A Devil Named DeVere (The Devil DeVere)

by Vane, Victoria

  "You've never fondled a man's cock?"

  "No, but I want to now." Her tongue darted over her lips. "If you would like it."

  "Oh, I'd like much more than that," he growled. He took her hand and wrapped it around his turgid shaft. Tightening her grip around him, he slowly guided her hand down his length and up again. He was hot and hard, and smooth and silky, and felt like heaven in her hand. She squeezed and felt the pulsing throb of him. She slid her hand back up and down, finding a smooth steady rhythm, and stole a look at his face. His thick lashes shadowed his high cheekbone, his jaw was clenched, his body taut. The heady sensation returned to her in a rush. Growing more daring, she circled his smooth head with her thumb, spreading the seeping bead of wetness, making it slick. Suddenly his hand seized her wrist. His eyes glittered. His mouth was set in a grim line.

  "Playtime is over now, Diana. Either use that lush mouth of yours, or let me fill your sweet quim."

  ***

  She looked daunted by the thought. "My mouth?" she repeated. "Like you did to me?"

  "That lesson can wait," he replied tersely. Though excessively fond of oral pleasures, the last thing Ludovic wanted was to intimidate or repulse her, but damn how he needed release. Now. Impatient to plunge into her, he shed his breeches and swiftly returned to her, caging her body beneath his, his mouth on her breast. He pressed his thigh between hers, urging them apart. She moaned and clutched him to her chest as his free hand guided the head of his cock to the swollen lips of her slick sex, sliding it in her folds, circling around her nub, rubbing the whole length of him in her dew and making her writhe. He fought down the urge to thrust wildly into her then and there.

  Her urgent supplication bade his hands to seek the swells of her buttocks. He slid beneath them, raising her hips, spreading her wide. Her dewy pink lips unfurled to his view, reminding him of an exotic flower, an orchid in full bloom, her beautiful quim open and beckoning. It was the most exquisitely erotic sight. He thumbed the pulsing bud, and she whimpered. Still, he drank her in, licking his finger and stroking along her delicate folds with lust-filled fascination, until the hot surge of blood to his shaft and the tightening in his bollocks told him he'd had his visual fill.

  He guided her long sleek legs while she gripped his shoulders. "Wrap your thighs around my waist." She surrounded him with her silky flesh and undulated, grinding her mons against him. She cried out, tearing at his hair, desperate for his possession. "Now. Please, Ludovic. Take me. Fill me up."

  A primal sound escaped his throat as he plunged into her hot sheath in one deep, gliding stroke. She rewarded him with a sultry moan, and he jerked his hips with a grunt, impelling himself deeper, fully impaling her on his staff. He gripped her hips, pinning her in place as she stretched to accommodate his full length and breadth, her frenetically pulsing passage milking his manhood with delectable ripples while his heart pounded against his ribcage.

  Dear God in heaven. She was tight and wet and smooth as silk, and he feared he would combust if either of them moved. He held her thusly for an interminable heartbeat, and then she began to tremble beneath him, the first stage of her impending orgasm.

  He pulled back and thrust in again. She gasped. Her sex spasmed tighter about him, and he was suddenly lightheaded, the blood roaring in his ears. "Kiss me," she whispered and rose up to him. He crushed his mouth down on hers, and his mind blurred to all but the urge to pound into her until they both exploded.

  ***

  He had filled her with his sex. Hot and throbbing, her body strained to adjust. It was part pain, part pleasure and the most exquisite agony she'd ever known. She was already writhing with the need for release. "Kiss me," she whispered. And then his mouth was on hers, his tongue plunging in and out, sucking and swirling in rhythm with the hammering force of his sex. Plunge and drag. Sweet, slick friction. She clutched his shoulders, her fingers gouging his flesh, urging him on. He drove into her fiercely, relentlessly.

  Breathing ragged, bodies coated in a thin sheen of sweat, the slap of flesh on flesh, the pressure increasing. Too much. Not enough. Rising higher. Dipping back. Harder. Faster. Spiraling out of control, her body jerked, and her orgasm came crashing, ripping over her in pulsating waves. Her sex contracted in a last powerful spasm that rippled through her, leaving her in final breathless, boneless repletion. Ludovic cried out, a guttural sound, before he jerked out of her body, shuddering and spilling hot jets of liquid fire over her. He collapsed against her with a groan, rolling her into his arms, her head pillowed by his body.

  Her cheek resting against a chest still sounding a rapid drumbeat and steadily slowing to an even thud with his longer deeper respirations, she closed tear-filled eyes. Her heart surged inside her chest with gratitude...and something more she couldn't define. They had exchanged no words after their mutual release, but to Diana, there were none sufficient to express her awe in the heart-sundering rapture she had experienced. In this warm cocoon of wondrous well-being she slipped into sated slumber.

  ***

  Diana awoke hours later to feel a warm, stirring sensation against her thigh. In the pale light of dawn, she stole a look at her lover's face, for there was no denying now what he had become to her in one passion-filled night. They were lovers now in truth, her reality now far exceeding her nocturnal fantasies. She thought about what he had done to her, how he had worshipped her body with his own, had led her to soaring heights without demanding anything more than she was willing to offer in return. It filled her with warmth, with the need to give back.

  Her gaze lingered on the strong profile, the half-smile curving his soft, sensuous mouth, the wonderful wicked mouth that had wrought pure rapture. Her eyes drifted to the throbbing pulse of his neck, and she was suddenly filled with the powerful urge to lick it, to trace the column of it, to suckle his nipples, to pleasure him in every way he had her. She lifted the sheet and drank in the delicious vision of the lean, sculpted muscle and sinew that formed the solid wall of his abdomen, the erotic trail of black hair leading to his phallus, semi-erect in its nest of dark curls and resting benignly against her thigh. Her stomach fluttered at the remembrance of what he had wanted from her. An illicit shiver rippled through her at the thought of putting her mouth on his sex. She wondered if she dared, but desire soon overcame trepidation.

  Her hair curtained his face as she feathered kisses against his strong, square jaw. Drifting downward, she enacted her wish and licked his neck, teasing with her tongue. She shifted her weight onto his body, and he stirred beneath her, his arousal surging upward, his hands moving automatically to grip her buttocks before his lashes had even fluttered fully open. She shifted deftly out of his grasp. He reached for her.

  "No," she said. "It is my turn now."

  Vivid, blue eyes met hers, questioning from beneath hooded lids.

  She licked her lips and traced her tongue around the disk of his nipple. "Do you like that?" she asked.

  "Yes," he replied. "You are wonderfully sensuous, Diana."

  "Teach me," she insisted. "Show me what pleases you." She moved to his other nipple and gave it an experimental nibble.

  He groaned. "Your wish to do so is an aphrodisiac in itself."

  "No. That is not enough. I want to give you the same mindless pleasure you gave me."

  His eyes narrowed. His erection reared up between them, tenting the sheet. "Don't tease, minx. You'll get far more than you bargained for."

  "Really?" she challenged, his ominous look heating her blood. Emboldened to prove herself, she reached for him, grasping his sex in her hand while her mouth played over his abdomen, growing more fevered as she followed the seductive trail to the object of her desire. She crept down his body, licking, kissing, biting as her hand worked his shaft. She gripped him harder, closed her eyes, and brushed her lips across the sensitive tip. The smooth sleek texture of him surprised her. She stretched out her tongue, gliding across the purple head, giving an experimental flick to the underside of his shaft.

  He
jumped in her hand. "Sweet Jesus." He groaned and palmed her head. "Please, just take me in."

  "In? You want to be inside my mouth?" He was large and thick, his length daunting. She felt her courage falter.

  "Yes. Speaking bluntly, I want you to open your beautiful lips and swallow me whole...but if the notion unsettles you..."

  "No," she answered softly. "I just didn't know...what you expected..."

  "I would never ask anything that repulses you, Diana. The act of love should only bring pleasure. Don't take me in your mouth unless you want this. I kissed and tongued you because I love the taste and scent of you, because it excites the hell out of me to make you come with my mouth. Do this because you are hungry for me, because it excites you to take me to the brink of the abyss, or don't do it at all."

  He was hard and hot and throbbing in her hand, and she could see the stark desire in his eyes. He wanted it so badly, yet he still did not demand. The knowledge was bolstering and incredibly arousing.

  "Yes," she said. "I want you in my mouth. I want to taste your desire, to give you bliss."

  ***

  She dipped her head, and her parted lips were gliding over him with more confidence, her tongue circling his crown, exploring the tiny slit and the bead of salty moisture with delicious, little darts. His breath hitched.

  "Good. That's very good," he encouraged, gently cupping her nape, riffling her silky hair. "Open your mouth now, Diana, and take me in. Slowly. Breathe through your nose. Use your lips, your tongue. No teeth," he added brusquely.

  She closed her eyes and opened to him, laving with her tongue as his length slid inch by inch into the wondrous wetness of her mouth. "Relax, Diana. Pull me deeper," he commanded, tamping down the urge to thrust. "Suck upon the release. Harder. Use that velvet tongue."

  She answered with an effort that was unschooled but heavenly, a decadent delight. He lost himself in the euphoria of her hands and lips, the swirl of her tongue drawing him deep into her mouth, the sultry sucking sounds, the pulling of sweet friction on the release.

  "God, yes," he groaned as he threaded his fingers through her hair. Her rhythm increased with the encouragement, her mouth becoming a voracious vortex of pleasure. Every fiber of his being fired with exquisite sensation. His vision blurred, his sac contracted. He was going to explode hard. But not this way. Not this time.

  "Enough," he growled. His bollocks throbbed with agonizing pressure to release his essence. Still, he withdrew from her mouth.

  "But you haven't..."

  "No. I won't come in your mouth. Not the first time," he said, tamping down the powerful compulsion to do just that. Instead, he flipped her onto her stomach and straddled her thighs. He slid a hand under her belly to raise her hips, and she bucked under him with a strangled sound.

  "No! Please don't!" she cried out with a hysterical sob and burrowed her face into the pillow.

  Christ Jesus! He turned her over. "Diana, what the devil is wrong?"

  Her eyes were wide. She trembled. "Weren't you going to..."

  "Sodomize you?" he finished, aghast. "Did he..."

  Her lower lip quivered. She nodded mutely.

  "That bloody buggering bastard!" His vision blurred again, but this time in blind rage. He pulled her into his arms, kissing her deeply, stroking, soothing. "It's all right, my love. I won't ever do anything to hurt you. Do you understand me, Diana?"

  "Yes," she whispered. "I'm so sorry."

  "Don't apologize," he said, his fury adding a harsh and unfamiliar edge to his voice. "Just know that whatever we do together is about mutual pleasure. I will never do anything you don't wish me to do."

  "I know that now," she said, twining her arms around his neck and kissing him back.

  "Do you? Then let us be certain." He pulled her down on top of him.

  "What are you doing?"

  "Putting you in control," he answered, positioning her thighs on either side of his hips. "We shall start the races early, my dear, for you shall ride me."

  Chapter Ten

  It was dangerously past dawn when Diana crept stealthily back to her own bedchamber. She quietly opened the door, praying Polly hadn't already noticed her absence. Upon closing it behind her, she noted the bed curtains were still drawn just the way she had left them, and the fire was still banked. She breathed a sigh of relief that she was undiscovered. Yet, when Diana looked to the chair by her dressing table where she had discarded her night rail, it was gone.

  Strange. She searched the room in vain. Mayhap she had left it on the bed? Diana drew back the heavy velvet and gasped.

  Reggie lay fully clothed atop the counterpane, reclining back on a mountain of pillows. He raked her with an insolent gaze. "Looking for something, my dear? It must have been an eventful night indeed. I've waited for you for hours."

  "Eventful? Hardly." She laughed, her mind scrambling for an alibi. "I was reading in the library and fell asleep in the chair."

  "Without your night rail?" He held up the cotton gown with an evil smirk. "Even if I was stupid enough to believe you, your appearance betrays you. Look at yourself, Diana! You look like some Covent Garden whore."

  She stole a glance to the mirror over the mantel and knew that it was true. Her lips were swollen, her hair mussed beyond redemption, and most telling of all was the faint purple shadow of a love bite on her neck. She realized she had no defense, but neither did he have the right to accuse her. Her initial shock turned to fury. "Does it really matter to you, Reggie where I spent my night?" she hissed. "As I certainly know where you have been spending yours."

  His gaze narrowed. He abruptly sat up and seized her arm, squeezing as if it were clamped in a vice. "Do you now?" His eyes glittered dangerously. "And just where might that be?"

  "Must I say it aloud?"

  He paled at the realization she had discovered his well-guarded secret. "You have no proof of anything," he spat. "Besides, where I bed and with whom is my own damned business."

  "Your own business? But I am your wife! You made vows to me!"

  "As did you, Diana. No man likes to be made a fool. So I ask again—where were you last night?

  "I already told you."

  "Don't bother lying again as I already have all the proof I need of your iniquity. I only marvel that any man could stir you to passion. Or were you simply moved by desperation? Did you hope to bargain with him by playing his whore? Did you please him well, Diana? I truly hope so, as your tight little quim might be the only way to regain what was lost."

  His words stunned her. She regarded him with a blank stare. "Bargain? Wh-what are you talking about?"

  "That DeVere has the deed to Palmerston Hall. Did you not realize?"

  Her mind reeled. "How can that be? You lost it in gaming at Clay Hill."

  "I do not know precisely how it came about. I can only conclude that DeVere bought my vowels from O'Kelly."

  "You lie! Why would he do such a thing?"

  "How the bloody hell would I know? I first thought he intended to ruin me to claim the estate, but what is a meager five hundred acres and rundown manor house to such a man? I can only presume then that he desired the stud, but whatever his motives, all seems now to have miraculously worked to my advantage."

  "How do you mean? How can any of this be to your advantage?" she asked, her heart racing.

  "Simple, my dear heart. You are lawfully my wife, my legal property, whether I choose to use you as such or not. If DeVere desires that which is mine, he must pay for the privilege."

  "You would pimp me like a whoremonger? You bastard!" she screamed.

  He smiled. "Needs must when the devil drives and all that rot. I have needs, and that devil DeVere happens to be an exceedingly wealthy man. Don't look so put out, my dear. After all, it was you who provided the perfect solution to our little problem."

  "And what is that? Your perfect little solution? Extortion?" she asked between clenched teeth.

  "Such an unpalatable word. I would rather call it a discreet and a
micable arrangement. But if DeVere does not wish to come to such an agreement, he can pay much more dearly in the courts of law. If I recall correctly, Lord Grosvenor received compensation to the tune of ten thousand pounds when Lady Grosvenor bestowed her favors on the Duke of Cumberland. By my calculation," Reggie continued nonchalantly, "your betrayal should be worth at least that much, mayhap even twenty thousand."

  "You have no proof of anything."

  "But there you are wrong. I have sworn statements from two witnesses who have seen you alone with DeVere. That is all the proof I need for a court of law. You may as well go back to his bed, Diana, for I swear you will both pay dearly for it either way. As for his possession of the deed, if you still don't believe me, just ask DeVere yourself." He gave her a blithe shrug and pulled out his timepiece. "Although your little tête-a-tête may need to wait until a more opportune time. The races begin in less than two hours. I must say I am much relieved to know my fate no longer rests on the horserace. Damned unpredictable, those animals can be."

  Reggie rang for the maid. "You really must do something about your appearance, Diana." His face devoid of expression, he reached a hand to her neck, tracing the evidence of DeVere's passion with his fingertip. "Might I suggest you wear your hair down today?"

  "Shut up, Reggie! Just shut up!" Diana jerked away with a look of abhorrence. "Leave me now," she commanded. "We have nothing more to say."

  "For the moment," he agreed. His laughter rang with a hellish echo as he departed through the connecting door.

  Diana was trembling, shaken to the depths of her being. She bathed and dressed in a speechless daze, myriad questions searing her brain. How did DeVere come by the deed to Palmerston Hall and why? Was he confederated with O'Kelly all along to ruin Reggie? But why, when they were barely acquainted with each other? If he had acquired the deed, what did he intend to do with it? Was it for the stud, as Reggie suggested? Their horses were the only thing she could think of that might hold the slightest appeal to DeVere, the stud being the only thing of value.