Data…

“She doing better?” Dragon asked me a few days later. I blew out a breath between gritted teeth, my cheeks turning into bellows to force the rest of the air out and took the half a second my mouth was occupied doing it to think.

“Yes and no,” I said finally, into the phone.

He’d called me, but his question had been his version of a greeting. It was one of the things I liked about him. He was to the point, didn’t waste people’s time or treat the important things like a game, not when hearts and minds were on the line to this degree.

“She around you?” he asked.

“No, I’m out on a gig.” I sat back in the borrowed desk chair while my laptop ran through the diagnostic code on its screen, hooked up to the client’s mainframe trying to figure out why the fuck it was doing what it was doing.

“Where’s she at?”

“Home, why?”

“She settling in?”

“Again, yes and no.”

“She’s the active type,” he said judiciously.

“Yup.”

“Think it’s time to find her a job or something?” I chewed my bottom lip. “Data?”

“I’m thinking,” I said.

Dragon grunted on the other end of the line, “You didn’t hear it from me, but Trigger is impressed. Hasn’t shut up about her artwork.”

“Shit, yeah, he has her portfolio, doesn’t he?”

“Might want to take her by the shop. A familiar setting, even if it’s different, might do her some good. Break her outta that funk you were complaining about.”

“Was honestly waiting for her to say something about being bored,” I said with a smile. “Don’t want her to rush into anything. She’s good at that.”

“Boy, please. She’s a work-horse type, needs to be involved in something. You can tell her type from a mile off.”

I smiled to myself, he wasn’t wrong. It was probably time to put out some feelers and see if there was something I could get her into, even if it was only part time. Sometimes all you needed was something to focus on.

“Thanks for checking in, D.”

“You got it, what brothers are for.” he said.

Yeah, sometimes I just needed the reminder. My laptop beeped and I looked up, “That’s my cue. I’ve gotta go.”

“See you this Friday?”

“Yep.”

“Keep the shiny side up, brother.”

“You too, man. Bye.”

I hung up and set my phone down, muttering to myself, “Now why the fuck would you do that?” at the technology in front of me, letting my work suck me under and roll me.

* * *

My brain felt the consistency of fried mush when I got home, but the sound of Mali striding quickly up the hall and appearing in nothing but one of my shirts definitely perked me up some. She practically crashed into me, greeting me enthusiastically, and I let my laptop bag slide to the floor so I could get my hands on her.

“I missed you,” she murmured into my mouth and I pulled her in tighter, urging her, with my hands against her thighs to give a jump and wrap her legs around my hips. She complied, and I carried her to the first available surface my tired brain could come up with.

Just so happens, that surface was the granite kitchen countertop. I set her down and she squealed, writhing declaring “Goddammit, Kyle, that’s cold!”

I laughed and she did too, and it was the first one I’d heard from her in a few days. I was glad this was a good one for her. I looked her in the eyes and said, “I’m going to do you against this kitchen counter, then I want to take you somewhere.”

“Oh, promises, promises,” she declared, but she was already working buttons loose on my black shirt. I grinned and covered her mouth with mine. She kissed me with some of that fire of hers and pushed my shirt back off of my shoulders. I pulled it off and let it hit the floor, intent on getting inside her.

She sucked in a sharp and appreciative breath when I hauled my undershirt over my head and let it fall next. I gave her a smile that said she was in serious trouble and her eyes grew hungry.

That gave me an idea.

“Lay back,” I demanded and she did. I went to my knees between her legs, using an arm as a bar across her hips to keep her from bucking or writhing, I nipped the inside of her thigh. She giggled and tried to squirm, but I wasn’t going to let that happen.

I tasted her and God, she was good. Her whole mood immediately downshifted with the touch of my tongue and she went from giggling and squirming to letting out a sharp, throaty moan, her fingers grabbing the edge of the counter as she sat up abruptly to watch me.

I met her suddenly so-serious gaze and teased her clit with the tip of my tongue, sucking it into my mouth slowly. She closed her eyes and moaned faintly, her knuckles turning white where they gripped the edge of the stone countertop. I draped her long legs over my shoulders and went to town, determined to make her come at least once to make sure she was wet enough, ready enough, to take my cock.

She shuddered and I worked a finger inside of her, curling it up, stroking that slightly rough patch on her roof. She cried out, shaking, fighting to keep her legs from wrapping around my head and finally she lay back.

“Oh, ow!” she cried and I looked up sharply.

“You okay?” I demanded.

“Ohhhh no! I just cracked my head really hard!” She sucked in a sharp, pained breath between her teeth and I stood up. She had both hands wrapped tight around the back of her head, lifting it from the counter.

“Shit,” I muttered and helped her sit back up.

“Oh my god, so stupid!” she cried and I gently pried her fingers away so I could look. She bowed her head and I probed the spot gently with my fingertips. She yipped when I found the swelling goose egg and I bowed my head and tried not to laugh at the sheer absurdity of it.

Fuck, I felt so bad. It clearly hurt her and was swelling pretty quick. She made to get down and I stopped her, my hands on her knees.

“Stay right here; I’ll get you some ice.” I went to one of the drawers and pulled out a Ziploc freezer bag and dispensed some ice from the fridge. She watched me, half wincing, half trying not to laugh and I felt my lips twitch.

“You do think it’s funny!” she accused.

“Well, yeah, kind of hard not to, but I feel bad you’re hurt.”

She laughed, “Of all the stupid fucking things to do…”

“Hey, it’s okay,” I twisted around so she could see the bulge in the front of my slacks. “Even slightly maimed you’re still sexy as fuck.” She lost it then while I wrapped the makeshift ice pack in a dishtowel and brought it to her, easing it onto the back of her head.

“Mm, note to self, eat you out on soft surfaces only.”

“You’re really good at it,” she said knocking her shoulder into mine.

“Yeah?”

“Oh, yeah.”

We laughed and she smiled, gaze roaming my face. It was an intense look, and one I didn’t readily understand so I asked, “What?”

“Just… I love you. More than anything. More than life itself,” she said.

“Mali…”

“No, I mean it. If anything happened to you because of me –“

“Stop.”

It came out harsher than I meant it to and she looked vulnerable, uncertain, and for the first time that I could ever remember she looked that way about me.

“Are you mad at me?” she asked and the hurt and uncertainty in her tone was so far off her baseline it scared me.

“No, I’m scared for you, Mali.”

“Scared?” she echoed in disbelief.

“Yeah. You as good as told me you were trying to kill yourself. That you gave up. That’s not my Amalia Rose, baby. That’s some other girl. This,” I waved my hands in front of her, “constant melancholy. This isn’t you. You can’t let what happened to you break you like this. I need you. You mean everything to me!”

Her eyes dropped to her lap, and her listless hand there. She lowered the other with the ice pack from the back of her head and rolled her lips together. She didn’t say anything. I mean, shit, this wasn’t the way I wanted to handle it. Fuck, did I just fuck up? Did I just chase her back down deep inside herself?

I fought the panic clawing its way out of my chest and up my throat as I worried, did I just turn into every other guy she’d ever been around or been with?

“I don’t know what to do with this…” she said and I blinked.

“The ice pack?”

“No, this.” She waffled her hands back and forth. “I have all these damn feelings and for the first time ever, I don’t feel like I have to keep a lid on them and not all of them are good, you know? It’s like the dam has busted six ways to Sunday and the water’s out and I can’t get it back in…” She looked up at me, her eyes misting and asked, “What’s wrong with me? What do I do?”

I grabbed her and pressed her into my bare chest, my arms going around her, her breath hissing out as I touched the back of her head to hold her close and comfort her. The enormity of the moment causing me to forget what’d started us down this damn road in the first place.

Fuck, U-turn. How do I get us back out of this mess?

“I need to know you aren’t going to try anything. That you aren’t going to hurt yourself.”

“Of course I’m not!” she warbled.

“Promise me, baby. I can’t face a fucking world without you in it. I’ve never had to before and I don’t fucking plan on it.”

She looked up at me sharply and sniffed, searching my face. “You really never gave up on me, did you? Not once.”

“Not even for a minute, not for one second,” I affirmed.

“How did you know?” she asked, dubiously.

“I didn’t, I just never gave up.”

“I’m sorry I did,” she said and sniffed.

“I get why you did, but you can’t ever again. You promise?”

“I promise.” She held up her pinky finger and I latched onto it with mine.

“Never let me go,” she said and cuddled close to me.

“Never gonna.”

“Good, because it’s all I ever wanted.”

“Me, too.”

“Glad we had this talk,” she snarked and I laughed. I couldn’t help it. That was Mali, that was my girl… she raged, cried, did whatever she had to in order to let it out, and bounced back at the speed of light stronger and better than ever.