Page 54 of Breathe Like Hell

DAKOTA

When I shattered through the surface, I expected blinding anger to slam into me like a train, just like it had before.

I expected to hate him as oxygen finally tangled in my lungs.

I was ready for the torrent of aversion.

But there was a gap, a breath, a terrible moment of rawness while my body caught up to the fact that I was allowed to live again—that I hadn’t died. And Mason was the one who made that possible, the one who gave me the air I needed to survive.

My nervous system was fucking up, binding emotions together, recognizing him as two things at once before I had the lucidity to stop it. He was both the source of the danger, and the source of the relief.

He was my ruin and my salvation.

The one pushing me down and the one pulling me back up.

“Baby,” Mason said lowly, holding the back of my neck and kissing me, kissing every shuddering breath from my tired lungs. His hands were big and firm on my body and I could smell him again now that I was above the surface. Storms and saltwater. Lightning and riptides.

“Mason,” I gasped, clinging to him as my head spun. The world seemed so loud now.

Water dripping, splashing, my own breath echoing in my head, Mason’s clear voice.

My pulse was wrong, my breath uneven, and I knew I should’ve been recoiling from him, but I wasn’t.

“God, you’re incredible.”

“That was too long,” I complained, squeezing his body tighter. I was trembling now.

“If it was too long you’d be dead, baby.” He kissed the top of my head. “So it wasn’t too long.”

“Okay.” For some reason, I couldn’t really think of a better reply. All my thoughts were still scrambled, and my body was still hot with the need to come. I was confused and tired and horny. I also kind of wanted to cry. This was my new baseline, apparently.

I missed Micah.

I wanted to be tied up and taken care of now.

I needed both of them; that was becoming more and more clear to me. But I wasn’t going to get both of them—I probably wouldn’t get Micah at all anymore. I just kept fucking up. I was doing it again right this second. But what was I supposed to do?

“It’s your turn now.” Mason cupped the side of my face, tilting my head back. “And there’s no too long for me. Make me work for it.”

“What?”

He turned me and placed my hands on the edge of the pool.

Then he slipped below the water, prying my thighs apart and nudging his head between them, fingers tugging my bikini bottoms all the way to the side. Soft currents of water brushed my exposed pussy and I shivered, gripping the edge of the pool harder. My nails scraped on the concrete as I sucked in quick breaths.

His mouth was instantly on me, hot and searching, yanking me straight out of the dark places my mind had been sinking to.

I couldn’t ruminate on things when Mason’s ravenous tongue was on my clit.

Breathing through the pleasure burning me up, I worked on thinking about other things, hoping I could ignore the sensation of Mason eating me out long enough to not come right away, despite already being so worked up.

He deserved to stay under for longer.

He’d said make him work for it.

I intended to.

I glanced over my shoulder to see his body under the water and I could tell, even through the waves, that he had his hand already wrapped around his dick. It only tightened the knot of heat low in my stomach, and I suppressed a whine. My hair was sticking to my face and my lips were still wet with pool water, pressed tight together to keep myself quiet.