Chapter 8
E mmeline
Terrified, I kicked out, my other leg constrained by a horrible, brutish man. I caught him in the chest with my heel, but he only laughed and grabbed that shin, too, using the motion to spread my legs wide.
His reddened eyes gleamed. “Look at that, lads. Look at the sight of my woman’s pretty pink cunt glistening for me.”
“Who says she’s yours? Got your dick in her yet?” one of his cronies jeered.
“Give me a fucking chance.”
He grappled me and took a fistful of my dress, wrenching it so the material tore in a sharp split up my thigh.
A shove rocked him from behind.
He whipped around to push back.
It was enough for me to free my leg and twist over. Not that there was anywhere for me to go. Horror and disgust almost froze me up, but I couldn’t submit. I couldn’t just lie there and let him or any of them take me.
I’d lost my mind in signing up for this thing. It only worked if the right man was the one doing the catching. This bastard clearly wasn’t.
Another man dove at him and caught him around the throat with his forearm. I couldn’t see him. Couldn’t make out anything about him, only that his act meant my captor released me entirely to take on his attacker. This helped me none. He still blocked my recessed doorway with his bulk so I could do nothing but scuttle back as far as I could. I tugged my shredded hem down and fought to control a wave of sheer dread.
Suddenly, my attacker stumbled and fell, out of sight of me, but revealing my curled-up body to a pack that had formed outside.
A skinny, shaven-headed man launched at me and grabbed my wrist. In a second, I was over his shoulder, and he whirled around. He didn’t get two steps away from my hiding spot before someone else sucker-punched him in the belly.
He dropped me.
I landed on my backside, unhurt and determined to run.
Several things became apparent at once. A huge gang of what had to be every remaining man had filled the corridor, shouts and arguments filling the air. My red-eyed attacker was on the floor being pummelled by a bigger contestant even than him. One with rage in his eyes. One who made my heart sing and hope bloom in my chest.
It was Malachi. Somehow here. Somehow in the fight.
He was so big. His thick arm muscles rippled under inkwork that spread over his bulky torso then disappeared beneath the waistband of soft blue jeans. Though his face was hidden under a skeleton bandanna, I knew the tattoo at his temple and how it connected to his throat. I’d studied his features so well.
Just as quickly, my hope died.
Hands grasped me from the melee, pulling me in several directions at once. I bucked and kicked. Fingers dug into my arms, pain resounding. With a rip, my black dress was torn from me, and I wrenched at the constraining grips to hide my nakedness, but I had no chance against one man, let alone five or ten.
Finally, I found my voice. “Malachi,” I screamed.
He raised his head from his furious beatdown.
“Malachi Hunan?” someone breathed. Whoever said it dropped his hold on me.
“Thought he wasn’t taking part,” another added.
A face appeared over mine. Another determined stranger. “Hold her legs,” he ordered the others as he unbuttoned his jeans.
“No!” I yelped.
He couldn’t. If he managed, I’d be his, and everything would be wrong.
Malachi gave a roar and came up swinging. An avenging angel, he shoved through the mass, throwing a guy who blocked his path aside like he weighed nothing.
“Mine,” he snarled.
Yes. His. Only his. I tried to free myself and managed to get to my feet, my ruined dress falling away altogether and leaving me completely naked. Three men fought over the shredded material like a pack of wolves over meat while others grabbed for me, pawing my hip, my waist, my breast. I should’ve felt shame at my nudity, but every other emotion, the fear, the terror, all left me.
“Lay a hand on her and I’ll break every fucking finger,” Malachi swore.
Several hands left me, but some horrible person thrust against my backside, his hard dick poking me in his attempt to angle it and win the game. I squealed and arched away from him.
Malachi reached me in exactly the right second. I half fell on him. He tucked a big arm around me, sparing a desperate glance at my face.
“I’ve got you, angel.”
Without looking away, he fisted the throat of the man who’d prodded my bottom and downed him, a choking sound turning into a cough while the loser scrambled away.
Clear, pale-blue eyes held mine. “I’m so sorry I took my time in finding you. I didn’t know you were here. I thought you hadn’t come.”
I nodded in jerky motions. He remembered me. “I thought the same.”
He drifted bloodied knuckles gently down my cheek, then glanced down my body and groaned. “You know what I need to do. Do I have your permission?”
I nodded.
Malachi swung for someone I couldn’t see. I only had eyes for him now. He took me down to the floor, and in the middle of a scattering of bodies, opened his jeans and knelt between my legs.
His beautiful, desperate gaze held mine captive. He ran his dick up and down my core, notching it in position, then he shifted up to cover my body with his. In a sweet move, and still without entering me, he set his forehead to mine. “Your name, angel.”
“Emmeline Watts.”
“I claim you as mine, Emmeline.”
He thrust into me, his mouth falling open and an ungodly moan coming from me, him, or both of us.
A second thrust had him almost fully in, though his size had my eyes watering. He felt so good inside me. So perfectly right at the end of an ordeal.
I noticed nothing but him.
Not if the concrete under my back was smooth or rough, warm or cold. Only his body claiming mine, and how my every sense tuned in to him.
Malachi rolled his hips until he was fully seated in me. I spasmed around him and breathed through the pleasure.
His devilish smile came with the action of his hips. He filled and stretched me. His mouth took mine in a blistering kiss. How was it I already knew the shape of his lips when they had never tasted mine until this moment? Only by obsession and stalking, but my imagination was nothing to the real thing that drove me higher so fast I was dizzy.
So this was what good sex felt like. I’d never had it before. Not once.
He broke away right as I was on the edge of an orgasm I couldn’t have resisted if I’d tried.
“I’m Malachi Hunan. And I love you.”
I splintered and fell.