“I don’t want—”
His mouth crashes into mine. And it’s not soft. Not slow. It’s everything we’ve been holding back. All the nights we bit our tongues, all the times we looked but didn't touch. It’s teeth, tongues, and a low, desperate sound from the back of his throat that sets fire to my nerve endings.
He rolls on top of me, one hand pinning mine above my head, the other gripping my hip with hunger. “I’ve had you,” he growlsagainst my mouth, voice all gravel and heat, “but not like this. Not slow. Not with nothing in the way.”
The words hit low in my stomach, molten and heavy. Because he’s right. Every time before is fire and friction, anger twisted into want, tension snapping hot and fast. We never let ourselves feel it. We take. We burn. We run.
But this? This is different. His mouth softens against mine, almost reverently now, and it makes something deep inside me ache. Because he’s not just trying to consume me. He’s letting himself need me. And I need him, too.
Chapter 46
Malachi
“IfItouchyouright now, I won’t stop.” I say it in a low, rough voice dragging up from somewhere deep. Her breath hits my lips like a promise. Warm. Shaky. Real.
When she whispers, “Good,” everything in me detonates. Quietly. Completely. Every wall I ever built crumbles at her feet. Not from rage. Not from pure hunger. But from need. A need that lives in my bones. That has been there since the first time she looked at me with veneration that makes sin feel holy.
I dip my forehead to hers, trying to slow the riot inside my chest, but it’s useless. Her skin is soft against my hands, too soft for this world. Warm with the comfort of the first fire of winter. Her scent wraps around me, a drug; vanilla, citrus, a trace of salt from her skin. Fuck, I never want to breathe anything else again.
The air between us thickens. I can taste her already, need laced with defiance. Sweetness burned at the edges. My thumbs strokeslow circles over her hips in muscle memory, a touch carved from dreams I’ve had a hundred times before.
“Sour Patch,” I rasp, “you’re about to regret telling me that.”
But she doesn’t back down. Doesn’t blink. “I doubt it.”
Fuck. Me.
My mouth crashes into hers, settling a score that never had words. She meets me with that familiar fire, lips fierce, fingers tracing the curve of my chest, featherlight, daring me to give her everything and warning me she’ll take it even if I don’t.
We kiss in hunger. Starving. Already half-destroyed and past the point of caring. I kiss her in a way that tries to rewrite every rough moment we’ve ever shared. She clings to me, maybe hoping I’ll do just that.
When I pull back just enough to look down at her, my breath catches. She’s wrecked. Beautiful. Barely hanging on. Blonde curls fan out over my pillow, wild gold scattered across black. Lips parted, kiss-bitten. Her eyes—fuck, those eyes—shimmer in the dark, stormy with want and wariness and something else. Something that holds too much trust. A trust I haven’t earned. But fuck if I won’t spend the rest of my life trying.
I kiss her jaw, her throat, the hollow behind her ear, and feel the shiver roll through her as though it starts in me. She smells of heat. And something sacred.
“Tell me to stop,” I whisper, dragging my hand down the curve of her waist, fingers trembling where they rest just above her hip. My voice comes out rough—more challenge than question. A dare.
She doesn’t. She just lifts her hips toward me, lips brushing my ear, voice a whisper wrapped in fire. “I don’t want you to stop.”
I strip her slowly. Lovingly. My hands tremble. Not from hesitation, but from restraint. From the pressure of knowing this isn’t just another night, another fix. This is her, finally open, unshielded, laid bare in every way that matters. My palms skimup the backs of her thighs, feeling the goosebumps rise in their wake. I kiss each one, slow, deliberate, until she squirms, hips twitching as her body chases more of me. And fuck if that doesn’t make something in my chest unravel.
Her skin is fire under my mouth. I mouth the inside of her knee, then higher. Soft gasps escape her lips, breath hitching as I brush my teeth over the tender spot at the crease of her thigh.
“Malachi,” she whispers, desperate, breathy, mine.
I look up, taking in the sight of her. Tank top bunched around her ribs, flushed, wrecked just from my mouth, my hands. Blonde curls tangled around her shoulders, a wild halo. I hook my fingers into the hem and peel the fabric over her head, slow, baring her completely. Her nipples are already peaked, tight with need, and when I suck one into my mouth, she arches off the bed with a strangled cry.
“You feel everything, don’t you?” I rasp against her chest. “You fight me every step, but your body? Your body fucking begs.”
Her fingers dig into my shoulders. “I don’t beg.”
I tilt my head, drag my gaze across her flushed chest, the defiance in her jaw, the quake in her thighs. And I smile, slow, dangerous. “Yes, you do,” I murmur, voice dark and low, every word a drag of heat against her skin. “You begged for me in the garage, remember? Desperate, breathless, fucking wrecked. But don’t worry, Sour Patch… I’ll remind you exactly how it feels.”
I don’t touch her. Not yet. Her breath hitches, sharp and soft, the danger in my voice melting her bones. I watch her eyes darken, her thighs press together, a flush blooms down her chest.
“That’s not fair,” she breathes, voice hushed, wrecked. “You know what that does to me.”
I lean in just enough for my words to feather across her lips. “Yeah. I do. And I love it.”
