Chapter 45
Chapter Forty-Five
M aalikai’s hands swept over my shoulders, down the ridges of my spine, each stroke sparking like lightning across raw nerves. How could I relax when he wound me tighter with every breath, every pause, every maddening trace of his fingertips?
My eyes fluttered closed. A shaky exhale escaped me as his hands continued—gliding over the nape of my neck, down my arms in a slow, reverent glide that made my knees threaten betrayal. A quiet moan slipped past my lips, helpless, surrendering.
He stilled—tense.
Like he’d felt it too.
Then his lips brushed my shoulder. Scorching. Sensuous. Impossible to survive. A shiver tore through me as the heat of his mouth carved a trail up my neck—soft, searing, soul-binding. Desire coiled deep and dark inside me, rising fast, fierce, inevitable.
I didn’t just want him.
I ached for him.
One breath, there was space between us—the next, I was kissing him like survival depended on it.
His hands clamped down on my hips, possessive, like I was something sacred he’d bleed to protect. I kissed him harder—nothing held back, nothing soft.
Only need.
Only now.
“Maalikai.” His name broke from me like a fever.
He froze. Eyes locked on mine with that soul-stripping gaze. Treacherous hesitation crept across his face, warring with the hunger roaring behind it.
“I’m sorry,” he rasped. His voice cracked. “I?—”
No.
No, he didn’t get to do that.
I leaned in, breath ghosting over his lips. My voice was steady. Commanding.
“Maalikai. I want you.”
His brow creased. “You have me. All of me.”
Gods, he was an idiot.
I looked him dead in the eye, heat pulsing through every word. “No. I want you inside me.”
He went utterly still. As if time held its breath.
“That night with you, wasn’t enough,” I said, every syllable blazing. “I want more. I want everything. I want to feel you lose control. I want to take it from you.”
His eyes darkened like storm clouds swallowing the sky. His breath turned ragged. And that flicker of restraint he wore like armor?
Gone.
“Say it again,” he growled.
I stepped into him, mouth grazing his. “Please. Claim me. All of me.”
Something in him snapped.
He made a sound—part growl, part curse—and then his hands were everywhere. Down my back. Around my thighs. Lifting me. My legs wrapped around his waist as he slammed me against his chest like he needed the contact to breathe.
His mouth devoured mine—wild, consuming, like this was the moment he’d been starving for since the day we met. A kiss that destroyed. That rebuilt. That burned.
When he pulled away, I was breathless—wrecked.
“That night,” he rasped, voice frayed at the edges, “will be nothing compared to what I’m about to do to you. If you let me.”
“Shit,” I whispered. “Yes.”
That was all it took.
He gripped my ass tighter, carried me with single-minded ferocity. Rain lashed at us the moment we broke through the trees—sharp, cold, and merciless—but Maalikai didn’t flinch. He just held me tighter, walking straight into the downpour like he didn’t even feel it. Like I was the only thing tethering him to the world.
His boots pounded across the slick stone path, water soaking our hair, our shoulders, both soaked to the bone—but neither of us cared. The heat between us scorched through the cold.
My breath hitched. He carried me like I was weightless.
Like I was his.
We reached the house. He bypassed the main door, heading for the spiraling stairs, his pace unrelenting. He took them two at a time—bounding strides that jarred breath from both of us. I shifted against him, thighs tightening, hips pressing, and he growled low in his throat—wrecked and wanting.
“You’re not helping,” he muttered.
“Not trying to.” I shot back.
His jaw flexed. That flicker of restraint nearly returned—until I leaned in and nipped his neck, teasing.
That was all it took.
By the time we reached the top, the world had narrowed to this: his body, my need, and the inferno sparking between our skin.
He kicked the door open and stepped inside. The hinges groaned in protest, nearly drowned out by the thunder still grumbling outside.
He slammed the door behind us, muffling the storm.
The flicker of firelight spilled from the hearth, casting long shadows across the wooden floor as he strode through the room with purpose—our soaked bodies pressed so close there was no telling where I ended and he began.
He didn’t hesitate.
He pressed me to the wall like he needed something solid beneath us before we both unraveled. His mouth crashed into mine—wild, consuming, reverent. His hands roamed, frantic but sure, mapping me like a man memorizing every line before the fall.
The storm outside might as well have been inside us—the wind, the fire, the fury of everything we’d been holding back.
And this time, he didn’t stop.
The second my back hit the dresser, his hands were everywhere—Frenzied. Demanding. Starved.
His mouth devoured mine like he was terrified I'd vanish. Like he needed to taste every inch of me to know I was real.
Then his fingers found my wrist, bringing it to his lips. He kissed my pulse, slow and deliberate, and I swear I felt it sync to his own—like the rhythm of my heartbeat belonged to him now.
His kisses climbed my arm—molten and torturous. Every brush of his mouth sent fire pooling in my core. I closed my eyes, letting him consume me, letting the rest of the world fall away.
He traced a map over my skin with his mouth—every kiss a brand. I was already his. But now, I would feel it.
His heat climbed higher, flushing my skin, scattering every thought. He kissed me like he wanted to destroy me—but I was born to burn. And when his hands cradled my face with a tenderness that almost broke me, I let it.
Fingertips traced my jaw, down my throat, skimming the hollow of my collarbone before slipping lower—teasing the dripping wet fabric clinging to my breasts.
“You’re soaking,” he murmured against my skin.
He had no idea how right he was.
“Let’s get you out of these wet clothes,” he growled.
His hands slipped beneath the fabric—hot, possessive—burning a trail across my skin as he began to peel me open like a secret he’d been waiting his whole life to taste.
A shaky breath caught in my throat. “No argument here.”
My pulse thundered, anticipation thick in my blood as Maalikai stepped closer. Desire coiled low, tight and molten—he was close enough to steal my air. His fingers slipped beneath the black strap of my singlet, dragging it down my shoulder in a motion so deliberate it scorched. The fabric slid, slow and sensual, like silk kissing my skin, until it pooled on the floor in a heap of ruin and want. My pants were next, discarded in silence.
I stood in nothing but panties and a barely-there bra, each breath scraping against the weight of his stare. He devoured me with his eyes—like I was both his damnation and his salvation.
“Have I ever told you…” his voice rasped, low and reverent, “that you are exquisite?”
“No,” I breathed.
A dark laugh rumbled in his chest as he closed the space between us. “Then let me start now. You are the most exquisite thing I’ve ever seen.”
Gods, the way he said it. Shattered me.
His knuckles skimmed my arm, fingers brushing mine. “May I take off the rest?”
Fuck yes. “Mmm hmm.”
His hands slid over the curve of my breasts, trailing fire. A single hand reached behind me, unclasping the bra. It fell like a forgotten whisper.
I was half-naked—I had no armor left, just skin and honesty.
Vulnerable.
Surrendered.
Willingly undone.
His eyes ravaged me. “Fucking magnificent.”
Then his mouth descended.
Heat burst in my chest as his lips closed around my nipple. A gasp caught in my throat, fingers threading into his hair as pleasure surged—sharp, exquisite, unbearable.
Gods. His mouth was fire.
He groaned against me, and the vibration licked through my core. Every suck, every deliberate drag of his tongue sent lightning through my nerves. I arched toward him, chasing the burn.
His hand slid lower. I almost lost it.
His touch ghosted over the skin of my thighs—warm, devastating. My panties clung to me, soaked. When his fingers finally pressed against me through the fabric, I let out a broken moan.
Without a word, he lifted me like I weighed nothing. He carried me to the bed and lowered me into the sheets—careful, urgent, his body already pressing between mine. His thigh wedged between my legs and I rocked against it—desperate, feral.
His mouth crushed mine, dragging down to my jaw, then to my ear where he bit down gently. Meanwhile, his fingers slid up the inside of my thighs—deliberate. Devastating.
When they pressed into the soaked fabric between my legs, I shattered again.
“Maalikai…” I moaned.
His lips grazed my jaw. “Can I take these off?”
I nodded—shaky, needing.
He stripped the last piece of material from my body, slow and reverent.
And I didn’t flinch.
I burned.
I traced his forearm—veined, tense, powerful. I didn’t know how to touch him the way he touched me, but I didn’t need to.
His muscles shifted beneath my hand as his fingers found me again. The backs of his knuckles teased over swollen skin, igniting something molten and uncontrollable. I trembled. My hips lifted—begging.
He stroked me with maddening precision, each pass tighter, deeper, dragging me to the edge. I arched. I moaned. I broke.
And then he moved so his whole body was between my thighs.
“Maalikai,” I breathed?—
And his mouth was on me.
I shattered.
He devoured me like I was his last fucking breath. His tongue dragged fire across every nerve-ending, every flick sending shockwaves through me. He groaned into me, like the taste of me ruined him—and he wanted more.
I clawed at the sheets, crying out, unraveling beneath him.
Still wrecked, I whispered his name.
But I didn’t want mercy.
I wanted more.
I needed more.
“Maalikai,” I gasped, reaching for him. “I need you.”
He looked up—pupils blown, lips wet with me. “Are you sure?”
“Get inside me,” I whispered. “Now.”
I took his hand, guiding him back to me.
“Maalikai,” I said again, lower—needier, the slight delay too much.
Maalikai broke the overwhelming magnetic pull of his kiss, his gaze locking onto mine. The blue depths of his eyes were just as perilous as his lips—drowning, consuming—but beneath the passion, I saw something more.
An unyielding need to protect me. To worship me like a damn Goddess. “If you want me to stop at any time, just say so. All you need to do is utter a single word, and I will stop."
There was no way I was going to whisper those words.
“I’m ready.”
Maalikai’s lips danced over my hipbone, reigniting the fire that had only briefly dimmed. The side of his mouth pulled up into a wicked smile. “Not yet you aren’t.”
My mouth parted, breath catching. “What do you mean?”
He leaned back slightly, clucking his tongue, imprisoning me with that storm-swept gaze.
“This moment isn’t about you taking what you think you want. This is about me giving you what you didn’t even know you needed. But only if you can be patient.”
Words crumbled to ash on my tongue.
“Do you trust me?”
I did. With everything I was. “Inexplicably.”
“Then not until you’re begging my name,” he said, “will you be ready.”
That smile? It was pure sin, the kind that scorched and branded.
“Damn it.” A whispered prayer. A vow.
“And you said you want everything, right?”
“Yes,” I breathed. “Everything.”
He leaned back only long enough to strip off his shirt, tossing it to the bed in one fluid motion. My breath hitched as he gently guided me to kneel atop the fabric, placing me exactly where he wanted me.
His lips found mine again, deep and claiming, until I felt him everywhere—fingers, mouth, breath. Without warning, his hand found the ache between my thighs.
They moved in slow, maddening circles over the bundle of nerves that pulsed with need. I rocked forward, tension curling through every limb. My hand buried in his hair, my body bowed to him.
“Are you ready?” His eyes burned like stormlight, glowing, ravenous.
“Gods, yes.”
He licked his fingers—slow and deliberate—then slid them inside me with a pressure that stole the breath from my lungs. His fingers curled, knowing exactly where to find that secret place that had me unraveling in seconds.
Pleasure slammed into me like a wave. My stomach coiled, back arching as I choked on a moan. Instantly knowing what he was asking of me.
“Maalikai... I—can’t—” His lips curved against my skin.
“Oh, you will. Let go for me.”
I tried to fight it. Tried to hold onto something solid, my nails biting into his golden skin, but it wasn't enough. And then he whispered against my ear, a plea,
“Be a good girl. Squirt for me.” And I shattered.
I clung to him like my life depended on it as warm liquid sprayed down my thighs, my body convulsing.
The moment made sense—the reason he’d laid his shirt down beneath me. And still, he didn’t stop. He carried me through wave after wave until I slumped against him, ruined.
Only then did he lay me down gently, reverently. His eyes devouring me.
“I want you,” I said, breathless, desperate. “I want all of you.”
He arched a brow. “Not until you moan my name.”
I stared at him, stunned. “What in Nexus?”
His eyes turned darker. Deeper. “Not until you lose yourself to it. Completely.”
“But I need you,” I begged. “Please.”
“Not yet.”
He tasted his fingers, humming at the flavor like it was his favorite sin. “You taste like fucking divinity.”
My breath caught. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t think. He knelt between my legs again, licking a trail over my thighs, slow and torturous, claiming my juices for himself.
Then, without warning, his mouth latched onto my clit with devastating focus. I screamed. My body bucked off the bed as he devoured me with skill and savagery.
He worshiped every tremble, every gasp. My release came fast and hard—and then again.
And again.
I couldn’t stop it.
I didn’t want to.
“Maalik!”
There it was. My plea.
He pulled back only to rip the last barrier between us away, his body hot and heavy and ready. When he settled between my thighs, I didn’t hesitate.
“Please,” I whispered. “Now.”
He brushed a strand of hair from my cheek. “Are you sure?”
I wrapped my legs around his hips, dragging him down.
“Claim me.”
He drove into me in a single, deep thrust, tearing a gasp from my lungs. But there was no pain. Only stretch. Sweet, perfect fullness. A fit that felt like it had been carved from fate itself.
He paused, trembling above me. “Gods, you feel... fuck.”
“Don’t stop.”
He didn’t.
He moved, slow at first, then harder—thrusts deep and punishing. My nails raked down his back as his mouth crashed into mine, consuming every moan, every whimper.
“Say my name again,” he growled.
“Maalik,” I breathed.
“Fuck, you wreck me.”
I was spiraling.
Falling.
Every nerve ending sang for him, and I let him take me—let him ruin me. Let him love me the only way he knew how—without mercy. And when we came undone together, there was no line between us.
No air.
Only fire.
Only Maalikai.
And me.
We lay in a sweaty heap, trying to catch our breath. Gently, I ran my fingers through his hair, his head resting on my chest. I loved the weight of Maalikai’s body against mine, the way he held himself up just enough not to crush me—still protective, even now.
But Maalikai didn’t move. Not at first. He hovered over me, braced on trembling forearms, his breath ragged as he stared down like he’d just stepped off the edge of the world—and taken me with him.
His chest rose and fell against mine, damp with sweat, but it was the look in his eyes that stole the air from my lungs.
Ravaged. Wrecked. Reverent.
And something else.
“Maalikai...” I whispered.
His eyes met mine—intense, shattered—and everything inside me stilled.
“The way you said Maalik , while you came…” His voice was rough silk, breaking apart on every word. “It’s my new favorite word.”
A smile tipped my lips, my heart pounding against my ribs. “Then it’s decided. You’re my Maalik—and I’m your princess.”
“I love the sound of that.” His lips brushed the rise and fall of my chest, soft, almost absentminded. Then he looked at me like I was the only thing tethering him to this world.
And his fingers—those hands that had just undone me—trembled as they swept a strand of hair behind my ear. The touch was so gentle it shattered me more than anything else could.
“You okay?” he asked, voice gravelled and low. “Did I hurt you?”
“No.” I shook my head, curling my fingers around his. “You made me feel like I was everything.”
“You are.” It came too fast. Too quiet. Like a truth he wasn’t meant to speak.
I reached for him, my fingertips trailing down his chest—tracing muscle, skin, scars—until they landed on a patch just beneath his ribs.
A birthmark.
I blinked. Then leaned closer.
The shape was unmistakable.
Gods, I hadn’t seen it clearly before—not like this.
“Your birthmark…” I whispered, awe catching in my throat. “It’s a wolf. The same as your bow.”
Maalikai let out a soft, guttural laugh—the kind that reverberated through bone. “It is.”
“I’ve never noticed it before.”
“Maybe I should have my shirt off more often,” he said with a crooked grin that always undid me.
“Maybe you should,” I whispered back, the heat in me flickering to life again.
But something shifted behind his eyes. Like saying the words would cost him. Like they weren’t his to promise. So he said nothing at all.
“Maalik…” I pulled back, just enough to see the devastation swimming in his gaze. “What’s wrong?”
He kissed me again. Slow. Desperate. Aching. Like a man kissing a memory. Almost like a goodbye.
I broke the kiss. “Don’t do that.”
His brows furrowed. “Do what?”
“Whatever it is you’re hiding. Don’t pretend it’s not there. I can feel it. You’re breaking.”
He froze. His throat bobbed, jaw locking like it took effort just to speak.
“You have no idea what this birthmark has seen. The things I’ve done for retribution.”
My heart stuttered. “Because of your parents?”
He nodded—eyes not meeting mine.
“I brought this realm to its knees for what Crixus did to them. And the person I had to become for that...” His voice dropped, raw. “You don’t know what I’ve done.”
“Then tell me.”
“I can’t.” His voice cracked. “If I tell you, you’ll never look at me the same.”
“I already see you, Maalik.”
Silence thickened around us, heavy as ash.
Then, barely audible: “I don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve you .”
I cupped his face, steadying him. “Then take it anyway. Let this be the one thing you don’t have to earn.”
Something fractured in him—like a string pulled too tight, finally snapping. He didn’t cry. But the sound he made was too raw to be anything but his heart breaking.
He pressed his forehead to mine, clinging to me like I was the last solid thing left in his world.
“If you knew the weight I carry…”
I kissed him then, gently—his lips trembling beneath mine. Like he was trying to memorize the shape of my soul. And when he finally stilled, his mouth pressed to my temple, his voice broken open like a secret:
“I was never supposed to have this. But I swear to the Gods, Emylia—” he exhaled, wrecked, “—I’ll burn the whole fucking world down before I lose you.”
I believed every word.
And I held him tighter. Because deep down, I knew something had broken. Something he could never say. And just for a moment—there, at the edge of ruin—something flickered in his gaze.
A truth.
A secret.
A name he didn’t speak.
But I felt it on his lips. In the weight of his kiss. And I knew then—he wasn’t just mine. He was hiding something that could break me.
But in this moment?
I didn’t care.
Because Gods help me...
He already had every broken piece of me.
* * *