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“Where will you take me?” Her voice was soft as a sigh.
“To the end of time … to the scented gardens of Elysium … to the edge of the earth.” His words were fantasy, magic, whimsy, and yet they were rich with promise.
He reclined, opened his thighs, and drew her back against him.
To Antonia he felt like a solid wall of muscle. The heat from his body leapt into hers, shocking, scalding, shiver-inducing. Her heart raced, hammered, in her breast, thundered and roared in her head. His lips whispered and lightly grazed her ear and her pulse went so faint she thought her heart had stopped beating.
“Tesoro.” It meant “darling.” She melted back against him, taking the heat of his body into her own. Her blood felt as if it had been set afire and blue flames ran along every sensitive vein.
They glided from the misty lagoon into a narrow enchanted canal, away from the noise, away from the revelers, to a place that was secluded, secret almost, silent. It felt mystical, as if they floated above the surface of the ancient waters. The richly ornate, gilded Renaissance buildings towered above them in opulent splendor, isolating them, enfolding them in the dream world that was Venice.
“This was once the center of civilization. It sent grain to the East and brought the riches of the East to Europe. Too much wealth and gold, of course, brought decadence.”
“Doges, condottieri, Medicis.” Antonia murmured dreamily.
“This is the way Venice should be savored, exploring her secret charms.” His hand gently cupped beneath her breast, lifting it so that its pale curve swelled up from her low-cut bodice. In the shadows the crown looked deep vermilion against silken gold. He dipped his head a fraction and blew a warm breath upon it. The moment he stopped, the cool air ruched it to a sharp little point.
“Cupid’s arrow,” he teased.
Her breath caught in her throat. The quick intake told him her body was giving her pleasure. Told him desire had begun to build in all her lovely, scented, secret alcoves.
Antonia felt the hard ridge of muscle rise against her back. His powerful thighs hardened and what rose between them was like a marble pillar. She had glimpsed men’s parts when they passed around the thunderpots, but she had no idea a man’s appendage could increase to such enormous proportions, nor become as hard as an iron bar. She gasped at the shock of discovery, stiffened slightly, and would have pulled away. If he had allowed her to pull away. But he did not. His arm encircled her waist like a band of steel, imprisoning her, locking her against his magnificent male weapon.
Antonia did not struggle. It was his maleness she craved. His mysterious man-thing. She stilled, feeling it burn into her back. It was so engorged with blood, it throbbed wildly and she felt it pulse in rhythm with his heartbeat that echoed through the wide chest she reclined against.
“Amore mio.Little butterfly.” The tip of his tongue traced the pulse beneath her earlobe and little tremors ran down her throat, down her back, and she imagined them running along his shaft. Desire leapt between them. Each knew a need to meld with the other, to share the same breath, the same blood, the same body, the same soul.
They pressed together, straining, merging in a primal hunger to be joined into one. It was unendurable that the thirst of their surging blood could not be quenched. They were becoming intoxicated and fevered.
Savage was on the point of ravishing her. To gain control he eased her slightly away from his groin and sat up. Her delicious murmur of protest shot through him like lightning. He warned himself to give her no pain. That way he knew he could make her wildly, sensually uninhibited. He began to whisper again in an effort to cool and prolong their ardor.
“Each year the Doge was rowed out on his magnificent barge into the lagoon to symbolically marry and join the City of Venice to the sea by throwing a gold ring into the water.” He took off one of his own gold rings and tossed it into the lagoon.
Antonia looked up at him and gasped. It was such a romantic gesture linking them forever to this place.
His gaze fastened on her lips. She held her breath as the Leopard lowered his head to give him access to her hungry mouth. His tongue came out to lick and taste her full underlip. The Leopard’s tongue was rough. She shuddered, then gasped as he sucked in the red ripe succulent bottom lip as if he were taking a cherry into his mouth.
She tasted like sweet, heady wine. She tasted like woman. He reclined again and took her with him. She yielded all her softness against him and was rewarded by his rising, burning arousal. One possessive hand slipped into her bodice to capture her bare breast. His calloused palm and fingers sent a jolt of sensation swirling around the silken skin, then spiraled lower into her belly.
His other hand had other fields to conquer. His fingers searched until they found their way beneath her skirt band. The heat of his palm scalded her as his hand inched lower across her naked belly. The friction of heated rough skin against heated silken skin was like bliss. His long, strong fingers splayed downward until the pads of his fingertips rested just above her pubic bone. Just exactly where the tiniest ringlets sprang covering her mons.
The pressure of his strong fingers felt delicious as sin. She sighed from the very depths of her soul. The Leopard was purring in her ear again.
“We are beneath the Bridge of Sighs.”
She gazed up past his darkly shadowed face. “What a perfectly beautiful name.”
“Not really,cara.Beyond this bridge are the prisons. All who pass beneath this bridge heave a sigh as they glimpse their last of freedom through that dense stone latticework.”
Antonia sighed again.
“No sadness,chèrie.Tonight is only for pleasure.” His deep command carried to the gondolier. “Casa Frolo.”
At his words threads of golden sensations ran from her breasts to her belly. Surely his splayed fingers could feel the deep tremors that shot to her woman’s center between her legs. She half turned so that she lay facing him. She sprawled between his thighs, mingling her woman’s heat with his.
She filled his arms with loveliness and he made the mistake of picturing them both naked in this position. His shaft bucked against her belly and her mouth formed a delicious O of surprise. He took swift possession of that soft mouth, sliding his tongue deep, then drinking her nectar.
“Shall I take you home to bed?” His voice had a raw edge that sent a frisson down her spine.
