The next thrust caught her almost by surprise.
Malloryn lifted his face to the ceiling, as if trying to fight his darkest impulses. Every muscle in his throat stood out in stark relief, his shirt torn open, revealing the reddened marks she'd left on his skin.
Gently she lured his mouth to hers with small kisses painted across his throat and jaw. Every inch of his body was tight with restraint, and she shivered restlessly as she clenched her hips around his, riding him through the next thrust. And then the next.
There. The little quiver in his jaw.
A breath escaped her as he worked her harder, his hips flexing sleekly even as his mouth opened over hers.
Kissing him like this felt like all of her was melting. No more finesse. She felt the muscles beneath her hands quiver as he pumped his body into hers, crushing her shoved-up skirts between them.
Malloryn hauled her chest to chest, his mouth hot and frantic. Corset straining around her heaving ribs, she slid a hand to his nape as she bit at him, and sucked and licked.
He'd lied.
I will never kiss you, Adele, whispered through her head as the duke's tongue tangled with hers.
I will never make you my wife in truth.
But here he was, thrusting inside her with brutal intensity as she gasped and moaned, her nails digging into his shoulders.
And I will never love you.
It was that last one that challenged her.
Nothing she'd ever learned in her flesh rights lessons had prepared her for this.
Submit, and it won't take very long.
Lie back and count to a hundred, if it helps take your mind off matters.
Even in moments such as these, remember, at all times, that you are a lady. Please your lord. Submit. Be graceful. Never let him see your discomfort.
But submitting to Malloryn's carnal invasion held nothing of propriety in it.
She lost track of time. Of everything but the heated slam of flesh against hers. There was hair in her hands. His hot, ravaging tongue in her mouth. A thumb pressing insistently between them, working over that little spot between her legs that made her want to scream.
Sweat and panting and hard, echoing thrusts that rocked her back against the desk. Adele gave herself over to the feelings inside her. Restlessness strained within her. God, where he was touching her.... Her sex clenched, and she threw her head back, words tumbling from her lips. Words like "please" and "oh, God" and "harder."
And then she was shattering around him, white-hot pleasure obliterating her world.
"Malloryn!"
The animalistic scream that escaped her sounded like it came from someone else. She no longer cared if it wasn't ladylike.
As if he'd been waiting for that moment, Malloryn unleashed himself. Teeth sinking into the corded muscle between her throat and shoulder, he slammed her back into the desk. Again. And again. And again.
Until she was crying out, her body spasming around his as a groan escaped him and a gush of warmth flooded between her thighs.
Malloryn collapsed atop her, his weight pressing her down into the desk.
Gasping for breath, shuddering for a return of her senses, she simply held him as she tried to put herself back together. Her hips ached where they were wedged around his. There was a sticky mess between her thighs.
"God help me, but you drive me crazy," Malloryn whispered, lifting his head from her shoulder.
Adele lay flat upon the desk, panting for breath as she tried to regain her composure. She ached, but it was a pleasant, hazy ache; an aftermath more than pain.
The duke pushed away from her, dragging his trousers back into place as she slid her trembling hands through her hair. Good gods. What had just happened?
She was no longer a virgin.
Malloryn was no longer merely her husband in name only.
And while he'd proven himself master of her body, he'd been completely undone in his own pleasure. Nobody had won. He broke her, and she broke him, though the little flutter in her chest signified a troubling significance.
The little flutter that said, please, touch me again.
A whisper in her soul that yearned to be held.
Did she dare reach for him? Did she dare hope that Malloryn could ever look at her the same way? Did he feel it too? A connection, no matter how tenuous it seemed.
Today had proven he wasn't immune to her.
The only problem was that to breach Malloryn's defenses, she had to risk the utter destruction of her own.
This wasn't over yet.
But could she ever reach the heart of the untouchable duke?
Chapter 12
Somehow Malloryn picked his way through the mess on the study floor, finding the decanter—curiously safe, until he remembered that was the first thing she'd thrown—on the shelf nearby. The glasses had met a less successful fate, taken down by an errant book.
Malloryn turned, plucking the topper from the decanter, as he surveyed the state of affairs.
The study was destroyed. His desk desecrated—he'd never look at it again without thinking of her, and it was becoming difficult enough to focus on his work without thoughts of Adele intruding as it was.
As for his wife....
This had not gone the way he'd planned.
None of this had been expected.
Adele was cool, rational cunning, a woman who deliberately toyed with him every time she rearranged his dinner table. Someone who arched a brow at him as she pushed her metaphorical chess piece across the mental playing board between them, her eyes telling him, "Your move."
Not a book-throwing harridan. Not a woman who raked her nails down his back as he made her scream with pleasure. And he wasn't the type of man to throw a woman down upon his desk and fuck her without a single thought beyond the all-consuming drive to be inside her.
He looked at her then.
Finally.
All torn skirts, tangled hair, and flushed skin. Her ravaged mouth. The bite marks on her throat and shoulder. There was no hiding what had happened here.