Malachi tsks sarcastically. “Poor Duchess. You long for the old days, huh? You wish things could be the way they were, don’t you?” He offers a quick, sinister chuckle. “Pathetic, simple-minded, selfish woman. Don’t you know it could still be that way? It could have. But you chose to betray me instead.”
He gathers a fistful of the diamonds and rubies dangling from my neck. “This necklace was to be your graduation gift. I had it commissioned for you. I was planning to give it to you when you finished college right before I proposed. I knew you would have loved it, but I never had the opportunity to give it to you because you destroyed me and everything we had.”
Tears trip over my lashes and spill down my cheeks. “I didn’t, Malachi. I never—”
“Because of that, it belongs to me now,” he goes on. “Just like you do. And because you both are my possessions, I will do whatever I choose with it and you.”
Malachi sets the gun on the counter, and his jewel-filled palm closes around my breast. The contrast is hard and chilling just like everything about this confrontation that I have no ability to escape from. He squeezes, pressing the sharp jewels into my flesh and then rolling them in a circle around my nipple, then covers my mouth with his. His tongue probes deep, sweeping and tangling with mine while he wraps his hand around my jewel-encased throat. He squeezes just enough that a heady rush of dizziness creeps into my brain, intensifying the head-spinning lust his kiss and touch draws out of me.
I lose myself in all the tactile memories that I still have. All of it is living, breathing deja vu, and my hands and mouth and lips act on their own accord.
Just like the last moment we were tangled up eleven years ago, my hands drag down his hard, chiseled torso to reach for his belt, and I don’t even care.
I don’t even care.
I don’t even care.
I don’t even care.
My hands work frantically at his fly while he bends me backward to lie flat on the counter, and I hate him, but the feel of his substantial, rigid cock in my palms catapults me back through time and space.
A throaty groan slips from his mouth into mine as I fist his length in long, slow strokes, beckoning him to my aching entrance, and he complies. With one quick, assertive thrust, Malachi buries himself to the hilt deep inside of me, and I anchor my fingers into his biceps as I moan.
“Joder,” the curse spills from my lips as he drives his cock in and out, using calculated, restrained thrusts. He was always substantial, but it seems every last part of him got bigger and better with age.
“Filthy mouth on a filthy whore,” he growls, his teeth grating against my bottom lip as he sinks his fingers into the flesh of my thigh and drags my ass to the edge of the counter. He thrusts harder and faster, his hips slamming against me. “Backstabbing cunt.”
Correction: everything got bigger and better with age except for his heart.
That shriveled up and died.
I whimper as he scrapes the jewels against my breast, and pain splices with pleasure. “Jódete, diablo.”
Malachi releases my breast and thigh to fist my hair and slam our foreheads together as he continues to aggressively piston his cock in and out. “The devil is you. You did this to us.”
With the sharp pain of the necklace gone from my breast, there is only pure, potent pleasure, and I feel his erection grow larger inside me just as the tremors of climax come to life in my core.
“I did nothing to you,” I grind out, still bracing my hands on his biceps, eyes pressed shut until I snap them open to stare straight into his. “And I hate you, Malachi Sterling.”
The muscles in his jaw pulse as he stares right back, still holding my forehead against mine. “I hate you more.”
Our eyes are locked on each other as he pounds his hips harder against me, the pleasure building to incoherent levels, and Dios ayúdame… I swear on my life that I see it. Deep in those pools of chilling silver that are boring through me like steel daggers, I see him.
My Malachi.
The one I loved more than my own life. The gentle, tender possessor of my heart for as long as I’d lived. The one who loved me more than his own life.
There are still memories in my faulty brain, and they surge to the forefront of my mind.
World without end and beyond my last breath, the words he always used before, I will love you, my sweet Isla.
All lies now, so who really betrayed whom?
I have no time or ability to consider it as my orgasm thrashes through me, catapulting a moan from my throat. Malachi drops his mouth to mine, devouring my cries of pleasure, as he grips my thigh again and pushes his cock as hard and deep as it will go.
“Fuck… you…” his words punctuate a guttural growl from deep in his chest as his dick twitches and pulses inside me.
We are still and silent amidst the aftershocks, his hot breath painting the skin of my neck, and my fingers are still digging into his biceps. After several moments, Malachi drags his cock out of me as he pushes away. He turns from me, his shoulders hitching as he fixes his slacks and shirt, and then he takes a step to the side of me to reach for his scotch.
He doesn’t even look at me as he downs the amber liquid. “Get off the fucking counter and cover yourself, Duchess. You look too much like the whore that you are right now.”
My lashes flutter in indignation as a searing pain slices through my chest, and I wrap my robe shut, sitting up and then sliding off to my feet. I feel the residue of his cum mixed with my own wetness dripping down the insides of my thighs. He’s still refusing to even look at me, angled away from me and casting a disappointed glare into his empty glass, and fuck him.
“If you impregnated me,” I utter on a cold breath, “I will throw myself off my balcony because I would rather die than bear your child.”
Malachi pivots on the balls of his feet and then lunges toward me, grabbing at the jewels still wrapped around my neck. He pulls the necklace tight enough to constrict my oxygen supply again, and then growls, “You go ahead and do that, Duchess. You would be doing me a favor because the last thing my lineage needs is offspring that shares DNA with conniving filth such as yourself.”
With a sharp, cutting jerk, he snaps the necklace away from my skin, and it breaks apart in his hands. There’s a glittering clatter of rubies and diamonds showering the marble at our feet, and he pitches the remaining pieces of it onto the floor with the rest of it.
Malachi shoves past me, his large, hard shoulder muscle slamming against me as his shoes crunch atop the pile of jewels while he grabs the pistol and marches away.
He is the devil, and this is hell.
SEVEN
ISLA
Present
TWO WEEKS AFTER MALACHI decided to consummate our marriage, I still haven’t gotten my period, and now I’m freaking the fuck out a little.
To be fair, it’s still kind of early for my period, but I am nevertheless worried.
It’s been three weeks since the wedding, and the Christmas season in Corwick has officially begun. The small island nation kicks off the holidays with a day of celebration, including a parade and a festival in Gallarney. This means that I have to appear in public alongside Malachi and his family as the Duchess of Corwick for my first official royal event. All of which would actually be really exciting and a lot of fun, except that Malachi and his entire family hates me.