The Trouble With Sin (Devilish Vignettes (the Devil DeVere) #2)(5)

"Yes!" He groaned. "I will keep you." The words of promise escaped before he could muzzle himself. It was his bloody prick speaking, and it had taken full control, mastering at once his mind and his mouth!

A subtle smile now supplanted her pout. "Then I will need some new clothes."

He blinked in incomprehension, the blood that normally fed his brain having been diverted to other places. "Why do you need clothes in bed?"

She shoved him so hard his arse hit the floor. "Do you think me a simpleton? I've see the high-flyers strutting about Covent Garden all in finery. I won't be your mistress unless you treat me like one—starting with some proper lady's clothes."

She came to stand directly over him now, arms crossed, a position that tightened the linen over her pert breasts and clearly defined the shape of her nipples. From his vantage point on the floor, his gaze traveled up her shapely legs to the shadowy apex of her thighs. The throbbing in his balls ascended to his head, further muddling his brain. Her gaze dipped to the tented falls of his breeches.

"I'll get you a gown," he blurted. "Anything you need, whatever you desire, I shall lay it at your feet." Why had he made her such an impossible promise?

"Anything?" She lowered herself to her knees and then straddled his lap.

The heat of her core was only inches away, beckoning to his straining cock, and blurring his vision. She brought his hands to her breasts. They were soft and warm and oh so delightful. His balls ached for want of her—so much he thought he would burst. He hadn't the vaguest notion what a gown would cost, but damn if he wouldn't cut off his left arm this very moment for one.

"If you can make it a silk gown, I would be most grateful."

"Silk, Freddie?"

She nodded mutely. Her hands drifted southward. He sucked in a breath, and his eyes fluttered shut. He moaned as her little hand wrapped around him, firm and confident. She gave a small squeeze, and his eyes rolled back in his head. It was too much! He would explode if he didn't have her now! He thought he would even commit murder to be inside her.

"Simon," she whispered hotly against his mouth.

"Yes, Freddie. Anything you desire. I am your servant."

The moment the words left his mouth she leaped off his lap with a chuckle.

"Damn it, Freddie! What are you doing?"

"What does it look like?" She snatched up a waistcoat and a pair of breeches and proceeded to dress.

He shook his muddled head. "But I thought you…we…"

She cocked a brow. Her lips curved into a seductress' smile. "Yellow, Simon."

"Yellow?" he repeated.

"It's my favorite color."

***

Simon left her with a raging cockstand and in a near frenzy to locate a yellow silk gown! Aside from his mother, none of the females of his acquaintance had ever worn silk, although he'd never taken much notice of their clothing at all…other than the removal of it. He wondered if his mother favored yellow, but then shook off the notion. He was certain she never wore anything but drab colors.

He then thought of Lavinia. As one of Harris' new recruits, she'd surely have acquired a new wardrobe. Perhaps she could assist him. But even with her help how would he pay for it?

Instead of heading home, Simon made a detour for Covent Garden, determined to drown his misery in a tankard…or three. Reaching the square, he made a beeline for the Shakespear's Head, where he sidled up to the familiar bar and ordered a stout. Draining it in a few great gulps, he promptly called for another.

"I say, sir," he addressed the imposing tapster, "might you be acquainted with a lass named Lavinia, late of St. James dairy?"

"I be not the whoremaster here," he replied, slamming a second frothy tankard on the counter. "If ye seek a wench, see Harris."

Realizing he would get nothing helpful from the barkeep, Simon drained his second tankard and then reached into his pocket…to find only a crinkled piece of foolscap.

Damn! He'd given the last of his coins to the old crone! Now he hadn't even two bits to pay his reckoning! Simon looked sheepishly to the tapster. "Er…I don't suppose you'd accept this by way of payment?"

"What's this?" The brute sneered. "Sommat to wipe my arse with?"

Suddenly Simon found himself suspended by his cravat. Bloody hell! This was not good.

Grumbling a curse, the burly barkeep signaled someone on the far side of the room. "Got a freeloader, Mr. Harris. Says he wants to pay with this!" The tapster shoved the crumpled poem across the bar to the establishment's manager.

"I'm no freeloader," Simon choked out. "I simply forgot my purse."

Harris' brows furrowed. "Do I know you, sir?"

"Singleton. Simon Singleton. I'm a friend of DeVere."

"Ah! I recall you now." Harris nodded to the barkeep, "Release him, Samson.'Tis surely a simple mistake as the gentleman says."

Simon dropped like a stone. He sucked in a gasp of air and massaged his tender throat.

Harris, meanwhile, had taken up the abandoned parchment. Simon noted a twitch of his mouth as he briefly scanned the script.

"Are you perchance the author of this verse, Mister Singleton?"

"Aye," he confessed, deciding it better to claim authorship than to be thought a plagiarist. "I dabble in poetry…among other things."