Chapter 23
Twenty-Three
MALAKI
I should be sleeping.
Typically, the night after a game, I fall asleep right away, my body and mind both exhausted. But tonight, I'm unsettled. I can blame Benedict for that. Or can I thank Benedict for that? After all, if I didn't spot him harassing my fiancée from across the ice, I may not have kissed her like I did.
It felt so damn good to kiss her. When my tongue slipped past her soft, surprised lips, my knees grew weak.
Now I lie in bed alone, full of dirty thoughts and guilt.
Reese has been put in a position that she shouldn't be in, all because her ex is this controlling, obsessive asshole. I can’t act on that.
I can't swindle her into my bed because I can’t move past my attraction.
It would be taking advantage of her. She’s too good.
Selfless, a good sister, an even better mom, a damn good kisser with a body that my hands crave–fuck.
I fling the covers off my legs and clench my jaw.
Is it wrong to jack off to my fake fiancée, knowing that she’s sleeping in the next room?
What would she think if she knew?
I know she is firm on the whole boundaries thing, and it’s completely understandable. However, the kiss. It can’t just be me whose skin prickles with energy the second we touch. Her flushed face gives her away—and the way her pupils dilate when I move close.
Damn.
I take the heel of my hand and push down on my cock.
I shouldn’t picture her naked.
I shouldn’t think about that night in her car, where she came all over my hand.
It was so fucking hot it was all I thought about for a week.
A noise catches my attention, and I hold my breath.
Excitement sends me upright in bed. Is that Reese?
I angle my head toward the door and strain to hear the noise again.
My shoulders slump.
Charleigh is crying.
Either that or a wild animal broke into the house.
I continue to stare at my door as Charleigh’s cries grow louder. Since Reese has moved in, I haven’t heard Charleigh cry once. She squeals with excitement sometimes, her giggle contagious, but she hasn’t cried.
Not while I’m around, at least.
I glance at the time. It’s well after two in the morning. Another minute passes, and she’s still crying.
Worry gnaws at me.
Is she okay?
I don’t have much experience with babies, but a cry is a cry, right?
I tug on a pair of low-hanging sweats and creep across the floor. I quietly open my door and peek my head out into the hallway. There’s a single stream of moonlight from the window at the end of the hall and nothing else.
Charleigh’s room is two down from mine—not that I've gone around snooping or anything.
But the fact that her cries are louder the farther I walk down the hall, I can only assume.
I stop at the room before hers, the one that shares a wall with mine, and listen.
The door is cracked, just barely, so I rap my knuckles against the wood and wait for Reese to stir.
My heart beats faster as I listen to Charleigh cry. I want to text Rhodes and ask him if he thinks it's okay to go in there and pick her up, but he’s likely sleeping, and if he isn’t, he’ll probably call me an idiot again.
“Reese?” I say her name through the crack.
Again, nothing.
Against my better judgment, I push on her door and poke my head inside.
With the blinds pulled, I can’t see anything.
I walk farther into the room but stop when my foot nudges something.
Her breath catches from below.
“Malaki?” My name is a whisper in the dark edged with her sleepiness.
I’m confused, my eyes straining to find her bed in the dark. “Charleigh is crying,” I say.
Her shadow moves quickly. She scrambles in front of me to stand on wobbly legs.
“Oh my god, I’m so sorry she woke you.” She darts past me, her sweet, sugary scent stunning me long enough for Charleigh's cries to stop.
I snap out of it and flip on the light.
Shock keeps my feet planted as I gape at the floor.
A heaping pile of blankets and one measly little pillow stare back at me. Her suitcase is off to the side, next to Stella, the headless mannequin, and that’s it. I shift my attention to the door, and then back to her makeshift bed.
Why is she sleeping on the floor? Where is her bed? Did the moving company forget it, and she didn’t want to tell me?
I reach up and squeeze the back of my neck before exhaling deeply. I calmly flip the light switch off, shut the door, and walk into the hallway.
I rest my back against the wall, cross my arms, and wait.
With Charleigh’s bedroom door cracked, I have the perfect view of Reese.
It doesn’t take her long to soothe Charleigh back to sleep.
She stands in the middle of the mostly empty room in nothing but an oversized t-shirt that hits mid-thigh, her long dark hair in soft fallen waves behind her shoulders.
She sways back and forth for a couple of minutes before padding over to a tiny crib-like bed for Charleigh with see-through mesh sides.
Reese practically has to bend in half to lay her down, and the only thing that does is pull my eyes to her backside.
Her t-shirt rides up, revealing a round curve. Heat pools in my veins, but just as quickly as her ass appears, it disappears. She tiptoes backward out of the room, keeping her sights on her daughter before gently pulling the door shut and exhaling.
She turns, and her eyes grow wide. A hand flies to her mouth, muffling her yelp.
“Oh my god!” she whisper-yells. “You scared me half to death!”
I raise an eyebrow and keep my arms crossed. “What the hell, Reese?”
She glances to the ceiling as her shoulders slump. “I know. I’m so sorry she woke you up. I usually hear her. I think I was just so tired because of the game. I promise I won’t let that happen again.”
I pop up from slouching against the wall. “No. That’s not–” I pinch the bridge of my nose. She thinks I’m upset because of her daughter crying?
“You’re angry, right?” she asks quietly.
I drop my hand. “No! Wait, yes!”
Reese’s eyes crinkle on the sides.
“I’m not angry about Charleigh crying. Why would I ever be upset with you over that?”
What kind of man does she think I am? And why am I so bothered over her thinking that I’m the type of man who’d scold her for something like that?
“I’m confused,” she admits, nibbling on her lip.
“Me too.” I reach out and grab onto her wrist. I gently tug her behind me into her room before shutting the door. This conversation calls for more than whispers in a dark hallway.
“I’m angry because you’re sleeping on the floor.” I gesture to the bundled blankets. “Where the hell is your bed?”
That pretty shade of pink spreads over her cheeks.
“Oh…” The word floats in between us like a feather.
When she doesn’t answer my question, I decide to start guessing.
“Did the moving company forget your bed?”
Those big, round, brown eyes skip to mine, and she shakes her head.
“Did they break it?”
Again, she shakes her head.
“Was there something wrong with it? Was it uncomfortable, so you just left it?”
She looks down at her bare feet. “No.”
I bring my eyebrows together. “Then what?”
“I don’t have one,” she admits.
Silence settles over us. My thoughts circle. What does she mean she doesn’t have one? Where did she sleep before?
Finally, I break the quiet. “What?”
Reese hurriedly goes over to her ‘bed’ and bends to fluff the blankets.
Her movements are jerky, her eyes never finding mine.
“I don’t have a bed,” she explains. “When I moved into the apartment, I used all my money for the deposit and first month's rent. I told myself I’d get one eventually, but…” She shrugs.
“I had other things to pay for. Sleeping on the floor isn’t that big of a deal. I have plenty of blankets.”
It takes effort to keep my jaw tight so it doesn’t fall with shock. Reese gestures to her blankets with a half-smile, like she’s trying to convince me that her rigged bed is a California king.
I walk closer to her spot on the floor and stare at the mismatched blankets. Is this woman out of her mind?
I’m almost afraid to ask but, “Does Zoe have a bed?”
“Yes…”
I raise an eyebrow at her skeptical tone and point to the floor. “This doesn’t count.”
She huffs and crosses her arms. “She is using an air mattress.”
I sigh and aggressively put my hands through my hair. “I’m buying you both a bed.”
Reese jumps up from kneeling. “No!”
My jaw aches. “Yes,” I say through clenched teeth.
“I don’t want you to buy us anything,” she pleads.
Zoe will gladly accept a new bed. I don’t have to worry about that one.
Reese, though. She’s different. The more I’m around her, the more I notice how independent she is. It’s part of why I was so intrigued by her to begin with. Hell, she even threw a fit when I tipped her for the Uber ride.
“Okay,” I finally say.
Reese’s shoulders sag. A breath of relief leaves her, and I can’t help but smile. Her eyebrows fold inward when I advance. I scoop her up, her legs dangling over my arm.
“What are you doing?!” she exclaims.
Her arms find my neck, and the way her soft skin feels against my bare chest is just enough to get me toying with those dirty thoughts again. I walk us over to the door and open it before flipping the light off.
“If you won’t let me buy you a bed, then you can sleep in mine.”
Reese tenses in my arms. “I cannot sleep in your bed.”
I quietly walk over to Charleigh’s room and crack the door. That way, she can hear her better if she stirs.
“Malaki!” she hisses my name on the way to our room.
I glance at her. “What?”
“I can’t sleep in your bed!” she argues.
I shrug with her in my arms. “Then let me buy you one.”
A quiet growl echoes as she pouts. That plump bottom lip plops outward, and I force myself to look away.
I leave the door open to my bedroom and walk us over to the bed. The covers are messy from my restless half-sleep, but there’s plenty of room for the two of us.
Unless she doesn’t trust me…
I hold her steady. “I’ll sleep on the couch.”
Within the shadows of my room, I watch shock blanket her face. “Absolutely not.”
“One way or another, you’re sleeping in a bed. You either let me buy you one, or you sleep in this one.”
There is no other choice.
She thinks for a moment, and I narrow my gaze.
“You know how persistent I am. So what’ll it be?”
Her warm breath fans against my chest. “I don’t want you to buy me anything.”
“My bed it is.” I drop her onto the soft mattress.
Dark waves frame her face before she pops up onto her elbows to gape at me. I get a glimpse of her soft thighs when her t-shirt rides up.
Yeah, I better sleep elsewhere.
“I'll be on the couch,” I announce, backing away.
Those big, brown eyes turn doe-like as she watches me go. She looks so damn good on my bed–sweet but enticing.
I force my back to her.
I’m almost all the way through the door when she pipes up.
“Wait!”
One tiny word is all it takes.
I wait.