Page 27 of Greed: The Savage (Seven Deadly Sins #7)

A ddien was a virgin.

Not because she’d guarded that scrap of maidenhead as if it were gold—it wasn’t, not in her world. Not like the prim, proper peeresses, clutching their virtue as if it were a crown jewel.

Girls in the rookery lost it young—most still children. Always by force, more often to keep bellies full. Addien had never been that desperate. She’d seen enough rutting in the alleys to know it was nothing she wanted any part of. She would sooner starve—and she knew starvation down to the bone.

Those who didn’t sell it had it taken. By chance, and once by mistaken identity, when a noble sodomite thought her a boy, she’d managed to keep it. The urge to couple had never been in her.

Until the Devil’s Den.

Though there’d been a few that left her aching between the thighs, it wasn’t the grunting couplings she’d glimpsed. It was the painted smut on the walls. The books with their filthy pictures she’d learned to read from. Those had set her hand to herself.

None of that wickedness had ever made her long for a man between her legs.

She’d wondered what’d be like doing the deed with Roy.

But Malric, she burned for.

She’d spent years hating him. Yet he was the only man who’d made her wet, made her ache.

Ain’t that a rum turn.

Panting, Addien angled her neck, inviting his mark.

As a warrior who smelled blood, he latched on. He sucked at her flesh.

She wanted him. And just as much she wanted to decide who she gave herself to. Dunworthy’s pathetic attempt hadn’t left her in fear, it’d reminded of her strength.

They ravaged each other’s mouths, gasping for air, tongues tangling in a hot, wet duel. His hand was between her thighs, finding her quim; she learned the stroke and pressure that made him groan when she took his cock in her grip.

“My God, you’re bloody brilliant,” he hissed.

“I’ll never let you forget you said that.” Panting, she tore his shirt from his trousers and dragged it over his head.

Hooking her feet into his waistband, she used her toes to shove his trousers down. When his hard arse was bare, she wrapped her legs around his hips and ground her cunny against the thick stand of him, feeling every inch through the thin barrier between them.

Growling like a beast, he dropped his brow to hers, wedged his knee between her legs, and shoved them apart so he could come down over her. Seating himself there, he eased his shaft forward. He slid his thick, blunt tip inside just enough to give her a taste. Enough to make her ache for more.

Addien whimpered.

He’d stripped her bare of pride. “Don’t make me wait, Malric.” Her longing humbled her. She rolled her hips against him, trying to take him deeper. When he held back, she snapped, “Put it in me.”

She should have known better.

Malric chuckled, his strength a wall against hers. He held himself just out of reach, his hips taut, his control maddening. In that moment, she would have sold her soul for him to give in.

“Come now, Addien, you well know taking it slow makes it better.”

She knew no such thing, but she’d take him at his word.

Addien urged him on, squeezing her thighs tight around his narrow hips, compelling him closer.

“Bloody hell,” he breathed. “I’ve never felt legs like yours wrapped around me.”

Even that primal praise made her hotter, prouder than it ought. She traced a biting path from his lower lip down his throat, mirroring the one he’d taken on her moments before. She sucked and nipped harder, wrenching a ragged curse from his masterful lips.

He pried her open with his knee, and slid into place, settling there like a man who meant to take every inch of her.

She bit a path from his lower lip to his neck, tracing the route he’d taken on her minutes before, only with greater ferocity. She sucked and nipped until he gave another ragged curse from those beautifully hard lips.

“You delicious minx,” he rasped.

Her triumph was short-lived. Malric’s fingers found an overly sensitive spot, and her hips shot off the mattress as pleasure lashed through her.

He didn’t relent—his touch masterful, stroking that nerve-rich bundle until all her fight faded away.

She no longer cared who won. Every part of her narrowed in on that place he worked.

“I know just where to touch you, don’t I?” he teased, the tormentor he was.

She ground herself harder against his skilled fingers.

“You want my mouth there too?”

Before she could think, he slid down her body, caught her under the arse, and dragged her to his mouth. His tongue traced her slit in the same way his fingers had moments before.

Addien screamed, cursed, and shoved her hips against him. She twisted her fingers in his hair and held him to worship at the sanctified altar he’d made of her.

Reduced to a bundle of nerves and heightened feeling, Addien rocked herself rhythmically into his mouth.

He looked up.

With her eyes clouded by lust, Addien had to blink to bring his rugged features into clear focus.

His mouth and chin glistened with the slick heat of her sex. Holding her dazed stare, Malric licked the remnants of her from his lips.

She collapsed back onto the mattress. Catching the top of his head in her hands like a beloved hound, she guided him where she wanted him most.

The infuriating wretch denied her that gift.

“Never tell me no man’s ever made you come this way?” While he spoke, he ground his chin into her wantonly wet curls, not letting up his efforts, determined to drive her mad with need.

He sounded both pleased and mystified by the prospect.

“I wouldn’t ever let any man,” she said, breathing fast.

His eyes flared, his muscles tensed and bunched, his hair fell wicked and disheveled, and his nostrils in full flare gave him the look of Satan with a virginal offering. A human sacrifice he was only too satisfied to take.

Addien knew precisely what had stunned him, that she’d concede herself to him when she’d never extended that surrender to another man.

What he didn’t know, and would never suspect, was that he was also the only man she’d freely given herself to.

Why should he suspect? She didn’t carry herself like one of his fancy ladies.

She wasn’t shy. She found and took her pleasure as she wanted it.

Not that it would’ve mattered to him either way if he knew she was in fact a virgin.

Men like him tupped women like her without giving it a second thought.

And as if driven by the privilege she’d granted, he poured himself more deeply into pleasuring her.

He plunged his tongue inside her channel.

Addien screamed out.

Every muscle in her being forgot its function. As she found herself drained of her life force, Addien slumped into the mattress and lay there while he serviced her.

Her thoughts failed.

Addien stared sightlessly at the ceiling overhead, attuned to every glide of his tongue. Every swirl, every lick, every taste he took of her. Every drop he sucked into his mouth. The slick, wet sounds of his mouth filled her ears, erotic sounds of hot, torrid desire.

She’d never cared one way or another about making love. Now Addien found herself grateful for saving herself for this man.

Malric, who was as skilled and masterful in bringing her pleasure as he was in his duties here at the Devil’s Den, handing down a nearly life-ending punishments.

Addien let her eyes slide closed and tunneled on simply him and the wicked, debauched things he did to her with his mouth. The pressure between her legs throbbed and grew, a pleasure so exquisite it existed as pain. A pain that required her malevolent lover’s beneficence.

Addien stroked her fingers tenderly through his hair, rewarding his skill and efforts with her gentle touch.

“Malric,” she moaned, lifting her hips to meet each downward thrust of his tongue.

He didn’t speak. Every harsh gasp and inhale and exhale he made existed for her. His guttural groans of approval formed against her cunny.

Addien’s core throbbed. A tremble started deep within her.

I’m so close, I’m so close, I’m so close.

Malric briefly ceased his torture with his tongue and nuzzled his nose between her slit.

“Yes, you are.” His hungry, approving husked baritone thrummed against her curls. “You are so close.”

Hearing the masculine promise of what her body needed pushed her higher. Moaning, she panted his name as a prayer. “Malric. Malric. Malric.”

Of course, she’d revealed too much of her submissive state and, predator that he was, he’d never not pounce on that.

“Yes,” he panted. “It is I, Malric, your master and commander, the same man who is going to make you come.”

His words pushed her over. Throwing her head back, Addien screamed his name as her body splintered and exploded like a smoke powder explosion. She was fire from the inside out.

She would not survive. Weeping and panting, Addien tightened her fingers in his hair. She was all too happy to let this be the way she went. Only when he’d rung the last drop of exquisite surrender from her, and Addien fell into the folds of the mattress, did he wrench his mouth away.

Like an angry stallion whose mount had denied him too long, he climbed astride her, shoved his knee between her legs. In one swift, smooth glide, he buried his enormous length to the hilt.

Addien gasped as a sharp twinge briefly slipped through the pleasure.

Malric stayed frozen inside her.

Despite pain, she chose him . “Don’t you dare stop,” she said, her breath coming hard and fast. “I do not want games from you.”

Malric braced above her, his weight steady on his elbows, his gaze locked to hers—dark with passion, but containing something deeper. “No games, love,” he said, his breath quick, chest rising and falling.

Love…

The word sank into her like a brand.

As he lowered his head, she lifted hers to meet him.

Their mouths found each other in a kiss that was deep and unhurried, searing not only her lips but some hidden place within her.

Love…

Holding her eyes with his, he moved slowly within her. His deep, powerful strokes were almost worshipful.

They locked eyes with one another. Each of them consumed with the pleasure they found in one another’s body. Their stares penetrated.

The only sounds were those of their quickening breaths.

With every glide of his long, thick root, the fire inside Addien came alive.

Malric pressed his brow hard against hers.

A bead of sweat fell from his taut brow; it trickled between her breasts. “I want to go slow, Addien,” he said, his voice belonging to a man tortured.

Addien searched his face. She heard something in his tone. What was it? “Because it makes it better?”

A shadow moved across his face. “That’s right, love,” he murmured. “That’s right.”

There it was again…

Love…

Without another word, he claimed her mouth and began to move.

His pace was unhurried, the slow rock of him inside her at odds with the taut strain in his features.

Malric’s tongue swirled with hers, his kiss as dizzying as the feel of him filling her.

The weight of passion was too much; even lifting her lashes proved a task too great. Her eyes slid closed as she twined her arms around his broad, muscular back—and surrendered completely.

What mystifying power he held over her.

Addien felt herself climbing higher and higher towards that now known peak.

She bit her lower lip. “M-Malric,” her voice trembled. Her body shook. “I’m c-close.” So close.

“I know, love.” Malric pressed a tender kiss against her temple. “Come for me.”

The latter did not slip from him like the earlier command. This was a soft invitation.

For you…

She both wanted this moment in his arms to last forever, but her body demanded an end to this exquisite beauty.

Malric’s strokes continued with the same languid ease of the rhythm he’d set, but with each deliberate drive of his hips, there grew an increasing urgency, a desperation.

His kiss took on that same deep meaning.

“A-Addien,” his voice shook with a plea, longing.

His own need for her proved her undoing.

Throwing her head back, Addien surrendered herself completely to Malric Mauley, the Marquess of Thornwick.