Page 81 of Ruined By a Devil

“I’m yours,” I sob, the defiance completely bleeding out of my voice. “I’m all yours, Mal…”

He grins, his lips finding mine for a passionate kiss as the heavy wooden bedframe slams loudly against the cabin wall in a rhythm that completely shatters the dead quiet of the woods. Every time my muscles pull tight, every time I am a fraction of a second away from breaking, he deliberately shifts his angle. He alters the depth just enough to deny me the release, enjoying as the frustration tears through me, his green eyes locked dead on my face, dismantling every ounce of the defiance I threw at him in the living room.

I desperately try to move my hips and regain at least a little control, desperate for more, but his grip on my hips is absolute iron, leaving me trapped under his weight.

“Please,” the word breaks in half, completely stripped of whatever pride I brought into this room. “Malachi, please.”

“Was that so hard?” He whispers into my ear, his breath hot. “Good girl.”

Malachi drags his hips back one last time and drives forward, burying himself as deep as he can go, and he stays there, pinning me flat to the mattress, causing the tension to completely snap. A breathless scream tears out of my throat, echoing off the bare wooden walls of the cabin as the release hits me like a physical blow. The pleasure is so overwhelming it blinds me, my nails digging deep, bloody half-moons into the heavy muscle of his shoulders as my body completely unravels beneath him.

Malachi doesn't last a second longer, his face buried in the crook of my neck as he collapses. All of him drops over me, but I don't try to push him off. Instead, I wrap my arms tight around his back, pulling him even closer as my fingertips trace the hot, sweat-slicked skin of his back, slowly trailing down his arms until I reach his wrists.

My fingers find the thick, uneven ridges of scar tissue left behind by the chains and I get carried away, running my thumb over the raised lines in the dark, listening as his heavy breathing slows down.

If there’s anything I learned tonight it’s that Malachi Kavanagh loves me. He might not do confessions the old-fashioned way, but allowing me to lead tonight, even briefly, revealed more about his feeling than any words he has ever said at loud.

Malachi

I draw a thick black line through the address on the map spread across the cabin’s kitchen island.

Empty.

That makes four properties in three days. Nolan’s businesses have stopped operating entirely, while his legitimate fronts are dead quiet. And as if that isn’t enough, half of his men boarded buses out of New Orleans before Tuesday morning.

“The man is a ghost,” I say at loud to myself.

“Elijah just cleared the south docks. There’s absolutely nothing,” Zeke’s voice comes through the speaker of the burner phone resting in front of me. “Makes me wonder if his men ran, or if he is hiding them?”

“We know one thing for certain, he’s bleeding cash,” I say, leaning my weight against the counter. “He can’t afford to pay an army to sit on their hands. I suspect he sent the liabilities out of state and kept the shooters.”

“What do you think that means?”

“He’s probably pooling his capital for one big swing.”

“Then we can't wait for him to swing,” Zeke says.

“I agree,” I toss the marker down. “I want Levi to start paying visits to every supplier Nolan uses. They drop Devlin today, or we burn their trucks tomorrow. And Cain can take the port. I’ve got two of Nolan’s dock supervisors on payroll as of an hour ago.”

I spent the last forty-eight hours buying the loyalty Nolan couldn’t afford. It’s simple math, Devlin’s soldiers are scared and broke. If I offer them an envelope of cash and a guarantee they can live to see another day, in exchange they give me the exact shipping container numbers Nolan uses to move his money through the port.

“Cain has the port,” Zeke confirms.

“Good,” The call ends and I slide the burner across the counter.

The tension that has been gripping the base of my skull since the motel raid finally starts to ease. This is the type of game where I thrive and neither Nolan Devlin nor any of his men could possibly beat me at.

“All good?”

I look up at Jade who has been sitting on a wooden stool on the other side of the island. She has a mug of tea between her hands, but she hasn’t taken a sip in ten minutes.

She’s just watching me, making sure I don’t do anything that would backfire and end with me getting hurt. Which, knowing my own track record, I can’t blame her for worrying about.

“Looks like it,” I reply, but she narrows her eyes at me, her left eyebrow raising. “What?”

She looks down at the map, the scattered burner phones, the long lists of Devlin businesses crossed out in heavy ink, the look in her eyes curious.

“Nothing.” She shakes her head, her voice warm. “I’m just fascinated by all of this. How easy it is for you to cut his throat without even laying a finger on him.”