Chapter 24
Dakota
My mind was a hurricane, my heart slamming wildly in my chest as I stumbled around my bedroom, trying to shove things in a bag, swiping tears from my eyes before they could fall. Mason was just so much, all the fucking time.
He was drowning me—but at least he was holding me.
At least he wasn’t letting me go.
I grabbed things with shaky hands, dumping everything in a big tote bag, not slowing enough to let myself think about the repercussions of this.
My pajama shirt hit at my upper thighs, the cotton brushing my skin while I fumbled for my hairbrush, clothes for tomorrow, my phone charger, my medications.
I pulled on a pair of thick knit socks, then stuffed my feet in my platform Doc Marten’s and threw on my oversized zip-up to cover my pajamas.
Running my fingers through my hair, I glanced around my room.
My bed wasn’t made; I’d been laying in it when Mason started texting me about breaking into my place.
I’d been laying in it when I heard him knocking, the comforter pulled up over my shoulders and my phone gripped in both hands in front of my face.
And then when I heard him picking the lock, I snatched my knife and went to the living room—shit, my knife. Did he have it?
I didn’t really want to stab him—I wasn’t sure what I’d been planning to do…but I was scared. He did grab the blade out of my hand, so I assumed he got cut then, but I didn’t know how bad it was.
His hand on my neck, my knife on his throat, the windows fogged in the car…
I flung open the door to my bedroom, catching sight of Mason standing down the hall in the living room.
He’d turned on the light in the kitchen, the ceiling bulb casting yellow light over his naked torso, over the dips and lines carving his abs.
His brown hair was a little messy, his face as handsome as ever.
He watched me go into the bathroom, not saying anything.
I grabbed my toothbrush and deodorant, then tossed them in the bag with everything else.
A presence behind me made me flinch, my eyes flicking up to the mirror to see Mason brushing my hair off my neck, lowering his mouth to my skin as his hands found my waist. I wanted to ask why he’d let me leave alone on the beach in the pouring rain, why he’d never messaged me after that, why he was here now, but I couldn’t form the words.
The heat of his lips seared the side of my throat, my body temperature warming and my insides going molten.
Mason pressed his hips forward, trapping me against the ceramic edge of the sink.
“I thought you were taking me to your apartment,” I mumbled, transfixed by the sight of him sucking on my neck in the mirror, his cock hard against my ass, his muscular shoulders framing my body.
“Maybe I should fuck you right here instead.” His hand slid around to cup my breast over my sweatshirt, then he tugged the zipper down and pushed his hand underneath, running his palm over my chest. The cotton of my t-shirt was so thin I could feel the heat of him, feel the way his thumb coasted lightly over my nipple.
This feels so much better than crying. Touch me more.
“Do you have my knife?” I asked.
“Yes, I do. And I’m keeping it until you promise not to try and stab me again.”
I held his wrist, inspecting his palm and fingers in the dingy bathroom light to see the injury I’d given him. The cut wasn’t nearly as bad or deep as I thought it’d be; it was more of a scratch. Maybe I needed to sharpen my knife.
Mason used his other hand to grip the front of my throat, forcing me to look at him in the mirror, the muscles in his forearm flexing. I shivered at the feeling of his fingers pressing into the sides of my neck. Do it harder.
His face was so handsome and he was so focused on me, his warm palm on my throat. I liked the familiarity of this, liked the memory of his head between my legs, or the one with my knees on the sand and his cock in my throat. Veins popped out on the back of his hand, snaking under his skin.
No one had ever pressed me about my darkest fantasies the way he had. No one had ever pushed as many lines and crossed as many boundaries as he had. He didn’t treat me like I was fragile; he broke me on purpose, because we both wanted that, in some twisted way.
He was terrible for me. Every vice, every ache, every secret I’d ever had, wrapped into a person.
My knees felt weak and my pulse was too fast and all I could think about was throwing myself off the deep end, submerging myself in this toxicity, going where I wouldn’t be able to touch the bottom.
I liked that he was still so much taller than me in my boots.
“Will you promise not to stab me again?”
“No.” I tried to shake my head but he tightened his hold on me. My hands stayed lightly wrapped around his other wrist, not trying to stop him from squeezing harder. Letting him choke me, letting him own me. Own my breathing, my blood flow, my life.
“No?” He moved his hand up, like a collar just under my jaw.
“I like to be able to protect myself,” I managed to say as he pulled me against his bare chest. I tilted my head back, my eyes heavy, my lips parted.
“I thought you wanted me to hurt you.”
A whimper lodged in my throat, the words right at the tip of my tongue. Yes. Hurt me. Make me fight you. Kill me, or make me think you will.
My worst, most impossible fantasy.
Death at his hands.
Heat flushed through my body, reddening my cheeks, quickening my breath. I pressed up on my tiptoes, leaning into him, my mind running wild with all my darkest thoughts. I could picture it so well, staring into his eyes in the mirror like this.
The visual I imagined was almost like a painting, an artistic rendering of my sickest desire materializing in my brain in strokes of paint: his gun pressed to my temple, his forearm locked around my shoulders.
Cold metal and the lines of his shoulders, his biceps. The most fear I’d ever feel in my entire life. My heart beating harder than it’d ever beat before, hard enough that it’d hurt. His finger tightening on the trigger, making me think he was going to do it—going to kill me.
Maybe he’d kill me for real.
I would have no way of knowing what he was going to do.
My whole life would belong to him, his index finger a hairsbreadth away from pulling the trigger, his strength holding me immobile.
Mason leaned down, whispering in my ear, “What are you thinking about right now?”
“Nothing,” I choked out.
“Liar. Tell me.” He roughly spun me by my shoulders, grabbing my face in his hands, thumbs brushing over my lips. My thighs squeezed together, a wave of heat spreading through my core. “Spill your dirty secrets.”
He already had too many of my secrets. More than anyone else, and I didn’t know how that happened.
It scared me. He scared me.
But I think I like that. I think I want to be whatever he wants me to be.
“No.”
“Whatever it is, I want to know. I want to picture it with you. I want to do it to you.”
I wanted to turn away from him, twist myself out of his grasp, try to run, to escape.
Just to see what he’d do. If he’d tackle me to the ground again like he did earlier; if he’d hold me down and make me regret it.
God, it hurt, landing on the floor like that, and he didn’t give me any space to recover.
It probably also hurt his hand when I swiped my knife towards him.
Is that all we know how to do? Hurt each other?
“You can’t do it to me.”
“Yes I can. Fuck. You’re tearing me up inside.
” He lowered his mouth, pressing his lips to mine with a gentleness that didn’t match the tone of his voice.
I allowed my eyes to slide shut, my mouth opening for him.
I wished I had the strength to resist him now, to punish him as he’d punished me. “I need you, Dakota.”
Lies. He was lying to me about this, just like how he lied about everything else.
But I didn’t care, because I needed to hear it. I needed to pretend someone was taking care of me, or else everything Dr. Killshaw said about me was true.
“No you don’t,” I murmured, wrapping my arms around his neck.
“You have no idea.”
I bit his lip, hard, hoping to make him bleed. If you needed me, you wouldn’t have left me.
Mason jerked back, breathing hard, a sinful glint in his brown eyes.
“Yeah,” he said, nodding, looking satisfied. “Yeah. I’m gonna fuck you tonight. Let’s go.”
He grabbed my hand and yanked me out of the bathroom, making butterflies swarm my stomach. His response to me biting him had shocked me a bit, thrilled me.
I’m gonna fuck you tonight.
I pressed the sleeve of my sweatshirt over my mouth while Mason lead me out of the trailer because I couldn’t stop smiling for some reason, giddiness expanding like a balloon in my chest. He took my keys and tote bag, locking the door behind us.
I almost tripped over my feet going down the steps, laughter rising in me and breaking free of my lips in the moonlight.
Mason’s head whipped back to look at me.
“Don’t look at me,” I grumbled, hiding my face, my smile fading.
“You’re smiling. You’re laughing,” he said, almost in disbelief.
“Whatever.”
He pulled me forward, closer to him, his palms sliding under my sweatshirt to grab my ass. “You are so fucking perfect,” he growled, something fiercely possessive in his tone. He massaged my flesh, fingers teasing the hem of my sleep shorts.
“Let’s just get in the car.” My cheeks were on fire.
I whined when he kissed me, embarrassed and hoping none of my neighbors were seeing this. He’s the crazy one, not me. I swear.
How was it possible for him to simultaneously be the weight pulling me down and the buoy bringing me back up? I felt light and heavy all at once, lungs full of air and of water at the same time.
We eventually climbed into his car, my tote bag on the floor at my feet while Mason reversed, then drove out onto the main road.
The second we got up to speed, a bright flare of anxiety gripped me, and I had to consciously breathe through my panic. Why did I agree to this? I had no idea where he lived. This wasn’t safe at all. Nobody knew where I was. My lips rolled together in a tight, anxious line, my leg bouncing.
I’d gotten carried away, too drunk on the feeling of him saying he needed me to care about what I was agreeing to.
And now it was too late.
Mason was so relaxed, thumb tapping loosely on the steering wheel with the beat of the song, his other arm slung over the center console.
There wasn’t an ounce of worry in his expression—then again, I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen an ounce of worry on his gorgeous face.
Maybe that was why he was so attractive—he was psychotic enough that all worries and anxieties eluded him; he simply coasted through life without a care in the world about all the bad things that could happen. No frown lines.
I set my elbow on the ledge of the door, resting my head on my arm.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. “Are you tired?”
Despite the fact that it was past midnight, I wasn’t tired at all. Adrenaline still lingered in my bloodstream from when Mason broke into my trailer and I tried to attack him. And then later…thinking about my most secret fantasy…
“I’m not tired.”
“What’s wrong, then?”
I couldn’t answer that. “Why aren’t you wearing a shirt?”
“Does it bother you?”
…No. No, it didn’t bother me. Mason’s body was ridiculous.
I just shrugged, looking away from him, out my own window.
The darkness was peaceful, easier to look at than him.
Dense forest swept up to the road on either side, the tangled evergreen trees blurring as we flew past them.
Parts of me wanted to jump out of the car and run into that forest, disappear into it forever, but the other parts wanted to stay here with Mason.
The current of him was too strong to resist. He was a riptide sweeping me farther from land with every breath, and in a twisted way, that felt good. It felt good to be held like that, so viciously. It might feel nice to be held like that for a while.
We didn’t speak for the rest of the ride, but it wasn’t an uncomfortable silence. It felt deeper than normal silence, like our souls were communicating instead of our voices, pulling us closer together, and we just couldn’t hear it.
Maybe they were.