"That's not entirely certain," he finally said. "I wasn't lying the other night when I said you were beautiful. Or when I said sometimes I think about kissing you. And you vex me constantly. Especially of late. One of us would have broken sooner or later, and exploded. And then I think we'd have ended up in bed either way."
An apology—and a compliment—was the last thing she'd expected. Adele wet her lips. "I'm sorry I began our marriage the way I did. I lied to you and the Echelon, and I forced you to marry me. It wasn't.... I didn't do it deliberately. Or it was, but not... premeditated."
"I know." His eyes hooded. "You've hinted in the past that someone hurt you and you saw me as your way out."
"You didn't believe me."
"I didn't want to believe you."
A small smile burst over her mouth. "You're starting to make me nervous, Malloryn. All these nice things you're saying. Apologies. Peace. Are you worried you'll have me on your conscience if this all goes wrong?"
"No." His expression hardened. "Because nothing is going to go wrong. Clara will be accompanying you, and she's an expert at hand-to-hand combat. You know what you must do?"
Adele rolled her eyes as the intimacy of the previous moment evaporated.
"I show my invitation. I giggle. I flirt. I do nothing to make Devoncourt suspicious. You're going to be listening in, so my role is to act the wide-eyed ingénue and see what he'll say to me. I'm to identify any lords I recognize, and see what they want me to do in regards to you. And then I'm going to have a violent reaction to the champagne and be forced to withdraw early."
"And don't go anywhere alone with Devoncourt."
"What if he expects a kiss?"
"Then play coy."
"I've been playing coy with him for months. He's just invited me to a secret masquerade. You yourself said how dangerous this is if he discovers I'm playing him false."
There. The faint tic of the muscle in his jaw.
"It's just a kiss," Adele whispered, though she couldn't let him know she didn't give a damn whether Devoncourt kissed her or not. No. She wanted to know if her husband would even care. "How else am I to wrangle the truth out of him? I can hardly wrap him around my little finger in public."
"Adele." A growl.
"And you've been kind enough to teach me how little I knew of kissing. I'm sure I've mastered the art by now. He won't know what's hit him."
"I wasn't aware you were planning to go in there to kiss him."
"Well, I can hardly arm wrestle him into submission. Or tie him to a chair and question him. How did you think I was going to try and get answers from him?"
Silence.
A thick, weighted silence.
She couldn't resist torturing him a little more. "Don't worry, Malloryn. He's kept it fairly chaste until now. I'm sure he'll suffer in comparison to your expert ministrations."
"I don't know why I let you talk me into this."
"Do you know what I think?" Adele whispered.
"What?"
His face was so close to hers, she could almost taste his breath against her lips. Byrnes, Ingrid, Herbert, and Clara hovered nearby, but the pair of them might as well have been alone for the way the air thickened around them.
"I think," she said, tilting her lips almost to his in a taunt, "that you don't want me anywhere near Devoncourt. And it's got nothing to do with him being an ex-Falcon."
"Do you know what I think?" He banked the smoldering heat in his eyes with pure willpower, but the look he gave her was no less dangerous.
"What?"
"I think we're no longer talking about Devoncourt kissing you. Are we? Do you want me to kiss you, Adele?"
There. There it was.
He hadn't touched her since the other day in the study.
She shrugged. "We're on a rooftop. I'm about to embark on a dangerous mission. It hardly seems the time or place."
"When it comes to kissing you, it's never the time or place."
"Admit it. The idea of me kissing Devoncourt bothers you."
Malloryn's eyes darkened with heat as his fist curled in a handful of her skirts. "Is that what you want of me? To admit I'm jealous?"
Yes.
"I don't think I have to be," he purred.
Sliding a hand around her nape, he hauled her mouth to his.
Adele gasped, and the slight parting of her lips gave him the opening he needed. The hot, slick glide of his tongue stroked hers possessively. She could feel that touch in other areas, her nipples hardening as his other hand splayed over her bottom and ground her hips against his.
All those cool, arrogant looks he gave her....
The careless quirk of his brow....
It melted away in a firestorm of heat as Malloryn kissed her as if this was their last moment on this mortal coil. She'd always thought him cold and dispassionate, but the second he put his hands on her the mask melted away, leaving her with the man beneath.
Her back met the wall, the pitted brickwork pricking at her spine. But all else was forgotten as she felt the demanding press of Malloryn's erection grinding against her belly. And suddenly she was back in his study, splayed across his desk as he took her with passion and fury.
Heat slicked between her thighs, and somehow she slid her hand beneath his coat, working it down between them.
His mouth softened as he captured her hand before she could enclose it around his erection. A nip at her lower lip. Then another, as he eased the fury of the kiss. The faintest of laughs escaped him.
Malloryn tore his mouth from hers, breathing hard.
"Now, now, Adele. You're going to blow your cover if any of the Echelon see me fucking you here, on a rooftop opposite Angel's Fall."
Adele wilted in his arms, resting her forehead against his chest, her fist curled in his shirt. Good God. He'd stolen her breath. Stolen her wits. Left her shaking and ruined, her mouth blistered with the mark of his.
Her only consolation was the fact she wasn't the only one undone.
She could feel the tension in his body; the hard press of his hips to hers. And there was the throbbing pressure of that hard length grinding into her hips. No matter what he told her, a part of him wanted to toss up her skirts right here, right now; she'd stake her life on it.