Page 56 of Malachi (Outsiders MC #1)

Malachi

“If I touch you right now, I won’t stop.” I say it in a low, rough voice dragging up from somewhere deep. Her breath hits my lips like a promise. Warm. Shaky. Real.

When she whispers, “Good,” everything in me detonates.

Quietly. Completely. Every wall I ever built crumbles at her feet.

Not from rage. Not from pure hunger. But from need.

A need that lives in my bones. That has been there since the first time she looked at me with veneration that makes sin feel holy.

I dip my forehead to hers, trying to slow the riot inside my chest, but it’s useless.

Her skin is soft against my hands, too soft for this world.

Warm with the comfort of the first fire of winter.

Her scent wraps around me, a drug; vanilla, citrus, a trace of salt from her skin.

Fuck, I never want to breathe anything else again.

The air between us thickens. I can taste her already, need laced with defiance. Sweetness burned at the edges. My thumbs stroke slow circles over her hips in muscle memory, a touch carved from dreams I’ve had a hundred times before.

“Sour Patch,” I rasp, “you’re about to regret telling me that.”

But she doesn’t back down. Doesn’t blink. “I doubt it.”

Fuck. Me.

My mouth crashes into hers, settling a score that never had words. She meets me with that familiar fire, lips fierce, fingers tracing the curve of my chest, featherlight, daring me to give her everything and warning me she’ll take it even if I don’t.

We kiss in hunger. Starving. Already half-destroyed and past the point of caring. I kiss her in a way that tries to rewrite every rough moment we’ve ever shared. She clings to me, maybe hoping I’ll do just that.

When I pull back just enough to look down at her, my breath catches.

She’s wrecked. Beautiful. Barely hanging on.

Blonde curls fan out over my pillow, wild gold scattered across black.

Lips parted, kiss-bitten. Her eyes—fuck, those eyes—shimmer in the dark, stormy with want and wariness and something else.

Something that holds too much trust. A trust I haven’t earned.

But fuck if I won’t spend the rest of my life trying.

I kiss her jaw, her throat, the hollow behind her ear, and feel the shiver roll through her as though it starts in me. She smells of heat. And something sacred.

“Tell me to stop,” I whisper, dragging my hand down the curve of her waist, fingers trembling where they rest just above her hip. My voice comes out rough—more challenge than question. A dare.

She doesn’t. She just lifts her hips toward me, lips brushing my ear, voice a whisper wrapped in fire. “I don’t want you to stop.”

I strip her slowly. Lovingly. My hands tremble.

Not from hesitation, but from restraint.

From the pressure of knowing this isn’t just another night, another fix.

This is her, finally open, unshielded, laid bare in every way that matters.

My palms skim up the backs of her thighs, feeling the goosebumps rise in their wake.

I kiss each one, slow, deliberate, until she squirms, hips twitching as her body chases more of me.

And fuck if that doesn’t make something in my chest unravel.

Her skin is fire under my mouth. I mouth the inside of her knee, then higher. Soft gasps escape her lips, breath hitching as I brush my teeth over the tender spot at the crease of her thigh.

“Malachi,” she whispers, desperate, breathy, mine.

I look up, taking in the sight of her. Tank top bunched around her ribs, flushed, wrecked just from my mouth, my hands.

Blonde curls tangled around her shoulders, a wild halo.

I hook my fingers into the hem and peel the fabric over her head, slow, baring her completely.

Her nipples are already peaked, tight with need, and when I suck one into my mouth, she arches off the bed with a strangled cry.

“You feel everything, don’t you?” I rasp against her chest. “You fight me every step, but your body? Your body fucking begs.”

Her fingers dig into my shoulders. “I don’t beg.”

I tilt my head, drag my gaze across her flushed chest, the defiance in her jaw, the quake in her thighs.

And I smile, slow, dangerous. “Yes, you do,” I murmur, voice dark and low, every word a drag of heat against her skin.

“You begged for me in the garage, remember? Desperate, breathless, fucking wrecked. But don’t worry, Sour Patch… I’ll remind you exactly how it feels.”

I don’t touch her. Not yet. Her breath hitches, sharp and soft, the danger in my voice melting her bones. I watch her eyes darken, her thighs press together, a flush blooms down her chest.

“That’s not fair,” she breathes, voice hushed, wrecked. “You know what that does to me.”

I lean in just enough for my words to feather across her lips. “Yeah. I do. And I love it.”

I sit back on my heels and look at her. Laid out. Glowing. Breathing hard, already undone before I even begin. She tries to hide it, but her legs shift. Her hips roll. As if her body can’t stand being untouched for more than a few seconds.

“You know,” I say, voice low, fingers tracing lazy lines up her thighs without giving her what she wants, “I think you enjoy pretending you can resist me.” She swallows. Tight. Silent.

I drag my hands higher, just the backs of my knuckles skimming her skin. She shivers.

“You act like you’re not desperate. Like you don’t dream about this every night. About me…” I lean down, my mouth brushing her belly. “On top of you, in you. Taking you apart. Putting you back together.”

She lets out a sharp breath, hands clutching the sheets like they might save her. I drag my teeth across the inside of her thigh and look up at her, smirking. “So you’re really not gonna beg this time?”

Her eyes snap to mine, blazing. For a second, I see the war behind them; pride versus need. That familiar fire flickers higher.

“That’s what I thought.”

I kiss the soft skin of her inner thigh, once.

Twice. Then nip hard enough to leave a mark.

She gasps, hips jerking up, and I grin. Then I hook my thumbs under the waistband of her panties and peel them down slowly, kissing a trail along her hip as I do.

I toss them aside and look up at her. She’s wrecked, flushed, still holding on to the last thread of defiance.

“Still not begging?” I ask, sliding two fingers through her slickness without pressing in. “Even in this state?”

She stares me down, fierce and breathless, caught between challenge and surrender. I circle her clit with slow, featherlight strokes that make her body twitch beneath me, thighs trembling. Then I stop, holding her just on the edge. A broken sound catches in her throat, raw and aching.

“Say it, Sour Patch.”

She shakes her head, lips parted, so close to caving.

I kiss her hip bone. “Say it,” I growl again, moving to her breast, dragging my tongue over the peaked tip, then biting it gently, but enough to make her feel it.

She moans. Loud this time. The fight is starting to slip. “Malachi…”

I pull back. Look her in the eye. “Tell me what you want.”

Her voice is strained, cracking. “I want you.”

“Not enough.” I slide a single finger inside her, slow, curling up into that spot that makes her whimper. She bucks. Her fingers claw at my arms. “Say it.”

“I—” Candace cuts off, breath ragged.

I pull out. Don’t touch her at all.

Her chest heaves. Her thighs tremble. Finally, she breaks. “Please.”

It’s just one word, wrecked and whispered, but it shatters something inside me all the same. “Again,” I rasp, surging over her until my mouth is at her ear. “Beg for my cock, baby. Say it and mean it.”

I run the tip of my cock up her slit, slow, deliberate, teasing, dragging slick heat from her entrance to her clit until her breath catches on a whimper. “You’re gonna say it,” I growl, voice thick. “Beg for my cock, baby. I want to hear you say it.”

Her body arches. Her voice comes undone. “Please, Malachi. I want your cock. I’m begging. I need you. Now.”

That’s it. The green light to ruin her all over again. I kiss her, deep, devouring, slow and consuming, tasting every part of her with the hunger of someone who’s been starving. She opens for me, hands in my hair, dragging me close to eliminate the final inch between us.

I line myself up and push in slowly, agonizingly slowly, dragging every inch of me through her slick heat, determined to carve this moment into her bones.

Her thighs tense around my hips as her nails sink into my shoulders.

Her breath stutters across my mouth, unable to decide between a moan and a curse.

She’s so fucking tight, hot, and wet. Already trembling on the edge.

I want her to. I want her shaking beneath me, crying out, clawing at me until she remembers exactly who she belongs to.

Her head falls back on a gasp. “Oh my God—”

“Look at me when you fall apart.”

Candace moans into my neck, desperate and breathless, voice spilling out in a broken flood. Her legs wrap tight around me, heels pressing into my ass as I sink deeper, inch after inch, until I’m fully inside her. I hold there. Buried, throbbing, struggling to breathe from how she feels around me.

I don’t move. Not yet. I let her feel it. Let the weight of it settle into her. Her body pulses around me, clenching with every heartbeat, every ragged breath. Her hands drag up my back, searching for something to hold on to.

Then I pull back and roll into her with slow, shallow thrusts. Just enough to build. Just enough to keep her on the edge. Her nails bite into my skin. Her lips find my neck. She bites down, sharp, claiming, and that’s when I snap.

I fuck her hard. Deep. Steady. The sound of our bodies colliding fills the room—wet, hungry, relentless. But even in the frenzy, I watch her. Watch the way her mouth drops open in a silent moan, the way her brows pull together, the way she loses the fight to stay quiet.

I kiss her throat, her collarbone, the corner of her mouth, tasting something holy in a world that never should’ve had us.

“Malachi,” she gasps. “Harder.” I give it to her. “Faster.” Done. Then... “Wait—slow, I—” she chokes out. And I do that too.

I slow, cradle her jaw with one hand, slide the other beneath her to lift her hips, adjusting the angle until she cries out again, louder, rawer. Her whole body arches into me, needing this.

When I kiss her this time, it’s soft and reverent. It’s everything.

She breathes it into my mouth between kisses, her voice shaking but sure. “I love you.”

And I freeze. Not because I don’t feel it. Not because I don’t believe her. But because hearing it tears something wide open in me. She says them like they’re a truth that exists with or without my permission. Her body clenches again, holding on to me with everything she has.

“I love you,” she repeats, her eyes locked on mine. This time, I see it all. Every fear, every choice, every ache that brings her here. She’s not saying it for herself. She’s saying it for me.

Everything inside me shifts. It’s quiet and earth-breaking, a fault line I never noticed before just giving way.

I can’t speak, not yet. The words catch somewhere between my chest and throat, too big to release.

So I show her instead, through touch, through every breath I give to her, through every slow thrust that says all the things I’m not brave enough to speak yet.

With my hands, with my mouth, with every deep, controlled thrust that says... You’re mine. You’ve always been mine. And I’m never letting you go.

When we come together, it’s with a rush of heat and light that rips through me like wildfire.

She clenches around me, pulsing and gasping, her body arching into mine with every last ounce of need.

I bury my face in her neck, moaning into her skin as her nails drag down my back, trying to pull me deeper even though I have nowhere left to go.

I feel her breath stutter against my ear, her soft cry swallowed by the closeness of our bodies, and all I can do is hold her tighter, thrust slower, feel everything.

She buries her face in my neck and whispers it again. “I love you.”

This time, I say it back because nothing has ever felt truer. I don’t just feel it; I speak it. Out loud. Ragged, raw, and real. “I love you, Candace.”

The words tear up from some place buried deep, beneath the blood, the silence, and all the years I spend believing I don’t deserve this. Saying them tastes like relief and redemption. Something sacred.

She freezes beneath me. Then she trembles.

Not from aftershocks. Not from the weight of what we just do.

But from something quieter. Deeper. Her breath hitches like she’s been waiting for this, for me, for far longer than either of us wants to admit.

She looks up at me, eyes wide and glassy, mouth parted as she tries to catch her breath.

Then something shatters inside her. Her fingers tighten in my hair.

Her chest presses into mine like she needs the contact to stay grounded.

And fuck, that’s it. That look, that reaction, the way her breath hitches and her body trembles.

The words crack something wide open inside her.

Her fingers grip my shoulders, her chest rising hard against mine.

Then the sob comes, soft and broken, buried in my neck where she’s trying not to let it be heard but can’t stop it either.

I hold her tighter. Let her fall apart in my arms.

But it doesn’t feel like she’s breaking.

She’s releasing something she’s carried for far too long, something sharp and buried deep that’s finally bleeding out.

I feel her heartbeat pounding against my chest, wild and unsteady.

Her tears warm my skin. Her breath catches again, but this time there’s no fear. Just truth. Just relief.

“I’ve been waiting to say that,” I whisper against her temple, lips brushing her skin. “Didn’t think I’d ever get to.”

Her head turns toward me, arms still tight around my neck, needing the weight of me to keep her grounded. For the first time, she’s not just surviving. She’s letting herself be held. And I hold her in a way that says I never want to stop.