Chapter 51
Carla
Malachite walks me from the car to the entrance of my building, hands in his pockets.
We stop under the light at the door, and I turn to him.
“Thanks so much. I really appreciate it.”
“I can walk you up.” He points at the building.
“That’s really not necessary. I told you that you didn’t even have to walk me this far. I’m good.”
“I had a wonderful time,” he tells me.
I narrow my eyes at him. “You don’t have to—”
“I did. I like you, Carla.” He puts his hand on my hip and starts to lean in.
I take a step back, put a hand on his chest and stop him before he gets there.
“Malachite.” I give him the kindest smile I can summon. “You are a really nice guy, but I’m not looking for a relationship right now. I’m so sorry.”
He straightens, and to his credit, he doesn’t look crushed. He doesn’t even look surprised.
“It’s fine.” He shrugs. “You did warn me. Friends who happen to attend a wedding together; that was the deal.” He grins. “I did promise to try my luck.”
“That you did.” I laugh. “Thank you for tonight. For all of it. Especially the embarrassing parts.”
“We will never speak of it again.”
“Deal.”
He waits until I’m through the door before he heads back to the car, and I give him a little wave through the glass. Then I take the elevator up, let myself into my apartment, and slip off my heels right there in the entryway.
Oh, sweet relief.
I actually groan out loud. I wiggle my toes against the cool floor and go straight through to the bathroom, unhooking my earrings as I go.
I brush my teeth, and I’m just pumping cleanser into my palm, about to scrub off three layers of professionally applied makeup, when the doorbell rings.
I frown at myself in the mirror.
It’s late.
I rinse the cleanser off my hands, dry them on the towel, and walk to the door.
Maybe I left my cellphone in Malachite’s car or something.
“Who is it?” I ask.
“It’s me.”
I recognize his voice instantly. Every hair on my arms stands up.
“Magma?” I frown.
“Yes, it’s me. Can you open the door so we can talk?”
“How do you know where I live?”
I hear him sigh. “Does it matter? Please open up. We really need to talk, Carla.”
“Um…no. You should go.”
Shit!
Shit!
Shit!
I don’t want to talk to him. Not now, and maybe not ever. My face goes hot just thinking about this disaster of a night. I’m pretty sure I kissed him tonight. I was definitely the one rubbing up against him.
I get hotter.
“I really think we need to talk,” he says through the door. “I would appreciate it if it wasn’t through a door with your neighbors listening in.”
“You shouldn’t be here. It’s after midnight.” I open the door anyway, and I immediately wish I hadn’t.
Holy shit, but he’s gorgeous.
He isn’t wearing a jacket, and the tie is long gone.
His sleeves have been rolled up to the elbows, and the top three buttons of his dress shirt are open.
His black markings are visible, curling up his forearms and peeking out at his collarbone.
He’s tall and stacked, and I can’t help but eat him with my eyes.
He smells good, too. Like cedar and smoke and something warm underneath. He smells like him, and it’s driving me insane, and he isn’t even inside my house.
“For the love of god, let me in. Please.” His eyes are locked on mine. “Let me say my piece, and then I’ll go. You never have to see me again.”
I hate that thought because I want to see him again so badly, which sucks.
“Please, Carla.” He drops his head for a beat, then looks back up at me. “Fuck.” His voice is deep and beautiful, and it does things to me that I refuse to acknowledge.
No way!
“Pretty fucking please.”
When he puts it that way.
“Fiiiiiinnnnnne.” I step to the side. “I don’t see how there can be anything more to say. I just don’t. We’ve said all there is to say to each other, Magma.” I close the door behind him and cross my arms. “What else is there?”
“I’m in love with you, Carla.”
Apparently, I was wrong. There was more to say after all.
My mouth falls open. My brain short-circuits. Somewhere in the back of my skull, a tiny version of me is running in circles, screaming.
“Say something. Please.” He watches me, and when I don’t talk, his jaw goes tight, and his eyes blaze. “I hope to fuck that you aren’t serious about that Malachite male. I meant what I said. He isn’t nearly good enough for you. I’m glad you didn’t kiss him when he dropped you off or so help me…”
“You were outside when Malachite dropped me off?”
He gets a sheepish look.
“I had to see you. I had to come. I wasn’t—”
That snaps me out of it.
“Aren’t you supposed to be with Brook?” I tap my foot on the floor, because what the hell? “Why are you here? You can’t be saying things like that to me when you have a girlfriend. It isn’t right.”
“Brook isn’t my girlfriend. She’s my friend. That’s all we are.”
“Bullshit! I saw the two of you talking all close and cute and then on the dance floor. She was all over you. Don’t lie to me.”
“I wouldn’t lie. I swear,” he growls, low in his chest. “Most of our intense discussions were about you. About my feelings for you. The whole dance floor thing was Brook trying to make you jealous. She said she was sure you still had feelings for me. It may not have been the best idea. She’s really sweet, and she wants us to be together.
I went along because I didn’t know what else to do. I was fucking desperate. I still am.”
I stare at him. “Then why did she go with you to the wedding in the first place?”
“I only invited Brook after Ridge told me you were seeing someone. That you would be bringing him to the wedding. I panicked.” He shrugs.
I frown. “No, that isn’t right at all. I only asked Malachite because you were dating Brook. Robyn told me you were getting all hot and heavy with a Red shifter. I didn’t want to give off sad and lonely spinster vibes while you had someone like Brook at your side. I mean, she’s freaking perfect.”
“You’re perfect, Carla. You.” He goes quiet, and I can see him thinking it through. “So you’re not with Malachite? You’re not dating him or anything?”
“No.” I lick my lips. “I haven’t been with anyone since you.”
He steps right into my space and cups my jaw in one big hand, tilting my face up to his. “I’m in love with you. I’m not seeing anyone else. I want you. It’s only you.”
Warmth blooms right through the middle of me at those words, but underneath it, there’s still that bruise. The one he put there.
“What is it?” His thumb moves against my cheek. “What’s going through your head?”
“The first thing you did when we were rescued was tell me to forget it happened. You pushed me away. You did it again at the hospital.”
“I thought I was getting between you and Flint.” He winces.
“I felt bad. I felt fucking terrible. Like the worst friend on Draig. I didn’t realize how miserable not having you in my life would make me.
All I’m asking for is a chance. Please. Give us a chance.
Give me a chance to make you happy. I realize we don’t know each other very well, but I know what I want. I know how you make me feel.”
I chew on the inside of my cheek.
“Please, Carla. Say something. I’ll give you all the time you need. I won’t push you for more than you’re ready to give me. Maybe we could start with a dinner. Or coffee? We can start small and go from there.”
“No.”
“Please. I’m begging you.” His hand drops from my jaw. “What can I do to make this right? I’ll do anything.”
I smile at him.
“Why are you smiling? I’m being serious here. I’m baring my soul to you.”
“I’m saying no to a coffee.” I take a step closer. “I don’t want to take it slow. Are you kidding me? We’ve been taking it slow for weeks and weeks and weeks, and it isn’t working for me.”
Then I jump.
He catches me, one arm banding under my ass, and my legs go around his hips.
“I want hard, rough sex,” I tell him, my nose an inch from his. “The base kind. I want you to make me come and more than once. Oh, and I think I might be a little bit in love with you, too. I’ve been miserable since Mistveil.”
“You have?” A smile spreads across his face, slow and wide, and it’s devastating. “I’m so fucking happy. I was miserable, too. It ends right now. I’m making you happy.”
He smashes his lips to mine.
There’s nothing careful about it, and I kiss him back the same way.
He walks us across my living room while his tongue strokes against mine, then my ass lands on the edge of my dining room table.
He stands between my thighs and kisses me some more, hot and hungry, one hand fisted in my hair, the other splayed across my lower back, hauling me against him.
I need his shirt off. That’s a non-negotiable at this point.
I attack the remaining buttons while he kisses along my jaw and down my neck, and when the last one gives, I shove the shirt off his shoulders, and he shrugs out of it and lets it fall.
Shit, but he’s gorgeous.
There are acres of him. Hard muscle everywhere, black markings flowing over his chest and down his ribs, and all of it mine to touch. I flatten my palms against his pecs and take my time about it, and he makes a rough sound of approval against my throat.
Then his hand finds my zipper.
He draws it down slowly, like unwrapping a gift he’s been staring at all night, and peels my dress off. I have to shimmy my ass, so he can do it. Then I remember, with dawning horror, exactly what I’m wearing underneath it.
The shapewear.
The industrial-strength, thigh-to-underboob, beige monstrosity of shapewear.
“What the fuck?” Magma looks down at it like it personally offended him.
Kill me now.
“It’s shapewear,” I say, mortified, heat flooding my whole face. “I’ve put on weight, okay? A few pounds. It smooths everything out under the dress, and I wasn’t exactly planning on anyone seeing it, so…”
I start trying to wriggle out of the thing, which is a two-person job on a good day, and I’ve managed to get it halfway down my hips when he hooks his fingers into the fabric and rips it clean off my body.
He looks down at me, taking me in slowly. His gaze heats.
“You’re perfect just as you are.” He tosses the shredded remains over his shoulder and kisses me. “You don’t need bullshit underwear.” Another kiss, this one to the corner of my mouth. “In fact, the smaller your underwear, the better.” His mouth drops to my shoulder. “None at all works, too.”
“That was expensive,” I say weakly.
“You don’t need it. I’ll buy you a couple of lacy numbers.”
He reaches behind me and undoes my bra one-handed, and when it falls away, he pulls back to look at me and his eyes go dark.
“Christ.” He cups my breasts in both hands, weighing them. “I think your tits are bigger. I like these extra pounds. They went to the right places.”
“Stop.” I feel my eyes widen and my cheeks heat.
“I love them.” He dips his head and closes his mouth over my nipple, sucking hard enough that I gasp and grab his hair. “Perfect,” he says against my skin, moving to the other one. “You’re perfect. Every fucking inch.”
I smile and groan and then smile some more.
Then he pushes me back onto the table.
The wood is cool against my elbows, and he drags my panties down my legs, then he leans down and hooks my thighs over his shoulders and puts his mouth on me.
“Oh, my god,” I growl low.
He suckles on my clit, and my hips jerk right off the table.
He pins them down with one forearm and does it again, slower, working me with his lips and his tongue while I grab uselessly at the smooth wood on either side of me.
Then one thick finger pushes inside me, and I moan loud enough that my neighbors are definitely getting an education tonight.
“I love your pussy,” he says against me. “I missed it. Missed you.”
He groans against me like I’m the best thing he’s ever tasted. The vibration of it nearly finishes me on the spot.
He adds a second finger, curling them, pumping them in a slow, deep rhythm while his tongue circles my clit, and my thighs start to shake against his ears.
Wet sounds fill my quiet apartment, his fingers and his mouth and my ragged breathing, and I am making noises I have never made in my life. High, desperate, needy things.
My heels dig into his back. My hips are rolling against his face now, chasing his mouth, and I’m right there, right at the edge, squirming under him.
He stops.
I pant at the ceiling, making a desperate groaning noise.
He rises, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, and grins at me. It’s the filthiest thing I’ve ever seen. I wrap my legs around him while he grips my hips and pulls me right to the edge of the table, then dips down through his knees, and I hear his zipper.
After that, we’re frantic for each other. My hands in his hair, his mouth crashing back to mine, him shoving his pants down just far enough, both of us breathing hard.
Then he lines up and thrusts into me.
I yell, my head falling back.
It stings so good. He’s big, and it’s been too long, and I dig my nails into his shoulders and moan while my body stretches around him.
My vibrator doesn’t even come close.
“Fuck.” His forehead drops to mine. “Carla.”
“Move,” I tell him. “Take me hard. That was the deal.”
He does, in deep strokes that rock the whole table, that scoot it an inch across my floor and then another and another. My breasts bounce with every thrust, and his eyes lock onto them, and he swears under his breath and drives into me harder.
“Look at you,” he growls. “Fucking look at you.”
He feels so good inside me. Impossibly good. Thick and hot, hitting some deep place that has me babbling half-words and fragments of his name.
“I want to live inside you,” he grits out. “Right here. Forever. Fuck!”
“Then don’t stop. Don’t you dare stop.”
He doesn’t. He shifts his angle, his thumb finds my clit, and that’s it.
My orgasm slams into me, and I cry out, my back bowing off the table.
My body pulses around him in wave after helpless wave while he keeps thrusting, working me through every last one of them until I’m limp and gasping and my ears are ringing.
And then I get to watch him.
His rhythm falters. His breathing goes ragged.
His jaw goes slack, and his brows pull together like he’s in the sweetest kind of pain, and he crouches over me, hips jerking in short, deep, greedy pulses.
His whole body shudders. He groans my name, long and broken, and the pleasure that moves across his face is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.
He spills inside me, and I feel him, hot and deep, his hands gripping my hips. His eyes on mine.
He fucks me long and hard, finally slowing and then stopping.
“Your bedroom,” he gasps.
I point to the hallway.
Then he’s picking me up and carrying me, taking long strides.