Page 308 of Breathe Like Hell

Now, we were all lying in the bed together.

I still had the sense that I was intruding on Dakota and Micah’s life, but I was working to quiet those thoughts. He’d fought for me on the cliff, pouring his reassurance over me, speaking things that felt honest enough to ruin me. I didn’t want to keep relying on Micah’s control the way I used to crave. My brain would always be wired this way, but that didn’t mean I was supposed to stop trying.

How we ended was such a small segment of the life I’d created with Micah, and it was time I finally allowed myself to trust in the good memories.

We could be good together. We’d had it once before. We would have it again.

Because now, with Dakota, we were complete.

The three of us balanced each other. It was never going to work out any other way.

We were inevitable, only like this.

━━━━━

Micah stopped the truck just before the rope fence, shifting into park as raindrops slid down the windshield. The waves were capped with white froth, rolling and tumbling into each other before they washed against the sand. Dakota looked particularly good in her simple black bikini, and I purposefully did not get out of the truck, so she’d climb over me in her impatience, her ass skimming across my lap.

I hopped out after her, Micah climbing out the driver’s side. All three of us left our towels and shoes in the truck—less things to carry and deal with. Dakota hopped on Micah’s back, and he carried her down the rocks to the dark sand.

The air smelled of rain, salt, and cedar carried down from the cliffs above us. It was exactly the way my first inhales of Earth’s air had smelled. The most familiar scent to me.

This wasn’t exactly the same stretch of sand Micah and I had crawled up after we fell, but close to it. Micah set Dakota on her feet once we reached the sand.

The beach stretched empty in both directions, just the three of us here. No footprints but ours. I stared out at the foggy horizon, the sea meeting the sky in a blurry wash of gray. Endless waves rose out of the water, forming a net of instability across its vast turquoise surface.

Dakota was holding both my hand and Micah’s hand. Our sweet little link.

For the first time in a very long time, I wasn’t looking at the water thinking about how deep it was, how long I could stay under this time. 21:59. I would always crave my minutes below the surface, but there were things worth coming back to now. Two things.

Two people I might’ve craved more than the thing I’d been born to want.

I also had a new number now, a new length of time that seemingly wouldn’t kill me. When I’d gone beneath the waves after Micah’s death, swallowed by my grief and the ocean alike, I’d counted past the number he gave me. But I didn’t like the new number. I would rather keep myself below the limit Micah gave me, bringing the memory of him handing me that scrap of paper to the forefront of my mind every time I was underwater.

“Are you going to push me under?” Dakota asked, looking up at me as we stood together right where the sand became damp.

“Is that what he does to you, baby girl?” Micah questioned as he stepped up behind her, holding her hips with his hands. His fingers pressed into her hipbones just above her bikini bottom, his head lowered so he could speak closer to her ear.

Dakota tilted her head back and to the side, offering her throat to him, raindrops pattering on her cheeks. I wasn’t sure I would ever be over the way they looked together. How yielding she was. How his predation invaded every movement, every word.

“Sometimes, yes.” Her eyes lingered on mine, a smile pulling at her pink lips.

Micah’s mouth descended on her neck, teeth scraping over her pulse. “And you like that, don’t you?”

“Most of the time,” Dakota admitted, her smile tipping up further.

“Baby,” I scolded lightly, my hands finding her waist. “Don’t make me look bad.”

“I’m not.” She whimpered as Micah bit purple marks into her pale skin, tinged now with gold. “I’m being truthful.”

“What else do you do with him, Masters?” Micah asked, voice low but amused.

“Bad stuff.”

I slid one hand up to cup her breast, fighting the urge to rip the bikini off of her. Heat coiled low in my stomach, blood pumping to my dick. Saltwater washed over my feet when the waves came crawling higher up the beach, leaving salt and sand on my skin.

“I never asked,” I started, “Does your fantasy still apply? Now that you’re an angel?”

I want you to kill me. With a gun to my head, fucking me hard and brutal, then you pull the trigger the second you come.