A Devil's Touch (8 page)

            He took her hand in his, guiding her to his rigid staff and enclosing her fingers about it. It was thick and hard and hot and pulsing.  "I make no secret of how much I want you," he said low and hoarse. "Tell me you do too, Diana. Say you want to take me into your body."

            "But I'm here," she whispered. "Is that not proof enough?"

            "No."  He released her hand but his probing gaze kept her captive. Though I would worship you with my body, only you are in control of your pleasure. You must tell me you want this."       She licked her lips, her breathing coming in ragged puffs. "You have only to say yes, Diana, and I will lay paradise at your feet."

            At last a raspy reply sounded from her throat. "Yes." He caught the whispered exhalation with his mouth. His hands slid down her back to palm and squeeze her buttocks. He lowered his head to her breast, kissing, gently biting, his tongue rasping her nipple, sending racking rivulet of pleasure to her womb. Her arousal escalating to a blinding need to feel the hot hard length of him in her passage, she writhed and ground against him with a fierce cry.

             
Diana awoke with a sob, her body fevered, her sheets discarded, and her nightrail tangled about her waist. She lay in this heightened state of arousal, panting, disoriented, and aching to her very core, until at last she sought her own release.

Excerpt:
THE DEVIL'S MATCH

DeVere House, Bloomsbury- 1783

"What the devil is it, Winchester?" Viscount DeVere snapped at the appearance of his majordomo. "I thought I clearly communicated that we were not to be disturbed."

The flushing servant diverted his gaze to the ceiling in an obvious effort to ignore the ongoing orgy. "But there is a
lady
to see you, my lord. She is most insistent."

"Another one?" Lord Malden chortled. "By all means, have him send the baggage in. Damn me, DeVere, but you are well-supplied."

"I am, indeed," DeVere answered. "It is a most amicable arrangement with Madam Hayes, but I had not requested another." DeVere gave another long, lazy pull on the stem of the hookah proffered by his scantily-clad companion, and cast a sadly indifferent gaze at the temptress who enthusiastically sucked his cock.

The servant flushed. "You misapprehend, my lord. This
lady
—"

"Will
not
be turned away." Diana stepped boldly into the room and Ludovic felt his pulse jump at his first glimpse of her in over four years.

Although a black veil obscured her face, Ludovic could have identified her proud carriage and sultry voice amongst a hundred similar women. He was careful to maintain his air of careless indifference, commanding the woman kneeling between his legs, "Put your playthings away, my pet for we have an unexpected guest."

 "So this is what you have reduced your life to, my lord?" Diana asked with icy hauteur.

He gave her a taunting smile. "It is fortunate that I don't give a damn for your opinion, madam." In defiance, he caressed the bare breast of his would-be odalisque and took another pull on the hookah, blowing purple-cast smoke rings into the air. "Now, to what do I owe the privilege of your queenly condescension?" He could almost see her hackles rise, a reaction that gave him a peculiar twinge of pleasure.

"How dare you ignore my messages and compel me to come to this…this…den of iniquity!"

He couldn't suppress his chuckle. "It was your choice to invade my domain. Thus, it is not for me to concern myself with your injured sensibilities. I already conveyed to you that the girl is safe. There was nothing further to be said." He gave her a bland lift of his brow, inwardly enjoying the hell out of her reaction.

"Nothing further! Where is she?" Diana demanded. "She was last in your charge and has not returned! I found her maid locked in her room! If anything has happened to her—"

"I assure you she is perfectly safe in my brother's keeping."

"Hew is involved in this? I don't believe it. He would never—"

DeVere's mouth kicked up in the corner. "Perhaps I misspoke. It would be vastly more correct to say
he
is in
hers
." The girl was a tiny virago. He almost felt pity for his brother.

Diana looked befuddled. "What on earth are you talking about?"

"When Vesta revealed to me that she was determined to have Hew, I agreed to lend some small assistance in the matter."

"That's ludicrous! Vesta hasn't even had her come-out. It is far too soon for her to be thinking of anyone!"

"Nevertheless." He shrugged.

"Is that all you have to say?"

"For the nonce. Conversation is not my chief pursuit at the moment, but should you be inclined to join me…" He surveyed her with a slow and deliberate appraisal, a look meant both to insult and to incite. He was pleased to note the rapid rise and fall of her breasts, proof that his power to inspire her lust had not waned in the least.

"You revile me!" Diana spat. "I will expect your call with a full explanation at nine o'clock on the morrow."

"An ungodly hour," he replied. "I doubt I shall have risen before two."

Diana spun toward the door. "You
will
call, my lord, or you will much regret my methods of rousing you."

She had meant it as a threat, but Ludovic could picture her face behind the veil, the high color staining her cheeks, the passion borne of righteous indignation blazing in her green eyes, the very things that had most appealed to him four years ago, aside from her magnificent breasts, that is. "I doubt that, my dear," he replied. "You may
rouse
me any way you like."

The room rumbled with snickers and guffaws.

Though he'd only meant to goad her, he felt himself growing rock hard at the vision of her once again in his bed. He had determined upon their first meeting that he would have her one way or another. She had been a challenge, but in the end he had, indeed, had her. Several ways in fact, but still not enough to satisfy him. She was the only lover with whom he hadn't grown bored. He told himself it was only the brevity of their liaison; it simply hadn't had sufficient time to grow tedious. The realization had sprung from nowhere, but there it was, just as she, staring him in the face.

"A tolerable, handsome figure," Lord Malden remarked to her departing back, "but a tongue like a shrew." He added sotto voce, "Perhaps you can teach her a better means of employing it, eh DeVere?"

Oh, he had done that and more. He had taught her many things and she had proven both eager and wonderfully sensuous, but her education remained incomplete. Unless…He wondered with a stab of something-he-didn't-care-to- identify, if Diana had taken other lovers in his absence. Would it really matter if she had?  He paused to examine that question and found it didn't diminish his desire for her in the least.  His brother was now out of the picture, not that he would have allowed
that
courtship to have progressed any further.

At the door she abruptly turned to confront her detractors, her bitterness a living, breathing force. He could almost see her livid gaze penetrating through the veil. "Better a shrew than a sheep, my lord. For hapless sheep are devoured by ruthless wolves."

He chuckled as the door clicked behind her.
So that was the way of it
. He had introduced her to passion and left her to her own devices, and for that she resented him. For there was no doubt in his mind that this sheep desired nothing more than to be devoured slowly and deliberately by a wolf's mouth, and he would be only too happy to oblige her.

Excerpt:
DEVIL IN THE MAKING

Westminster School – 1764

"The epic poets of ancient times composed histories of Greek heroes in rhyming verse, chanted by the
Rhapsodes in accompaniment by the
cithara. The meter employed was dactylic hexameter…"      Dr. Trasker's droning monotone faded to the far periphery of Simon's consciousness as he reviewed the first lines of his own poetic composition,
An Ode to a Milkmaid of St. James Park.

Lovely Lavinia, a comely lass,

With ripe pink teats and plump white arse,

Ha’penny paid will fill your cup

He thoughtfully chewed the nub of his quill.

But for a shilling, she’d liefer tup…

He flourished the last line w
ith a self-satisfied smirk.

"Master Singleton." The stentorian voice halted the rhythmic scratch of Simon's quill.

Simon looked up blankly.

 "I await your response," the schoolmaster intoned.

 "Homer and Hesiod," Ned coughed from behind.

"Master Chambers!" The schoolmaster's rebuke turned upon the second offender.

"Sir?" Ned answered.

 "Since you are so desirous to impart your scholarship, you shall now stand and enlighten the class on the Elegiac couplet."

"The Elegiac couplet?" Ned repeated.

 "Now, Master Chambers," the taskmaster commanded.

 Ned stood, his ears reddening with the snickers of his classmates.

 "You seem unprepared, Chambers," the pedagogue accused.

"N-no, sir. Indeed not. I only wish to understand. Is it the meter for elegy, or the couplet itself that you wish me to explain?"

"You are stalling." 

 "Beware, Ned," DeVere whispered from across the aisle, "lest you inspire him to invoke the holy name of the birch. The goddess of discipline. The handmaiden of higher learning."

 Ned cleared his throat to disguise a choke of laughter and then recited, "The Elegiac meter is customarily described as a dactylic hexameter followed by a dactylic pentameter, which together form an Elegiac couplet."

Trasker's beady eyes narrowed. "That is correct, Master Chambers. Now then, let us hope your benighted classmates have been equally attentive." With visible disappointment the pedagogue took up his notes to resume his lecture.

Perceiving his chance to share his bawdy masterpiece, Simon reached across the aisle to DeVere— just as Trasker's bespectacled gaze rose from his notes. Simultaneously, Simon and DeVere snatched back their hands, leaving the lone sheet of parchment to drift slowly to the floor with the quiet grace of an autumn leaf.

"What is this?" Trasker snapped, advancing upon them with a militant look.

"Bugger!" Simon muttered.

The sixth form collectively inhaled as Trasker retrieved the fallen parchment and scanned the brief lines. He then transfixed a sulfurous stare back upon his first victim, demanding, "Master Singleton? Are you the author of this lewd and scurrilous verse?"

Simon closed his eyes with a gulp, knowing full well what would follow his confession. He drew courage and then drew breath but another spoke before he opened his mouth.

"
Mea culpa
," DeVere volunteered.

Trasker spun toward DeVere, his gaze narrowed to a slit. "You, my lord?" An evil smile thinned his lips. It was no secret that Trasker, who had advanced to his position by scholarly merit alone, despised the rich and indolent— and none more than the impudent heir to a viscountcy, Ludovic DeVere.

This could not be good.

Excerpt:
THE TROUBLE WITH SIN
(coming soon)

A Tavern in Westminster- 1764

"How could you possibly wish to risk dirtying your hands with something like this?" Ned asked. "Are you not still bound for the clergy, Sin?"

"That, my friend, is a two-part question that I must answer in kind," Simon replied. "While my dear, devout mother would have me join the church, I have searched deeply and cannot summon an inkling of pious sentiment. Moreover, my natural inclination to licentiousness is decidedly incompatible with a theological vocation, for my two great passions are poetry and women of easy virtue, not necessarily in that order. I fear all of which combines to make me an exceedingly poor candidate for the clergy. This now leads to part two. Why would I dirty my hands? The sad truth is that I am in need of the money."

"Money? But you receive a more than adequate allowance."

"Most of which he squanders on entertaining the aforementioned women of easy virtue." DeVere laughed.

"Admittedly," Simon confessed, unabashed. "And now my father has not only reduced my quarterly allowance, but demands a full account of every ha'penny. I tell you, it is humiliating in the extreme. Unless I wish to live under such a yoke for the next three years,
which I positively do not
, I must find a way to make my living, and if I must travail for my bread, what better way than by the fruits of my pen?"

"How better indeed?" Ned replied dryly. "So now you combine these passions for poetry and lewd women by writing poetry
about
lewd women?"

"Precisely!" Simon clapped Ned on the back. "Don't you see the ironic beauty of it? This venture with Harris is the perfect solution."

"What do you suppose will happen when your dear, devout mama gets wind of it?" Ned asked.

"My parents will never know anything about it, for I have taken every precaution to ensure my anonymity. Only you, DeVere, and Harris are privy to my identity." He retrieved the book from DeVere. "My contribution to this little work is, and shall forever remain, a well-kept secret."

Excerpt:
JEWEL OF THE EAST
(coming soon)