Chapter 4
Dakota
We clamored back into the car, rain still pouring from the darkening sky.
Mason put it in gear and took us out of the lot, pulling onto the main road, his hand lingering on the gearshift.
Warm air slowly began pumping out of the vents.
I tracked raindrops as they trickled down the tinted windows, streaking over the glass in jagged patterns.
“Are you going to let me help you get home now?” he asked, glancing over. I caught his eye for a second, then turned back to the front.
“No,” I answered. My defenses might’ve been relaxing in other areas, but not in this.
He didn’t say anything to that.
I’d never asked him to take me under his wing. I was perfectly capable of figuring out how to get back to my trailer on my own, and I would’ve done just that had I not run into him.
And maybe parts of me wanted to spend a little more time with him, to nurture that flame I knew I should let die out. Because everything felt better when you knew it was bad for you.
We drove in silence for a few minutes, the sound of the rain hitting the windshield filling the dead air. Every additional second in his proximity was winding me up further and further, a quiet simmering of heavy lust in my blood.
His sweatshirt was way too big on me, but that made it very cozy. I tucked my legs up on the seat and crossed my arms, relishing the soft lining of Mason’s clothes.
After a bit, Mason turned the wheel, steering us into the same shitty pull-off near the cliffs where his car had been parked earlier.
It wasn’t really big enough to be considered a parking lot, just a patch of gravelly asphalt on the side of the road.
The ocean was barely visible past the cliffside, still raging and churning violently.
A piece of rope had been strung up between wooden posts to serve as a fence along the edge of the drop off, a few yards in front of the car.
Mason locked the doors, and my wide eyes flicked to his.
“Don’t lock me in here.” A trickle of real panic dripped through me.
“Why not? You know what we’re going to do, don’t you?”
I bit my lower lip, trying to ignore the way heat was pooling between my thighs.
“Have a conversation? Get to know each other?” I asked, pointlessly.
We were going to take our clothes off. I wasn’t sure when that decision had been made between us, but I had a feeling it was long before he swiped syrup off my mouth in the diner.
Maybe it was the first time he touched me, when he grabbed my wrist and pulled me up above the water.
Maybe that was when I knew how this was going to go.
From that very first second.
“Yeah. Sure,” he answered. Have a conversation.
He flicked the windshield wipers off, letting the rain accumulate on the glass and obscure our view of the ocean.
Mason smelled really good, but I couldn’t describe it as anything I’d ever smelled before. Pheromones, maybe? It seemed to be getting stronger the longer we sat in here. I shifted on the seat, swallowing hard.
I wanted to ask him questions.
I pinched the hem of his sweatshirt between my fingers, thinking about it, about what I could say. There were a million things I could ask in my brain, but I didn’t know what was right.
“How did you get the scars on your back?” I whispered, maybe afraid he was going to get angry at me for asking.
“From something bad.” There was a pause. “Probably shouldn’t ask people about their scars.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” I rolled my lips together.
Quietness claimed the air again, but it was different this time, full of an aching tension that almost made me lightheaded.
Anticipation slithered through my veins, like somehow I knew whatever he was going to say next would affect me. It was painful, in a way. Like holding your hand over a flame; not close enough to burn yourself but close enough to feel the heat.
To feel it building, getting too hot. Until maybe you thought it might burn you anyway, even from that distance.
Mason spoke again, after a few minutes.
“Have you ever made yourself come while holding your breath?”
No hesitation. He’s not even going to pretend there’s another purpose to keeping me in here.
It was quick. Really quick.
But I didn’t necessarily care.
I shook my head, unable to look at him now. Every inch of my skin was alive, buzzing like the energy in the air right before a lightning strike.
And still, I kept my palm over the flame.
He was quiet for a moment. Each breath into my lungs felt like thick mist, Mason’s scent curling through my bones and tightening my nerves.
My pulse was thrumming wildly at the base of my throat, and I could feel every inch of space between us like another ounce of tension on the rope tethering my desire to his.
“What turns you on?” he asked. It should’ve been weird, how bluntly he was asking the question, but there was something so raw in his tone…It felt like a drug, something to get me higher than I’d ever been.
Something to fuck me up.
I still couldn’t speak.
“What’s the most messed-up thing you want somebody to do to you?”
I sucked in a sharp breath, a desperate ache gripping every molecule of my body. A whine crawled up my throat and I clenched my jaw to keep quiet.
Nobody had ever asked me that, even though I had an answer.
But Mason was unlike anyone I’d ever met.
The way he somehow saw past all the smoke and mirrors, poked right at the disgusting heart of me. It was tempting.
“Your worst fantasy,” he murmured. “The shit you’d never say out loud—not even to yourself. The thoughts wrapped around the very core of your soul, the darkest, most shameful ones. Tell me.”
My heart was slamming on my ribs so hard it almost hurt.
“No,” I whispered.
I couldn’t say any of it. Couldn’t say the violent things that consumed my brain in the dead of night, all the awful things I imagined evil men doing to me, the things that made me squeeze my thighs together and bury my face in a pillow.
“I want all your secrets, all your bad thoughts. I want to know everything about you, own every truth you hide from everyone else. You got that?”
Too bad, because I’m never going to see you again after today. And I’m not fucking telling you now.
“Let me be clear,” he started. I gritted my teeth, arousal coiling in my core. “You made a mistake by trying to save me.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means you shouldn’t have done it. You shouldn’t have made me notice you.”
His gaze dropped to my lips. Slowly, painfully, it dragged back up to meet my own.
He was burning me.
“Come here,” he murmured, motioning with his fingers.
I couldn’t look away from his handsome face, couldn’t stop smelling him.
“I don’t even know you,” I panted.
“Do you need to?”
My eyebrows slanted together, a soft whine lodging in my throat. No. I didn’t need to know him to fuck him.
But maybe I should.
Maybe I should pump the brakes on this whole thing.
I rested my forearm on the center console and leaned forward a little, my heart hammering wildly. Mason watched raptly as my tongue darted out to wet my bottom lip. It was too warm in the car, the air too thick. Heavy heat thrummed between my thighs.
Mason leaned in, tilting his head, then barely brushed his parted lips over mine.
I couldn’t contain the shiver that trickled through my body at the feeling of his mouth against my skin.
Up close like this, I could finally tell what it was he smelled like. He smelled like the ocean. But he didn’t smell like the saltwater and the sand and the seaweed.
Mason smelled the way the darkness of the ocean felt.
Bottomless depth, curling tendrils of invisible currents, violence and nature and unstoppable swells of shadowed water. Like a riptide in the middle of the night, something to pull me under the surface, suck me down into the only place I could be free: in the darkness.
His hand came up to cup my jaw and he kissed me for real. His lips were firm but soft, slowly working mine open. I couldn’t stop myself from moaning pathetically into his mouth.
He helped me climb over the center console and straddle his lap, reclining and moving the seat back to give me more room. I was panting now, my body aching with the need to be touched. My desire consumed me, like wildfire burning through a dry forest.
Mason’s fingers played with the zipper of the sweatshirt I wore, flipping it up and down, tugging it down a half-inch as he kissed me deeper. I wasn’t wearing anything underneath it, and he knew that.
The windows were fogged over, trapping us in the privacy of his car, the sound of rain on the roof our constant backdrop. More thunder rolled overhead, vibrating through me.
I need to be careful. But I don’t want to.
He tugged the zipper almost all the way down, groaning as his hand found my bare breast underneath it. I didn’t stop him. His thumb coasted over my nipple and I sighed against his mouth, canting my hips while he started rolling my nipple between his fingers.
“Fuck,” he muttered, then bit my lower lip. “Fuck.”
When I spread my thighs farther, I could feel his erection against my core. I moaned, my body limp on top of his while he played with me.
I couldn’t have stopped myself if I’d tried.
Mason unzipped the sweatshirt the rest of the way and pushed it off my shoulders, kissing along my jaw and down my neck. He sucked my skin into his mouth, purple bruises blooming under his lips, my neck and collarbones stained with dark carnality.
I arched my back, pushing my chest forward as Mason’s mouth got lower. He licked along the swell of my breast, hands gripping my ribs to hold me in place while he teased my hard nipple with his lips and teeth.
My hips rolled, my body unconsciously seeking friction to soothe the ache between my legs. Mason flicked his wet tongue over the tip of one nipple, before moving across and sucking the other into his mouth. I whimpered, my breath coming out in short puffs through parted lips.
“You’re so pretty like this,” he said with his mouth on my breast. “Makes me want to do some fucked-up shit to keep you here. Keep you only for me.”
His words rolled over my body, then dripped off like water. He liked the version of me that had his attention right now, and I was done confusing that with someone liking all of me. Once he knew all my secrets, he would hate me.
So I’d never tell him.
Tingles skated over my bare skin and I couldn’t stop grinding on Mason’s lap, silently pleading for more. He reached around to grab the back of my neck with one hand, the other slipping beneath the waistband of the sweatpants I wore, sliding between my legs.
As his fingers skimmed along my bare pussy, I couldn’t stop myself from moaning. Each tiny brush over my clit was pure bliss.
“You give in to me so easily, huh? You gave up on that innocent act real quick.”
“Just because I’m letting you touch me, doesn’t mean I’m going to let you know me,” I breathed.
“You’re wrong.” He skimmed his lips along my jaw.
“No—”
“You’re not letting me do anything,” he corrected, sending an illicit thrill through my blood. “I’m doing it. Whether you want me to or not.”
I squirmed on his lap, riding his fingers while riding the high of him. His mouth was all over me, biting my tender skin.
Maybe his words shouldn’t have thrilled me, because while I wanted what he was doing now, what if he went farther? What if he did something terrible to me? Would he care if I wanted it then? Would he ever stop? How far would he go?
How far did I want him to go?
After a second, I was reaching down to help him get me undressed, stretching the sweatpants over my ass and yanking them past my thighs, working them down my legs. I finally kicked them off, so I was wearing nothing but Mason’s socks and the flush on my skin.
Fully naked on his lap, I grabbed at Mason’s hoodie and t-shirt and he broke away for a second to yank them over his head, then toss them over to the passenger seat. He circled his fingers around my neck and squeezed a little, sinking his teeth into my bottom lip.
“I know what you’re thinking in that pretty head.” I winced as he bit my lip harder. His body was so hot against mine. “That nobody could ever understand you, and so you’ll never let anyone try.”
I tried to shake my head but his fingers were pushing against my windpipe and he wouldn’t stop kissing me, wouldn’t stop shoving his fingers deeper inside me. It was messing with my brain.
“But you’re a lot more like me than you want to admit.”
And that’s bad. That’s terrible.
People like us shouldn’t be together.
“You can’t hide from me, baby.”