The song ended, followed by a round of applause. He held Viviana's hand and looked at the high table where the duke and duchess of Savoy sat in noble solitude. Viviana curtsied before them as a gesture of gratitude and just as Taveon might have whisked her out of the Great Hall, Monroe stepped in and stole Viviana's hand.
"May I lead ye in the next dance, m'lady?" Monroe asked and kissed Viviana's knuckles.
The musicians struck up another song, and Viviana smiled her acceptance before Taveon could tell him nay.
Monroe angled his head over his shoulder. "Mayhap ye should take this opportunity to thank the duke for his hospitality."
And mayhap I should throttle ye for undermining my authority,
Taveon's inner voice suggested, but the part of his conscience that wasn't being guided by his lust told him to follow Monroe's suggestion. He behaved like a barbarian, anxious as he was to get Viviana into the mirrored chamber. His cock had hardened to stone the moment he'd gazed upon his wife this eve, and he ached with the need to be inside her.
Taveon approached the high table and bowed before his hosts. "You have been most gracious, Your Lordship. On behalf of my wife and myself, I humbly thank ye for your generosity."
"It is my pleasure to honor any kin of the Golden Lion." The duke stroked his black beard, his gaze made a quick pass over Taveon's person, then returned to the courtiers and their dance. The duchess never once looked Taveon in the eyes. Her face could have been carved of stone, so cold was her demeanor.
While he exchanged niceties with the duke, a serving maid with white-blonde hair refilled the duke's goblet. Her light blue irises swept into the corners of her eyes to glance directly at Taveon's midsection while she did her duty. She made no effort to hide her interest in his obvious arousal.
"Danaë." The duke's tone was short. He brought the maid close, no doubt scolding her for her behavior, but when she scurried away, she once again ran her gaze over Taveon's person.
Brazen drab!
As the music wound down, the duke rose and adjusted his red and gold doublet. "It has been a taxing evening. I'm certain you are anxious to retire. I trust your accommodations are to your liking?"
"Aye. Verra much so." Anticipation crawled up Taveon's spine and raised the small hairs on his nape.
"Then, please, do not let me keep you from your wife."
Finally free to escort Viviana from the festivities, he waited for the final chord, then snatched her out of Monroe's grasp and whisked her out of the Great Hall.
"M'laird, is something amiss?" Viviana held her skirt in front of her and jogged to keep his pace.
His breathing quickened.
Shite, mon! Restrain yourself.
His conduct was nothing short of savage, and Viviana was sure to regard his silence as temper. When had he lost all ability to think?
"M'laird, please." She stumbled.
Taveon caught her and pushed her against a hanging tapestry beside a pitch torch. He cupped her nape and dove into her mouth, raking over her tongue in fast swirling movements.
Sweet Venus!
She tasted as good as she smelled—sweet, tangy, exotic.
She clutched the flaps of his doublet and pulled him closer. Standing on her toes, she widened her jaw and met his kiss with the same aggression. Then all at once, she pushed him away. Her breaths were audible and every bit as ragged as his own. "Too fast."
Heat scorched through his veins and set his fingertips afire. Taveon put space between them and fisted his shaking hands. "Forgive me. I'm behaving like—"
"Like Luciano," she finished for him.
Damn-it-to-Hell!
While he was deserving of an insult, he didn't want to be compared to her previous husbands. Not this night. "Come. I have something to show ye."
He set her hand on his sleeve and led her to their chamber. The door squeaked open and a rush of sweet, warm air coated his face. Vincent had done well. A fire blazed in the hearth, lighting the chamber from various angles through the reflective glass. A four poster bed sat on the north wall draped in purple and gold silks, and a velvet settee replaced the single chair that previously sat in the middle of the chamber.
Viviana reached for his hand, but he withheld his vision from her. Taking care not to touch her skin, Taveon guided her inside and closed the door with a resounding clip. He set her an arm's length away from the looking glass, positioned himself partially behind her, and only then did he reach for her hand.
He looked upon their reflection, his heart beating wildly in his chest, and waited for her to see him.
Her lashes fluttered, her grip tightened around his hand, and she gasped.
For long moments they stood in silence, gazing into each other's eyes. Emotions flooded him—desire, longing... hope.
Viviana reached up and touched the glass where his reflection stared back at him. "It is like nothing I've ever seen."
He captured her hand and held it to his shaven cheek. "I thought ye might like it, so I had the duke's steward prepare the chamber while we supped."
A tear fell from her lashes. "You did this for me?"
He pressed his lips to her temple, never once drawing his eyes away from their reflection. "I did this for us."
Turning her toward him, he closed his eyes and brushed his lips over hers. "I want ye to watch me make love to ye, so ye will know ye have but one husband." Over her shoulder, he looked into his own eyes, wanting nothing more than to find a place in his wife's memory. "Know my image, Venus. And when I close my eyes let my face be the only one ye see."
He kissed her with a tenderness he hadn't known he possessed. Something in that kiss pushed Da's warnings into the shadows of his conscience, and it was only then that he felt the walls of his guarded heart crumble. He drew her bottom lip between his teeth and slid his tongue inside where he danced with a freedom he'd sought the whole of his life.
"Taveon," she whispered into his mouth and pushed his doublet over his shoulders.
All too eager to aid her, he freed himself of his outerwear and tunic, baring his skin for her caress. Everywhere her fingers touched, her lips followed, laving his chest with delicate kisses. He watched her in the mirror and felt the swirl of her tongue around his nipple. Then she blew and bit the nubbin of flesh, while her other hand explored his back.
Grinding his teeth against the blaze exploding in his loins, he untied each of the tiny ribbons following the curve of her spine until he was able to push her gown over her shoulders.
She straightened and caught the front of her bodice before it fell. "You will go slow and treat me with the dignity I deserve."
"Aye, m'lady," he agreed, feeling the sting of her reprimanded for his earlier actions in the corridor.
Her head angled, presenting him with that succulent curve he'd wanted to taste earlier. He drew a path up her neck and suckled her earlobe. "I should warn ye. If your seduction involves a long drawn-out courtship of kisses, I will most likely spend myself before I get ye to the bed."
He expected a gasp or mayhap a "pish". What he didn't expect was the blatant contact of her hand wrapped around his hard cock through his braies. His pulse instantly pounded in his bollocks.
With shocking speed, Viviana pushed her gown over her wide hips and kicked it across the floor. She blew a breath, swiped a curl from her eyes, and then poised herself in front of him. "Does that help?"
He laughed at her eagerness and turned her back toward the mirror. "It might, if ye werenae still buried beneath two more layers of silk. What is this?" He slid his fingers over a rigid garment holding her breasts high in presentation.
"It is a corset, and I have no idea how to take it off."
"How did ye get it on?" He spun her full circle, searching for the fastenings, but none were visible.
"Agnès assisted me."
He damned this Agnès for her interference and fumbled over the ribbing tapered down the front of Viviana's waist. 'Twas nearly impossible to focus on his task with his wife's creamy globes staring him in the face. He twirled her again, and then again, searching for tiny buttons, or clasps, or hooks.
"Damn-it-to-Hell!" Frustration mounted, calling to the beast inside him. He unsheathed a small blade from his boot and placed the sharp tip at the bottom of the contraption.
Viviana stiffened. "What are you doing?"
"I'm setting ye free." With a quick snip, he cut the seam, tossed his blade on the nearby bed, then finished tearing through her garment. He felt like a wild animal in heat and that was exactly how she looked at him.
"I'm certain that was a very expensive garment. It was made of whalebone."
This was not going at all how he expected. He needed a drink, something stronger than watered wine. He'd lost total control of his senses and feared if he didn't cool his desires, he would ravish her, willing or not. Mayhap he would take a swim in the icy Lake Geneva. He turned and strode toward the door.
"Where are you going?"
His hand stilled on the lever, his forehead pressed against the wood. Somewhere in the corridor a door clipped shut. He searched for the controlled warrior inside him, but that man was buried deep behind his lust. "I want ye so bad I fear I cannae control myself."
"Please, do not leave. Please, Taveon. It is my fault."
He looked in the mirror and watched her jump when the fire cracked beside her. Her hands twisted in front of her as if waiting for a punishment. He pivoted on his heel. "What do ye mean, 'tis your fault?"
"Agnès said I should make you work for the privilege to touch me. Said that I should reveal myself to you slowly so you might savor me."
A heavy scowl weighed his face down. "Did she now? I find it hard to believe ye would speak of such personal matters with a matron ye met just this day."
Viviana blushed and directed her gaze toward the floor. "She helped prepare me and we became quite... close."
Taveon walked slowly toward her, somehow angered by her words. He backed her up with only his heated breaths until the back of her knees touched the edge of the settee. "I earned the privilege to touch ye when we spoke our vows. A privilege I have not acted on until now."
Her head rose, her purple eyes flashed, but she held tight to her tongue. Was the look on her face anger or fear?
He held no desire to quarrel with his wife. Either she would accept him in her bed or not. With the nail of one finger, he traced the underside of her breast through the linen. "I willnae force myself on ye. Tell me to leave and I will go."
Viviana pulled the side of her lip between her teeth and untied the single bow of her undertunic. "I want you to stay, and I want you to touch me."
Before her last words left her mouth, Taveon acted. He pushed her onto the settee, dropped a knee between her legs, and crushed his mouth to hers. Without gentleness or ease, he pushed her undertunic to her waist, cupped her bare breast in his hand, and pinched the already hard nipple.
She arched her back and cried out. Her hands shadowed his over her breasts, showing him how she liked to be touched. Surprisingly, she did not seek his gentleness, but squeezed with a roughness he was most eager to provide.
The amulet lying against her chest reminded him of why he'd chosen to make love to her in this chamber. He tilted his head and watched his reflection play over her breasts, teasing, titillating, rolling the nipples in unison, then he wrapped an arm around her back and feasted on her favors, tugging the taut peaks one at a time deep into his mouth.
She whimpered, pulled his hair, and rubbed herself against his knee. The vixen was every bit as aroused as he. He could smell it—a musky, feminine bouquet that wafted up between them. If her scent didn't expose her desire, then the heat between her legs did.
He curled his hand around her ankle, her calf, the outside of her thigh.
'Twas smooth.
He caressed her other leg. Not a single hair tickled his palm. He grabbed the hem of her undertunic and with her assistance, discarded it over her head.
He slipped to the floor between her knees. His gaze fell below her navel where a bold beauty mark led him to her mons—her hairless mons. "Shite, woman! What in the name of Zeus have ye done to your nock?"
A fierce red tinted her skin. "I depilated."
"Dipple-what?" he asked, having never heard the word.
Her hands flew to cup her mound and hide the flesh he was most eager to inspect. "Tell me your women do this."
"Nay. They do not." He removed her hands and slid the tips of two fingers over petal soft lips—lips as velvety as the ones on her face. "But I think mayhap they should." Without a moment's thought, he leaned forward and dragged the flat of his tongue over his skin.
She gasped.
"'Tis magnificent." He licked her again, exploring the smooth texture. His cock jerked and a small burst of semen spilled out.
"What are you doing?" She shimmied back on the settee.
"I'm savoring ye." He glanced up at her. Violet irises swam in a sea of white. "Was there another reason ye would have prepared yourself in such a manner?"
"I did it to ease your entry, not so you could, could..."
"Dine on ye?" he supplied for her. From the look of horror wrinkling her sweet brow, he suspected she'd never known a man's kiss in such a private place.
Her husbands were fools and he was glad. Proud to be the first man to introduce her to such intimacy, he pulled her to the edge of the settee by her hips and spread her legs wide enough to reveal twin beauty marks on the inside of her left thigh. He swallowed.
"Taveon, wait—"
"Shush, wife. I'm about to pleasure ye in a way ye will find most enjoyable." And with these words he slipped his tongue into the folds of her womanhood.
She swelled almost instantly. "Oh,
cazzo
!"
He drew one pillowed lip into his mouth, then the other, and it was the most erotic kiss he'd ever known.
He slipped in a finger and flicked the sensitive pearl of flesh deep inside her. She panted and squeezed her breasts, pinching the nipples hard. Her inner walls sucked at his finger, then her own hand snuck into play, circling the tiny nubbin hidden at the peak of her slit.