The Devil's Match Read online

  He shut his own again to better appreciate the feel of her hands, luxuriating in the sensation of warm oil poured and massaged into his skin. The trembling of her fingers had ceased as she plied them with firm deliberation up his thighs, squeezing and molding the muscles, moving ever closer to his rampantly aroused kamış. Her nimble digits slid to his inner thighs, upward to skirt his testis, but she left him wanting, his yen for her touch unsatisfied. He groaned in disappointed anticipation. He cracked his eyes open in time to see her gaze flick over his face. So that’s how the game begins, eh?

  She worked his pubic bone, driving him mad with the circular motions of her palms, stimulating circulation above a cock that was already fully engorged and throbbing with the need to spend. He wanted to shout for her to take him in hand and pump him madly. Breathe deeply, DeVere. Don’t let her know the effect this is having on you. You can’t afford to give her any more advantage than she already has. He ground his teeth in the effort, but then she mercifully moved on to his abdomen and chest. Her lush, full breasts moved freely. He could make out the hint of dusky nipple that teased his flesh as she reached across his body. He restrained the urge to grasp one of those magnificent mounds by clenching his fists by his sides.

  She was close enough that he could smell the salty tang of perspiration mixed with Attar of Damask Rose, the scent Diana most favored. His nostrils flared in an effort to breathe her into his lungs, only to have a third component jolt his olfactory senses—feminine desire. He was not mistaken; she was becoming as aroused as he. But it was not enough to smell it. He wanted to see it—the passion in her eyes, the telling pink flush on her skin. With every nerve fiber in his body ignited, he could no longer control his breathing. The slow, deep respirations became erratic and ragged as she moved down his body, sneaking knowing glances through the slit in her veil. She knows damned well what she is about!

  Her gaze fixed on his face, she poured more oil in her palm and with agonizing languor, wrapped her hand around the base of his shaft, squeezing and pulling upward with warm, slick motions. She repeated the task with her opposite hand, and his mind blurred from the sheer bliss of sensation. He closed his eyes and dropped his head back with a groan, giving himself up to the pleasure of her decadently dexterous and deliberate ministrations—by turns, milking and massaging his shaft, the bulbous head of his cock, and his bollocks until he thought he would explode. He was hard as stone, full to overflowing with his own essence, and ready to spend with violence when she arrested her attention to his shaft and slid her fingers to the sensitive spot behind his sac. A moment of pressure and the urgency of his need eased off. How the devil did she learn this? He was almost afraid to know.

  When she returned her attention to his jutting rod, he closed his hand tightly about her wrist. “You will remove your veils now, Didem,” he commanded.

  “Please, no, Efendi,” she answered.

  “But I wish to see your face when you pleasure me.”

  “But I must not.”

  “Must not show your face? Or must not finish what you started? For I believe that was our bargain...Diana.”

  ***

  He knew! The bastard knew all along! “How?” She gasped, pulling from his grasp to rip off the veils. “How did you know it was me?”

  “Your carriage, your form...your scent,” he answered. “They are all imprinted upon my brain. I would know you among a hundred women, Diana. Every time.”

  His unexpected answer took her breath away, but she was quick to recompose. She refused to let him rattle her. “Then why did you allow me to proceed?” she demanded.

  “Because inhibitions are greatly lessened when one is incognito. I wanted you to be relaxed and unreserved. I also wanted to see how bold you would become, how far you would take this little game of subterfuge with no urging from me. I confess you surprise me. Greatly.”

  “Do I?” She couldn’t help a sly smile. “I told you I would come to you when I was ready.”

  “You are more than ready, my dear.” His eyes narrowed. “Might I ask how you came by this knowledge? How are you acquainted with Salime?”

  “She first came to me, my lord. It seems she harbors an inordinate amount of affection for you.”

  “She merely feels a strong sense of obligation for her manumission. It is not unusual.”

  “It’s more than that. Can’t you see? She’s in love with you, Ludovic.”

  “Then she mistakes her feelings,” he said dismissively and sat up.

  “You are wrong,” Diana protested. “And if you cannot reciprocate, you should not encourage her. It is cruel.” I know well the agony of unrequited feeling.

  “I do not encourage her,” he insisted. “Salime is not, nor has she ever been, my lover. Not in the true sense.”

  “No?” Diana laughed her skepticism. “Then what do you call all this?” She gestured to the hammam.

  “You do not understand how it is in the East, Diana. She is merely a servant. She attends me here because she has the skills to do so, but I have never asked her for sexual gratification.”

  “Yet you have received it at her hand?” she accused.

  “Yes. Upon occasion. And she has been very well compensated.”

  “And you do not call her your lover?”

  “Absolutely not. For I have never encouraged her nor reciprocated in kind. Do you not understand the difference, Diana? I am no martyr. I have physical needs that I refuse to deny, but I have not shared my bed with any other woman since you. I have not spilled my seed inside any other woman’s body.”

  Once more, Diana was shocked to silence. “You really expect me to believe that?” she asked when she found her tongue.

  “Why should I lie? I have no need to do so. You are already here, and if you intend to uphold your word, you are mine, regardless. I still desire you, Diana, above any other woman. It’s beyond my comprehension. I travelled extensively, hoping to find an end to this restlessness that incessantly plagues me, but to no avail. I wonder now if it was really you I needed all along. The only peace I have ever experienced was briefly, evanescently, with you. And now that you are here, I intend to lie with you and fuck you senseless day and night in countless ways, until you are either purged from my system completely or branded on my very soul.”

  ***

  He didn’t know where it had come from. He had never spoken of private needs to anyone. Part of him was horrified, as if he suddenly and uncontrollably sputtered nonsense, but the words were out and not to be taken back.

  He studied her for what seemed an endless beat, his chest painfully contracting as he watched her face, her green eyes wide with hope, apprehension, and then doubt. It was clear she didn’t trust him, but he had said all there was to say. The rest was only to be proven by deed.

  “Why are you doing this to me?” she asked. “I thought we had a simple bargain. I would come to you and gratify you physically. I have come. I am willing to do as you wish. Why do play with my emotions like this?”

  “Do I?” he asked innocently.

  “Yes! You can never leave well enough alone. You must always be the master manipulator, Ludovic, the ultimate puppeteer, making everyone dance to your tune. It’s all about you, isn’t it? But I refuse to dance this time. You can take me all you like and in as many ways as you please, but just know this, when this time is over, it’s over. Whether purged or branded, I will leave you and never look back.”

  ***

  “All I like and in as many ways as I please?” he repeated. “You make me an offer I cannot refuse. But contrary to your belief, this is not all about me, Diana. No, it’s very much about you; for I can and will give you mindless, bone-melting, heart-sundering pleasure. And if after that, you find you can still walk away or that you can still walk at all”—he paused with a smirk—”so be it.”

  He reached for the neckline of her shift. “As I said before, you wear far too many clothes.” A simple tug released the fabric. He lowered it by inches, first reveali
ng her creamy white shoulders. He skirted his knuckles along her exposed skin, watching gooseflesh form in their wake. “You cannot claim to be cold this time, my dear.” He lowered the garment to her elbows, trapped her lower arms in her sleeves, confining them to her sides. He captured her breast with his mouth, nipping and sucking on her tender, white flesh, feasting as if ravenous.

  Though he thought she would fight it for as long as she could, Diana surprised him by arching in to him, wordlessly urging him to take more. He pulled a distended nipple into his mouth, biting lightly and then suckling hard until she cried out. A chuckle grew in his chest and erupted from his lungs. He drew back from her breast to slide her shift off to pool on the floor and then worked his mouth up her neck, murmuring hotly against her skin until he reached the hollow of her ear. “There’s no point in denying yourself the pleasure now, is there?”

  “No. None at all.” She breathed on a sigh that he captured with his mouth. They played a breath-stealing game at first, but as their lips melded and tongues collided in that first tentative touch, the urgency flared. Moaning and clutching one another, their tongues tangled, gliding and sliding, growing in intensity to the rhythmic thrusting simulation of sex. He cupped her buttocks, drawing her closer. Their heated bodies, already slick with sweat, pressed together, his swollen shaft sliding deliciously against her hot, moist mons.

  “Is there more you wished to show me?” he asked, sliding a hand between her legs and biting her shoulder.

  “There was much more.” She moaned. “We did not finish your massage. Six times I am told to withhold your boşalma to bring you a rapturous release. That was only one, Efendi.”

  “You wish to bring me to brink again, Diana? To torment me with pleasure? Then it’s good we have time, isn’t it? For there are many things I yet wish to do to you.” He tongued down her neck back toward her breasts. “But if it is your desire to torture me, you possess the most devastating of devices for that purpose.”

  “Oh?” She lifted a brow.

  “God, yes.” He groaned and plied open-mouthed kisses to the tops of her breasts. “Since the first moment I laid eyes on you four years ago, I have fantasized about one exquisite torture.”

  “And what is that?” she asked.

  “This.” He took the weight of her voluptuous mounds in each hand and molded them tightly together. “I have dreamed of sliding my kamış in this lovely, lush valley of yours...sheathing myself in their milky white softness.” He heard her breath hitch and watched her eyes widen with patent surprise.

  “No conditions. No constraints?” she asked breathlessly.

  He smiled. “Those were the terms of the wager, as I recall.”

  She regarded him with a mix of surprise and something more. Curiosity? Desire? “How is such a thing even done?”

  His pulse leaped at her implied acquiescence. He backed her slowly toward the table and gave her a wicked grin. “My dear odalisque, I would be most delighted to show you.”

  ***

  He rolled two more towels to support her head and neck before lowering Diana onto her back. The marble table was hot and hard beneath her, but the anticipation of what he would do to her far outweighed her discomfort. His blue gaze flickered like a flame. The intensity of the look, rife with unspent passion, stole her breath away. This was what Salime had spoken of, the ability to cloud his mind of all but desire.

  Ludovic retrieved the bottle of almond oil, coating hands and gliding them over her sensitive flesh. Diana moaned with bliss at the sensations he elicited deep in her sex as he rubbed her nipples between his fingers and smoothed the oil onto her chest until the mounds of her breasts were slick and glistening. He stood back only far enough to regard his handiwork, an air of fierce desire contorting his features. He was still semierect and growing harder and longer before her eyes.

  She gazed in fascination at the proud purple head, now fully exposed to view by his circumcision. “Why did you do it?” she asked.

  “I told you I had already considered conversion and then there arose the situation with Salime.”

  “So you sacrificed your foreskin to save a damsel in distress?”

  He shrugged. “It seemed a small sacrifice at the time.”

  She reached out to him and stroked a finger along the underside of his shaft. It jumped in response. “What now, Efendi?” she inquired in a sultry voice and then circled her thumb over the bulbous head. His chest rose sharply, and his eyes fluttered. The feeling of power from that single, light touch made her giddy and filled her with an overwhelming desire to devastate him, to ravage him with pleasure so profound and unforgettable that it would haunt him...as he had once done to her.

  He kissed her again, long and deep, his tongue thrusting hungrily into her mouth and then released her, joining her on the slab, straddling her hips with his muscular thighs. He guided her hands to her outer breasts and positioned his long and heavy shaft between them. “I want you to press them together, to sheath me and hold me between them.”

  She complied, watching his head fall back with a groan as he pushed himself between the soft, slick mounds of her breasts. She tracked the motion of the purple crown of his sex as it advanced and receded from sight in slow and rhythmic strokes. His face was flushed, and his lids hooded, eyes grown dark with passion. She saw him steal a glance downward. His face drew taut with concentration; his pace quickened from long and languid glides to short, stabbing thrusts. His breathing ragged, he stared at her and at his thrusting shaft with a gaze drunk with lust.

  With a sudden surge of daring, she stared back into his eyes and darted out her tongue, teasing the underside of his shaft with tantalizing little flicks in sync with his advance and retreat.

  “Dear God Almighty.” He moaned.

  Filled with smug satisfaction, Diana raised her head, tilting it toward him for better reach, circling and swirling the bulbous head with her tongue. His hands came over hers, squeezing her tighter, rocking his hips, a rictus of rapture coming over his face.

  “Please, take me in your mouth,” he panted, “however you are able.”

  Sensing it would bring him imminent climax, Diana pulled back, releasing both mouth and breasts. His eyes snapped open, and a primal sound erupted from his chest.

  “No, Efendi”—she gave him a taunting smile—”it’s not time yet, for that’s only number two.”

  ***

  “I could finish it myself, you know.” He loomed over her ominously. “I could just fist my cock and spurt my seed all over that smooth, white belly of yours.”

  “You could...but you won’t,” she challenged back.

  “No?” he asked and moved as if to carry out his threat.

  She arched a brow. “No, you won’t. You’re enjoying this too much.”

  “Fuck it all, yes!” he cried, sitting back on his heels. “You’re driving me insane!”

  She laughed a low and sultry sound. “That is the intent. I am given to understand the final release will be as if you are transported to the third heaven. It is why I came—to bring you to your knees.”

  “If you want me on my knees, I seem to recall making that offer not so long ago. But six times? That’s a very dangerous proposition you make.”

  “Perhaps,” she said, giving him an artless lift of her brow. “Do you suppose you lack the fortitude?”

  He emitted a rumbling laugh and wrapped her hand around his hot, hard, pulsing length. “Does it appear as if I do?”

  He noted her hard swallow. “Appearances can sometimes be deceiving.”

  “Not in this case, my dear. And if you insist on six times, I am more than happy to oblige you...but it will be in as many different ways.”

  “Six ways?” She sat up with a blink. “Are there still so many more?”

  “As I have said before, there are countless paths to pleasure, and we have only explored a fraction of them between us. Now I ask you, and only once, for there will be no turning back—do you still wish to carry on with this game
of yours?”

  She licked her lips and met his gaze with steeliness. “I do,” she said. “I wish to explore all there is between us, Ludovic, and in any way you can conceive; for how else can this thing”—she gestured wildly between them—”come to its final and inevitable conclusion?”

  He gave her a predatory smile. “How else, indeed?”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Her hand was still wrapped around him, and he was still slick with oil. Diana squeezed lightly, loving the feel of him in her hand. She gazed up at him with her most seductive smile and ran her tongue slowly over her lips. “Lie down, Ludovic,” she commanded. “You wanted me to take you in my mouth. It is my wish now to do so.”

  “So this is to be my third torture? I am to suffer the agony of your delectable mouth?” His pupils flared with desire.

  “Yes,” she replied.

  “And such a lovely mouth it is.” He brushed his thumb along the seam of her gently parted lips. “You were made for this, Diana.” He kissed her again, slowly, deeply, thoroughly, gently nibbling the tender flesh of her lower lip and sucking it into his mouth before slowly releasing. It was a kiss intended to rekindle the flames smoldering deep in her belly. It did much more.

  She pressed him backward. He complied readily until she attempted to straddle his legs as he had done earlier to her.

  “No,” he said. “Turn around.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. I want you to face away from me.”

  “But that places my—”

  “delectable bottom within reach? Precisely, my dear.” His words held an underlying menace, a promise of the most illicit and decadent retaliation that set every nerve on full alert. “You may do your worst, love, but just remember, two can play the same game.”

  With her pulse racing in anticipation of his threat, Diana lowered her nether half onto his chest, her senses awaking to the feel of his warm, hard body against her sensitive inner thighs and the light brush of his chest hair against her bottom. She knelt forward, allowing her loose hair to cascade over his sex, caressing it in a silken fall. She was aware that the motion lifted her arse and exposed her most feminine places to his seeking gaze. Although discomposing to her, she knew he would find it unbearably arousing.