Free The Devil You Know by Victoria Vane

find-
    51
    The Devil You Know
    ing what she expected. “Is there a problem, my lord? I’ve never
    known your cock to require any encouragement.”
    “Perhaps it’s become bored with the menu?”
    “Bored!” She threw her powdered head back with a derisive
    laugh. “You lying whoreson! I’m the best you’ve ever had! You
    just don’t want to make an honest woman of me.”
    “All too true, my sweet. Did it never occur to you that it was
    precisely your unavailability that made up the greater part of your
    charm?”
    Her face contorted with rage, she drew back to strike him,
    but he caught her by both wrists. “Tsk, tsk, Caro. I think not!” He
    flipped her onto her back, caging her with his body.
    “I thought we would be good together, but I see now I’d only
    demean myself if attached to you.”
    He smirked. “But why would you even consider settling for a
    mere viscount after having a ducal coronet? As I recall, you once
    thought it a very poor bargain.”
    “Is that what this is truly about?” Her breathing was ragged,
    her gaze venomous. “Just some petty revenge because I once jilted
    you? How pathetic.”
    He thought she would make the effort now to push him off
    her, but she undulated beneath him instead, wrapping her legs
    around his waist, pressing her hot core against him. He found
    himself hardening against his will.
    “Part of you still wants me,” she said with smug satisfaction.
    “You can’t deny it now. ” No, he couldn’t; but then again, his cock
    always had defiantly refused to be ruled by his brain. “Very well,
    Caroline, I won’t deny it.” He gave her a fulsome smile as he thrust
    into her. “So let us just consider this our farewell fuck.”
    Diana left DeVere’s
    ***
    chambers in a peculiar daze comprised
    of equal parts anger, confusion, and lust. She had never been so
    affected by a man. All he had to do was look at her to set her skin
    tingling and pulse racing. It had taken little more than a touch
    and a suggestive word from him for her emptiness to expand and
    a powerful yearning to take hold of her body. When his lips had
    seared her skin, she had almost melted away—certainly her fine
    upstanding resolution had.
    52
    Victoria Vane
    Outwardly, she had reacted with the proper amount of righ-
    teous indignation, storming away as any virtuous woman would,
    yet now she wondered how virtuous she really was. The meaning
    of his parting comment was clear, and Diana wondered if a small
    part of her shared his disappointment.
    Deny it as she tried, she actually envied the freedom of those
    like the duchess and DeVere, people who broke convention and
    flouted society to take what they wanted and do as they pleased.
    She knew that many unhappy wives hired strapping, young foot-
    men to satisfy their unfulfilled needs, but she told herself she
    wasn’t such a woman. If she was, wouldn’t she have taken a lov-
    er long ago? But then again, she’d never experienced the acute
    physical awareness, the profound magnetic pull that she felt with
    DeVere. God knows what might have happened had the duchess
    not interrupted them.
    Still, as much as Diana was drawn to him, she hated her vul-
    nerability. He was unquestionably an expert in the arts of seduc-
    tion. Even his best friend had warned her about him, but she had
    believed herself impervious to his mesmerizing charm. She now
    laughed at her own folly. The Viscount DeVere was a dangerous
    man indeed.
    With these thoughts pillaging her peace, Diana knocked on
    Annalee’s door.
    “Come in,” was the faint reply. Diana entered the apartments
    decorated in soothing shades of oyster and dusty rose damask to
    find Annalee had been dozing with a book in her lap. She gave
    Diana a tired smile. “Have you seen DeVere?”
    “Yes,” Diana said. “I have just come from speaking with him.”
    “And?” Annalee studied her intently.
    “Let us say Edward’s warning did not go astray.”
    Annalee’s eyes widened. “Did he importune