He could deny her nothing. Tenderly, he lifted her onto the round table he had been working at, positioning himself between her thighs. Her hand was resting on his member but he willed himself to ignore it, concentrating instead on her. Using his nose he tilted her face up to his and kissed her softly once, deeply once, then began to move his lips lower.
Working with the dedication of a new-world conqueror, he planted kisses down her arms, along her hips, across her thighs, leaving trails of singing sensation behind. Clio felt his mouth leave a feathery kiss on the inside of her wrist, and a slower, deeper one on the palm of her hand, felt his lips close around each of her fingers, pulling them into his mouth, slowly, one at a time, wrapping his warm tongue around them, letting his teeth glance over them, meeting her eyes with a mischievous smile. He was touching only her hand, a hand she had been in possession of her entire life, and yet she felt like she was going to ignite. His mouth strayed down her legs then, to her feet, and when he ran his tongue over her arch and between her toes while his fingers slid slowly up her thighs, Clio thought she was going to lose her mind. She watched, unable to move, as Miles parted the soft brown hair between her legs with one finger and placed a gentle kiss on the bundle of nerve endings gathered in a tight knot there.
Clio could wait no longer. She pulled his head up so it was level with hers and, kissing her taste on his lips, begged, “Now. Please, please be inside me now.”
Miles gave in. He rubbed his stiff shaft along her body, making himself slick and wet with her moisture. Then he braced himself against her opening and stroked her with his fingers and when she bucked against him, demanding him, he pushed the top half of his length into her.
He felt something give, felt her body opening for him, welcoming him home, and he plunged himself entirely into her. She was impossibly tight, impossibly narrow, impossibly wonderful.
“Miles!” she cried out in a tone equally divided between pleasure, surprise, and pain, and he stopped moving and began to pull out of her. She wrapped her arms around him. “No, don’t. Not now. Please no.”
Miles was rigid. “But I hurt you.” Understanding came all at once. “Oh god, Clio, this is your first time. But I thought—You said—”
She looked at him intently. “I said nothing you could do would dishonor me, Miles, and I meant it. I knew that you would never make love to me if you knew I was a virgin. And I wanted you to. I want you to. Please, please do not stop.”
“Clio, amore, you should have told me. I could have made it better for you. There were precautions, other ways. Other things we could do.”
“It could not be better, Miles,” Clio said, and she smiled exquisitely. “Nothing in the world could be better than being here, with you, now.”
Passion, desire, tenderness, and a fierce sense of possession surged through Miles like fire, his heart aching and pounding. He had never felt so good in his life. She was his. She had given herself to him, to him only. He was the luckiest man alive. He would make sure she did not regret it, would never regret it. He pulled her close and kissed her on the lips. “Just wait,” he said, raising one eyebrow and giving her a sly smile, the one she loved. “This is only the beginning.”
His voice resonated inside her and she felt herself open more widely for him. Carefully he slipped part of his length back into her, then pulled out, slowly, letting only the beginning of him stay inside. He did that again, this time reaching out with his palms to stroke her nipples, and she arched her back, taking him in deeper, and wrapped her legs around his waist.
Pain disappeared into a hundred other sensations—fullness, warmth, sleekness, contentment, desire, curiosity—as Miles moved slowly in to and out of her. There was so much to learn, so much to experience. Each touch of Miles’s hands was extraordinary and different. His palms teased over her nipples until they grew hard, and then he lowered his mouth to one of them, sucking it in at the exact moment as he slid into her.
With his mouth still on her nipple, he slipped two of his fingers between their bodies and she felt him touching her, pressing the little pink bud of her pleasure against his organ as it glided into her. “More,” she moaned and he smoothed his fingers over her harder and quickened his thrusts into her, overwhelmed by her response to him. Lifting his mouth and his free hand from her nipple, he lowered her back until she was lying on the table in front of him and he was standing above her. With one hand he cradled her from below so that her hips were level with his, and he kept the other on her sensitive kernel, teasing it, plying it, touching it with devilish precision. She was a masterpiece, perfection, the most sensual woman he had ever known. Nothing he had ever done before had come close to feeling how this felt.
Clio wrapped her legs tighter around him, pressing her body against him wildly. The sensation of having one of his hands on her bottom, stroking her from behind, and his other hand above while his body slid into her was more than she could bear. As she sensed him growing thicker inside her, pressing more forcefully against the walls of her tight passage, as his fingers glided over and under her, following the channels of her own wetness, she knew her control was giving way. She gasped and felt the first hint of her release, felt herself tighten around him, and begged him to stop.
“Wait,” he told her through clenched teeth and she did and suddenly she felt something a thousand times more powerful again, sparking over her, glittering through her body, along his body, growing brighter and brighter until she could wait no longer. She reached up and pulled him so he was laying on top of her and whispered, “Now, my love. Now.”
Hands and legs and lips and arms and bodies entwined and moved together as a single entity. Being inside of her was unlike anything Miles knew, unlike anything he had ever dreamed of. They hovered suspended on the gleaming edge of their release and then Miles thrust into her one more time and the room seemed to fill with sparks and light and noise and they soared together, exploding into and around each other, laughing and shuddering and hollering and clinging to each other desperately, fiercely, possessively.
They lay panting and gasping and sweaty on the table, eyes closed, not speaking, until they were both breathing again. Even then the silence continued, each of them lost in their own thoughts. Miles was telling himself that she had not called him “my love” before but rather simply said “Miles,” which could sound like “my love,” when said quickly. Clio was telling herself that when he said “amore” he had not meant “my love” but had rather been using it as a general term of endearment, such as one might use to a friend or close acquaintance.
And then Clio whispered, “gardenias.”
Miles, still inside her, propped himself on one elbow. “What?”
“Gardenias. Something had been bothering me all day, and that is what it was. The Compendium says that the vampire will take souvenirs, but does not say anything about him leaving them. But our vampire leaves gardenias. We should go to the flower market and learn who has been buying them.” Clio smiled at him. “Making love with you has a splendid effect on my memory.”
Miles kissed her lips and wondered if he could ever get used to the way her mind worked. He knew he could never grow bored of it. “Tomorrow I will send someone to the flower market to inquire,” he told her. Then, reluctantly, he pulled himself out of her and rolled onto his side. He winced as he noticed the smudge of blood between her legs. “Amore, I am so sorry I hurt you.”
Clio reached up and brushed the hair off his forehead. “I am not. It hardly hurt at all. And besides, it was worth it.”
“Because you figured out what had been bothering you all day,” Miles said in a blank voice.
“That. And because it was wonderful.”
Miles’s heart beat hard. “I am glad you think so.” He kissed her fingertips, then kissed her mouth sweetly and gathered her to him. He felt none of the loneliness that had followed his other flings, and he knew he would not. Clio was not like any other woman he had ever known. And nothing he had felt with her just now
was anything like any other experience he had ever had.
Clio rested her cheek against his shoulder. “I read in a book once that at the height of pleasure a woman might feel like she was in heaven, but I would swear, my lord, that you made me see stars.”
Miles had to laugh. “I wish I could take credit for what Louise Labe was describing in her poems, but I think those are the fireworks over the river.”
Clio sat up slightly, her eyes alight with excitement. “You have read Labé? You read French, too? Have you—” Then she cut herself off, realizing what he had said. “Fireworks? Real fireworks? Here?”
Miles looked at her with awe. She was without question the most intelligent woman he had ever met. And the most beautiful. And she was his. At least for tonight. “Would you like to see them?”
“Yes.” She hesitated. “But only if we can watch them together. Only if I can be with you.”
Miles found he could not reply. Instead, he lifted her from the table and held her close against his chest. He carried her into his bedroom, from which the fireworks below were visible through a window, but they did not stop there. Pausing to pick up a strange looking key, he turned and inserted it into the housing of his clock. Clio watched with astonishment as the front of the clock sprang open, revealing a staircase. They went up, past a small landing, and emerged on a large patio that covered the top of Miles’s wing.
It had once been a formal knot garden, Clio could tell, but now all the hedges looked wild and overgrown, and its precise design was barely discernable. The entire place had a neglected feeling, like an uncivilized oasis in the middle of an ocean of civility. It was the highest point for miles in each direction, and the view, across London on one side, across the river on the other, was extraordinary. Clio spun around, taking in the entire panorama, her eyes aglow with pleasure.
“What a spectacular place,” she said breathlessly, moving to stand next to Miles. Her toes crunched over piles of rose petals that had blown over the terrace, filling the air with their scent, her scent. Miles wrapped his arms around her from behind and they stood, naked in the middle of the city, alone together, looking out at the river where towers of fireworks were flaming on four barges.
“Magical,” Clio whispered, awed by the gold and red and green streams of sparks billowing into the sky.
“Magical,” Miles repeated, his cheek rubbing against the crown of her head.
She turned and looked up at him and saw that his eyes were closed. “You are not even watching.”
“I can see fireworks anytime,” he told her. “But you will only be mine for a few days.”
I will always be yours Clio wanted to tell him, wanted to scream at him then, but she knew it would not be good for either of them. It would be her secret. And she would not think about it until they were apart.
Seven days. She had seven days with him. “I read in a book once that if a woman kisses a man the right way, she can restore his virility in a matter of minutes,” she told him in an offhanded tone.
Miles smiled, wondering how his friend Tullia d’Aragona would feel to know her Dialogue about the Infinity of Love had been quoted in such a context. “Are you trying to tell me that you want to make love again?”
“Yes,” Clio admitted.
“Do you remember what I said about being subtle?” Miles inquired. Now he was looking at her and his eyes, reflecting the fireworks, were the color of melting gold.
“No,” Clio shook her head from side to side slowly. “You had better refresh my memory.”
“I said that you were bad at it.”
“No you didn’t,” Clio corrected. “You said that you would give me lessons.” She stepped away from him and spun around, her hair flying out behind her, her head tipped back. “Here I am. Teach me.”
As he watched her spin and spin, Miles could have sworn for the second time that night that she was glowing. Then she stopped and threw herself into his arms, and all he could think about was how on earth he was going to keep her there.
They made love again, more slowly this time, with showers of colored sparks cascading around them and then, when the sparks were gone, by the light of the fireflies that gathered on the bushes. Afterward, they lay knitted together in a sea of rose petals, with Miles’s head on her chest. Clio was just about to fall asleep when she felt Miles look up.
“Clio,” he whispered. “Clio, I forgot something.”
Clio ran her fingers through his hair. “Umhmm?”
“Clio, this is serious.”
“What is it?” she asked lazily.
“I forgot to tell you something important.”
“Important? What?”
“I forgot to say happy birthday.” He leaned over her and kissed her. “Happy birthday, amore.” Then he smiled into her eyes, lay his head back onto her chest, and fell asleep.
Clio turned and watched the fireflies, gracefully shifting among the leaves, and heard Princess Erika’s voice in her head. “You will never find true love until the fireflies come out at noon,” she had predicted. Perhaps not. But for a few days, Clio thought to herself, she would come very, very close.
She closed her eyes and wrapped her arms more tightly around Miles. She was in paradise.
Twenty-four hours later, she was in hell.
4 hours after midnight: Moon—two degrees less than half-full. Waning.
Chapter Fifteen
“I think I hear someone coming,” Miles whispered to Clio. “Wake up, amore. You have to hide.”
Clio smiled at him without opening her eyes. “You do not need to be subtle with me,” she informed him in the voice of someone who is still asleep and does not know what they are saying and would likely shoot themselves if they did, particularly if what they then said was, “I will do anything you want so long as you call me amore. You may kiss me if you wish.”
Miles would have liked to, very much, but it was not just the fact that she was totally unaware of what she was saying that stopped him. It was the ever louder sound of voices on the other side of the threshold that did it. He and Clio had moved from the privacy of the roof to his apparently public bedroom several hours earlier, and he was already regretting it. He was about to leap from the mattress and cut the voices off at the pass when the door opened, beating him.
“Tough night?” Tristan asked as he crossed the threshold, followed by the rest of the Arboretti. “You look a bit feverish.”
Miles felt feverish. He had quickly pulled himself up and bent his knees, making a sort of tent beneath the covers into which Clio’s body fit snugly, but the presence of her between his legs was not exactly calming. “I was up late,” he said with a frown. “Perhaps you can explain why you have decided to barge in on me like this.”
“We were just passing by and thought we would visit,” Sebastian told him sweetly.
Under the covers, a Clio who was somewhere between waking and sleeping, reached out and lightly touched Miles’s member.
Above the covers, Miles made a noise that was a cross between a wail and a snort.
“Very well. You are right. Sebastian is lying,” Crispin admitted. “We came because you disappeared early last night and we heard from your betrothed that you were ill. We wanted to make sure you were feeling all right. Apparently Doctor LaForge is sick this morning, too.”
“Actually, Crispin is lying as well,” Ian, the elder statesman, told Miles. “We came to make sure you had not run away. And that you would be attending the baby animal ball tonight.”
“I am not sure that is a good idea,” Miles said in a curiously taut voice. He appeared to be addressing his sheets.
Ian frowned. “I beg your pardon?”
“Oh God,” Miles gasped, gripping the covers in his hand. “Oh God.”
“None of us are thrilled about going either,” Ian said, “but I don’t think you should be quite this alarmed.”
Miles would have liked to differ with him, would have liked to say that he was feeling something so subli
me, so different from anything he had ever felt before, that he knew it was cause for serious concern, but any ability he had to speak left him when, timidly, Clio circled the tip of his shaft with her tongue and then covered it with her mouth.
“Ahhllgooohh!” Miles groaned.
“What?” Crispin asked.
“I—” Miles gulped as Clio planted teasing little kisses along his length—“think”—she curled her fingers around him—“the ball”—her palm slid up his shaft—“tonight”—her thumb rubbed back and forth against his tip—“will be”—she sucked him entirely into her mouth—“remarkable.”
The last word came out more as a sigh than a word, but Sebastian, who was standing closest to Miles, caught it. “Remarkable. Are you planning something we do not know about?”
“Yes,” Miles said. “Oh yes.” Clio’s mouth roved up and down him now, the fingers of one hand following, the fingers of the other gently caressing him from beneath. He gasped.
“Are you all right, Miles?” Crispin asked, leaning closer.
Miles panted slightly as her thumb ran up the entire length of him. “No. I am in a bit of agony. I think you should all leave.”
“You really are ill. Do you want me to send for a doctor? Or for Bianca?” Ian asked.
“No,” Miles replied quickly, gasping again despite himself. “I will be fine. In a moment. It will pass soon. I will come to see you then.”
“You are sure?” Tristan asked, hovering near the threshold.
“Yes!” Miles shouted, but not at them. As soon as the door was closed, Miles threw back the covers. That was a mistake. Because as marvelous as what he had been feeling had felt, seeing Clio’s small form curled between his legs, her hand on his shaft, her lips wrapped around him, utterly undid him. Looking at her, feeling her, he hovered on the edge of his release for less than half a second and then plunged over it, exploding into her mouth in wave after wave after wave of sparkling passion.
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