Teresa intends to devote her life to the church, immaculate and untouched. Into her quiet life comes a beautiful devil sent to test her purity and her determination. She is silent prayers at midnight; he is the flash of gold in a gambler’s palm. She has known nothing but service and self-sacrifice. He has known nothing but centuries of carnal sin.

Neither know anything about love.

If she denies him, she condemns him to eternity in hell. If she yields, she forfeits her soul. Who will emerge victorious? To find out, join Dev and Teresa for Seven Days of temptation.

Teresa slept the day away.

When she stirred she felt a warm body beside her, but it didn’t rattle her anymore. She might even miss it. Shadows bathed the plain walls, telling her it was nearly dark again. As she raised her head, she saw Dev propped up on an elbow, gazing down.

“You don’t sleep?”

A smile tugged at the corners of his beautiful mouth. “No rest for the wicked.”

Despite herself she laughed softly. “Everything all right?”

“Your Mother Superior peeked in a short while ago and saw you praying like a good girl. Who knows what she would’ve thought to find you still asleep at this hour? Perhaps that you were out carousing all right.”

“Shocking, isn’t it?”

Her gaze ran over the planes of his face, lean cheekbones curving to a sharp jaw. His brows slashed in fierce gold lines over wide set eyes. In profile his nose jutted like a blade, a little stronger than his chin, which held the most interesting dimple. Not a full cleft, just a tiny divot. A woman wanted to rest her thumbs there while her fingers framed his face for a kiss.

“Let me get you something to eat. No apples, right?”

Teresa wasn’t using to anyone waiting on her. She’d been looking after herself since she was thirteen, more or less. She hesitated, and then her stomach growled.

“You can get me an apple.” Her eyes said she accepted the symbolism and the risk. “Cheese too if you don’t mind, maybe some bread.”

He sketched a bow as he headed for the kitchen. “I’m here to serve.”

No, you’re here to steal my soul. But her heart might be in greater danger.

After finishing the meal, she rubbed her fingers across her lap. “I need a shower.”

“There are limits to what I can do,” he said. “I can’t make a steamy bathroom look empty, but we could travel. Get a room somewhere, a posh place, and you could take a long bath.”

That sounded heavenly. “Where would you like to go?”

“I’d love to fly all night with you, but that wouldn’t get you into a warm tub. Vancouver is closest.”

While she considered, she fretted her lower lip with her teeth, and as she glanced up, she saw Dev fix on that small motion. “Does it bother you?”

“What?”

“Being close to me and not…” How she hoped he wouldn’t make her spell it out.

“Oh.” He thought about it, and his voice dropped, deepened. “Not in the way you mean, but I am hungry, Teresa.”

“Then I’d better get moving. Don’t want to anger a hungry dragon.”

“Before we go, can I ask a boon?”

“You can ask,” she said. “But I don’t promise to acquiesce.”

“May I unbind your hair? I want to brush it for you.”

She remembered him asking that on the first day and gave the answer before she thought better of it. “Yes. I need to wash it anyway.”

Dev knelt behind her on the bed, working gently at the plaits. Nobody had touched her hair since her mother died, but she would not think of that, no more than she’d permitted him to mention it yesterday. Without asking he found the plain wood brush in the top drawer of her bedside table. The long strokes sent shivers through her, and she sat quiet, eyes half-closed. Despite her best intentions a soft sound escaped her as he ran the brush beneath, skimming the nape of her neck.

He smoothed his palms down the wavy length once he finished. “You have the look of a Medici princess. Long face, hooded eyes and such glorious hair…”

Teresa started to argue and then she realized he might well have met one to validate the comparison. She contented herself with a simple, “Thank you.”

“You don’t look like Teresa this way.” Leaning in, he tilted her face into the waning light. “Tess.” From his lips it sounded like an endearment and fell as a kiss.

She regarded him gravely. “Not of the d’Urbervilles, I hope.”

“I’m sorry?”

Dragons–demons?–aren’t big readers. Noted. She didn’t know how she saw him anymore. Things had become tangled in her head, but she’d seen true evil, and she didn’t receive that feeling from him, though that instinct ran counter to every religious teaching. Then again, she didn’t agree with everything written in His name. If it came from a human hand, it could be wrong.

“Nothing.” Teresa shook her head, acutely conscious of his fingers on her face.

“You don’t belong here. Don’t you want to know what it’s like to have a man come home to you as the brightest part of his day and put his face in your hair? Whisper your name?”

She withdrew, determined she would give him no more ammunition. “Let’s go.”