Chapter 29 #4
I gritted my teeth as Mason fucked me deeper and harder, pounding into me. The more pain he inflicted, the more violence he wrapped around me, the more I wanted him. Because I understood him. He’d told me part of his secret, the one he’d kept from me for months.
He was broken, just like me. Someone left him, too.
But I’d never leave him. Never.
Something changed the day I met him, like the universe was aligning for the first time, all the stars shifting in the sky, something terrible waking up from a very deep slumber.
As sure as I was he would eventually kill me if we continued down the path we were on, I was equally certain that we were meant to be together.
I was the shore and he was the waves breaking against me, crashing over me, washing me away into something new. Something rougher, rawer, realer.
He touched all the darkest places of me, infiltrating every inch of me like seawater trickling through the cracks in my bared soul.
And here, with a salt-licked rock cutting into my cheek and Mason’s cock inside of me, his emotion looming over me, his endless devotion holding so steady even when I acted out, I was having an epiphany. Sort of. I already knew this truth, in my heart.
But under dark clouds threatening rain, surrounded by my favorite beach, with this nightmare of a man fucking me the way we both liked, I was more sure than ever.
I loved him.
Loved this man carved from storm clouds and threaded with lightning, soaked in seawater, shaped by rolling waves.
I was seasick, lovesick, hooked on an IV drip of him—addicted to it.
Ocean and black feathers and a rough hand on the back of my head.
A needle in my vein, injecting pure fear, pure love.
It was inevitable. We were inevitable.
He hurt me, but I hurt him too.
We loved each other through blood and bruises.
Mason buried himself deep inside of me as he came, filling me up until his cum was spilling out between my thighs. I sighed, my flushed cheek still against the rock. He’s mine.
Yes, I was exhausted. Yes, I was scared. Yes, I needed Micah.
But Mason was mine and I was his.
I’d never change that.
I’d never give up an ounce of this pain, because it was worth every tear and drop of blood spilled. Mason understood me through this shared pain.
He lifted me off the rock and pulled up my underwear, then my jeans, before spinning me back to face him.
Without missing a single beat, I launched myself at him, crashing our mouths together.
There was a brief second where Mason resisted me, clearly still feeling pissed at my earlier bratty attitude, but he melted into me after that second. Arms cradling my body, fingers creeping up the back of my skull, mouth opening.
“I love you,” I moaned into his mouth, heart squeezing tight.
“Baby,” he scolded lightly, pulling back. “Why are you saying that?”
“Because I do. You know I do.” I gripped his shoulders desperately, hoping he’d let me pour my heart into him.
“Fuck,” he groaned, pulling me back, his mouth finding mine again. “I love you, baby. I love you so fucking much.”
“I love you, too,” I panted, jumping up and wrapping my legs around his waist as he grabbed my ass, massaging my flesh through the denim.
I was drunk on him. So drunk I couldn’t even think about anything else, couldn’t remember anything that’d ever happened before him.
He was the start of my real life, because I didn’t have to hide anything from him. I couldn’t.
Even if I was a worse version of myself sometimes, I was myself.
I was allowed to exist, messy and imperfect, and he still accepted me.
Nothing I ever did or said would be too much for him.
I don’t flinch with you.
Mason carried me up all the way to the bus stop, barely breaking our kiss long enough to navigate up the rocks, then we got on the bus together to head back to campus, where his car was parked.
I sighed as he wrapped his arms around me, tucking me against his body.
My face stung the tiniest bit, like maybe the rock had scratched my cheek, and it only made me love him more.
There’s nothing you could do to me that would change how I feel right now.
I thought of him forcing my head underwater in the bath, then I thought of him going below the water himself the first time I told him about my brother, thought of myself lying on his chest then.
It would always be like this. There would always be darkness and fear and misunderstanding and lies, but that was the nature of two broken souls coming together. It would never be easy.
But with every fracture, every time he pushed me away, there would be this on the other side. A deepening. A strengthening of our connection.
I was learning to love that. I’d been born craving it.
There was something deeply wrong with the comfort I found in knowing that we wouldn’t end, even when we hurt each other. I probably should’ve felt some desire to be better, to want better, but I didn’t. I wanted this.
This fucked-up, tangled, painful, unbreakable bond between our splintered souls.