Chapter 42
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
MICAH
Snowflakes drifted past the window, falling into the swath of white blanketing the ground outside. This part of Washington didn’t often get much snow, but I was grateful when it did. I turned when I heard footsteps behind me, my eyes immediately finding Dakota’s.
She was all bundled up in her new snow clothes, her hair hanging out from under her knit hat in two long blonde braids. She looked fucking adorable.
“How do you like them?” I asked, crossing my arms as she posed and spun around for me.
“They’re really nice. And I match you.” She pointed to my own outfit—which somewhat matched hers.
Simply because we were both wearing black snow clothes.
I didn’t really need to wear anything like this to stay warm, and it rarely snowed substantially here, but I’d bought this stuff years ago when I wanted to go skiing once in Colorado and kept it after that.
Mason appeared behind Dakota in regular black jeans and a coat.
“Let’s go,” he said, then started dragging her toward the back door.
I went in the opposite direction—to the garage door—hearing Dakota laugh as Mason shoved her out the door. After grabbing the new sled from my garage, I joined them in my backyard.
I was grateful to have such a large yard, and for my neighbor’s houses to be far enough away that I wasn’t worried about them watching us. There was also the added privacy from the pine trees lining the lot.
Mason tackled Dakota to the snow, a high-pitched squeal tearing out of her as he kissed along her jaw and down her neck, snow clinging to her braids.
He rolled over so she was on top, straddling him and staring down with a smile on her face.
She turned when she heard me coming, springing up to walk by my side while Mason brushed snow off his jeans that were probably already wet.
We trudged along to the back gate, then went through it behind my yard to where the ground sloped down towards a frozen creek. It sloped down, evened out, then sloped again, trees concealing most of the bank, but spread out enough on the hill and flat section for easy sledding.
As much as Dakota had tried to reject this birthday gift at first, she seemed to be having fun. I was happy to indulge her.
The afternoon slipped by in a blur of cold snow and heavy footsteps.
The sled carved fresh paths through the hill until the snow was churned into uneven tracks, our footprints crisscrossing over one another, mud and grass visible everywhere.
Dakota laughed every time one of us lost control, the sound carrying through the pines and twirling with the wind.
I laughed with her when I was supposed to. It wasn’t difficult to pretend for a few hours. The cold gave us something else to think about besides ourselves.
Every now and then, though, I’d catch Mason looking at me from across the yard. Never for long. Just enough to remind me that nothing between us had actually changed, even if Dakota wanted it to, even if she thought it was. She still didn’t know the whole truth. She barely knew the half.
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We stumbled inside the back door a few hours later, and I could tell Dakota was thoroughly worn out. She disappeared upstairs to change, leaving a trail of melting snow across the hardwood, Mason heading up behind her.
I lingered by the back door to pull off my boots, then set Dakota’s and Mason’s on the rubber mat next to mine.
Mason appeared downstairs first, going straight towards the kitchen without a word. I passed him silently, turning on the Christmas tree so it glowed quietly in the corner of the living room, the colored lights reflecting off the windows as the sky outside grew darker.
I went up to my bedroom, noting that my bathroom door was shut. Dakota must’ve been changing in there, or maybe just laying on the heated tiles. She did that sometimes. I returned to the living room in a fresh pair of sweats and a clean t-shirt.
Mason exited the kitchen with three mugs of hot chocolate balanced carefully in his hands.
He handed one to me without meeting my eyes, then set the other one on the coffee table for Dakota before lowering himself onto the couch.
I lit the fireplace, warmth and light spilling from the hearth, then sat in the leather armchair.
After a moment, Mason did look at me.
There was a tortured sort of anger in his brown eyes, the same emotion which I was sure reflected in my own irises.
I didn’t know what to do with him. We’d been hooking up constantly and not exactly speaking outside of that.
We both talked to Dakota, consequently conversing with each other sometimes when she was around, but never on our own unless we were fighting.
I didn’t know what to say to him.
I was terrified he’d want to talk about our past, terrified he would want to bring up things I’d rather stay buried forever, terrified he would know exactly how to push on my wounds, terrified he’d learn the one thing I really didn’t want him to know.
But with the way things were going, it felt inevitable.
He had questions. I could feel them when we fucked. He’d stopped asking them for now, but he wouldn’t be satisfied like this forever.
What are we doing?
What’s going to happen to us in the end?
What do I even want to happen?
I don’t know.
There were so many conflicting thoughts in my brain about him, so many things I’d been trying to avoid looking in the eye. I was the one to leave him, and it wasn’t like I regretted it.
If I was put back in the past, I would do it again—even earlier this time. Before our last real night together.
If I could erase my own memories, that night would be the first thing gone.
Maybe without those memories staining the inside of my skull, without their pain smudged dark all over my brain, I’d be able to breathe normally again.
Maybe I’d be capable of loving Dakota the way she was meant to be loved.
Maybe I’d be able to accept the level of vulnerability that came with being known.
Maybe I’d be able to fucking talk to the past love of my life, be honest with him.
But I could only remove memories from those without ichor in their veins.
Dakota wandered back downstairs a few minutes later in an oversized sweatshirt, her little shorts hidden fully beneath it, wrapping both hands around her mug of hot chocolate before settling onto the rug in front of the tree instead of beside either of us.
“Movie?” she asked.
“Yeah.” I picked up the remote, then turned on the TV. “What do you want?”
“Nosferatu.” She took a sip of her hot chocolate. “The new one,” she specified.
The fire crackled in the fireplace, tossing orange swaths of light across the living room as I got the movie started. Dakota remained sitting on the rug, drinking her hot chocolate, looking up at the screen. I hadn’t touched my own drink and neither had Mason.
Dakota looked over her shoulder at me, then set her mug down and crawled to my feet. I ran my fingers through her hair.
“You happy?” I asked.
She nodded.
I found myself memorizing the carefree expression on her face before I realized what I was doing, as if some part of me expected it to disappear at any moment. She was happy now, but she wouldn’t be forever.
I caught Mason watching us. He looked away before either of us acknowledged it.
My eyes drifted back down to Dakota on her knees. She was watching the movie, her head still inclined into my palm as I stroked her hair.
“How many times have you watched this movie?” I questioned, drawing her attention.
“I think five times.” She let her gaze slip for a second, landing on the bulge in my grey sweats before she peered up at my face again, her green eyes twinkling.
It only took a second for this wholesome evening to become a lost cause, though.
The warm air was already threaded with pine and ocean and the underlying softness of Dakota’s arousal.
She bit her lip, then glanced over at Mason.
He adjusted his hips, letting his thighs angle out wider.
“How are you feeling now?” I hooked my finger under Dakota’s chin.
“You know.”
“Show me,” I ordered, relishing the way her cheeks flushed darker.
“By myself?”
“Yes.”
I could feel her nerves, but she didn’t hesitate to crawl back over closer to the Christmas tree and the fireplace, then slip her shorts down underneath her sweatshirt, kicking them off her feet.
Her eyes bounced rapidly back and forth between Mason and me, her plush lower lip trapped between her teeth.
Hot blood rushed to my groin, pumping me stiff, and I pressed my palm over my swelling erection. Dakota watched with her thighs squeezing together.
“Keep going, baby girl,” I murmured.
Her pupils were expanded, swallowing the green in her irises, as she carefully tugged her sweatshirt over her head.
“Fuck,” Mason said under his breath at the sight of her, sitting naked in front of the fire.
I gripped my cock hard through my pants, giving a few rough strokes.
Dakota slowly spread her legs, socks sliding on the carpet, her slender fingers slipping down between her thighs to hold herself apart so we could see her clit, already swollen.
My hand tightened on my erection as it gave a heavy, lustful throb, a feeling of immense satisfaction thrumming in my veins.
Dakota moaned softly, her face shy and flushed as one fingertip skimmed over her exposed clit. Her nipples were pulled into helpless little points, and I wanted them in my fucking mouth.
I tugged down my sweats and boxers, taking my cock fully in my fist, staring at her pliant and aroused body, illuminated by firelight and the glow of the Christmas tree. She was so fucking perfect.
I could still see fading bruises on the backs of her thighs from my belt, and the sight made me even harder.
Inflicting pain had been such a constant in my life, for as long as I could remember.
Usually I was inflicting it on myself, just to get out of my head or to see my blood or because I was curious about the sensation.
Pain wasn’t something angels in Heaven ever chased—not the way they did on Earth.
It was almost seen as pointless, because it went away so quickly. It wasn’t really something considered.
My desires to hurt Mason were different. We were both violent. I showed him how it felt to cut himself open with a blade, and he liked it. He learned the rush of euphoria that came with bloodshed. But Dakota was soft and fragile.
I didn’t want to be violent with her. I wanted to hurt her.
There was a difference.
I wanted to tie her up, making her trapped and safe in the same breath, then brutalize her beautiful flesh until I was sated.
Deny her orgasm. Give her more orgasms than she could handle.
Watch the way she took all the pain I gave her and turned it into something I could worship.
Watch how my desire changed her body and only made me want her that much more.
Every hit brought her blood to the surface and knowing that blood came straight from her heart almost knocked the breath from my chest.
It was proof of her life, the soft muscle nestled inside her ribcage, her crimson blood rising up to mark her skin, giving me a place to kiss and lick and bite.
Dakota’s fingers circled her clit in little motions, her breathing getting shallow. Mason had also started jerking off, both of us just watching her. Watching this perfect girl touching herself right in front of us.
Her vulnerable, naked body.
Her legs spread open and her slutty cunt on full display.
I could so easily see the place where she was the wettest, the place where I owned her with my cock, the place she became warm and tight, her flesh gorgeously exposed. Flushed and glistening.
It took some real effort to keep myself seated as I watched the singularly erotic sight of Dakota’s fingers disappearing inside of herself, then coming back out slick with her arousal. I could tell Mason was using the same restraint.
Her palms slid up her chest, and she cupped her bare tits, rolling her nipples between her fingers, black-polished fingernails shiny in the low light.
She was beautiful.
Mason and I were the luckiest angels on Earth and Heaven alike, simply because we got to witness her.
For a second, I wondered what she’d look like if her skin was glowing with ultraneon.
It was something Mason and I had to get used to when we fell to Earth—the lack of skin glow.
Seeing him—and everyone around me—look completely dull, was weird.
It didn’t take me long to get used to it, but I still remembered exactly how it felt.
Dakota had said she’d wanted to see Heaven, to live there as an angel.
It wasn’t possible, but I’d thought about it too, since she said that.
With the Christmas tree lights glowing on her so softly, I could almost pretend it was real.
Like maybe I’d succeeded in my abandoned efforts to pull the neon from the air and create an environment where I could take a real full breath.
In the past, Dakota had asked about my neon research, my dissertation.
I’d given her a bullshit answer then, but if she asked me now, I might’ve liked to talk about it.
I tightened my grip on my dick as Dakota started rubbing her clit again, not teasing herself the way I would’ve, but desperately chasing her release like she could think of nothing else now.
Like that filthy pleasure consumed all her thoughts, only leaving room in her brain for the desire to make herself orgasm in front of me and Mason both.
Her thighs were spread wide, hand moving between them, her tits heaving with each shuddering breath. The haze of the lights caught on her mouth, illuminating the peek of her slick tongue as she moaned.
For an instant I glanced over at Mason, catching sight of him choking his cock, that vein snaking down his lower abdomen popping out against his skin.
A harsh exhale escaped me as I stroked myself faster.
Dakota was about to come. I could see it in her parted lips, slanted eyebrows. Hear it in the whimpering cadence of her moans and the way she was swearing under her breath.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck. Oh, fuck. Oh, my God. Fuck.”
I stared, transfixed, watching her come apart.
It was perfect in the way glass shattering could be perfect. Sharp and dangerous, but so fucking breathtaking. Clear, cut splinters of fragmented emotion. Diamond rain.
I wanted to believe moments like this could save us, wanted to believe it wasn’t already too late. But with Mason in my peripheral, all I could think about was how fragile this moment really was, and how inevitably twisted it all would be in the end.
There wasn’t a version of this where I didn’t eventually fail her.