Tempt the Devil (15 page)

“Ah, that's it,” he sighed into the soft plain of her belly.

Kissing extravagant patterns across her body, he began to stroke her. At first the sensation wasn't as vivid as when he'd kissed her breasts. He trailed his lips up again and took her nipple in his mouth. This time he wasn't so gentle. She started when she felt the scrape of teeth.

“Oh!” She tightened her hands in the silkiness of his hair.

He bit down gently at the same time as his hand pressed between her legs. She cried out and arched up toward him. She trembled and sweat broke out all over her body.

“That's right,” he murmured into her overheated skin. “Give me more.”

“I'm not a horse, Erith,” she said on a sudden spurt of laughter that ended in a choked gasp as he pressed his hand down again.

He lifted his head and smiled with a knowing triumph that should have piqued her but instead made her shivery and hot. She framed his face between her hands and daringly placed a fervent kiss on his mouth.

He followed her back into the pillows. This time he slanted his open mouth across hers with a man's passion. His tongue outlined the crease between her lips. His weight pressed her deep into the mattress so she could only breathe in shallow snatches.

She tried to relax into the kiss, but for the first time tonight the old trapped feeling reared up, making her close her eyes and stiffen. Bitterness sharper than a honed razor sliced through her lost, yearning surrender and reminded her of the bleak truth at the center of her life.

She would never respond to a man.

She'd thought Erith too lost in his lust to notice her reaction but he raised his head. The agonized compassion that crossed his face made her want to cry. “Olivia, I forget myself.”

Where was Olivia Raines with her practiced wanton arts? This woman was too raw, too easy to hurt. She didn't want to be this woman. She wanted to be the unfeeling courtesan. The woman who ruled. This woman couldn't even rule herself.

“Why do you stay?” she asked almost angrily.

“You know why.”

“Why?” Her voice shook with furious anguish.

“Because I can't leave.” With sudden ruthlessness, he hitched her knees higher around his hips and plunged forward.

He was large, and she braced for the discomfort she always felt, even with her unguent. But for once her body produced its own dew. He slid into her with perfect smoothness, stretching her with glorious ease that made her heart stutter with astonished wonder.

At last she was Erith's mistress in fact as well as name.

He groaned from the depths of his chest and buried his head in the curve of her shoulder. Automatically her arms curled around him. His skin was slick with sweat and he shook with the restraint he imposed upon himself.

He wasted his care. Physically she felt nothing more than she ever had. She wasn't even disappointed, although she knew he would be and that made her heart ache.

His breath rasped in her ear and his damp hair tickled her cheek. He filled her completely. Her interior passage gradually adjusted to his size. He was hot against her. And silent except for the rattle of his breathing. She knew he fought the urge to plunge into her over and over.

If he were another man, she'd launch into her tired routine. Moaning and thrashing as if caught in the throes of endless ecstasy. But Erith would know she lied.

With Erith, she didn't want to lie.

That was the most frightening admission of all.

She wriggled deeper into the mattress and felt his hardness shift with her. His heart thundered against her chest and his trembling became more violent. Instinctively she rubbed her hands up and down his back. She liked to touch him. Tentatively she explored the straight groove of his spine and the smooth heat of his skin and the hard bands of muscle around his waist. She felt him tense the moment before he moved inside her.

Her fingers tightened to anchor herself as he withdrew then thrust his way back in. And again. And again.

He tried to be gentle. She knew that. She accepted him with a naturalness she'd never felt before. But there was no pleasure. Not even the sparks he'd stirred when he touched her breasts or stroked between her legs.

Still, she angled to allow him greater access and her breath escaped in a broken moan. The sound released something untamed in him. He began to stroke deep inside, fast and hard. She felt as if a wild wind seized her and flung her up into a thundery sky. While she remained strangely unmoved at the tempest's center.

After what felt like a long time, he stiffened and shuddered. He flung his head back, his face white and set as he finally gave himself up. The tendons of his neck stood out and his nostrils flared to force air into his pumping lungs.

She felt a powerful flow into her dead womb. His climax seemed to last forever. Finally he gave a long, unsteady groan and fell against her. He was still trembling, not with strain now, but with absolute exhaustion.

She slid her arms around his back, cradling him against her bare breasts, not minding if he crushed her. She'd never enjoyed the aftermath before. But she enjoyed it now. Having him undeniably and completely hers offered a poignant pleasure that was new. The smell of sex was familiar but the glow inside her was not.

There was something unbearably moving about him lying utterly spent in her embrace. To know she'd given him full satisfaction, drained him of every drop of life force. She curled her arms more tightly about him in an involuntarily protective gesture.

She'd never felt like this before. As though she'd freely bestowed a gift upon a man.

Long silent minutes passed.

His breathing steadied and his heart no longer pounded like a drum against her breast. She turned her head and placed a soft, lingering kiss on his sweat-dampened dark hair.

Her throat tightened with regret when eventually he withdrew from her body and rolled over to lie at her side. He hadn't spoken. What could he say? What could she say? She hadn't responded and he'd know that. But she also hoped he knew his unfettered pleasure had granted her a pleasure beyond any she'd ever found in a man's arms.

His Adam's apple jerked as he swallowed. With a gesture that conveyed appalled disgust, he flung one arm across his eyes.

“Damn it all to hell, Olivia. I'd do anything to take back what just happened.”

“D
amn it all to hell?”
Olivia repeated in an ominous tone.

Through his pulverizing guilt, Erith felt immediate tension stiffen the body next to his. The body he'd just filled with every ounce of his passion. The body that had remained as unresponsive as stone while he'd thundered into her.

Self-hatred was bitter as bile. What a bloody unmitigated swine he was. He should be shot. After all his self-righteous posturing, he'd taken her and hadn't waited for her to find pleasure.

He'd broken his word. To himself and to her.

“Olivia…” he managed before she clouted him hard in the side.

“You pig!” She scrambled for the edge of the bed.

“What in God's name are you doing?” He snatched at her arm. His ribs ached like the Devil from her assault.

“Let me go,” she snarled, trying without success to fling free of his hold.

“Stop it!” He rose on his knees and caught her around the waist. He tried to ignore how her bare breasts heaved with her fury. The peaked nipples were a rich dark brown. He burned to test their sweetness again. Her skin had tasted like warm honey on his lips.

His attention wavered a moment too long.

“Bastard!” she hissed, and punched him in the belly.

The blow winded him and left him choking. He struggled to speak. “Olivia…” He had to stop to get his breath. “Olivia, I know I'm a blackguard, but you really don't want to kill me.”

“Yes, I do,” she said stubbornly.

Yes, she did.

He saw it in the tense line of her angular jaw and the feral light in her whisky-colored eyes. Those eyes fell to the most vulnerable part of his body, and he realized he couldn't allow her tantrum to continue. Not if he didn't want to sing soprano at Covent Garden before she finished.

“Oh, no, you don't,” he muttered, making a more determined effort to control her. She was strong but he was stronger. He only needed seconds to grab her arms and roll her under him, using his weight to keep her writhing body down.

“Let me go, you toad.” She aimed a kick at his nuts. He only just managed to evade the lethal attack. Her naked body was graceful and lithe as a cobra's. And as slippery, with a tensile power he found wildly exciting. She bucked against his subduing weight, and his arousal mounted uncontrollably.

God help him, she was right. He was a toad. She wanted to kill him and all he wanted to do was fuck her.

Erith pressed her into the bed and wrenched her hands above her head so she lay completely helpless. And open to him if he was cad enough to take advantage of her position. He desperately tried to ignore the way her bare legs slid against him as she wriggled to escape.

Difficult to believe he'd only just lost himself in a volcanic climax that had left him utterly drained. He was rampant and ready for her again.

Holding her with no intention of taking it further was torture of the vilest sort. Agony. He closed his eyes and prayed for strength. She'd end up killing him before she was finished, with frustration if not with those hard and impressively effective fists.

He couldn't blame her for her outrage. He'd promised to control himself. Then, in the end, he'd proven himself a rank liar. “I'm sorry I took you—”

“I know you are, whoreson,” she spat, at last lying in gasping stillness. He didn't fool himself that she'd given up the fight, though. “Well, you won't have to be sorry again.”

“You didn't like it.”

“Neither did you. ‘Damn it all to hell,' I believe was your eloquent response.”

She sucked in a shaking breath that made her enticing breasts rise. He bit back a groan. He wanted her again. Now. If he'd imagined sex would dilute his endless craving for her, every lacerating moment of this quarrel proved him deluded.

Her voice cracked. “How dare you say that after you've just been inside me?
How dare you?
”

Understanding struck him with the force of a bullet. Understanding and regret, virulent enough to overwhelm even his surging lust.

Good God, he was the world's greatest blockhead. Heaven forgive him. He'd hurt her twice. Once with his abominably selfish swiving. And more deeply with his insensitive reaction. She'd tragically misunderstood him, and he didn't know if he could make it right.

“I didn't give you pleasure,” he said dully. His pride still revolted at the humiliating truth of what he'd done.

“No, but I wanted to give
you
pleasure. I'm sorry you found the experience so repellent.” Her sarcasm didn't hide her coruscating hurt.

“You're mad. You made me come like a damned torrent,” he said flatly. “For God's sake, Olivia, did you sleep through what just happened?”

Her face remained pale and furious. And unconvinced. “Then why did you sound so revolted? Why did you want to take back what we'd just done?”

He sighed with impatience. “Because you're right—I'm a swine. I lost control. I've wanted you too long, too much, and too desperately. I was a brute.”

The resistance seeped from her long, slender body, and he gentled his clasp on her wrists. Under his fingers, her pulse hammered with crazy speed. Her breath still emerged in uneven gasps and her eyes glittered with fierce distress.

“I wanted to give you something, and you threw the gift back in my face. As if it was worth nothing.” Her voice broke and tears began to pour down her white face.

Erith cursed himself for a bloody blundering idiot. He'd done this to her. He'd made her cry. Him and his masculine stupidity and his unending, unquenchable desire. Bitter remorse rose like nausea to choke him.

She'd abhor crying in front of him. He knew without being told that she rarely if ever cried. There had been too much control in the woman he'd met at Montjoy's for tears to be an easy outlet.

Generally he ran a mile from a crying woman. But the sight of Olivia overcome by misery hurt his soul in a way he didn't understand. All he knew was that her pain was his pain. He felt upset and terrified and guilty and helpless and confused. He'd happily slice off his right arm if only she'd smile again.

Waiting with sour certainty for a protest, he slid his arms around her. She remained silent apart from her harsh sobbing. He drew her into his body and pressed her wet face to his chest as gently as he'd picked up his children when they were babies. Before his life crashed into ruin and he couldn't bear tenderness any longer.

“It's all right, Olivia,” he whispered. The same meaningless words of comfort he'd offered the infant Roma and William. “It's all right.”

“It's not all right,” she said in a thick voice, making a halfhearted attempt to break free.

Still holding her, he drew himself up until his back met the bed head. Ignoring her resistance, he tugged her onto his lap and wrapped his arms around her. He curved one hand across her bare back to support her and buried his other in her mane of hair. Murmuring reassurance, he tightened his grip.

“I'm acting like a fool,” she choked out, her voice muffled against him.

“Everyone's a fool, Olivia,” he said gently. “Sometime or other.”

Her hands formed trembling fists against his chest. “I never cry.”

“I can see that.”

She gave a watery laugh then followed it with more tears. He was painfully aware of her nakedness. With every sob, her breasts grazed his chest. He spread his hands over her bare skin. Her long legs splayed across his. It would be so easy to tip her down and take her again.

He already knew she wouldn't say no.

And it would break his heart to thrust into that beautiful, passive body. Break his heart even as his animal self growled with ultimate pleasure.

He was indeed a swine.

He rested his chin on her disheveled mass of tawny hair. She fitted perfectly against him. She had fit perfectly lying under him too. Most women had trouble with his size but she'd taken him as if born for him. And she'd responded, at least before he'd pushed her onto her back. He couldn't be mistaken that for a fleeting moment, she'd been as lost to blind pleasure as he was.

Erith stared into the shadowy room and felt a tiny bud of
optimism shoot from his tumultuous regret. With patience and care he could make her respond again. He could feed that spark and turn it into a conflagration that would transform her world.

At first her lack of response had been a challenge. Now, awakening her sensual self had become an all-consuming quest. She'd lost so much in her life, and tragically, most of the damage was irreparable. But this was something he could restore to her. And perhaps in the process find his own salvation.

The fire in the grate had burned down from its welcoming blaze, and the guttering candles only provided dim light. He should get up and replenish the hearth. But he couldn't bear to relinquish his hold on her. She'd fallen quiet in his arms. No more difficult, heartbreaking tears. He sensed a weary peace in her now that the storm of weeping had passed.

And the problem that had nagged him since he'd taken her became paramount. He was grimly aware that what he said now would inevitably shatter this uneasy harmony between them.

“Olivia, I didn't withdraw.”

He waited for a return of her anger. But her voice emerged toneless and scratchy with tears. “It's not important.”

Puzzled, he angled his head to see her expression. Surely she knew what he meant. “I didn't use a sheath. You didn't use your unguent. Basically, I fucked you from here to Sunday. The consequences could be disastrous.”

Except his heart didn't feel it was a disaster.

Good God, was he going mad? What did a man of nearly forty want with a pregnant mistress? He'd been a less than exemplary father to the children he had.

Her voice rang with bitter certainty. “Don't worry. I won't have a baby.”

“You don't know that.”

She frowned and ineffectually tried to pull away. “Yes, I do.” Her voice firmed, became more familiar. But the
tearstains on her cheeks belied her defiance. “I won't present you with a bastard in nine months. You can leave without a care.”

Sadly, he already knew that would be far from the truth, whether she was pregnant or not.

Under her prickly response, he read a deep distress. A distress separate from any unhappiness he'd caused her tonight. A distress too deep for tears. “How can you be so sure?”

“I just am.”

With a shock he realized something that should have been clear much earlier. He could only blame his slowness on the spin this woman had put him in. “Is Leo your only child?”

“No, I've got offspring littered from John O'Groats to Land's End,” she said sarcastically. She tried again to move but he trapped her in an uncompromising grip.

“Tell me about Leo.”

“Damn you, Erith!” Her eyes flared with temper.

“Tell me.”

Her mouth settled in a line of displeasure and her jaw took on a square set. Odd how each feature was almost masculine yet the whole combined into something utterly womanly and beguiling.

She spoke quickly and with a grim edge that indicated she only answered under extreme sufferance. “I'm not built for childbearing.”

With sharp force, she tugged away and slid off the bed. This time he made no attempt to stop her. Instead his mind processed the implications of that short, stark statement. She stalked across to the armoire, her hair tumbling down her back in untidy glory. She moved like a proud young horse. All long legs and straight back and easy elegant motion.

“There have been no more pregnancies?”

“You give me no peace!” With an angry flourish, she flung the armoire open. She ripped out the scarlet silk robe, which to his regret she flung around herself. With furious emphasis, she tied the belt at her narrow waist. She snatched
out another robe and threw it in his direction. It hit the side of the bed and slithered to the floor.

His lips curved in a derisive smile as he pushed himself farther up against the heaped pillows. “Covering me up won't stop the questions.”

She glared at him. Then her gaze flickered and fixed on his chest. Her inspection continued down to where his cock showed unmistakable signs of interest. She straightened abruptly as if awakening from a dream. “Stop flaunting yourself. You'll frighten the housemaids.”

“Do you find my body attractive?” he asked in genuine astonishment. And with genuine interest.

“Lord, but you're a vain peacock, Erith.” Surprisingly, her clear olive skin darkened with a blush, and for an instant she looked vulnerable and young. This was the Olivia who tugged at his heart. The woman who'd had all innocence and joy stolen from her yet summoned the courage to triumph.

He laughed softly. “Which means yes.”

She cast him a dismissive glance, although her full mouth trembled on the brink of a smile. “You have no need to cadge for compliments.”

“For your compliments, I do, Olivia.” He bent down to snag the black silk robe and shrug it over his shoulders. He left it loose. He rather liked the idea of his bare skin tormenting her. After all, her bare skin tormented him.

“Then yes, on a visual level you appeal to me.” She spoke as precisely as an apothecary measuring some dusty drug into a jar.

Erith gave a short bark of laughter. “Thank you.” He took a risk that shouldn't have been a risk and extended his hand to her.

She glanced at his hand then into his face. Uncertainty danced in her topaz eyes. She made a fine show of overcoming the harrowing emotion that had reduced her to tears. But he knew that beneath her dry humor she was brittle as overheated glass.

Aching compassion rang in his voice as he said softly, “Come and sit with me.”

As if unsure whether to stay or run, she accepted his hand and perched gingerly beside him. He wanted her more than he'd wanted any woman. But what made him tremble like a young boy with his first love was what he felt when he was with her.