Page 53 of Breathe Like Hell

I don’t know.

I could already imagine the violence of air in my lungs when he finally let me surface again, the rush of noise and sensation, water spilling and dripping, his wet skin crushed to mine, all that toxic gravity yanking us back together.

There was too much instability, too much obsession, too much everything between us. All the lies, all the destruction, all the hurt. None of it was sustainable, and I didn’t see it stopping anytime soon. It scared me. He scared me.

My terrible thoughts crashed and collided together in my skull like stormy ocean waves, terror and lust twisting into the same complicated knot that’d haunted me for years. Every fearful word my brain conjured was instantly replaced by sexual sensation, and I didn’t have enough oxygen in my blood to fix that now.

How long had I been down here?

My jaw ached.

Awful heat coiled low in my belly.

He was doing something so terrible to me. So, so terrible.

I like it, but I can’t. I don’t.

This is too much.

Stop. Please, stop.

More water got in my mouth and chlorine dripped in the back of my throat, which made me nauseous. My swimsuit bottoms kept rubbing the side of my clit when I twisted and bucked my hips.

He wasn’t going to let me breathe until he climaxed.

Gripping his base tighter, I took as much of him into my mouth as I could, using my free hand to cup and massage his balls. My heart was slamming on my ribs, ricocheting around my chest. My lungs were going to explode.

Let me go.

He was holding me under longer this time, longer than the ocean or the bathtub, longer than ever before.

Longer than I thought I was capable of.

He always waited one second too long. Maybe that was the point.

Maybe I needed to stop romanticizing that before he actually just fucking killed me.

I really need to breathe.

Now.

He doesn’t care.

He will never care.

I couldn’t focus, couldn’t think. I instinctively pushed my feet against the bottom of the pool again, but Mason’s palms on my shoulders were always heavier. I sucked him harder, more desperately, praying that he’d come before I passed out. Every second that ticked past only weakened me further, dragging my mind into darkness. Horror wrapped a vise around my skull.

I was so incurably addicted to the feeling of this that I’d forgotten how fucked up it was. I’d forgotten what the consequences of this game were. Their permanence.

What happens if I lose consciousness underwater? Do I die?

Warm water or cold, I will drown the same. In a bathtub or the vast ocean, I will still float lifeless.

The water itself doesn’t matter, because the most dangerous thing here is always him.

He released me just as he shot down my throat.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN