Page 47 of Malachi (Outsiders MC #1)

“I just want to feel safe,” she whispers.

I tighten my hold. “Then stay here. With me.” My voice comes out rough. Too much want behind it. Not lust—something deeper. Something I haven’t dared name.

She doesn’t answer. She doesn’t need to. Her body melts into mine, her fight finally giving her permission to rest. But after a breath, she pulls back just enough to look at me.

“There’s something else I can’t wrap my head around,” she says quietly, words tasting of weight held too long. “My mom. She’s alive.”

I say nothing. I don’t interrupt. Don’t rush her. I let her bleed it out, because sometimes speaking the truth is the only way it stops eating you alive.

“She’s part of it,” she says. “Not just hiding. Not just scared. She knew. About the auctions. About the girls. Me.” Her voice cracks, not loud, but sharp enough to slice the air between us. “She let it happen.”

I keep my arms around her, steady, even as something darker coils inside me. I’ve lived in the shadow of that ring for so long now; chasing ghosts, clawing through lies. And now her mother’s face sits among the rot. Another name. Another mask.

A whisper cuts through before I can stop it. Was she there for them, too? For my brother. My sister. I shove it down. This isn’t about me.

It’s her grief pressing through the seams now. Her voice quieter. “I keep trying to figure out why. What kind of mother does that?” Her jaw clenches, choking on the question. “What kind of mother hands her daughter over like that and still gets to wake up and breathe?”

She looks up at me then, eyes shining, not with tears, but with rage she’s too exhausted to carry.

I brush my thumb across her cheek. “You don’t have to understand her,” I say. “You survived her.”

She exhales slowly, and the sound is hollow. A break in her chest that finally let go.

For a moment, I want to take every lie her parents ever fed her and set it on fire. But I just hold her instead. Not because it fixes anything. But because it’s the only thing she’ll let me do.

“I want to take a shower,” she whispers, eyes searching mine. “Will you come with me?”

My heart stalls. I nod once, and she takes my hand.

The bathroom is quiet. Dim. The tile is still cool beneath our feet as she turns on the water, steam just beginning to gather at the edges of the mirror. She peels off her shirt slowly, still holding my gaze, then slides her underwear down and steps out of it with a quiet exhale.

When she steps under the stream, her shoulders relax just slightly, warmth sinking somewhere deeper.

I take a second longer before stepping in behind her, unable not to look—really look.

Every inch of her bare skin, slick and glowing beneath the water, sears itself into my memory.

The curve of her spine and shape of her hips.

The faint bruises still clinging to her thighs.

She’s breathtaking, bruised, and more mine in this moment than I’ve ever let myself imagine.

I strip quietly, eyes never leaving her.

Shirt first, then the rest, until there’s nothing between us but the rising steam.

My chest is tight, every motion deliberate, reverent.

I step in behind her, not touching at first. Not yet.

When I do, it’s careful. Intentional. My hands move over her arms, her back, her waist. They rinse away the blood, the grime, the weight of what she’s just lived through. Not her hair. Not her face. Just the body she lets me hold as something sacred. Because it is.

She turns then, water streaming down her shoulders, and looks at me with something approaching trust. Something I don’t take for granted. Her hands find my chest, palms warm and steady, and something in me cracks.

Her lips are on mine before I can speak. It isn’t rushed. Isn’t frantic. It’s slow. Devastating. The kind of kiss that unravels you cell by cell.

We don’t stumble. Don’t crash. We move with the certainty of two people meant to meet here. In heat and water. In reverence.

I press Candace gently against the wall, my hands at her hips. Her legs wrap around me, a motion that feels instinctual. When I push into her, slow and deep, she gasps my name.

She’s soft and slick and impossibly tight. Her body opens for me, complete trust pulsing in every breath she takes.

“Right here,” I murmur, voice ragged against her throat. “I’ve got you.”

Her nails bite into my shoulders. Her breath catches. I rock into her slowly, letting every inch feel like a promise I’ll never break.

She cries out when I hit deep. I stay there, just feeling her tighten around me.

Then I start to move with slow, shallow thrusts, each one angled with purpose, dragging across that spot inside her that makes her gasp and claw at my back.

I want her to feel every inch. Every intention.

I want her to know I’m taking care of her even here.

Her forehead rests against mine, and when I look into her eyes, I don’t see fear. I see her choosing me again.

When she comes—clenching, trembling, whispering my name like it’s the only word that matters—I follow with a groan that feels torn from somewhere buried inside me.

We don’t speak when the water cools. I turn it off, wrap her in a towel, carry her to bed.

There, wrapped in cotton and moonlight, I pull her close.

She doesn’t hum. Doesn’t cry. But I can feel it in the way she touches me. In the quiet way her thumb traces a slow, steady beat against my chest, writing lyrics into my skin.