The Wind Dancer/Storm Winds

“You had me bathed. You had me perfumed.” She drew a quivering breath. “Do you want me to take off this gown and kneel on the floor now?”

  “No!” The explosive rejection surprised him as much as it did her. “There are more pleasurable ways of taking a woman than if she were a bitch in heat.”

  “Yet the idea excited you,” Sanchia said. “I saw that you were—”

  “You see too much.” A sudden thought struck him. “Are you trying to change my mind by comparing me to Ballano? Lorenzo said you use every weapon you possess.”

  “But I have no weapons here,” she said simply. “I gave you my promise that I’d obey you.”

  No weapons. Lorenzo had said that, too, Lion recalled with frustration. She belonged to him. It was his right to use her body as he chose, with either tenderness or brutality. She knew this and accepted it. Why, then, was he feeling as if he had to make excuses for bedding her? “It doesn’t have to be as it was with Ballano. I’ll give you pleasure and—”

  “No.” Her eyes widened with bewilderment. “Why do you lie to me? It’s always the man who has the pleasure. Women are merely vessels who accept them into their bodies and take their seed. Never once did my mother have pleasure.”

  “Because she was treated like an animal.” Lion set the goblet down on the windowsill with a force that splashed the remaining wine on the polished wood. “I’ll show you ways …” He stopped as he saw she was looking at him with complete disbelief.

  He smiled with sudden recklessness. “Ah, a challenge. Shall I make you a promise, my doubting Sanchia? Suppose I tell you that I’ll not use you as my ‘vessel’ until you beg me to do it. Until you’re willing to kneel and let me use you as Giovanni did your mother because you yearn to have me inside you.”

  She looked at him in wonder. “Why should you make me a promise? You need not consider my feelings. I belong to you. It doesn’t matter if I feel nothing when—”

  “It matters to me.” His tone held exasperation as well as barely concealed violence. “God knows why, but it does.” He took her hand and pulled her to her knees before his chair. “And I’ll probably regret that promise a thousand times before this is over. Now lift your head and look at me.”

  She obediently tilted back her head and she caught her breath at what she saw in his face. His eyes held dark, exotic mysteries and the curve of his lips was blatantly sensual.

  “What do you see?”

  “You want me.”

  “Yes.” His big hands fell heavily on her slender shoulders. “And whenever I look at you from now on I’ll be thinking of what I’d like to do to you.” One callused hand released her shoulder and began to stroke her throat. Her skin was as velvet-soft as it looked and warm, so warm.… He felt hot lust tear through him, adding dimension to his manhood. “I’m going to touch you whenever I like.” He slipped the material of the gown off her shoulders. “When it pleases me, I’ll bare this pretty flesh and fondle you. No matter where we are. No matter who is watching.”

  She was gazing at him as if mesmerized, the pulse fluttering wildly in the hollow of her throat.

  “Are you a virgin?”

  She moistened her lips with her tongue. “Yes.”

  “Good.” He felt a primitive jolt of satisfaction so deep it almost obliterated the memory of Lorenzo’s words. “Thank the saints for that obnoxious mixture, whatever it was.”

  “It was fish oil and garlic and chicken dro—” She broke off as his hand slipped beneath the bodice of the gown and one hard palm touched the nipple of her breast. He could feel the hard pounding of her heart beneath his fingertips. She closed her eyes. “I remember now. You didn’t want to know.”

  “I’d rather know why your breast is swelling so sweetly under my hand.”

  “Is it? I don’t know why. Maybe I’m falling ill. I feel quite peculiar.”

  “You’re not ill.” His palm moved back and forth on her breast, stroking it as if it were a favorite kitten. “You’ll always respond like this when I touch you.” He squeezed her breast gently.

  Sanchia’s eyes flew open and wild color stained her cheeks. She looked down at his big hand covering her breast. “This gives you pleasure?”

  “Oh yes, as much pleasure as it gives you.”

  “It doesn’t give me pleasure. It makes me feel hot and I ache …”

  Lion squeezed her breast again, running his thumbnail over the rosy tip. “So do I. That’s how pleasure starts.” His thumb and forefinger began to pull teasingly at her pointed nipple. How would it feel in his mouth when he sucked and teethed it? he wondered. The thought caused his fingers to tighten with unconscious cruelty.

  A shudder trembled through her and her gaze flew to his face.

  His fingers instantly released her. “That was a mistake. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  “You didn’t. It just felt … odd.”

  Lion looked down at her. He knew he had gone far enough for now. Not nearly far enough for him, he thought ruefully, but if he didn’t leave her at this moment, he wouldn’t leave her for the night.

  Cristo, why was he leaving her when he was rock hard and burning to be inside her sweet tightness? So she wasn’t ready for him, he would be gentle and—His lips tightened as he realized he was lying to himself. He was too hungry for her and he could never control a hunger such as this if he were between her thighs. He would go wild and drive and plunge in a frenzy of lust until she would think him the same rutting dog as Ballano.

  The comparison to Ballano caused him to reluctantly release her breast and draw his hand from the velvet bodice. “Stand up,” he said hoarsely.

  Bright flags of color burned in her cheeks as she gazed at him in confusion.

  “Stand up. It’s done.” His lips twisted in a smile. “For now.”

  She scrambled to her feet and took a step back. “You’re not going to touch me anymore?”

  He stood up and started for the door. “Undress and go to bed.”

  “Where?”

  He gestured to the bed across the room. “Did you think I meant for you to sleep on a blanket on the floor as Ballano did?”

  “But that’s your bed,” she stammered.

  “All the more reason for you to occupy it. My bed, my slave. Lorenzo says I have a very possessive nature. If that’s true, then I should enjoy seeing you in my bed when I return.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To Giulia’s chamber.” Lion’s smile held a hint of cruelty. “I need a woman, and Giulia is always accommodating. Unlike you, she knows how to take pleasure as well as give it. She doesn’t care what arouses me as long as I pleasure her enough. She’ll even be grateful to you.”

  “I don’t think so.” Sanchia frowned. “And perhaps she only pretends pleasure. I’ve heard whores do that.”

  He looked at her blankly. He had never even considered that possibility. Could Giulia really be …

  Sanchia started to laugh.

  Cristo, the little devil was needling him, he realized with astonishment. First she had shown the most abject compliance, and now her face was alight with mischievous laughter. A laughter so infectious that a reluctant smile appeared on his own lips. “I’ll ask her.” His gaze met hers. “If you’ll ask yourself if you were pretending.”

  Her laughter vanished as her long lashes quickly lowered to veil her eyes. “I told you—”

  “That it wasn’t pleasure,” he finished for her. “Think about it when you’re lying in bed while I’m gone. I believe you’ll discover it was pleasure you felt tonight.” His voice lowered to sensual softness. “And as you lie there know that I’m giving Giulia even more pleasure, the pleasure you could have had.” He turned to leave. “Sleep well, Sanchia.” The door closed with a firm click behind him.

  Sanchia gazed wonderingly at the panels of the door. What a strange man he was. He had wanted to take her in the same animal way Giovanni had used her mother. Nothing had been clearer to her as he had sat there watching her while she was in the b
ath. Why had he not done it? Women were always fair prey to a man whether they were slaves or free women. Sometimes she had thought being a slave was even a little better. At least slaves, as property, were usually provided food and a blanket to cover them. A free woman, if she was comely, as often as not ended up in one of Caprino’s brothels. If she was ugly, she might starve in the streets.

  When she had awakened to see Lord Andreas standing in the doorway of the storage room, she had been filled with the greatest terror she had ever known. Not only because of her fear of retribution, but because she could not read him. She sensed enormous power and could not guess in which way it might be directed. His motives and actions were an enigma, and that frightened her. She had always believed that to understand was to conquer or at least survive, but without knowledge she was helpless.

  She slowly began to unfasten the gown she had so recently donned, her gaze still fixed on the panels of the door. What would he do when he returned? she wondered. His words had been so queer. She had not meant to challenge him, but he appeared to think she had. Was it because she was a virgin? How strange, when remaining untouched had always meant very little to her.

  She had known it was inevitable she would lose her virginity, either to Giovanni or to some other man who might catch her unaware on the street. It had almost happened a few months ago when she had been jerked into the alley by a seaman who’d been too wild for a woman to notice the scent of her. She had known better than to waste her breath screaming. Rape happened so often in those back alleys that it provoked no more than a raised eyebrow and a quickening of pace away from the scene. Only luck and a kick in the bastard’s private parts had enabled her to get away from him.

  Losing her virginity wouldn’t have been as important to her as the unfairness of having it taken without her consent. It had always seemed to her that a woman’s virginity was greatly overrated. She could see it would be important to ascertain whether a man’s son was his own through a wife’s purity, but where marriage was not involved it was surely stupid for men to obtain such pleasure from being first with a woman.

  Yet Lionello Andreas was not stupid, and his face when he had learned she was a virgin had expressed such intense primitive satisfaction it had given her a queer hot feeling in the pit of her stomach. His hands on her body had evoked the same aching sensation that fell somewhere between pain and hunger.

  Hunger? She shook her head as she took off the gown and undershift and laid them carefully on the chair by the table. Why had that word occurred to her? Hunger was for food and rest and for the lovely words in books, not for a man’s hands on her body. It must be exhaustion that was making her so sluggish and dimwitted.

  She pulled back the velvet spread and slipped beneath it. It was a pity she was too tired to fully appreciate the softness of the mattress and the clean fragrance of pine resin and laurel leaves that clung to the linens. She had never slept in a real bed before and wished she could savor the luxury of the moment. She had always believed moments of pleasure must always be lived to the hilt because the next might never come. During the bad times, she could bring out the memory of a moment of beauty and suddenly the situation would not seem so terrible that she could not get through it.

  Sleep beckoned with an irresistible allure. She should really get up and blow out the candle so Lord Andreas would not think she was careless and wasteful.…

  Four

  Cristo, what the hell was the matter with him?

  Lion gazed down at Sanchia seething with frustration that almost exceeded the lust hardening every muscle of his body.

  Candlelight flickered over the rich auburn of Sanchia’s hair and stroked the silky smoothness of her bare shoulders above the coverlet. She was curled on her side, her cheek buried in the pillow, her pink lips slightly parted. Why did he not wake her and tell her she must take him into her body and let him use her to rid himself of his terrible need? She was his property. She had given him her promise that she would obey him in all things. She would yield her body to him without complaint.

  Yield. He wished the word had not come to him, for it evoked memories of the many cities that had yielded to his sword. Rape and pillage invariably followed those surrenders. Looting and raping were the rewards a victorious army expected, his father had taught and Lion had grown accustomed to both over the years. In spite of Lorenzo’s mocking charge he knew well that chivalry was only for fools.

  Yet he did not want Sanchia to yield to him because he owned her and she had no choice.

  Santa Maria, what was the matter with him? He had been unable to muster any desire for Giulia after he had left Sanchia, and the failure had shocked and outraged him. He had stormed out of her chamber with every intention of satisfying the hunger that Giulia had been unable to appease. A man was a fool to worry about challenges when he needed a woman’s body to put out the fires. Since his body was issuing this peculiar demand for Sanchia alone, it was only sensible he should give it what it wanted.

  He reached out and drew the coverlet down so he could see Sanchia from the top of her shining hair to her small feet. She was a brilliant butterfly against the stark white linen sheet, all velvet golden flesh and silky wine colored hair. Why did he find her slender loveliness a thousand times more arousing than Giulia’s more voluptuous beauty? He had always preferred full-figured women.…

  Ah, this was better. The blood was pounding in his veins and the quickening in his loins was gaining in intensity until it was almost unbearable. In another moment there would be no question of stopping himself from mounting Sanchia.

  He bent closer, his gaze on the pinkness of her distended nipples. Her breasts were truly magnificent. The mere thought of touching them sent his heart slamming against his rib cage. He would have to have gowns made for her that would reveal the beauty of her bosom and—

  Sanchia stirred, sighed, and rolled over on her back.

  Dio, she was small. She looked like a child except for those erotic breasts and the soft thatch of hair protecting her womanhood.

  But she was no child, he quickly reminded himself. She had said she was sixteen; most women had been wedded and bedded for at least two years by the time they had reached her age. His mother had given birth to him when she was fifteen. He should feel no guilt about Sanchia’s age, and not a single compunction because of her helplessness to resist him.

  Sanchia murmured in the inarticulateness of sleep.

  Lion’s gaze flew to her face. Her long lashes cast dark shadows on the curves of her cheeks. But there was another shadow high on her right cheek, he noticed suddenly. Then he realized it was not a shadow but a faint bruise where Giovanni had struck her. He remembered Sanchia’s head snapping back with the force of the blow and the fierceness of the anger that had torn through him. He had wanted to kill the whoreson. How dare that bastard touch his property? Couldn’t he see how tiny and helpless Sanchia was, how easily she could be bruised and hurt? If that blow had been a little harder, it could have killed her or at least—

  No, by God, he wouldn’t think how vulnerable she was, but only how much he desired her. He deliberately summoned the image and feelings that had assaulted him when he’d first drawn down the coverlet to reveal her naked body.

  A brilliant butterfly. All color and soft velvety textures.

  But butterflies were the most fragile of creatures.

  Butterflies could be broken and destroyed with only the careless brush of a man’s hand.

  And he was not Giovanni.

  He could wait until she recovered from this exhaustion and felt more secure under his rule.

  After all, the woman was vital to him as a thief. She would bring him what he needed and any additional pleasure he took in her would be only secondary.

  He straightened and then reluctantly drew the coverlet up to Sanchia’s chin. Yes, he could wait.

  Perhaps.

  He turned away and blew out the flame of the candle.

  But he could not stay away from her if h
e remained in this bed … or even in this room. He moved silently toward the door while considering his options. He couldn’t return to Giulia’s chamber. She had been most irate when he had left her. Only one solution occurred to him given the lateness of the hour.

  He grimaced as he realized he would have to go to Lorenzo’s chamber and face his raised brows and faintly malicious amusement.

  Oh yes, Lorenzo would take an unholy joy in Lion’s predicament.

  “Wake up.” Giulia’s hand on Sanchia’s shoulders was less than gentle as she shook her. “Get up. They’re waiting for you downstairs.”

  Sanchia opened drowsy eyes to see Giulia Marzo’s flushed face above her. Giulia was angry again, she realized hazily, almost as angry as she had been last night when she had left Sanchia with Lion. “I’m awake.” She sat up in bed, and blinked as the early morning sunlight streaming through the window assaulted her with its brilliance. “What time is it?”

  “Nearly eight o’clock.”

  Eight o’clock! Sanchia couldn’t remember when she had slept past dawn. She scrambled out of bed, reaching frantically for the clothes she’d laid on the chair the night before. “I didn’t mean to sleep this late. Is Lord Andreas displeased with me?”

  “You’ll have to ask him.” Giulia moved toward the door. “He’s not a man who likes to be kept waiting.” She glanced back over her shoulder as she opened the door. “There’s wine and fruit on the table. Eat quickly and join Lord Andreas downstairs in ten minutes.”

  “Five.” Sanchia was dressing hurriedly. “I don’t need to eat. Messer Lorenzo bought me bread and fruit yesterday at the baker’s. I can—”

  “Eat.” Giulia’s beautiful features were set with a less than attractive hardness. “Lion told me to make sure you broke your fast before you started the journey. He won’t be any more displeased with you now than he will be five minutes from now.” Giulia smiled with a hint of malice. “Or perhaps you feel you need to curry favor after last night? I told Lion he’d find no pleasure with you.”

  Sanchia stared at Giulia in bewilderment. The woman was a wasp trying to sting her with hurtful words, but how could they wound when they made no sense? After all, Lion had spent the night in Giulia’s bed. “That’s what I told him too. He didn’t appear to believe me.”