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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 bath.

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.…