Page 57 of A Deal With a Notorious Devil
“I’m furiouswith you!” she blazed.
“That’s why now.” Probably it was a mistake. There was still a prominent ache in his side, and he really had irritated the devil out of his knee as he had gone systematically about the house in search of her. But it was a mistake worth making. And if she just so happened to plant her bony little knee into his side once more, well, then, he’d just use that to bargain for yet another. “You did agree,” he said, striving for a reasonable tone. “The time and place of my choosing. I’m choosing now. You wouldn’t be trying to renege upon a deal, now, would you?”
“No!” She snarled the word with altogether too many teeth bared in a feral sort of fury that suggested she might be more than a little tempted to bite him.
Ah, well. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. He’d taken quite a few risks in his life which would have been deemed reckless in the extreme by anyone else. It always came down to whether or not the reward was worth the risk, whether one’s intrinsic understanding of a situation could be manipulated to one’s benefit. His was not exhaustive, but he had learned one thing at least: his sweet little ladylike wife could be baited.
That was absolutely worth manipulating. And if he did it correctly, she wouldn’t even realize it until it was too damned late.
“Seems to me you are,” he said, allowing just a shred of mockery to weave through his voice. “I’d not taken you for a coward, but—”
“Oooh!” The sound of raw fury crackled through the air between them, and she turned toward him at last with a forceful little movement, her knee wedging itself against his thigh. Her hands seized the lapels of his coat, wrenching him closer with a violence he could scarcely credit her with. And with the glint of ire igniting within her hazy blue eyes, she jammed her mouth over his.
His puff of laughter was smothered beneath the pressure of her mouth. “Phoebe,” he said, though with his lips crushed against his teeth, it came out more likeFeevee. But she was determined to meet the stipulations to which she had agreed, and ignored him with an iron tenacity seldom seen among her sort.
If he could just—ah. He slipped one arm beneath her pointed elbow, found the small of her back, slid his palm up the rigid line of her spine and plunged his fingers into the curls that dripped down from their pins. The humidity of the orangery had rendered them less stiff, drooping from the perfect tight coils that had been made of them into soft ringlets that slid through his fingers.
He raked his fingers through those ringlets, seized a handful of them, and held—not enough pressure to hurt, but enough to claim a whisper’s worth of distance from the vengeful pressure of her mouth. “Enough, you spiteful little shrew,” he said on a ragged laugh. “And lest you consider it, be warned: Iwillbite back.”
A shiver slipped down her spine at the warning, but perversely her strained muscles softened, the points of her elbows no longer half so tight and guarded. And when he laid his mouth over hers once again, she did not treat it like a battle to be won, striving to gain dominance over him. Instead she parted her lips to admit the thrust of his tongue and listed toward him, surrendering the last of her anger on a sweet sigh.
Probably it wouldn’t last. But at least she would remember this when next he’d given her cause to be furious.
He didn’t have to fight the points of her elbows to get his other arm around her, and if the position itself was awkward, threatening to wrench his back out of alignment, well, then, that was just the price of pleasure, the cost of gaining the luxury of flicking her buttons free of their loops with a deft dexterity that ensured she hadn’t noticed until he’d already slid his hand within the parted fabric.
She gasped into his mouth as he found the place where her short stays ended just beneath the high waist of her gown, where there was only the thin linen of her chemise to protect her skin from his. The misty heat of her flesh seeped through the fine material, scorching his fingers.
Hell. Women wore altogether too many clothes, but he liked the muted whimper she gave as the chemise rasped her sensitive flesh, the way the laces of her stays tangled in the grip of his fingers. He liked the way she tasted like the faint sweetness of sugary tea. He liked the way she strained to get closer, her fingers smoothing the fabric of his lapels from the wrinkles her fists had pressed into them as one hand inched toward his shoulder, and the other—the other slid through the hair at the nape of his neck.
She had learned from him, too. Learned that he liked the scrape of her nails through his hair, and she wielded that knowledge against him with innocent ardor. The sweetly floral scent of roses overwhelmed his senses; a scent he’d only ever found pleasing when paired with the heat of her skin. And now the taste of her tongue. God help him, he doubted he would be able to manage a casual stroll through a garden without raging erection hereafter.
But the damned angle—she made no protest as he lifted her across his lap, only a soft murmur of confusion which quieteditself swiftly as she let him settle her as he wanted, her legs bent beneath her and splayed over his lap, skirt stretched to its widest width and banded across her thighs. He wondered if she had noticed that he’d had to wrench her skirts up past her knees to manage it, and decided she had not. Or if she had, she hadn’t cared.
She had found a place to settle, if not comfortably, then still with ardent enthusiasm, her breasts flattened against his chest and her knees pinching his hips between them. Her bodice was still too tight to peel her out of it without her cooperation, which she wasn’t likely to give—not when she was entertaining herself with tiny nibbles across his lower lip.
He let her do as she pleased, let her have a few precious moments of experimentation as he cupped the nape of her neck in one hand and slid the other beneath her dress to find the silky skin of her thigh.
That shehadnoticed. Her knees nipped about his hips, and she drew a tiny breath of surprise. The ghost of a shudder. A moment of hesitation, indecision, her fingers clenching in his hair as she pulled her mouth away from his.
But the protest he’d expected didn’t come. Instead there was just the press of her cheek against his own, the panting of her breath in his ear as he smoothed his fingers up the damp skin of her thigh. And God, she was so soft, so wet, the petals of her private flesh parting beneath the tender strokes of his fingers.
She had so much passion within her. How had she convinced herself she didn’t have these sorts of desires? They had all come pouring out with only a kiss, and now she rocked instinctively against him, seeking a deeper connection.
It was a damned pity he’d not had the foresight to prepare a condom in advance.
He pressed a kiss against the side of her neck, where that rose scent was strong and sweet, and the mist of sweat salted herskin. “That was…passable,” he said, and stifled a laugh at the way her shoulders went rigid with offense. “But only half of my conditions have been met.”
In the sudden froth of fury that slipped over her, that passion-flush that had gilded her cheeks deepened to scarlet. “You saidnow,” she said in a guttural growl against his ear.
“Mm. You didn’t give me a chance to specify where.” He’d provoked her into an attack, and it had been delightful. But he was not above a little manipulation. Just a tiny nudge to get more than she’d anticipated giving. Not that it would take much. Even in the renewed burst of anger that had claimed her, still she sought the idle strokes of his fingers. Light, stirring—but not quite enough. A baited hook cast into the water to reel in a larger prize.
Her fingernails kneaded his shoulder. “The orangery,” she said, though there was just the tiniest hint of confusion within the husky murmur of her voice. “I assumed—”
“Your mistake,” he said. “I meant here.” A slow, lingering stroke, and for just a moment her eyes went heavy-lidded. Only a moment. And then they flashed wide.
“You’re joking,” she said. Half hopeful, half titillated.
“I am not.” Another stroke coaxed forth a shiver. He could feel those claws even through the thick material of his coat. “You’re going to sit on my face, and I’m going to kiss you right—here.”
