Tempt the Devil (20 page)

E
rith had fallen into an uneasy, exhausted doze when the door opened again. He lifted heavy eyelids and stared sightlessly into the shadowy room. Through the fog of emotional and physical misery, he dully supposed a servant had arrived to release him at last.

The fire had burned down to embers in the grate and full night had descended. His arms blazed with agony from their unnatural position above his head. He'd been flat on his back so long, his muscles screamed with painful stiffness. He was deathly cold.

After that shocking moment when Olivia left, he'd spent fruitless energy battling like a maniac to break free. But all he'd gained were raw wrists and strained muscles. His frenzied writhing had only tightened the cords. She hadn't exaggerated when she boasted of tethering him like a beast.

Eventually, logic had pierced his insane fury. Struggle was useless.

Hope had taken much longer to die than anger.

At first he couldn't believe she'd gone and left him helpless. His heart had howled incredulous denial as she closed the door behind her.

She'd be back. Of course she'd be back.

She was only teasing him. He'd always known she would torment him before she relented. Hell, he'd as much as insisted she torment him when he asked her to do what she willed.

But as grim minutes advanced, turned into hours, and still no Olivia, bleak reality sank in. He saw what he should have seen much earlier.

He'd given her freedom. Like the smart woman she was, she'd taken it.

He could have called for help, as she'd so derisively suggested. But some stubborn skerrick of pride kept him silent: pride and, even more pathetic, hope that she might return to find him steadfastly waiting.

What a damned fool he was. Of course Olivia wasn't coming back.

He closed his eyes and felt desolation creep through his veins like a slow river of frost.

“Erith?”

His heart stopped, then began to race in a crazy rhythm. Had he gone mad indeed? God help him, he'd thought never to hear that soft voice again.

His head jerked in her direction and he wrenched upward before he remembered the cords that held him. Through the gloom, his blurred gaze focused disbelievingly on her.

She leaned against the closed door. The fire's low glow turned her red silk robe into gleaming ruby mystery. Her beautiful hair was a loose tumble of bronze around her shoulders.

Lord knew what she meant to do. But she was here. That was all that mattered.

Tense silence stretched between them.

“You came back.” His voice emerged as a croak from a
mouth dry as desert sand. A wild mixture of joy and wonder clogged his throat.

“Yes.”

“I thought you'd left me,” he said rawly.

“I'm sorry.”

“No, you're not.” His mind, blank with despair only seconds ago, kicked into operation under the invigorating reality that she hadn't deserted him. “It's what you wanted me to think.”

“Perhaps.” Her voice was enigmatic, and in the poor light, he couldn't read her expression.

Then the greatest revelation of all. Although he should have guessed her game when she agreed to take part in this little contest. “By God, you're testing me.”

“Yes.” She stepped farther into the room, nearer the fire. He could see her face. It was calm, almost emotionless.

“And I'm failing.”

She pursed her full lips briefly in a way that made him want to kiss her.

Would he ever kiss her again? An iron certainty grew that they'd emerge from this night bound as tightly as thread to a bobbin, or else this was the end of everything between them.

“I wouldn't say that.” She glided closer to the bed. “You must want to get up.”

“I could have called a servant.”

“Yes, but you didn't,” she said neutrally.

“I would have soon. I can't feel my legs.”

That brought her rushing forward in a rustle of silk. She came close enough for him to smell her sweet floral soap and, beneath it, the warm essence of her skin. She must have just left her bath. He'd have thought he was too tired and disconsolate and racked with pain to respond to her. But immediate sexual awareness curled through his belly like a snake.

“I'll release you.” Her mood was no longer opaque. She sounded upset and guilty. “I left you here too long.”

“Does that mean I've failed?”

She gave a contemptuous snort at his mulishness. “Would you rather stay there till Doomsday?”

“If I have to.” Now that he knew she hadn't left, his determination resurfaced that tonight would mark a new beginning or the death of his every hope.

He'd reached this conclusion during the harsh, unrelenting hours of self-reflection before Olivia arrived home from Montjoy's. He thought he'd prepared himself for the risks of his last ditch attempt to shatter the deadlock between them.

He'd had no bloody idea.

“You're an obstinate devil.” Did he hear admiration in that low contralto?

He forced out the cruel words that needed to be said. “Has tonight given you any joy? Have you tortured me to your satisfaction? Will anything make up for what happened to you? I know the world owes you recompense. And you're more than welcome to take it out of my hide if that helps. But, Olivia, you must see that nothing can erase the vile injustices of your past.”

He heard her startled intake of breath. Then there was a delicious slide of freshly washed hair over his chest as she leaned down and tugged at the knots fastening his left wrist to the bedpost.

“You claim to know so much about me?” He couldn't mistake the fear that lurked under her defiance.

“Know you?” He made a derisive sound deep in his throat. “You're more mysterious than the depths of the Pacific Ocean or the wastes of the Arctic.”

“Oh, both horribly cold and wet.” As usual when he veered too close to her essential self, she fended him off with humor. “Not sure I approve of your mode of address, Lord Erith.”

“The jungles of Peru?”

She still fiddled with the ties. “Dank and…Blast! I need more light.”

To his regret, she stopped nudging his ribs with her fragrant warmth and went across to the chest of drawers. She moved from lamp to lamp, lighting them so each detail of her beauty came into view like stars winking into life in the night sky.

The lamps lent her thick mane of hair a myriad colors. Bronze. Auburn. Rich brown. Gold. Strands of flaxen blond. It shifted as she moved, rippling and catching the light.

She bent and fed the fire, using the poker until the blaze rose high and flickered gold over her face. Only then did she return to him. “Aren't you going to insist I let you go?”

“You're in charge.”

“Even if I untie you?”

He stared steadily up at her. Demons from hell stabbed his body and shoveled red hot coals down his nerve endings. He could bear anything if it meant he achieved his ends. “What do you think?”

She smiled with radiant approval that made his gut twist with yearning. “You've earned your freedom.”

She leaned over him again and with a few deft pulls released the cords that held him down.

“Thank you,” he said through dry lips. He struggled to bend down, intending to untie his feet, but his muscles had seized up. The blood rushing back into his limbs left him light-headed with pain.

“Oh, Erith,” she cried in dismay. “I'm sorry.” Quickly, she reached down to release his ankles. “I had no right to do this.”

“Yes, you did.” He grunted as he struggled to sit. He'd spent the last hours frantic to move. Now that he could move, the agony was indescribable. “I gave you the right.”

“This wasn't fair.” She frowned in distress as she passed him his robe. Then she began to rub his legs with frantic vigor. “It's obscene to make you pay for other men's sins.”

Her sweet concern and care made him feel…
loved.

The thought should have aroused more apprehension than
he was capable of summoning. Love had never been part of the arrangement. But after tonight, things could never be the same again.

Never.

“I've committed my share of sins, Olivia.” Clumsily he tugged the robe over his nakedness.

“Not against me.” She darted across to the sideboard and he heard the clink of glass. “Here. You must be thirsty.”

“Thank you.” With a shaking hand, he accepted the glass of water and lifted it to his lips. The cool benediction of the liquid was the sweetest thing he'd ever tasted. If he didn't count Olivia's hard-won and reluctant kisses.

She stood staring at him with an appalled expression. “Erith, I was unforgivably wrong to do this. I don't know what got into me. Suddenly when I had you tied up, I didn't see you, I saw every man who had ever used me.” Her hands twined with palpable distress in front of her. “You must think I'm mad.”

“I think you're beautiful,” he said, grateful that his words no longer scraped across a desiccated throat. “But of course you know that.”

She reached out to take the glass and replace it on the sideboard. “You're as mad as I am.” She spoke without force.

“Probably.”

She shifted close to the bed and placed her shoulder under his arm. “Let me help you up.”

He accepted her aid until he was upright. He tottered and she caught him. Her voice was thick with tears and the eyes she raised to him were turbulent with guilt and regret. “You should hate me.”

He raised a shaking hand to touch her cheek. With every moment free of those damned cords, he felt stronger, more himself.

“Don't be a nitwit, Olivia.” He sucked in a deep breath then winced as the involuntary expansion of his ribs hurt his chest. “I need a moment's privacy.”

Surprisingly, his worldly mistress blushed. “Of course.”

Very slowly, like an old man, he limped to the dressing room. He retained enough arrogance to abominate appearing before her at such a disadvantage.

As he came back through the door, he staggered. Suddenly Olivia was there, holding him. He drew another deep breath, easier this time, relishing her fresh, warm woman scent. Her strong slender arm encircled his waist and her other hand braced him against her.

Her voice vibrated with concern. “Do you want to lie down again? Or sit up in the chair?”

“I need to get my circulation going,” he groaned.

Damn it, he wasn't as young as he used to be.

“I'll help you.”

“Thank you.”

But he was so clumsy, and she was so extravagantly determined to support him, that balance proved increasingly difficult.

He wavered.

She grabbed at him.

He stumbled.

She held tighter.

He snatched at her. But his numb fingers slid uselessly off the slippery silk that covered her shoulders.

“Hell,” he managed to grit out, and in a chaos of flailing limbs fell, taking her with him.

A moment of weightlessness as he went down. A shriek from Olivia, more shock than fear. A grunt from him as his abused sinews protested the sudden movement. She landed on the mattress with a bounce and he landed awkwardly on top of her.

Her eyes, wide, startled, beautiful, clear as whisky, darted up to meet his. Her lips parted. She struggled for air.

His torso crushed her breasts. His hips pressed hard into hers. Both feet touched the floor. His arms framed her head, trapping her luxuriant hair.

“Erith,” she said breathlessly.

“Julian,” he said with a longing he couldn't hide.

She licked her lips and he nearly groaned. Then in a melting voice he'd never heard before, she sighed his name.

“Julian.”

He should move before he crushed her, but he couldn't budge to save his life. Her hands had closed over his back when they fell. Now they slid upward over his shoulders and neck in a frantic caress.

With more emphasis, “Julian.”

Her fingers dug into the thick hair on the sides of his head. With rough urgency, she dragged him down until his lips met hers.

E
rith's mouth fastened hot and open upon Olivia's.

Voracious. Hungry. Demanding.

Even though she'd initiated the kiss, he'd seized control. She shut her eyes and waited for the dark waters to close above her head. But the old, sick, suffocated feeling didn't surface.

There was just the astonishing heat and closeness of his body over hers, and the sharp, evocative tang of Erith on her tongue.

This was a universe away from the gentle, teasing kisses in the rain yesterday. Or even the hard kisses he'd forced upon her when they met, alerting her to his intended possession.

These were the kisses of a man struggling to retain the last shreds of sanity.

And she seemed to be kissing him back just as ferociously.

How strange. How unprecedented.

How wonderful.

His free hand held her head, as if she'd disappear unless he kept her there. Foolish man. Surely he knew this searing enchantment bound her too. He turned her wild and wanton and more a woman than she'd ever been before.

He thrust one shaking hand under the robe to cup her breast. Her nipple pebbled against his palm and she rolled her hips restlessly, feeling his burning hardness.

“Oh, yes,” he breathed into her mouth.

He pressed her down into the mattress, making her feel his weight and size. And how aroused he was. Only two layers of thin silk separated them, and his scorching heat radiated through the flimsy barrier.

Blood thundered in her ears, making her deaf to everything but clamoring need. Her hands traced an erratic path down his back, scrunching his robe beneath her fingers. She hungered to feel his bare skin against hers.

Instincts she'd never known took over. She sucked his tongue into her mouth, savoring his taste. He had the rich and heady flavor of the finest wine.

Who knew a man could be this delicious?

His tongue slid against hers. Immediately a flare of response ignited in her belly. The sudden, blazing reaction made her shift again. He groaned and deepened the kiss, plunging his tongue into her mouth in a rhythm that was familiar, yet new to her as spring grass to a newborn lamb.

And her heart skipped like a newborn lamb in wayward, unsteady bursts of speed and stillness. Then stopped altogether when he gently squeezed her breast.

She moaned into his kiss and arched to increase the pressure on her breast. She nipped at his lips. Licked at him. Swept her tongue into his mouth in a dance of passion.

With a gasp, he broke free and nuzzled her cheeks and jaw and neck. Dizzy for lack of breath, she opened her eyes.

She didn't want air. She wanted Erith's kisses. She could live on those alone.

“Don't stop,” she whispered.

“I won't.” Then with an edge of desperation, “God help me, I can't.”

Her fingers kneaded his shoulders, testing the heavy muscles, the tight sinews. All this masculine strength should make her feel threatened, defenseless. Instead it excited her. His leashed power was unequivocally hers. He'd proven in the most harrowing circumstances that for her sake, he could rein in his will. No matter what suffering it caused him.

Trust.

Such a small word to transform her world.

“Kiss me.” She'd never asked a man for anything. But she'd go on her knees to beg for more of those earth-shaking kisses.

“You're driving me mad,” he groaned. He raised himself above her and stared at her with hungry concentration.

“Then go mad,” she whispered, barely knowing what she said.

In all her decadent life, she'd never desired a man.

Dear heaven, she desired a man now. She desired Erith.

There was no mistaking the roiling tumult in her belly or the pounding rhythm in her blood. Desire. Visceral, elemental, passionate. It was real. It was thrilling. It was shattering.

The violence of her need shocked her. Could this wild, rapacious creature be Olivia Raines?

His kiss wasn't gentle. The man who had shown such heartbreaking consideration for her vulnerability was gone. Instead he tasted her voluptuously with teeth and tongue and lips. He feasted on her as if he starved and she were the finest banquet.

Once, frightened, crippled Olivia would have shrunk from his passion. Now she reveled in its power.

He drew back onto his knees, his eyes never leaving hers. His impressive muscles bunched as he reached down to grab her hips and slide her across the bed. After being tied down
so long, his movements were ungainly. A pang of remorse struck her at what she'd done to him.

She caught his wrist and heard him stifle a groan. She looked more closely. His skin was scored with raw welts where he'd struggled against his bonds.

Another stab of guilt, more painful this time. How wicked she'd been to treat him so. Hot tears rose to her eyes.

“I'm sorry.” Her whisper was choked.

“It doesn't matter,” he said unsteadily.

“Yes, it does.” Very gently, she brought his wrist to her mouth and placed a lingering kiss on the angry red marks. The kiss was a plea for forgiveness, an act of homage.

“Olivia…” His voice vibrated with emotion. As if he understood everything she silently tried to tell him with the soft touch of her lips to his torn skin.

She raised her head and looked deep into his eyes. Endless silver. Burning with light. Beautiful.

This time when he pressed his lips to hers, there was passion, but also a reverence that pierced her heart. He made her feel treasured. He made her feel pure.

It was as if his touch created her anew.

For a moment there was a lovely, endearing clumsiness as he fought to continue the kiss and remove his robe at the same time. Their lips slid and clung and parted and clung again. His unsteady breathing and muttered curses rasped in her ears.

No way on earth was she letting him escape. She followed him up as he sat back to discard his clothing. Her hands curled around his neck, tangling in the warm, soft hair at his nape, and she kept kissing him.

“You'll have to let go of me, Olivia,” he said breathlessly as his robe slipped away with a soft susurration and he pressed his naked body to hers. He was big and eager and ready. And he smelled glorious, musk and sandalwood and male.

“Never,” she said shamelessly, rubbing herself against him like an animal in heat. She
was
an animal in heat. But with
the savagery, sweet tenderness lingered, a rich, low note beneath the rising pleasure.

She felt hot and damp and restless and dizzy. She'd never experienced anything like this. She pressed her thighs together to try and temper the increasing pressure but the movement only intensified her craving to have Erith inside her.

“Olivia, I need to get this robe off you. Now.” He sounded like a man at the end of his endurance.

“I don't want to let you go,” she murmured.

“All right,” he said in a gravelly voice. “Remember you damned well asked for this.”

“I damned well did,” she said, then her smile became a gasp as he roughly stripped the last barrier away. With equal ruthlessness, he grabbed her waist and tipped her back onto the mattress.

The room lurched. She clutched his shoulders as the only solid object in a reeling world. Her heart leaped with anticipation.

“Shocking language, Miss Raines.” A wry smile twitched his lips as he knelt between her legs.

She'd never laughed with a lover before. Amazing what piquancy it added. “Your pardon, Lord Erith.”

“I told you to call me Julian.”

He kissed her hard. Pleasure crackled through her like lightning through a stormy summer sky. The throbbing heat in her loins built to a crescendo.

“You're very masterful all of a sudden.” She angled her chin up, hoping he'd kiss her again. For a woman who'd avoided kissing her entire life, she found herself with great zeal for the activity.

Demanding kisses. Soft kisses. Tender kisses. Passionate kisses.

Who knew kissing offered such delicious variety? She'd never tire of Erith's mouth on hers.

“Julian,” he prompted, sliding his hands from her waist
until they rested just below her breasts. Tantalizingly close to where she wanted them. Her nipples ached for his touch.

“One might even say pushy,” she said in a husky voice, squirming to make him shift his hands upward.

“One might.”

She remembered the arcing pleasure when he'd palmed her breast. She wanted that again. She wanted
more.
The peaks tightened with every second he delayed. She made a growl of protest and bent her legs so her inner thighs caressed his hips.

He bent his head and scraped her neck with his strong white teeth. She smothered a tormented whimper. She was so on edge, even the brush of his hair on her skin made her shiver.

“Stop being a stubborn wench,” he said hoarsely. “Give in. Call me Julian.”

“I've already called you Julian.”

“Do it again.”

When he bit down gently on the tendon between her shoulder and neck, she shuddered with excitement. It stole her breath to cradle him so close to where she craved his hardness. He was massively aroused. Hunger steamed off him. Something loosened, melted, liquefied inside her. Hot moisture flowed between her thighs.

For the first time she was drenched wet for a man. The strangeness jerked her from her sensual haze.

Trembling, she tried to close her legs, to hide a response that seemed too raw, too revealing. But each wriggle encountered the immovable barrier of Erith's body.

Shamed heat flooded her cheeks. Although she'd lost the right to blush nearly twenty years ago.

He wrenched his head up and stared at her, his gray eyes impossibly brilliant. His nostrils flared as if he tested her arousal with the air.

“Olivia.”

Nothing else. Just her name in a voice that only made her shake more violently.

The most beautiful smile she'd ever seen curved his lips. At the sight, something uncoiled in her chest. Something that made her heart somersault with a painful mixture of joy and sorrow. Something she feared would change her life forever.

“You do me too much honor,” he whispered, and kissed her right breast just above her puckered nipple.

Her breath caught in her throat. Such a seemingly innocent touch, yet its tender worship made her pulses race.

“Oh, Julian.” She was hardly aware she willingly gave him what he'd sought to tease out of her.

Very gently, he plucked at the engorged crests, rolling them in his long fingers. Every touch sent wild sensation rocketing through her.

“Please, oh, please,” she cried in a broken voice. “Don't wait. I can't bear it.”

Helpless need goaded her. It was like being sucked into a whirlpool. It was like riding an unbroken horse that bolted through a thick forest.

It was like…
desire.

She tilted her hips so her damp cleft brushed his member. The muscles in his back tightened under her hands. Shuddering, he raised himself on his arms. The veins and sinews stood out in stark relief. His back tensed until it was rock hard.

On a great hissing exhalation, he pushed forward. She braced for the usual difficulty and discomfort, but he slid into her with smooth, exquisite heat. Then he held himself completely still.

She'd never known such a moment of perfect closeness.

After a long time, the ocean of tenderness inside her made her shift one hand in a tiny stroking glide down toward his waist. The muscles under her fingers contracted. Infinitesimally he rocked his hips.

In amazement, she stared up into his eyes. It was like looking into polished silver mirrors. She thought he'd gone
as deep as he could but the small push settled him more fully, more surely, stretching her anew.

His sheer size was part of the magic. He claimed her in a way no other man had.

He moved again. Astonishingly, he penetrated farther. A moan escaped her, just audible, but enough to snap the golden filament of silence that bound them.

With silence, stillness went too. Slowly, so she felt every sleek inch of withdrawal, he pulled back. After an impossibly long pause, he thrust again.

Deep, deep, as though he touched her heart. As though he took possession of her soul.

He held himself motionless then repeated the movement, even more slowly. She lifted her hips to meet him. The pleasure was so excruciating, it verged on agony.

He dragged back again and surged forward. As relentless as the tide. Ruthless. Hard. Dominating.

Impossibly tender.

At the peak of each thrust, he paused. Balancing her on a moment of perfect eternity. Perfect communication. Perfect stillness.

The connection was electric, powerful, more emotional than physical. Her hands formed claws on the slick skin of his back.

Over and over he used her like this. He didn't touch her breasts. He didn't stroke between her legs where she was so wet. He didn't kiss her.

It was as though the intensity of the joining demanded this simple, primitive, utterly sexual dance. The deliberate rhythm. Her blood beating in time to his. The soft gasps and moans of mating.

She closed her eyes and gave herself wholly into his keeping. She became his creature. For good or ill. He could destroy her with pleasure and she wouldn't utter a word of protest.

In the dark world behind her eyes, everything was Erith.
This world smelled of Erith and tasted of Erith and sounded like Erith. The sun in this world rose and set in time with his deep, deliberate, controlled movements. Each thrust forged another shackle around her heart.

She knew with fatalistic certainty that when he finished, she'd never be free again.

His body's endless rocking set up a strange turbulence in her blood. The turbulence eddied into swirling whirlpools of sensation as he moved back into her.

“Come for me, Olivia,” he said in a voice she didn't recognize, it was so deep and rough. His words shuddered through her and made her muscles tense involuntarily around him.