Page 37 of Malachi (Outsiders MC #1)

Malachi

The bell over Coach Tompkins’ gym chimes as we step inside, the smell of old sweat, leather, and chalk coating the air, steeped in memory.

The scent clings to my tongue. Smells like dust stirred from a storm long gone but never forgotten.

Fluorescent lights buzz overhead, flickering with the erratic pulse of nerves under skin, and something about the way her shoulders stiffen tells me she feels it too.

We’re across town from the clubhouse, but the second she walks in, the space feels different. Charged. As if the room’s holding its breath, waiting to see which one of us will break first.

Candace moves with that clipped, purposeful energy she always has when she wants to avoid conversation. Her jaw is tight, her eyes sharp. Every movement is a measure of deflection. Controlled and deliberate, composing a melody in silence, each step a beat she can count.

Something has changed, shifted, since our dinner at Maggie and James’ house the other night.

She curls up in my arms every night when we go to sleep and brick by brick her walls are coming down around me.

The cracks are quiet but widening. They are there in the way she breathes easier when I don’t press, in the way she sometimes hums under her breath when she thinks I’m asleep. Off-key. Raw. Honest. And beautiful.

It’s becoming harder not to touch her the way my soul wants to, but I’m allowing this to go at her pace.

Giving her the control she needs since she hasn’t had it the majority of her life.

Still, my fingers twitch when she walks past, itching for the slope of her hip, the curve of her back, the soft place behind her knee where vulnerability lives.

Now she stands just a few feet away, shrugging off her hoodie, revealing that tight black sports bra and low-slung shorts that cling with sinful intent.

Her blonde curls are piled on top of her head in a messy ponytail, tendrils framing her face.

The air thickens, dense with something unspoken.

My throat dries. The stretch of her bare abdomen, the glow of sweat already forming along her collarbone.

Jesus . I want to sink my teeth into every inch of skin she leaves uncovered.

My jaw clenches. My hands flex. I don’t say anything. Don’t have to. The tension crackles between us, a static charge before the strike.

Coach Tompkins nods at us from his office, too busy with the clipboard he’s staring at to notice the silent war simmering between us. He doesn’t see the battlefield forming in the ring. But I do.

The gym is mostly empty, which is good. I don’t want an audience for this. This isn’t just a sparring match—it’s a reckoning.

She grabs a roll of wraps off the shelf and starts winding them around her hands.

She does it with mechanical precision, but there’s a rhythm to it.

It’s tight, practiced; a song without lyrics.

Her thumb taps the edge of the wrap in a beat I recognize now.

Four-count. Silent music. Her armor and her outlet.

I know she trained in karate with Coach Tompkins, but I’m sure he trained her in other forms of fighting since he specializes in training MMA fighters. She moves in a way only a woman who knows her own power carries. What kind of damage she can do. And fuck, it’s the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.

“Still remember how to throw a punch?” I ask, voice low. Teasing. The sound of my voice makes her shoulder twitch. She’s keyed up, wound tight. Exactly how I want her. Alive and furious.

Her eyes flick up to mine. Cold. Unimpressed. “I remember how to land one.” Damn. That’s my girl . Even her words land with the force of a strike.

She steps into the ring without waiting for me. No hesitation. No fear. The bounce in her step—controlled, fluid—sends a ripple of heat through my spine. She’s in her element. And I’m in mine.

Just that fire in her veins, the kind that made men underestimate her right before they hit the mat. Not me. I never underestimated her. I just didn’t know I’d crave the way she burns.

I follow. Let the ropes slap against my back as I slide through. They sting, but not as bad as the ache settling low in my gut.

She’s already bouncing on the balls of her feet, arms loose, with a smirk tugging at her mouth, daring me to take the bait. She’s baiting me. And I want to bite.

“You sure you wanna do this?” I ask.

“I need to hit something.”

“Could’ve picked a bag.”

“I wanted something that hits back.”

I grin. “You always have been a little feral.”

“Still am.” Her voice is a growl, low and throaty, and it sends heat licking down my spine.

Then she comes at me. Fast. Sharp. Her eyes catch fire, two matchheads striking in the dark. Her fist slices the air with control born from pain and practice.

Clean right jab, then a left hook that grazes my jaw before I catch her wrist and twist just enough to throw her off-balance. Her skin is damp beneath my palm. I feel her pulse—fast and furious—racing against my fingers.

She spins out of it, low and fluid, coming back with a kick that makes me stagger.

I laugh. Can’t help it. She’s good. Better than I expected. And fuck me, I’ve never been so turned on by almost getting knocked out.

“Coach Tompkins teach you that?” I ask, circling her, blood thrumming with the deep pulse of bass in my ears.

“No,” she says, breathless. “Life did.” Every word is a scar. A song lyric carved into bone.

We collide again, fists, elbows, and that flicker of tension that isn’t about the fight at all. Our bodies find each other with the pull of magnets: repelling, snapping back, too close to break free.

Every time we touch, every time I block her or pin her arm or twist her around, it feels the way striking a match barehanded would. Raw, hot, inevitable.

She feels it too. I see it. In the way her breath catches when I catch her waist. The way her body arches into mine when I slam her lightly into the ropes.

How her eyes burn when she shoves me back, chest heaving, face flushed, lips parted.

Her nipples strain against the sports bra. I look away. Too late.

“You keep looking at me like that,” I murmur, “and I’m gonna forget this is a sparring match.”

“Maybe I want you to.”

That stops me cold. Just for a second. My grip slackens. Her words ripple through me, a shot of whiskey—burning, welcome, unexpected. Long enough for her to land a hard palm strike to my chest and knock me off balance. She doesn’t hesitate. Doesn’t hold back. Good.

I stumble, more surprised than hurt, and she takes the opening to slam into me, knocking me onto the mat. Air punches out of my lungs, and heat floods in its place. She straddles me before I can recover, both knees pinning my arms, hands on my chest.

She’s breathing hard. So am I. We don’t move. Don’t speak. The silence between us is louder than fists. It’s the prelude to a song neither of us dares to write.

The sound of our breathing fills the room, thick and intimate. I can taste the fight on her. Salty. Electric.

Her hair has fallen loose, framing her face in a crooked halo.

There’s violence in her stillness, desire in her stare, all of it lit by sunlight.

And she’s on top of me. Sweat makes her skin glow, and her thighs press against my ribs with the pressure of a vise.

I could take her down. Easily. But I don’t. I never will. Not that way.

Not when she looks at me with that expression. Eyes caught between the urge to slap me or kiss me. Torn open in the same way I am.

“What are we doing?” she whispers.

My hands slide to her thighs. Tight grip. Not letting go.

“Burning,” I say. “Together.”

Neither of us moves. Because we both know if she leans down even an inch, I’ll taste her again. This time I won’t stop if I do.

She’s still on top of me. Thighs locked around my ribs, crushing the air from my lungs, but it isn’t the pressure making it hard to breathe.

It’s her. The feel of her weight. The heat rolling off her skin.

That fire in her eyes, wild and uncertain, straddling more than just my body. She’s straddling a choice.

Her hands slide from my chest, moving as if untethered, fingers curling into the fabric of my shirt. Not pulling away. Not letting go. Something in me caves. My control doesn’t snap, it crumbles slowly and inevitably, the way rock gives way to water.

“Say it again,” she whispers.

My voice is raw. “Burning.”

She leans down, just enough for her breath to brush my lips. Her mouth is so close I can taste the ghost of it. Sweat and peppermint gum. A clean, defiant sweetness. All her. My breath catches.

That little hitch in her breathing. Her heartbeat stuttering in sync with mine. The moment stretches taut between us—sweat, breath, longing. A fuse waiting for flame.

I can feel her thighs trembling. Just a little. Torn between running and grinding herself against me until she breaks. I want her to break. Right here. With me.

“You want this?” I ask, low, dangerous, reverent. “Or are you gonna hate me for it after?”

Her jaw clenches. “Don’t ask me that.” The words are armor. Worn thin.

“I need to.”

Her eyes flare, but she doesn’t pull back. “I don’t know how to want you without hating myself for it.” There’s a note in her voice. It’s shaky, shame-laced, and gut-wrenching. As if she’s used to flinching from what she wants.

Fuck . I close my eyes for half a second. Because that? That was the cruelest kind of truth. I feel it in my chest, deep and raw, a wound echoing in places I thought were already scarred over.

But when I open them again, she’s still there. Still on top of me. Still looking at me with that expression, the kind that says I’m the last man on earth she should want and the only one she does.