Ten years together, and she had never had an inkling, yet having had time to overcome her initial shock, she saw that Reggie’s behavior made perfect sense. She understood now that he had felt as trapped by their marriage as she, although he had certainly had a choice in the matter. While Diana had wed him out of duty to her parents, she had known that Reggie’s motives had been entirely mercenary. Through their marriage, Diana had provided him with a title, income, and substantial properties. She had satisfied his need to live as a gentleman in the hopes they would come to rub along together, but now she understood the impossibility of that and of the more private needs she could never satisfy.
Ten years of her life wasted. Her youth sacrificed waiting and hoping for something that could never be, that never had any chance to begin with—purely because she was a woman. He had chosen to live the lie, and for that, he had punished her. He had fed her self-doubts and insecurities daily by making her question her own worth as a wife, as a woman. She felt betrayed and dishonored, a realization that filled her with an impotent rage. If she were a man, she would deal with it in a man’s way—with pistols at dawn, but she was a woman, a woman now in desperate need of vindication…of validation.
The recognition of this one simple fact, of her legitimate need to feel appreciated, to be desired, was somehow liberating and empowering. Perhaps it was the drink that falsely bolstered her confidence, for with a calm resolution she never would have thought herself capable of, Diana determined to re-claim what had been taken from her.
***
The hour was well advanced when she approached the dressing table. She slipped off her night rail, and selecting her favorite scent of damask rose, strategically daubed the stopper at her neck—remembering with a shiver how his lips had grazed it—and then between the full breasts he had openly admired. She cupped them now, the weight of them heavy in her hands, and regarded her reflection, wondering what he would see, how he would react when she disrobed for him. Would she be all that he had imagined, or in some way disappointing? It took a conscious effort to tamp down the virulent doubts that threatened her resolve.
Forgoing the gown she’d discarded, Diana donned only her wrapper, a diaphanous silk. She took down her hair, riffling her fingers through the waves until they cascaded over her shoulders, and by the light of a single candle, ventured to the north wing apartments and Lord DeVere.
***
Ludovic raked an exasperated hand over his stubbled jaw and took a long drink. Although he wouldn’t relish the nights he would now spend palming himself, he had at last bid Caroline her overdue farewell. Lewd and adventurous, she’d been his longest bed partner, but he’d long become bored with her shallow vanity and irritated by her constant demands on his time and attention. Still, he didn’t doubt Diana’s arrival had been the final impetus for her dismissal. The frustration he now felt was a bittersweet penalty for his impetuous actions.
He didn’t know what it was about Diana that got under his skin. She was handsome and voluptuous, the type that attracted him most, but he’d known women more beautiful and charming than she. Perhaps it was the heat he detected beneath that thick layer of icy reserve? His instincts were never wrong about that. No doubt it was also the challenge she presented, the difficulty of the conquest that appealed to him. He’d not been challenged by a woman in a very long time.
He hadn’t seen the Baroness since that morning and had no doubt that she was avoiding him. He wondered if he’d overplayed his hand in making his desire for her so clear. He’d ensured she had no doubt of his interest, several times even. He’d never known a woman to refuse his bed once his interest was made known. She was more than ripe for an amorous interlude. The air between them virtually crackled with sexual tension at every encounter. Yet still, she had demurred. Damn her.
The thought of inciting her to embrace her darkest desires, to unleash her passion was the incarnation of his most erotic dreams. Bloody hell! It was enough to drive him mad. He couldn’t remember the last time any woman had invoked such a carnal hunger. Damn, his cock throbbed at the thought of those magnificent white mounds. He wanted to pillow his face in them and suckle the dusky peaks while burying himself cock to balls inside her.
It was then that he saw movement. “Damn it, Caroline! I thought you had departed this afternoon for The Oaks. I’ve already made my sentiments perfectly clear. Why must you make this so bloody difficult?” Ludovic was incensed. He rose, setting his glass down with a decisive clink, but three paces revealed his error.
If he’d wanted Diana before, his desire was magnified tenfold by the vision of her in his bedchamber. Garbed in diaphanous silk that clung to every luscious curve, her russet waves fell in a wanton cascade over her shoulders. Eyes of moss green regarded him with luminous trepidation. She had come to him at last. His cock twitched in eager anticipation for the answer to his most selfish prayers.
***
It was with a feeling of déjà vu that Diana entered the viscount’s bedchamber. The rooms were much as she had envisaged in her dream, her footsteps muffled by the deep plush carpeting, the massive tester bed with its curtains drawn back, the flickering candle in her hand, except that when she drew near, she found the bed empty. Her heart dropped like a stone.
Her first thought was that he had not yet retired, but the house was deadly quiet, and Ned and Annalee had turned in hours ago. Then it dawned on her—Caroline, and Diana cursed herself for ten kinds of fool. She knew they were lovers. Why would she ever have imagined he would have gone to his bed alone, that he would be waiting for her? Especially after she had repulsed him, not once, but thrice.
Diana tried to convince herself that it was all for the best, that she was not the kind of woman to carry on an illicit intrigue and would only live to regret it if she had carried out her plan. But the truth was heart-sundering disappointment. She had wanted—no, needed this. Desperately. She turned to depart, but froze at the angry assault to her ears.
“Damn it, Caroline! I thought you had departed this afternoon for The Oaks. I’ve already made my sentiments perfectly clear. Why must you make this so bloody difficult?”
She could find no voice to reply when he rose from the chair by the hearth and moved toward her with a purposeful stride. But he saw her and stopped dead in his tracks.
“You?”
“Yes. Me,” she croaked from a throat made of sandpaper.
They stared at one another in interminable silence before his sensuous mouth formed a slow, wolfish smile. “Well, isn’t this a surprise.”
Her pulse raced. Her tongue darted nervously over her lips. “It was urgent that I see you.”
“Urgent? Then why did you not sup with us? Surely we could have spoken then or shortly thereafter.”
Her mind scrambled for an answer. “I wasn’t well earlier.”
His mouth curved a wicked turn. “You look exceedingly well to me.” He took another step forward with a gaze that burned through the thin layer of silk to heat her skin beneath. He looked like he would devour her whole.
Diana retreated two steps back, but it was not far enough to ease her sudden sense of vulnerability, nor the startling physical awareness of him.
“There is something you must know before the race tomorrow,” she said.
He glanced at the mantel clock and regarded her with a sardonic lift of his brow. “By my account, tomorrow is already come.”
“My apologies again for disturbing you at this late hour, but I had to speak in private. No one else must know of this.”
“Disturbing me would be a vast understatement,” he replied. “I find myself unusually agitated at your change of heart.”
“You misunderstand,” she said, the same heart now sounding a frantic beat for retreat. “This is about the race. Reggie has fixed it. He has bribed your jockey.”
DeVere took possession of her hand, caressing her knuckles with his thumb. “I thank you for the warning, my dear.” He drew her fingers to his mouth, kissing them
with deliberate languor, his hot breath against her cool skin sending tremors racing up her arm. “But you worry needlessly. For I already know.”
Her gaze fixed on his mouth. She tried in vain to ignore the warmth of it, the soft sensuous lips. “B-but how? How could you know? There was no one else about.”
“I treat my people very well, and they are devoutly loyal to me for it.”
Diana worried her lower lip. “What will you do now?”
“Whatever your heart desires.”
She shook her head sharply, unsettled by his continued attempts to unbalance her with his persistent innuendoes. “I’m speaking of the race.”
“The matter is taken care of.”
“You have confronted Reggie?”
His face hardened. “No. I have quite another method of dealing with this.”
“You won’t tell me?”
“I will not. It is a most unpleasant topic that I would rather not dwell upon when there are far more fascinating subjects at hand.” He stroked her cheek with the backs of his fingers, and she broke away from him with a strangled sound. “That’s not why I’m here. I came to protect my personal interests. To warn you about the race.”
“In nothing but your wrapper? Tsk, tsk, my pet. Untruths are so unbecoming. Yet it is precisely your most personal interests, your intimate needs, that are foremost in my mind right now.”
She opened her mouth to protest, but he advanced and silenced her with a finger across her lips. He traced the curve of her mouth with a whisper touch that made her ache for his kiss. His thumb lingered, caressing her lower lip and making it tingle with exquisite sensation. She closed her eyes and bit her tongue to suppress the urge to lick him.
“If I had had any doubts about you before…” he murmured, “they were laid to rest the instant I set eyes on that feckless husband of yours. There are no words to encompass his unworthiness of you, Diana. You were made to be worshipped. Say the word, and I swear to atone for the grievous neglect you’ve suffered.”
He had spoken her own deepest feelings, her darkest desires. She averted her face in an attempt to ignore the heightened awareness of him. The big, strong, near-naked body. The powerful chest exposed by the loose banyan, the even more powerful urge to touch him.
“I’ve not given you leave—”
“To touch you? To address you with such intimacy?” He laughed. “You and I both know you crossed that boundary at the threshold to my bedchamber. Someone damn well needs to touch you, Diana. Someone, preferably me, needs to make amends for your husband’s disgrace and fuck you senseless.”
She stared at him, speechless.
“Don’t look so affronted, my dear. I know how to give you profound pleasure, Diana. We both know that’s why you came to me. You have only to admit it.”
Her heart surged as he moved in for the kill with the ease of a practiced predator. Dipping his head, he drew her lower lip into his mouth, gently biting, sucking, and sending a jolt of molten lightning straight to her core. She melted into him with a whimper. He slowly released her with a feral gleam in his eye. “Just tell me you want me, and I will show you many ways I can please you until you beg for your release.”
Dear God, but he was right. She had crossed the threshold. There was no turning back now.
***
Sensing her qualms, fearing she would change her mind and flee, Ludovic had let her blather on about the races, but all the while deftly and relentlessly guiding her back to the truth and compelling her to face her motives. She wanted him too. He could see it in the rapid rise of her breasts. He could smell her budding arousal and would relish bringing her to full bloom. God, how he loved this dance! She had taken the first tentative steps, yet she still fought her desire, refused to give in to it, but he would lead her now. He was a master…and a ruthless bastard.
He moved behind her, taking possession of her waist, his fingers riffled gently through her hair. He closed his eyes to inhale her faint rose scent mixed with womanly musk. He dipped his head, letting his breath tickle her ear. She shivered. He whispered low and sultry. “Do you wish me to name the ways I can please you? I am delighted to comply if that excites you…although it would please me far more to demonstrate.”
She swallowed hard. His lip twitched.
His hand skirted up her waist to the outside of her breast, his thumb stroking, teasing but not quite touching her nipple. He sought with his tongue that most sensitive spot behind her ear. He licked, and she trembled. “I never make idle boasts, Diana. I have long studied the secrets of a woman’s body and know many ways to bring you mindless rapture.”
She tensed, her breathing quickening to a shallow rasp. “Is such a thing possible for every woman? In ten years I’ve never…” She flushed with the confession. “Not by my husband’s hand.”
He laughed. “Never by his hand? Then what of his cock? His mouth?”
“M-mouth?” She turned her head, her gaze shooting to his with another convulsive swallow.
He awarded her a wicked smile. “The mouth and tongue are but one exquisite gateway to heaven. Do you wish to know them all, Diana? You need only say the word. Confess your need, and I will be a slave to your desire.”
“Yes.” The word escaped from her throat, a nearly soundless whisper. “Yes,” she repeated on a sob. “It is why I came to you. But then I was afraid. But I’m not anymore. I want to know what I’ve missed. My life has been nothing but sacrifice and thankless duty. I want to know passion and pleasure. Please, Ludovic, show me what can be between a man and a woman.”
At last. He closed his eyes on a smile, briefly basking in his victory. It was the sweetest surrender. He pulled her around and into his arms. “If it is truly your wish to discover paradise…” He dipped his head to her throat. “I am enchanted to be your guide.”
CHAPTER NINE
SHE LIFTED HER CHIN, her watery gaze meeting relentless, fathomless blue, his lovely mouth curving in a way that promised illicit delights. He found her throat in a bone-melting kiss and then drew her into his arms to claim her mouth. His lips were at once firm and soft, giving and demanding, nibbling and sucking, and Diana almost cried out in sheer bliss.
She parted her own to him, opening freely. His tongue entered her mouth, hot and wet and delicious, tasting of warm brandy and virile male. She was soon light-headed with the combination, the intoxicating mix. She moaned into his mouth, abandoning herself to desire. Locking and releasing, nipping and gliding, their tongues met again, tangling in a jolt of sublime sensation that plummeted to a place low in her belly.
He pulled her deeper into the kiss, his tongue sliding over hers in sweet wet friction, plundering her mouth. His teeth found her earlobe, his warm breath in her ear sending rapturous ripples down her spine. He teased and traced a blazing trail along the pulse of her throat, kissing, licking, and heating her blood into a raging torrent. He lingered at the juncture between neck and shoulder, moving to the sensitive spot between her collarbones while he disengaged the sash at her waist.
In seconds, the smooth silk slithered from her shoulders to pool at her feet. Holding her arms at her side, Diana resisted the miss-ish urge to cover herself. Instead she fixed on his face, on the visibly throbbing pulse in his neck, the subtle flare of his nostrils, the pupils burning into her with dark desire. He raked over her with an appreciation that seared her flesh in its wake.
“You are nothing short of magnificent,” he murmured deep and husky.
Her gaze slid over him, taking in his breadth of shoulder, the broad expanse of chest, the tapering waist and hips. She reached the generous, telltale bulge in his breeches and liquid warmth suffused the place between her thighs. As if reading her thoughts, he took her hand in his, guiding it between his legs. He pressed it firmly against the rock-hard protrusion. She sucked in a breath at the feel of him. Large. Thick. Rigid. Her insides convulsed.
The corner of his mouth kicked up. “Rest assured that I am both eager and equipped to satisfy you.”
Though her hand trembled beneath his, she couldn’t help a light squeeze, delighting in the way it jumped in her hand, in the sharp rise of his chest, in the way his jaw twitched, and lashes fluttered. He groaned in pleasure, and her remaining inhibitions vanished, replaced by a heady sensation in having evoked such a potent response.
He released her hand and reclaimed her mouth. He skirted up her sides to fondle her breasts, his thumbs moving over her nipples. They instantly hardened, and her entire body thrummed. She arched into him, begging for more. It was sheer heaven and beyond any of Diana’s dreamscape imaginings to have his big, warm hands and hot mouth on her body.
“Do you know there are women who climax from breast play alone? I wonder, Diana, what you would do if I took that luscious peak into my mouth? Shall I? Shall I pull and tease and suckle you ‘til you whimper for release?”
“Yes,” she hissed.
He rumbled with pleasure. His hands and mouth played over her plush mounds, gently squeezing, teasing, biting, and tormenting her flesh with sweet agony until he drew one tight peak into his mouth. Licking, laving, pulling, suckling, every sensation built upon the last, awakening every inch of her skin with want. Urging him to the other breast, she madly riffled his silky hair, now torn loose from its queue. He complied with eagerness, continuing the delicious torture with teeth, lips, and tongue, escalating her need. Abandoned to sensation, she awoke from her stupor at the awareness of her own cry. “Please.”
He slowly released her nipple from his mouth. His eyes were heavy-lidded, and his smile wicked. “Please what, Diana? I only live to please you.” The promise in his words, in his heated gaze made her heart seize in a panic of anticipation. “I will do anything and everything to bring you ecstasy.”
With this vow, he slid slowly down her body, cupping the generous globes of her buttocks, fondling and squeezing them while his tongue smoldered the skin of her belly. Adding soft bites and fevered kisses, he skirted the smooth contour, lasciviously laving her navel, yet always progressing southward with languorous deliberation. Until he settled on his knees, and leveled his face with her sex. Profound awareness of his intent besieged her in waves of wicked wanting.
Seven Nights of Sin: Seven Sensuous Stories by Bestselling Historical Romance Authors Page 59