That fucking grin. It should be illegal. Outlawed. Seared from his handsome face and yeeted at the moon.
Instead it’s right here, twinkling in his eyes, and I want to punch him as hard as I have to fight not to grin back. “Stalking me?”
Mal’s grin morphs to a smirk. “Wasn’t until you got naked.”
“I was behind a tree.”
“Aye, I might have to cut it down. Revenge, like.”
“Have you been with Jack today?”
“For a bit this afternoon. Why?”
“You sound more Killinchy when you’re together.”
Mal spins in the water, turning his face to the sun. Bothered, perhaps. I still have a lot to learn about his tells. And no patience left after a night of no sleep and an overlong shift.
I prod him with my foot, forcing him to look at me. “You don’t like that?”
He shrugs. “All I ever wanted was to be like Jack. Never knew I could do it without trying. It’s fucking weird.”
“Maybe you’re more alike than you think.”
“Doyouthink so?”
A simple question, but the answer is complicated. Mal’s warmer than his blunt nature and harsh vernacular make him seem. But where I’ve always struggled to imagine Jack with a gun and shoot-to-kill order, I don’t have that problem with Mal. It why it’s so easy to link him with the scorched wound from this afternoon and build a picture that makes sense even with so many missing pieces. Still… “I think you’re nicer than you want to be.”
Mal snorts and dunks himself under the water, resurfacing with more splash than necessary as his scarred hands shove his hair from his face.
It’s quite the sight.
Disarming.
But he’ll have to do better than that if he wants to distract me from where this conversation is going. “Did you shoot someone with a flare gun last night?”
Mal lowers his hands, faint amusement lighting his eyes. “That’s a wild fucking question there, Sky.”
“Don’t call me that. Just answer the question. Was it you?”
He shrugs. “Depends how deep you want to go.”
Yup. Still sounds like sex. But I can play that game too. “Deep as you like, I can take it.”
“Now you say that.” Mal drifts closer. “But do you really meanit?”
“What do you think?”
“I think you want to mean it. But you won’t know how you really feel until it happens.”
There’s noifin what he’s saying. Only a promise ofwhen. But as good as the rush in my blood feels against the cool water of the lagoon, the stench of that blackened wound won’t leave my head. If that’s what Mal did to whoever’s harassing Sol, what in the ever-loving fuck didtheydo to him?
Possibilities dance through my mind, and that wound…the one still out there in the world, untreated and raw, suddenly doesn’t seem so bad. “Tell me what happened last night. And don’t fucking lie to me.”
Mal doesn’t blink. His features don’t shift. But what comes next, isn’t a lie. It’s him, in my face, caging me with his corded forearms as he backs me against the rocks. “Why do you want to know?”
“It was a bad injury. You ever seen what magnesium does to the skin?”
“I’ve seen lots of things.”