Page 31

W hat had Diana been thinking? She should have let it go.

Clearly, Devons didn’t want to talk about it.

Goodness, what a fool she was. A soft knock startled her from her thoughts.

She looked down. She was dressed in her wrap and nightgown.

Sighing, she walked to the door and cracked it slightly. Her eyes widened. Devons stood there.

“Can you let me in, Diana? Before someone sees me.”

Her eyes narrowed. As if reading her thoughts, Devons added, “Only for a moment, if that is what you want.”

She opened the door and moved to the other side of the room, wrapping her arms around herself. “What do you want?”

“I want to apologize.”

Her chin jutted out. “I don’t need your words or your pity.”

He sighed and took his jacket off.

She tilted her head. “What are you doing?”

“I haven’t been honest with you,” he said, loosening his cravat and tossing it on a dresser.

Diana gulped. “I mean it, Sebastian. I release you from any misguided obligation you have acquired for me during this trip.”

He pulled his shirt free from his pants. “The thing is, I don’t pity you. I’ve spent most of this trip avoiding this pull between us. Frankly, it hasn’t done any good.”

Her stomach dipped. “It hasn’t?”

He sat on her bed. What was he doing? Her heart fluttered.

He started to pull his boots off. “No. From the moment you fell into my garden, I have wanted you. I have tried to deny it to myself and to you. Hell, I even convinced myself, briefly, that I finally reached the tipping point of my life of vice because of the many things I desired to do to you.”

“What type of things?”

He walked to her and grabbed one of her hands, kissing her fingers. “To touch you. To taste you. To be deep inside of you.”

A warm sensation pulsated through her body until it pooled at her most feminine place. “Why have you been trying so hard to deny it?”

His hand clutched one of her hips and he pulled her to him. “Because the need I have to bury myself in you over and over again, terrifies me.”

She didn’t understand what he was saying. She held his face in her hands. “Why?”

“I don’t want a liaison to ruin our relationship. We are neighbors, business partners, and, most important to me, friends. I don’t want anything we do to change that.”

Diana felt the corners of her mouth tug upwards. “Do you have these conversations with all your lovers?”

“No, but I haven’t been this tormented by a woman in a long time.”

Diana’s body hummed, feeling empowered by his honesty. “You have done the same to me.”

He ran his hand slowly up and down her waist and the curve of her hip. “I mean it, Diana. Someday, you will be married to another lord, and I will be back to running the Den. I don’t want to see you at an event with hurt feelings or awkwardness.”

Diana didn’t want to think about marriage or where Sebastian would be. She didn’t. “I vow that no matter what happens on this trip, we will end this adventure as friends. I want you to promise me that while away from London, we will embrace what this is and not focus on London or the future.”

He stroked her cheek. A bit of sadness flickered across his face. She frowned. “Sebastian—”

“I promise,” he interrupted her. Then he reached out and started unbraiding her hair. “I have hungered to see you with all of your hair down since that night in my garden.”

She wanted to ask him what was wrong. He shook her lush curls free. “Damn it, Diana. You are a temptress.”

Desire replaced concern. She ran her fingers down his chest and his stomach. He groaned. “We need to remove these clothes.”

Sebastian untied her robe, and a blush bloomed on her cheeks as she shyly allowed him.

Diana wasn’t a young woman. She’d carried a child.

She imagined all the ladies in Sebastian’s life.

As if reading her mind, he grabbed her chin and planted a kiss on her lips.

“Don’t do that. I need to see you. Seeing you in my wet shirt earlier, as it clung to your curves drove me mad.

Don’t deny me the opportunity to look at you. ”

He pushed the robe from her shoulders and ran kisses along her throat until his lips met hers.

Sebastian teased her mouth open. Diana moaned as he leisurely explored her.

His tongue sparred with hers, promising wicked intentions.

She bent her body into his, feeling as if it wasn’t enough.

In truth, Diana was unsure if it ever would be.

She deepened the kiss. A laugh escaped him at her pushiness.

Taking control, he grabbed her hips and ground Diana against his cock while owning and claiming her mouth with his tongue.

Sebastian released her and she gasped. He stepped back, leaning on the dresser.

He took his shaft out of his pants and stroked himself. “Take your gown off.”

His eyes glowed with desire. Her eyes lingered on his member, and she licked her lips. What was it about Sebastian Devons that made her want to be wicked?

Diana grasped her nightgown and tugged it over her head. His gaze roamed over her body hungrily. “I knew you would be beautiful. How will I get enough of you?”

He finished removing his pants and pulled her to him, rubbing his shaft against her quim. “Can you feel how badly I want you? How hard this cock is for you? It’s always like that.”

The ache within her most feminine place bloomed. “There are so many things I want us to do, but first, I want to bury myself in you. I need to take you, to feel that you are all mine. Do you want that, love?”

She nodded and he walked them backward until the back of her legs contacted the edge of the bed. She fell back, looking up at him. “Open your legs and touch yourself for me, Diana.”

Oh, she was a wanton woman because she didn’t hesitate. Diana spread her legs and touched herself while he stood in front of her wide-legged, stroking himself. “Is this how you play with yourself at night in your cabin when you are imagining me with my face buried between your luscious thighs?”

She nodded. He chuckled darkly. “Having you stare up at me like this is exactly how I imagined you. What do you want from me?”

A blush formed on her cheeks. “You know.”

He pumped his cock. “I’m not sure I do.”

She threw him a frustrated glance and his mouth tilted up in a wicked smirk.

“Sebastian, I want you in me. Please.”

He moved between her trembling legs and grasped her bottom, pulling her closer to the edge of the bed. The tip of his large cock touched her core, and she whimpered.

“I’m not going to go slow. I need your quim now.”

She nodded, unable to speak. He was torturing her. And then she went breathless as he slammed into her. He groaned. “I have dreamed of us together, and it still couldn’t prepare me for this ecstasy. Nor how perfect your body fits with mine.”

He wasn’t lying. The same emotions filled Diana. The feelings both exhilarated her and sent a wave of alarm through her body. She didn’t want to think about what it meant. Diana wanted to be lost in the moment, the beautiful breathtaking experience.

He pulled her legs up around his waist and entered her over and over again.

With each entry, her whimpers grew louder and more demanding, as did his.

The ache that had been a slow bloom in her core now pounded towards release, demanding what it wanted.

She followed Sebastian’s angry pace, feeding off of it.

Until she let out a strangled moan as her body exploded. Waves of pleasure ebbed through her.

Sebastian grabbed the back of her head, kissing her deeply.

His own strokes became frantic as she ran her fingers up and down his back.

Racing to his release, he plunged into her with one more long earth-shattering stroke before pulling out and spending.

He fell back next to her with a guttural moan.

Her body still pulsated from her release. They both lay their breathing heavily. “Damn woman. You may destroy me by the end of this trip.”

She laughed shyly at him. He stood and grabbed a cloth, cleaning her, then himself.

The gesture was intimate. For a mad moment, Diana felt as if she was looking at who Sebastian would be as a husband.

She inwardly winced. They’d promised each other they wouldn’t fixate on the future beyond their trip.

He pulled her up and slid the bedding down. “Come.”

She smiled, feeling somewhat bashful again. “What are we doing?”

“Resting and then we are going to do that again.”

Diana laughed and moved beneath the covers with him. “Do you always spend the night when you do something like this?”

He wrapped his arm around her, pulling Diana closer to him. She thought he wouldn’t respond but Sebastian said, “I find myself doing all types of things with you that I never do with others. Swimming in coves, flamenco dancing, listening to counts drone on and on about their traditions.”

She burst out laughing. He leaned down to kiss her back and froze. Then he pulled the covers down. Diana remembered her scars and turned so her back pressed against the bedding. She looked in his eyes and gone was the laughter, replaced by fury.

“Who did that to you?”

Diana didn’t want to ruin the moment. “Sebastian, please forget about it.”

“Who?”

She sighed. “It’s from my mother. When I was a young girl, she liked to punish me and Clara with the rod.”

Shock flickered across his face. “Those are not small scars, Diana.”

“I know. I should have prepared you, so it wasn’t so surprising, but I was caught up in the moment.”

He stroked her cheek. “You’re beautiful. I don’t care about them but my heart aches at what you endured. I know you are considering helping your mother return to England, but you should leave her in Tuscany. It is too forgiving of you.”

Her brows shot up. “How did you know that?”

He sighed. “Your brother-in-law came to visit me before we left.”

Diana threw a hand over her eyes, horrified Sam did that. “Did he ask you to look out for me?”