Page 29 of Shameless Vows

“You stole my father’s gun,”I accuse him on another shallow breath.

“No.” Malachi turns it in the air between our faces, its finery glinting in the low light along with the rope of rubies and diamonds draped around his neck. “This one is identical, but it’s not his. This one is mine. Your Papá gave it to me the day he caught us in the boathouse.” He points it directly at my face again. “Do you remember that day, Duchess?” A low, sinister chuckle shakes his shoulders, and he continues to hold me against the hot bulge in his slacks. “Actually, you don’t, do you? You forgot all about that day. You forgotso many things, Duchess. Youstilldo. The day I struck your face, you had immediately forgotten that I came to inform you about the event we were expected to attend. For all you know, I’ve already fucked you multiple times since our wedding, and you simply can’t remember.” He moves the gun slightly to cock his head over mine at a harsh angle. “And how unsettling that must be. To not be able to trust your ownmind.”

An angry lump swells in my throat as I realize he’s probably not wrong. My brain has always had a tendency to lose details, and moments, and entire days, and in one instance, a span ofmonths. It used to worry him. It used to make him sad. But now, that knowledge is just another weapon he’s using to hurt me, just like the one he’s still pointing at my face.

Malachi pushes against me so that I’m pinned to the edge of the island by his hips, his free arm caging my body while he continues to point the gun at my face. “So, since you do not remember that day, I will do you the courtesy of reminding you.”

Intrigue about missing information causes the lump in my throat to dissolve, and I stare at him intently.

“You insisted that I go speak to your father about my intention to marry you so that I could stay in his good graces,” he says with a rough, graveled timbre. “And I did. I humbled andhumiliatedmyself for you, Duchess. Because that is how loyal and committed I have always been toyou, despite you not doing the same forme.”

“I wasneverdisloy—”

Malachi’s hand flies from the counter to my hair, grabbing a fistful of it and wrenching my head backward. “Youwere. You betrayed me. I realize that your faulty fucking brain has likely wiped that knowledge clean from your memory, and you have a false belief of being innocent, but you’re not. Nevertheless…”

My face flushes cold as he releases my hair, and there’s no fucking way. There’s no way I ever didanythingthat even approached betraying him, and he’s simply using my bad memory as an excuse to accuse me and justify this new evil man he’s become.

He only lets go of my hair to pick up the rope of jewels off his neck and drape it around mine. It’s at least three feet long, and he wraps it twice around my throat, pulling it as tight as a noose.

“Nevertheless, I spoke to your father,” Malachi goes on, holding the rope, keeping it tight, and angling the gun at my face again. The scent of my arousal mixed with the guava paste on it is sharp and heady between us. “I vowed to him that I would marry you when we came of age. I vowed that you would live a life fit for a queen, wanting for nothing, and he underscored his expectation of my commitment to protect you at all costs. And then he presented me with this pistol. He expected me to use it against anyone who might ever be a threat to you.” His steely, pewter eyes glint malevolently through narrow slits as he turns the barrel toward his own face. “And this afternoon, he called me and accusedmeof being the threat. Do you agree with his assessment, Duchess?”

Yes, comes the automatic, internal response of my mind, but I say nothing.

Despite my silence, he slides the full length of the barrel into his mouth, and all the oxygen sucks out of my lungs.

There’s no question that Malachi has become psychotic in the time we were apart. Despite the hatred I have for him in my very bones, Ido notwant to be five inches from him when he blows his fucking brains out. And he’s psychotic enough now that he would do that, just to fuck me up.

“Malachi, no,” I can’t help but plead in a near-silent whisper. “Stop. You’re insane.”

He continues to glare at me as he slowly drags the barrel out of his mouth in an overtly erotic manner, as though he’s sucking another man’s dick or mimicking the way I used to suck his. He curls his tongue around the tip of the gun, licking off the last of guava mixed with my wetness, and then smacks his lips.

“You are still so fucking delicious, Duchess,” he growls, then arches one eyebrow. “I guess even whoring around couldn’t do away with that.”

I fight any expression that might creep onto my face.

He thinks I cheated on him.

Or maybe he thinks he can use my patchy memory to make me believe I did. So, I say nothing.

“But you’re right,” he continues, wagging the gun at my face. “I am insane. You did this to me. But you are even more fucking insane because you don’t remember what you did. Your insanity is a result of your poorly wired brain. Mine isn’t. So, at the very least, mine is curable. Mine will finally be rectified once I completely break your defiant spirit and sufficiently punish you for your betrayal. You’ll just have to live with yours.”

I press my eyes shut and jostle my head, my only means to attempt to shake away the distress of knowing he’s right about my mind, and that he is absolutely going to follow through with exactly what he just said.

“Look at me, Duchess.”

I attempt to refuse, but then he presses the cold steel to my bare sternum, and my eyes snap back open.

But he’s not looking at me. His eyes are trained on my chest as he uses the muzzle of the pistol to push open my robe, exposing my naked breasts. Between the chill and the obnoxious, lustful betrayal of my own body, my nipples are as rigid and erect as his cock, which is still pressed hard against my lower abdomen. He drags the pistol in a long, slow sweep down my navel, pulling the sash loose and causing the robe to fall open and expose all of me, and then he wedges his knee between my thighs. Pushing them apart, he slides the gun between the lips of my pussy again.

“I only have this gun because I vowed to protect you,” he murmurs, lowering his face over me to brush his lips against mine. “And you’vealwaysgotten off on the idea of me protecting you. Haven’t you, Duchess? Ever since you were a little girl, you craved my protection to the point that you would crawl through my window in the dead of night when you were afraid. Didn’t you?”

The lump surges back up to the top of my throat, and my eyes burn with tears at the memories that Idostill have. The memories of a boy and a young man who loved me, and comforted me, and held me until the fear left my trembling body.

Malachitskssarcastically. “Poor Duchess. You long for theold days, huh? You wish things could be the way they were, don’t you?” He offers a quick, sinister chuckle. “Pathetic, simple-minded, selfish woman. Don’t you know it could still be that way? Itcouldhave. But you chose to betray me instead.”

He gathers a fistful of the diamonds and rubies dangling from my neck. “This necklace was to be your graduation gift. I had it commissioned for you. I was planning to give it to you when you finished college right before I proposed. I knew you would have loved it, but I never had the opportunity to give it to you because you destroyed me and everything we had.”

Tears trip over my lashes and spill down my cheeks. “Ididn’t, Malachi. Inever—”

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