The Devil's Match (The Devil DeVere #4)(20)

“Then why did you bother to return?”

“I almost did not, but you might say I wore out my welcome. My money only bought me limited time as they never truly accept infidels. I seriously contemplated conversion just to remain there, but I lacked the spiritual fortitude and could not in good conscience pretend to live under their religious yoke. I am many things, Diana, but not a hypocrite.”

“You expect me to swallow that tripe when you have reembraced all the depravity you just professed to have shunned?”

“Don’t mock me,” he said. “I bear physical evidence of my sincere attempt of redemption, but I accept that I failed. Thus, what is left for me now but to indulge my senses?”

“Your journey of self-discovery is a truly moving tale, my lord, but I fail to see what any of it has to do with me.”

“Do you not?” he asked. “For I see it at last. It’s rare that I have known honesty, Diana. I realized this three weeks ago, the very moment you marched into my private chambers in all your glorious, self-righteous fury.”

“But you knew I would come, didn’t you? It was all a ploy, just an amusing game to you. That’s all I have ever been, isn’t it? Merely a challenge to entertain a bored rake?”

“That may have been true in the very beginning, but I told you, you are different to me. Your fire, your passion, it represents truth. You feel deeply, Diana, and do not conceal it. When we were together, I was more alive because of you. I wanted more of that...but then certain circumstances made it impossible.”

“Certain circumstances or certain people?” she asked.

“Ah, so clarity does come at last! Yes, Diana, Caroline would have destroyed you. I would not be responsible for that.”

“So you hied off to God-knows-where in order to protect me?”

“Yes. Leaving my home and my brother was not my preference, but I could not have protected you otherwise.”

“Yet you hardly pined for your loss of me, and you stayed away far longer than was necessary.”

“I don’t deny I have enjoyed the company and the favors of other women, but the majority of them—as most of the people in my life, Hew and Ned excluded—have been largely parasitic. It’s mutual, of course, for I have taken what I desired in return.”

“A confession that brings us full circle, my lord.”

“No, Diana. There you are wrong. I never took anything from you that was not freely offered, and for the record, I reciprocated more than I have with any other. I ask nothing from you now beyond the same honesty you once gave me. I am weary of being surrounded by nothing but greed and vice.”

“Because you seek it out!” she insisted. “And if anything good came to lie at your feet, you would be too blinded by hedonistic self-indulgence to see it!”

“Wrong again, my love,” he murmured. “For I clearly see you.”

***

Diana opened her mouth to remonstrate, but no sound emerged.

Sensing her lowered guard, he entrapped her between his body and the marble balustrade in front of them, brushing his fingers along the neckline of her bodice, locating her nipples, while he sucked her neck. He found the hollow place behind her ear with his tongue, and her erstwhile protest transformed into a strangled moan.

“Are you going to bite me again?” he asked. “Or do I take that sound as an invitation?”

“Please, don’t,” she protested, even as she tilted her head back, giving him easier access.

“Still, you contradict yourself,” he said, licking and nibbling her skin while his thumb and forefinger teased her nipple. “The truth now, Diana. Do you truly wish me to stop? Or shall I take that rosy nipple into my mouth and suckle it while I finger you until you scream? Or would you rather I tongue you to your release? I would be happy to comply with either. The door is locked, and I would be concealed by those voluminous skirts of yours. Thus, it is purely your preference.”

“Dear God,” she cried out, a sound of mixed pleasure and protest. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because I’m a ruthless bastard when I want something, and I want the truth from you. If I must go to my knees to get it...so be it.”

She gasped in another halfhearted protest, her chest rapidly rising and falling as he cupped her breasts, squeezing and molding the soft mounds. He ground his cock against her buttocks, and she arched into him with a soft cry. He released one breast to inch under her petticoat, skirting up the inside of her smooth, quivering thighs, until he approached the object of his desire. To his smug satisfaction, he found her wet with the want she so vehemently denied.

“A mere touch, and you’d explode,” he remarked. “Don’t dare refute it now, Diana. I’ve never known a woman want to come so badly. I can cure your ache. I can give you what you want...what you need.”

“Damn you to hell, DeVere!” she cried, jerking out of his hold. “Yes, I want you now, but I would despise myself for it the moment we finished.”

“Why?” he asked, confounded.

“Why? Because I once confused passion for deeper feeling. I won’t make that mistake again.”

“But don’t you remember how it was between us? I can bring you rapture. You know that. What harm is there?”

“Surely the same words the serpent whispered to Eve,” she retorted. “I can’t deny the physical attraction between us, but it’s not enough for me. I refuse to seek empty pleasure in meaningless copulation.”