A Wild Night's Bride (The Devil DeVere #1)(15)

“Perhaps,” he answered vaguely. “But one has some difficulty conjuring an appetite, even for such a delectable sweetmeat as you, after having indulged in a meal of seven courses.”

“Seven?” she repeated, stunned.

He gave a half-shrug. “It’s my lucky number.”

“That’s quite a boast, my lord.”

“No boast, I assure you.”

Unable to keep her curiosity in check, Phoebe’s gaze drifted south to his equipment. Now lying pink and flaccid against his thigh, she thought it looked benign enough. He actually looked bored...or perhaps it was exhaustion—assuming there was any truth to his claim.

“Determined to prove his manly prowess, Malden dropped a gauntlet that I was compelled to pick up. I have never refused a contest, you see. And what’s infinitely more, I have never lost one.”

“Never?” she asked, astonished.

“Never.”

“Then surely, that means no one has yet offered a suitable challenge, one truly worthy of your multitudinous talents.”

Oblivious to her sarcasm, DeVere gave the statement a moment of reflection. His lips then curved into a slow, devious smile. “My dear, you are exactly right.”

She drew her brows together. “What do you mean?”

“I need a better challenge.” He laughed heartily, sloshing his drink upon himself, which drew her gaze involuntarily to his privates. With a rush of heat to her cheeks, she quickly looked away.

He took hold of himself to emphasize his next point. “Just as any man with a fully functioning cock can bed a woman...or seven...anyone with two legs can sit a horse, just as the greatest buffoon in the world can turn a card or roll the dice. No, what I need is for someone to propose an impossible feat—a wager that can’t be won.”

She watched with a gaping mouth, as animated with new life, DeVere sprang from his throne and began collecting his discarded articles of clothing.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“The night is young.”

“But it’s well past midnight,” she argued.

He quirked a brow. “Then it’s still hours before daylight. I rarely seek my bed before the sunrise.”

“Where do you go?”

“To find someone with imagination.”

“Who could that possibly be at this hour?”

“A man who never sleeps, and moreover, one who never met a wager he didn’t like.” DeVere answered her puzzled look. “Why our young prince’s chief advisor and boon companion, Charles Fox, of course.”

***

Three years of celibacy. After suffering three long, frustrating years, he had rebuffed a willing woman in a moonlit garden—for willing she was, or would have been quickly enough, had he only applied himself instead of pushing her away. Why couldn’t he be like other men, taking his pleasure whenever and wherever he found it? She had confessed her need for a protector, had intimated her interest in him, but now would look to DeVere instead. Ned cursed himself for a bloody fool.

And then he cursed the pair of them. “You may both go to the devil with my blessing,” he murmured under his breath. He’d left Kitty and DeVere in a blaze of fury he couldn’t comprehend. DeVere was just being DeVere, after all, the same wild rogue he’d always been, but for some confounded reason, Ned felt an almost overwhelming compulsion to pound him into the ground.

It was not as if Ned had marked her as his territory. DeVere’s look had voiced the question. Had Ned only uttered a word, the blasted whoremonger would have respected his claim. DeVere never poached on his friends that way. Maybe it was his own warped code of honor, or maybe he’d never had the need. In either case, with his silence, Ned had practically gifted her to him, delivered the sheep to the wolf on a silver platter.

She wasn’t DeVere’s type. He didn’t know why, but he knew to the very core of his being that she wasn’t the jade she was pretending to be. There was much more hidden behind the mask than her pretty face. She had already revealed that she was moved by necessity, and such a position made her far too vulnerable to consider her actions clearly, especially with a man like DeVere. He would surely destroy her. He’d seduce and charm her, make her feel like a goddess for a night, a week, or maybe even a month. And then once he’d won her total devotion, he’d send her a note with a handsome parting gift and move on like a bee to the next flower. He couldn’t help himself. And then where would she be?

“Damnation, Chambers,” he cursed himself. “Why should you care? She’s nothing to you.”

Yet the image of her with DeVere, naked and panting beneath him made his blood boil. It made no sense when he was in a brothel with a dozen or more women willing to offer their arses on all fours or kneel at his feet and suck him off on demand. Why was he so fixated on her? Yet he found he couldn’t command the least interest in any of the others. And why now? Had three years of palming himself finally brought him to the brink of madness?

Tearing at his hair, Ned groaned in self-disgust and signaled the serving wench, bent on downing another bowl of kava, its bitterness now a match for his foul mood. Just for good measure, he called for a bottle of brandy as well to obliterate the vile taste.

“Ye oughtn’t to mix the twain,” the girl warned. “You’ll fair regret it if you do.”