A Devil's Touch (5 page)

Chapter Four

He held his breath, studying the conflicting emotions in her eyes. In reality, he knew he could not force that which she was unwilling to surrender. When she dropped her gown, exposing her full body to his view, he exhaled in a long, slow gush.

It was certainly a propitious beginning, for Diana had become timid and almost abashed about her body, while he had only become more fascinated with the changes as her full womanhood unfurled. Her belly, large, round, and white, nearly hid her sex from his view. She had always had magnificent breasts, but now they were fuller, her nipples grown larger, darker. He knew she fought the impulse to cover herself as they pebbled deliciously before his gaze.

"Are you thinking of my mouth, Diana?" He approached but didn't yet touch her, preferring to make her simmer in her own juices invoked from his words alone. "I am, my sweet. I'm imagining how you will feel when I fill my mouth and suckle you, wondering what will happen when I bite down on your nipples, how you will taste."

He touched her. Gently. Stroked her hair, her cheek. Ran his thumb over her softly parted lips. A jolt of blood surged to his bollacks when she opened, drew it into her mouth, and softly sucked.

"Two can play at that game, my sweet," he uttered huskily. As she drew him deeper into the hot confines of her mouth, his free hand skirted up the inside of her thighs, seeking her other lips. She released him from her mouth, grasping his shoulders and throwing her head back with a whimper, as he stroked into her slickened folds.

"Your body is changed. We cannot do this the same as before. I want you on all fours. I want to feel my hands anchoring your hips while I explore your lovely arse with my hands, my mouth, my cock. I want to immerse myself in your glorious wet heat, Diana, while I take you from behind." He watched her eyes widen, heard her intake of breath. "Does the thought of this frighten or excite you?"

"Both." She exhaled the word..

"Are you already wet, my pet?"

"You know I am. Stop torturing me like this."

He smiled at her eagerness in the face of her remaining qualms. He grasped her chin and kissed her again. Slow. Deep. "I swear to bring you only pleasure, Diana. Will you trust me now?" he asked when their mouths parted.

"Yes," she replied, sliding her hands down his chest, over his abdomen, to the placket of his breeches. Her fingers moved clumsily to release him, but once he sprang free, she stroked him with confidence before lowering herself to her knees. Although he hadn't intended for her to take him with her mouth, he allowed this, gave her free reign to do as she pleased, to have as much control as she desired, before he asked her to succumb to him completely.

She kissed him with an open mouth and then proceeded to stroke his length with delicate rasps of her tongue. Sweet Jesus, it felt good! She swirled around his crown and then took him slowly by inches into her lush, hot mouth. He buried his fingers in her hair with a moan.

Shite! It's too bloody good!

It had been far too long—twelve whole days— the longest he had ever endured in his adult life without emission. He knew he wouldn't last…couldn't last. Perhaps that was the clever vixen's plan? She increased the pressure of her hand around his base and the sweet sultry suction of her mouth. His chest grew heavier, his bollacks drew tighter. He was so fucking close, and she knew it. She glanced up at him with a look of triumph, and he almost let go. It would be rapturous to release at long last, to spend in her mouth, but ultimately it wouldn't answer.

"Enough, Diana," Ludovic growled in his near-Herculean effort to withdraw from her sublimely skilled mouth.

***

He gripped her hair, forcing her to release him and Diana felt a powerful flare of disappointment. She had intended to push him over the edge. Had needed, if only for a moment, to feel the satisfaction and strength in her femininity that always surfaced when he relinquished his will and gave himself up to her in a shuddering climax.

Instead, he'd withstood her most determined efforts to conquer his self-control, and kept his release in abeyance. Now, having failed to weaken him with sexual satiation, she faced the bittersweet prospect of being once more at
his
complete mercy.

Ludovic hastily shed out of his breeches and knelt behind her on the thick Aubusson carpet. He turned her head once more to seize her mouth in a searing kiss before nuzzling back into her neck, sending ripples down her spine with the rough abrasion of a day's growth of beard against her tender skin. He reached around her body to run his warm, strong hands up and down her thighs before skirting them back upward over the curves of her hips. She adored the feel of his hands on her skin, the musky smell of him that filled her senses and made her throb all the way to her core.

Tenderly, he licked the shell of her ear and explored the rounded swell of her belly, biting gently on her lobe while cupping her breasts from behind, squeezing the soft mounds while murmuring dark words of love in her ear. She could feel his hard, hot length pressing into her back and yearned to have him pulsing inside her. "Please, Ludovic," she moaned. "I can't bear it any longer. I already want you so badly it aches."

"Then, my love, let us together relieve your torment." He took her hand and guided it downward to her mons, trapping it with his. "I want you to touch yourself, Diana."

"I-I can't," she replied. "I'd much rather touch you."

"That's not what I asked."

"But—" she made to protest again and he silenced her with his mouth.

Upon releasing her from the kiss he said, "Very well then. You shall do both. We will pleasure one another together."

Ludovic brought her other arm back, guiding himself into her hand. Diana eagerly closed around his staff and gently squeezed, relishing the hot hard feeling of silken steel. Diana closed her eyes, allowing him to guide the movements of her hands, stroking up and down his length with one, while simultaneously stimulating herself with the other. It was a novel form of mutual touch that she found exciting and incredibly erotic—especially when he began rocking his pelvis against her buttocks. "Do you like this, Diana?"

"Yes," she hissed between panting breaths.

"Don't stop," he growled in her ear and released his hand from atop hers. She felt him glide his hand down over her buttocks. "Part your thighs."

Throbbing with want, she was more than eager to comply. Diana whimpered at the sublime sensation of his fingers spearing into her sex, plunging in and out in simulation of coitus." He guided her own fingers to her clitoris, while continuing to stroke her insides and grind against her.

"Come for me, Diana. Now!" He squeezed a nipple and sucked on her neck, sending her catapulting over the edge with a sob. Trembling and panting, she fell back against him, her body rippling with rapturous waves. "Oh no, my love." He chuckled a low and deep rumble against her back. "I am far from finished with you. He waited only long enough for her to come back to earth before he rose and went back into his dressing room from whence he returned with a familiar-looking bottle.

She regarded him quizzically. "Almond oil? You wish me to massage you?"

They had used this substance together many times in his hammam after Salime had first sneaked Diana into his private domain. Diana had arrived in the disguise of an odalisque, with the goal of bringing him to his knees with her newly acquired erotic skills. Instead, it had turned into a night of untold erotic pleasures …and of startling revelations for both of them.

"No, my love. It now serves us quite another purpose."

"Oh?" she asked. "Then what—”

"No more questions, Diana," he interrupted. "You swore to trust me." He dipped his head to take her mouth again, gently at first, gliding his lips smoothly over hers, and then with greater fervor, teasing her with darts of his tongue.

God help me. Will I ever get enough of this man?

"I did and I do," she whispered against his mouth, willing herself to do just that.

He nipped her lips and melded their mouths in an impassioned dance of tongues that re-stoked her passion to a full furor, leaving her lightheaded when he released her once more.

"Lean forward," he commanded, "onto your elbows."

When she hesitated, he helped to ease her into the position, all the while kissing and biting her neck and shoulders, stroking and caressing his hands down her back to anchor at her hips. With her head down and arse raised to him, Diana felt completely exposed and vulnerable. She glanced over her shoulder, and her body quivered. It was a reflexive reaction that he immediately responded to. As if sensing her qualms, he leaned his entire body over hers, running his hands slowly up her sides, touching, caressing, smoothing. Soothing. He took her mouth again while his hands, big, warm, and strong palmed her buttocks. "Remember, my love. Only pleasure."

His warm weight lifted only for a moment. She stole another glance behind to the most decadent sight of Ludovic on his knees stroking himself. Glistening with oil, his magnificent cock stood at full attention. The vision alone made every fiber of her thrum with raw want.

And then he was blissfully
there
…sliding himself with agonizingly slow strokes within her folds while making her body quiver and her inner walls convulsively contract with the need to be filled. His torturous teasing was at once wonderful and madding…and his smug expression told her he knew precisely what he was about. Unable to resist the overwhelming urge, she squirmed her backside into him with an impatient sound.

"No, not yet," he reprimanded. "I'll give you what you want only after I have what I want. Now close your eyes and breathe slowly." He continued the delicious movement of his shaft while his oil-slickened fingers traced the cleft of her buttocks.

"Please. Don't," she begged, her apprehension returning in a crushing wave.

"Relax, my pet. I would never hurt you."

"I know that," she said, sounding uncertain even to herself.

"Do you?" he asked.

"I don't know, Luvovic. I'm afraid."

"Trust, Diana," he murmured, repeating lowly, "Only pleasure." He punctuated this by guiding his erection into her passage, stretching her as he eased inside, bringing such wondrous fullness, such sweet relief, that she wanted to cry out. He rocked his pelvis against her in a slow and rhythmic motion, moving inside her the same way his fingers continued their play—gently but persistently caressing and circling.

And he was right. He promised her only pleasure, and her body thrummed with it. Lost to sense of time and place, her mind blurred as his movements grew more forceful and the pressure of his probing fingers became more insistent.…until finally penetrating her forbidden entrance. Awareness broke through the fog of her lust like shards of broken glass. She gasped, tensing beneath and around him. "I can't," she whimpered.

"You must relax, Diana," he said. "Relax your mind and open your body to me. Please," he insisted. We cannot go on unless you trust me implicitly. I must know that there are no limits to that trust. I
need
you
to let me love you this way."

Even as Diana trembled, understanding dawned. To Ludovic, this was the supreme moment of truth.
I need you to let me love you this way
.

Could she find it within herself to squelch her trepidation? Or would she risk
all
by her reticence, by holding on to unfounded fears?

***

He could feel the tension roiling within her and knew he had pushed her too hard. Yet it made him ache with dismay that she could not find the strength to put her trust in him, to bury the past for good.

He withdrew from her with a sigh of regret. "I'm sorry, Diana. I am a bastard to have put your faith to trial at a time like this. I was angry and resentful, but that's no excuse for pushing you so hard."

"No. Don't be sorry," she cried, pulling herself up to face him. "But you were right and I don't want this night to end this way."

"And how is that?" he asked.

"With frustration and disappointment. I can read it all on your face."

And he could just as easily read hers—her widened gaze, the slight quiver of her lips clearly bespoke her trepidation, her vulnerability, her need of his reassurance.

He pulled her into his embrace with a groan, caressing her back, plying soft kisses to her hair, then her brow, her eyes, and all over her lovely face. "I can't bear to hear your suspicions, Diana. Not knowing how much you still hold back from me when all I
am
is yours."

Her solemn gaze met his. "I know you can't." She reached out to stroke his face. "I understand that now, and I don't want it to be like this between us any longer."

His pulse sped with hope. "What are you saying, Diana?"

"Please, can we begin again? If you will only be patient with me, I promise not to disappoint you."

"Disappoint?" His mouth stretched into a dry smile. "My dearest heart, in our time together, you have befuddled, perplexed, and frustrated the hell out of me, but you have
never
disappointed." He cupped her nape and kissed her deeply. Tenderly.

She returned the kiss with increased fervor and then took his hand. "Come, my husband…my love." Diana surprised him by leading him to their bed.

***

As before, he came behind her, but took his time, caressing her breasts, laving hot open-mouth kisses to her neck, her shoulders. His hands skirted to her bottom where he fondled, squeezed, and stroked. He nipped gently at her nape as he bent her forward, easing her back into the position he desired with two pillows placed beneath her hips. Diana's elbows and knees sank deeply into the soft down of their bed while his mouth played down her spine, licking and kissing one vertebra at a time. It was the same… but also somehow different this time.

 "You must not think, Diana." His words were a hot, moist murmur of reassurance against her skin, making her warm and fluttery inside. "Please, my sweet, just empty your mind and simply feel." Diana willed herself to compliance, to relax and give herself up to his teasing touch and mesmerizing mouth—the same wicked mouth that suckled on her fleshy globes. He shocked her by biting into her with sharp teeth that were none too gentle. Yet the action sent a paradoxical jolt of sting and pleasure straight to her core. He must have felt her reaction as well. "Do you like that, my pet?"