Page 272 of Breathe Like Hell

He slipped a hand down my hip, pushing it under the elastic waistband on my sleep shorts, stretching them down a bit as his tongue swept along the seam of my mouth. I lifted my hips so he could push my shorts all the way off my legs, parting my lips for his tongue.

Micah held my wrist and brought my hand to his clothed erection, pressing my palm into his length. He was breathing harder.

He sat up and pushed his boxers off, pulling me onto his lap and lifting my shirt over my head. There was a brief pause in his actions once I was naked on top of him. I held his face in my hands, watching him through the darkness. Anything he wanted now, I would give. No unnecessary questions, no strangeness. Only me and him, together in the dark.

“I love you,” I breathed, tipping our foreheads together, my thumbs stroking over the black veins staining his cheeks and jaw. They were slowly fading, but still visible even in the dark. “I love you so much.”

“Masters,” he whispered, fingers tightening on my hips as I aligned myself over him.

“Is this okay?”

He nodded quickly. “Yeah.”

Slowly, I sank down onto his length. Inch by inch, he filled me. Pushing inside of me, his body as close to mine as possible, touching the most vulnerable place in me, touching my tenderness and love for him.

He’d breathed life into my lungs. Now he could help my heart beat beside his again.

The door to the bedroom quietly opened behind me, spiking my pulse.

Micah’s body stiffened, his arms wrapping so tight around me I could hardly breathe. He wasn’t breathing either. I turned to glance over my shoulder, to look where he was looking. Mason stood in the doorway.

His gaze stitched to mine, so much devastation in his irises I had a lump in my throat.

Please, I mouthed.

He gave a short nod, then disappeared out of the room.

I turned back to Micah, holding his face in my palms. His eyes were shut, his eyebrows pulled together. I didn’t move my hips, didn’t move at all.

“Do you⁠—”

“I can’t do this,” he said quickly, cutting me off. “I need to…”

“It’s okay,” I breathed, shaking my head, taking my hands off his face and moving off his lap so I wasn’t touching him at all. I held my wrists behind my back. “I’m yours.”

“Okay,” he mumbled after a brief moment of silence. “I’m just going to…”

He stumbled across the room, rummaging around for his black bundle of rope. I laid flat on my back and pressed my wrists together, offering my submission on his sheets.

His fingers fumbled with the rope, as if he’d forgotten how to construct the elegant knots he used to, or as if his brain wasn’t connecting with his hands as well as he wanted it to. But he didn’t stop, and I didn’t mention it. He untied the rope, loosened it, straightened it out again, then began retying me. I held still, staring up at the beauty of his face.

Once my wrists were secured to his headboard, he tugged on the rope to ensure it wouldn’t slip, then sat back to inspect his work. I laid flat on the bed before him, my heart full to bursting with love, and my mind full to bursting with terror.

I still couldn’t trust that he was really here, and here for good.

Maybe he would be stolen from me in the next moment.

“I’ll tell you if I’m not okay. Understood?” His eyes held mine, a familiar sternness freezing over the blue. I nodded. “I want this. I know…you know something about me, but please don’t decide how I should deal with it. I don’t want you to pity me.”

“I don’t pity you,” I whispered quickly. “You can do anything you want to me. Or nothing to me.”

Knowing Micah’s past made me sad, but I would never pity him. Never sympathy, always empathy. I was right there with him.

He hadn’t chosen for me to learn about his past, hadn’t opened up to me about it, but Mason had. Whether or not it was a bad decision was irrelevant because I could live with this. I had the closeness I needed, and Micah never had to say the words. I wondered if part of him was grateful for that. Maybe he wasn’t. Maybe all of him just hated Mason.

He dragged his lips up my stomach and over my ribs, sweeping his mouth along the curves of my breasts, then up to the hollow of my throat. My pulse was fast, fluttering hopelessly against the press of his mouth. I was putty—less than putty. I was melting into the mattress, bending for him, opening for him, blooming for him.

I will be anything you need me to be.