Nobody Knows

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  “I have a buddy there,” he said. “They will work with you.”

  I shrugged. “Okay.”

  He left me then to let Axe out and feed him, allowing me to get dressed today without him hovering somewhere in the periphery of my vision.

  He never actually ‘watched’ me, but I could always feel his awareness of me like a fine touch to every part of my skin.

  Our drive to the car lot was uneventful. However, upon arriving, it was to find that his buddy was actually busy. With the family of the little asshole kid that hit me and then blocked me as if I was the one causing the problems and not their son.

  Malachi saw this and grinned.

  “You stay here and look at this truck.” He gestured at the one that was closest to us. “Rams are my favorite, obviously. But you can look at them all and decide what you like and don’t like.”

  I did just that, fiddling with the ‘Ram’s’ touch screen and deciding that the backup sensor in it was amazing.

  I’d just started to play with the seat warmers—it was exceptionally cold today at a whopping thirty degrees—when raised voices had me turning to survey the area.

  I found Malachi standing there with his arms crossed as he glowered at the family.

  The parents looked startled. The kid, however? He was the one doing the yelling.

  He was waving his arms around and stomping his feet, throwing quite a large tantrum as the car salesman, Malachi, and the kid’s parents looked on.

  I watched with fascination as the kid crowded close to Malachi, as if he was going to fight him.

  Worried not for Malachi, but for the kid if he pissed Malachi off, I got out of the truck and quietly called Malachi’s name.

  Malachi didn’t turn to look at me, but the kid, did.

  “You.” He pointed at me. “You’re the reason that I’m having to look at a piece of shit bottom of the line truck.”

  I blinked. “What?”

  “I need a new vehicle since I wrecked the other one. Now my father won’t let me look at anything but the bottom of the line truck. It doesn’t even have Bluetooth!” he snarled.

  I looked over at the father who looked like he wasn’t going to cave to his kid’s tantrum.

  Good for that dad.

  Though, he was still a piece of shit for blocking me.

  “Sounds like a spoiled little kid problem,” I admitted. “When I got a vehicle at fifteen,” I emphasized that word. “It was a little piece of shit Rabbit. It’d been through five other people before it got to me. It didn’t even have working heat in it. And if the windows happened to need defrosting, I had to get up early and put a fucking space heater in there to get it done.”

  The kid looked at me and scoffed. “Sounds like a personal problem to me.”

  I rolled my shoulders to relieve the tension there.

  “Balder,” Malachi said. “You mind helping me out?”

  Balder looked more than willing to help.

  “If you folks need anything else, my manager is right inside. I’ve already sent him a text to be on the lookout for you.” This ‘friend’ Balder said to the ‘folks.’

  The kid looked irate.

  The dad looked as if he wanted to spank the kid right then and there.

  I would.

  Even at fifteen.

  The kid was a selfish little prick.

  Balder and Malachi came over then, neither one of them looking behind them at the very pissed off kid.

  I kept my eyes on the kid, though, worried that he’d retaliate.

  He didn’t, but I could see the thought pass through his mind at the thought of being dismissed by anyone.

  “Jesus Christ, Lord have Mercy. Goddamn and his disciples,” Balder said as he got up to me. “That kid is something else.”

  “You have no idea,” Malachi said, then went about explaining all that had happened after he’d wrecked my car.

  “Well, let me tell you something,” Balder said when he gestured to the truck I’d been looking at. “He wanted one like this, only in hunter green. We have one in the back, actually. I was about to take him over there when the dad put his foot down and said, ‘you’re getting a bottom of the line work truck so it’ll get you there and back with reliance’ and the kid lost his shit. That’s when you came up.”

  I looked over at Malachi who was surprisingly looking down at me. “We should get a green one.”

  It was a joke at first.

  But the way his eyes gleamed, I couldn’t stop the way I swayed toward him.

  “Do it,” he urged. “Please.”

  I gave him a thumb up. “I’ll at least go look at it.”

  “Follow me inside for a sec and let me grab the keys,” Balder ordered. “Then I’ll take you to the back.”

  Malachi leveled me with a look. “Stay in the truck until we come back. I don’t want you out here with him.”

  His eyes went to the kid that was still throwing a tantrum, only closer to their vehicle now and not next to the truck he wanted but couldn’t have.

  I nodded absently. “I’ll just read.”

  His eyes twinkled for a second before he gestured to the truck.

  “Get in.”

  I sighed long and loud and got back into the truck.

  It was only as I closed the door that he started to walk away.

  Then, for added effect, he locked me in.

  With the dinging.

  Him having the keys meant that the entire damn time, the truck dinged.

  I groaned and tried to get back into my book—Hastings’ newest that she’d just finished literally last night—and managed to get sucked in.

  All too soon, though, Malachi called, sucking me right back out.

  “Hello?” I answered, my eyes scanning the parking lot for him.

  “Hey,” Malachi murmured softly into my ear, his honeyed, deep drawl making a sweet little shiver roll down my spine.

  “Hey,” I said softly. “What’s up?”

  I looked around the car lot again and didn’t see him anywhere.

  “Come over here and bring my truck,” he said softly. “I want you to see the color.”

  Thinking that he was in the ‘back’ like he’d said, I managed to successfully drive his truck over to him without dying. Only, when I got to the back, there was no sign of him anywhere.

  I frowned hard and was just about to back up, because where I was at looked like an employee area, when the truck died.

  “Shit,” I grumbled, looking in dismay at the instrument panel that’d died with the truck.

  Unfortunately, since he’d taken the key with him, I couldn’t restart the truck.

  Shit.

  Oh well.

  I pulled out my phone and texted him.

  He didn’t answer.

  Sierra: Where are you?

  Malachi read the comment but didn’t answer.

  The little shit.

  I got out of the truck and started to walk.

  It was only after I circled the parking lot twice that I decided to go back to the truck and wait until he actually said where he was.

  Sierra: I’m getting awfully hungry. I like the color. Can we just go?

  Seconds later he called.

  “Where are you?” he asked, making me once again pick my head up from my phone and glance around the lot.

  “Well,” I said. “I’m over by the entrance to the employee lot, I think. I was going to come back to my first spot, but it died. It was a good thing, anyway, because I was tired of listening to the horrible ding it was making since you took the keys.”

  “Shit,” he said softly. “I’m all the way at the front of the car lot. They had the truck behind the building on the Chevy side.”

  I frowned hard. “How the hell did you expect me to know that?”

  “Because I walked right past you,” he replied sarcastically. “On my way to the other side.”

  He had?

  When?

  “Oh.” I paused. “Well
, sorry. I didn’t see you. I was busy reading Hastings’ newest book and didn’t really pay attention. I’m sorry. Then I got onto social media and it degraded from there.”

  “K. Well, it’ll take me a few minutes to get there and then you can explain this juicy book,” he murmured softly.

  Then he was gone, just as fast as he’d called.

  He was always abrupt like that. Always very short on the phone, and I wondered if there was a reason for that.

  Going back to all the comments on the post I was reading, I didn’t stop until Malachi opened the door to his truck.

  He grinned when he found me sitting in the driver’s seat.

  “Unless you want to drive…” he teased.

  I didn’t.

  Though I was confident that, if I ever was forced to at gunpoint, I could get from point A to B in his six-speed truck, I sure didn’t want to drive it for fun.

  Especially around fucking Longview, where the traffic was insane.

  “Absolutely,” I teased in return as I swung my legs to the side and jumped out of the truck.

  My body slid down the length of his, and both of us froze at the close contact.

  A thrilling sensation of excitement hung in the air between us, and I nearly moaned at the feel of him so close.

  “Are you sure?” he asked.

  Was his voice huskier? Rougher?

  Or was that just me?

  “Yes,” I replied breathlessly. “I’m sure.”

  He hummed something underneath his breath as he slid his hand up the outside of my thigh.

  “Took the seatbelt with you,” he said when he saw my eyes flare.

  I was all but panting as I slid past his hard body and made my way around the truck.

  It was only when I got to my side that I realized he’d rounded the truck too, ever the gentleman, to open my door for me.

  “Thank you,” I said as I hefted my leg up on the step.

  He steadied me when I started to teeter—damn my nerves went haywire when I was around the man—and waited until I was fully inside the vehicle to pull out of the parking lot.

  And even then I was fairly sure that things were starting to come to a head.

  I was feeling these things and it wouldn’t take long for me to self-combust.

  I just hoped that I was in the privacy of my own room when it happened.

  Only, I wasn’t.

  Fast forward five hours, and Malachi was still at my house, and I was at my boiling point.

  “Hey, what about steak?” he asked, looking over his shoulder at me.

  I licked my lips, unable to help myself, as I stared at his ass.

  “What about steak?” I asked, unable to focus.

  I grabbed the front of my shirt and pulled it a bit away from my body quickly, fanning myself.

  “Steaks. For dinner. You know that thing that you do around six in the evening?” he teased.

  He was teasing me.

  He had no clue that with each flick of a smile. Each absent itch of his fingers across his abs. Every little slide of his tongue along that full bottom lip. He was slowly driving me absolutely insane.

  I wanted him. So. Bad.

  There were things going on inside my body that I hadn’t felt for any man.

  CHAPTER 14

  Forget the she shed. I need a bitch barn.

  -Sierra to Malachi

  MALACHI

  Sierra,

  I’m going out on deployment again. A new place. Hold your letters again until I can tell you where and when to send.

  Thank you for your last care package. I love cheesecake, and I can’t believe that you found a place that delivers. It had to cost you a fortune.

  I had to share with the guys, though. They wouldn’t stop crying and whining until I did.

  You’re officially their hero now, too.

  So guess what Luca talked me into? Cryogenically freezing my sperm.

  He did it for his girlfriend, Frankie. And it was like he was having performance anxiety or something, so I jokingly said that I’d go first. He took me up on the offer, and now my boys are frozen somewhere in Dallas, Texas. I’m not sure what, exactly, I’m expected to do with them. But I did it. Now I’m wishing that Luca wasn’t such a little bitch.

  Also, is this something that we can talk about? I know that we haven’t actually gone this far into ‘personal business’ before. I hope that it wasn’t too out there to talk about. But I needed to talk to someone about it. I feel so freakin’ weird that I did it. And you’re an ‘adult’ now. Not that you weren’t an ‘adult’ even when you were underage. You’ve always been way older than you actually are.

  Hope to talk to you soon,

  Gabriel

  • • •

  “Are you okay?” I asked, closing the fridge and turning to face her.

  Her face was flushed, and she was fanning herself with her shirt as if it was hot in here.

  It wasn’t.

  It was actually quite chilly.

  The old plantation house with its twenty bedrooms, two living rooms, massive kitchen, sunroom, and even a couple more odds and ends rooms was a bitch to heat up during the cold winter days, and today was definitely colder than normal.

  It was eighteen degrees out and said to drop into the single digits. Kilgore, Texas was expected to completely obliterate the old record low temperatures that were set in 1919 when we started to record them.

  Meaning, that I was in sweats. All the while she was in tight fucking black leggings that were driving me wild, a t-shirt that was mine—when she’d gotten it, I didn’t know—and thick wool socks.

  But, her face was flushed and her cheeks were rosy red.

  “Fine,” she squeaked, her face getting even redder, as if that was even possible. “Why do you ask?”

  She shifted on her chair, looking uncomfortable.

  The move drew attention to the apex of her thighs where I could see the bright red underwear through the thin fabric of her leggings.

  I was sure if I told her that I could see through them, she’d change them.

  So I hadn’t told.

  Instead, I’d enjoyed looking at her over the last few hours that we’d been at her place.

  The phone rang and she jumped, quickly standing up and hurrying to it where it was resting on the corner of the kitchen counter.

  My eyes went to her ass where I could see peach-colored skin, and I groaned.

  She was wearing a thong.

  The t-shirt was so long that I was only getting flashes here and there.

  And they were making my dick hard as a pike.

  I’d spent more of the night hiding my goddamn boner than I’d spent enjoying being with her.

  It wasn’t that I wasn’t adoring the fuck out of spending time with her. It was that I was wearing sweatpants, and unless I wanted to go home and get some jeans to actually contain the beast, I was stuck using various pots, throw pillows, and even a rolling pin to hide my dick from her.

  Like right now, I was barely turned toward her and using a jug of milk—milk I didn’t even want but had to act like I did or I’d look like a goddamn moron holding it—to cover it.

  I swallowed hard at the look of heat in her eyes and wondered if maybe I was seeing things.

  All this time I’d assumed that she was totally and completely unaffected by me.

  But maybe she wasn’t…

  Her phone rang again, causing us both to jerk in surprise.

  She placed the phone to her ear. All the while I decided to put the jug of milk back while she wasn’t paying attention.

  “Oh,” Sierra said. “We’re here. We’re in the main house. Grans is in the house behind us.”

  “That was Oston,” she said. “He’s here with the furniture.”

  My brows rose. “He is?”

  He wasn’t supposed to come until tomorrow.

  “I think he has a bit of a crush on your grandmother,” she teased, bending over to do her own perusal of the f
ridge.

  I closed my eyes and willed my dick to behave.

  Fuck!

  “Did you say something?” she asked, standing up.

  Had I?

  I had no fucking idea.

  I couldn’t think straight, let alone tell her if I was thinking straight.

  “Umm.” I shrugged. “Sure.”

  The movement of my shoulders caused a sliver of skin to peek out between the waistband of my sweatpants and the hemline of my sweatshirt.

  The shirt was a bit small for me but seeing as it was all that I had in my truck, my options were limited.

  “How long is he going to be?” I asked, trying desperately to come up with something to change the subject to.

  Because the way her eyes had flashed down to my bare stomach?

  That wasn’t a look that she could hide.

  The flash of skin had made her heart start beating hard. I could see her goddamn pulse in her throat rocketing away.

  My abs tensed and I moved toward her almost as if on autopilot.

  I could hear my brain working, telling me to stop, but my feet continued to pull me forward.

  Before I knew it, she was moving too.

  Our bodies pulling against some invisible string that had us stepping into each other and colliding in bare seconds.

  One moment she was standing by the fridge, and the next she was in my arms.

  What happened next was what I could call… epic.

  The moment that her soft body came into contact with mine, I… lost it.

  Before I could tell myself this wasn’t a good idea, that I should pull back, she was shucking my t-shirt.

  She was also naked.

  At least, halfway.

  The entire time that she’d been in the kitchen walking around, she hadn’t been wearing a bra.

  Only someone with smaller breasts could pull it off and me not know, but even though they were small, they definitely turned me on.

  The moment that I saw the perfectly tipped areolas, my knees went weak.

  I groaned and pulled her even more into me, pressing those breasts into my chest.

  She squeaked and pulled away. “Your sweatshirt is cold.”

  Was it?

  I leaned backward and tugged it off by latching on to the back of the neck hole, arching my shoulders so that the entire thing could come off in one swoop.

  Seconds after that, the damn thing fluttered to the ground, discarded and forgotten at our feet.