The Palace by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro Page A

almost swooning burden. Her
arms clung to his neck as he made his way to her bed. With an easy gesture he
pulled back the sheet and stretched her beneath him.
    "Do more. Say more." Her hazel eyes had darkened as her passion rose. Now she
pulled urgently at his gown. "Hurry. Hurry."
    But he held back. "Gently, Estasia. Slowly. Gently." As he spoke, his small
hands stroked her, calming and arousing her at once. Lingeringly he sought out
each sensation, now at her lips, now at her breasts, now in the petal softness
of her thighs.
    Estasia moaned, her head rolled back and a rapturous tension grew in her, so
that her body thrummed like the plucked strings of a lute. She reached to push
his hands away, but he would not be stopped. Unendurably, until it seemed that
release would surely fragment her into a thousand shards of glowing light, he
drew from her ever more dizzying delight until shuddering waves of fulfillment
possessed her. From the penetration of his kiss to the magic in his hands, he
and her sated hunger stilled the tempest in her soul.
    She turned on her pillow, a strange smile in her eyes. "Will you love me
again before you leave?" She reached out and ran one finger along the strong,
clean-shaven jaw.
    "Is that what you want?" He did not frown, although he knew that her desire
for him was becoming an addiction. She needed his hands, his lips to shield her
from the fear that lay coiled inside her mind. And her demand increased in
intensity each time he lay with her.
    "Yes. Yes. I want you to do me again and again and again until I am
dissolved." She turned her pillow so that her head was lifted. "Tell me you
will."
    He still tasted the frenzy of her need. "Perhaps. Sleep, now, Estasia."
    "Swear that you will not leave me while I sleep!" She said this more
desperately, reaching out to take his hand.
    "Bella mia," he said gently as he pulled away from her. "I told you when we
began that I will not be your servant. If you wish that, you must find someone
else."
    Estasia hesitated, a kind of panic in her eyes. "But you want me. You
want
me."
    "Of course. That was our understanding. Your widowhood makes you freer than
an unmarried girl, or a matron, for that matter. It was convenient for you to
take me as your lover." He had moved away from her and he spoke too coolly.
    "You sound as if you are performing an act of charity."
    "Hardly charity," he said, some of the humor back in his dark eyes. "It's
delightful to be with you, bellina. And as long as you have desires I can
satisfy, and you're willing to satisfy mine, why should either of us deny
ourselves? No one expects a widow of your age to lock herself away from the
company of men."
    "They did in Parma," she said darkly, remembering the many stormy scenes with
her husband's family after his death.
    "But you are in Fiorenza," he reminded her. "Here such matters are
understood, are they not?"
    There was a remoteness about him that was new, and it frightened her. "You
said that you needed me," she insisted. "You told me that. Before we began."
    "And you had no need?" Against his best intentions he turned toward her and
touched her face. "There. Do not frown, Estasia. It does not please me to see
you frown." He did not say that it was the ghost of age on her face that filled
him with foreboding. In so little time she would be gone. And she sensed it,
fought it with abiding hatred, devouring her youth in passions of the senses. If
her voracious hunger increased, she would be terribly dangerous later.
    Her face glowed, but she scolded him. "It was cruel of you to speak to me
that way. I have half a mind to refuse myself to you next time you come. What
will you do then, Francesco? Where will you go?"
    Ragoczy hated this kind of taunting and his eyes grew coldly penetrating.
"You may send me away if that's what you wish." He started to rise.
    She reached out quickly, holding his arm through the fine Persian cloth. "No.
You mustn't