“Shut up,” I growl through gritted teeth, hot tears spilling out of my eyes and over my cheeks. I have a sudden sick, twisted urge to humiliate him, and I lift my foot to press against his abs and shove him backward toward the shelves. “Kneel before me, evil Duke.”
He does so, albeit slowly, eyes holding mine as he lowers himself in front of me.
I grip the edge of the bar behind me with both hands, and then lift my foot again to rest it on a low shelf next to his shoulder, my short robe and nightgown sliding up my elevated thigh. “Do it. Do it exactly the way you know I like it. And look at me the whole time.”
He doesn’t have to ask what I mean. Despite the redness on the rims of his eyes, a subtle heat darkens his pewter gaze, and he reaches under my robe. I fight the urge to react to his touch as his fingers hook around my panties and draw them down my hips. I lower my foot long enough for him to slip them off, and then rest it on the shelf again, exposing myself to him, and he can do nothing to right any of these wrongs, but he can, at the very least, give me this.
Keeping his eyes glued to my face, Malachi reaches for the sash of the robe, tugging it to release the loose knot, and the robe drapes open. He holds the hem of my nightgown between his fingers and gathers it up above my hips, and my breathing picks up, the tequila-induced spin of my head splicing with angry lust.
I stare at him with daggers of fury. He looks back at me with a curiously serene expression. He leans his face toward the center of my spread legs and drags his bottom lip up the tendon that leads to the apex of my thighs. The light stubble on his chin scrapes against the sensitive skin of the inside of my thigh, and then he flattens his palms on either side of my hot, aching pussy. His thumbs do a long, slow stroke down my lips before spreading them, and he starts with a lingering sweep of the tip of his tongue up my wet slit.
My lashes flutter, and my breath hitches, and his steel gaze is now hooded with the same lust, but we continue to stare at each other.
His breath is as hot as my exposed flesh, and I grip the bar harder. His tongue slides and circles, probes and retreats and tortures as my nipples go hard and erect against the silky fabric of my nightgown. I bite back the urge to moan, lest I allow him to have any sort of satisfaction at all from this, be it a stroke of his ego or otherwise. But then again, he’s always been very good at this. It seems he’s gotten even better at it over the years, which of course, means that all the while I was alone after the chaos, he was definitely living it up as a royal playboy.
Malachi’s tongue works my clit with abandon, and my hands fly forward to grip his hair, forcing his face closer.
“You’re clearly not out of practice, Malachi,” I snarl, clenching and releasing my jaw. I grip his hair harder, forcing his face upward slightly so he can see me better. “I guess that makes you the whore.”
In response, he plunges his tongue into me, then slips his finger inside as he sucks hard on my clit. I writhe against the edge of the bar, my toes curling on the shelf, as my mouth betrays me with a choked gasp erupting from my lips. I pull his hair harder, drawing his face deeper between my thighs, and he slides a second finger into me, his tongue now flicking my clit, and my periphery begins to darken with a haze of total pleasure.
“I fucking hate you,” I rasp, my nails scraping his scalp, my legs shaking like they’re about to give out, and I shove his face away from my pussy just before I nearly collapse. “Get on your back.”
Malachi continues to stare at me, eyes darkened to gunmetal gray with lust as he draws the back of his hand across his chin. “Isla… I know you’re—”
“Don’t speak.” I pull my foot from the shelf and tower over him. “Lie down so I can finish.”
He hesitates before complying, and I stand with one foot on either side of his hips, leaning forward to hastily unbuckle his belt and unfasten his fly, freeing his large, rigid erection, and then lower myself to him. Another gasp exits my throat as I fill myself with his throbbing cock, and a throaty groan drains from him.
“Shut up,” I murmur as I rock my hips against him. “Shut up.”
He ignores me completely as his fingers dig into the flesh of my thighs and he groans again. “Christ, Isla.”
“I hate you,” I have to remind myself as my vision starts to fail, my fingers curling into his shirt, anchoring against the hard muscles of his chest while he frantically thrusts his hips, the motion of our bodies in perfect sync the way they always have been. “I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.”
Malachi’s large, strong hands encircle my waist, then drag upward so his fingers tangle in the strands of my hair at the small of my back. He pulls me so hard against him that my elbows buckle, and our chests are now flush against each other. “I fucking love you. I do. I was wrong. For years, I wished that I was wrong. For years, I tortured myself longing for all of it to be different. I never wanted any of it to be—”
“Shut up!” His words are way too fucking much amidst the familiar feel of our bodies entwined, and I blindly reach up to grab the bottle of tequila and smash it against the side of the bar.
Liquor and shattered glass rain down on both of us, and Malachi flinches as he reflexively grips my waist again and shifts us away from it. “Isla, don’t—”
I still all of our movement as I level the jagged, broken bottle at his face. “You don’t.” The hot, angry tears are now spilling over my cheeks again. “Just don’t. Don’t do any of it. Don’t say anything.”
Malachi does a quick, firm shake of his head before wiping away the pungent liquid and tiny bits of glass from his face. His dark brow is knitted with worry, and his lips are parted as he continues to pant. His cock is still hard and throbbing deep inside of me. “Isla… baby girl… please just—”
The bottle is shaking in my hand as I keep its jagged edges aimed at his face. “Do not call me that. You have no right.”
“Isla.” His voice is soft and warm like cashmere, and he slowly draws his hand away from my waist to wrap around mine on the neck of the bottle. He carefully moves it to one side and slips it from my grasp, setting it down on the hardwood floor next to us. “Breathe.”
Tiny pieces of glass are stuck to his cheeks, and if I wanted to, I could smash my hands against his skin, drag them, and shred his perfect, beautiful, aristocratic features. I could mar and scar him for life if I wanted to. I am suddenly the one with all the power, and I could permanently disfigure him. I could reach for the bottle and drive it through his chest. I have every ability to murder him right now if I so choose. And lest I forget, I have already murdered a man.
I murdered a man after losing my mind, and everything I’ve learned recently points to the fact that I lost my mind after losing the man who is still buried to the hilt deep inside me. After he disappeared in the aftermath of secret, silent gratuitous violence committed against me when strangers used that act of sexual terrorism to tear us apart.
And I am drunk, my mind heady with alcohol, and rage, and lust. And maybe that potent combination has stripped me of all my practical senses, because I suddenly fixate on the idea that the only reason there is no longer a we is because someone else did this to us. I was the victim, but Malachi was the collateral damage.
My whole body is shaking, and I don’t reach for the bottle. I reach for Malachi’s face, but I don’t press the glass into his skin and drag it to disfigure him, rather I carefully sweep it away.