Page 180 of Drown Like Heaven
Did he have the same last name as her? Would she hate me if I killed him?
I pictured her, younger, more vulnerable, keeping secrets for a boy who didn’t deserve it from her. Pulse beating like a butterfly’s wings as her brother twisted every thought in her head, made her depend on him. A white-flecked doe, darting into a dark forest to escape her own life.
?????
I was already awake when I heard her walk down the hallway, past my bedroom door to the stairs. Just like the night I’d heard Micah heading down to the kitchen, I shoved the covers off my body and got to my feet, slipping out of my bedroom and following Dakota down the stairs.
All I ever did was chase my obsessions.
Dakota’s bare feet padded quietly across the kitchen floor, the hem of her shirt—Micah’sshirt—hitting just below her ass. The moonlight skimmed her bare thighs, her taut skin, dripping down her calves and ankles, puddling around her perfect feet as she pushed on tiptoes to grab a glass from the cabinet. I thought about the day when she’d stepped on a piece of glass on the beach, when she’d cried for me.
The day when I’d held her under the water for the first time.
My eyes darted up her body, catching a glimpse of her ass as his shirt rode up. Soft, biteable, fuckable.
My cock stirred in my sweats. She didn’t know I was standing here in the doorway, completely concealed by shadow, just watching her through the heavy darkness. It was likebeing underwater in a way, the moonlight glinting through the windows as it might glisten off the waves of the Pacific, the darkness in the house rivaling that of the deep, churning waves.
I leaned against the door frame and the wood creaked lightly, my hand drifting down to cup my hardening cock. The noise of my subtle movement was enough to alert Dakota to my presence, though.
She spun around, wide-eyed until she spotted me. And then she froze.
“What are you doing down here?” she whispered.
“I followed you.”
“Why the fuck would you do that?” Her eyes were narrowed.
I pushed off the frame, walking towards her as she backed away from me. Her hip hit the counter and her breath hitched.Nowhere to go, baby.
“I never see you without him anymore.”Without my sadistic ex, who doesn’t deserve to touch a single hair on your head. He doesn’t understand you like I do.“Not sure how I’m supposed to fuck you when you’re always with someone else.”
“You’renotsupposed to fuck me.” She stared up at me as I approached, cornering her in the darkness, her chest rising and falling faster now. “We’re not good together. I want…something else.”
The words might’ve hurt if they were true, but they weren’t. Were we good together? Not really. But that didn’t mean she didn’twantit like I did. She hadn’t been faking the look in her eyes when Micah made her suck my dick in front of him.
She still needed this.
And I still need her.
“Little fucking liar,” I murmured, my hands gripping the counter on either side of her hips. The fear in her eyes was making me hard. I thought of that night in the bath with her, my forearm barred on her chest, the hot water covering herface. Her soft voice whispering that sick fantasy against my lips. “You’re scared of what you told me, but that’s the point, isn’t it? For you to be scared?”
“Please let me go back upstairs,” she whispered, but her body was begging me not to listen to her words.
I moved even closer to her. I could smell her shampoo, but not the one I bought for her in my shower. Not hers from home either. Something else. Micah’s shampoo, or one he’d got for her to keep here. Like he was planning to keep her here often.
My fingers tightened around the edge of the marble counter, my mind flooded with violence.
I wanted her mine. I wanted her destroyed.
I almost couldn’t tell the difference anymore.
Dakota wouldn’t look at my face, her eyes glued to my bare chest, her own hands gripping the counter inside mine. We weren’t touching, but it would only take the slightest movement to change that. My entire body burned with needing to be closer to her.
“I want to talk to you,” I said.
“I don’t want to talk.” She shook her head fast, eyes wide, pulse quickening with the nerves that came with wanting to keep a secret. “Please, I—just treat me the same as you did before. I’m not broken in the way you think I am.”
I wasn’t sure what she meant by that, but I hadn’t really been planning on treating her any different. My shitty behavior wasn’t something I controlled very well.
