The Devil's Match (17 page)

To Diana’s chagrin, they didn’t even dress
before she found herself swept into his arms and carried through
the second and third chambers into his apartments beyond. She
closed her eyes in mortification upon encountering DeVere’s valet,
but a guttural curse from the viscount sent the man scrambling. “No
one will dare disturb us unless summoned,” he promised, kicking the
door closed with such force the windows rattled. He carried her
across the room and dropped her without ceremony onto the
midnight-blue satin counterpane.

He came over her at once, pulling her legs apart
and kneeling between. “Playtime is over.” He growled. “I will have
satisfaction now—as much I want for as long as I please—third
heaven be damned!”

***

Positioned between her supple thighs, the
tangy, musky scent of pure arousal hit Ludovic in a dizzying wave.
His cock still throbbed with a vengeance, and her wet sheath
beckoned to him, calling out to be filled, a cry he wasn’t about to
ignore. Indeed, he vowed this time
nothing
would hold him back...but he would make
her pay...and pay dearly.

He lifted one of her legs, positioning it on his
shoulder, rubbing his cheek back and forth along the softness of
her inner thigh before applying his lips and tongue. Slowly, he
worked his way toward his goal, with nibbles and hot kisses, all
the while savoring her anticipation, the quiver in her legs, the
raspy puffs of breath. He paused at the juncture of pubis and
thigh, tracing the delicate groove with his tongue, relishing her
sultry sounds. She reached out to grip his hair, urging him toward
her sex.

“All in good time, my sweet.” He chuckled and
withdrew to apply himself to the opposite thigh in like manner.
This time, however, he dipped his head, parting her folds with one
long, wet swipe of his tongue. She whimpered.

“But you didn’t want the pleasure,” he taunted.
He plied teasing kisses to her belly just above her mons while his
free hand delved into her wetness. He circled her passage with
swirling strokes of his thumb. Her body tensed beneath him. “Have
you changed your mind now, Diana?”

“Please,” she whispered.

“Please what? Please pleasure me, Ludovic?
Please, oh please, put your magnificent mouth in my sweet
cunny?”

“Yes! I want your mouth. I want all of you. I’ve
waited so very long!”

“How unchivalrous of me to keep you waiting.” He
chuckled. “But then again, I would have been happy to oblige you
much sooner, had you only asked.”

“You know I couldn’t have. Stop tormenting
me!”

“My dear, I have only just begun.”

***

His laugh fired her ire as much as his
breath tickled her skin. But then,
dear
God
, her mind became a blur, lost in the sublime
sensation of his glorious mouth buried in her sex. His hot tongue
lapped, circled, and swirled, flicking over her clit, while his
equally clever fingers finessed her labial folds and pierced her
passage with wonderfully, rhythmic penetrations, filling her body
with ineffable bliss. The past hour or more spent in sex play had
reawakened her deepest and innermost yearnings. Her body craved the
joining with him as desperately as her lungs craved air. She
wondered why she had fought him so long and hard when surrender was
so utterly sweet and sublime...yet it still wasn’t enough. “Please,
Ludovic, let me go!” She stifled a sob. “I need more than this. I
want
you
. I
need
you!”

It was as if she’d uttered some magical phrase
that suddenly caused the earth to halt on its axis. He fixed upon
her with glimmering eyes, his expression enigmatic. “More? You want
me inside you?”

She met his gaze steadily and shook her head. “I
do, but that’s not what I meant.”

He came over her, grasping both her shoulders in
a fierce grip. “It is merely your passion that speaks,” he said.
“We are all of us mindless fools whilst in the grip of lust.”

“And I am a mindless fool for ever
accepting this wager. For ever thinking I could resist you.” She
pulled his hand to her left breast. “But it is not only my passion
that speaks. It is also my heart. I can’t do this anymore. So I ask
you now to
please
let me
go.”

He answered by crushing her to him with a fierce
kiss that tasted of her essence. “No, Diana. I’m not prepared to do
that. I have no desire to let you go—not now or at any time in the
foreseeable future.”

“But you can’t mean that,” she said. “It’s only
because you haven’t—”

“Untrue,” he interrupted. “Shall I spend my seed
just to prove it to you?”

She regarded him blankly. “Then where does this
leave us? I’m completely at sea.”

He caressed her cheek. “Didn’t you just say it
needn’t be so complicated?”

“But how can we be together? May heaven forgive
me, I would be your mistress for as long as this lasted, but how
could we do such a thing to your brother and our friends? How could
we inflict them with such a scandal?”

“Devil take them all! I’m not accustomed to
living for others, Diana.”

“Therein lies the gulf between us,” she answered
softly, feeling as if the weight of respectability, responsibility,
and mostly regret were crushing the life out of her.

He cupped her cheek and murmured against her
lips. “I won’t be denied in this.”

“And I won’t deny you,” she
answered.
This one last time.

When their lovemaking continued, the tone was
transformed. No longer playful and challenging, it was slow,
deliberate, almost reverent, as if they each wished to savor every
moment. They kissed as he entered her in one deep, smooth thrust,
their tongues engaging in the same languid lovers’ dance as their
bodies but then responding more fervently with the delicious, wet
friction and the slap of flesh on flesh. Her own soft pants and
sultry sounds of pleasure, her heels hooking his flanks, all seemed
to incite him further, to drive him harder. Pounding into her with
ragged breaths, he propelled them both ever closer to the brink of
the abyss. As the first tremors of a magnificent climax broke over
her in rushing waves, Diana raised her hips. Squeezing and milking
him with her inner muscles, she offered all she had to give,
sobbing in ecstasy even as she hurtled them both into rapturous
oblivion.

He met her in that precious instant, roaring out
her name with his release as his body convulsed in ceaseless
spasms, spurting almost endless, scalding streams of his seed
inside her. He collapsed into her beckoning arms and rolled beside
her with a deep and guttural groan, completely and utterly
spent.

Chapter Sixteen

It was barely dawn when Diana crept into her
bedchamber at the house on Upper Grosvenor Street. Her bleary-eyed
maid met her, candle in one hand and fireplace poker in the other.
“Ye gave me a fright, my lady!” Polly exclaimed, dropping the poker
with a clatter.

“Is everything awright, luv?” chimed a
distinctly male voice, the body of which promptly emerged from the
maid’s chamber beyond Diana’s dressing room.

“Pratt?” Diana exclaimed upon recognizing
DeVere’s head groom dressed in only his nightshirt. Polly flushed
crimson. The groom and maid exchanged guilty glances. The candle
flickered in the maid’s trembling hand. Diana took it from her and
set it on the mantle.

Freed now of candle and poker, Polly wrung her
hands. “It’s just...you said...we was not expecting ye for some
days yet, my lady.”

“Please, my lady.” Pratt stepped forward
protectively and took Polly’s hand. “’Tisn’t quite what it appears.
I’ve every intention to make an honest woman o’ her.”

“You do?” Polly cried, appearing as if she would
burst into tears.

“Then I suppose that gives me one less thing to
worry about,” Diana said with a wry smile.

“What do you mean?” Polly asked.

“There’s been a change of plans,” Diana said.
“I’m leaving London immediately. There is a carriage awaiting me in
the mews. I will need you to help me pack.”

“Now, my lady?” Polly cast a wistful gaze to her
incongruous lover. “Do you mean for us to return so soon to
Yorkshire?”

“No, Polly. I suppose under the circumstances it
would be best to send you to Epsom to wait upon Lady Vesta. I shall
also provide you with a generous severance, but I’m certain she
would be delighted to take you into her employ. I presume under the
circumstances that Mr. Pratt will have no objection to escorting
you there?”

“Nay, indeed.” The groom tugged his forelock and
offered a cheeky grin.

“But what of you, my lady? What has
happened that you would depart so abruptly? It’s
him
again, isn’t it?”

Diana arched a brow. “I don’t wish to discuss
this at present. Suffice to say that with Sir Edward and Vesta both
wed, there is little for me to return to. I have need of a change,
Polly, and have decided to go abroad for a time. I will write later
and explain everything, but for now, I wish no further delay.”

***

Diana stared sightlessly out the carriage
window, lost in deep abstraction. Though she never could have
anticipated it, everything in her life had changed, and there truly
was no going back, no retreat. Diana didn’t know what the future
would hold, but she had already experienced the emptiness of her
past. Thus, she had resolved to brazen forth to meet her fate
head-on with a bold audacity she hadn’t even known she
possessed.

After what seemed like interminable hours
travelling in the unavoidable fits and starts of London’s morning
traffic, she finally arrived at her destination. The driver opened
her door and let down the steps. She alighted to be greeted with a
burst of damp, ocean-scented air. “Which is it?” she asked the
coachman.

“The first one, my lady.
The Sylphe.
”

No sooner had he answered than DeVere himself
appeared, advancing toward her in long, purposeful strides, a look
of immense relief replacing the strain that had briefly etched his
face. He pulled her into an impassioned embrace, kissing her long
and deep. “I had the greatest fear you had changed your mind,” he
said.

“No, my love. I’m so sorry to have caused you
any distress. It was only the traffic that kept me. I have had no
second thoughts,” she assured him. “But what of you?”

“None. Indeed, I have never felt happier. I’m
damned-near giddy.”

“Giddy?” she repeated dubiously.

“Yes. Positively drunk with bliss. You have
charmed and enslaved me, my dearest.”

“Have I, indeed?”

“Yes. You have,” he said, all humor evaporating.
They stood thus for an endless moment, searching one another’s
eyes. DeVere broke the silence. He gestured to the elegant yacht
moored in the harbor. “Our vessel awaits, and I promise all has
been prepared for your comfort, my love.”

“Do you know, I’ve never been on a sea voyage,
Ludovic? I’ve never been out of the country.”

He took her arm with a brilliant smile. “Then
adventure awaits, and once more, I’m delighted to be your
guide.”

“But where will we go?” she asked.

“My dearest Diana,” he kissed her tenderly,
“where ever your heart desires.”

Chapter Seventeen

Tuscany, fourteen months later

Diana opened her eyes to the sun blazing into
the Tuscan villa through the open terrace doors. She gave a lazy,
feline stretch before a flash of white caught her eye. Throwing on
her wrapper, she padded barefoot to find Ludovic perusing some
letters over his coffee. He was dressed in only breeches and
shirtsleeves, his collar open at the throat. He glanced up at her
and instantly smiled, his teeth gleaming brilliantly white and his
eyes startlingly blue in his handsome, sun-bronzed face. A mere
flick of his finger saw a cup of frothy, steaming brew and a basket
of sweet rolls and cake placed under her nose.

“You’ve been sleeping unusually late,” he
remarked. She noted the curious flicker in his gaze.

“Yes, I fear it’s become an atrociously bad
habit with me, but it seems I get very little rest at night.” She
fought to control the tug at her lips.

He tented his brows at her. “Is that a
complaint?”

“Not at all, my lord,” she reassured him with a
grin.

“That’s a good thing then, for I’ve no intention
of moderating my nocturnal activities.”

She raised her cup and blew on the coffee. “Then
I suppose I’ll just have to continue lazing abed in the mornings.
Have you a letter from Hew?” She peered over his arm.

“From Hew and Ned both, actually. All is well
with Phoebe and little Ned, and it seems I am soon to become an
uncle as well.”

“Hew and Vesta too?” she cried. “Already?”

“My brother is nothing, if not efficient.”

“Efficient? How unflattering that sounds. I
would have expected you to say something like virile or
potent.”

“Perhaps I choose to reserve those accolades for
myself,” he said with a significant pause. “By the by, Diana, when
did you intend to tell me?”

“Tell you what?” she asked.

“Come now. You can’t possibly think that I
haven’t noticed. Did you suppose I would be angry?”

“Angry about what? I honestly don’t know what
you’re talking about, Ludovic.”

“My dear, no woman is able to accommodate
a man with such frequency as you have done these past several
months. Add to that your unusual lethargy, which I won’t flatter
myself is
entirely
due to
sexual exertion, I feel I must inquire, when was your last
flux?”