Don't Bargain with the Devil (29 page)

 

She would simply use Nettie’s tricks for inflaming a man’s passions. Nettie had said men generally couldn’t manage more than one encounter a night, so all Lucy had to do was goad him into a quick seduction, and she’d be done.

 

His smile was positively feral. “Then pray remove your chemise. Now.”

 

A shuddering breath left her lips as she drew her shift over her head. Before she released it, she clutched it to her bosom. “What about you? Aren’t you going to take off your clothes?”

 

“Not yet.” He reached out to tug the shift from her trembling hands. Fire flared high in his face as his gaze scorched the full length of her body, sparing no part. “
Vál-game Dios,
you are even more lovely than I imagined,” he said hoarsely.

 

She drank his adoring words like a sailor gulping down fresh water after months at sea. How she wished he didn’t excel at compliments. Every time he said something like that, she wanted to throw herself at him.

 

He swept the back of his hand down her breasts, leaving her weak in the knees. “Do you know how often I have wished to see you in all your perfect glory?” He grazed her nipples with his knuckles, rousing them to aching points. “You have given me many sleepless nights,
querida.
Too many.”

 

It salved her wounded pride that he’d thought of her as much as she’d thought of him. He slid his hand lower to caress her belly. When he covered her
down there
with his hand, she couldn’t suppress a moan. But when he delved between her slick folds with a long, teasing stroke of his finger, she caught his hand. She felt too exposed, too aware of her nakedness like this.

 

“Please, Diego, take off your clothes, too.”

 

He stared at her with slumberous eyes. “Why don’t
you
take them off me?”

 

She sucked in a harsh breath. The man was diabolical. The very idea of performing such an intimate act for him made her feel more like a wife than a shameless wanton.

 

But he didn’t want a wife, God rot him. Why keep acting as if he did? He was supposed to tear off his clothes, throw her down on the bed, and ravish her like a fiend. Not make love to her with the tenderness of a husband. Not make her heart ache for his touch, his voice…his love.

 

No, she did not want his love. She couldn’t,
mustn’t
yearn for it. Not when he meant to hand her over to her grandfather at the end of this trip.

 

She would have to hurry this seduction along. And that meant breaking his iron control.

 

Sidling up to him, she went straight for his trouser buttons. With his thickened male flesh stretching the fabric to the breaking point, she had to struggle to release them, which reminded her of how he’d wanted her to touch him that day at the breakfast. She did so now, her hands stroking along the ridge of his arousal with each button she undid.

 

He groaned. “Why didn’t you start with the shirt?” he gritted out.

 

“Because this is the part that interests me,” she murmured.

 

She had his trousers and his drawers unfastened in seconds and his flesh freed of the fabric even more quickly. As it sprang out like some impudent hound sniffing the air, she froze.

 

It was long. Thick. Much more imposing than she’d expected.

 

Good Lord in heaven. The harem tales had spoken of “swords” and “rods” and “lances,” and she’d assumed such terms were gross exaggerations. But they weren’t far off the mark.

 

As she stared, his flesh grew even larger. Wondering at that, she reached out to touch it, but he caught her hand.

 

“Don’t,” he said in a voice thick with desire. “Or your scheme will be spoiled before it’s begun.”

 

She blinked at him, not sure what he meant. She only knew that he didn’t want her to touch him. Which, of course, meant that she had to do so.

 

She slid her free hand to his back, ostensibly to pull his shirttails out of his waistband but really so she could slide her hand beneath his loosened trousers and drawers to caress his behind as he’d caressed hers.

 

“I see what you are about.” He grabbed that hand, too. “You think to make me insane with need…and get your quick tumble, after all. It will not work.”

 

Lifting her mouth to suck his whiskered neck, she deliberately rubbed her breasts against his shirt-clad chest. “It’s already working,” she teased, then tongued his throat.

 

He tried to move back, but that slackened his grip on her wrists, allowing her to pull both hands free. Instantly, she returned to stroking his shaft with one hand while she took his hand in the other to press it to her breast.

 

He gave up. With a growled oath, he lifted her bodily and tossed her onto the bed, pausing only long enough to shove off his trousers and drawers before stretching out atop her, covering her with his body.

 

“Hunforth was right.” His eyes blazed at her as he spread her thighs apart so he could kneel between them. “You really
are
a reckless hoyden.”

 

She might have been insulted if she hadn’t been trying to be one. “I do my best,” she said with a triumphant smile.

 

She tore off his shirt, eager to see the fine chest she remembered from the duke’s library. As she smoothed her hands over the wide expanse of muscle and sinew and bone, he retaliated by sliding his hand between her legs to fondle her, roughly, thoroughly, possessively.

 

“This is not over, you know,” he vowed as he dipped his mouth to tongue her nipple erect, then suck it so exquisitely that she arched up for more. “I still intend to make you beg. Later.”

 

“We’ll…see,” she gasped, his motions below and above rousing her blood to a fever pitch.

 

“We will indeed. The night is young.”

 

She blinked. Could she have misunderstood Nettie about men only being able to make love once? Good Lord, what if…

 

He drove out that thought by slipping something larger than his fingers inside her. And it was every bit as uncomfortable as she’d heard.

 

This was the part she’d dreaded. With horror and fascination she’d listened to tales of what it was like to lose one’s innocence. She’d told herself lovemaking mustn’t be too awful, or women wouldn’t allow men to keep doing it, yet the idea of a man driving his thing into you hard enough to produce pain and blood sounded distinctly unpleasant.

 

Yet as he inched inside her, it did not
feel
unpleasant. Uncomfortable, perhaps. Intimate, certainly. But not entirely unpleasant.

 

It was embarrassing, however—and she couldn’t look at him while he entered her, couldn’t do anything but lie stiff beneath him.

 

“Relax,” he murmured against her ear. “It will go easier for you.”

 

“How do you know?” she said skeptically. “You’re not the one having a Maypole thrust inside your tender parts.”

 

He uttered a choked laugh, then kissed her long and deep, distracting her from what he was doing below.

 

Within seconds, she realized it was indeed better. Having him inside her warmed her in ways she hadn’t expected, in
places
she hadn’t expected.

 

He froze, as if coming up against something, and drew back to stare at her. “Are you sure about this,
querida?
” he asked softly, poised over her like a panther on the verge of pouncing.

 

This was it. The moment when she would lose her innocence. She swallowed her trepidation. “Yes. I’m sure.”

 

But she wasn’t at all sure. He gave a sudden fierce push. The tearing pain proved fleeting. But now he was planted inside her so intimately that she couldn’t escape him…or the reality of what she’d done.

 

She’d thought that a swift loss of her innocence would keep her from yearning for him too much. She’d been wrong. Diego was brushing her cheek with tender kisses, murmuring soothing words, asking if she was all right. She nodded, but she wasn’t all right in the least. He was around her, above her, encompassing her with his delicious smell and his enticing body and his sweet endearments that made her want…and want some more.

 

When he thoughtfully paused to let her adjust to him inside her, it brought tears to her eyes. She turned away to hide them.

 

Misunderstanding her sudden shyness, he began to caress her below. “Ah,
carińo,
it will get better, I swear.” He
branded her neck with kisses, his mustache tickling her. “For me, it is…indescribable. You are as warm as the Galician sun. I could lie here inside you forever.”

 

“Forever?” she choked out.

 

He pulled back to give her a haunted smile. “Well…at least all night,” he amended, his beautiful black hair falling over his damp brow.

 

Lifting himself a little, he began to move again. He slid in and out, his expression intent, his eyes eating her up as if staking his claim, though she knew he did not want any claims put on
him.

 

Determined to mark him as hers, she looped her arms about his neck and dragged him down for her kiss, pressing her breasts up against him, letting her body envelop him as he’d enveloped her. He would never forget this night—not if she could help it.

 

His breathing grew labored. His kiss grew savage, his thrusts deeper. When he tore his mouth from hers to pant, she used her lips and hands to fondle every inch of him, wresting a guttural groan from low in his throat.

 

“
Mi dulzura
…” he said hoarsely. “Ah,
mi querida
…” Fluid Spanish flowed from his lips, words she only half understood.

 

She could have sworn he said, “You are mine now, mine and mine alone.” But that wasn’t possible. Still, the thought heated her blood, adding to the heat he roused with his hand between her legs, stroking and rubbing and turning her wild.

 

Then he pulled her leg up to settle her more firmly against him, and she went insane. The thrum that had begun low in her belly grew into an insistent pulsing, vibrating through her, making her see spots behind her eyes.

 

“Vixen,” he accused as he pounded into her. “Beguiling witch…must you take…my soul…too?”

 

“Yes.” He’d taken hers; why shouldn’t she take his? “Yes…yes…” she repeated, the vibration growing to a roar inside her head.

 

Suddenly, the spots exploded into a wild array of light and color, so brilliant and intense she thought she might swoon.

 

“Yes!” she cried, straining against him.

 

He gave a hard thrust that drove him in to the hilt. Then, with a hoarse cry, he shuddered violently against her.

 

For a moment, they remained frozen, so intimately joined she could feel the spasms as he spilled himself inside her.

 

And in that moment of exquisite pleasure, she knew how grossly she’d erred. Foolish, foolish girl. She could never protect her heart from
him.

 

She might have won the skirmish, but he’d won the war. And now she would reap the bitter fruit of her defeat.

 

 

 

ďťż

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Twenty

 

 

 

 

Dear Charlotte,

 

I took the liberty of having Mr. Baines speak to Mr. Pritchard about his tenant, only to find that he was as oblivious to the Spaniard’s true purpose as any of us. What does the colonel say? Has he arrived in London yet?

 

Your concerned cousin,

 

Michael

 

 

L
ucy awoke hours later to the most blissful sense of contentment she’d ever felt. She lay there with her eyes closed, savoring the feeling of being a woman.

 

Of having a lover. A lusty, amazing lover. She felt well and truly used, slightly sore, but sated and happy.

 

Nettie had been wrong—a man could indeed take a woman more than once in a night. The second time had been an hour after her deflowering. It had started with him washing her, so gently it had made her want to cry.

 

But soon his ministrations had become something else—kisses, caresses, wild and heady temptations. She’d never dreamed a man could be so passionate. He’d brought her to release over and over until he’d had her begging, just as he’d promised. Begging to feel him inside her. Begging
to see him lose his restraint again. And when at last he did, it gave her as much of a thrill as before.

 

She ought to be appalled by her shameless behavior. Why wasn’t she? Because it was Diego, who’d taken her innocence with the tender care of a husband.

 

She sighed. This might be their only night together. Sobered by that thought, she opened her eyes and turned toward him to memorize the face that had become so dear.

 

The bed was empty. She sat up in a panic, only to be arrested by the sight of Diego in drawers and trousers, standing at the table with his head bent as he examined something in the light of the oil lantern.

 

Her sketch pad.

 

“Find anything of interest?” she asked.

 

He started but didn’t look at her. “This drawing you did of me is very good. You are quite talented.”

 

“It’s not finished, actually.” Heartened by his praise, she pulled the sheet up to tuck beneath her arms. “I had no time to add the final touches when I was in England, and now I can’t. No pens or ink or charcoal.”

 

“Ah, I shall have to remedy that.” He turned toward the bed, then dragged in a sharp breath, his gaze growing hungry as he took in the sight of her.

 

Oh, but didn’t he look luscious without a shirt, all sculpted muscle dusted with dark hair? Her gaze skated down to where his trousers began to bulge, and she smiled, feeling the full power of being a woman he desired.

 

She let the sheet slip enough to bare one breast. “Come back to bed, Diego. It’s still early.”

 

With a low curse, he tore his gaze from her and went to put on his shirt. “Not that early,
carińo.
The watch changed an hour ago. Before long, Rafael and the first mate will be
stirring, and I would rather they not find me gone from the cabin.” He fastened his shirt buttons. “We must preserve your reputation as best we can until we reach Spain and can be married.”