Chapter 18
Dakota
The second I broke the surface, I was pulling in huge breaths of air, gasping and choking on liquid while I struggled to keep my head tilted back and above water. My hair was sticking to my face and my skin was buzzing.
Why the fuck would you do that? I wanted to scream at him. But I didn’t.
I didn’t.
Because I didn’t want him to know how badly he’d just scared me. And I was even more terrified he’d be able to tell in my voice that some twisted part of me had liked it.
Mason was still holding onto me so I dug my nails into his arms, scraping him hard until he let me go.
He was saying something but I couldn’t hear it over the rush of blood in my ears or the waves lapping at my face while I swam back towards the shore, tugging my bikini back into place so I was covered.
The water was cold without him, but I pushed forward.
My toes finally touched the sand and I stood up, wading through the waves, staggering up onto the beach, Mason close behind me.
His hand landed on my shoulder and I whirled to face him, my hands balled into angry fists.
“Don’t fucking touch me!” I screamed. “Get off of me! I mean it! You said you wouldn’t do that!”
He took his hand from my skin, but didn’t step back, still close enough that I could feel the heat radiating from him.
“What do you feel?” Mason asked, his tone low and dark and dripping with something that spoke to the very core of me.
Everything.
You make me feel every good thing and every bad thing and I don’t know how that’s possible.
“I don’t feel anything,” I answered, biting my tongue so I wouldn’t cry. If I could focus on the pain of my teeth cutting into my flesh, I might be able to block off the pain of everything else.
“No? Nothing?”
“Nothing,” I gritted out. “Nothing at all.”
“I don’t like it when you lie to me.” His voice was rough, but he didn’t sound unhappy. If anything, he sounded excited. Excited that he could tell I was faking it, that I was trying to portray indifference while standing in a hurricane.
“I’m not lying—”
He lunged towards me and a strangled scream burst from my throat. No. My muscles tightened and I flinched away from him, my heartbeat skyrocketing as my eyes squeezed shut.
But he didn’t touch me. Didn’t lay a hand on me.
He wasn’t like that. He was worse.
Because I felt his breath at my ear after a second, ghosting over my cold skin.
“Liar,” he whispered, a bite in his tone. A shiver slid down my spine. “That, right there, is fear.”
My eyes blinked open slowly, tears glassing over my irises and threatening to tip over my eyelashes. He was terrible, outlined by the tumultuous ocean and the cloudy sky, looming over me. The inhuman perfection of his face was as sharp as a knife twisting in my gut. Cutting me, carving me up.
I guess we’re both liars.
Yes, I was afraid of him. He made every hair on my body stand on end, made my stomach coil into knots, made my heart pound so hard in my ears I couldn’t hear anything else.
But more than anything, I was scared of the lengths I’d go to keep feeling like this.
Nobody had ever made me feel the way Mason did before.
Alive.
There weren’t words strong enough to convey the visceral sensations he conjured from my body, the exquisite agony he subjected my mind to, the vicious turmoil he injected into my soul. Somehow he’d twisted my own instability into something beautiful, something necessary.
I don’t know how I’m supposed to deal with any of this.
“Fine,” I said quietly. “You have your fear. And this is anger.”
I raised my hand and slapped him across the face as hard as I could.
Then I turned around and took off sprinting up the beach, the soles of my feet pushing hard off the damp sand.
Wind rushed in my ears as I picked up speed, moving faster and faster. I need to get out of here. I could really use those wings right now. My hand was stinging and tears were rolling down my cheeks and I couldn’t get enough air into my lungs and I hated him, I hated him.
How had I let myself get so wrapped up in this?
I choked on my heaving inhales, the muscles in my legs burning, tiredness infusing my limbs. The desperate escape attempt was pointless anyway. Mason was going to catch me. I couldn’t hear him, but the sand was quiet to run on, and my pulse was pounding in my ears. He’d probably be mad I hit him.
Suddenly, a sharp pain seared across the nerves in my left foot.
An anguished scream burst from my throat and I pitched sharply forward, hands outstretched as I fell towards the sand.
Strong arms wrapped tight around my waist, quickly hoisting me up before I could hit the ground, Mason’s warm chest colliding with my back as he swept me off my feet. I was gasping, eyes wide with panic, pain making my vision blurry.
My hands grasped at his shoulders while he lifted me into his arms like a child, already walking at a quick pace towards the rocks.
“I think I stepped on a piece of glass,” I said in a rush against his bare chest, my head swimming and the world darkening on the edges. Sickness roiled in my gut and clawed at my throat. “I know I did.”
“Don’t think about it,” Mason said as he looked down at my pale face. Maybe he’d already seen what happened, and that was why he hadn’t hesitated a second to start bringing me to the car.
“I’m going to be sick,” I choked out.
“No you’re not. Don’t think about it, Dakota. I only like you passing out when I do it myself. Just hang on until we get to the car.”
“Are you joking?” I managed to ask, swallowing against the nausea.
“I don’t know.”
My foot was throbbing, a deep pain blooming across my arch.
I made the mistake of opening my eyes and seeing the line of blood dripping down the side of my heel, bright red, mixing with the ocean water and sand stuck to my skin.
A few crimson drops fell off my heel, plummeting to the black rocks below.
I gritted my jaw, trying to focus on breathing through my nose, but I was starting to hyperventilate. My arms wrapped tighter around Mason’s neck.
He was moving fast, easily navigating the awkward path up over the rocks to get to the parking lot, somehow not jostling me too much.
His eyes kept flicking down to my face every few seconds, his grip tightening around my back and under my knees.
Heat prickled along my chest and neck, a cold sweat dampening my forehead.
We finally reached the top and Mason opened the trunk of his car, setting me down so I was sitting on the edge. He grabbed the first-aid kit and a towel, then helped me roll over onto my stomach, the towel folded under my face so I had something soft to lay on. I felt shaky and sick.
“Don’t watch what I’m doing,” he instructed. I heard the sound of him flicking up the plastic latches to open the kit. “Okay?” His palm brushed over my calf, giving a reassuring squeeze.
I managed a trembling nod, my tears making the towel damp under my cheek.
There were more sounds. Rustling, paper ripping, crinkling.
“So I got fear and anger, yeah? Now you’ve been generous enough to also give me pain.” It mostly sounded like he was talking to himself, but I figured it was meant to distract me as well. “What else can I get from you, baby?”
Stop calling me that.
I pushed my face against the soft towel. Panic was making the edges of my thoughts fuzzy, everything swirling towards darkness. I was breathing too fast.
“Hey.” Mason tapped the back of my thigh. “In and out. Breathe. Tell me what other emotions you’ll give me when you’re not being a little liar.”
“Sadness. Misery. Lust, every once in a while.”
“Think you’ll ever grant me a show of happiness?”
“You don’t make me happy, so probably not.” I sucked in a sharp breath when I felt something touch the glass, which was still apparently lodged in my foot. Probably Mason’s fingers or tweezers. A little whimper of pain escaped me, muffled in the towel.
Before I could really focus in on the sensation of the glass being removed from my foot, though, there was a large hand palming my ass. Mason slipped his fingers under the hem of my bikini bottoms, pressing into my flesh.
“I’ll make you happy. Promise.”
You also promised you wouldn’t push me under the water, but look how well that promise held up.
“Stop groping me.”
“Prove to me you’re not about to pass out and I’ll stop trying to distract you.” His hand slid down my thigh and then left my body, digging around in the first-aid kit again.
Fine.
“What are you even doing?”
“I’m about to pour clean water on your foot. Shouldn’t hurt.”
I craned my neck to look back at him holding a bottle of water, twisting the cap off. I had no idea where he’d gotten it from, but I supposed it was necessary to rinse the sand off my foot.
“Told you not to look back here,” Mason said, but he wasn’t looking at my face. His stare remained fixed on my foot as he crouched down, gently holding my ankle.
I buried my face back in the towel.
I hate this.
He poured a steady stream of water over my heel, letting it flow down my arch and the ball of my foot, letting it drip off my toes.
My breath was warm on my face against the cotton, and I narrowed my focus to that sensation only.
Mason was doing something else to my foot now, and not telling me what. More cleaning, maybe. I didn’t ask.
There was a little bit of pressure as he wrapped something soft around my foot. A bandage, I assumed.
“All done,” he murmured, leaning over me to touch my cheek. “It’s not deep. You’ll heal up in no time.”
I forced a quick smile, still nauseous. My foot hadn’t stopped throbbing where the glass cut me.
A cold breeze swept into the car, reminding me of my wet bathing suit, my wet hair.