The Devil You Know (12 page)

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 pro-

found 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, Di-

ana? 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 whis-

per. “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 vic-

tory. 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 intoxicat-

ing 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, kiss-

ing, 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, re-

placed 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 every-

thing to bring you ecstasy.”

With this vow, he slid slowly down her body, cupping the gener-

ous 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. Un-

til he settled on his knees, and leveled his face with her sex. Profound

awareness of his intent besieged her in waves of wicked wanting.

Her breath was already coming in short rasps when he slid a hand

between her thighs, stroking her wetness and gently but firmly urg-

ing them apart. She already ached to be filled, but then he molded his

hands to her hips and pulled her up against his mouth. Her treacher-

ous legs trembled, her knees threatened to buckle. She gripped his

shoulders. “N-no.” She exhaled in hope-filled terror while a pool of

liquid heat filled her sex.

“Oh, yes,” he growled into her nest of curls. “I can smell your

arousal, Diana, sharp and pungent, the most potent of perfumes. You

are soaking my hand with liquid desire. I want to bask in it, fill my

senses with your very essence, kiss and taste and tongue you until

we’re both blind and writhing to have my cock buried deep inside

you.”Before she could voice another protest his tongue invaded her in

the deepest, most decadent and devouring of kisses. Wickedly circling,

swirling, sucking while his clever fingers played along her slickened

folds, parting, stroking, gently probing, obliterating time and place

and all reality beyond his hot mouth burrowing in her wet quim. Her

hunger rose to a rabid frenzy.
Dear God in heaven! It is too much!

“Ludovic,” she cried, beseeching an end to the agonizing empti-

ness. “I can’t bear it! You must…! Please!”

***

She was dripping with desire, her body quivering, her passage

clenching around him. He answered her plea by plunging two fingers

deep inside her. She cried out, and he slid a third into her scalding

wetness, stretching her, stroking in and out, matching the urgency

with which she writhed against him, losing himself in her need.

He felt her climax building with smug satisfaction, the arc of her

body, her breath coming in erratic bursts. He stole a glance at her face.

It was flushed, her head thrown back. She was so ready, so ripe, an

enticingly erotic vision that made his engorged cock strain against his

breeches like a dam about to burst.
Come on, sweetheart,
he silently

urged.
I’m going to make you come so hard you think you are dying. Then

I’m going to bury my cock in you balls deep and fuck you senseless.

“Reach for it, my love,” he growled aloud, ignoring the painful

throb of his prick. “Seize your release. It’s yours for the taking.” He

curled his fingers inside her, massaging that magical place just as he

plied his lips to her clit. Determined to push her over the brink, into

the dark oblivion, he sucked hard and watched her orgasm erupt.

***

She thought she would melt from the ecstasy wrought by his

mouth. Then her breathing arrested, and the world receded into a

black void. Tremors began racking her body, expanding into convul-

sive waves that drained her of all coherent thought. Her throat tore

open in a ceaseless, screaming sob.

Diana collapsed against him and felt herself lifted into his arms.

She clung to his chest, breathless and helpless, feeling as if her spirit

had left her body. He brought her briefly back to life with his lips on

her mouth and carried her the few steps to his bed where he lay her

down atop the snowy white linen. Dazed and satiated, she closed her

eyes upon a sigh.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” he murmured, almost a threat. “We are far

from finished.”

She noted the strain in his face, the frustration in his voice, and re-

alized with a flush that she had been too caught up in her own release

to realize he had neither taken nor demanded his. The selflessness of

it took her breath away. “What you did to me…it is beyond descrip-

tion.”

“You experienced merely the briefest taste of what can be between

us. I can show you so much more.” His eyes glittered with promise.

“More? How can there be more? My heart would surely burst.”

He laughed. “It is much as the French say—
La petite mort
, the little

death. I can think of no more pleasant way to go. But if one ascribes

to the Greek belief in three layers of heaven, you have only achieved

the first.”

“And the second?” she asked, wide-eyed in anticipation of his an-

swer.He guided her hand to his jutting erection. “The second is achieved

when I fill you with my cock.”

She flushed. “You still...you haven’t...”