A/N: For DatNookieThang. Sorry it became kind of angsty. It is Cookie after all.

-ED

She thinks she could love him. She spends a lot of time assessing him and hates herself for comparing him to Lucious. But how could she not? Lucious was her first everything. But Malcolm...

Malcolm is everything. Everything Lucious isn't. Everything Lucious might have been had their lives been different and a sick mother and poverty hadn't taken its toll.

Sometimes the differences are stark. Sometimes subtle. Lucious' light eyes captivated her from the moment she saw him on the old block. They looked at her with adoration until they looked at her with disregard and eventually didn't look at her at all.

Malcolm's eyes, though dark, hold such warmth when he looks at her. No one has looked at her like that in a while. Like she matters. It's an unfamiliar feeling that she tries to welcome but it feels peculiar after not experiencing it for so long.

It's the little things he does that makes her fall for him until she realizes that she's fallen so hard and so fast and she doesn't know if she wants to stop.

Like the way he kisses her from her ankles to her lips and everywhere in between. Like the way he doesn't laugh at her when she tries to program his GPS to take them to a restaurant she wants to try and she ends up doing a factory reset on the device. Like the way he dances with her even when there's no music.

And his hands.

The way his hands hold her with such care. The way they move her from his left side to his right to shield her from the traffic on the street. The way they bring her body to a fever pitch. She could fall in love with his hands alone.

When he sleeps she admires his form. His broad chest, his lips. She traces his lips with her fingers before pulling them away. The curve of his biceps when he wraps his arms around her make her weak.

He takes his time with her. When they make love, sometimes he's gentle to the point that it becomes agonizing. Sometimes he takes her against the wall, on the floor, in the hallway because they can't make it to the bed and she's clawing his back as she rides him. Always the gentleman, he makes sure she's satisfied before they fall asleep.

He's a military man. A former Navy SEAL with a fierce dedication to his country. A former Navy SEAL with a fierce dedication to her.

He's a killer. She witnessed him shoot a man to save her life. It doesn't scare her that he's taken a life. She knows that Lucious has taken plenty and none were in her honor. If that doesn't solidify her feelings for him, she doesn't know what does.

He has his flaws but still, he seems perfect and maybe he is. At least for her. She's never experienced perfect and thinks maybe she'd like to. She's never loved anyone other than Lucious and wonders what it'd be like to love and be loved by someone who wasn't a Lyon. Wasn't someone who abandoned her when she needed them the most. Wasn't someone who still had such a hold on her even when they'd been apart for so long. Wasn't someone who eviscerated her heart without apology.

She thinks she could love him even though she's terrified. Terrified of loving a man who isn't Lucious. Terrified of loving a man who just wants to give her the world. Terrified of how much he wants her to be part of his world. Terrified of how much she wants to be part of his world even if she knows deep down she'd never truly fit.

Still. She thinks she could love him. If only in another life where she wasn't the former Mrs. Lucious Lyon.

So when she lays her head on his chest, she lets herself imagine that she's Mrs. Malcolm DeVeaux and that she's never seen the inside of a prison. Lets herself imagine that they'd met at another point in time and she hadn't let herself love Lucious and hadn't become a Lyon. Let's herself imagine that she's a woman in love with a man who loves her just as deeply, if not more.

In another life, yeah, she thinks she could love him.