Dark Symphony Page 0,60

dark.

Antonietta felt the music rising in her, the relentless, merciless emotions, a volcano erupting endlessly. She was driven to play, unable to stop. And then she felt the weight of his hands on her shoulders. The warmth of his breath on the nape of her neck. The touch of his lips in her hair. Her fingers stilled on the piano keys. There was abrupt silence after the intensity and power of the music. The palazzo hushed instantly, an eerie shock after the hours of passionate sound.

Antonietta sat on the gleaming piano bench without moving, without daring to believe he was there with her, that he had come to her after all the long hours of stark fear and grief. Her heart seemed to cease beating in her chest, her world narrowed to his hands. The heat of his skin. The warmth of his breath. The beating of his heart. Her heart stuttered, found the rhythm of his. Beat in perfect synchronization. She whirled around, her arms going around his neck, her cry muffled by his mouth melding with hers.

Byron tasted her tears, tasted love and acceptance. His lips traveled over her face, her eyes, memorized her high cheekbones, the small dimple, returned to capture her mouth. There was heat and fire and need. The earth shifted out from under them. Her hands tugged at his shirt, desperate to inspect his body, to see with her fingertips. It was almost more than she could bear to wait. She nearly ripped the material covering his skin even as she kissed him back, ravaging his mouth, telling him without words what she needed.

Byron shrugged his shoulders, and the shirt fell away, exposing his chest to Antonietta's inspection. She couldn't stop kissing him. Over and over, frantic, long, drugging kisses. Her fingertips inspected every inch of his chest, every defined muscle, his rib cage, his narrow waist. She found the scar, still raw but nearly healed, and she gasped with alarm into the heat of his mouth.

He nearly killed you. I thought you were dead.

She couldn't speak aloud, her mouth traveled over his jaw, down his throat to his chest.

I told you I would live. I am sorry you were so frightened.

He closed his eyes, threw his head back, his fists bunching in her hair as she tugged at his pants, desperate to take them off of him.

I need to touch you, every inch of you, and know you're alive and here with me. I never want to feel like that again!

Her tongue tasted him. Textures and feel and taste were all important to her and in the aroused state she was in, a mixture of sexual hunger and intense emotion, Antonietta wanted to touch and explore and savor him.

Your shoulder?

His hands left her hair to push her robe from her arms. It floated to the floor, a soft pile of lace. The spaghetti straps of her gown were minute, yet he pushed them off her arms as well so that the gown slithered to the floor.

Antonietta barely noticed, as she dragged his clothes from his body. She rubbed her face over his chest, his abdomen. He tore the tie from her long hair so that it spilled, unbound, around them, silky and teasing his flesh.

"Antonietta." He whispered her name in a husky blend of hunger and need as his own inspection began. The wound on her shoulder was nearly healed, although she was bruised, but the bullet had been spent from tearing through his body. It had lodged in the hollow of her shoulder, a shallow penetration, and Byron had removed it when he attempted to heal her. There was little damage to the muscle, but he leaned down to lap at the bruise.

It's nothing. Nothing at all. I have no idea how you managed to get around me in the narrow confines of the passageway, but you saved my life.

She was moving her hands with loving patience over the ridges of his hips, his buttocks, moving them around to the hard column of his thighs.

"You are distracting me." He barely managed to get the words out. It was too late anyway. Her hands cradled the thick length of him, her fingertips memorizing the feel and shape of his heavy erection with maddening slowness. Flames danced over him. Her fingers were strong and sure, not tentative in the least. She knew exactly what she wanted, and she did it, tracing every inch of him, her fingertips dancing and playing with the same expertise