Page 61 of Breathe Like Hell

“Show him how well I fuck you? How bad you need it all the time?”

“Maybe.”

Mason grabbed the hem of my shirt and tugged it over my head, then helped me take off my bralette, so I was bare for him. I almost hated how often we did this. Sex was our constant. Conversation was not.

“God, you’re pretty,” he murmured, his eyes hungrily skimming over my tits. He lifted his hands to cup my chest, making me melt into him, making me weak and pathetic.

Little slut, so desperate to get her pussy filled.

Yes. By you, Micah.

I melted into Mason’s body, my mind running wild with the makings of terrible plans as I shoved every other anxiety away. Stupid, desperate plans.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

MICAH

Typically, I prided myself on my ability to control my emotions, my reactions to things. Stability was my strong suit. But I was losing all of that now; all of the strength I’d worked to build back up after Mason was eroding away into every raw emotion I’d been running from. Everything I didn’t want to face.

I’m shocked you’d even say that, Micah.

Hooking up with Mason was going to literally shatter whatever fragments of my mind I’d managed to keep whole. He didn’t even know the way I was affected by him. But it wasn’t like he’d care if he did know. I could see that in the way he spoke to me now.

And Dakota was making me fucking paranoid.

For the second time in my life, I loved someone with a death wish.

My brain knew the shape of the end, knew exactly how this would play out if I couldn’t be stronger than I was last time, but I couldn’t stop.

And now there were three players in this game, three pieces on the board, three points anchoring our web. It wasn’t the two dimensional tug of war between Mason and I that I’d smothered myself in for so many years, not the oscillating wave of two people fighting each other, themselves, and every other force in the universe trying to break them apart. It was three dimensional now.

Dakota changed everything.

She reshaped the whole equation.

My mind lingered on the box in the drawer at my house, on the extremely temporary solution to my permanent problem. My fingers twitched, aching for the precision of it, the proof of my life. Something quick and grounding and controlled.

Not permanent, never permanent, but enough to chase the feeling away for a few minutes.

Even if it’d only make me think of him.

My head snapped up at the sound of the door to the lab opening. Dakota stood in the doorway, looking like she was on the verge of tears. I got to my feet quickly, walking over to her.

“Hey,” I said. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she replied and wiped her eyes with her sleeves.

“Tell me what’s going on,” I repeated, more forcefully now.

She paused, looked at me above her sleeve cuffs. “If I don’t want to tell you, I don’t have to tell you.”

“Then why are you here? You’re not scheduled to work with me today—and I’m pretty sure you have another class right now.” My voice was too harsh, my words too accusatory.

“Wow. Never mind.” She turned around and stepped into the hallway as if she was going to leave me, but I didn’t let her get far. I held her arm and pulled her back into the lab with me, shutting the door and then the blinds.

“I’m sorry. I want you here. You don’t need to tell me anything.”

Dakota didn’t speak, but she didn’t try leaving again either. She pushed past me to sit in her usual spot, dumping her bag on the scuffed black countertop, boots squeaking on the metal rung around the legs of her stool. I just watched her, watched the quiet tears sliding down her face as she continuously wiped them, watched her trembling hands pull her laptop out and power it on.