Fuck. She was driving him insane. Malloryn tilted the decanter to his lips and swallowed half the brandy before he could rearrange his thoughts well enough to contain them.
When he lowered it, Adele was still blushing.
"I didn't hurt you?" he asked with a rough voice, and that was yet another serious problem. He never lost control like that.
"No," she whispered, and her cheeks grew even pinker. "It was...."
It was.
And he'd liked it. That thought burned behind his ribs. He'd liked every single moment of what had happened between them. Liked shoving his way under her skirts. Liked the gasp she made when he curled his fist in her hair and— Malloryn rubbed his chest, feeling dangerously unhinged. This wasn't him.
Or not the man he'd made himself into.
The last time he'd felt like this he'd been seventeen, in love, and blind to the world around him. When he'd lost everything and stood in the ashes of what Balfour had made of his life, he'd finally understood what his father, now dead, had been telling him all these years.
Emotions were weaknesses. Love was a ticking time bomb, an Achilles heel. And he could never, ever, allow himself to feel like that again.
Two facts arranged themselves in his head: Adele breached something inside him, left him shambling for control.
Adele was dangerous.
She undid everything he'd made of himself and stripped him raw. He couldn't think when she'd grabbed him by the shirt and kissed him, and that was terrifying, especially right now, when Balfour was out there again, trying to destroy him.
He'd survived the last time Balfour came against him.
Barely.
He couldn't afford to give in to weakness now. Any kind of weakness.
"Here." He helped her to her feet, locking instantly on the brief wince that narrowed her brows. "You are hurt."
"No." Adele collapsed against his chest, looking up at him with pleasure-dazed eyes. "Just a little weak-kneed and—"
Her face suddenly blanched.
Fetching his cravat, he offered the rumpled linen to her. "For the mess."
Face flaming, she turned around and tidied herself as best she could, whilst he pretended to fix his shirt in the reflection in the window.
It wasn't often he forgot himself.
He hadn't been so careless since he was a lad, unwilling to bear the consequences of a child.
Did it matter though?
She was his wife.
And yet, he found himself thinking of that other child. The one who'd never been given a chance to draw breath. The one Balfour had murdered in the womb. Two lives stolen with the cost of a single bullet.
Yes, it damned well mattered.
It wouldn't happen again—and he would just have to hope nothing came of this... altercation.
"Turn around," he said, taking Adele by the hips and maneuvering her.
Tendrils of blonde hair escaped her neat chignon. She'd lost a button somewhere, and several others were undone.
He had no idea what to say to her, except.... "This wasn't what I planned when I came up here."
Adele burst into laughter, and damn him to hell, but he couldn't resist a smile. The bloody woman would be the end of him.
"I don't think this was what I planned either."
"You kissed me," he pointed out as he fixed her buttons.
"You had me pinned to a bookcase," she protested. "I didn't know what else to do."
"It was... effective."
"So I noticed." Her cheeks were still that pretty pink he couldn't quite reconcile with Adele. "It never occurred to me I could end an argument with you in such a way."
His lashes obscured his eyes. This couldn't happen again. "I wouldn't recommend it."
"No? I enjoyed myself. You seemed to have no complaints." Adele reached out and smoothed her hands down his bare chest. "I owe you a shirt."
Malloryn captured her wrists.
Adele's flirtatious smile slipped from her pillow-shaped lips, as if she recognized the silent rebuke.
Malloryn stepped away from her, buttoning the only two buttons that were still affixed, and trying to recompose himself.
"Brandy?" he offered, as she sank into the stuffed armchair and fixed her skirts.
Green eyes locked upon him. "Did you know, if I couldn't feel the ache of your hands and teeth imprinted on my body right now, I'd begin to think you an automaton. And yes, I would love a brandy."
He handed her the glass and hesitated. "I'm not a machine, Adele."
"Oh, I realized that." She sipped her drink and gave him a long, slow, heated look. "Sometime between the bookcase and the desk. I think I like you best when you let yourself off the leash."
Time to perform some damage control. "This can't happen again."
"I see. I cannot say I didn't expect you to begin putting up walls the second you got your breeches buttoned." Her voice softened. "You can't pretend it didn't happen."
"It's got nothing to do with you and me."
She paused with the glass to her lips, and there was the flash of intelligence in her eyes that so provoked him. "And here I thought we'd be stepping quite neatly around the topic that brought us to this situation."
"As you've made clear, you're too intelligent to be left in the dark. It would be dangerous if you started asking questions of the wrong people, and I daresay, knowing you as I do, that you wouldn't be content to let matters lie."
"You assume correctly," she replied, with a challenging tilt of her head.
"I have enemies, Adele." Malloryn leaned forward, resting his forearms on his thighs. "One in particular who would like to see my head removed from my shoulders. He's made no qualms about the fact he will remove any obstacles between us. Nor is he squeamish when it comes to striking down those close to me."
Her lashes obscured her thoughts. "Like the baroness."
The name was a whiplash of guilt across his seared nerves.
"Yes," he managed to say, though he was momentarily blinded by the sight of Isabella's vacant eyes staring sightlessly at the roof as she lay in a bloodied tangle on the carpets of the Ivory Tower. "She's not the first woman I've cared for that he's struck down. But she will be the last."