The Devil's Match (The Devil DeVere #4)(19)

“Why?” he shot back. “Because I always get what I want, and I find I still want you. Indeed, the unfulfilled craving is driving me half-mad.”

“Only half-mad?” she jeered. “You are completely insane if you think to ever have me again. What passed between us was a monumental mistake and one I have no intention of repeating. Why can’t you accept that and just let me be?”

“Why do you continue this game, Diana?” he asked, his voice a soft rumble against her hair. He was standing close enough to engulf her in his scent, a concoction of brandy, leather, horses, and male musk that made her senses reel. “Your own body belies you,” he said. “The faintest touch has you trembling with want.”

“Your conceit is unbearable. I’m shivering with cold, you insufferable boor!”

“The first statement is undoubtedly true.” He chuckled. “But I have grave doubts about the second.”

She felt his hard thighs against her backside and his hands on her waist, slowly ascending, the heat of his touch infusing her skin through the light silk of her gown. His thumbs brushed the outsides of her breasts, making her body rack with tiny but undeniable quivers of sensation. “It’s not the cold, Diana.” His hot breath fanned her nape. “And you know it.”

It was past time to escape. Diana spun around only to hear a familiar, feminine voice declare from inside the ballroom, “So that’s where the draft is coming from!” The terrace door clicked firmly shut, followed by the sound of the tumblers turning in the lock. Realizing she was now trapped with DeVere, Diana wanted to cry out in dismay. She turned her back to him in an effort to compose herself. She fixed her gaze out over the lawn, at the fountain in its midst shimmering under the light of myriad flambeaux. “Please,” she said in an unsteady voice, “I can’t bear it again. I truly don’t want this.”

Her heart galloped when he stroked the backs of his fingers down her arms and then over her breasts. Her treacherous body betrayed her once more, her nipples instantly tingling and hardening in response to him.

“But I think you do,” he said.

“No! I don’t! I am not the same woman I was four years ago. I’d had a horrible shock. Several, in fact, that made me much too vulnerable to you. My life was crumbling before my eyes, and you exploited that.”

“Is that what you tell yourself?” he asked. “I did no such thing, Diana. You turned to me in your need. I did not coerce you.”

“You saw my weakness and took advantage of it!”

“How?” he asked “How did I take advantage of you? You sought me out, remember? You came to my bed, and I gave you what you asked for...and much more. How is that exploitation?”

“As soon as you got what you wanted, you broke it off and disappeared! You were gone for four years, Ludovic! No word. Nothing!”

“And you believe it was by my choice?” His voice sounded rough and edged with bitterness. “Have the past years not brought you any clarity?”

“You made it clear enough at the time. ‘Amorous idyll’s are best ended before the bloom is off the rose.’” She laughed, an equally harsh sound.

He winced. “Did I say that?”

“Yes! And then you paid me off like some high-priced whore.”

“It was an exceedingly generous settlement, intended to provide for your security.”

“Am I supposed to feel gratitude?”

“Frankly, yes!”

“But a lease to a house is so very mundane, Ludovic. What do you intend to offer me this time? Diamonds and rubies?”

“Don’t, Diana! You are different from the rest.”

“How am I to think myself any different from your countless mistresses, concubines, and whores, when you took what you wanted and offered payment in return?”

“Damn you! It wasn’t like that. You know that’s not how I thought of you. How I feel about you!”

“Feel?” she cried out. “What could a man like you possibly feel beyond your—”

“My what?” He brought her hand to his groin. “Say it, Diana. I love hearing vulgar words from your lovely lips.”

“I refuse to gratify that.” She snatched her hand away as if burned.

He laughed. “Then I’ll say it for you—my cock. The part of me that oftimes governs my life. Yes, I feel a great deal there and with great frequency, but each encounter is soon forgotten. You were the exception to that. You were never just a f*ck to me. Can’t you understand that? For the first time, I wanted more. I wanted something else from you, Diana, but that something was denied me. And when I knew I couldn’t have it, when it appeared utterly impossible, I was enraged.”

“So you left.”

“Yes, I left. I had several good reasons for doing so...not the least of which was to protect a certain widow’s good name.”

“What misery it must have been for you to be obliged to gallivant about continental brothels and gaming rooms for four years. So self-sacrificing,” she jeered.

“I won’t apologize to you or to anyone else for my way of life, madam. Wine, women, gaming, and horses are a lifelong habit but one with which I have become utterly bored of late. The drinking, the gaming, the whoring, it became the same day after day, just in other locales. ‘Tis why I eventually went to the East to try to discover something more, something worthwhile. Ironically, the only diversion or peace I have found was among those so-called heathen Turks.”