“And you’re a whore, so it seems we’re quite well-suited.” I take a large step to stand over her. “Wouldn’t you agree?”
She merely inches backward on the bed and draws her knees to her chest, hugging them and resting her cheek on her kneecap.
“Now, the reason I came over here,” I say, checking my watch and not missing the fact that she doesn’t even bother denying the way she betrayed me all those years ago. Which I sort of appreciate in an I-hate-your-fucking-guts kind of way. “I have to deliver a speech later this afternoon, and you have to be present for it. You will wear one of the skirt suits with conservative heels and neutral hose. Do something with your hair that keeps it from becoming unruly in the wind. Minimal make-up. Report to the main hall by no later than 3:55, and I will have the appropriate jewelry waiting. Is all of that perfectly clear, Duchess?”
Isla lifts her face to glower at me and cocks her head. “Por supuesto, su alteza real.”
“Additionally,” I snap, pitching forward to bring my face mere inches from hers, “you will only speak in English when addressing me.”
“When addressing you?” She scoffs. “You turned into an evil man.”
“You turned into a bona fide she-devil who didn’t give a single thought to—”
“I need to start getting ready for this speech, so if there’s nothing else, you can leave,” she hisses, leaping up from the bed so suddenly that she nearly headbutts me. “Or did you come to my room because you changed your mind about consummating this marriage?”
A fireball of rage surges through my veins because that is clearly a reference to the way she fucked me over eleven years ago, and I grab her arms to jerk her close to me.
“Oh, I bet you would like, wouldn’t you, Duchess?” I cock my head sideways in a gesture at the laptop bag. “You’re in here writing smut and probably taking breaks to finger-fuck yourself. I hope you at least have the good sense to sterilize your fucking keyboard from time to time.”
She squirms in my grip, but I squeeze harder and pull her closer to me. “I would not like that, and you can let me go and get the fuck out of this room so I can change clothes.”
“Actually, Duchess, I kind of like this outfit.” I tighten my grip further and shove her backward so she trips over the edge of the bed. She’s now flat on her back, and I pin her wrists to the mattress so I can crawl over her. “I like this outfit a lot because it’s flimsy and small enough that I won’t even have to remove it while I claim what’s mine as your husband.”
Isla’s brown eyes are now wide with fear as she pushes with all her tiny might against my hands on her wrists. Some hidden part of me is clanging like an alarm to protect her even though the protection she needs right now is from me, and she doesn’t deserve it anyway.
“I do not consent to this,” she wheezes through a tightened throat, eyes pooling, and it didn’t have to be this way. It never should’ve been this way. “I do not consent to this.”
I push her thighs apart with my knees and lower my face to just a breath from hers. “I don’t need your fucking consent. You belong to me now, Duchess. And I will fuck you whenever and however I damn well please.”
“Fuck you!” She thrashes against me for all of two seconds before she spits right in my fucking face.
One of my hands flies from her wrist to her throat. But I don’t squeeze.
I don’t squeeze.
I don’t squeeze.
I don’t fucking strangle her, even though every nerve in my body is electrified with the desire to strangle something.
I simply hold her neck at the base of her chin, but she looks like she fully expects me to murder her right here and now.
“Malachi.” Her voice is reduced to a teary squeak, and she sounds like she’s eight years old again, and I hate her for doing this to us. “Please… please… please…”
I lower my face to hover my mouth next to the shell of her ear. “And now you beg me for it.” I pull my head back to look at her face, which has drained to an unnatural pallid shade. “Typical wanton woman. Allow me to repeat myself, Duchess, because apparently you didn’t understand me on the day of our wedding. I will never consummate this marriage because I have no desire to put my cock anywhere near any of your filthy orifices. You will simply have to get by with writing your smut and dry humping your pillows.”
“Malachi.” The light from the window hits her eyes, and they suddenly appear glassy in a way that doesn’t just look like tears. Her dilated pupils are pointed in the general direction of my face, but she appears to be looking right through me. Her pulse under my thumb is like pummeling hoofbeats. Her wrist has gone limp in my grasp other than what feels like an involuntary tremor. “Malachi.”
I am not a monster. I’m simply the proverbial wolf with its leg caught in a trap, snapping at the source of my own debilitating pain.
I also can’t allow myself to be the threat to her because that would defeat the purpose of this arrangement entirely.
So, I let go.
“The main hall at 3:55, Duchess,” I say, releasing her and standing up to leave. “Not a second after.”
MALACHI
Eighteen Years Old
NOTHING IN THE WORLD was as intoxicating as the feel of having Isla completely wrapped around me. She was soft, and smooth, and warm; small enough to fit perfectly cocooned in my arms and against my chest. She was the only girl I’d ever been with, but I never had any desire or temptation to go looking for or trying out anyone else, because Isla was everything and she always had been.
Everything I always hoped for, dreamed of, wanted, and needed.
And as intoxicating as drowning in her skin and scent and hair was, it paled in comparison to when she would look at me from under half-lidded eyes while we caught our breath, and she’d murmur to me in Spanish.
“Mi amado… mi alma.” Her nails combing back my hair; thumb stroking my temple. “Mi vida. Te amo.”
“Te amo,” I echoed, and her full lips, swollen in the immediate aftermath of love-making, quirked into a restrained smile.
“When will you let me teach you Spanish, cariño?” She swept her hand over the back of my neck to guide our mouths into a deep kiss. “It would be so sexy for you to speak in Spanish to me.”
I chuckled and kissed her chin. “I’m working on it. I enrolled in Spanish II for my Fall semester.”
A wide smile spread across her face. “We should’ve gone with Mamá and my siblings to Los Cabos this summer. Then you could’ve learned through immersion, and your class would be an easy A.”
“Well.” I laughed again and wrapped my arm around her to pull her onto my chest. “If we went with them, there would be none of this…” I gestured at our sheet-clad bodies. “... because there would be nowhere for us to sneak off to, and I wasn’t about to spend my summer not doing this with you.”
Isla snickered impishly and tickled my ribs. “I could get you in so much trouble, Malachi.”
“And you would be more than worth getting in trouble for if your dad ever—”
A loud POP suddenly sounded from somewhere outside the Reyes manor, and I shot up in bed, ears homed in on what I couldn’t tell was a car backfiring or fucking gunshot.