The Devil She Knows (16 page)

“W
hat about Constantinople?” Portia asked when she thought she could form words. As unhappy with the results as with his memories, she tried again. “What brought you here?”

“The Turks are hungry for learning and to build whatever they can afford. Mostly they buy from the British and the Germans but occasionally they trade with Americans.”

He selected a green plum from the tempting array on the table, clearly willing to change the subject.

“Is that how you met Kerem Ali Pasha?” She studied him, glad to discuss a happier topic.

He shook his head and mopped his mouth with a napkin, unabashedly enjoying the succulent fruit.

“Adem and I were both guests of the Paris gendarmes after a—” He paused.

“Brawl?” She proposed the most succinct explanation.

“Thank you for describing me so well.” His eyes twinkled at her. “After I got us out without needing to call upon his embassy's influence, he introduced me to his father.”

“Who was very grateful.” She rewarded herself with a delicious strawberry for stating the obvious.

“Extremely. He's helped Donovan & Sons bring mining supplies into the country, including dynamite. The Sultan considers simply possessing the stuff indication of an attack on him so it's extremely hard to get.”

“You're joking.” Several pieces of fruit dangled unnoticed from her fingers.

“Not when there's so much money to be had, simply for providing the basics.” A baffled, angry look crossed his face. “Kerem Ali Pasha also helped us escort American professors here, when they come to take up teaching posts.”

“As private tutors? It's obvious why well-behaved folk would want assistance coming here.” She'd have given half her inheritance to watch Gareth's icy protection of Abdul Hammid, if he'd been there from the beginning at the customs post. “But wouldn't that be paying rather much for a child's education?”

He shook his head vigorously and finished his last plum.

“Universities?” she asked.

“The Turks give them a fancy name, taken from their religion. But, yes, they're building universities. And they're starting to educate their girls, too.”

“Heavens.” She slid out of the divan and onto the floor facing him. “Here, in a Moslem country?”

“Yup.” He grinned at her, looking a little more like the young man she'd so adored. “The Ottoman Empire has its problems. What country doesn't? Plus, the weather here is better than Saigon.”

“What wouldn't be?” she asked tartly, tears drying on her cheeks.

“Sea breezes here are more pleasant than the Algerian desert winds,” he added, full of spurious innocence.

She grabbed a pillow from the divan and swung it at his head.

“Sweetheart, you'll knock over the yoghurt,” he protested and snatched at the tufted silk.

“You'd deserve it for such a saccharine platitude,” she shot back and launched herself at him. “Working in a place solely because of its weather is asinine!”

She dug an elbow into his chest and he let out a startled yelp. Well pleased, she fought even more strongly for the cushion.

Gareth wrestled Portia down to the floor, until she lay on top of him, their arms trapped between them, linked by the silken upholstery.

She lifted her head and glared at him triumphantly.

“I won,” she announced and tossed her hair back over her shoulders. Her loose upsweep had somehow come loose, sending masses of curls tumbling down her back. “I've got the pillow.”

“So do I,” he pointed out, “and I'm holding onto the button.”

“But I have the bigger button.” She tried to smirk. She was suddenly acutely aware of her legs straddling his hips—and the very large, hot bar rubbing against her.

“Portia,” he warned, “my fingers are longer than yours.”

She flushed, remembering just how well he'd used those digits that morning.

“Portia?” His voice deepened to a darker, more intimate note.

If she released the pillow, she might be able to feel his chest again. But they were both dressed, no matter how lightly.

Would he want to?

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

She took a single hand away from the cushion. But where should she put it? Behind her back or on his arm, his thigh, his—?

He slipped his fingers through hers and guided them to his shoulder.

Her lips rounded in surprise.

He pulled the pillow out from between them, threw it across the room, and slid his hand up behind her neck.

Of course, he'd know exactly what to do.

She leaned forward into his kiss, letting all of herself rest on him. Her breasts flattened against his chest and his ribs lifted air into her lungs, as fast as his lips claimed hers.

She moaned happily, eager to taste more of what he'd given her earlier.

He kissed her thoroughly, sweetly. His hands roamed her back freely, sweeping from her shoulders to her waist, over her hips and curving to fondle her derriere. She wiggled closer, enjoying the warm pulse rocking between his mouth and her breast every time he kissed her, the lazy sparks of lust drifting through her veins.

She sank her fingers into his shoulders but his shirt's crisp starch rejected her. She made a disconsolate little sound and pressed closer, seeking more contact with the warm male flesh under her mouth.

“Portia?” He nuzzled her cheek, barely moving his head away from her. “What do you want, honey?”

She needed a moment to recover her dazed wits. “I'd like to touch
you
, not your clothes.”

“Are you certain? Matters may—probably will—go further than they did this morning.” He considered her, sprawled across the silk rug in the late afternoon sunlight like a sultan.

“I think I want them to.” She nibbled on her fingertip and watched him hopefully. Her breasts ached so much for his touch and his shaft was so very large inside his trousers.

Yet she could never be sure he wouldn't do exactly what he pleased, which might not suit her at all. All she knew was that he'd never hurt her.

“Please, Gareth?” she added.

“Very well.” He looked as if he was leashing himself, although not a muscle moved. “Do you know what steps you'd like to take next?”

His voice deepened and slowed until it wrapped around her bones, luring her forward.

She dragged her teeth across her lips, a move he watched with fascination.

“You're wearing too many clothes,” she whispered.

“Take them off,” he countered.

Every bit of her skin suddenly flushed with warmth and the desperate need to do exactly what he said.

“I, uh, I—you mean it.” She stammered to a stop, heat crackling into sparks between them under his heavy-lidded eyes.

“Of course. We've always told each other the truth.”

She closed her gaping mouth, acutely aware of how taut her breasts suddenly were. He stroked her waist but didn't move his hands any higher.

She'd have to prove her willingness to him before he'd know she was ready to step out of St. Arles' shadow.

Surely the rewards would be worthwhile for doing this.

She climbed off him unsteadily and knelt on the floor. Her skirts fanned out around her in a billowing pool of embroidered flowers, like a promise.

The first button seemed to be made of butter, judging by how it slid away from her jerky fingers and refused to move from one side of his vest to the other. By the time she finally saw a wider vee of shirt, she'd tasted blood from where she'd bitten through her lip.

“More,” Gareth commanded harshly.

Her eyes flashed to his, unbearably drawn by his tone.

“Undo my vest, sweet Portia,” he said a little more gently, his breathing as bitterly controlled as a tiger pacing out his territory's limits.

“I can't,” she stuttered, fascinated beyond thought by how crystal bright his eyes had become behind his thick lashes. And how untamed his hair was when it fell over his forehead.

“If you unbutton my vest,” he coaxed, his chest rising and falling underneath it, “I'll undo my cufflinks for you.”

She ran the back of her finger down one wrist. So very big and strong—but the hands they guarded? Heavens, the delights they'd wrought upon her that morning.

His breath creaked to a sudden halt.

“I can manage them,” she bargained, suddenly more confident. “But you have more fastenings than I do.”

A black eyebrow slashed upward like an artist's brush stroke. “What do you mean by that?”

“If I unfasten those few, how will you help speed up our undressing?” she asked, startled at her own frankness. She knew she hungered for him but why was she speaking so boldly about it?

“By taking my shirt and boots off,” he answered promptly. “Or your gown.”

She closed her eyes against the reckless instinct to simply hurl herself at him.

Her fingers were vibrating faster than her heartbeat when she bent over him again. Only the knowledge that her hair shielded her face kept her close to him.

But she sighed when he stroked her shoulder and down her arm.

“Beautiful silk,” he murmured, “but not half as lovely as my lady.”

The last button undone, she stayed where she was, head bent and panting far too much for breath.

“So many flowers.” Gareth undid her gown's top button very slowly. She could feel his eyes on her like a caress, warming her from the inside out. She turned toward him further, fireflies taking flight from her skin.

He brushed his fingertips against the base of her neck, like the gentlest of kisses. She arched her head back and let herself float into a sea of lust, sparkling like sunshine over waves through her body.

“Delicate and strong to survive winter's harsh winds, yet bring beauty in the spring.” He undid the second button, then another and another.

She swayed toward him, like the flower he called her, and met his mouth. Joy floated between them, pure and bright as the ocean waves reflecting off the ceiling.

He rolled her onto her side and she caught his head in her hands. His shirt rasped her aching nipples through her fine lawn chemise and she twisted against him.

“What is it?” Gareth murmured against her throat.

“You promised,” she murmured disconsolately—and gasped when he nibbled the pulse at the base of her throat.

“Promised? Ah, my shirt.” He trapped her gaze, his mouth a passionate invitation to carnal folly.

“Yes,” she gasped. “And your boots.”

His eyes narrowed at her demand for everything he'd promised, rather than a more ladylike minimum.

He came to his feet with a panther's speed and removed his shirt, tossing it carelessly toward the door. His boots and socks received the same cavalier dismissal, thudding to the floor as emblems of masculine dishabille.

Portia's core became a furnace, melting itself into a slick river of hungry cream for him. Nothing mattered except looking at him. Even fear, once so deeply embedded in her bones, seemed unimportant compared to his glories.

“Your eyes are very dark, Portia honey.” Gareth's voice lured her, rich and slow as fine brandy—or the Kentucky bourbon she'd stolen once as an adolescent.

“Still too many clothes,” she complained. But whether to herself or to him, she couldn't have said.

She drew up her legs and began to tear off her beribboned slippers, cursing the fashionable idiots who'd insisted on so many bows.

“Whatever you wish, my dear.” He sounded satisfied—or anticipatory. But she didn't care, not when hunger ran hot and fast through every iota of her flesh and she could smell his need over the salt sea. For the first time, that scent drew her, made her want to luxuriate in it.

Cloth whooshed through the air, thudded against the wall, and slithered onto the floor.

Gareth swept a sheet onto the floor and lay down upon it, on his side.

Portia's breath stopped. His stalwart frame was magnificent and deadly, he was graceful and quick as a great cat—yet he bore so many scars. Somehow those imperfections drew her even more than seeing one of Michelangelo's statues come to life would have. She wanted this man, hardened and experienced as any medieval warrior engraved at a chapel. She needed to touch him, to rub herself over him, to reassure her every fiber that he was real and not cold stone—and to keep hot life vibrant in the steel gray eyes watching her.

She shrugged off her tea gown and threw it over his trousers.

His eyes flamed, blue leaping in them like the hottest flames' core.

She licked her lips rapidly, then undid her drawers and tossed them aside. Her chemise dropped down to her knees, concealing her.

“Ah, sweet Portia.” Hoarseness rippled through his voice like fuel being added to a fire.

“Gareth.” She knelt beside him, eager to finally lose herself in him.
Darling
, she added privately.

He pulled her into his arms and above him.

She tugged her chemise over her head, heedless of any scattered buttons.

He roared his approval and suckled her fiercely, making love to her breasts as if that morning had been the lightest sample.

She sobbed her pleasure, lust lancing between his mouth and her core. Heat pulsed in her blood, hotter and faster.

His muscles steadied her, while his crisp body hair pricked her into a world of wilder sensation. Her senses swam, engorged with his scent, drowning in a myriad of new sensations where everything was Gareth—sight, sound, scent, touch.

His hands were everywhere, fondling, probing, adding just the right touch to drive her wild. His deep voice was like the magic smoke from a genie's lamp, seducing both her ears and her bones.

She burned for him, her muscles ached to hold him. She stropped herself over him, her lust's bright edge growing sharper with every new inch of his body she discovered.

“Dammit, Gareth, please.” She wrapped her hand around his shaft and squeezed gently, transfixed by the contrast between strength and velvet.