Page 34 of A Vow To Chase
Throat chop.
Nostrils.
He catches my hand before I get the last one out with any venom, laughing in the air and pulling me into his arms. “We wouldn’t want to kill me yet, Alice. I’ve hardly saved you so you can do that.”
“I don’t know. You seem to like me holding a knife to your throat quite a lot.”
“I like you considering my right to exist. It’s not the same thing at all.”
I stay in that moment. I stay there looking up at him in his tower and wonder what that means. All this around him and he’s choosing me to consider his right to exist. Doesn’t make much sense to me, but to him it seems to mean everything.
“I don’t know why you say that. I’m a no one, Malachi. Always have been.”
He runs his hand up my naked back, flicks the bra clasp, and then keeps going until he’s got hold of the back of my neck. “And yet, as you say, here we are. A rogue and a prince who’s besotted. You should have seen yourself walking down those stairs yesterday. You owned me every step of the way, Alice. Keep being that woman.”
He kisses me. Slowly. No rush or vigour, just soft calm lips using my mouth for both our pleasure. I sigh into it, let my tongue roam with his, as he picks me up and walks us somewhere. All I can feel is the protection of him, the dominance, the potency, and the sense of complete relaxation in his hold. I love it more with each day that passes.
Ineedit.
“You’re my every minute, Alice,” he says, as warm water gently sluices on my thighs. It gets deeper, to the point where we’re shoulder deep and I’ll probably go under if he drops me. “How do you feel about having the right to take my next minute from me if you choose to?” I look around us as the water ripples around, unsure how I feel about any such thing in the real world.
He ducks himself down, gets under the pool until he’s back up and drenched in water.
“I don’t know what that means out here,” I murmur, looking at him.
“It means I choose you. I choose you to make choices for me.” I blink, not understanding how a man like him, a man with all this, would choose someone so insignificant to wield power over him. “Perhaps then I’ll find reasons to stay.”
Light tears swell in my eyes, as I watch the water drip from his skin. “You’ll stay alive for me?”
“As long as you want me here. I can’t promise you’ll enjoy me all the time, but yes, Alice. For you. I’ll stay.”
I don’t know whether I’m shocked, or overwhelmed, but whichever it is, and whatever reason or place in time the words are coming from, I’m in. I know it with every beat of my heart. Freaky ass worlds. Him. The thought of running, and now not running. It all comes together in this moment.
My fingers thread into his hair, lips going back to his. It could be the truth, and it could also be a lie. Either way, for me it’s real and honest and I’ll believe it for as long as I choose to.
Chapter 15
Malachi
Morning comes with a slow slant of dappling colours lighting the room. I watch her sleeping, enjoying the feel of her tucked back in tight to me. I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed sleeping with someone next to me before her. If ever in Manhattan. This room is usually for me alone, and yet she’s become a fixture in it since we came back here.
She moves a little as I do, nuzzles her chin into the pillow and stretches her legs. The light begins to float over her face, then sends shards of colours over her skin to highlight both the cuts I put there and her tattoos. I trace my fingers over the scars under them, wondering what she was like as a seventeen year old. Hell fire, I would think. Nothing like me at the time back then.
“Do you need me to do something with that or can I sleep?” she murmurs. I chuckle lightly and keep easing my dick on her thigh.
“Depends what you’d do with it.”
“Eat it.”
My hand slides along her stomach, moving lower. “That sounds painful.”
“Mmm. I could get even.”
“I doubt it. I’ll choke you before that happens.”
“Such lovely words.”
I smile and let my fingers ease between her thighs, pulling her leg back until it’s hooked over mine. Slow and steady this morning, like last night. It was a revelation to me. Not the act, the feeling associated with it. The connection. We fused. Became one in a moment that is usually just me overriding someone else. She rode me. Held me. Teased and played with me and I let her. No drugs. No power play. No fucking anything other than feelings and need.