Malachi’s stoicism was legendary amongst his family. He’d been known to sit completely still and without complaint for hours while waiting for clients to do what they needed to do or for an event to happen.
That patience seemed not to exist around Lara, and it became nonexistent as he waited the long minutes for her to return from the bathroom.
There had been a beautiful stillness in the way Lara barely moved as she slept. She was obviously exhausted after working a twelve-hour-long shift at the hospital, but Malachi was filled with an inner warmth at Lara admitting it was his presence that was responsible for giving her the comfort and contentment that had enabled her to sleep so deeply.
That feeling was in stark contrast to how he made most people feel. His brooding silence often unnerved people. But not Lara. No, she liked that about him, had told him she appreciated all that he was.
“What are you thinking about?”
He turned to look at her as she came out of the bathroom. She’d obviously brushed her hair, and her face was still a little damp after being washed. She’d no doubt brushed her teeth too. The hedgehog-adorned nightshirt had been replaced with a purple one decorated in butterflies.
“You,” he answered her honestly. “Now that I’ve met you, all my thoughts are about you.”
She looked at him searchingly as she came toward him. “Doesn’t that frighten you?”
“No.”
“Not even a little?”
“Not even a little. Should it?”
She chuckled. “Most men would be running scared in the opposite direction by now.”
His mouth twisted. “I think we both know that I’m not like most other men. Besides, why would I want to run away from my destiny?”
She came to a halt in front of him, her throat moving as she swallowed before speaking. “You think that’s what I am?”
“I know that’s who you are,” he assured with conviction. “Who you’ll always be.”
Malachi had absolutely no doubts about the emotions he felt for Lara.
He’d met dozens of beautiful women during his life, gone to bed with quite a few of them, but he had never felt even an ounce of love toward a single one of them. The love he now felt for Lara was absolute and contained absolutely no doubt or uncertainty because of the speed with which it had taken over his heart and life.
Well, strictly speaking, it wasn’t his actual heart feeling those things, it was his head and emotions. Because the human heart wasn’t capable of feeling love—
Now wasn’t the time for practicality, Malachi instructed himself firmly.
He loved Lara, and with any luck, she would soon feel the same way about him. “Once you get used to the idea of there being an us, I’m going to ask you to marry me.”
Lara’s eyes widened. “Really?”
“Really,” he echoed firmly.
She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. “You’re actually going to ask me rather than tell me?”
“I’m going to give it a good try, anyway.” He grimaced acknowledgement of his usual habit of just forging ahead and expecting everyone else to catch up with him, verbally, physically, and emotionally. This wasn’t one of those occasions where he could do that. “But, because I’m a possessive bastard where you’re concerned, I’m pretty sure I’m going to insist on it anyway. But at least I’ve given you advance warning of my intention,” he added hopefully.
* * *
Lara looked at him, having no idea what to say to such a statement. There was absolutely nothing she could say to a man who was as decisive and focused as Malachi.
The same man who was now professing his love for her and promising her a future, with a wedding, no doubt followed by those children he had mentioned earlier.
She should be the one who was now running away screaming.
Instead, she once again moved up on tiptoes and pressed her lips against his. “Maybe we should…see if we’re completely compatible before considering something quite as binding as marriage?” she prompted huskily.
Malachi looked at her for several long seconds, as if he didn’t understand, before his brow suddenly cleared. “Are you propositioning me?”
Was she?
Yes, damn it, she was!
What was the point of being as attracted to someone as she was to Malachi, and knowing that attraction was returned, if they didn’t…road test that attraction? Or, in their case, bed test it.
“Yes.” She met and held his unblinking gaze. “I am.”
* * *
“Thank God.” The breath rushed from Malachi’s lungs and the tension eased from his shoulders. “I’ve had an engorged cock since the moment I decided to sit beside your bed.” He stared at Lara as she burst out laughing. “I’m guessing that was one of those things I shouldn’t have said out loud?”
“Pretty much.”
“Even if it’s true?”
“I love your honesty. Please don’t ever change.” Lara reached out to grasp hold of one of his hands before walking toward the bed.
“I’m not sure that I could if I tried—” The words dried in his throat after Lara released his hand to grasp the bottom of the butterfly nightshirt and pull it up and over her head.
A totally naked Lara was absolutely breathtaking. Her skin was that peaches-and-cream color all over, except for her nipples, which were a delicious pale pink.
Nipples that engorged in front of his eyes, plumping that pinkness to the size of raspberries.
Malachi licked his lips as he imagined licking and then sucking them into his mouth and tasting their sweetness. Biting gently to give Lara more pleasure. Then sucking deeper, biting harder, taking her to a plateau of ecstasy before she fell over the edge screaming his name.
But before he allowed any of that to happen, there was something he needed to tell Lara—
“Malachi.”
Oh fuck, he’d been so lost in the thoughts of pleasuring her that he was in danger of ending this before it began.
No, he wasn’t, because one glance at Lara’s face showed him she was amused by his distraction rather than offended.
She truly was temptation incarnate, with her slender limbs and skin as smooth as alabaster. He’d also been right about her being a natural redhead. The curls covering the plumpness of her mound were the same fiery color as her hair.
“Malachi?” she prompted less certainly this time.
“God, you’re so beautiful. I can hardly breathe, let alone speak,” Malachi burst out. “I need to kiss you. I’m going to kiss you,” he amended before taking her in his arms and claiming her lips with his own.
Considering Malachi didn’t like to kiss, hadn’t ever kissed a woman before Lara, his own lips, tongue, and teeth knew exactly how to claim and ravage Lara’s mouth as his hands roamed over every inch of her creamy skin, until they were both panting breathlessly.
Malachi’s arms were tight about her waist when he dragged his lips from hers. “I’m thinking maybe it’s time I was naked too?”
A light blush brightened her cheeks. “I would like that.”
“Do you want to undress me, or shall I do it…?”
The blush deepened. “I would love to, if you’re sure?”
“Positive.” He stood as still as a statue when Lara removed his T-shirt.
In truth, he was barely aware of her actions, as she dropped onto her knees in front of him to unfasten his jeans before pulling them and his boxers down to his ankles then removing his boots and discarding the clothing completely. His senses were now so full of the scent of Lara’s arousal, he couldn’t think about anything else.
His thoughts ceased altogether when Lara, taking advantage of being on her knees, took the bulbous head of his cock into the heat of her mouth. Making him totally forget what he had needed to say to her.
It was difficult to function at all at the sight of her lips parted and stretched about the girth of his cockhead. The long and delicate fingers of one of her hands were wrapped firmly about the bottom of his cock as she slowly began to bob her head up and down in the same rhythm as her fingers pumped and stroked. Her other hand cupped and squeezed his balls.
Malachi was drowning in the sensations caused by the moist heat of Lara’s mouth and the rough rasp of her tongue against the sensitivity of his cockhead. He’d never seen anything as beautiful as Lara taking his cock deep, and then deeper still into the heated moisture of her mouth, until his cockhead touched the back of her throat.
“Fuck!” He reached out to tightly grip Lara’s shoulders, a familiar tingling at the base of his spine indicative of his imminent release. “Not yet.” He used his grasp of her shoulders to push her gently away from him. “You’re too good at that. I nearly embarrassed myself by coming too soon,” he explained when she looked up at him in reproach.
She lowered her lashes. “Isn’t that what’s supposed to happen?”
“Not two minutes after you started sucking my cock, no,” he said self-disgustedly. “You’re just too sexy, and your mouth feels as hot and tight as I know your pussy is going to be. Fuck, I did it again,” he muttered when she looked up at him with startled eyes. He reached down to grip her arms and pull her to her feet. “We need to talk.”
She eyed him incredulously. “Now?”
He grimaced. “The thing is, I want us to make love, but I’d rather wait to take your virginity.”
Her throat moved as she swallowed. “Wait for what?”
“For us to be committed to each other. The last thing I want is to lose myself in you, to claim you completely, only for you to decide later that you don’t want to be with me after all.” He breathed shakily. “It would fucking kill me if you did that. No.” He placed his fingertips against Lara’s lips as she would have spoken. “I want—need you to be one hundred percent sure you want this, me, because once I’ve claimed you fully, I’ll never be able to let you go again. Do you understand? I’m not saying no, I’m just asking that we wait a while, until you’re as sure about this, us, as I am.”
A frown creased her brow. “Does that mean we’re stopping this now?”
“Hell, no.” He swung her up into his arms to place her carefully on the bed before pushing her legs apart and kneeling between her thighs. “I’m going to make you come again and again, give you climax after climax, until you scream for me to stop.”
* * *
Lara doubted she would ever want him to do that!
She was sure she wouldn’t when his lips parted to take one of her nipples into the heat of his mouth, sucking and biting as he suckled that sensitive nubbin before shifting to the other side and giving its twin the same focused attention.
The heat between her thighs quickly deepened, the lips becoming slick with moisture, the nubbin above swollen and pulsing. “Malachi, I need… I need…”
“Come for me just from having my mouth on your breasts,” he encouraged gruffly. “You can do it, Lara,” he encouraged. “Please, give me your pleasure.”
The climax hit her with the ferocity of a freight train, sweeping her deep into a vortex of pleasure she felt from her head to her toes and all the places in between as Malachi continued to suck on one of her nipples and squeeze and pull on the other one.
Lara was still lost in that haze of sensations as he slid his body down hers until his lips were on a level with her mound. He used his fingers to part her curls, his breath hot as he blew lightly on her pulsing clit.
“Oh God,” she choked, and then cried out as another climax ripped through her body the instant he lowered his mouth to suck on that exposed nubbin and his fingers stroked along the wet seam of her pussy.
He took her to that peak, and then over it, again and again, until Lara was totally blissed out, all her sensations centered on what Malachi was doing to her with his hands and mouth.
It was an ecstasy she also wanted to give to Malachi. “Let me pleasure you now,” she encouraged huskily.
“You don’t have to.”
“I want to.” She sat up, her pulse racing when she saw how debauched Malachi looked lying with his face between her thighs, his lips wet with the juices that released in hot gushes every time she climaxed. “I need to finish what I started.” She gazed with longing at the long and thick length of his cock when he moved to kneel between her thighs. “Shall I come down there to you, or will you come up here to me?”
Malachi’s answer was to straddle her thighs and then move slowly upward until he was close enough to grip the base of his cock and rub the moist tip against her lips.
Lara instantly parted her lips and took that bulbous top fully into her mouth, groaning with pleasure as she once again tasted the salty sweetness of his release on her tongue.
She sucked deeply, running the roughness of her tongue along the silky length, one of her hands cupping the sack beneath so she could squeeze and roll the balls inside.
“I’m going to come,” Malachi warned in a growl minutes later. “If you don’t want— Fuck!” he cried out, his cock pulsing his release into her mouth, when Lara’s answer was to suck deeper.
His cum was hot and tasted delicious, so much so that Lara sucked harder as she swallowed it down greedily until she was sure she’d claimed every drop.
“That was unbelievable,” Malachi groaned long minutes later as he slowly dragged his spent cock from inside her mouth before collapsing onto the bed beside her.
“Yes, it was.” Lara rolled over to lay her head on his shoulder and place her arm about his waist.
“Sleep now,” he encouraged as he cuddled her close to his side. “We’ll talk again when we wake up.”
“Okay,” Lara agreed softly.
Who knew lovemaking could be that tiring?
But it was a tiredness Lara knew she hoped to feel again and again with Malachi.
Only with Malachi.