The Devil She Knows (14 page)

He kissed her eyes and cheeks, then nuzzled her throat.

“Gareth, please,” she whispered, although she couldn't have clearly defined what she wanted.

“Of course, Portia darling.” His mouth came back to hers and she caught his head in her hands. He chuckled and she kissed him fiercely, certain now she could do this much at least.

He swept his hand down her back and pulled her close. Their legs tangled and her day chemise, far shorter than a nightgown, slipped up to her hip. But who cared when his magical mouth sent the stars spinning so fast that only he existed?

When he moved away, she could only gasp for air, dazed yet ecstatic. The hot tide of lust riding her veins was throbbing between her legs.

When he ran his finger along her jaw, his eyes were the blue of truth. He caressed her throat and her collarbone as delicately as a kiss—and she arched to meet him. “Ah, Gareth.”

She ran her hands down his back and impatiently gripped the fine muscles of his ass to pull him closer.

“Portia, honey, you're a delight.” A jolt of laughter and answering hunger ran through him.

He slipped his hand inside her chemise and cupped her breast. His big hand was shockingly hot, yet her hard little nipple craved his palm, stabbed at it, and shot surges of lust down to her toes.

Yet he stayed perfectly still—and Portia moaned, frustration adding a startlingly harsh edge to her wordless plea. A fine sheen of sweat helped her wriggle under him.

But nothing brought her needy, dripping core the final stimulation it craved. Just a touch from her hand or his, soft or harsh, fast or slow, she didn't care, not with this madness firing her blood. But she was blocked, condemned to climb higher and higher toward a pinnacle of pure need she'd never known before where nothing existed except the blurring of body and desire.

The only reality was the man in her arms, the one she'd craved for so very long. Gareth's shoulders filled her hands and his thigh was between her legs.

She rocked against him, unconsciously circling her hips. There was no place here for fear.

He slid her chemise aside and sucked her nipple deep into his mouth.

Portia cried out. Hot, wet—and teeth?

“Didn't expect that, did you, darling?” he muttered and set about driving her mad with tongue and teeth and fingers.

Vision faded first. Sound existed only for his voice urging her on and her own broken cries, begging for more, and her body writhing against his echoed by fine linen's susurration. The rich aroma of sex mixed with the salt water's tang to perfume the air, driving lust deeper into her veins.

And hunger, desperate and achingly sharp for the man above her. Hot and heavy as the slap of the waves on the pilings below the house, sharp as the bite of lust every time he suckled her. Deep and strong as the pulse building in her loins for the man beside her, his shaft blazingly hard against her knee.

“Gareth, please.” She tossed her head from side to side and groped for him again, desperate, uncertain how to spur him on.

“Take it, Portia, take it for me—and for yourself,” he purred like a tiger, that creature of shadows, offering to play in the sunlight.

His hand slipped between her thighs and found her most intimate flesh. He stroked her pearl—and Portia bucked, hard, and tumbled into orgasm. Fireworks exploded through her body, stealing breath and melting every bit of flesh and bone like magma.

She cried out, a long wordless, joyful sound like an unknown bird.

An instant later, Gareth grunted and jerked. Hot liquor splattered onto her thigh and her chemise's hem, just above her knee.

For a moment, his heartbeat drummed between his palm and her thigh, vital and demanding as the Arizona noontime sun. Then he shifted his arm and his pulse faded into the distance, leaving her to face emotions she'd never thought to manage.

M
oving as clumsily as if she'd run across the Arizona desert, Portia laid her head against her husband's shoulder.

He rumbled approval, lifted his arm, and gathered her against him. At least he didn't seem to be angry with her.

A single hot tear gathered on her cheek.

“What's the matter, honey?” He cleaned her delicately with the sheet's edge then smoothed her chemise down.

“N-nothing.”

He tucked the covers up around her. She sniffled and burrowed closer, insensibly comforted by his heart's steady beat under her cheek and his arm's solid strength around her.

“Did I hurt you?” He spun the question out with the same idle intent he used to lure trout to his fishing line.

Like them, she couldn't resist responding, even though sweet lassitude was melting her body into his hold.

“I enjoyed myself but,”—she sought for the most tactful phrase then settled on the truth—“you didn't.”

“Of course I did.” He stroked her head, unerringly finding the spot where her headaches gathered. “Couldn't you tell? I had an orgasm, too.”

If she could have sunk through the house, from their top floor bedroom, through the main floor to the boat house and the ocean, she would have done so. No matter how bluntly Aunt Viola had spoken of intimate matters, Portia had never expected to do so with a man.

She closed her eyes and tried to be brave. Curiosity came to her aid. “But didn't you need to do something, anything to amuse yourself?”

He chuckled deep and soft, like a well-fed cat. His belly was so close to her elbow that she could tell his shaft was relaxed and quiescent between his thighs.

“I enjoyed myself very well, sweet Portia.” He petted the small of her back under the covers.

“How? You never touched yourself,” she blurted and blushed again at probing further into his most intimate needs.

He huffed in surprise and leaned back slightly to look at her face. She managed to meet his gaze, startled to find his gray eyes crystalline now with no veils raised against her probe.

“Why should I? You gave me more than I expected when you fell asleep in my arms. I didn't know you still trusted me after so many years.”

“I didn't plan that,” she protested.

“Exactly; every part of your body was utterly relaxed, which your brain could not have commanded. Thank you.”

She shrugged, wondering a little uneasily why she was so comfortable in his arms now. Could it have been how well he made love to her? Or was that truly making love?

“And when you woke up all amazed at being in bed with a man, I knew you'd never slept the night through with St. Arles.” Gareth's lips curved into a fiercely predatory line.

Portia gaped at him, caught by a barely leashed triumph she'd only glimpsed in the most high stakes power struggles among diplomats. “Is that so important?” she whispered.

“Oh yes, sweetheart. It was far more exciting than a dozen caresses.” His eyelids swept down for an instant, granting him privacy for remembrance.

“But, even so,” she stammered, returning to her original argument, “when I climaxed, you didn't even touch yourself. How could that satisfy you?”

“Well now, honey,” Gareth's gray eyes flashed open to embrace her, “I reckon that every time I hear you take your pleasure, it's something St. Arles never heard. That makes me the winner.”

“You're crazy!” She sat up to stare at him, heedless of her chemise falling off her shoulder.

“Are you telling me that you ever had an orgasm with that man?”

“No,” she admitted warily. Were there any etiquette manuals which addressed discussing first husbands with the second one, especially regarding life's more intimate aspects?

“Then every time I hear you sing in pleasure, I win—and he loses.” Her old playmate grinned at her, full of lazy, confident anticipation. “There's nothing I won't do to make you holler like that again.”

Her jaw dropped. Her breath seemed suspended, together with her thoughts, somewhere she couldn't reach.

“Now relax and come back to bed, honey.” Gareth stroked her wrist and forearm. “We have plenty of time and no need to rush. You must still be exhausted after last night.”

“Exhausted?” Did he refer to the attack at the hotel or—

“Or relaxed, maybe—and sated from this morning?”

“Gareth!”

He swept her arms out from under her and tugged her down on top of him in a wrestler's move. He held her like that, close and warm, and petted her very gently.

Every inch of her met its match in his intimate flesh. Warm skin, smooth curve, crisp hair. She couldn't breathe, couldn't think, could only feel—and know herself utterly content.

“So tell me—why the dickens did you stand up in court and lie about having committed adultery?” His soft drawl made the question all the more lethally placed, like a well thrown knife.

Portia's jaw dropped like the shell cracking around her heart. Nobody, not even Uncle William or Aunt Viola, had ever disbelieved she'd been unfaithful to St. Arles. They'd all tactfully refused to discuss the matter, thus confirming that they thought her guilty or at least wouldn't care if she had cuckolded her obnoxious husband.

Gareth, on the other hand, had just restored her lost honor.

But how could he understand so well what she'd done in public, when they hadn't seen each other in years?

“How do you know I wasn't telling the truth? After all, you're the one who said he was an unsatisfactory lover.”

Gareth harrumphed, as arrogantly sure of himself as any March gale clearing the way for spring.

“Remember who you're talking to, Portia. I'm the fellow who had the gall to take the boss's niece through the dens of iniquity along the Barbary Coast.”

“To see jugglers!” Nothing more scandalous, despite her adolescent hopes. But they'd had a splendid outing anyway, worth every bit of the penalties afterward.

He nodded, his silver eyes linking them in a net of shared memories.

“I can imagine you in a courtroom for murder, but not perjury, Portia. What happened?”

He'd always been able to read her like a marked deck of cards. She could either tell the truth or lie yet again.

“Publicly, the marriage was more or less a success.” Years of public deceit fell away all too easily.

“By those asinine British standards.” She raised an eyebrow at his aggravated tone and he clarified, “I saw photos.”

“Journalists.” She sniffed unhappily and Gareth tucked her comfortingly against his shoulder once again.

“St. Arles was a successful diplomat and I was an acceptable hostess—”

“A damn good one!” Gareth rapped out, as if he'd prefer to plunge the words into the hearts of those who'd denigrated her.

“Too young to claim that title, but thank you. We both enjoyed yachting and…” She paused, trying to think of something else she'd done with St. Arles.

Gareth's silver gaze swept over her like a lantern, illuminating far too much.

“Hmm,” he said, dismissing those bygone facades from both their memories. “What else?”

“No matter what we tried, I remained barren,” she whispered, her face crimson with remembered humiliation. The long nights, the shouting, the pointed fingers from society…

“Son of a bitch!” Rage surged behind his eyes yet no fear leaped through her bones in response. Perhaps it was because his arms offered only protection for her and warmth. Perhaps she was hiding within a dream. Perhaps.

“Did he try to blame that on you, when he'd been married before and that wife had never had a baby?” Gareth asked more quietly but just as angrily.

Portia nodded, stunned he knew about St. Arles's brief first marriage.

“Goddamn bastard should be carved up like the skunk he is,” Gareth muttered. “Doesn't he realize the stallion must flourish before the mare can?”

“Truly?” Portia blinked at him, never having heard that explanation from a man before. The husband had to be fertile, too?

“Of course. What happened then?” he asked brusquely.

“He demanded a divorce so he could marry his mistress. He was certain she could breed”—Portia gulped over the painful word but went on—“because she'd borne so many children to her late husband.”

“And you agreed.” Gareth's tone offered no hints to his thoughts.

“I wanted an end to the marriage.” Lord, how she'd hungered to have it over and done with.

“Why couldn't he plead guilty? He was the adulterous rat dripping evidence through the backstreets.”

“They'd have to admit she was the other party—and she'd never be accepted again in society.”

“Mealy-mouthed bunch of hypocrites, the lot of them.” Gareth crumpled the sheet between his fingers, as if crushing an insect under his boot heel. “Could you have held out a little longer, just to see him squirm?”

She'd wanted to do exactly that.

“I'd been married to St. Arles for five years. I was certain that, sooner or later, he'd find some way to force me into swearing I was the one who'd committed adultery—the only workable grounds for divorce.”

Gareth grumbled something about stupid British laws.

She grabbed his strong wrist.

“If the divorce went through very quickly, I would be free by my twenty-fifth birthday—when I would inherit my mother's trust fund.”

“A fortune?” Gareth's gaze sharpened.

“Five million dollars, all of it from my grandmother.”

“Coming from that side of the family, your father wouldn't think about it. He wouldn't have informed that high-and-mighty Englishman.”

“No.” She released him, hoping, praying he'd understand.

“You turned the knife in St. Arles that day in court.”

“Yes.”
By swearing to my fantasies when everybody thought I meant the greasy swine my husband had brought forward.

“And St. Arles didn't realize it.” Gareth's hand circled her back.

She shrugged, old ice crystals falling away from her bones.

“Very clever of you, my good girl.” He stretched underneath her, as if he offered his own body for her bed. “We should take some rest before we explore the city.”

How deliciously simple he made it sound, as if she was sixteen again.

“You're very unusual, to calmly sleep with a perjurer.” She whispered the words against his heart. She should have known he'd hear.

“Sometimes a person does what he must, honey, even if it's outside the law's limits.”

The bitter knowledge in his voice stopped her throat.

She shuttered her eyes and let the dawn's glow drift around them.