Chapter 53
Dakota
Mason’s brown eyes slid over to meet mine as he clicked the magazine back into place, approaching the bed again. I lay paralyzed on his black comforter, a million emotions racing through me, a million thoughts fogging up my brain.
“He told you that I hate him, and he doesn’t hate me back?” Mason asked again.
My chest started rising and falling rapidly as he knelt over me on the bed, sweat dripping on the back of my neck.
The muscles in his arms and chest flexed, his abdomen taut, his cock still straining in his briefs.
He tilted his head, inspecting me. I stared at his fingers wrapped around the black grip of the gun.
“You should probably answer me,” he said, casually lowering the tip of the barrel to brush against my stomach, circling my navel.
“Yes.” I swallowed, shivering. “That’s what he said.”
“You know he’s fucking lying to you?” He skimmed the gun upwards, dragging it along my sternum. The metal was so cold on my skin, tracing over my flying heartbeat. “Do you even realize how often he lies? You probably think he’s a good man. Honest.”
“I never said that. But—”
Mason moved quickly, pressing the side of the barrel to my lips, silencing me with the metal. My eyes rounded.
“But what, baby? What were you going to say?”
I stared at him, unable to speak with the way the gun was pushing on my lips. I hoped he could see how much I hated him when he acted like this.
“Don’t have much to say now, do you? So quiet. So sweet. Not so goddamn mouthy like this.” Mason’s eyes flicked all over my face, darting between my wide eyes, the metal shoved against my lips, and the heated blush staining my cheeks. “No more lying to me.”
He took the gun away, laying it down on the pillow next to my head.
“You can’t lie to me, either, then.” I tipped my chin up, keeping eye contact. “And never hurt me like that again—how you hurt my hand in the car.”
“You want me to fuck you with a loaded gun to your skull and you’re upset I leaned on your hand?” Mason scoffed.
I didn’t back down, despite the nerves twisting through me. “Yes. I am.”
“Interesting place to draw a line.”
“Say you’re sorry.” I hooked my ankles behind his back, pulling his hips to mine, holding him so he couldn’t put any space between us.
For a second, I thought he wouldn’t say it. That he would just ignore my demand and fuck me to my death anyway. I expected that.
But Mason groaned and lowered his head, running his mouth over my jaw and down my throat, wrapping his arms under my body.
“Fuck. Fuck, Dakota. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, baby.
” He was kissing my neck, gripping me like a lifeline, breathing hard against my skin.
“I wasn’t in control. I shouldn’t have been around you like that. ”
I thought back to how I’d noticed him holding his breath. Now, I knew it was his aspect making him do that, and the longer he succumbed to it, the stronger he got. I was never going to win that battle.
“Kiss my hand,” I said.
Mason grabbed my wrist and I could tell he saw the way my fingers were trembling, but he just kissed my palm, then up each finger, before flipping my hand over and dragging his lips across the other side too.
He lightly bit the side of my palm, his sharp incisors indenting my skin, then let me go.
I reached up and threaded my fingers through his thick, dark hair, bringing his attention back to my face.
“I want to know you,” I dared to whisper.
“No you don’t, baby.” He kissed me again, getting me high in the way only he could.
“Yes I do, Mason. I want to see all the things you hate about yourself. I want to keep all your secrets,” I breathed, writhing below him. I’m yours. Let me into your darkness the way I let you into mine. I didn’t want to do it, either.
But I did. For you.
Show me your wings and everything else.
He shook his head, his expression shifting, morphing into one that I didn’t like. It reminded me of how he looked in the car when he hurt my hand. Like he’d stopped caring about me—like whatever horrible things living in his brain were in control of him now.
He was giving me fucking whiplash.
My fingers locked up, gripping his hair harder, pulling hard on the strands. If I could make him hurt, maybe he would come back to me.
Would it always be like this with him? Yes.
Either I accept him how he is now, or I leave for good.
Neither option soothed any part of my soul.
Mason grabbed his gun, pushing it under my chin, making me shake again.
Could I really live like this forever? I didn’t know.
But I didn’t have a choice right now, so it didn’t matter what my answer to that question was.
He adjusted his grip, dragging the barrel along the underside of my jaw, the ridges of the front sight scraping over my skin.
“No safety,” he murmured. “If I pull the trigger, it fires.”
I shivered.
Mason moved the gun up, jamming it into my cheek.
“How many bullets if it’s fully loaded?” he asked.
“Seventeen,” I breathed.
“Good. You know your shit.” His perceptive stare darkened another shade. “You don’t even want to live through this, do you? You want to be destroyed by it.”
Everything with Mason was always so dark, and all we could do was continue sinking.
I could barely see the sunlight anymore.
The first time I’d kissed him, I’d felt that pull towards the uncharted depths, that dangerous vortex which only opened up when two people like us dared to touch.
It was unstoppable, something I wouldn’t be able to outrun.
How much farther until we reach the bottom?
He angled the barrel to my temple.
It felt like everything was clicking into place. This was it. The worst thought in my head. It was my sickest fantasy, the thing I only let myself think about in the dark.
Yes.
I want you to kill me.
I told myself not to want it, told my body not to crave it, but all my efforts were in vain.
Mason leaned into his forearm across my chest, keeping me down, keeping me immobile.
Both of us were perversely intrigued by our own deaths, longing to chase the seconds right before our final moment, and for that reason, I’d never be able to detach myself from him.
“He’ll kill you if you do this,” I whimpered, meaning Micah.
“Dakota, I don’t care if I live or die. Get that straight in your head.
I’m going to die anyway, so what do I care if he’s the one to do it instead of me?
” His stare was dark and cold. So, so cold.
He wasn’t touching me nicely anymore. “Isn’t this the shit you wanted to know about me? Didn’t you want to see this?”
I thought I did.
Regret began to wind its way through me, fighting my desire.
“Did you think you were going to be the one to finally understand me?” Mason leaned closer, shoving the gun into my temple, his voice getting rougher.
I could feel the slight trembling of his fingers around the grip of his gun, like his control was slipping, and it scared me worse than anything.
He jerked the barrel, making me flinch, adrenaline flooding my system. “To be the one to fix me?”
“I don’t want to fix you,” I whispered. I know better than that.
“Good. You can’t,” he answered, the unsaid part of his sentence gutting me. No one ever will.
He shoved down his underwear enough to free his dick, then aligned himself with my entrance, prodding at the shameful slickness there.
“God, you’re wet. You always get so fucking wet when you’re scared. I’m addicted to it.”
I wanted to hide my red face, but I couldn’t turn my head, not with the gun digging into my skull. Mason slowly started sinking his cock inside of me, never decreasing the pressure of his gun against my head.
I wanted it, I wanted it, I wanted it. Didn’t I?
I’d never been so conflicted in my life.
He felt so big inside of me, so hot and thick and hard and I’d never, ever get enough of him.
The sound of his harsh breathing made me clench around his length, slickness dripping, my thighs quivering around his hips.
I watched a drop of sweat glide down the strong column of his throat, wishing I could lick it off him.
But the gun was holding me in place.
Every twitch of Mason’s mouth showed me how hungrily he’d been waiting for this, illustrating the way my fantasy perfectly fit with his own depravity. The flex of his taut stomach and the filthy sounds of him fucking me had my eyes rolling back.
My heart was beating too fast, my lungs crushed with helpless fear. It was euphoric, perfect, horrible.
Tears accumulated in my eyes, tightness pulling low in my stomach. I was tilting my hips, squeezing my core, greedily extracting every ounce of pleasure from Mason’s dick that I could. I was limp, delirious with pleasure, my fingers aching for something to grab.
“You can’t leave me,” Mason panted, fucking me harder.
“I’m not leaving you. I won’t leave you,” I moaned, a tear squeezing out of the corner of my eye, dripping down my temple where the gun was pressed to my skin, salt meeting metal. I’ll never leave you, even when I know I should.
What does a lifetime of this look like?
I have no idea. All I know is it ends with me dead sooner than I should be.
“I have to make sure.” His eyes locked onto mine, some awful desperation glinting in his gaze, a toxic possession smoldering in that dark brown. “Alright, baby? You’re not walking away from me. Even if I have to fucking kill you.”
I wanted to kill myself for how that sentence made me feel. What kind of person wanted this? What kind of person got off on it?
Me.
Mason’s one hand kept the gun steady, and the other was barred over my collarbones, pinning me down. I wouldn’t have moved anyway, but he was merciless. He jerked the barrel again and my eyes slammed shut, a shiver of terror ripping through me.
“You wanted real, didn’t you?” he groaned.
Breathless, I whimpered, “Yes, I did—”
“Then don’t flinch. Don’t you dare flinch.”
I don’t flinch with you.