A Wild Night's Bride (The Devil DeVere #1)(25)

He looked confused and suspicious. “Then explain this wager.”

“DeVere told you the idea was mine. Do you not recall?” She gave a bland lift of the brow. “He is so easily manipulated, you see.”

He looked fierce. “And you let me go and break his head for it?”

She averted her gaze from his accusing stare. “Heartless of me, wasn’t it?” she added blithely, “but you’ve already said he’ll recover.” She hid her tightly strung nerves behind a low, seductive chuckle. “Pray don’t be cross with me, darling. This part of my little escapade was not premeditated, I assure you. DeVere took it all further than I could have anticipated. But now, here we are.” She shrugged, dropping the sheet and sliding her hands to his chest, pressing her breasts to him, determined to follow through. While he still fought it, she could see his inner struggle in the tightness of his jaw, the pulse beating in his neck. Despite all, he was already hardening against her belly.

“This was all sport for you? Just some little sex game?”

“Yes,” she gushed. “A delightfully dangerous and erotic game. But now there is a new game I wish to play. It is a fantasy. Have you ever fantasized, dear Ned? Have you ever imagined wicked things you would never dare voice aloud?” She ground her pubis against his erection and could almost hear his armor of resolve cracking. “Look about you. You are in the King of England’s bedchamber. The most powerful men in the civilized world have cavorted in this very same bed. Charles alone had what, fifteen mistresses? What decadent and sinful things must have happened here. What wicked things we could do together.” She looked at him with a sultry smile. “Now I ask, my darling, do you wish to play?”

***

Who the devil was she? What was she up to? She was like two different women inhabiting a single body. Ned’s head, having never fully recovered from the kava or the brandy, was spinning.

Earlier that evening, she had touched him with candor and glimpses of vulnerability that had somehow triggered an irrational compulsion to protect her. Later, she had inspired his admiration with her spunk in going toe-to-toe with DeVere, a formidable antagonist. Then, only moments ago in their clandestine coupling, she had stirred him to sublime heights, stoking the flame of his lust until he was blind and deaf to all but burying his staff in her. In this moment of weakness, he had taken her with a bruising passion that she had eagerly matched. But though he tried to suppress it, that brief taste of her only made him desperately crave more.

“This wager,” he said, wrapping his large hands about her tiny wrists and pulling her arms behind her back. “The danger. It excites you.”

Her pink tongue darted over her lips, giving him confirmation. She had confessed to playing a game, using him for her own pleasure, but he knew she lied. He could read the deception in her guileless, blue eyes, but her quickening breath and hardening nipples bore witness that her desire was assuredly real.

She was aroused, irresistibly so. In the dark confines of the closet, he had explored the curves of her body, had smelled her desire, but had been denied the visual treat. His restraint was slipping. Fast. Thinking to intimidate her, to get the truth out of her, he loomed over her with a tightened grip.

“You truly wish to play this out?” He backed her slowly toward the bed, but to his consternation, she refused to back down.

She met him with a brazen gaze. “Yes.”

Her reply shot a bolt of carnal hunger straight to his groin. Damn her for taking it this far! But if she truly wished to play the wanton with him, as all signs indicated—why the devil should he continue to resist? With agonizing awareness, he sensed the wetness pooling between her thighs, while he stubbornly grappled with the remaining shreds of his conscience. “Do you understand what you’re doing?” he asked, his need growing rampant, uncontainable.

“I’ve been celibate three years. The closet was one thing. Taking you into this bed is quite another. I won’t be gentle. I’m more than likely to f*ck you senseless.”

“Yes,” she whispered. “I know what I’m doing. And I know what you need.”

She gazed into his eyes and ran her tongue over luscious, pink lips. He was instantly stiff as a spike. He closed his eyes, yet her voice filled his ears with dark and illicit promise. Bloody hell, but this is too much! Far more than any mortal man could be expected to resist.

“I will do anything you want,” she said. “Anything at all. You will be the king, Ned...and I will be your whore.”

***

Phoebe told herself she was only playing the role of seductress, that she could detach her mind from her rebellious body which seemed to act on its own volition. He had tried to intimidate her, but his ferocious look, his brusque and daunting manner had had quite the opposite effect, inspiring something dark and wild within her.

She watched his face, harsh in the predawn shadows, as she spoke, gauging his raw reaction to her illicit suggestions, her own breath quickening and pulse skittering as the air grew thick with mutual desire.

His breathing was short, his grip on her wrists tightened to a painful intensity. His pupils flared, the warmth of his hazel eyes becoming a blaze of desire. She watched as piece by piece, his control shattered.

Ned’s mouth came down on hers, taking and plundering. She closed her eyes with a low moan, taking him in with all her senses—deeply inhaling the sweetly heady essence of musky male, drinking in the rich taste of him in her mouth, eagerly meeting him in the decadent dance of tongues. He yanked her head back and plunged deeper into her mouth, sucking her tongue, biting her lips, like a man desperately ravaged by hunger and just as she imagined his hot, hard sex would pillage her eager body.