Tempt the Devil (24 page)

His heart crashed to a shuddering halt. Bloody hell. Bloody, bloody, bloody hell. His rash gamble to keep her hadn't paid off.

Another step. Soon she'd be in the corridor.

Then out of the house. And out of his life.

His hands curled into tight fists at his sides as he battled the urge to drag her back. He couldn't force her to anything. Too many men in her life had done that.

“This is a trick.” She sounded like she accused him of murder. “You'll come after me.”

“Is that what you want?”

“Of course not,” she snapped. “You deceive yourself if you imagine you have some significance. You're just one more keeper.”

“Just because you've had a string of men in your bed doesn't mean you're unworthy of love, my darling.”

Her bravado vanished in an instant and he saw through to her essential wretchedness. “Yes, it does,” she said flatly.

“I've had a string of lovers in my bed as well, Olivia. Does that make me unworthy?”

“Of course it doesn't,” she said with an emphasis that lit a spark of hope in his poor battered heart. “You're a man. It's different.”

A sardonic smile curled his lips. “Can this be the great Olivia Raines? The brilliant, gorgeous, headstrong woman who's beaten every fellow in the ton at his own game?”

“I've never beaten you.”

“No, just as I've never beaten you. Don't you think there's something marvelous in our equality?”

“We're not equal!” she snarled. “You're an earl and I'm a whore.”

He could only speak the truth etched on his soul. “I'm a man in love.”

“Stop it!” She lifted shaking hands to cover her ears. She closed her eyes as if she couldn't bear to look at him. “Stop it, stop it, stop it!”

He spread his hands in a gesture of helpless longing and spoke from the depths of his aching heart. “Stop what, Olivia? Loving you? I can't. You're in my blood. You may as well tell me to cut off my right arm. You're heaven and earth to me. How could I not love you?”

When she lowered her hands, he was appalled to see tears shimmering in the eyes that met his. “No good can come of this.”

The words, and even more, her continuing presence, were an admission of sorts. With a decisive gesture, he tugged the door shut. She wasn't going anywhere tonight.

E
rith watched Olivia start at the sharp snick of the door. He waited for some protest, if only for her pride's sake. But she remained silent, her great, wary eyes focused on him.

She still trembled and her pale face and glazed stare told him she teetered on the brink of exhaustion. He knew this peace was a hiatus. But only a man completely lacking compassion would compel further concessions now, beyond the tacit one she made by not marching out.

When he reached for her hand, she didn't resist, but didn't respond either. Gently, he drew her toward the bed. He wanted to cherish her. He just hoped to hell she'd let him.

“Stop fighting, Olivia,” he said softly.

“I don't know how.” She came with him readily enough, although he knew it was cooperation born in desolation, not joy.

“Trust me.” Last night he thought he'd won that battle. He discovered now that he had to fight it all over again. His only
weapons were his sensual skills. He intended to exploit them to their fullest.

“I'm not coming to Vienna,” she said, even as she stood beside the bed and let him begin on the long row of black, silk-covered buttons down her back. Weary defiance tempered the bleak numbness of her tone.

“We'll talk about it tomorrow,” he said softly. He flicked open button after button, revealing her white back and shoulders above the black silk shift and corset. Leaning forward, he kissed the point of a shoulder revealed under the flimsy strap of her chemise.

“You're the most frustrating man,” she said without venom.

He nipped her where he'd kissed her. He heard her breath catch. She wasn't immune to him physically. Far from it. At least that part of last night's victory was still his, thank God.

The shimmering black gown slithered to the ground. Erith held her hand while she stepped out of the billowing skirts. For the moment she accepted his touch. This might be a concession purely of weariness, but he was in no mood to argue with his fortune.

When she angled her neck toward him, he couldn't resist the invitation. He kissed her hard on the tendon that ran up from her shoulder. She'd have a mark there tomorrow. He was heathen enough to delight in the knowledge that she'd wear his brand.

His campaign against her descended to guerrilla warfare. She'd refused to accept his love through words. He'd make her accept it through passion.

He already guessed her strategy. She thought to make him forget love by transporting him into a paradise of sensuality. How misguided she was. His overwhelming desire was an indelible part of his love.

Her haunting scent surrounded him. Soft and smoky with arousal. He curled his hands around her and cupped her breasts through the delicate material of her shift. His every
touch told her how he treasured her, should she choose to read his meaning.

She drew a shuddering breath. Her chest rose under his hands, filling his palms with sweet female flesh. He brushed his thumbs across her peaking nipples.

Tonight he planned to linger on her pleasure. Show her there was more than she'd already experienced, sublime as that had been.

She gave a voluptuous shiver. “Mmm.”

The deep sound thrummed through him and made him harden.

“I need to undress you,” he whispered.

“What's stopping you?” She didn't sound nearly as tired as she had. Nor as disinterested. She raised her arms above her head and twined them around his neck, pushing her breasts up into his hands.

“You are.”

“Mmm.”

She rubbed her back sensuously against him. He couldn't stop himself pressing forward to rest his erect cock between the cheeks of her buttocks. He tilted his hips, luxuriating in the hard slide against her firm flesh.

Slowly. Slowly.

She pushed back uncertainly, then with greater purpose. The old, familiar dance. Forward, back, forward, back. Delicious friction. Endless torment because clothing prevented ultimate connection.

So gently that it was a caress in itself, she slid her arms down, trailing her hands across his cheeks. The exquisite tenderness made his gut twist, and he buried his face in her hair with a groan. It took him a few lost moments to realize she rucked her chemise higher.

“I want to do this right,” he choked out in halfhearted protest.

The wench laughed. At him, the presumptuous baggage.

The sound vibrated through him like a low note from a cello. “Oh, you'll do it right.”

No trace remained of the lost, frantic, angry woman who had threatened to desert him. He rejoiced in the return of her spirit. He didn't want to defeat her. He wanted her to come to him as his equal. In everything.

Her throaty voice made hot blood swirl in his veins. Her chemise was above her thighs now although her drawers still formed a filmy barrier between him and where he thirsted to be.

The air was heavy with female musk. She was more than ready for him. With suddenly ruthless hands, he gripped her slender waist and swung her around so she faced the bedpost.

“Hold on hard.”

She grabbed the column, anchoring herself. She bent over so her rump tilted at a wanton angle. The transparent black chemise slowly slid back around her hips.

Roughly, he tore at the fastenings of his trousers. His rod sprang free, hard and demanding. With unsteady hands, he shoved her shift aside so he could rip her drawers off. He growled through the sound of shredding silk.

Enchanted, he paused, staring at the taut pale globes of her buttocks. She was beautiful everywhere. He needed an eternity to worship her as she deserved.

He bent to place a fervent kiss in the center of each perfect cheek. This close, her arousal was headier than wine.

“Hurry, Erith.” She quivered with need.

He nipped at one buttock and saw how even that much sensation made her quake. She was very close to crisis. If he wanted, he could make her come through touch alone.

But he was too selfish for that. He wanted to be inside her. He wanted to know she was completely his.

He loved her. He needed to prove that to her in the most primal way.

She might refuse to recognize that his every touch was a
declaration of love. But that didn't change the truth of his feelings. His hands were tender as he bent her toward the mattress. The beast within exulted at taking her like lion mating with lioness, or stallion with mare.

“Spread your legs,” he said in a raw voice.

To his joy, she opened before him like a rose. She was wet and swollen and ripe for his taking. He clasped her hips and tipped her toward him.

Slowly, almost reverently, he pushed forward. A moment's luscious resistance then the head entered her. Her muscles clenched to draw him deeper. But he fought the alluring pull.

She moaned and pressed back. He inched deeper and she clasped him more tightly. Lightning sizzled through his veins. His heart pounded with furious excitement. Incendiary heat blasted him.

He moved gradually, feeling each tiny adjustment she made to take him. She was so wet and hot that the urge to thrust was nigh unbearable. His fingers flexed on her hips. His head throbbed with the strain of control. His cock felt harder than a brass cudgel.

Still he held himself back. Kept his penetration slow.

“Julian…” His name was forced from her throat. Her breath emerged in erratic sobs. She jerked back, taking more of him. “Don't tease me.”

He slid one arm around her waist to change the angle of her stance. He surrounded her completely. Above, below, inside.

“Now,” he groaned.

“Now.” The sound ended on a low keen as he pushed fully into the moist, mysterious depths.

Against his forearm, her belly quivered. Her interior muscles relaxed and tensed in a tantalizing rhythm that set off fiery sparks behind his eyes. He struggled for breath, his lungs heaving.

She ground her hips, taking him even deeper. Another groan escaped him and he leaned over her, pressing his chest
to her back, wanting this sublime joining to last forever. He pressed a hard kiss to her shoulder.

“Julian,” she sighed. His name fell from her lips as naturally as a thrush sang in the sweet spring.

The sound shattered any restraint. He drew out, relishing the cling of her inner passage, and thrust back to the hilt. She juddered under the force and he tightened his grip. The cheeks of her buttocks were taut against his belly.

“Yes,” she whispered, straining back as if she couldn't get enough of him. “Again.”

He withdrew and plunged, feeling her brace for his thrust. He felt how he stretched her, shaping her to him. He closed his eyes and let vibrant, velvet darkness flood his mind.

She circled her hips, changing the pressure, the angle, the feeling.

Oh, yes.

He began to work in and out. Filling his ears with her panting sighs and whimpers, giving her no quarter. He knew she wanted none.

Her climax approached on a quivering wave. She trembled on the brink. But she wasn't there yet. He beat back the overwhelming urge to lose himself. The effort set his jaw so hard, it almost cracked.

Last night he'd made her come once. Tonight, he intended to sate her completely.

He pulled out almost completely, luxuriating in her long moan. Then as he jerked forward, he ruthlessly lowered one hand to touch her hard between the legs.

With a guttural cry, she dissolved into ecstasy. Her spasms squeezed him, milked him, possessed him. Her back bowed until her shoulders butted his chest. Battling for restraint, even through the tempestuous heights of her passion, he rode out the clenching contractions.

Demons tortured him with hot pincers, devils gyrated in his gut, but still he held back. He fought with blind stubbornness, tensing his muscles until they ached.

Tonight, he would give her everything.

This was for her. This was the gift of his love.

She seemed to shudder forever. Her husky cries and ragged breathing tortured him, made him frantic to unleash himself. Her body closed hard on his, searing him with desire.

Just before he crossed the line to madness, just before he reached the final limits of will, her quaking fury ebbed.

He felt her body change, soften. She became boneless in his arms, sagging like a silk banner on a windless day. Her breath rattled in her lungs as she fought for air. Her pleasure had been volcanic.

Exhausted, he cradled her against his chest and buried his face in the warm thickness of her hair, which tumbled from its formal style. His hand slid to her waist to hold her through the fading tremors.

“Julian,” she said again.

He'd never tire of the sound of her voice saying his name.

“My darling.” He brushed aside her hair and placed a tender kiss on her nape.

She was damp with perspiration. He breathed deeply, savoring her satisfaction. The sweetest scent in the world.

Aftershocks still vibrated through her. The clenching teased mercilessly at his control. He beat back the urge to move, to bring himself to completion.

“I never knew,” she said on a sobbing gasp.

She stole his heart anew when she reached down to lace her fingers through his where he held her. The touch conveyed a tenderness her unbridled passion hadn't revealed. The touch told him she felt more at this moment than animal satiation.

As did he. By God, he adored her. Words of love choked in his throat. Although before the night was over, he'd make her listen, damn it.

He felt her stir from her daze of replete exhaustion. “Julian, you didn't…”

“Come?”

How delightful that she was a little shy. He smiled into the damp tendrils of hair that clung to her neck and tangled in the ruby collar.

“You're smiling.” The hand that rested upon his started a gentle stroking that harmonized perfectly with the way her passage caressed his hard length.

“How do you know?”

“I hear it in your voice. It's nice.” She sounded sleepy. After that cataclysmic climax, he wasn't surprised.

He adjusted the angle of his hips to settle more deeply. He desperately wanted to move and possess. He would soon. But for the moment, he couldn't bear to shatter this precious intimacy. There had been times tonight when he'd wondered if he would ever hold her again. He intended to savor every instant of this hard-won closeness.

One of her hands still curled around the bedpost. “I like having you inside me.”

“I like being inside you.” He tensed and thrust very softly. She quivered in helpless response.

He closed his eyes and held her. Basking in her swift, overwhelming reaction. Her sensitivity to every touch astonished him.

“Stand up and I'll undress you.”

She shifted without protest. Each movement changed her body's pressure around his. He closed his eyes and prayed for strength. In the darkness behind his eyeballs, wild lights flashed as he struggled against giving himself to her the way she'd just given herself to him.

Before she straightened completely, he withdrew. She smothered a whimper.

Perhaps he'd been too rough. He was a big man. Long and thick. And he hadn't been considerate. He'd been too hungry for her.

He curved his arms around her shoulders and nuzzled the tender flesh below her ear. “Did I hurt you?”

“No.” Her breath caught as he scraped his teeth across her skin. Then with more emphasis, “No.”

“I wasn't kind.”

She reached up and curled her hands around his wrists. “I won't break.”

He felt her inhale, and she rubbed her head against his upper arm. The gesture's natural affection made his yearning heart falter.

“Your passion is exciting,” she said. “You have no idea how desirable it makes me feel.”

“Every man desires you.”

“They desire the courtesan. You desire
me
.” She shook her head and her hair brushed softly across his forearms.

Reluctantly he drew away, and she gave a soft mew of disappointment. He began to pluck at the strings on her corset, black silk embroidered with trailing red roses. His hands were all thumbs. No wonder. Every drop of blood in his body drained to one organ.