by S. L. Naeole
I wasn’t given any time to process what that meant before his hands came up to cup my face, holding me still so that I could focus only on him, and as I took in his features in the light I felt my body shudder. He’d always been almost painfully handsome to me, the kind that hurt your teeth from fighting the need to bite his lips, hurt your tongue from fighting the need to lick inside his mouth. But there was a raw pain in his eyes that stole at my heart and filled it with both fear and understanding. Cool, authoritative Mal was handsome. Fiery, sensual Mal was sexy. Vulnerable, hurt Mal was beautiful.
And then he started speaking, and my heart felt something else.
“The first thing I’m going to address is your concern about Hannah. You overheard a conversation between Ralph and Hannah that you didn’t understand, and that’s fine. I understand why you came to the conclusion you did. But if you had stayed behind to ask me about it I would have had Ralph explain. He knows that I would never fool around with Hannah. She is attracted to me, yes. But—and this is very important that you understand this part—she’s attracted to everyone with has a penis. She has an addiction to sex, which is why she works for me. Aside from the therapy sessions she attends, I keep her busy, occupied so that she doesn’t get into trouble. When she saw you with me, she saw you for what you are: someone—a woman—that is important to me. To her, that meant a challenge, and that challenge only makes her want me more. It’s part of her compulsion.
“What Ralph was talking about when he said he trusted us to not fuck it up was her trying to seduce me again because of it. I told them both that if she tried that I would have to let her go. I run an empire, Victoria, which means my assistant cannot be trying to get into my pants when I need her to organize my schedule, compile the spreadsheets I need, assemble the PowerPoint slides that have been sent to me by my department heads regarding our project progression.
“But when she gets it into her head to sleep with someone, she throws everyone and everything else aside and they suffer. Family, work, personal relationships. She’s an addict which means all she’s thinking about is getting her fix. She doesn’t think about the consequences, immediate or otherwise, and one of those consequences will be that Ralph will never forgive her. When they met she was at her worst, and so was he. He’d just lost his first wife to cancer and thought his world was ending. In Hannah, Ralph saw a chance to help someone after feeling completely helpless with his first wife. He had no intention of falling in love with her, but he did. And I vowed when he introduced me to her to help them, to help keep her from ruining the both of them.
“And that’s not a vow I could make if I’d slept her, Victoria. So let me answer another one of your questions: No, I did not sleep with Hannah nor have I ever wanted to. I haven’t slept with anyone in my office, either. I’ve never even been on a date with any of the women in my office, so please put that worry to rest.
“As to why I didn’t introduce you to Hannah or the receptionists, it’s because I’m utterly selfish and completely protective of you. I knew the receptionists would be catty, particularly because I’ve never dated any of them. I also knew Hannah would sense a threat and start shit. And I didn’t want you to deal with any of that. I’m trying to ease you into my life as slowly as possible because I don’t want to overwhelm you. I don’t want to frighten you away when all I want to do is keep you by my side always.”
My heart swelled at his words, my breaths slow and even paced so that I don’t start panicking because I’d overreacted and almost ruined things.
“Which brings me to another question of yours. Yes, everything I said to Ralph about you working with me was true. I’m sorry that you were hurt when I laughed at your comment about working with me, and I’m sorry that what I said about no one asking you to work for me was taken the wrong way. I phrased it wrong and that is my fault.”
He kissed my forehead and brushed his mouth down one side of my face before kissing lightly at the tip of my nose. “If I knew that you could be happy working with me, I’d have you by my side in a heartbeat. The idea of having you with me, I can’t even begin to express how happy that would make me. But I know you wouldn’t be happy. I know you need your privacy, your escape. I even know you need your darkness. And I would never ask you to give any of that up just because I wanted to see more of you.
“The sacrifice would have to be mine, not yours, sweetheart, and that’s a sacrifice I’m more than willing to make for you and for us.”
For us. For us.
We shifted then, as he spread his thighs out and pulled me to the floor between them, pulling me back to lean into his chest as he leaned against the side of my bed. One of his hands smoothed through my hair while the other trailed down my arm to seek out my hand. He twined his fingers with mine and then tilted his head down so that his hazel eyes were locked with the brown irises of mine.
“Now this last part is what bothers you the most, and so I’m going to need you to remember what I told you about trust. I’m going to need you to listen and not jump to conclusions. I’ve only told one other person about this, Victoria; only one other person in my life knows and now I’m going to tell you because I trust you implicitly.
“All the women I’ve supposedly slept with, all the stories your friends might have told you—none if it is true.”
Shock ran through me as surely as if I’d stuck my finger in a light socket. “What do you mean, none of it is true?”
“I mean that I haven’t slept with any of the women that have been tied to me. I haven’t had sex with any of them.”
And sure enough, doubt acted like a battering ram and pounded at my brain. “But you’re the pussy collector,” I blurted, hating the fact that I was saying it and the fact that I was saying it about him. Because that’s what he was called. That’s what he was known as. I’d never actually searched it up because I didn’t want visual confirmation, but even he’d confirmed it. Why deny it now?
As if he could hear my thoughts, Mal nodded, but the truth in his steady gaze never faltered. “That’s what people call me, yes. But it’s not because I’ve had sex with any of the women. Most of the time I leave them with the understanding that nothing was ever going to happen between us. But—and this may come as a surprise—some women hate rejection just as much as men do, and they stoop to the same tricks to save face, so they said they slept with me. They told their girlfriends. They told their hairdressers, their co-workers, their bosses, their husbands, their boyfriends, the press. They told whomever they could that they’d slept with me, that they’d dated me. None of it was true, not a word. I never went home with them. I never stayed in a hotel with them—” this told through gritted teeth “—I never had sex with any of them.”
There was a moment where I still didn’t understand what he meant, and I felt almost outraged because of it. Was he really denying it now, after claiming it before? Was he really trying to tell me that all those women—including Holly—were lying? How could a man who had that much sex deny being with those women? But then things started to click into place and my frustration and confusion gave way to shock and disbelief, because what else can one feel? “You’re telling me that you’re a…that you haven’t…”
“I’m telling you that I’ve never had sex with anyone, Victoria.”
Fighting the need to shout “bullshit”, I instead asked him why he still hadn’t had sex, and why he was content to let the world think he was one of the biggest manwhores on the planet. Maybe if he explained to me instead of just expecting me to take him at his word I could, because let’s face it: a man known all across the country as the Pussy Collector doesn’t earn that title because of his puritan lifestyle.
His long, rattling sigh told me plainly that he already knew I didn’t believe him. “Would you believe me if I said it was because I just haven’t found the right woman?” When my head shook from side to side, he tensed. “Well, that’s the truth, Victoria. Whether you believe it or not.”
But I didn’
t believe it.
I couldn’t believe it.
Because if he was telling the truth about being a virgin then that meant Holly was lying. A million strange women lying about having sex with Mal was one thing—maybe I could believe that since I obviously knew Mal better than I did them. But Holly was my friend. This wasn’t like when Lara told us that she was married to Idris Elba and was having his triplets. We knew it wasn’t real because let’s face it: Idris Elba is a man-god and completely unobtainable by mere mortal women. With Mal, he was clearly obtainable, so why wouldn’t women claim to have sex with him if everyone would automatically believe it?
Shit.
That’s what it was, wasn’t it? It didn’t matter if it was true or not because people would automatically believe it. There didn’t need to be proof. All that mattered was that he was involved. I could run around screaming to the wind that Michael Alan Lachlan had given me an orgasm in one of the elevators in his office building and people would believe me, not because I was trustworthy, not because I was hot and totally his type—which I so wasn’t—but because I’d said it had happened—with him.
So who had more to lose by being honest—the women who lied about having sex with the manwhore because he’d rejected them? Or the man who said he wasn’t one because he was a virgin?
Another question popped into my head. “If you’ve never had sex with other women, then how do you know…how are you so…with me, when we…how…” I couldn’t get the question out, my cheeks already lit up with heat and embarrassment. Thankfully he understood what I was trying to say. Pulling my hand to his mouth, he pressed a kiss against the tips of my fingers and nipped at them.
“I’m a virgin, not unfeeling or ignorant, Victoria. I’ve kissed other women. I’ve…done things with other women. But when it comes to wanting to go beyond those certain things, I never felt the desire or the need. I’ve never felt the loss of control or the need to give it up completely. Not until you.”
Oh.
“When I’ve been with other women it’s always felt like a timer ticking down in my head and I’m just waiting for it to go off so I can leave. It didn’t matter how attracted I was to them. It didn’t matter how attracted they were to me. It didn’t even matter how good I felt. Something just didn’t click in here—” he pulled my hand to his chest, against his heart “—and that’s what mattered more than getting off.”
My fingers extended to feel his bare chest, feel the heat radiating out from his heart, and my blood fizzed as I meshed the fact that his chest was bare, with the knowledge that is thighs were as well. His naked thighs that were under me. “But it clicks with me.” My voice was soft. Almost breathless.
Mal shifted my body once more, one hand circling my waist, the other still tangled with mine. And with that shift that final missing piece fell into place and a frisson of heat worked its way up my spine as I felt him, hard and smooth and blissfully naked against my thigh. His eyes closed for the span of two breaths, his inhale sharp and deep as he adjusted to this new sensation.
His eyes opened and trapped me in dark honey. “Sweetheart, what we’ve got is so much more than a click. From the moment you spoke to me I knew there was nothing more wrong in the world than for me to not be with you. To think that all this time, all this time that I’ve seen you, admired your work, admired you. You have been right under my nose this entire time and I simply didn’t take the time to speak to you.”
“I probably wouldn’t have spoken to you anyway,” I muttered.
“Perhaps,” he agreed. “Or perhaps you would have fallen in love with me instantly and we could have spent the past few years together.”
“Is that how it works? I would’ve fallen in love with you at the first hello and you would’ve known I was the one that held the access code to your virginity card?” I joked, but his face was serious, his mouth turned down disapprovingly.
“Sweetheart, haven’t you been listening this whole time? The first time I touched you I knew that I loved you.”
He loved me.
And he’d known this whole time.
Holy shit.
“But if you love me, why’d you go all arctic when Ralph pointed it out?” I couldn’t help the question. Mal might have known for weeks that he loved me, but I hadn’t recognized my feelings for what they were until we were in his office, and then he’d killed all my joy at the revelation when he had become a walking iceberg at the mere mention of loving me. As if the very idea made him want to get a rabies shot.
He smiled softly and pressed a kiss to the tops of both my cheeks. “Because I’ve never been in love before, and I didn’t want to talk about it with my friend in front of his jealous wife before I’d declared it to you first. Call me old-fashioned in that sense but I thought that the first time you heard me saying that I loved you, it would be directed to you and not to someone else.”
Black and white spangles started scattering across my eyes, a sign that I should’ve taken a breath—or eight—by now. Sucking air into my lungs slowly, I then exhaled, two words coming out as I did so. “Tell me.”
Loosening his hand from mine, he cupped my face and looked so deeply into my eyes I could feel the gaze tickle my heart. His voice was reverent, my heart was thunderous.
“Victoria, I love you.”
I wanted my voice to sound airy, dreamy as I told him that I loved him back. Instead, it came back as a blubbery croak as I sobbed into his shoulder that I loved him, too. As a romantic declaration of love, it failed snotastically. But as his arms slid around me, I knew that it had just as much impact on him. On us.
Us.
“Oh sweetheart, that’s the best thing you could have ever told me,” he murmured into my hair.
We were quiet for a while, his breaths and mine mingling into one cohesive sound. When I finally spoke, it was to ask a question. “The other person that knows about you. It’s Ralph, isn’t it?” I waited for him to nod before I let the last piece click into place. “That’s the real reason why she works for you; Ralph knows that the one place his wife was safe from falling off the wagon was with you.”
He remained quiet, which allowed me to think about how much Ralph must trust Mal, how much trust you had to have in a person in order to do something like that. That kind of trust was hard earned, but so easily betrayed, and yet Mal had never done so. And he believed me capable of that same level of trust, gave it to me freely.
Me.
The untouchable one.
I don’t know when I fell asleep, or how I even ended up back on the bed, but when I woke up several hours later, the weight of his arm over my hip and the feel of my leg tucked between his filling me with such contentment, I knew that I never wanted to wake up any other way again for the rest of my life. He loved me. He loved me. Michael Alan Lachlan loved me. Screwed up, crazy, neurotic, damaged me. My entire world had shifted on its axis at the words and I never wanted it to shift back. Let me walk crookedly for the rest of my life; I didn’t care because he loved me.
Smiling at his sleeping form, I eased myself away from his embrace, letting my eyes take in his beautiful and relaxed face, the wide expanse of his shoulders, the muscled planes of his chest, flat brown nipples, rippled abs, the chiseled lines at his hips that pointed down to his—
Holy fuck.
Ho-ly-fuck.
Shit. Even my thoughts are stunned.
For eight years there was one thing I knew I never wanted to see with my waking eyes ever again; there was enough terror in my dreams. I’d skip over the parts that described it in my romance novels, shut my eyes during movies or television shows that had no problem with full-frontal male nudity, and avoided the discussion of things like vibrators and dildos with my friends because the very thought of one turned my blood icy and my brain into black, impenetrable goo.
But there it was, laying proudly against Mal’s thigh and it was…beautiful. Intimidating despite its docile and supine posture, like a sleeping tiger; ready to strike at the fi
rst sign of weakness. It was everything that I had been afraid of, everything I had avoided for the better part of a decade, and yet I wasn’t afraid at all. Not when it was his, attached to the man I loved, the man that loved me.
It was paler than the rest of him, the tip of it smooth and bulbous with a small, moist slit cutting down its center. Tapering, the soft, velvety looking shaft sat beneath a lip of skin, curling and stretching across his thigh until it reached a nest of dark hair. Beneath the mat lay his sac, the pinkish brown gathering of skin that held within it his testicles. The layers of this man’s private parts were both strangely fascinating and wholly arousing, and it was a struggle for me to turn around and leave the bed but I did. I tiptoed to my dresser and pulled out a pair of lounge pants from a drawer. Slipping them on I quietly left my room and closed the door behind me before heading to the kitchen to scrounge up some breakfast.
Lara and Kara were both sitting at the counter, mugs of coffee in their hands. “You don’t look well fucked,” Lara mumbled as she chewed a blueberry muffin.
“Definitely not,” Kara agreed before snatching some of her sister’s muffin and stuffing the bite into her mouth.
“I would suppose not since we’re not having sex.” Yet. I walked to the fridge and took a peek inside. There were eggs and some sweet sage sausage. Perfect.
“So he sleeps over, but you guys don’t do it,” Lara stated, as if trying to explain it to herself. “How? I mean, what the hell were you doing in there if not learning all the ways to map your vagina with his penis? If it had been me, I’d let him play Lewis and Carrol all over my body.”
It was impossible to stop it, so I let the smile creep across my face. “We snuggled.”
Placing the eggs and sausage on the counter, I reached up to the pot rack and took down a small skillet. Kara watched me and shook her head. “She’s making him breakfast; they definitely snuggled.”
