The Devil's Match (15 page)

When she returned her attention to his jutting
rod, he closed his hand tightly about her wrist. “You will remove
your veils now, Didem,” he commanded.

“Please, no,
Efendi
,” she answered.

“But I wish to see your face when you pleasure
me.”

“But I must not.”

“Must not show your face? Or must not
finish what you started? For I believe that was our
bargain...
Diana
.”

***

He knew! The bastard knew all
along!
“How?” She gasped, pulling from his grasp to
rip off the veils. “How did you know it was me?”

“Your carriage, your form...your scent,” he
answered. “They are all imprinted upon my brain. I would know you
among a hundred women, Diana. Every time.”

His unexpected answer took her breath away, but
she was quick to recompose. She refused to let him rattle her.
“Then why did you allow me to proceed?” she demanded.

“Because inhibitions are greatly lessened when
one is incognito. I wanted you to be relaxed and unreserved. I also
wanted to see how bold you would become, how far you would take
this little game of subterfuge with no urging from me. I confess
you surprise me. Greatly.”

“Do I?” She couldn’t help a sly smile. “I told
you I would come to you when I was ready.”

“You are more than ready, my dear.” His eyes
narrowed. “Might I ask how you came by this knowledge? How are you
acquainted with Salime?”

“She first came to me, my lord. It seems she
harbors an inordinate amount of affection for you.”

“She merely feels a strong sense of obligation
for her manumission. It is not unusual.”

“It’s more than that. Can’t you see? She’s in
love with you, Ludovic.”

“Then she mistakes her feelings,” he said
dismissively and sat up.

“You are wrong,” Diana protested. “And if
you cannot reciprocate, you should not encourage her. It is
cruel.”
I know well the agony of
unrequited feeling.

“I do not encourage her,” he insisted. “Salime
is not, nor has she ever been, my lover. Not in the true
sense.”

“No?” Diana laughed her skepticism. “Then what
do you call all this?” She gestured to the hammam.

“You do not understand how it is in the
East, Diana. She is merely a servant. She attends me here because
she has the skills to do so, but I have never
asked
her for sexual gratification.”

“Yet you have received it at her hand?” she
accused.

“Yes. Upon occasion. And she has been very well
compensated.”

“And you do not call her your lover?”

“Absolutely not. For I have never encouraged her
nor reciprocated in kind. Do you not understand the difference,
Diana? I am no martyr. I have physical needs that I refuse to deny,
but I have not shared my bed with any other woman since you. I have
not spilled my seed inside any other woman’s body.”

Once more, Diana was shocked to silence. “You
really expect me to believe that?” she asked when she found her
tongue.

“Why should I lie? I have no need to do so. You
are already here, and if you intend to uphold your word, you are
mine, regardless. I still desire you, Diana, above any other woman.
It’s beyond my comprehension. I travelled extensively, hoping to
find an end to this restlessness that incessantly plagues me, but
to no avail. I wonder now if it was really you I needed all along.
The only peace I have ever experienced was briefly, evanescently,
with you. And now that you are here, I intend to lie with you and
fuck you senseless day and night in countless ways, until you are
either purged from my system completely or branded on my very
soul.”

***

He didn’t know where it had come from. He had
never spoken of private needs to anyone. Part of him was horrified,
as if he suddenly and uncontrollably sputtered nonsense, but the
words were out and not to be taken back.

He studied her for what seemed an endless beat,
his chest painfully contracting as he watched her face, her green
eyes wide with hope, apprehension, and then doubt. It was clear she
didn’t trust him, but he had said all there was to say. The rest
was only to be proven by deed.

“Why are you doing this to me?” she asked. “I
thought we had a simple bargain. I would come to you and gratify
you physically. I have come. I am willing to do as you wish. Why do
play with my emotions like this?”

“Do I?” he asked innocently.

“Yes! You can never leave well enough alone. You
must always be the master manipulator, Ludovic, the ultimate
puppeteer, making everyone dance to your tune. It’s all about you,
isn’t it? But I refuse to dance this time. You can take me all you
like and in as many ways as you please, but just know this, when
this time is over, it’s over. Whether purged or branded, I will
leave you and never look back.”

***

“All I like and in as many ways as I
please?” he repeated. “You make me an offer I cannot refuse. But
contrary to your belief, this is
not
all about me, Diana. No, it’s very much
about you; for I
can
and
will
give you
mindless, bone-melting, heart-sundering pleasure. And if after
that, you find you can still walk away or that you can still
walk
at all”
—he paused with a
smirk—”so be it.”

He reached for the neckline of her shift. “As I
said before, you wear far too many clothes.” A simple tug released
the fabric. He lowered it by inches, first revealing her creamy
white shoulders. He skirted his knuckles along her exposed skin,
watching gooseflesh form in their wake. “You cannot claim to be
cold this time, my dear.” He lowered the garment to her elbows,
trapped her lower arms in her sleeves, confining them to her sides.
He captured her breast with his mouth, nipping and sucking on her
tender, white flesh, feasting as if ravenous.

Though he thought she would fight it for as long
as she could, Diana surprised him by arching in to him, wordlessly
urging him to take more. He pulled a distended nipple into his
mouth, biting lightly and then suckling hard until she cried out. A
chuckle grew in his chest and erupted from his lungs. He drew back
from her breast to slide her shift off to pool on the floor and
then worked his mouth up her neck, murmuring hotly against her skin
until he reached the hollow of her ear. “There’s no point in
denying yourself the pleasure now, is there?”

“No. None at all.” She breathed on a sigh that
he captured with his mouth. They played a breath-stealing game at
first, but as their lips melded and tongues collided in that first
tentative touch, the urgency flared. Moaning and clutching one
another, their tongues tangled, gliding and sliding, growing in
intensity to the rhythmic thrusting simulation of sex. He cupped
her buttocks, drawing her closer. Their heated bodies, already
slick with sweat, pressed together, his swollen shaft sliding
deliciously against her hot, moist mons.

“Is there more you wished to show me?” he asked,
sliding a hand between her legs and biting her shoulder.

“There was much more.” She moaned. “We did
not finish your massage. Six times I am told to withhold
your
boşalma
to bring you a
rapturous release. That was only one,
Efendi.
”

“You wish to bring me to brink again, Diana? To
torment me with pleasure? Then it’s good we have time, isn’t it?
For there are many things I yet wish to do to you.” He tongued down
her neck back toward her breasts. “But if it is your desire to
torture me, you possess the most devastating of devices for that
purpose.”

“Oh?” She lifted a brow.

“God, yes.” He groaned and plied open-mouthed
kisses to the tops of her breasts. “Since the first moment I laid
eyes on you four years ago, I have fantasized about one exquisite
torture.”

“And what is that?” she asked.

“This.” He took the weight of her
voluptuous mounds in each hand and molded them tightly together. “I
have dreamed of sliding my
kamış
in this lovely, lush valley of yours...sheathing myself in
their milky white softness.” He heard her breath hitch and watched
her eyes widen with patent surprise.

“No conditions. No constraints?” she asked
breathlessly.

He smiled. “Those were the terms of the wager,
as I recall.”

She regarded him with a mix of surprise and
something more. Curiosity? Desire? “How is such a thing even
done?”

His pulse leaped at her implied acquiescence. He
backed her slowly toward the table and gave her a wicked grin. “My
dear odalisque, I would be most delighted to show you.”

***

He rolled two more towels to support her
head and neck before lowering Diana onto her back. The marble table
was hot and hard beneath her, but the anticipation of what he would
do to her far outweighed her discomfort. His blue gaze flickered
like a flame. The intensity of the look, rife with unspent passion,
stole her breath away.
This
was what Salime had spoken of, the ability to cloud his mind
of all but desire.

Ludovic retrieved the bottle of almond oil,
coating hands and gliding them over her sensitive flesh. Diana
moaned with bliss at the sensations he elicited deep in her sex as
he rubbed her nipples between his fingers and smoothed the oil onto
her chest until the mounds of her breasts were slick and
glistening. He stood back only far enough to regard his handiwork,
an air of fierce desire contorting his features. He was still
semierect and growing harder and longer before her eyes.

She gazed in fascination at the proud purple
head, now fully exposed to view by his circumcision. “Why did you
do it?” she asked.

“I told you I had already considered conversion
and then there arose the situation with Salime.”

“So you sacrificed your foreskin to save a
damsel in distress?”

He shrugged. “It seemed a small sacrifice at the
time.”

She reached out to him and stroked a
finger along the underside of his shaft. It jumped in response.
“What now,
Efendi?
” she
inquired in a sultry voice and then circled her thumb over the
bulbous head. His chest rose sharply, and his eyes fluttered. The
feeling of power from that single, light touch made her giddy and
filled her with an overwhelming desire to devastate him, to ravage
him with pleasure so profound and unforgettable that it would haunt
him...as he had once done to her.

He kissed her again, long and deep, his tongue
thrusting hungrily into her mouth and then released her, joining
her on the slab, straddling her hips with his muscular thighs. He
guided her hands to her outer breasts and positioned his long and
heavy shaft between them. “I want you to press them together, to
sheath me and hold me between them.”

She complied, watching his head fall back with a
groan as he pushed himself between the soft, slick mounds of her
breasts. She tracked the motion of the purple crown of his sex as
it advanced and receded from sight in slow and rhythmic strokes.
His face was flushed, and his lids hooded, eyes grown dark with
passion. She saw him steal a glance downward. His face drew taut
with concentration; his pace quickened from long and languid glides
to short, stabbing thrusts. His breathing ragged, he stared at her
and at his thrusting shaft with a gaze drunk with lust.

With a sudden surge of daring, she stared back
into his eyes and darted out her tongue, teasing the underside of
his shaft with tantalizing little flicks in sync with his advance
and retreat.

“Dear God Almighty.” He moaned.

Filled with smug satisfaction, Diana raised her
head, tilting it toward him for better reach, circling and swirling
the bulbous head with her tongue. His hands came over hers,
squeezing her tighter, rocking his hips, a rictus of rapture coming
over his face.

“Please, take me in your mouth,” he panted,
“however you are able.”

Sensing it would bring him imminent climax,
Diana pulled back, releasing both mouth and breasts. His eyes
snapped open, and a primal sound erupted from his chest.

“No,
Efendi
”—she gave him a taunting smile—”it’s not
time yet, for that’s only
number
two
.”

***

“I could finish it myself, you know.” He loomed
over her ominously. “I could just fist my cock and spurt my seed
all over that smooth, white belly of yours.”

“You could...but you won’t,” she challenged
back.

“No?” he asked and moved as if to carry out his
threat.

She arched a brow. “No, you won’t. You’re
enjoying this too much.”

“Fuck it all, yes!” he cried, sitting back on
his heels. “You’re driving me insane!”

She laughed a low and sultry sound. “That is the
intent. I am given to understand the final release will be as if
you are transported to the third heaven. It is why I came—to bring
you to your knees.”

“If you want me on my knees, I seem to
recall making that offer not so long ago. But
six times
? That’s a very dangerous proposition
you make.”

“Perhaps,” she said, giving him an artless lift
of her brow. “Do you suppose you lack the fortitude?”

He emitted a rumbling laugh and wrapped her hand
around his hot, hard, pulsing length. “Does it appear as if I
do?”

He noted her hard swallow. “Appearances can
sometimes be deceiving.”

“Not in this case, my dear. And if you insist on
six times, I am more than happy to oblige you...but it will be in
as many different ways.”