Dark Symphony Page 0,48

of hunger and passion and light. Where her music came from. Her deepest joys and sorrows and erotic dreams. Her every want. She couldn't help wanting to be closer, wanting to feel the incredible heat of his skin. She slipped her hands beneath his shirt to feel his defined muscles. She ached with wanting him, her body already turning liquid and needy.

"Byron," she whispered his name, the voice of a siren. An invitation to paradise.

His teeth nipped her full lower lip. "Do you want me to make love to you, Antonietta? That would be so simple for you. No attachment. No love between us to get in the way." His hand shaped her breast, his thumb leasing her nipple into a hard peak. He bent his head to the temptation right through the thin fabric of her blouse. Her breasts were luxuriously soft and full. She had a woman's curving body and was generously endowed. His mouth closed over the soft, luscious mound, hot and moist and suckling strongly so that Antonietta arched back and caught his hair in her hands to drag him closer to her.

Her knees went weak, and she cried out, afraid she would have an orgasm right there, just from his mouth on her breast. His tongue licked along the valley between her breasts up toward her throat. "Is this what you want? Just a physical relationship?" He lifted his head, and she felt his eyes burning like lasers. "This is good enough for you?"

Antonietta's fingers bunched in his hair, nearly desperate to pull him back to her. There was no reason to feel guilty, but she did. "It has always been good enough in the past," she said defiantly, and then was instantly ashamed that he had managed to rattle her when it was none of his business what she did or even what she preferred.

Byron straightened slowly, his hands slowly releasing her. His body withdrew from hers, leaving her feeling cold and alone and bereft. "It is not good enough for me."

Antonietta pushed an unsteady hand through her hair deliberately stepping into the passageway to give herself space.

"You can't possibly want a long-term, permanent relationship with me. You don't even know me."

"That is not precisely true, Antonietta. There is very little about you I do not know. I took the time, sitting quietly in your home, listening to you. Hearing the music you play, watching you with your family. I know you far better than you think. You have not taken the time to get to know me. You thought you could have me for a lover, and your perfect world would remain intact. You wouldn't have to do anything different at all, but in truth, there is always change and consequences."

She didn't like seeing herself through his eyes. He made her feel shallow and self-centered. "There is nothing wrong with a woman being practical, Byron. Men take lovers and walk away all the time. They've been doing it for centuries. I'm practical, not unemotional. I have a family depending on me, I have a full-time career. Can't you see that I'm making sense? You're not in love with me." She dared him to lie to her and say he was.

He paced away from her, returned to stand over her. She felt his shadow even in the darkened passageway. Felt his presence, not the man she was so comfortable with, not the man she had come to think of as sweet and courtly, but a dangerous predator stalking her in the narrow confines of the Scarlett! passageway. She had the impression of lips drawn back in a silent snarl and fangs exposed. "How would you know what I feel or do not feel?" His voice was so low it could barely be heard, yet there was a note in it that increased her fear even more.

Antonietta put out her hand. A test. Byron instantly caught her hand, drew her palm to the warmth of his chest. She could feel his heart beating. Steady. Strong. A perfect rhythm, and her own heart seemed to want to follow. "I didn't mean to hurt you." She stepped closer to him. "I did, didn't I? I hurt you by saying I didn't want a permanent relationship with you. I didn't mean it the way it came out." Why had she been so afraid? How could she ever think that Byron, with his impeccable manners, would be anything but generous and courteous? She was becoming fanciful after her misadventure