The Devil She Knows - By Diane Whiteside Page 0,82
to his root.
Portia moaned, rocking herself voluptuously against and upon him.
Pleasure wailed through him, too great and too familiar to be snatched immediately. He began to move again, driving both of them toward a barely glimpsed destination.
And oh, how she encouraged him, with voice and hands and body. Stroking him, gripping him, singing to him of her lust and love.
Until the passionate drumbeat roared hot and heavy through his cock, fueled by the scent of musk and barely restrained by the slick grip of her fiery hot sheath.
“Gareth!” Portia cried out and tumbled into passion’s whirlwind, climaxing with a rapturous energy that gave as much as it demanded.
He shouted and followed her, shooting jet after jet inside her. Ecstasy tunneled through him and rocketed out, rattling every bone and remaking every muscle in a coruscant torrent, like the inside of a waterfall. Rainbows pummeled his eyes until they rolled back inside his head.
He cuddled her afterward, linked by sweat, the raspy sobs of their recovering breaths, and the last sticky remains of their lust.
God help him, he was horrified he’d remembered to use a condom. But wanting to make her pregnant would prove he was in love.
He didn’t, quite, hurl the damn thing through a window into the Bosporus.
Chapter Thirty-four
“I will accompany you to exchange the trunks,” Portia stated again, far more forcibly.
“No.” Gareth dusted a nonexistent speck of dust off his bowler hat. Fiddling with his clothing was far better than considering his wife or looking too deeply into his heart.
“St. Arles will never send his trolls out if he doesn’t see me.” She was dressed like a female admiral in a closely fitted blue dress. She sounded like one, too.
“We need to buy time, Portia, so your friends can escape.”
Her sigh shivered his heart. “The last cable from my solicitor said he had some ideas.”
“Many of your friends still remain at St. Arles’ houses, despite how he’s firing others. They’re afraid of the unknown,” he added more gently.
She leaned her forehead against his shoulder and he hugged her consolingly. This early in the morning, no gardener should disturb them in a corner of Kerem Ali Pasha’s gardens.
“I wish…” Her voice trailed off, like how the sun was rapidly burning off the fog.
“Hmm?” he prompted, savoring her delicate scent and warmth pressed close to his heart.
“I wish Uncle William was here. Of course, you’re grand”—her enormous blue eyes beamed up at him—“but it would be comforting to know my uncle could back you up.”
“I understand, honey—and I feel the same.” Gareth plopped his hat on her head. “But we’ll manage.”
“Wretch!” She batted at the brim, forcing the oversized hat backward. “You just want to blind me so you can sneak off.”
“Would I do that?” Gareth drawled, pretending to be offended.
“Yes,” she snapped, backed by the certainty which came from years of acquaintanceship, and triumphantly slung the offending headgear onto his scalp.
Ahoogaa! boomed a horn in complete agreement.
They both turned toward the Bosporus to listen.
“That’s not one of the ferries, is it?” Portia asked.
“No, and it’s not a local freighter either.” He’d spent too many years around their ilk not to have learned their favorite cries. “Or a local navy ship.”
Oars dipped and splashed rhythmically into the water, like the accompaniment for an unknown song. Very well-trained crew, too.
Gareth grabbed Portia’s hand and headed at a dead run for the landing.
Sunshine painted the little dock until it appeared as vibrantly alive as the flowers behind it or the mansion rising solidly, if vividly pink, next to it. The sky was bright blue and even Constantinople’s ancient stones were a golden cascade beyond the Bosporus’s rippling waters.
A very long, sleek, black boat lay at anchor off the yali. A single golden stripe ran down her side and the Stars and Stripes waved gently above her, near a golden pennant.
Portia whooped and hugged Gareth.
Servants clustered at the garden gate and even the womenfolk watched from the windows.
A rowboat, white as the gulls circling overhead, nudged against the quay. The uniformed crew rested on their oars at a single command, every one of them careful not to cast a single glance at the veiled women observing their every move.
Who the hell had disciplined them that well? More importantly, who the devil had taught them such good manners?
A tall, well-built man in naval uniform leaped deftly out of the rowboat and onto the dock, showing the cat quickness which only long years around the water confers upon land mammals. Another man followed, similarly outfitted