[Barbara Samuel] Night of Fire(Book4You) (14 page)

In the evenings, they ate the dishes he'd ordered his cook to prepare: delicately flavored local specialties, drawn from the sea, and rich wines, and sinful sweets. Afterward they sat close together on the terrace, admiring the sound of cicadas and the scents of the olive trees breathing from their leaves. Hands entwined, they laughed and kissed and shared bits and pieces of their lives. Basilio told her about his student days, and a teacher who had been a particular encouragement. Cassandra told stories about her siblings—Adriana, the wild one, and Ophelia, the beauty, and Cleo, about whose fate they all worried, and Phoebe, who was simple and plain and kind. She also spoke of her brothers, one fair, one dark, and their unusual adventures in the new world. It was plain she was very fond of them all.

He ached, every minute of every hour, to make love to her. Each day, he allowed only an hour or maybe a little more, of the kissing she so loved. He showed her new places on her body where a man's hand could give pleasure—the soles of her feet, the palms of her hands, the inner crook of a wrist. Slowly, he uncovered her knees and kissed the small crook below, leaving her writhing. And that time, he let his fingers stray up the insides of her thighs, stopping short of the place she wanted him.

In return, she grew bolder, less skittish. One morning, she shocked him with a quick glimpse of unrestrained breasts when she came down for breakfast, leaning over with apparent guileless-ness to admire a flower. When she looked up with laughter in her eyes and danced away, he knew she was nearly ready for him, but he waited just a little longer.

When his senses, his hungers, began to overwhelm him, he always laughed a little, pulled away, breathed deeply. Every night, he went to sleep with a thick weight in his groin. Sometimes he relieved the pressure himself; sometimes his dreams did the work for him—but it allowed him great patience.

And it would be worth the wait.

Cassandra was utterly, totally besotted. She had lost reason days ago, lost it in the drunken pleasure of kissing him for such long interludes, lost it in the explosion of her physical self—a part of her that had been starved and malnourished for years, so that now it was ravenous, insatiable.

One evening he slid a note beneath her door, asking her to meet him in his chambers for dinner, and she rushed through her preparations, arriving giddy and out of breath, The room was filled with flowers: vase after vase of them, roses and ferns and violets and everything imaginable, their perfume enriching the air, their colors adding a heady sensuality. He'd cleared his books away and had a table brought in for dinner.

"Hello," he said, gesturing her inside and seating her at the table. "Eat heartily," he said with a wicked lift of his brow.

Cassandra laughed. She ducked her head a little, then smiled. "Would you take off your shirt, sir?"

"Now, so soon?"

She met his eyes. "Now."

Basilio took a breath and reached for the hem of his shirt. "It would be my pleasure." He pulled up the hem but his hair tangled in a tie and caught, so it was stuck half on and half off until she reached out to help him, laughing. Ruefully, he smiled. "I am not usually so graceless."

She stood close, shaking her head. "Not graceless." She reached out with one hand to touch him, cupping her hand around the curve of his shoulder. "Pure beauty. I have never seen so beautiful a man as you."

He stood still as she lifted the other hand and spread her palms open on him, looking at him as she touched his chest. The dark triangle of hair, his nipples, his arms. Even so simple a thing aroused him, and he hoped that would not alarm her. He couldn't bear to close his eyes, to think of something else, because the wonder in her eyes was a deep pleasure, as if she were discovering a man's form for the first time. "Your skin is very soft," she said, looking up at him. "I like the way it feels."

"I like the way it feels when you touch it."

"So I see," she said with a flash of dry humor. "May I touch you there, too?"

He grinned. "Please, my lady, touch everything. Anything. This humble form belongs to you to do with as you wish."

Her hands ran down his belly, and then lower, tentatively. He sighed softly, and she looked up in alarm.

"Is this difficult for you?"

"No."

She smiled. "Yes, it is." But she did not remove her hand, and her eyes flew down to see what she curved her palm around. "Only flesh," she said.

He nodded.

She let him go and turned around. "Please unfasten my laces, Basilio. I should like to remove my dress."

It startled him that his fingers were so clumsy, that he had so much difficulty with a task he had performed many times. He at last managed it, then unlaced the corset underneath. She wore a long, thin chemise beneath it all, and he saw her skin through it when she let the dress fall away into a heap on the floor, and the corset along with it. She stepped out of the pile and kicked it to one side, and stood there with her hair piled high, the airy chemise cloaking her, yet not.

"Now, your hair," he said, his voice rough.

She raised her arms, and he watched her breasts, loose and heavy beneath the gauzy covering, lift, too.

Then her hair tumbled down, falling over her arms and shoulders and breasts.

He leaned close, keeping his body apart, and put his mouth on her nipple, sucking through the cloth very lightly. Then he raised his head. "Do you like that?"

"Yes," she said emphatically, and he bent again. Her hands fell in his hair, moving restlessly as he took the crest into his mouth and rubbed his tongue over it. The action made him dizzy, and he suckled close in deep pleasure, putting one hand on her belly to brace himself. She made a low sound of pleasure and he moved to the other breast, feeling his sex pulse in rhythm. Her hands moved to his back, stroking in a rhythm he was sure she did not recognize.

It was instinct again that made him straighten, take a breath, and look into her face. Sensation made her eyes limpid, and her mouth was parted the slightest bit, but he did not kiss her. Taking her hand, he drew her to the table. "Some wine now, I think," he said, and poured it.

"But—"

He grinned wickedly. "What?"

She looked at him, and then at herself in the gauzy covering. "Weren't we in the middle of something?"

He pressed the glass into her hand. "We still are." He drank some wine and leaned in to kiss her with that taste on his tongue, then pulled back and laughed at the astonishment on her face.

"But I liked what we were doing."

"I saw that you did." He drank a little more, plucked an olive, and chewed the fruit away from the pit. He was extraordinarily aware of his body, perhaps because of her gaze touching him everywhere. He felt the brush of his hair along his shoulders, the clasp of his boots on his feet, the air on his chest and belly, the earnest and eager thrust of his sex. He gave her a marzipan strawberry. "You will like this, too."

"Not as much."

He laughed. "Such a rebellious student."

"What are you teaching me?"

"Anticipation." He found another olive that pleased him, put it between his lips, and sucked on it.

"Sensuality is everywhere, not only in sex."

She licked her bottom lip, and he had the sudden sense that it was deliberate, that gesture— and it had the effect she wished. He found his own tongue moving in his mouth, wanting to rub against hers. Her nostrils flared, in amusement and arousal.

"What is it you think when you stare at my tongue that way?" she asked.

He put his glass down, and took hers. "I'll show you." He took her hand and led her to the bed. He sat there and pulled her into his lap, her legs straddling his waist, her sex pressed close to his. He waited a moment. "Is this all right?"

Her hands were on his shoulders and he felt their faint tremble, but she wiggled a little closer. He grinned.

"Yes," she said. "I like it."

"Excellent." He brushed his mouth over hers, asking invitation, which she gave, and he parried, drew out her tongue, then brushed it with his own. He groaned softly when she followed his lead, then parried on her own, sliding her tongue along his lips, into his mouth, drawing him back into hers. For a long time it was enough, the dance of their kiss, and he felt the press of her sex into him, hotter and hotter, and even a little restless movement that took him too close to completion.

Gently, he lifted her from his lap, unable to form explanations as he pushed her backward into the pile of pillows, bending over her breasts to taste them as he untied the chemise drawstring. He tugged the fabric from her, never ceasing his ministrations until the cloth touched his mouth, and he lifted his head only long enough to uncover her before his mouth claimed the hot, pointed flesh again.

She moaned, and he raised his head. "Oh, please, Basilio," she whispered. "I do like that, very much.

Don't stop."

"There is more, my sweet." He went back to it, and at the same time, slid the chemise upward as well as down, so it bunched in a pool around her waist, leaving all else bare. She shied away a little when his hand lit on her thigh, but he rolled his tongue over her nipple, fast, then slow, and she quieted again. Very gently, he curved his fingers around her thigh, feeling a loosening in her hips that let him go closer, closer

—a whisper of hair on his hand, the heat below it. A brush over the dampness, a tease of his fingers, then slow fingers between her legs. She went rigid for a minute and he stilled immediately, though he did not remove his hand. He shifted to one elbow to look into her face, and she opened her eyes as he bent over her. Kissed her lightly. "You are so beautiful, Cassandra. I can barely breathe for all the beauty."

He kissed her and moved his fingers the slightest bit, feeling her tenseness give way under his mouth, under his hand. He stroked her and felt the ease more, then felt her fall into the pleasure of it. She closed her eyes and her head moved restlessly, and he kissed her throat, and her breasts, and moved his hand against her with long, lazy strokes—longer, harder, until she was quivering. "Shall I stop now?" he whispered.

"Oh, no. No. No!" Her body drew up and her head went back, and she convulsed around him, violently.

Her arms went around his shoulders, and her teeth marked his shoulder as she reared, was stolen, taken far from him. When she fell back again he fell beside her, breathing hard, and when she would have taken his hand away, he did not let her. "Not yet," he whispered, feeling the tremors still shaking her in rhythmic bursts. He knew this much, knew how to coax them along. But to his amazement, they slowed, and slowed, but then the tension was back again— and another wave shook her, almost as violently as the first time.

Her hand went around his wrist, tight as a vise. "Wait," she cried raggedly.

"If you wish," he said raggedly, his words slurred with heat. "But I will tell you that right now, in this very moment when you are so soft and shivery, you will like the way I feel inside of you. Are you ready to try that?"

"I'm not sure," she said. Then, "No." She sat up abruptly and Basilio fell on the pillows, hiding his disappointment, a disappointment that eased when she gathered the chemise from around her waist and pulled it off, throwing it carelessly behind her. Her hair tumbled in glorious disarray over her arms and shoulders and breasts, and there was no shyness as she moved close to him, bending over him as he'd bent over her. "Let me touch you first," she whispered, and kissed him. "Can you bear waiting just a little more?"

Dizzy
with her beauty, with the sorcery of her hands on his body, he nodded. "Anything you like."

She touched him as she had before, running her hands over his torso, touching his neck and nipples and the length of his arms. He watched her, his hand resting lightly on the curve of her hip, and knew that this would be forever imprinted in his mind—that poetry for the rest of his life would contain the curve of her white breast, shifting softly with her movements; would be lit with the fire of her hair and the darkness of her eyes, touching him in curiosity and admiration. Her hands grew bolder, moving on his thighs, and over his sex, and finally to the fastenings of his breeches.

"Shall I help you now?" he offered.

"Yes." She rocked back on her knees, her hands folded primly on her thighs, and not over the tangle of curls higher, which he loved. He lifted his hips and quickly skimmed away the last covering he wore, and kicked them away. Then he lay back, revealed to her.

There was a little fear. More than a little.

"A fearsome thing, no?" he said, gesturing to his sex. With a grin, he winked. "We men all think so."

There was only a hint of a smile in return. Act-ing on instinct, he touched himself firmly. "Only silly flesh."

He took her hand and pressed it there. "See?"

Their hands tangled over his organ, and Basilio's breath caught when her nipples pearled. Lifting a little, he captured one in his mouth. "We can touch together, you see?"

Her hand moved on him, hesitantly, top to bottom. "It's very hot," she whispered.

He chuckled. "Yes."

"And really—I hope you do not mind me saying—kind of silly."

He nuzzled her breast, let his hand fall on her thigh, teased close to her heat again, and she made a soft sigh. Basilio suddenly remembered that she had not been afraid when she straddled him earlier, and he sat up. "You will be the mistress, I only your servant," he said raggedly, and pulled her gently to him.

"Remember, any moment, I will cease. You need only say to stop."

She nodded, her eyes very large. He felt tension in her arms as he settled her atop him as they had been before, but now with no barrier between them. Her breasts pressed into his chest, pliant and supple, as he kissed her, moving his hands over her back. Her arms softened, fell around his neck, and she breathed, "I am ready, Basilio."

He shifted then, his arms trembling with desire and the need for strength, until she lay on her back, her legs around his waist, her eyes open as he knelt over her. He kissed her, and then, with all the control he could muster, eased into her—only the smallest bit at a time, gauging her reaction at each move. It was agony. It was heaven. He died and lived at the quivering around him, the sweet slick heat.