by Cari Quinn
Her pussy clenched and she gasped, rocketing up to clutch at the pillow with her injured arm. Pain flashed over her face and he backed off, but it didn’t matter. She kept right on coming, her arousal thick and sweet when he had to take another lick.
She bucked against his face, shameless in riding out every second before she slumped back down and heaved out a breath. “God. God. God.”
“Malachi. Malachi. Malachi.” He rose and reached behind his head to yank off his shirt. He tossed it on the floor and took a long moment to look at her, all sprawled across the bed and still eyeing him hungrily. Gaze locked on hers, he leaned across her to bite her exposed nipples, following up the sting of his teeth with a slow suck.
She gripped his head, holding him to her as she tried to undo her bra. He did the honors for her, helping her with her tank and the lacy contraption. The cups flew open, allowing him to cup them. Perfect size. The flesh overflowed his hands as he nipped and licked, edging back every time she started to pant.
When she was squirming again, he shifted away to head to the closet. Even that much movement nearly killed him.
“You’re an evil man.”
He opened the door and grabbed the four pillows he’d seen earlier. Turning around, he had to take a long breath at the sight of Ricki on her belly on the bed, her ass in the air, her chin on her hand as she watched him. “Now I’m curious. Also, I want a striptease.” She pulled up the pillow beside her hip. “Oh, and um…” She trailed off, poking at the hole she’d made in the pillowcase. “Think we’re gonna lose our deposit.”
Not laughing was impossible. “Especially since this is now mine.” He whipped the pillowcase off the pillow and tossed the pillow at the head of the bed.
“You’re keeping that?”
“Mmm-hmm.” He folded it up and threw it toward his duffel bag, stashed on a chair in the corner. Then he stepped toward her and undid her messy ponytail, freeing her hair so that it spilled every which way. “When you gonna go back to blond for me?”
“For you? Hmm, probably never. For me, though? Soon.” She peeked up at him from under the dark fringe hanging half over her face, her expression telling him she was just teasing. She’d be doing it for him too.
“Probably when you’re getting your striptease.” He dumped the pillows on the bed, giving a quick look at the exposed beams of the four-poster bed that was a new addition to the room. His grandmother had apologized that its curtains weren’t set up yet, but he had no complaints.
He intended to put it to good use.
“You play hardball.” She sat up on her knees, her long hair playing peekaboo with her breasts as she stared. “Just hard in general.”
He undid his belt, taking his time. Pulling the leather free from the loops, winding it around his hand. She studied his every move, including when he dropped it to the nightstand. She was still recovering, so there’d be nothing like that tonight. But maybe someday.
Maybe.
Next, he undid the button and zipper of his jeans before pushing them and his boxers off along with his socks and shoes. Straightening, he stopped still at the ravenous expression she wore. She was eating him up—and she didn’t need her hands.
“Christ. You want this to go as fast as last time? Keep looking at me like that.”
Wordlessly, she ran her hand up her belly to cup her breast. For the first time, he really looked at her, taking in every detail. Fading cuts and bruises marred the pale flesh of her injured arm, but not unattractively. They were the battle scars of a survivor. She had a few scattered tattoos—a butterfly, music notes wrapped around a guitar on her ribs, a swirl of ink and words in Latin under the curve of one of her tits. More faint wisps of color appeared underneath her upper arm as she thumbed her nipples.
Nothing like the dense ink that covered his arms, chest, and back. But the delicacy suited her. Just as the carnal need in her eyes did, beckoning him forward to grasp a handful of her dark hair.
“I’m not an easy man.”
Her throat bobbed as she swallowed. Her hand never stilled on her breast. “Already know that.”
“Not out of bed, not in. I don’t know how to be gentle.”
“You think? I bet you could surprise yourself.” She leaned forward and found his lips with her own, making a soft sound of arousal at the taste of herself. He licked her tongue as she’d licked his, simply to taste her there too.
A grunt was the only answer he could give.
Goddamn, he didn’t know if he would survive actually getting inside her. How could he have her and walk away?
He couldn’t. He fucking could not.
She touched his scruffy cheek, rubbing her thumb over his wet mouth. “Just like you’re surprising me.”
Chapter Nineteen
“On your back. Pillows beneath your shoulder.”
Elle tilted her head. Sure, he couldn’t be gentle. Except he never forgot her injuries for a second. “First time and all, we’ll do it your way.”
Another grunt. Since she was about to get every inch of that glorious cock inside her—even if she still didn’t quite know the full logistics of that yet—she wasn’t going to ask for more.
Once she’d obliged him, he grabbed another pillow and shoved it under her ass. Her eyebrow raised at that one. She was pretty much a freak between the sheets, but even she didn’t go for backdoor sex on the first night.
When one wasn’t enough, he slipped another under her back, so that she was fully propped up against the headboard. This would still hurt her arm. She understood that and accepted it. Still riding high on the endorphins of really good orgasms, she’d take the risk.
Even if he was standing beside the bed, stroking his length and staring at her as if he intended to eat her whole.
Whoops, he already had.
He pulled a condom out of his wallet, rolling it on with the efficiency of someone who’d had plenty of practice. She didn’t like thinking about that, especially now, but she preferred to think he’d had lots of training.
Except for eating pussy. Which holy shit, if that was him without much repetition…
“Only one time before,” she said thoughtfully, idly toying with her nipple while she took in his priming routine. Not that he needed any. Good Lord, she was already wincing at the idea of walking tomorrow. “You sure about that?”
“Very.”
“So what did you think?”
“I think I’m going to love making you cream on my dick like you did my mouth. Now quiet.”
She might not have obeyed if he hadn’t planted a foot on the bed. Oh no, he wasn’t going to roll on and start with some easy missionary.
He’d warned her.
She sucked in a breath as he loomed over her, drawing up to his full height. Christ, he was massive in all ways. “You know, maybe we should start slow—”
He grabbed her hip and flipped her on her belly, managing to do it so she landed mostly on her good side. There was a pinch of pain, but it was swiftly dwarfed by the feel of him squeezing her ass. One cheek then the other, before giving each a sharp slap. She was already hot from before, and the smacks to her skin just revved her engine more. She rose up on her knees, offering him more, tossing him a glance over her shoulder to let him know she was right there with him.
“Like that, do you?” He did it again, harder this time, using one hand to wrap her hair around his hand as he drew her up.
It was then that she realized the glass of the framed bucolic winter scene over the bed offered quite the nice reflective surface—just enough for her to see him crouched over her, manhandling her in a way that set her body on fire.
“Like watching yourself too, huh?” His mouth was at her ear and his other hand was on her ass, sculpting it before giving her a few more taps. Then he delved between her cheeks, slipping down to stroke her soaked pussy, his groan revealing exactly how wet she was.
As if she couldn’t feel it on her thighs.
Two fingers pushed inside her.
Not carefully this time. It was all rough, hard thrusts, preparation for what she knew was to come. His hand in her hair grew more brutal, tugging her head back as he pushed her down, skimming her diamond-hard nipples over the nubby fabric of the pillowcases.
“Let’s see how fast you can come now, little Ricki.”
She didn’t have time to process his usage of that full nickname before he was replacing his fingers with his dick. Not slowly either. The broad head of his cock teased her slippery flesh. Circling once, twice, before he shoved his way in, making her pussy accede to him as if there was simply no other option. She cried out, and when she couldn’t reach the pillow because of his hold on her hair, bit her own arm. The damaged nerves higher up sparked to life, but she could barely feel the pain. There was just him inside her, taking over. Opening her up for him in a way she wasn’t sure she’d ever been fucked before. It wasn’t just the mechanics. She’d been done doggy-style in the past. It was the way he…conquered her. Mastered her.
Owned her from the first fucking stroke.
As much as she liked watching their shadowy, dirty figures in the glass, she couldn’t stay upright on her knees. He wanted her down anyway. He was poised behind her, hammering into her like a guy would oh, a few months in. Not the first time. The first night when everything was so new and perilous.
But Mal didn’t do anything like any other man she’d ever known.
She pressed her face into the pillows, turning her head to gasp for breath. She might’ve begged for mercy, if she’d truly wanted any. She didn’t. This was exactly what she’d needed. Not to be treated as if she was fragile glass. To be fucked as if she could withstand anything, hell, exalt in it, because she was so unimaginably strong.
Right here and now with him, she was.
She could be unbreakable, and he knew it. Was honoring it without giving her pretty words she wouldn’t believe.
The first climax slammed through her, shaking her to her foundations. Her knees went out from beneath her, but he didn’t stop. He shifted, he changed the angle, but he didn’t pause. He used her for his own pleasure and made it hers. Took hers and made it his.
When he turned her over and grappled for the pillows, pushing them under her ass again, raising her hips to him, she flailed out her arm, reaching for—
He grabbed her hand and brought it to his mouth. That abrupt kiss on her knuckles pulled her out of the moment and dropped her back down, leaving her reeling. He let her go and loomed above her again, drawing her legs up as he reached above him for the arched naked canopy of the bed frame. She couldn’t even gasp as he came down again, finding her and sinking inside with a groan that was part torture and part victory. He used the bed frame for leverage, somehow rocking into her again and again from that higher-than-normal angle, making each pass so deliciously long and deep. Her legs coiled around him and he drew her up, up, putting more pressure on her shoulders than she should be. She would be so sore tomorrow. Head to toe.
But she wasn’t numb. She could feel everything. Every incredible inch as he spread her open and made room for himself as if she’d been empty all this time.
One of his big hands moved down to cup her breast. He pinched her nipples, shifting between them, before applying that focused attention on her clit. She was so past the point of sensitivity that just a flick made her shudder. She couldn’t come again. It wasn’t physically possible. But his cock was hitting that spot inside her he’d sought with his fingers, and his bulging, tattooed arms were swimming in her vision. She wanted to watch him fuck her, touch her, possess her, but her lids were too heavy and the endless thrusts of his cock inside her too devastating. Holding on was more than she could manage.
And if she let go, he would catch her. She had no doubt.
“Eyes on me. Fucking now.”
She whimpered, half from his onslaught and half because she didn’t think she had the strength to comply. But it was worth it, because that intense darkness enveloped her as their gazes clashed and clung. His head was scraped and raw, and she’d done that to him. This big, powerful man, she’d marked just as he was marking her. Imprinting her from the inside out.
“Malachi.” His name felt good on her tongue, even if it took her last breath to say it. Watching his pupils flare and his jaw lock as he grew almost imperceptibly inside her, the final warning that he was right there too.
This time, they’d go over together.
She waited for his demand, but he didn’t give one. So she did.
“Come for me,” she whispered, squeezing him so tightly he couldn’t ever leave. A fantasy, for sure, but a beautiful one.
Beautiful nightmare.
The recognition slammed into her even as the orgasm did, quaking through her body even as her mind whirled. She couldn’t process, couldn’t even breathe. Because he was right behind her, his big shoulders shuddering as he drew back and sank home one last time, holding, holding, until he exploded inside her and brought her along one more time.
“Ricki.” Her name was a chant.
A blessing.
A memory she’d never lose again.
In the aftermath, the world seemed to go still. Not her. She was quaking inside and out. Her heart most of all.
For a second, he didn’t move. He still gripped one of the overhead arches, and she wondered how it hadn’t splintered from the force of his thrusts. His huge arms were visibly tensed as his body trembled. He was trying to hold himself motionless and failing.
And she couldn’t wait another second.
“It was you,” she breathed, and his beautiful eyes popped open. “Beautiful nightmare.”
His jaw, so slack a moment before, clenched again. He didn’t respond.
“I k-kissed you. Years ago. Before the band, before any of it. It was you.”
He went down on his knees, and it was like watching a redwood crumple. He just folded in on himself, still partially inside her, and drew her up into his arms. She wanted to be mad. To demand answers.
But she just wrapped herself around him—damn the pain—and held on.
After a minute or five, he took care of the condom and disposed of it, then came back to the bed and pulled her close.
“You remember.” He cupped the back of her head and brought it to his shoulder. “You remember.”
She nodded, pressing her face into his hot, damp skin. She sucked in a breath of the peppermint body wash from the rental house that he’d claimed to hate yet had brought with him to Teagan’s. Now that smell was on her too. He was all over her, all around her.
The sob rolled through her and she pushed away from him so she didn’t choke. He held her fast, keeping her close, tipping his head against hers as if he could take some of her pain away.
He didn’t even understand why she was crying. How could he, when she wasn’t sure herself?
“You never forgot. All this time, you k-knew.”
He nodded, his eyes bleaker than she’d ever seen them. “I knew. I never forgot. Not for a second.”
“I was fucking high.” She pushed away from him, harder now, so ashamed of herself that she didn’t know how he could stand to look at her, never mind touch her. “How much of my life have I lost because I don’t remember? Because I just didn’t know? No wonder you h-hated me.”
“I never hated you.”
She let out a laugh that ended in more tears. Of course, she was crying. She might feel strong for a few minutes, but reality always came crashing down.
“You thought I was hot, I guess? That made up for me needing your rescuing even then. Dumb, high little Ricki, never able to save herself. How did you stumble on me anyway? Coincidence? Bad luck? Our twisted fate?” She laughed and this time it was too bitter to bring on more tears. Her face was a mess of them anyway.
He turned his head, and her heart squeezed. “How, Malachi?” she asked sharply.
He didn’t answer for so long she was sure he wouldn’t. Another part of saving her from herself meant keeping the tru
th from her. All kinds of truths that she wasn’t strong enough to handle.
No one believed she could be strong. Not even herself.
Especially herself.
“Lila sent me to find you,” he said, and his voice was hollow.
As hollow as her chest.
“Lila,” she repeated. “Why?”
“Because you’re Nick’s,” he said simply, and that almost was enough to ease the pain just waiting to hijack her completely. She’d kept it at bay these weeks, but now here was the perfect excuse to break.
Unless maybe it was just family. Lila had worried about her, and she’d asked Mal to help.
Except Mal hated her. From the role she’d played in his parents’ breakup, or was there more?
She gripped his chin and made him look at her. The more was all over his face.
“She made you do it,” she said quietly. “You didn’t want to. Why would you? You didn’t know me. I was just some anonymous druggie.”
“You were never that to me. Not for one fucking minute. From the very first, I was—”
“What?” When that didn’t make him answer, she shook him. Hard. He barely flinched. “What was I to you? A payday? A way to get Lila off your back?”
“Both of those things. I didn’t know you. You said it yourself. And she’s always known what buttons to push and wheels to turn to get her way. You wanted to know why I had my issues with dear, sweet Lila? Now you have another answer. She’s a game player just like Lewis. Oh, they might have good reasons to do it, but they’re schemers nonetheless.”
Elle shoved at his massive shoulders, but he didn’t move. “I need space.”
“Yeah, well, you’re not getting it right now. You want me to be honest, you’re going to sit here and listen, not run off half-cocked before I’ve gotten it all out.”
“Why is everything some big secret? First, I find out Nicky had to make some big agreement with her to take my spot in the band if I fucked up—not if, when. Now this.” Elle wiped at her damp cheeks. “She sent you after me specifically, why? Because she had leverage?”
