking air under the tires before we come down on the other side of the dune with a hard, jostling landing that robs me of my breath.

Mason twists the wheel and brings us to a stop on the north end of the beach, high above the soft sand and waves. It’s absolutely stunning, with the sun shimmering off the midnight-blue water and the white froth of crashing waves as they trickle up the sandy beach. I take a deep breath, still breathing hard from the wild ride, and a calm comes over me.

“Fun, right?” He gleams at me, looking like a little boy with adrenaline-flushed cheeks and excitement in his eyes.

“So fun,” I concede. “I’m glad you kidnapped me into it.”

That smile, if possible, glows even brighter. “If I had told you my plan from the start, you never would have done it.”

He’s probably right. “You get me to do a lot of stuff I wouldn’t otherwise do. The beach was the right call,” I tell him. “Maybe we should have done this instead of Vegas.” I give him a wry smirk.

He chuckles. “Too late now. Here. Let me help you.” He starts to undo my harness, his fingers working around my lower belly, and his hand brushes the top of my mound. I bite into my lip again, staring at his face as he concentrates on what he’s doing. It’s really unfair how good-looking he is. What happened in Vegas was my fault, but it’s difficult not to wish we had never gone. Then I wouldn’t be thinking about him this way.

Then I wouldn’t be stuck living with Mason Reyes as my husband.

“There.” He pulls back with a victorious smile and a wink. “See. I knew you could take it.” He undoes his harness and hops out of the truck. With easy strides, he runs around to help me down. The warmth of the sand heats through my flip-flops, and I pull my hand immediately away from his. He doesn’t seem to care as he goes around to the trunk and pops it open. “Here. Take these.”

I come around and grab my tote bag, and the bag with our towels and things in it. He’s got the cooler and the umbrella, and after closing up the trunk, we carefully walk down the side of the dune to the beach, which is a bit more crowded than I was expecting.

Then again, it’s a gorgeous summer day in July on Cape Cod.

I think he wanted it this way. I think this was all part of his plan. As he said, we’ll be photographed, but it’s just a simple day at the beach. Nothing exciting about that.

“You sure you can park there?”

He glances back at his car and then over at me with a shrug. “I’ve done it before, and no one has ever said anything. This is a public beach, and people will notice us,” he tells me as he drops the cooler in the sand and gets to work on setting up the umbrella.

“And that’s a good thing?” I question as I lay out the beach blanket that could easily fit four and secure it at the corners, so it doesn’t blow away with a couple of rocks I find hidden in the sand.

“Yes. We want people to see us together, princess. But we’re just hanging out at the beach. Having a good time together. It’s not sordid or taboo. We’re going for outwardly boring right now, remember?”

Getting on my knees, I pull off my top but decide to leave on my shorts for now. I am not wearing the red bikini. Instead, I’m wearing a baby-pink seashell one that twists in the center of my breasts and ties around my neck.

Mason stares, his jaw slightly slack with his hands frozen on the umbrella. His gaze drags along every inch of skin and fabric, and something warm courses under my skin and heats my face. I dig through my bag and locate my spray sunscreen. Doing my best to ignore Mason, I set to work. I burn and not tan, and while Mason teased me about bringing the umbrella, I’ll be living under it today. Speaking of, I grab my Rebels hat and put it on, looping my ponytail through the back.

His lips twitch. “Nice hat.”

“Thanks.” I wink at him. “I stole it from some baller I recently hooked up with.”

“That so? Is he deliriously gorgeous and fantastic in bed?”

“Aw, does the young baller need reassurance?”

He rubs his bottom lip and finishes with the umbrella. “Just making sure that’s my hat and not someone else’s.”

“‘Hey Jealousy,’” I say, mentioning the Gin Blossoms song.

He picks up his phone, and a second later, the angsty ’90s ballad comes on, and despite myself, I grin. Just a little.

“What can I say? I want my wife to wear my hat and no one else’s. If you had said he sucked in bed and was as gross-looking as a bathroom floor at an underground boxing match, I’d know for sure you were talking about something else.”

“So modest, Mason. Spray my back for me, would you?”

“What? I don’t get to rub it in?”

“Now you know why I brought spray instead of cream. Behave. And no more my wife stuff. I think I already told you that.”

“Yes, ma’am. Even if it makes your nipples hard and your pussy wet, I’ll refrain, though it’s damn near impossible with you in this knock-out bikini—to continue the boxing metaphors.”

Damn perceptive bastard.

“It doesn’t do that.”

“Uh-huh.”

I sigh. “Mason⁠—”

“Just being honest while keeping my hands to myself. That was the deal we made.”

I let it go as he sprays mist all over my back and shoulders. “Ah!” I shiver and push away.

“Cold?” he teases.

“Here.” I snatch the bottle from his hand and go after his back.

He screeches like a little girl and instinctively flinches away from me. “Fine. Yes, that’s cold. Ah, shit. Stop. I’ll do it myself.”

“Wimp,” I tease and hand him the bottle. Sinking down onto the blanket, my face shielded by my hat, I relax for the first time in days as I watch the ocean roll in and out. Vegas was not relaxing. Not like this, and before that it was all wedding madness. “I needed this,” I murmur.

Mason lies beside me, his arms butterflied under his head and his eyes closed. “I did too. Training camp starts Monday for me.”

I roll on my side to face him. “Do you play for you or for your dad and his family?” Mason comes from a family of football royalty. Not just his dad, but his uncle and grandfather played, as well as his mom’s estranged father.

“Both. Sports is in our blood, especially football. My brother, Crew, is playing for Alabama and will hit the draft in the spring and my sister, Quinn, is a figure skater like my mom was.” He shrugs. “I guess it’s just what we do, but I fucking love it and can’t imagine doing anything else.” He rolls on his side, mimicking my position. “What about you, Doctor?” An eyebrow slides up from beneath his sunglasses.

“Both.” I throw his word back at him. “It’s also what we do. But I love family medicine. I love treating everyone, from newborns to the elderly. I also love floating down to the ER, which I do more frequently now that they’ve been short-staffed down there.”

“My mom is a doctor, as you know. I think what you all do is incredible.”

“Thank you.” And I mean it. Brody always thought my career got in the way of his because of my long hours. It’d annoy him that he’d get home from practice, and I wouldn’t be waiting there like Betty Crocker with dinner for him.

“Would you rather skinny dip here with all these people around or streak down the Strip?”

I snort. “Neither. Do you know me?”

“I’d take the ocean. Though the cold New England water might have me rethinking that.”

I snort out an unladylike sound. “Domestic or international?”

He falls onto his back, his golden skin glowing in the sun as he tosses his arms behind his head. “International. I’ve been all over this country for games, and I’ve been to London a couple of times, but that’s about it. I went to college and then straight into the NFL, and I’m always training. I never take breaks.” He turns and looks at me. “I wasn’t kidding when I told you Vegas was my first vacation in a while.”

“Sorry I cut it short.”

He smirks. “I’m not.” He picks up his phone and sets it to a mix I catch named Sorel’s Playlist. “Kool Thing” by Sonic Youth comes out of his phone, and my heart picks up a couple of beats.

“I have a playlist?”

“You do. I like it. I had fun picking out songs to add to it.”

My breath hitches, and those extra beats of my heart turn into a heavy drum bass to match the raucous notes of Sonic Youth. He didn’t say that to earn brownie points or win a medal. He said that because it was the truth. Because he actually enjoyed making me a playlist of my weird music so few people get or even enjoy.

What am I supposed to do with that?

“Nightswimming” by REM comes on next, and I practically fall into tears.

“This is my all-time favorite song.”

I feel his hands in my hair. “You told me that once.”

I blink back tears behind my sunglasses. “I did? When?” It’s the song that got me through the hardest nights of my life after what happened to me in high school. It just felt like the world wasn’t always going to be so dark, and yet it was okay to hide a bit at the same time. Like a rebirth. Like something new that wouldn’t always hurt the way it did.

I would sing all of the lyrics word by word until I believed them.

“I can’t remember. Maybe one time when I admitted I liked country music, and you tried very hard not to judge me for it.”

I grin. “I’m still judging you for it.”

“For someone who only listens to ’90s alternative, you’re in no place to do that.” He rolls back to me. “I’d like you to come to some of my games.”

“I’d like that too. I love football.”

“Sabotage” by the Beastie Boys comes on next, and I start to rap the lyrics to lighten the mood.

He chuckles. “You’re that girl? The one who raps terribly and doesn’t care?”

“I’m so that girl.”

“Good thing I’m hearing impaired.”

I smack his arm, and he laughs harder, teasing me. “No. For real, it’s hot.”

“You’ve got no idea.”

“Believe me, I do. Lover or friend? I think it’d be fun to be both.”

“What?” My eyebrows knit together, not understanding the question.

Without waiting for my answer, he leans in and kisses me. And I don’t know what to do. Part of me wants to keep it going. To deepen it. Because man, can he kiss. But it’s not the lines we drew up. It’s not the boundaries I need for this to stay platonic and easy and free of heartache.

I pull back and wipe my lips. “Mason, what are you doing?”

“Sorry. I saw someone taking a picture of us, and I was trying to act the part of your loving husband.”

“Then why did you kiss me? I thought we were supposed to be boring.”

“Oh, right. Oops.” He rolls onto his back again. “I forgot.”

“Don’t do that again. That’s not what we discussed.” I don’t intend for my voice to come out as sharp as it does. It just happens, and I regret it instantly.

He sits up and goes for the cooler to pull out two bottles of water before he hands me one.

“I’m sorry,” he states, looking contrite. “It won’t happen again. I got a little lost for a moment.”

My eyes close. I can’t tell if I’m playing it smart or stupid. If I’m letting go of all that could hurt me or of the one man who could save me.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “It wasn’t personal, and I didn’t mean to snap at you like that. I’m not good at trusting anyone.”

He looks down at me with eyes that tell me a thousand things I’ve always wanted to hear. “You trust me.”

He leaves it there, and I’m without an argument.

I do trust him.

The realization leaves me thunderstruck.

“Stop stressing about it, princess,” he comes back with, and I can’t tell how he means it by his tone of voice since it’s so flat, which is so unlike Mason. “I know it’s only for three months. I know you want to get out of this marriage the first chance you get. I know you want to escape the bullshit being with me the past few days has put you in. But I’m not bummed you moved in. It’s been a weird few days, but I like you. I like spending all this time with you. For whatever that’s worth. That said, you don’t have to panic or read too much into it. I won’t kiss you again. Not until you want me to.”

He shoots to his feet and heads down to the water, removing my ability to say anything in response. I’m not sure what I would have said. I’m positive he meant it as a friend or a means to fight off cameras, but my belly swoops and dives like one of the seagulls going after a fish.

It’ll be easier to avoid him and drawback once he starts football and I return to work.

But part of me knows I’ll miss this with him.

What should have been crying and miserable has been smiles, laughter, hot sex, and some inner strength I needed to rediscover. But more than that, Mason cares, and that shouldn’t feel as foreign to me as it does. It’s been messy and chaotic, sure, but I’ve gotten through it smoother than I would have on my own.

Mason is the reason for that.

But now it’s time to let that go and stand on my own two feet. Without him stirring up thoughts and feelings I can’t afford to have.