by Bethany-Kris
Chip didn’t count.
One of the few people in his life who Malachi had allowed to become intimately acquainted with the family and religious sect he’d left behind before he was even a man, Chip didn’t hide the fact it all made him a little nervous. Including when Malachi returned to his hometown.
“And he’s still not reached out to you, eh?” Chip questioned.
“Who?”
“Your friend—his place burnt.”
Oh, Nader.
“No,” Malachi confirmed. “A mutual friend mentioned he’s working in his father’s mechanic shop and has been attending the church.”
Three nights a week, in fact. Nader had also reverted to wearing church-approved clothing, and didn’t seem to be communicating with other friends—besides Malachi—outside of the sect’s congregation.
Malachi had already been long gone the night the fire happened, so he didn’t pretend to understand the kind of effect it had on Nader. Nonetheless, his friend was also an adult who could make his own decisions about his life. Whether that was quitting his old job, attending church and integrating back into his family’s world or cutting all his communication off to Malachi. It was all up to Nader.
Even if it was slightly concerning.
And a bit suspicious.
“I worry about him,” Malachi admitted. “Hate to think they’ve roped him back in because of me or something, you know what I mean?”
Chip muttered a non-agreement. “Yeah, that’s tough.”
It wasn’t as if he and Nader had talked every day of their lives before they suddenly didn’t, but they communicated enough between text and the occasional phone call that Malachi couldn’t help but notice the lack of it.
He didn’t get as much as a text from Nader after the night of the fire. Like the man had been told to end all communication between the two. At first, it certainly felt purposeful, but he didn’t necessarily have the proof to say as much. He still didn’t have the actual proof, but Malachi now believed it to be fact simply by default.
There was no other reason.
Chip sighed loudly. “Well, whatever you do, stay the hell away from anybody attending that church. Just in case there is a firebug who gets excited at the sight of your face.”
Malachi blinked at the idea.
Was that the case?
“And call me,” Chip added, muttering.
“When—for what?”
“For anything, Malachi. Call me if you need me. I’ll see what I can make happen. Besides, I’m not doing very much for the next week, either.”
“Yeah, okay, Chip,” he returned, but not seriously.
Malachi didn’t want to make that call. His business with Gracen Briggs had nothing to do with his estranged family, the church, or his stepfather. Not once did he try to make contact with anyone—including his adult-aged sister who could also make her own choices at the end of the day—when the radio silence from that side of things spoke louder than anything he had to say, anyway. For once, he would actively try not to poke the sleeping bear.
Shouldn’t that count for something?
Malachi thought so.
Before telling Malachi goodbye and hanging up the phone, Chip added, “Just keep it in mind. My phone’s always on.”
Malachi would remember but couldn’t promise to use it.
Best case scenario?
He wouldn’t have to.
*
Gracen’s head popped into view through the bay window in the kitchen seconds after his bike rumbled into the driveway. Well, alongside it, technically. She watched him through the front glass with a growing grin as he walked the bike backward, still sitting on the seat, into the grass. There wasn’t a lot of room in the driveway between Gracen’s car and the empty spot where Delaney’s Jeep should be.
He could hear her tapping on the glass. She pointed at him with a pinched expression—his surprise worked.
By the time Malachi had stepped off the bike and hung his helmet from the handlebar, Gracen had made her way out to the front stoop. He walked her iced coffee across the small front yard, not paying the passing cars in main street any mind. Just the beautiful girl grinning his way.
She was all he wanted to see, anyway.
“I was expecting a phone call from you right about now,” Gracen muttered, playing at being angry.
Malachi had the audacity to smirk. “You’re not really mad at me.”
She thought he’d arrive a lot later in the day, but this worked out better. He liked making her smile.
“Not really,” Gracen agreed as he reached the tiny walkway that swerved and curved up to the house. She pointed at the drink in his hand, asking, “Is that for me?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
Malachi laughed. “If I get a kiss first.”
The words were no sooner out of his lips than she bounced off the stoop and into his embrace. Had he not already had a good footing on the walkway, then she might have sent both of them tumbling into the grass. Along with her iced coffee.
Malachi kept them upright.
His knees only buckled a little when she placated his request with a tender peck of a kiss against his lips, and a soft, “I missed you.”
His kiss swept in hungrier after that, tasting the cherry balm softening her pillowy lips and making her grin when his tongue teased the seam of her mouth. He barely considered their display on the front lawn in the middle of a town—even if it was a sleepy one most days. She was tucked in close enough to his body that he molded into every one of her curves. Something akin to vanilla and sugar drifted from the wisps of her loose wavy hair when he buried his face into her throat for another tight hug.
Despite asking for the drink he had, she’d not yet taken it.
Malachi still held it.
“Missed you, too,” he murmured against her skin. Over the same spot where he’d placed a quick kiss. She shivered the harder he hugged. “God, yeah, I missed you.”
It wasn’t time for more.
Oh, they’d get to that, too.
Gracen let out a happy gust of breath and squeezed his middle harder. “What time did you get on the road this morning?”
“A little before seven.”
She pulled away just enough to squint at him. “I didn’t even roll out of bed before nine.”
She still wore the same kind of loose cotton shorts she usually liked for lounging around. Along with the wife beater tank top—she had one in every color, or always had a new one on whenever she video-chatted him in the evenings, it seemed.
“I can tell,” he joked.
Gracen slapped her palm lightly against his leather-covered chest. “Hey, don’t judge. I’m trying this new thing where I don’t get ready on the weekend before noon if I don't plan to leave the house.”
His brow jumped high. “So, you’re just planning to chill around here all day looking like that?”
He didn’t say it like it was a bad thing.
It definitely wasn’t.
The thin fabric of her shirt and way her perky breasts pointed forward said she didn’t even have on a bra. He would not apologize for his wandering stare, either, when she noticed it lingering lower than her throat.
Gracen didn’t seem offended.
Actually, she gave a sly smile.
“You’re so lucky you pulled this little stunt on me today,” Gracen told him.
Malachi chuckled. “Why’s that, babe?”
“Delaney’s working until three, at least. And no, I wasn’t going anywhere or doing anything until you got here. It’s just me and you for a while.” Gracen’s blue eyes widened dramatically as she added, “I’ll let you figure out what that means.”
He didn’t need time to work it out, and he couldn’t think of a better way to spend his afternoon.
Malachi spun Gracen around with his hand at her back to push her toward the front door of the house. “Let’s go—time’s wasting.”
Gracen’s laughed
tinkled over the yard. “At least give me my drink!”
Chapter 26
“Oh, Jesus Christ—you do the best things with your mouth ...”
It should be shameful the way those words rushed out of Malachi in a breathless woosh, but he figured the woman on her knees in the shower stall deserved to know the control she had over him in a position like this.
Gracen tried to grin around his cock, but it served to bare her teeth to him and the way each glided back up the sensitive skin of his shaft. Every beat of his heart had to be coming through the thick vein on the underside of his dick. If he could feel it, so could she.
At the head of his dick, she lapped her tongue along the slit, and then sucked on the tip until her lips popped off audibly. Earning her another one of those grumbly groans from Malachi because he’d once again lost his words.
“Didn’t you say we could both wash up?” he managed to ask.
Not that he didn’t like what she was doing, but Malachi hadn’t expected Gracen to follow him into the shower. She’d been halfway through a grilled cheese and glass of milk when he arrived, so he told her to finish eating while he jumped in the shower to wash off the road.
Or tried, anyway.
He’d barely gotten the water warm upstairs and stepped inside before she made her way to the bathroom. At least, he’d run a soapy washcloth over himself in the time it took her to undress and ease in behind him inside the small stall.
“We can both shower,” she reminded him with her hand tight around the base of his cock to keep the tight, fast strokes going. Root to tip. Tip to root. Her fingers flexed harder at the top and opened a little when she came back down to the bottom. It was enough to keep him hard and on a precipice of more, but then she slowed. “After.”
He hauled in a gulp of air.
It burned when he held the oxygen in his lungs.
Gracen smiled up at him, and her blue eyes—lashes dotted with droplets of the shower water—kept him in her sights. A wet, naked angel beneath him, he swore her stare challenged him to ask about the shower again when her lips lowered to his dick once more. Soft heat sucked him deep. Until her nose nuzzled into the dark pubic hair he kept trimmed neat.
“Holy fuck,” he breathed.
She played her hand well.
He didn’t make another peep.
Well, not about the shower thing.
Malachi’s back faced the water, his tingling spine being beaten by jets of hot spray while Gracen worked her magic on her knees. He was happy to let her do her thing while his fingers wrapped around the wet strands of her blonde hair. The French tips of her manicure found his hips, digging in only slightly as he jerked forward. Deeper into her throat. Hitting her gag reflex a bit.
It brought water to her eyes.
A tremble in her bottom lip.
She’d never looked more beautiful.
“Do you want me to fuck your mouth harder?” he asked, out of breath before the question was even finished. At this point, his control was nothing more than a joke. That was fine. Malachi enjoyed the way she took it from him. “Can I use you, babe?”
Malachi had become used to taking his bike on long trips, and the ache in his thighs that accompanied any drive longer than two hours was an old friend, now. Another thing the hot shower would have helped. If not for Gracen and her candy mouth made of sweetness and sin. The perfect mix.
The familiar pain didn’t register.
Or he simply didn’t care.
It was only her fingernails embedded into his hips that kept him waiting for her okay to take this a little farther. When her hands finally slid down to his upper thighs and her lips loosened as her mouth widened around his shaft, he found her permission. Gracen even tilted her head a bit sideways, so his first couple of hard thrusts into her mouth and down her throat would really hit the spot and tighten his balls.
Malachi’s grip in her hair tightened while he fucked her mouth while one of her hands dropped between her own thighs. He didn’t have a clear sight of how she played with herself, but the fast jerks of her wrist, and the way she whined around his dick did the job.
Shit.
He hadn’t expected the numbness in his spine to come on so quickly. Or the weakness in his knees.
“You gonna wear me?” he asked.
The question came at the right time. She had to know how close he was from the shaking of his hands and the stilted, final thrusts.
Gracen tried to give a nod.
The effort was all he needed, really.
If she was good, then he was great.
Malachi withdrew from Gracen’s mouth, but his cock didn't go far. She already had her head tipped back for him while he stroked himself to a finish, but his hand stayed tangled in her hair to keep her in place all the same. She hummed a happy sound when he finally spilled his seed across her mouth, the head of his dick painting the cum from one side of her lips to the other.
“I don’t know what to do with you looking like that,” he told her while she smiled back. A sexy sight with the way she used her thumb to clean him from her lips, sucking him off the tip of the digit.
Gracen had a good idea when she returned, “You can make me come.”
Yes, he absolutely could.
“Get up here,” he demanded, intertwining their hands.
Malachi pulled them both under the spray of the shower as they met with a kiss. His back found the wall while her hands danced across his chest. She flicked her tongue against his the same way she’d done to the head of his dick.
“You know what I like about this shower?” he asked her.
It wasn’t much. A corner stall with two tiled walls and glass doors. There certainly wasn’t enough space for two people even though they made it work. Her tub was bigger and better, especially for sex. Still, he’d noticed one thing to make the shower fun.
Gracen kissed a path along his jaw, asking, “What?”
“Have you ever tried the jet spray?”
Her gaze met his, but the confusion staring back from Gracen answered his question. Malachi couldn’t hold back the light laugh as he reached for the detachable shower head with adjustable spray. Gracen followed his every movement, including when he flicked the switch on the shower head to take it from several jet sprays to just one shooting straight from the middle.
“Turn around and lean into me,” he said.
Gracen did, snuggling her back into his chest while one of his hands explored her breasts. When he lowered the showerhead, and the first jet spray hit her closed thighs, she jumped with a little laugh.
“Easy,” she told him. “That might hurt—”
“Do you trust me?” he asked at the shell of her ear.
Then, he kissed behind the same spot.
Gracen opened her legs instead of answering. It took a few tries for Malachi to get the positioning of the shower head just right. Only a couple of inches away from her exposed clit when he used two fingers to spread her labia wide. The water wasn’t too hot, but a bump of his elbow against the handle turned the temperature down a single notch.
“Oh, my God,” Gracen gasped, her body tense and using the steadiness of him behind her to keep her upright the longer the jet spray pulsed against her clit. She even pressed her ass tight into his groin, keeping his cock at least half-mast. Almost ready for one more go. Her voice pitched higher when his teeth found the softness of her throat. “That’s gonna make me come.”
“Yeah?”
Gracen only nodded.
How many times had she stepped inside the shower to do her business but never knew the power of the shower head just a short arm reach away?
Malachi was happy to teach.
“Oh, please ...”
Malachi didn’t know what Gracen was begging for when her body practically crumpled down on itself in the next second. He caught her, even kept her thighs spread wide as she shouted her way into an orgasm that lasted fifteen seconds. He counted.
She trembled until
the very end, and looked all too pleased with herself when he finally replaced the shower head up above, and she turned around to snuggle into his chest.
They repositioned themselves out of the shower spray, and he even grabbed her loofah and bar of Ivory soap. She seemed happy to stay like she was, so at her back, he worked the loofah into a soapy ball.
“Didn’t know about that?” he asked.
Gracen shivered while he washed her back. “Nope. You’ve changed my showers forever.”
What could he say to that?
Malachi just laughed.
*
“Did you find the leather pouch in my bag, babe?” Malachi asked, leaning out of the en-suite bathroom. Only to find Gracen sitting on the edge of her bed still clutching the towel she’d wrapped around herself like a toga before leaving the bathroom. Her gaze lifted at his question, but she didn’t answer him because to her ear she held a phone. “Sorry.”
Gracen waved a hand. A silent no worries.
Her expression did not say the same.
“Are you sure that’s what he meant?” she asked the person on the other line.
Malachi cocked a brow, curious.
Gracen’s attention had gone back to her call, so she didn’t notice his change in expression. “Well, no, but I’m just asking, Delaney. It might have seemed threatening to you because of who it was, but—”
“Who threatened who now?” Malachi asked, no longer willing to stay silent. He tried, but that comment took his patience over the edge.
Her stare jumped to him again, but she only gave a subtle shake of her head in response. That wasn’t good enough for Malachi, but he let it pass while she was still on the phone.
A few seconds passed before Gracen rolled her eyes and said, “Yeah, he came early to surprise me ... okay, sure. I’ll be over in a few minutes, Delaney. Just relax, okay?”
Malachi crossed the bedroom to grab the overnight bag he’d tossed on the corner chair. It took him a quick dig through the folded shirts on the top to find his leather toiletry bag underneath. Keeping one hand on the towel at his waist, he produced the other for Gracen to see who nodded his way. She’d still not ended the call, though.
He didn’t head back for the bathroom.
