Page 85 of Phantom Faceoff
He doesn’t look it, covered in dirt and scratches, but he raises a hand and cups his fingers over my cheek.
“Good boy.”
And if that isn’t the nail in the metaphorical coffin.
My chest feels light, and my eyes burn with unshed tears. I don’t understand, but I also don’t care.
“Thank you, Daddy.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Malachi
The downstairs bathroomat the Jock House has a faulty light. I know because I’ve been staring into it without pause while Zander dabs water, soap, and disinfectant over the various cuts and scrapes on my abdomen.
“I can’t believe you let me do that,” he mumbles, and I barely hold back a smile.
As soon as we both came off the sex high, Zander started fussing over me in a way I’ve never seen him act before. It’s sort of cute.
“I’m okay,” I say, but he shoots me a glare.
“There was dirt in your dick hole. What if you get an infection?” He’s whisper shouting and poking his finger at my chest, but when I circle his wrist with my fingers, he visibly calms. “Is this how everyone else feels when I jump off the deep end?”
I bring his hand to my mouth and kiss his knuckles. The feeling of those fingers in my hair shoving me around still tingles at the base of my skull.
Zander is right. I have a little bit of a pain fetish, but since I haven’t had a partner since figuring that out, I’ve never played around with it.
“Shower with me,” I say, and even I can hear the affection in my voice.
His eyes scan along my body, completely naked, and even though he’s worrying himself to death, there’s a twitch of interest behind his boxers.
“No sex,” I assure him, because the moment those eyebrows crease, I know he’s afraid he’ll hurt me again. “But you can touch me. Confirm with your own hands that I’m in one piece.”
I guide him forward, and he folds like paper, face pressing into the side of my neck, free arm wrapping around my waist. We sit like that for several minutes, just holding and breathing each other in. His fingers travel up to trace patterns on my shoulder blades. I rub my thumb over the veins on his wrist.
It’s peaceful and quiet in a way I’m not sure the two of us have ever been together. Not other than the night with Julian.
Zander pulls away first to start the shower, and I slip my hands into the back of his boxers to slide them off. My lips ghost along his neck, fingers leading an exploratory path across his abdomen.
Just slightly, he turns, brings a hand to my neck, and slots our mouths together. We kiss until the bathroom mirror fogs, half dragging each other behind the shower curtain. The water turns a muddy brown as it circles the drain, and we’re silent as the thickness of the night washes away.
Zander’s hands touch every inch of my body. Every crevice. Every nook. At one point, he’s on his knees rubbing a soaped up finger over my sore hole, and once he’s rinsed everything away and is convinced no damage was done, he presses in with his tongue and urges me to a much overdue orgasm.
I taste myself on his mouth, and he drags my hips to his. We’re both spent, soft, but we enjoy the company of each other’s touches until the water turns cold.
Zander grabs us both a pair of sweats from his room, and then sets us up on the downstairs couch.
“You don’t have to stay down here with me,” I tell him as we both get comfortable with the blanket pulled up to our laps.
He touches my cheek and kisses me—because he can’t seem to stop ever since we got out of the woods—and since I don’t want to get up to anything indecent in the living room, I pull away.
His eyes are troubled, and it draws out the protector in me. “What’s wrong, baby?”
He shivers and drops his forehead to mine. “I owe you an apology.”
It takes a moment for it to sink in that he doesn’t mean for roughing me up. He means the phone call. The yelling.
“I’m sorry, Daddy,” he whispers, and the way he says the name has the muscles restricting around my heart. “You’re not needy and overbearing. You didn’t deserve to get blown up on like that.”
