Chapter 2: The Warning
The phone skittered across the scarred workbench, cracking the screen further before it clattered to a stop against a greasy torque wrench. The silence it left was electric, filled only by the hum of the single bulb and the ragged sound of Jade’s breath.
Malakai still had her wrist. His grip wasn’t painful, but it was absolute, a steel band of heat. She could feel the faint tremor in his hand, the only sign of the fury riding him. His eyes were locked on hers, dark and burning.
“Bullshit,” he repeated, the word a low growl that vibrated in the space between them. “He’s throwing rocks at a tank. Let him try.”
“You don’t understand,” she whispered, the terror a cold snake coiling in her belly. The text was a ghost reaching right into Malakai’s sanctuary, tainting it. “He doesn’t make threats he can’t back up. He’ll start with the shop. A fire. Slashed tires. Then he’ll come for you. He’ll make it slow.”
“Let him.” Malakai’s other hand came up, his rough thumb brushing the frantic pulse in her throat. “But you turning yourself in to him? That’s not an option. That is a line in the fucking concrete, Jade. You do not cross it.”
She tried to pull back, the old instinct to flee, to appease, to sacrifice herself to divert the storm, surging up. His grip tightened, just a fraction.
“Don’t,” he warned, his voice dropping. “Don’t you run from me. Not toward him. Not ever.”
Then he was pulling her, not away, but into him. There was no gentleness, no tentative question. His mouth crashed down on hers, a brutal, claiming press of lips and heat and desperate intention. It wasn’t like any kiss she’d ever known. It was devouring. It was a brand. His tongue swept past her lips, tasting of coffee and fury, and a low, fractured sound broke from her throat—not a protest, but a surrender to a different kind of storm.
He kissed her like he was fighting a war, and her mouth was the battleground he had to win. One hand slid into her hair, fisting gently but firmly, angling her head to take more of him. The other stayed locked on her wrist, pinning her to the spot. She melted against him, her free hand coming up to clutch at the worn fabric of his shirt, feeling the solid wall of his chest beneath.
When he finally broke for air, they were both panting. He didn’t go far, his forehead resting against hers, his breath hot on her swollen lips.
“You stay,” he breathed, each word a command and a plea. “You fight. You stand right here, with me, and you fucking take what’s yours. This life. This safety. Me.”
His mouth trailed down her jaw, rough with stubble, to the junction of her neck and shoulder. To the place where Cole’s faded, ugly claiming mark sat, a pale shadow of violence. Malakai’s lips hovered over it. She felt the growl rumble through his chest before she heard it—a purely Alpha sound of possession and primal rejection.
“This isn’t his,” he snarled against her skin. “It never was.”
His teeth scraped, not hard enough to break, but with deliberate, undeniable pressure right over the old scar. It was an erasure. A reclaiming. A new, electric pain that shot straight to her core, burning away the ghost of the old one. She cried out, arching into him, her body bowing back over the workbench. Tools shifted, clinking.
“Malakai,” she gasped.
“Tell me to stop,” he challenged, his mouth wet and hot on her throat. “Tell me you don’t want this. Tell me you want to hide.”
She couldn’t. The fear was still there, a icy shard in her gut, but it was being surrounded, outmatched by a rising, desperate need. A need to feel something real, something fierce and clean that belonged only to her and to this man in this moment. A need to be marked by protection, not cruelty.
“Don’t stop,” she heard herself say, the words raw. “Please.”
He moved then, a blur of controlled power. He swept a cleared space on the workbench with his arm, sending a few nuts and bolts skittering to the concrete. He lifted her as if she weighed nothing, seating her on the cold, hard edge. The metal bit through her thin leggings. He stepped between her knees, crowding her, his hands on her hips, holding her there.
Their eyes locked. The air was thick with the scent of engine oil and their own sharp, gathering arousal. This wasn’t the soft bed upstairs. This was his domain, gritty and real. It felt right.
“Look at me,” he said, his voice gravel. “You see me. Only me.”
She nodded, her fingers scrambling for the buckle of his belt. Her hands were shaking. His covered them, stilling them, completing the task himself with a sharp, efficient motion. The rasp of his zipper was obscenely loud. He shoved his jeans and boxers down just enough to free himself.
He was already fully hard, thick and formidable, the head flushed and leaking. Her breath hitched. He was so much, a physical manifestation of the strength that had sheltered her.
“You’re sure.” It wasn’t a question this time. It was a final checkpoint.
“I need it to be you,” she whispered, the most honest thing she’d ever said. “I need to feel you. I need… I need you to fuck me until I can’t remember his name.”
A dark, approving flash crossed his eyes. He hooked his fingers in the waistband of her leggings and her panties, dragging them down her thighs in one rough pull. The cool air touched her exposed skin, making her shiver. He didn’t bother taking them all the way off, just left them tangled around her knees, a binding that kept her open to him.
He spat into his palm, a crude, practical sound, and slicked himself over. Then he notched the broad head of his cock against her. She was wet, desperation making her slick, but she was tight, clenched with residual fear.
“Breathe out, little omega,” he murmured, his lips against her temple. “And take me.”
He pushed in.
The stretch was breathtaking, a burning, full sensation that stole the air from her lungs. He didn’t stop, didn’t pause to let her adjust. He seated himself in one slow, inexorable slide until he was buried to the hilt, his hips pressed flush against her inner thighs. A broken sob escaped her. It was overwhelming. He filled her completely, a solid, burning presence that pushed at every internal boundary.
“Fuck,” he groaned, his head dropping, his body trembling with the effort of his control. “Jesus, Jade. So goddamn tight.”
He held there, letting her body clench and flutter around him, letting them both feel the shocking reality of the connection. Then he began to move.
He set a ruthless, deep rhythm from the start. Withdrawing almost all the way, then driving back in with a sharp snap of his hips that jolted her up the bench. The metal edge dug into her ass. The sounds were filthy—the wet, rhythmic slap of skin, their ragged breathing, the occasional clatter of a tool as the bench shook.
“This,” he gritted out, pounding into her, “is what you have. This heat. This feel. My cock in your cunt. My mark on your skin.” Each thrust punctuated a word. “Not. His. Ever. Again.”
He was right. With every plunge, the ghost of Cole’s touch, his ownership, his violence, was being pounded into dust. This was different. This was claiming, but it was also giving. Malakai was giving her this—the obliterating focus, the raw pleasure-pain, the proof that her body could feel something other than fear.
She wrapped her legs around his waist, her heels digging into the small of his back, trying to take him deeper. Her fingers clawed at his shoulders, seeking anchor.
“Harder,” she begged, the word torn from her. “Make me feel it tomorrow. Make sure I know.”
A feral sound ripped from his throat. He obeyed, his thrusts becoming harder, faster, pistoning into her with a force that shook her entire frame. The pleasure was coiling, tight and desperate, a live wire in her belly. It wasn’t sweet or gentle. It was a breaking apart and a reforging.
“Gonna come,” he warned, his rhythm starting to falter, his breath hot gusts against her neck. “Gonna fill you up. Mark you inside. Where he never fucking was.”
The words, so crude and possessive, tipped her over the edge. Her orgasm slammed into her without warning, a violent, clenching wave that ripped a scream from her throat. Her inner muscles spasmed around him, milking him, and with a roar that echoed off the garage walls, he followed.
He slammed home one last time, grinding deep as he pulsed inside her, hot and endless. She felt the wet heat flooding her, the intimate, primal claim. He held her there, impaled and full, as they both shuddered through the aftershocks.
For a long minute, there was only the sound of their labored breathing. The garage smells—oil, metal, dust—seemed sharper now, layered with the salty tang of sweat and sex.
Slowly, carefully, he softened and slipped out of her. A trickle of his release followed, a warm trace on her inner thigh. He didn’t move away. He kept her caged against the bench, his hands braced on either side of her, his head hung between his shoulders.
Finally, he lifted his head. His eyes were clear, the fury gone, replaced by a weary, profound intensity. He looked at her—disheveled, half-dressed on his workbench, marked anew—and slowly raised a hand to her cheek.
“Okay?” he asked, his voice wrecked.
She nodded, her own voice gone. She felt raw, scraped out, but cleaner than she had in years. The fear was still in the room, but it was smaller now. It had been confronted. It had been met with something stronger.
He straightened and gently pulled her leggings back up over her hips. He handled her with a startling tenderness now, fastening his own jeans with a wince. Then he simply lifted her off the bench, holding her against his chest. She buried her face in his neck, breathing in the scent of him, of them.
He carried her not toward the stairs, but to the old, greasy couch pushed against the wall near the tool cabinet. He sat down, settling her in his lap, wrapping his arms around her. They sat in the dim garage, in the aftermath.
On the workbench, the cracked phone screen suddenly glowed again. Another text. They both saw it.
Malakai’s arms tightened around her. “Ignore it.”
“He won’t stop.”
“Then we’ll be ready.” He pressed a kiss to her hair. “But you’re not alone in the waiting anymore. You feel that?”
She did. The ache deep inside her, the new tenderness on her neck, the solid reality of his body wrapped around hers. They were facts, as real as the threat. For the first time, the scales didn’t feel hopelessly tipped.
She closed her eyes, listening to the steady beat of his heart under her ear, a rhythm
For the first time, the scales didn’t feel hopelessly tipped.
She closed her eyes, listening to the steady beat of his heart under her ear, a rhythm that slowly overwrote the phantom echo of the text notification. The phone on the bench went dark again, but its presence was a cold splinter in the room. Malakai’s hand moved in slow circles on her back.
“We should go up,” he murmured into her hair, but he made no move to stand.
“In a minute.”
They stayed like that until the garage door rattled, signaling a customer’s arrival early for a pickup. Malakai sighed, a deep expansion of his chest beneath her. The real world, with its mundane demands, was a brutal and necessary anchor.
He helped her stand, his hands careful on her elbows. Her legs felt unsteady, a pleasant, deep ache radiating from her core. He looked at her, his eyes scanning her face, her tousled hair, the red mark blossoming on her neck. A possessive satisfaction flickered there, but it was tempered by a watchful concern. “You alright?”
She nodded, touching her throat. “I feel… real.”
He kissed her forehead, a brief, hard press of his lips. “Good. Go shower. I’ll handle this.”
She did. Under the hot spray, she washed the smell of sex and garage from her skin, but the feeling of him, the soreness, remained. A secret she carried. When she came out wrapped in a towel, she heard his voice rumbling up through the floorboards, talking to Mr. Henderson about brake pads. It was normal. It was safe.
A new feeling uncoiled in her chest, warm and daring.
She dressed in one of his old shirts, the hem brushing her thighs, and padded barefoot downstairs. The client was gone. Malakai was back under the Ford, only his legs visible. The radio played classic rock softly. She leaned against the doorjamb, just watching the tense line of his calves, the deliberate shift of his body as he worked.
Then she walked over. She didn’t speak. She knelt on the creeper beside him and pressed her lips to the tense plane of his shoulder blade, where his t-shirt had ridden up. His muscles jumped under her mouth, but his hands, working a stubborn bolt, didn’t falter.
“Jade,” he said, a low warning.
“Hmm?” She kissed a path along the ridge of his spine, a soft, teasing trail.
“I’m working.”
“I see that.” She blew a gentle breath over the damp skin she’d just kissed, then stood and walked to the coffee pot, her bare feet silent on the concrete. She felt his eyes on her, a heavy, heated weight. She poured him a fresh mug, the one chipped at the rim he always used, and brought it over. She placed it on the floor just by his head.
“Your coffee’s getting cold,” she said, her voice light.
He slid out, his gaze locking onto hers. He took the mug, his fingers brushing hers. “Thank you.” His voice was gravel. He took a long swallow, his eyes never leaving her face, reading the new quiet challenge in her expression. A faint, approving smile touched his lips before he slid back under.
The next day, she pushed further. He was at the front counter, explaining an estimate to a young woman with a overheating sedan. Jade came up behind him, ostensibly looking for a pen on the cluttered desk. She let her hip brush against his, a slow, deliberate slide. Her hand trailed over the small of his back as she reached past him.
Malakai’s sentence hitched for a fraction of a second. “…the thermostat housing is likely cracked, so the labour is…” He cleared his throat, his hand dropping to his side to capture her wandering fingers for a brief, squeezing correction before releasing her. The client didn’t notice, but Jade felt the electric current of his reaction. She took her pen and sauntered away, a slow, knowing heat building low in her stomach.
Later, in the apartment, she confronted the feeling. She was testing him. Testing the boundaries of this safety, this power she was startled to discover she held. The memory of him over her on the workbench, of the brutal, perfect claim in his eyes when he’d come inside her, was now mingled with this new knowledge.
He would kill for her.
The thought should have been an ice bath. It should have sent her into a panic, back to the terrified omega who flinched at shadows. Instead, it pooled as a thick, liquid heat between her legs. The clarity of it was obscene. If she whispered, “He’s outside,” Malakai would walk out there with a tire iron and not come back in until it was done. No hesitation. No regret. His protective fury was a weapon, and she realized, with a shuddering breath, that the grip was now moulded to her hand.
This power was terrifying. It was also the most potent aphrodisiac she’d ever known.
She waited until he came up for lunch, washing his hands at the kitchen sink. She approached him from behind, wrapping her arms around his waist, pressing her cheek against his back. She felt him still.
“What is it?” he asked, his voice gentle.
She didn’t answer with words. She let her hands slide down, over the hard planes of his stomach, past his belt buckle. She palmed the growing bulge in his jeans, feeling him thicken instantly under her touch. A rough groan escaped him.
“Jade.”
“You’d do it, wouldn’t you?” she whispered against his back, her fingers working the button of his jeans. “If I asked you to. You’d find Cole. You’d end him.”
He turned in her arms so fast it stole her breath. His eyes were dark pits, his face serious. “Don’t ask me that.”
“But you would.”
He searched her face, seeing not fear, but a dark, awakened understanding. His jaw tightened. “It’s not a game.”
“I know it’s not.” She popped the button, tugged his zipper down. She slid her hand inside, wrapping her fingers around his hard, hot length. He was already slick at the tip. “That’s why it makes me so wet.”
A shock went through him. He grabbed her wrist, not to stop her, but to feel her grip on him. “Christ.”
“It does,” she insisted, stroking him slowly, watching his eyelids grow heavy. “Knowing what you’d do for me. Knowing this…” She tightened her fist, dragging a hiss from his lips. “…is nothing compared to the violence you’d unleash. It makes me want to fucking ruin you.”
With a growl, he spun her around, bending her over the kitchen table. The lunch plates rattled. He yanked his jeans down further and shoved her shirt up, her leggings down. He didn’t tease, didn’t prepare. He spat into his hand, slicked himself, and drove into her from behind in one relentless thrust.
She cried out, her hands scrambling for purchase on the smooth tabletop. He was impossibly deep at this angle, filling a brutal, perfect ache.
“You want to think about that while I’m inside you?” he snarled, pulling out and slamming back in, making the table legs screech on the linoleum. “You want to think about me beating a man to death while I fuck this tight cunt?”
“Yes,” she moaned, pushing back against him, taking him deeper. The crude words fueled her, painting the explicit picture she craved. “God, yes.”
His pace was punishing, a hard, short piston that hammered her sensitive spot with every drive. His hand fisted in her hair, holding her head down. “Then come. Come on the cock of the man who’d burn the world for you. Do it.”
The permission, the raw, filthy command, shattered her. Her orgasm ripped through her, violent and consuming, her inner muscles clenching around his invading length. With a choked roar, he followed, his release jetting into her, hot and claiming, another visceral promise sealed inside her body.
He slumped over her, his weight a comforting anchor. Their breathing filled the small kitchen.
Slowly, he softened and slipped out. He righted her clothes with a tenderness that contrasted violently with the act. He turned her to face him, his thumbs wiping tears from her cheeks she hadn’t realized she’d shed.
“That power,” he said, his voice raw. “It’s yours. But you don’t ever have to use it. My violence is mine to carry. Your job is to feel safe. To feel good. Understood?”
She nodded, clinging to him. She did feel safe. And she felt more than good. She felt potent. The phone buzzed again, from the bedroom this time, a distant, insistent threat.
Malakai’s head lifted, his eyes narrowing at the sound. Then he looked back at her, waiting for her cue.
Jade took a deep, steadying breath. She didn’t look toward the noise. She kept her eyes on his. “Let it ring,” she said.