Chapter 40 #2
He grabbed a loofah from where it was looped around the faucet’s handle and I shrunk away from the pink pouf.
“It’s not communal, Dakota,” he assured me. “I bought this for you when I got the shampoo. No need for disgust.”
Mason poured a generous amount of also-new body wash onto the loofah, then made me stand up with him so he could scrub my whole body.
Water gushed off his heavy clothes and ran down my bare skin in rivulets, pattering into the tub.
I rotated when he asked, somewhat enjoying the attention he was paying to every little inch of me.
The more time I spent standing above the water, however, the more desperate I got. My nipples were pulled so tight they ached, a clenching emptiness in my core, my clit swollen and throbbing. I liked Mason looking at me like this.
He sat me down in the water and I rested on my knees, sitting up to keep my chest above the surface. Mason’s eyes locked onto my soapy tits, his stare darkening, turning hungrier.
“You want me to fuck you?” he questioned, extending a finger to barely brush the tip of my breast.
“Maybe.”
“Yeah?”
“I think so.”
“How about I put you on my bed like this, all wet and naked and horny, then I’ll lick every inch of that tight little body.
Every inch.” His brow arched. I could think of several taboo inches of me.
“And don’t worry, I’ll give your needy clit lots of kisses.
Long kisses until it feels so fucking good you have to come. ”
“That’s a lot of talk, and not a lot of action.” My body was buzzing. He didn’t usually talk like this—almost sweet, in a condescending way—but I liked it.
“I’m just painting a picture for you. I’ll stretch you out so good with my fingers, and you’ll get wet enough to leave a mess on my hand.
I’ll play with these perfect nipples,” he said, illustrating his point by giving a light tug on both as they sat above the water.
I was squirming now, beyond desperate. “I’ll be so good to you with my tongue and my fingers, and then I’ll fuck you.
Hard and messy and rough and goddamn filthy. It’ll be a nasty fuck.”
“Okay, so do it,” I said, subtly squeezing my thighs together. “Quit talking about it, and do it.”
“There’s a condition.”
Fuck. I rolled my eyes. This was why he’d been describing everything so thoroughly—to entice me into giving him whatever he wanted. Should’ve known.
“You have to tell me your worst fantasy.”
“What?” My face went pale, excitement fizzing away.
“That dark and depraved shit you’ve been keeping locked up in your mind, it belongs to me now. So give it to me. Your worst secret.”
Oh no.
There wasn’t a way to say the words nicely, and I didn’t want to be the one to do it. With my eyes, I pleaded with Mason—either to stop pushing, or to just figure it out himself. He already knew, anyway.
Was it better before you knew I’d let you come up for air?
When you thought I might actually kill you?
You’ve thought about worse than drowning, haven’t you?
But when he leaned in, he said exactly the words I was hoping he wouldn’t. “You’ve gotta say it, baby. Own it. Don’t hide from me.”
Dread made my stomach sink, shame twisting around my veins with itchy heat. I wanted to crawl out of my skin. Anything to avoid this confession Mason had been trying to tear out of me since the day he met me.
He brushed his thumb over my jaw, gripping the back of my neck with his fingers. He was breathing hard.
My muscles were weak, my body limp in the hot water.
“Don’t fight it,” he murmured. “Give in to me.”
“Mason, no.”
“Why not?”
Because it’s wrong. Once you know this, you’ll know nearly everything.
But I almost want to tell you anyway.
“It’s inevitable, baby. Tell me.”
“Why?”
“Because I want you to. It’ll make me happy,” he promised, kissing me again. The desperate way he was holding my face snapped my final thread of restraint. He felt like the only person on Earth I could tell this to. The only person who might actually understand it.
It was surreal, the feeling of my lips parting, my tongue twisting, my voice creating the sounds of my darkest fantasy, speaking it aloud to him.
“I want you to kill me.”
His eyes seemed to get even darker, if that was possible, pupils expanding. His fingers tightened on the back of my neck.
The look in his stare was aroused, hungry, darkly obsessed, and it made me shake.
Once I’d said it, I couldn’t stop. The rest came spilling out in all its disgusting, shameful glory. Unprovoked now, simply because of how long the idea had been thrashing restlessly inside my skull without means of escape. It was impossible to keep it inside of me any longer.
“With a gun to my head, fucking me hard and brutal, then you pull the trigger the second you come.”
He didn’t speak right away, and panic started rising in my brain, making me nervous.
Is it too much? Am I too much? Is this too dark?
But Mason held the sides of my face and lowered his mouth to mine, pressing a hard kiss to my wet lips in the absence of any verbal response.
Relief was swimming in my mind. I grabbed his forearms, just to have something to squeeze, to dig my nails into.
He tilted my head, deepening the kiss with his tongue seeking mine.
Lust made my thoughts foggy, a heavy rush in my veins.
I pushed up on my knees, wrapping my arms around his warm, strong body, his mouth claiming mine viciously.
Every kiss with him felt like drowning, and at at this point, I didn’t care if I stopped breathing.
My hair was a dripping curtain down my back, clinging to my shoulders, plastered to my spine before fanning out in the water at my waist.
“So that’s your fantasy?” he panted against my mouth.
I nodded helplessly.
“I’ve got a gun.”
“I know,” I whimpered, thighs clenching. I’d thought about it every night since he showed me, since he laid it on my lap. Mason licked the seam of my lips.
“You want to see me hold it?” He skimmed his lips down my jaw, moving towards my ear. “Use it?” His tongue flicked out to lap a bead of water off my neck before he bit down.
I gasped, pain flaring where his teeth dug into my skin. Nervousness and excitement zapped through my veins.
I envisioned his hand on the black textured grip of his gun, finger curling on the trigger, dark brown eyes locked on mine while he made me more scared than I’d ever been in my life.
More alive. It was ironic, thinking of how alive I’d feel seconds away from my own death.
Like my mortality was a tangible thing, glowing in my palms, caught under the press of Mason’s index finger, smashed between the barrel of a gun and my temple.
Fleeting.
Fragile.
Mason sat down in the water, pulling me onto his lap, hands massaging my ass.
It was heady, his total acceptance of me and the things I was afraid to want.
“Do you want to fight me? In your fantasy?”
“Yes,” I whispered. “And you’d hurt me. Hold me down.”
“So I’d keep you pinned below me, with my gun jammed against your skull and my dick inside of you?” he questioned, to which I fearfully nodded. “You’d be so fucking scared of me. So fucking beautiful.”
His cock was hard through his shorts, digging into the underside of my thigh. I fought the urge to look away from him, my hands sliding over his shoulders, gripping his biceps. His muscles were solid, so strong, under my fingertips. I’d never be able to overpower him.
“And right when I come, you want me to pull the trigger?” he clarified, speaking slowly so neither of us could deny the words he’d said. There was no more pretending, no more obscuring the darkest parts of my brain.
“I guess so.” My body was too hot and my mind was swirling, my mouth dry, my pulse pounding.
I thought of his body over mine, so heavy and immovable, so rough.
Maybe choking me, or slapping my face, or covering my mouth and nose with his hand so I couldn’t breathe at all.
His cock shoving into my pussy, ready to spill his cum deep inside of me.
I shivered and Mason noticed.
“You’re not lying, are you?”
“No.” I could be nothing but honest right now.
He tipped his head, putting his forehead against mine. “Dakota Masters,” he said, possessive. “You are mine.”
I’d never heard him say my full name like that. It made my heartbeat flutter at the base of my throat. It also made me think of Micah.
Fuck.
What am I doing?
I threw my arms around Mason’s neck and crushed my mouth to his, trying to kiss him so hard I wouldn’t be able to think about all my mistakes. Shame was a weight in my gut, pulling me down. Could Mason smell him? Is that why he made me take a bath? Did he know what I’d done?
My skin burned with self hatred, pressure building behind my eyes.
The vortex in my brain was yanking me down, down, down.
Horrible, fucked up fantasies. Forbidden sex. Violent sex. Giving my body to two different men in the same night. Was I capable of doing anything normally? Or was I destined to perpetually do bad, dangerous things to myself?
I hate it. I want to be someone else.
Mason pulled back, looking me in the face. Tears gathered in my eyes and I tried to kiss him again to hide them, but he held me back. Emotion consumed me, growing over me, swallowing me while I desperately tried to claw my way free. Too much. Too messy.
Too fucking sad.
“Hey,” Mason said, trying to free me from my spiral.
I attempted to push away from him, crawling backwards, the water choppy around me, but he snatched my arm, pulled me back.
“Stop.”
He was grabbing my chin, wanting me to look at him. I couldn’t.
My breathing became shallow and uneven. There wasn’t enough oxygen in my lungs, in my blood, in my brain. All I could think about was him.
The man who wrecked me first.
The reason I started fantasizing about dying.
“Tell me about the deer again, baby,” Mason softly commanded, correctly figuring out what was making me panic. Aiming right at the unprotected heart of me, like always. The soft center.
“No,” I cried, shaking my head, tears streaming down my cheeks. “No. Stop.”
Mason’s hands were gentle but firm, holding me.
“Why did she run away, baby? Tell me.”
I’m so tired.
I’m so tired of fighting. Of everything.
I grappled for any remaining strength, but I was exhausted. Tears trickled down my cheeks and my muscles were useless. The weight I’d been carrying since I was fourteen was finally crushing me, here in the water with Mason.
If he was going to hate me, to leave me, he would’ve done it when I confessed my worst fantasy.
Right?
Could I really tell him this?
He held the sides of my face and I was gasping, coughing, choking on my sobs as tears squeezed out from under my eyelashes. The shameful sickness inside of me, the horrible rot, was slowly being exposed.
“Did you run away, Dakota?”
Prey.
A lump rose in my throat, my mouth pulling down into a frown. I could hardly see him through my tears as I finally nodded. You were right. I can’t hide from you. Mason held the back of my head, pulling me to his chest, my cheek resting on the damp cotton of his t-shirt.
Anthony’s fingerprints were all over me.
“Why did you run?”
“Because of Anthony,” I choked out, hating the way his name felt on my tongue.
Like poison, like something with the power to kill me.
And now his name existed aloud here, in Mason’s bathroom, in his mind, too.
The water was tainted with the mention of his name, made darker, redder, like I was bleeding for him all over again.
“Did he hurt you?”
“Yes.”
“Who is he? Your ex boyfriend?”
I shook my head, biting my tongue to try and keep from sobbing. But I was tired of being strong. I clung to Mason’s shoulders, pushing my face against his chest, his steady heartbeat in my ear.
Everything was crawling out of me, every secret, every horrible truth.
“He’s my brother.”