Page 123 of Breathe Like Hell

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.

CHAPTER THIRTY

DAKOTA

“Get out of the truck, Dakota,” Micah said as I slammed the door and slid across the bench seat towards him. The key was in the ignition, but he had yet to start the engine.

“Where are you going?” I questioned. We were sitting together in his truck in the garage. I’d rushed out of the house behind him in only socks, carrying my boots with me, because I didn’t want him to leave without me. He’d been irritable all morning—and, to be fair, so had I. Yesterday felt like a breaking point for us.

I’d pushed too far; he’d shut down too hard.

“I’m getting some air,” he responded angrily.

“I want to come with you.”

“I need fucking space.”

I bent forward to put my boots on, not responding. He’d have to physically remove me from the seat if he wanted to go somewhere without me right now. I’d been patient; I’d given him time and space and let him do whatever the fuck he wanted to me. But I wasn’t going to let that keep happening with no forward movement in our relationship. Especially now that I’d told Mason I loved him.

“Masters.”

“Dr. Killshaw,” I said, just to antagonize him. Our eyes connected.

“Why are you calling me that?”

“Oh, are we in a relationship or something? Should I call you something else?”

He was silent for a minute, his lips pressed together in a tight line, his eyes staring blankly out the windshield at the wall of his garage. His hand flexed on the steering wheel, his face unreadable.

“I need more than this,” I pressed.

Whatever he was thinking about, he could tell me. Whatever was hurting him, I wanted to know. I wanted to know him so fucking badly, but every time I voiced that desire, he pulled back even further. Micah would rather let us crumble into pieces than allow himself to be seen by me.

What lives have you lived?

Who have you loved?

Who has loved you?

Who has hurt you?

What bad things happen in Heaven?

Micah didn’t say anything else, but he turned the key in the ignition, the engine roaring to life, then backed us out of the driveway.

The sky was gray, clouds hanging low as we rumbled down the road. I leaned against the window, my breath fogging up the glass before I wiped it away with the side of my fist. It looked like it was going to rain—like always.

I thought about everything that’d happened with Micah over the past few months. All the staring in class, the tension suffocating me during every late night in his lab, the charged silence between us in the elevator, the times he’d fucked me on this very bench seat. Sleeping in his arms, his voice walking me through heat transfer problems, the sight of his back muscles flexing around his scars when he washed his hair in the shower.

Rope around my wrists, the cruel edge in his tone, a gentle kiss on my forehead.

I would never survive without every piece of him. I needed them all. The full map of his labyrinth, every shadowy corner and sharp edge and dark center.