Perhaps.
‘I didn’t quite catch that, Saskia. Was that another failed attempt at denial?’
He lifted his hand and brushed her cheek—the faintest of contacts and yet it ripped through him.
Saskia sucked in a sharp breath as if to echo it. ‘Malachi...’
‘Repeat it, if you will,’ he enjoined, all too aware that his leaden voice betrayed him but not even caring any more.
And then her eyes flashed. They locked with his in unmistakable defiance, just as they had for a moment back on that promenade. A kick of that spirited, feisty Saskia he recognised only too well. It was like a shot of pure lust straight through to his sex.
‘Fine,’ she gritted out. ‘I still want you. I know I shouldn’t, but I do. Is that what you wanted to hear?’
‘It’s a start.’ He lowered his head slowly towards her, pulled by some invisible thread which seemed to be as delicate and as strong as spider’s silk.
‘We can’t...’ She shook her head weakly. ‘This isn’t about another roll in the hay. There’s a baby now—our baby. The fact of whether we still have chemistry or not is irrelevant.’
‘I beg to differ,’ Malachi growled.
And he was unable to stop himself from closing the gap and finally covering her mouth with his, revelling in the way Saskia surrendered to him in an instant. Her lithe body moulded to his, and her arms snaked around his neck as if they knew her mind better than her brain did.
And Malachi indulged. Deepening the kiss and giving in to the savage, raw ache that roared inside him. The inconceivable need he felt to be with her—inside her—over and over again.
She was his.
It thundered through his veins even as he struggled to comprehend what it meant. She was carrying his baby. Never again would another man touch her the way that he did. Be with her the way he was.
She was his.
Even if he didn’t fully grasp what that meant.
Even if a part of him knew—knew—that he was about to complicate things in a way that he had been avoiding his entire adult life.
CHAPTER FIVE
IT WAS ELECTRIC. He was electric. Just as it had been three months ago.
Better.
Saskia melted into him in an instant, all her tentative resolve gone, and the painful memory of her parents’ death was dissipated the moment Malachi’s lips touched hers.
She wanted him with an intensity that should have terrified her. On some level, it did. And yet she couldn’t stop—couldn’t drag her mouth from the thrilling slide of his; couldn’t unwind her arms from around his neck, where they’d slid almost of their own volition.
She didn’t want to stop.
He gathered her to him, lifting her up and pulling her legs around his waist, running one big, callused hand along the length of her exposed thigh as the long side slit of her dress fell away. And when she locked her heels together, drawing herself that bit tighter to him, he made a low rumble of approval deep in his throat, and it rolled through her like the most delicious storm.
Supporting her with one hand, the other hand brushing the hair gently from her cheek as his mouth still plundered hers, Malachi carried her through his loft-style apartment. Everything in her jolted in anticipation of the intimate reunion she’d imagined over and over in her head, but had never believed would actually happen.
‘Last chance, Saskia,’ he muttered, his voice hard and dark as he shouldered his way into the plush master suite and carried her to the bed.
She wondered what it had cost him to drag his mouth from hers and stand there now, so still and unmoving.
Could she have stopped like that?
She doubted it. Every inch of her was on fire. She ached between her legs. Even her lips tingled, as though objecting to the loss of his mouth on hers.
‘I don’t want you to stop,’ she managed, and the sense of relief was almost overwhelming as he offered barely a grunt of confirmation before lowering her onto the bed.
And then he was pushing the long skirt of her gown up to her hips, deliberately slowly, his hands grazing her thighs, higher and higher. His lips followed—languid, indulgent kisses, all stopping just short of where she yearned for his touch the most.
Again and again he repeated the motion. Up one side, then down the other, so close she could feel his breath brush over her molten heat through her lacy underwear, but never touching her. When she thought she could take it no longer she arched up slightly, only for Malachi to slide his hands under her backside and hold her in place.
‘Malachi...’
‘Patience, zvyozdochka...’
She could hear the amused smile even without seeing it.
‘All in good time.’
‘This is in so-called good time,’ she grumbled.
‘On the contrary. I find I want more time to get reacquainted with every millimetre of you.’ Backing off the bed, he ran his tongue down from her thigh to her knee, making her tremble all over. ‘Especially these long, incredibly sexy legs of yours, which you wrapped so tightly right around me when I drove deep inside you.’
She remembered. Lord, how she remembered.
But before she could answer Malachi was moving back up again, his lips, his tongue, his teeth, trailing a fiery blaze to the apex of her legs. Only this time he didn’t stop short. And he didn’t skirt over her core.
This time he bent his head and licked his way straight into her molten heat.
Saskia cried out instantly, helpless to stop her body from writhing under his expert touch. He was chasing her to the edge far faster than she could have imagined—but then she’d been dreaming of being back here in Malachi’s bed ever since she’d left it, three months ago.
She was dimly aware that in her dreams it hadn’t been just about her. In her dreams Malachi had been just as close to spiralling as she felt now. But then he lifted her backside with his hands, his tongue working a kind of magic inside her, and every thought went out of her head. There was only the pure sensation of what he was doing to her right now.
She had no idea how long they remained there. How long he played with her, toyed with her. Only knew that her body was revelling in every minute of it. There would never be anyone else for her like Malachi—she’d known that truth even before she’d realised she was pregnant—so if this was to be their one and only revisiting of history, she intended to enjoy every last second of it.
All too soon a delicious tremor began to work its way through Saskia’s body, rippling out from her core to the tips of her toes, her fingers, her head. And Malachi responded accordingly, increasing his wicked rhythm and changing angles until she was grasping at the bedding for purchase, the wildest little sounds escaping from her.
And then he closed his lips over the very centre of her need and sucked. Hard.
Saskia exploded.
A detonation of sensations coursed through her entire body and she shamelessly rode them out. Soaring on every last one of them. It might as well have been a lifetime before she came back down to earth, exhausted, boneless, and not even able to draw a steady breath.
By the time she finally came to and sat up, gingerly, Malachi was watching her. She recognised his dark, intense expression—desire—and it sent a thrill of pleasure down her spine.
‘Now, I rather think I should return the compliment...’ she managed hoarsely, reaching for his hands, which he duly extended, and allowing him to draw her to her feet, before turning her back to him and pulling her hair over her shoulder to expose the pearl buttons at the back of her gown. ‘If you wouldn’t mind?’
‘If you insist.’
His gravelly voice was distinctively loaded and intent, and she knew she wasn’t imagining the faint shake in his hands as he began to release one tiny button after another.
It gave her a sense of elation...almost of power...th
at a man with the kind of formidable, controlled reputation in business that Malachi had should be so close to the edge with her.
It felt like an age before the buttons were all undone, but as Saskia felt the halterneck fall, she turned slowly, allowing the dress to puddle at her feet before stepping elegantly out, and Malachi’s eyes went almost black as he reached for her, his hands cupping the faintest swell of her abdomen.
* * *
‘Actually, I rather think...’ she licked her lips, her eyes locking with his as she sank to her knees ‘...that it’s my turn.’
It took him a moment to register what she was doing. Long enough for her to unsnap his belt and for him to hear the sinful sound of her undoing his zip before he moved his hands to cover hers and still them.
‘No...’ He barely recognised his hoarse voice. ‘You can’t.’
‘Why not?’ she murmured, and the heat from her breath rushed over his sex, making him tighten and ache desperately.
He could scarcely form the words. ‘You’re pregnant, zvyozdochka.’
‘Ah...’ she murmured, twisting her hands from under his and releasing him from the confines of his boxers before he could even react. ‘And somehow that makes me fragile and innocent in your book?’
‘Saskia...’ he warned, trailing off as she coiled her fingers around his sex and stroked all that velvet and steel.
‘Let me assure you, Malachi, that there is nothing fragile about being pregnant. If anything, it makes me bolder than ever.’
Then, before he could answer, she tipped her head forward and took him straight into her mouth. Hot, and deep, and positively indecent.
When he looked down she was looking right back at him, his sex in her mouth and the naughtiest of smirks curving her lips.
He meant to stop her. To pull her to her feet. Instead he found himself lacing his fingers through her curls and holding on as though he might topple if he didn’t.
He thought he was going to explode right there.
Again and again she tasted him, licked him, sucked him. Her tongue, her teeth and her wicked little fingers were all working in perfect lazy synchronicity to stoke that fire in him, hotter and higher.
It was incredible. She was incredible.
Malachi had never felt so wholly at someone’s mercy and he found, with Saskia, he rather liked it.
And then suddenly it wasn’t lazy any more. He was catapulting towards the edge. Closer and closer. Her mouth was so damned wet and hot.
‘No,’ he ground out, pulling himself out of her mouth although it was delicious agony to do so. ‘Not like this.’
Scooping her up, he carried her to the bed and threw her down, shedding his clothes as fast as he could.
Finally—at last—he was covering her body with his, skin to skin, as he dropped his head to her jawline and trailed kisses all the way along it and down that glorious neckline, with deliberate care and attention. And then he turned his attention to her collarbone, and the sensitive hollow at the base of her neck. First one side and then the other.
Malachi could feel her nipples, hard and proud, chafing against his chest. He revelled in the way her breath hitched in her throat with every slide of his tongue. And still he took his time.
By the time he’d worked his way down her chest, to draw one exquisite nipple into his mouth, Saskia was gasping and locking her arms around him, trying to pull him down onto her properly.
It took all he had to resist her.
This was her moment, and he wanted it to be perfect.
He drew whorls around her nipples with his tongue. First one, then the other. Then he propped himself over her and let his hands take over.
He was so damned hard it was almost painful, but still he didn’t let her touch him, however much she arched and writhed beneath him.
And then he was reaching down between them. Letting his fingers dance over her belly, over the softest of curves where his baby lay within her, over her hip and down her thigh.
His. All his.
‘Malachi...’ she groaned. ‘Touch me...’
‘Patience, zvyozdochka,’ he rasped. ‘All in good time.’
The truth was, if he touched her too early he feared he wouldn’t hold out.
It had never, never been like this before. Only that first time with Saskia, and he’d been fantasising about this moment ever since.
He built up the rhythm in her. Higher and faster. Until eventually he reached down between her legs and let his fingers sink into all that sweet, molten heat.
She sighed and shuddered instantly. ‘More,’ she moaned. ‘I need more.’
And, God help him, he needed to hear it.
‘Tell me exactly what you need, zvyozdochka,’ he commanded. ‘I want to hear you say it.’
She groaned again, a low, needy sound which ripped right through him. He couldn’t help it. Nestling between her legs, he flexed himself against her wet core.
‘You, Malachi,’ she muttered, opening her legs and arching as his tip slipped inside. ‘Inside me.’
He couldn’t stand it any longer. He thrust inside her. Slick, hard, deep. Just as Saskia wrapped her legs around him and clung on.
In and out, and she lifted up and met him stroke for stroke. The only sound was their ragged breathing, and every so often a deep, sensual groan. And then she lifted her legs higher, locking them tightly around his waist and twisting, so he plunged in that little bit further, and Malachi knew he was lost.
Just as he reached down between them, playing with the centre of her need, he heard her cry out his name. Her entire body shuddered, then tensed, then stilled, and he flicked his fingers expertly.
Saskia screamed, calling his name and toppling over the edge. And still he kept going, flinging her straight back over every time she thought she was done, until the final time, when she slid her hands down his back and cupped his buttocks, pulling him into her with such force he couldn’t tell where he ended and she began.
This time when she shattered around him his name was on her lips. He drove himself home and followed her into oblivion.
CHAPTER SIX
MALACHI CURSED UNDER his breath. A filthy Russian curse he remembered his mother using—if not in the beginning, then certainly a lot towards the end.
Saskia was carrying his child.
His baby.
And he’d forgotten. All he’d been thinking about was getting inside her again, just like three months ago.
But this wasn’t then—this was now. She was the mother of his unborn child and everything had changed. He was going to look after them. That was his responsibility. But responsibility and personal life were different things, and that meant there had to be boundaries. He couldn’t go blurring the lines by being intimate with Saskia. There had to be rules.
He ignored the voice in the back of his brain asking Why? Needling him. Whispering that if there weren’t rules, he wouldn’t have to keep his hands off the woman who was even now still naked in his master suite.
And, God, how a part of him ached to spin around, go back in there and take her. Over and over again.
‘Weakness!’ he muttered, slamming his fist on the countertop as he marched into the kitchen to get himself a long, cold glass of water, when what he really needed was a very long, very icy-cold shower.
Though privately he doubted even that would do the trick. Saskia had got under his skin the first time they’d met and he’d been trying to eject her ever since.
In some ways the appalling misstep he’d made tonight had been inevitable. And if he didn’t have those rules in place it could just as easily happen again. He couldn’t allow it.
He wouldn’t allow it.
Being out of control was something he would never accept. And there was nothing controlled about this dark, needy thing which swirled inside him whenever he was with S
askia. Hell, whenever he even thought about her.
It felt altogether too much like powerlessness. And he’d sworn, back when he was eight years old, that when he grew up he would never allow anything to make him feel powerless again. Which meant showing no emotion.
Emotions were a bad thing. They were what made things start to unravel. His parents had loved each other—and hated each other, for that matter—with such intense passion that their relationship had been an emotional rollercoaster. And not just for them, but for him and his brother, too.
Malachi didn’t know how much his brother, Sol, remembered about those very early years, if he remembered anything, but for him it had been draining. He’d never known whether their parents were going to be there at any given time, to remember to cook a meal, or give them a bath, or even just tuck them in to bed at a decent hour.
But that had been nothing compared to the powerlessness he’d felt when their father had died. Their mother had been unable to cope with the loss, and spiralling into drug addiction had been the only means of escape she could see.
It had fallen to Malachi to keep things together. From looking after the house to taking care of his baby brother. By the time he’d turned eight he’d been doing whatever it took to survive, to put food on the table for him and his brother, and to keep the local dealers away from his junkie mother.
Something ugly twisted and flipped deep inside him—something which a lesser man might have taken to be regret, maybe sadness, possibly even grief—but Malachi slammed it down in an instant.
God, why was he even thinking of this now?
It belonged in the past.
This was Sol’s fault, for raking it all up the other day at the hospital. Stirring up old memories both of them were better off forgetting.
There was no point in what ifs. He’d learned that as a kid, the moment he’d taken up the reins as the adult of the house. He’d had rules, and he’d taken control of everything. His single-mindedness had enabled him to drag himself and Sol out of the gutter. He’d built MIG International after learning investment strategies from the internet, and he’d sent Sol to medical school.
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