Page 30 of Ruined By a Devil

“Malachi…” I breathe, his name like poison on my tongue. A poison I now have no other choice but to admit I want.

He stays quiet, as his hand moves higher, stopping just on my ribs under my boobs. Then he stops again, letting me feel his warmth without giving me what my whole being is desperately asking for. He knows exactly how close he can get without giving me what I want.

At this point, I’m worried that nothing with Malachi would ever be enough. My head tips back slightly and his lips brush the side of my neck so briefly it leaves me wondering if it ever even happened.

I can’t take it anymore and I turn around, our eyes meeting, but his hands leave me the moment I face him, making my heart sink. For a short heartbeat neither of us speaks. His expression is unreadable, but his breathing is giving him away. He wants this as much as I do.

“Why did you stop?” I ask, my voice giving me away the moment I open my mouth.

“You want me to touch you?” His jaw tightens.

My throat goes dry, surprised by the question and I stay silent.

It wouldn’t hurt to learn how to do a better job lying.

He leans closer, close enough that I feel his breath against my lips, but he doesn't kiss me. “I will not touch you until you beg me to, Jade.”

With that, he pulls away, leaving me colder than I felt in the car earlier. I want to do something, anything, to feel less embarrassed and hide how much I do want him to touch me. But I won’t beg him for it. That’s one thing Malachi Kavanagh doesn’t get from me.

I watch him turn his back on me and walk towards the door. He doesn’t even turn around as he adds: “Make sure you take a hot shower to warm up.”

Before I can respond, he shuts the door behind him, leaving me very confused. “He’s unbelievable…” I roll my eyes and head into the bathroom.

The steaming hot water washes away all my thoughts and I lose track of the time I spend in the shower. By the time I get out and return to my bathroom, it’s already one in the morning. I connect my phone to the charger and place it on the bedside table where I find a bottle of water and painkillers waiting for me.

“He didn’t…”

A smile spreads across my face and I don’t bother hiding it or forcing myself to suppress my own emotions. I take a pill and go to sleep.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Malachi

I find my brothers in the conference room, already deep into the meeting. Zeke is at his usual spot at the head of the table, and Cain sits beside him, one ankle resting over his opposite knee, his expression unreadable. Elijah has a laptop open in front of him and several folders spread across the table, while Levi is standing near the windows, looking down at the street with a drink in his hand.

I sit down next to Elijah, opening my own laptop as he slides me a few of the folders.

“Okay, so to fill you in, we were just discussing how Nolan is planning something big.”

“Bigger than the embarrassing attempt to take over our side of the dock?” I raise an eyebrow.

“That wasn’t an actual attack,” Elijah speaks. “If it were, we wouldn’t have been able to defend ourselves from it.

I already knew we were in a quite bad position, but hearing my brothers confirm that we don’t have enough men to hold off against a real attack makes it bigger somehow.

“What do you have?”

Elijah slides a photograph across the table. I pick it up and take a closer look. It’s of Nolan, bruised and swollen, leaving a restaurant earlier. It’s followed by another photograph, and then another.

They’re all in different locations and different men, but it all follows the same pattern.

“He's been moving people,” Elijah says. “They’re mostly small groups. Nothing large enough to look like preparation for a full attack, but enough to tell us he's not sitting around feeling sorry for himself.”

“And I’m afraid that after you almost spilled his brain on the pavement last night, not that I blame you for it, he might have accelerated things,” Levi adds, returning to the table and taking his seat across from me.

“He’s hungry for blood,” Cain mutters. “I can see it in his eyes.”

“I agree,” I take another look at the photograph. “He'd rather make someone else pay for his embarrassment.”