Page 13 of Drown Like Heaven
“Don’t lock me in here.” A trickle of real panic dripped through me.
“Why not? You know what we’re going to do, don’t you?”
I bit my lower lip, trying to ignore the way heat was pooling between my thighs. “Have a conversation? Get to know each other?” I asked, pointlessly. We were going to take our clothes off. I wasn’t sure when that decision had been made between us, but I had a feeling it was long before he swiped syrup off my mouth in the diner.
Maybe it was the first time he touched me, when he grabbed my wrist and pulled me up above the water.
Maybe that was when I knew how this was going to go.
From that very first second.
“Yeah. Sure,” he answered.Have a conversation.
He flicked the windshield wipers off, letting the rain accumulate on the glass and obscure our view of the ocean.
Mason smelledreallygood, but I couldn’t describe it as anything I’d ever smelled before. Pheromones, maybe? It seemed to be getting stronger the longer we sat in here. I shifted on the seat, swallowing hard.
I wanted to ask him questions.
I pinched the hem of his sweatshirt between my fingers, thinking about it, about what I could say. There were a million things I could ask in my brain, but I didn’t know what was right.
“How did you get the scars on your back?” I whispered, maybe afraid he was going to get angry at me for asking.
“From something bad.” There was a pause. “Probably shouldn’t ask people about their scars.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” I rolled my lips together.
Quietness claimed the air again, but it was different this time, full of an aching tension that almost made me lightheaded.
Anticipation slithered through my veins, like somehow I knew whatever he was going to say next would affect me. It was painful, in a way. Like holding your hand over a flame; not close enough to burn yourself but close enough to feel the heat.
To feel it building, gettingtoohot. Until maybe you thought it might burn you anyway, even from that distance.
Mason spoke again, after a few minutes.
“Have you ever made yourself come while holding your breath?”
No hesitation. He’s not even going to pretend there’s another purpose to keeping me in here.
It was quick. Really quick.
But I didn’t necessarilycare.
I shook my head, unable to look at him now. Every inch of my skin was alive, buzzing like the energy in the air right before a lightning strike.
And still, I kept my palm over the flame.
He was quiet for a moment. Each breath into my lungs felt like thick mist, Mason’s scent curling through my bones and tightening my nerves. My pulse was thrumming wildly at the base of my throat, and I could feel every inch of space between us like another ounce of tension on the rope tethering my desire to his.
“What turns you on?” he asked. It should’ve been weird, how bluntly he was asking the question, but there was something sorawin his tone…It felt like a drug, something to get me higher than I’d ever been.
Something to fuck me up.
I still couldn’t speak.
“What’s the most messed-up thing you want somebody to do to you?”
I sucked in a sharp breath, a desperate ache gripping every molecule of my body. A whine crawled up my throat and I clenched my jaw to keep quiet.
