Behind the Mask

by Linda Winstead Jones

  He began as usual, pulling a strand of hair over her shoulder, laying his hands over hers and whispering for her to relax her fingers. His hands skimmed down, over her hips, then over her thighs. She allowed him to slightly alter the cant of her leg.

  Giovanni’s easy hand remained on her thigh, warm and large and soft. She glanced down, to see his fingers against her leg, to watch the way they rested there. A spot of paint, flesh-colored but much lighter than the skin it marred, streaked between his thumb and forefinger.

  That thumb rocked across the sensitive skin of her inner thigh in an easy rhythm that set her heart and her blood racing. Back and forth it swayed, as constant as the ticking of a clock, as soft as a warm breeze.

  She lifted her gaze from the fascinating sight of Giovanni’s hand on her thigh. His eyes locked to hers; fascinating, deep, blue-green eyes she saw every night in her dreams. Tense and yet somehow serene, he looked as if he wanted, needed, to kiss her. Very slowly he moved his mouth toward hers, his lips parting slightly as he came closer and closer. Expectantly, Audrey waited for his mouth to capture hers. She closed her eyes and lifted her chin, her lips softened in anticipation. But instead of kissing her, Giovanni laid his mouth on her shoulder, raking his lips across her tender flesh, sucking gently and tasting with the tip of his tongue as he moved his attentions to her neck. And all the while that thumb played against her thigh, moving higher and then higher again until she trembled so completely that she was certain be felt her response.

  He moved his attentions to the other side of her neck, assaulting new, untouched flesh with his mouth. Audrey felt herself melting, dissolving from the inside out.

  “Tesoro mio,” he whispered as he peeled her hand away from one breast and laid his mouth over the nipple, as he gently sucked the nipple deep into his mouth.

  She felt the tug of his mouth everywhere, in her heart and her lungs, deep in her loins.

  And then, with softly muttered Italian she felt certain was a curse, Giovanni dropped his hands and stepped back.

  Audrey covered the breast he’d just had in his mouth, canted her leg in to still the restless and unexpected response of her body, and licked her suddenly dry lips. “Why on earth...” she began.

  Giovanni shook his head as he returned to his easel. “I looked at you standing there and I could not resist. One touch,” he said as he lifted his brush. “One taste,” he whispered.

  In response to his whispered words, her body quivered. He kept his eyes on her for a long, silent moment, and then he again began to paint.

  Something had changed. She didn’t know if it had happened last night or today, but there was definitely something different between her and Giovanni. His smiles were less frequent, his fingers on her arm tighter, more possessive, and when he kissed her she thought he would devour her alive.

  They had not stayed long at the masquerade tonight. Giovanni seemed restless, impatient with the pressing crowd, and Audrey was afraid that Norton would appear at any moment to spoil her evening. Her life. It would not do for Norton and Giovanni to come face to face.

  So they’d escaped the crush of the ball, and now they floated down the Grand Canal, their masks discarded, their cloaks pulled tightly around them against the chill. Fog swirled in and out of the canal, at times obscuring their view completely. Obscuring them completely.

  The fog was thick, so thick that at times they could barely see the glorious palazzos around them. In spite of the heavy fog the gondolier stationed behind them, an arrogant Venetian Giovanni had introduced as one Bruno Varano, continued to speak.

  “This is the Palazzo Foscari, once the residence of the great Doge,” he said grandly. “Doge Foscari was deposed by the Council of Ten in 1457 and died in this palazzo the next day.”

  Giovanni wrapped his arm around Audrey, pulled her against him, and kissed her, deep and demanding. His tongue delved into her mouth, searching, tasting. One taste, he’d said this morning. She was quite sure that one taste would never be enough.

  She slipped her hand inside Giovanni’s cloak and around his waist, and answered his kiss in kind as she took a long, deep taste of her own. Ah, she couldn’t taste him deep enough, long enough, completely enough. Out of sight beneath her white cloak, his hand covered her breast, his thumb brushing across the nipple he’d taken into his mouth this morning.

  “And this,” Bruno continued, apparently oblivious, “is the home of Count Matteo Albani and his lovely wife Genevra. They fight all the time,” he added in a lowered voice that carried quite well. “Once, I saw the countess chasing the count with a basket of eels. She caught him, and dumped the smelly eels over his head.” There was a short, meaningful pause. “The Countess is very beautiful,” the gondolier added.

  Giovanni pulled his mouth slightly from Audrey’s. “What have you done to me?” he whispered.

  “I don’t know.” Her breath brushed his lips as she kissed him again and again, swift and sweet. “What have I done to you?”

  The gondolier described yet another palazzo they passed, adding details about the owners and their habits. Audrey was almost certain she detected a hint of amusement in his voice. Perhaps he was not so oblivious after all.

  “You have ruined me,” Giovanni whispered.

  On Giovanni’s lips, ruination sounded terrible and wonderful, absolute and exquisite. Oh, she was glad she’d done it, if ruination put this expression on his face, if it made him breathlessly hungry for her.

  “Giovanni,” she whispered. “When are you going to finish the painting?”

  “Tomorrow.” He kissed her deeply and settled his hand at her waist. “No matter what it takes,” he said huskily, “I will finish the painting tomorrow.”

  “Good,” she whispered against his lips.

  She settled her head against his shoulder, and they continued their journey down the misty canal. The air was cold, but she felt only warmth. Tomorrow.

  Suddenly, as if it had been magically whisked away, the fog cleared, and before them moonlight sparkled enticingly on the waters of the Grand Canal. The night was alive, and more beautiful than it had ever been before.

  “The Palazzo Celesti is on your right,” the gondolier said, carrying on with his tour in spite of the fact that his passengers’ interests were obviously elsewhere. “The Celesti family has not owned it for many years. The present owner is an Englishwoman, Lady Graystone.”

  Audrey, who had been half-listening to this point, held her breath as she turned her gaze to her own fine palazzo and waited for him to continue.

  “They call her the Black Widow,” he said, adding a foreboding touch to his deeply accented voice. “She coldly murdered her aged husband mere days after the wedding, and took possession of his wealth and his many homes, including the Palazzo Celesti.” He shook his head. “The English,” he said with a touch of rancor and a good dose of disdain. “In Venice, we would hang a woman such as this.”

  Audrey shivered, and suddenly the cold cut deep, to her bones, to her heart. Why had she ever thought she could hide here? They knew the story, the rumors and the accusations. And if the gondoliers had made her twisted story a part of the tour, soon everyone in Venice would hear and believe it.

  “You are cold,” Giovanni said, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close.

  “Yes,” she whispered. If Giovanni knew who she was, what she’d been accused of, would he hate her? Would he believe the allegations as almost everyone else did? Heaven help her, she didn’t want to know. She didn’t want to look into his telling, expressive eyes and see hate, and confusion, and disgust. “I’m very, very cold,” she added as she snuggled against his chest. “Hold me.”

  8

  Last night’s revelation that the tales of the Black Widow had reached Venice were on Audrey’s mind, but she was determined not to let the news spoil this day. She felt as though she’d waited all her life for Giovanni to make love to her. All her life! Her past was unimportant, even the rumors that had haunted her for the pa
st two years were insignificant. Today, just for today, nothing else mattered.

  Giovanni’s full attention was on the canvas this morning. Intent on his work, he moved his brush swiftly at first, and then, for the past hour or so, he’d painted more slowly. He looked at her and then applied a single dab of paint. He cocked his head and then moved the brush in his hand slowly, filling in an infinitesimal detail. Finally, he put the brush down and came to her. She thought, for a moment, that he had finished, but when he reached out to reposition her hair and then to lay his fingers over hers and whisper for her to relax, she knew she was wrong. Some detail of her pose was less than perfect, some body part was tilted in the wrong direction.

  He threaded his fingers through hers and slowly drew their linked hands away from her breasts. He stood so close that his body brushed hers, his clad legs against her thighs, his linen-covered belly against her bare one. As he lowered his head to kiss her she tilted her head back, accepting, eager for the touch of his mouth against hers.

  He kissed her, as she’d known he would, but today he didn’t pull away quickly, leaving her too soon as he normally did. The kiss went on and on, mouths and hands locked together. When he took his mouth from hers she was breathless. Why did he torture her this way, bringing her body alive and then stepping away to paint what he saw, teasing her with hints of what was to come and then insisting that he had to finish his blasted painting before he could make love to her? It wasn’t fair.

  He lowered his mouth to one breast, then disengaged one hand and lifted it to the other to stroke the pebbled nipple with his thumb. Sharp, intense pleasure shot through her body, and she arched against him slightly as she cupped the back of his head in her hand. An involuntary moan formed in her throat and caught there. If she breathed deeply she would fall apart; if she moved she would explode. A deep shudder wracked her body, grabbing her as surely and completely as Giovanni kissed her.

  With a moan of his own he pulled his mouth away from her breast. Now he would move back to his easel, leaving her alone and quivering and wanting. Today his machinations seemed crueler than before. They seemed downright barbarous.

  He stroked her ribs and her hip, her thigh, as he lifted the hand he continued to clasp to his mouth. With tender lips he kissed her wrist, then trailed those warm lips to the crook of her elbow. He kissed the soft skin there, flicking his tongue against her flesh until she shivered again. Her eyes closed as he continued his journey upward to her shoulder and her neck.

  The hand on her leg moved, gliding over and up so that his thumb brushed the tender skin of her inner thigh. While he sucked and kissed her neck until she was weak in the knees, that thumb glided closer and closer to the junction of her thighs, until he touched her in a place so sensitive, so intimate, that her body twitched in response.

  The instinctive tremor didn’t dissuade him. He slid his hand between her thighs and gently forced them apart, leaving her exposed, vulnerable, and aching for more.

  “Your painting,” she whispered huskily as he slipped his hand boldly between her legs.

  “Is finished,” he rasped as he lifted his mouth from her neck. He kissed her deeply, as if he were starving for her, while he touched her intimately, stroking, setting her on fire.

  He lifted her in his arms and carried her to the bed. Audrey wrapped her arms around his neck and tried to take a deep, calming breath. It was impossible. Her body was tied up in knots, a pleasant but insistent tension working its way through her from end to end and making it impossible for her to relax.

  Giovanni laid her on the bed and impatiently tossed her gown to the floor before lowering himself onto her again. She stopped him with a raised hand and a slow shake of her head, followed by a seductive smile and a whispered, “Spogliati.”

  He complied, whipping his shirt over his head, unfastening the buttons at his breeches and shucking them off before lowering himself to hover above her.

  What a beautiful, magnificent man he was. Hard and muscled, sculpted like a statue of a Greek god. The sight of him made her heart swell and her body quiver with anticipation.

  Sunlight, rare on a winter Venice day, shone through the open window and onto the splendid sight of his body above hers, of his strong, dark hand on her pale flesh. There was a devilish glint in his eyes. Passion and tenderness, anguish and love, she saw it all in the depths of his eyes.

  “I feel like I’m floating down the canal in a golden gondola,” she whispered. “Floating, flying, soaring on a bed of air. Do you feel it?”

  With his knee he spread her legs wide so that he rested between them, his body cradled snugly against hers. She waited for the surge that would fill her, for the pain and beauty of joining with him for the first time.

  But instead, he kissed her and moved his hand between their bodies. He touched her where she was already wet for his entrance. He stroked her, teased her with strong fingers that caressed and probed. A finger slipped inside her, and she gasped at the sheer pleasure. He removed the finger slowly, and then slid it inside her once again. Her hips lifted and swayed in response, and she moaned aloud.

  He caught the moan with his mouth, and rocked his hips so that his swollen manhood touched her, the tip alone slipping inside her. She felt herself opening for him, stretching and adjusting as he pushed deeper, pulsing around the hot invasion.

  He withdrew slightly and then, with a gentle rocking motion, moved deeper inside her. He withdrew again, hesitated, and then pushed deep, breaking past her maidenhead and burying himself within her. The moment of pain was brief, inconsequential compared to the desire that ripped through her.

  Giovanni moved above and within her, his rhythm slow and steady. With every stroke her body adjusted to his. With every thrust he brought her closer to the edge of something unknown. She began to rock with him, to meet his gentle force with an undulation of her own, to lift her hips to allow him access to the deepest, untouched region of her body. Ripples of pure sensation shot through her, and as he began to move faster she did the same.

  Her breath wouldn’t come, try as she might. Her entire body tensed and quivered as he pushed her closer and closer to the culmination, to the end of this hot, furious joining.

  Something broke inside her. Sparks shot through her body, breaking her apart, pulling her together again. She cried out as an intense pleasure clenched and unclenched inside her, sending wave after wave of pure ecstasy rippling through her. Above her, Giovanni strained and cried out, as he drove himself deep inside her one last time, pushing his manhood deep and holding it there, while the sweeping waves of her own response died and she felt his own, in a shudder and a deep moan, in the way he moved above and inside her. She felt it all, savored it, cherished it.

  Giovanni collapsed upon her, his legs and hers entwined, his head resting beside hers. “Yes,” he whispered breathlessly. “You have ruined me.”

  Good heavens, Isabel had been right all along. This was love. She’d never truly believed in it before, but the way Giovanni looked at her, the way her heart swelled when she saw him, when he touched her... what else could it be?

  She smiled and rested her hand in his hair. “How have I ruined you?”

  He lifted his head and stared down at her. “All my life I have seen the beauty in the people around me, I have been fascinated by one face and then another. I walk through the piazza and I see a hundred subjects to paint, a hundred beautiful faces.” He placed his gentle hand upon her cheek. “And now I see only your face. When you are with me, when you are not, when I am asleep. I see only your face.”

  She’d never heard sweeter words. It was on her lips to tell him she loved him completely, but she didn’t do so. How could she confess to her love when there was a lie between them? So she kissed him instead, a sweet kiss that said I love you as surely as words ever could.

  He brought her a damp rag to clean herself, and she was happy to see that there was just a small drop of blood to mark the end of her virginity. Her smile faded as she grabbed up t
he white silk robe and covered herself with it. She was now free to one day marry without fear that anyone would ever know her marriage to Sir Harry Graystone had never been consummated.

  But at the moment she couldn’t imagine herself taking another man to her bed, returning to staid, cold London and resuming her role as the infamous Black Widow. She couldn’t imagine life after Giovanni Valentino. What a fool she’d been to think she could blithely give herself to a man without also relinquishing at least a part of her heart.

  She watched as Giovanni pulled on his breeches. A part of her heart? No. He had it all. She would gladly give up everything she owned, hand her generous portion of the Graystone fortune over to Norton and his brother and be done with it, if she could spend the rest of her life right here.

  “May I see the painting now?” she asked, pulling the silk wrapper together at her waist.

  Giovanni took her arm and led her to the easel, and Audrey was stunned by what she saw on the canvas. It was her. Anyone who saw this portrait would know, without a doubt, that the naked woman was Lady Audrey Graystone. He had captured her face perfectly, and she shouldn’t be surprised, but she was.

  Even more shocking was the expression on her face. She looked innocent and anxious and hungry. She looked like a virgin who wouldn’t be so much longer.

  The background was not quite complete, but it was near enough finished for her to recognize the scene well. On canvas, she stood not before the red velvet sofa and a blank wall, but in front of one of the lions that guarded the stairway to the Little Lions Square, where she and Giovanni had met. It looked as if she’d posed, completely nude, in Piazza San Marco.

  She stepped to the side, and the eyes—her eyes—followed her movement, as if the woman in the painting watched her every move. Her own eyes studied the yearning face in the portrait, a face she would never have believed was her own, and the pieces of this puzzle fell together all too easily.

  “This is why you kept coming to me and putting your hands on me, isn’t it?” she asked softly. “To feed the look of hunger, to make me want you so you could capture this.”