hallucinating, but there he was as lovely as the dawn. “Amazing.”

He shrugged. “The instrument is only fair, for you I would do better.”

I rose to my feet, shaking. Surprisingly, I was able to place one foot in front of the other and cross the room to the piano. If I couldn’t hold the music, I could hold the musician. Despite the ethereal appearance, he was flesh and blood. I laid my hand on his arm. It was warm. I leaned my head against his and reached out to his face. His eyes closed as I caressed his eyelids and cheekbones, tracing the graceful line of his nose and lips down his throat, drinking him through my fingers.

“You’re beautiful, Kurt,” I whispered, like a prayer.

“So they tell me,” he muttered.

My lips touched the artery on his throat, pulsing warm against my mouth as the engine of his heart pumped the blood through his body. His breath came harder as my mouth explored.

He stopped playing. “You want this?”

“I’ve wanted you from the first night I saw you.”

He took my face in his hands. “I’m not like Ethan, or the others. I swear. I’ll never hurt you, Mia.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

Our mouths found each other, long, deep, his slight frame blending perfectly into mine. Ethan once accused me of falling for a memory of my first love, and yes he did feel like the boy I loved as a girl. I slipped off his shirt and caressed him, sweet, smooth and slender, skin creamy rose petals touched with pink.”

Joe coughed, uncomfortably. “Mia. I really don’t need to hear this.”

“Jesus, what a prude. I will tell you this, I’ve been with hundreds of men and he’s by far the best lover. It was amazing to be made love to by someone who also depended on this skill for his survival. For once I wasn’t taken. I was gifted.

Afterward, he fell into a peaceful slumber, bittersweet smile on his lips. I just sat there looking at him for hours, Psyche gazing on her Eros. I’d never seen anything so lovely.

Notes on the piano, not in rhythm, no particular order. My eyes opened on Kurt, shirt thrown over his arm as if had been in the act of dressing, but had been distracted by the piano, idly tapping at the keys, slender muscles fluttering under smooth skin, eyes darting over the keys, lush lower lip bitten in concentration. Oh my.

I sat up, the sheet falling in loose folds around my body. “Hello.”

“Hello,” he answered, not looking up as his fingers picked out an unfamiliar bit of music.

“What’s that?”

“My own composition.”

“Beautiful.”

He scowled. “If I ever finish… ”

“Brovik’s made an accountant of a great artist.”

Kurt smiled slightly. “I’m much more than that. I thought perhaps I should go back to my hotel and not inconvenience you?”

“You kidding? I want you to inconvenience me, again and again. Do you have to go back soon?”

He fixed on that distant point where all the marble hardness of his features melted away, until he was vulnerable as the boy I once knew. He found the notes he was looking for and began to play softly as he spoke, “Brovik called before you woke. I told him I’ve— uh— found you. I’m free to stay awhile.”

“How long?”

He looked up, smiling impishly. “How does eternity sound?”

I was sucked too dry by Ethan to offer him much. It was too easy for him to fall victim and I drain him of all I lacked. “Kurt, I don’t like men very much.”

Amusement played over his face. “This is a warning?”

“You know what I am.”

He shrugged. “I’m not as callow as I look.”

“But your body is forever eighteen years old, and feels all the immediacy of that age.”

He looked up from the keys with an ironic little gleam. “Well— lucky you.”

“Lucky me.”

One moment he was all he looked, a lovely, charming boy, the next something else entirely, wise, knowing and deep, an ancient elf of the forest whose solemn eyes concealed a wellspring of passion and oceans of rage, that escaped in tantalizing drops when he played or made love. Yet, I couldn’t taste all he contained, because he was Brovik’s slave and I was forbidden to trespass there. I had to be content with his body, but believe me Joe, it was a great consolation prize.

I held out my hand. “Come back to bed.”

He lay down on his back. I raised myself over him, tracing the tattoo on his forearm with my fingertip. “The