and fall of her breath.
“Bold as well as beautiful,” he said to her, though she was still just a little too far away to hear him. She turned and gestured for the gondolier.
He saw his men clustering behind him. He saw Federico approach.
And turning, he came down towards her in a rush, stepping heavily and awkwardly into the boat as it rocked under him and all but pitched him down after her into the closed felze.
As he slid back on the seat, he felt the taffeta of her dress against him.
The boat moved. The stench of the canal filled his nostrils. And she rose up before him, breathing under that magnificent drapery.
For a moment all he could do was catch his breath.
His heart hammered, and the sweat broke out over him, the price of his rushing. But he had her, though he could barely see her in the light of the parted curtains.
“I want to see it,” he whispered, fighting an ugly pain in his chest. “I want to see it…”
“You want to see what?” she whispered, her voice husky and low and absolutely without fear. And Venetian, yes, Venetian, how he had hoped for that!
He laughed to himself.
“This!” He turned on her, snatching up the veil. “Your face!”
And he fell forward on her, his open mouth covering her mouth, and forcing her back against the cushions so that her body stiffened and her hands went up to hold him off.
“What did you think?” He righted himself, licking his lips and looking directly into her black eyes that were no more than a gleam in the shadows. “That you could play games with me?”
She had an expression of the most peculiar astonishment. Nothing of coquettish outrage, nor feigned awe. She was merely looking at him, as if she were dimly fascinated by him, studying him, as one might study something inanimate, and she was as perfectly beautiful in this shadowy place as any creature he had ever seen.
Impossible beauty. He looked for the limit of it, the inevitable disappointment, the inevitable flaws. But she was so lovely to him, at least for this instant, that it seemed he had known this beauty always, in some private compartment of his soul where he had whispered lustily and gracelessly to the god of love, “Give me this, and exactly this, and this, and exactly this.” And here it was, with nothing in this face alien to him. Her eyes, so black, and those lashes curling upward, and the flesh so tight over the cheekbones, and that long, luscious and exquisite mouth.
He touched her skin, ah! He drew his fingers back and then he touched her black eyebrows, and those bones, and that mouth.
“Cold, aren’t you?” He breathed the words. “Now I want you to really kiss me!” It was spoken like a groan coming out of him, and taking her face in both hands he forced her back and took it from her, sucking her mouth hard and then letting it go, and sucking at it again.
It seemed she hesitated. It seemed for one second she was frozen, and then with a deliberation that amazed him, she gave of herself, her lips softening and her body softening, and he felt the first stirring, through all his drunkenness, between the legs.
He laughed.
He sank back on the cushion. The light flashed colorless and dull in the gap between the curtains, and her face seemed almost too white to be human. But she was human, all right, that he could taste.
“Your price, Signora.” He turned to her, drawing so close to her that her white powdered hair tickled his face. When she looked down he felt her eyelashes against him. “What is it, and what do you want?”
“What do you want?” came that deep, husky voice. It hit a pitch that made a little spasm in his throat.
“You know what I mean, darling….” he purred. How much for the pleasure of ripping off your clothes. “Such beauty requires its tribute,” he said, brushing her cheeks with his lips.
But she raised her hand. “You waste what you might savor,” she answered. “And for you, there is no price.”
* * *
They were in a room.
They had come up long stairs, up and up, damp stairs, he did not like it, such a neglected place. There were rats everywhere, he could hear them, but she had fed him those succulent kisses, and that skin, that skin, was enough to kill for.
And now they were in a room.
She had