Page 316 of Breathe Like Hell

Or sometimes she stood outside the building with Mason, waiting for me to emerge after lecturing, and I loved that too. Never in a million years had I expected to be given this second chance to love him, and I refused to waste it. Fifty-two years was only a small dent in the amount of time I wanted to spend with him.

I was standing in the lab now, waiting for Dakota and Mason to arrive. He’d been down here a few times, usually just when he dropped Dakota off, or brought food—he found the rule about no food in the lab quite irritating. But I liked watching him and Dakota eating at the table in the hallway.

There was a soft knock at the door, then it opened.

“Hey, Masters,” I said as Dakota went into my arms, her face pressed to my chest. I stroked my palm over the back of her head, feeling her soft hair. Mason shut the door behind himself, then stood at Dakota’s back, his eyes finding mine.

I slipped one of my hands onto his forearm, tapping my index finger three times.

I. Love. You.

He grinned and did the same thing back to me.

“I’m so excited,” Dakota said as she pulled away, her voice full of joy.

I was excited, too. Probably even more than she was.

“Do you want to do the honors?” I asked her.

She shook her head vigorously. “No. It should be you. I want it to be you.”

“If I do it, I might end up convincing myself we should wait another two weeks until the reservoir is entirely full,” I warned, not meaning it at all.

“You would not do that,” Dakota insisted, crossing her arms. “It’s almost full already, and it’s my birthday week.”

“I know. I’m messing with you.”

“Alright,” Mason cut in. “One of you, please. I am dying to see what keeps you two holed up in here until the middle of the night all the fucking time.”

I couldn’t help laughing. “You’re always welcome to join.”

“I think I’d find it difficult not to want to fuck either of you.”

“Oh, we do fuck. Usually upstairs in my office, though. Don’t want to mess up the expensive equipment.”

Mason’s gaze dropped lower, to Dakota. “Baby, is this true?” His voice was full of faux concern, which made her grin. “Are you fucking your professor in his office late at night without me?”

“No.” She rolled her lips together. “I’m fucking my boss.”

“Okay, that is so much better. Thank you, baby.” He gently held her throat as he kissed her on the lips, her hands grabbing his wrist as she leaned into him. After a few seconds, he straightened up and looked at me. “I would also like to fuck your boss.”

“It can be arranged,” Dakota promised, her eyes darting between both of us. “As long as I get to watch.”

A real smile pulled on Mason’s mouth then, and he kissed me. I held the back of his neck, feeling all his warmth, his strength, the familiarity of his body against mine.

“Alright, Kill,” he mumbled, pulling away, the corners of his eyes still crinkled with amusement. “Please flip whatever switch you need to flip. I’m impatient.”

“I know you are, Ash.”

But I didn’t want to keep waiting, either.

I approached the tubing against the wall and turned the first valve, frost creeping along silver metal pipes, compressors humming, pressure gauges rising.

Then, the second valve. My fingers twitched at the soft, metallic noise.

There was a faint hiss of compressed gas leaving the storage vessel.

Nothing dramatic happened visually; there wasn’t enough neon to change the color of the air or make the room feel different to a human. The instruments were the only proof. My heart beat harder. The digital analyzer climbed steadily, tracing numbers impossible anywhere else on Earth.