Page 12 of Drown Like Heaven
Dark makeup was smudged around my eyes and I swiped my fingers under my lash line to rub some of it off, the black of my mascara contrasting with my pale skin. My hair was dirty blonde, darker now that it’d been submerged in saltwater, and my long braid was leaving wet spots on Mason’s hoodie. The flush staining my cheeks and lips was more obvious than I’d been hoping it would be.
Essentially, I looked like a desperate mess.
Ifeltlike a desperate mess, too. Horny and confused and shamefully eager.
I don’t want to be friends with you, Dakota.
His words in my head.
Then what do you want to be, Mason?
Something worse?
The poisonous type of desire I felt now was something I’d struggled with for a long time. It scared me. It was stupid to want to beanythingwith him.
I tucked the silver heart locket dangling from my neck back inside the collar of Mason’s sweatshirt, the cool metal pressing into my chest. There weren’t any photos inside it. There used tobe a photo in it though, and thinking about that made me want to rip it off my neck and flush it down the toilet. Sometimes I considered putting a picture of Mila on one side, but I’d never done it. I kept it empty now.
The image of Mason’s face was etched into my mind as I let a cool stream of water trickle over the inside of my wrists, over the veins there. His skin was so flawless, his proportions so perfect, his irises so richly brown. I still couldn’t decide if his attractiveness drew me in or scared me off. Both, likely.
He was wicked in every sense of the word, cutting along some razor-sharp edge of my consciousness, trying to edge deeper. Mason was exactly the sort of man I needed to stay far, far away from. He felt like the sort who knew how to reach the darkest parts of me with nothing more than the brush of a fingertip, or the glint in his eye.
That was dangerous. And I’d hardly known him an hour.
But, God, I wanted to be touched. All the reasons I shouldn’t give in to whatever it was Mason was exuding were seeming less and less important with each passing second.
Besides, Mason could never hurt me more thanhehurt me. The man I couldn’t talk about.
Once I’d given myself enough time to restore my confidence and gather my thoughts, I headed back to the table and dropped my ass on the seat.
“Do you want anything else?” Mason asked.
I shook my head.
Mason waved over our waitress and she brought us the check on a small ticket. He left a wad of cash on the table, and if I was calculating correctly, tipped her double the price of our meal. I let him lead me out of the booth, then back into the pelting rain.
Chapter 4
Dakota
We clamored back into the car, rain still pouring from the darkening sky. Mason put it in gear and took us out of the lot, pulling onto the main road, his hand lingering on the gearshift. Warm air slowly began pumping out of the vents. I tracked raindrops as they trickled down the tinted windows, streaking over the glass in jagged patterns.
“Are you going to let me help you get home now?” he asked, glancing over. I caught his eye for a second, then turned back to the front.
“No,” I answered. My defenses might’ve been relaxing in other areas, but not in this.
He didn’t say anything to that.
I’d neveraskedhim to take me under his wing. I was perfectly capable of figuring out how to get back to my trailer on my own, and I would’ve done just that had I not run into him.
And maybe parts of me wanted to spend a little more time with him, to nurture that flame I knew I should let die out. Because everything felt better when you knew it was bad for you.
We drove in silence for a few minutes, the sound of the rain hitting the windshield filling the dead air. Every additional second in his proximity was winding me up further and further, a quiet simmering of heavy lust in my blood.
His sweatshirt was way too big on me, but that made it very cozy. I tucked my legs up on the seat and crossed my arms, relishing the soft lining of Mason’s clothes.
After a bit, Mason turned the wheel, steering us into the same shitty pull-off near the cliffs where his car had been parked earlier. It wasn’t really big enough to be considered a parking lot, just a patch of gravelly asphalt on the side of the road. The ocean was barely visible past the cliffside, still raging and churning violently. A piece of rope had been strung up between wooden posts to serve as a fence along the edge of the drop off, a few yards in front of the car.
Mason locked the doors, and my wide eyes flicked to his.
