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Chapter Twenty-Four
Nala
I’m laying pressed against Mal’s hard body, his heartbeat rapid and unsteady under my ear, his arms possessive as they hold me close.
I never imagined Malcolm as a snuggler. In all the years I watched him date—first with the interested eye of a near teenager, and then with the eye of the young woman who wanted him so much she would have given anything to be the girl he dragged caveman style from the room and returned with forty minutes later—I never saw him embrace a girl in a non-sexual way.
But this—the way he holds me, his hands petting me like he’s making sure I’m real, going up and down my back, over the curve of my bare hips to my legs, and up again until they can tangle into my hair—this feels like something different.
And it scares the daylights out of me.
I knew getting involved with Mal was a risk. He’s been the one I wanted since before I really understood whatwantwas, and even after he walked away from me, rejected me, I still wanted him. Now, with those critical years between us, I have him, and he’s nothing like I expected.
He’s a rough lover—I always imagined he would be. But even with his demands, I knew with every touch he was in tune with me, that he could read my body and my response, and that he would never, ever take something I wasn’t already willing to give physically. Emotionally…I didn’t expect his words. I’ve lived so long without them, even convinced myself I didn’t want them, that when he looked at me and told me he was mine, not just that he owned me, but thathe was mine,all of him, I was lost.
Somehow, I have to gain control, and be able to find steady ground, or I’m going to fall faster and harder for Malcolm Brady than I did the first time. And if it doesn’t work…I know it could ruin me.
“You need to know that if we do this, I won’t go back.” I feel Mal tense beside me, all of his muscles going to rock, and I push myself over until I can look into his eyes, suddenly desperate that he see me and understand I mean it. They flash with heat, but I don’t back down. My heart is hammering, my pulse racing, because of both his look and his proximity, but I keep my eyes and voice level when I say it again. “I won’t go backward, Malcolm. No matter what. This has to be about now.”
He shakes his head, leaning up on an elbow to look down at me. “We need to talk about it, Nala.”
There’s anger in his voice; I don’t blame him for that. If this were anyone else, and I was looking on from the outside, I would tell them that anything less than total honesty is wrong. But I’m not looking on from the outside, I’m living it, and being here with Malcolm like I am now, lying in bed so close to him the heat from his body is keeping mine warm, it makes me dizzy to think about bringing anything from the past into this moment.
It’s not just about the pain of remembering, it’s about the new pain it would cause…and the fact that I don’t know how he will react. If I tell him, and he can’t see me the same as he does now, like I’m everything that matters…I might die all over again.
“I can’t.” He opens his mouth to protest, and I shake my head, reaching out to put my palm on his chest. “Don’t make me relive that time. Please don’t ask that of me, Malcolm.” I work to keep the ache out of my words—to stay strong and confident because that’s who I’ve built myself to be. “If this continues, whatever this is, it has to continue with the knowledge that I won’t rehash all the years between then and now.”
His eyes are bright, and they pin me from his vantage point above, the heat and the urge to yell apparent. But he doesn’t. Malcolm loses his temper all of the time, more comfortable with his fists than his feelings, but he never has with me. Even when we were younger, and he would catch me at the beach after dark, he wouldn’t yell. He would simply sit next to me, sometimes laying his hoodie over me if the wind was up, sometimes talking, sometimes not.
In those moments that we were drawn together from the invisible force between us, I could see the lecture in his eyes, but he never let me have it, because more than anyone, he understood my need for the water, for the sea and all of the peace it offered me.
Just like now, when he wants something we both know he could force me to give him, but he doesn’t—because he sees what I need, and he gives it to me.
Gripping my waist, he falls back and rolls, dragging me on top of him until I’m sprawled over his hard body, holding my top half up with my hands on either side of his waist. His hands are possessive as one snakes down my hips to my legs, the other gliding through my hair and around to cup my neck.
“We’re doing this,” he says after a second. “And it’s notwhatever—it’s you and me, together. No matter what happens, no matter how much we fight, the first thing you need to know from here to forever is that it’s you and me,always. Because this,” he says, lowering his voice, eyes trailing to my lips even while his hands tighten possessively around me. “This is the most important thing in my life, and I’m not letting you go, Nala.”
My heart trips against my ribs, and my arms begin to shake. I want to ask him to repeat his words as much as I want to pretend he didn’t say them. Malcolm Brady is a hurricane, a force that sweeps us all off our feet and demands we go where he tells us before setting us down when he’s done. My fear is that the landing will be worse than it was the first time, because now I know what it feels like to have him give me everything I ever wanted.
“Don’t say things like that.” I work to keep my voice steady, but it wobbles at the end, making me seem weak instead of strong. I hate that.
“Don’t say what? That I love you?”
My heart stops in my chest, slamming back to life a second later. Before I can stop myself, my hand lifts and slaps his face, once, twice, going for a third time until he rolls me to protect himself, pinning both of my hands to the bed and saying my name.
“Nala—Nalani, stop it.Stop.”
“No, you stop,” I hiss, fear urging me to buck my hips and twist my wrists in his hands. He only tightens his grip, bringing himself closer and waiting for me to give in. “How dare you say that to me? Now, when I’ve told you I won’t go back—thatI can’tgo back—how dare you give me the words I once gave you?” Panic laces my voice, and my breath is coming too fast, tears quickly behind it.
Instead of yelling, instead of getting into my face like I expect, Malcolm only gets quieter the more I panic. His grip stays strong, but he shifts it when I move, and I never even so much as get a raw burn. He doesn’t hold me down, but instead waits me out, and when I finish thrashing, when the tears are in my throat and my eyes, he’s still looking at me, still holding me, still waiting for me to listen.
“Because I love you—and I always have.” His lips brush against mine, and though I want to melt into him, I turn away. He ignores my maneuver, using the new angle to cruise his lips along my neck, down to the hollow of my throat. My traitorous body sighs under his kiss.
“You say you can’t go back,” he murmurs, making the same wayward journey up again until his nose brushes against mine. “But we’re going to have to eventually. Not tonight,” he says when I start to shake my head vigorously. “Tonight is about us—about me loving you, and proving to you that no matter what I said or did in the past, it’s always been you. Only you, Nala.”
And then his lips take mine, and I’m helpless to keep myself immune. My heart is full and throbbing, aching from the memories I won’t let myself share with him, hurting from the hope that he’s telling me the truth—that he may be mine, like I’m truly his.
He isn’t the forceful lover he was only a second ago—which means he lied and he does know how to be gentle. At least with me. This Malcolm who takes my mouth over and over again is gentle, reverent even, and he steals my breath with every caress. He doesn’t release my hands when he moves away from my lips and down my body. Instead, he brings them with him, placing them over my breasts and using his own hands to show me what he wants.
