Chapter Three

My chest heaves uncontrollably, and his eyes are staring deep into mine. He lean forward and grazes the side of his nose against mine. I gasp and flinch away.

He blinks and pulls away slightly so he can look at me properly. His arm still cage around my waist, trapping me against the dressing table.

"You're gorgeous." He whispers ever so quietly.

"What?" Did he just call me...

"Why do you have to be so damn' gorgeous?" He repeats in more passionate tone.

I feel my cheeks redden, why did I like hearing him say this to me?

I feel him come closer gain, leaning into me. His breath hits my lips. No! No! But...I want him to...

"Kids, we're home!" Mason freezes, leaving only a inch between our lips. He sighs and pushes away from me, his hand reaching for the back of his neck.

He stares down at the ground awkwardly. He won't look at me. I suddenly feel so weird. My lips become incredibly dry so I lick to to moisture them. I think Mason also noticed that the air had become hot and thick between us, it was so...odd.

Without a word, he leaves my room. I watch as his naked back is still wet. Trickles of water slowly trail down with his neck to the bottom of his back, dissolving into the fabric of where the towel begins at his waist.

He closes the door behind him and i sigh in dissapointment. I felt the sudden absence of his presence and the room turned cold.

I plucked up my inner strength and wiped my forehead as if I was sweating, only really I was just so incredibly nervous. My brother had just tried to...I don't even know what he was doing but it was sexual. I know that. Maybe he was drunk, he has been before and he's acted sexually like this but before, it use to be a joke. Although, he couldn't have been drunk because I would have smelt it on his breath. On the hand, Mason always was incredibly good at hiding things. I wonder what would have happened if Mum and Dad hadn't of come home. How far he really would have gone.

As I make my way downstairs to check what Mum and Dad have bought from the supermarket, I feel a heat of embarrassment wash over me. Mason is sitting on the sofa in the living, his mind engrossed in Facebook on his iPad. I feel so embarrassed by the heated moment we had almost shared. However Mason looks as if he has forgotten all about it. Maybe he did have a bit to drink before he got in. Maybe that's why he was acting all weird. Maybe I'm to naive to read anything he does. Maybe I'm just plain stupid.

I see Dad laying across the sofa on the other side of the room. As normal, he is laying on his back reading the Daily newspaper. His glasses are perched on the bridge of his sharp nose and his eyes are skimming quickly whatever he is reading. I remember as a child, my Dad would always read to me because that is what he enjoyed doing. He read so often, my Mum became sick of it. As my Mum was quite the opposite because she was younger and into more modern things, beside reading books. My Dad would mostly read the old classics. Now, so do I. I'm a right book worm, and Mason always teased me about it.

'You've always got your head in a book, everywhere you go. I don't think there's even been a time I don't see your head between book pages. You're either looking up at the sky day dreaming, or your eyes are pinned to a piece of fiction.'

I smirk silently to myself as the memory begins to drift back into my mind. Ohh, that was a happy day me and Mason had shared. But again, thinking about it makes me think back to our heated scene form earlier.

Then, I notice Dad's eyes are pinned up on me. "You alright, love?" He says in his gruff voice. He were a heavy smoker so he always had a gruffly kind of voice.

I shake my head quickly, "Err, nope. Just...where's Mum?"

"In the kitchen." He replies, and returns his eyes to his newspaper.

As I turn towards the kitchen door, I glance over at Mason and he is looking up at me from the sofa. His iPad still in his hands but his attention now fully in me. I swallow, smiling softly at him and then turning towards the kitchen.

When I reach inside the kitchen, my Mum is already busying herself with making dinner for tonight. "Let me help."

She jumps and turns towards me, her hand held against her chest. "God, you gave me a right fright there Alana."

"Sorry." I mumble in regret. I should think before I sneak up on people, I'm so bad at it. I really am.

"You can help chop the vegetables. I'm having trouble boiling these potatoes." She turns back to face the saucepan at the top of the cooker which is blowing out puffs of steam. I nod and make my way over to the scattered vegetables of which she had already set on the side board.

"Have you been doing your revision?" Mum asks.

I sigh, "Yep."

She giggles like a child and turns her face to look over at me as I grab a knife to cut the cucumber. "Why the dramatic sigh?"

"Just stressed. It got so in top of you, all this school work. Sometimes I don't know what's worse, being at home to revise or going to school and plus revise. Either way it's so...tiring." I explained, rubbing my head lightly and I peeled the cellphone off the cucumber.

"School is built to give stress, that's what your Father use to always tell me." She smiles softly, stirring the potatoes in the saucepan. For a moment she looks as if she is in a completely different world. I must get my day dreaming habits from her.

"He was much older than you wasn't he?" I ask hesitantly. Surprisingly, I have never asked this question before but I always knew there was a big age gap between them. I suspected Mason knew the answers to this, as he is much older than me and knows our parents better than what I may do.

"What, when we got together?"

I nod.

She breathes, "I was in college and your Father was in his early twenties work for a car company across the road."

"Opposite your College?"

She nods, smiling. "I was eighteen and he was twenty-six."

I give her my wide eyes and she laughs loudly at my shocked expression. "Don't looked so blown away, darling. It's not as if I was underage. He was just a lot older."

"I know but...wow." I murmur in surprise.

"My friends didn't really approve of it but I didn't care. They were only jealous, as all the girls wanted him."

I finished cutting the slices of cucumber and drop them into the silver bowl' where my Mum has already prepared the lettuce for the salad. "Are you still...you know, happy with him?" I ask.

"Do you think I'd be here if I wasn't?" She says with a hardened voice, and I think I've upset her by asking her that. However, I shrug and move into cutting the four tomatoes on the side board. "There's a lot of unhappy married couples out in the world. How would me and Mason know you and Dad are happy together?"

"We have a reasonably happy and functional family, don't we?" She narrows her eyes at me.

I purse my lips, "Yes. Always, but...you and Dad don't seem very close, not from where I stand anyway."

My Mum says nothing then, turning towards the saucepan and grabbing a metal spoon to scoop the potatoes out onto one of the diner plates. After a few long minutes she replies. She's obviously thought about the answer.

"Me and your Dad love one another very much. It's just where we've got older and after a few years husband and wife just...grow apart." She explains furoughly, wiping her hands on a kitchen tea towel.

I press my eyebrows together in confusion. "You're not close like you were."

"No. Not that I'm saying it is your and Mason's fault, but because we had you two we have had no time for ourselves. All we have done our whole lives is look after you and you're brother. Mason knows that." She says almost sadly and I feel surprisingly guilty.

"Mason is so overprotective sometimes." I mention.

Mum smirks, "Brothers are. Don't ever think that is a bad thing, because I never had any older siblings to stand my ground and keep an eye on me. I was an only child and had to protect myself. You're very lucky to have Mason in your life."

"Does that mean that it's ok if...if they can be a little intimate?" I ask in a small voice.

"What?" She says in baffelness.

"Sometimes Mason can be really over friendly, like...boyfriend kind of like way." I explain look up at the roof. My Mum just sighs and looks me in the eyes as I look back towards her. "Oh, don't be silly, he's just being your brother and staying close to you. He loves you, you mean the world to him."

"Ok." I murmur.

"Now, go. I got this! Dinner will be ready by seven." She announces, hushing my out of the kitchen.

He's just be overprotective and looking out for me. I'm his sister, I mean the world to him. That's all it is. I'm just being...silly. There's nothing more to it.

Is there...?