Chapter 16 Malachi #4
“I’m glad you brought me,” she admitted. “I forgot what it felt like to just… be a Black girl having fun in a room full of people who get it. Music, laughter, the way everybody moves.”
Her voice thickened. “I forgot what it felt like to not be the only one.”
It wasn’t a speech. It was a truth that lived in her chest, the kind you didn’t say unless you trusted the room.
My thumb twitched like I wanted to touch her cheek. I didn’t. I kept my hands still and let my voice do the work.
“I’ll take you again,” I said. “And next time nobody bleeds.”
Nyx let out a breath that might’ve been a laugh if it didn’t tremble. “You can’t promise that.”
“I can promise I’ll handle it,” I said. “That’s what you get with me. You get a man who handles things.”
Her gaze dropped to the snow, then lifted again, and this time she looked at me different. Not a danger anymore. But maybe she was seeing my effort.
“And the skates,” she said, nodding at my hand where I still held her box. “Deep purple laces is a flex.”
“It’s your flex,” I replied. “I’m just the man who bought it.”
Nyx’s mouth twitched. “You asked,” she murmured. “That’s new.”
“It’s courtship,” I said. “I’m not doing it lazy.”
She swallowed, then stepped closer. It wasn’t all the way. It was one step, but it mattered. Her shoulder brushed my arm, light as snow. She didn’t flinch.
“Malachi,” she said, voice low.
“Yes,” I answered.
“If I say I want to go home,” she said, “are you going to make it mean I’m yours.”
I held her gaze. “If you say you want to go home,” I replied, “I’ll take you home. You don’t have to pay for care with submission. Not tonight.”
Nyx’s throat worked. Her eyes went wet, then she blinked it back hard, stubborn even in softness. “Good,” she said. “Because I’m not ready for that.”
“I know,” I said. “But you’re ready for this.”
I lifted my hand slowly and waited. Nyx looked at it, then placed her fingers into mine.
The bond surged, warm and possessive, and I crushed it down into discipline. I didn’t need it to own her. I needed it to stop making her the battlefield.
My men moved in, cars ready, radios murmuring. Across the lot, the rink lights still glowed, and people still poured out, bundled and shaken, talking loud. Black folks were already turning it into a story, already checking on each other, already making sure nobody got left behind.
Nyx watched them, and her face softened again, the way it did when she remembered community.
“Next time,” she said quietly, “you gotta let me pick the song.”
“I’ll let you pick the whole playlist,” I replied. “You like old school, or you like what the kids call old school.”
Nyx let out a laugh, real this time. “Don’t do that,” she said. “You are not about to start acting like you don’t know music.”
“I know leverage,” I said. “Music is your territory.”
Her eyes narrowed, amused. “That’s your toxicity,” she said, voice soft. “You make everything sound like a deal.”
“It is a deal,” I replied. “You keep letting me court you, and I keep proving I can be a man worth standing near.”
Nyx looked down at our hands, then back up at me. The softness in her face wasn’t surrender. It was choice.
“Take me home,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am,” I answered, and I made it sound like respect and promise in the same breath.
We moved toward the car. Snow fell thicker now, white and quiet, hiding tire tracks as fast as they were made. Nyx leaned a fraction closer as we walked, and I didn’t call attention to it.
I just kept her steady.
Because that was the date, and that was the courtship. Not flowers and lies. Not sweet words that evaporated at dawn. It was protection with teeth, joy with a cost, and a Black woman learning she could laugh again without paying for it in blood.
Tonight, somebody had tried to touch what wasn’t theirs. Tonight, I reminded them what happened when they forgot. I protected what was mine.
The drive back should have been a decompression. It turned into a slow burn I couldn’t put out, because Nyx filled the silence.
“I forgot how much skating takes out of you,” she said, rubbing her palms together to ward off the frost. “My legs feel shaky and I know I look ridiculous.”
“You didn’t,” I said, and my voice came out rougher than I intended. I kept my eyes on the road anyway, because looking at her for too long felt too deep.
Nyx let out a soft laugh that didn’t match the way her fingers kept twisting in her lap. “You’re lying,” she said, then kept going before I could answer, words spilling faster. “I’m sweaty, too. I hate that. I hate feeling like the night is stuck on my skin.”
The car turned, and her knee brushed mine. The contact was light, but my body reacted.
I tightened my grip on the wheel until my knuckles ached. Protecting her had felt clean in the moment, pure in a way violence rarely was, and my alpha had taken that feeling and twisted it into possession that kept rising the longer she sat beside me.
When we pulled into the garage, she didn’t reach for the door right away. She sat there.
I shut the engine off and turned toward her. “You should shower,” I said, steady on purpose. “Get the sweat off and let the heat settle you.”
Her breath hitched, and she looked down. “Yeah,” she said, then shook her head once, flustered. “I mean, yes. I should.”
She opened the door, then paused with one foot still inside the car. “You don’t have to,” she started, and the words came out too fast. “But if you wanted to, you could. Just to be there.”
Her cheeks warmed, and she swallowed like the rest of the sentence was stuck. “Not behind me,” she added, quieter. “And not if you’re going to make it feel like I owe you.”
“You don’t,” I said, steady on purpose. “I won’t do that.”
The bond pulled tight in my chest, sharp and immediate. It felt like New Orleans summer heat when the air went thick and you knew a storm was coming, because your body always sensed it before your mind wanted to believe it.
I held her gaze until she nodded, and I made myself move slowly because anything fast would have been a confession.
“You should know something,” I added then, when the moment had settled. “Your old address is handled.”
Her jaw flexed once. “My apartment.”
“Was a liability,” I replied. “It’s not yours to worry about anymore.”
Her shoulders slumped in relief and she made her move. It felt like I was caring for her. I was showing her that she didn’t have any worries when she was with Pack Meridian.
The drive passed in silence that wasn’t empty, just contained. She didn’t ask questions, and I didn’t offer answers. The city blurred past the windows, lights dragging across glass and turning her reflection into something fractured and hard to read.
By the time we stepped inside, the quiet followed us in. It settled into the walls, into the distance between us, into the space where everything I’d said downstairs still lived.
She didn’t wait. She moved through the room like she needed distance she couldn’t name, straight to the bathroom, the door not quite closing behind her.
Nyx cracked the bathroom door and looked at me through the gap, eyes bright and wary.
“You’re coming,” she said, trying to make it sound casual, and failing.
I didn’t move right away. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I needed her to understand that what I’d said downstairs didn’t change what this was.
“If you’re asking,” I said, steady, “then yes.”
“I’m coming,” I answered, and I kept my voice even as my control slipped. I stepped inside and closed the door behind me, because if I stayed on the other side of it I was going to think too much, and thinking was not what my body wanted.
The bathroom was quiet in the way expensive things were quiet. Marble warmed under my bare feet. Glass walls fogged but never hid. The tub sat sunken into stone, wide enough to drown a man’s thoughts if he let it. This room was built for indulgence without apology.
She leaned forward and ran her hand through the water testing the temperature.
Nyx stood near the edge of the tub, steam curling around her. The light caught her skin and softened. Dark brown, rich and deep, glowing against pale stone. She did not look small in my space. She made it hers without touching a thing.
She looked at me once, then reached for the hem of her sweater.
Slow.
Deliberate.
She wanted me to see that she was choosing this.
When the sweater cleared her shoulders, my breath left me in a way I couldn’t disguise.
Her skin gleamed, smooth and warm, curves full and real and alive.
Strong arms. Soft belly. Hips that spoke of gravity and presence.
A Black woman built to take up space and command it.
I had seen beauty before. This felt different.
Heat rolled through me, low and heavy, settling where restraint had been living all night. The heat that reminded me of home. New Orleans in August. Air thick enough to make breathing a decision. Storm pressure gathering whether or not you were ready.
She let the sweater fall, then turned slightly, giving me the line of her back, the curve of her waist, the strength in her thighs. Each movement was unhurried. Not teasing. Not coy. Honest. Her clothes came away piece by piece, and with each one, my control tightened and strained.
My hands curled at my sides. My jaw locked. Standing felt wrong.
She faced me again when she was done, eyes dark and searching, chest rising a little too fast. Steam kissed her skin and slid away.
“You’re staring,” she whispered, not accusing. Curious.
“I’m looking,” I answered.
Her lips parted. A small breath. Then she laughed under her breath, nervous, and shook her head.
“I didn’t plan this,” she said, words spilling now, quick and unguarded.
“I just thought… I wanted you to see me. I liked how you took care of me tonight. I liked how you stood there and decided nothing bad was going to happen on your watch.”
That did it.