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hurt me. You do not beat me. You do not tup me. Where is the danger?” As she reached him, she put her arms up to his shoulders and leaned against him. “I’m cold, Sanct’ Germain. You must warm me.” She glanced toward the curtained alcove where her bed was.
    “This will be the fifth time we lie together. It is the last time, Viridia,” he said gently. “More than six times, and you would have much to fear.” His kiss was light and persuasive at once and it stirred her need as well as his own. Their second kiss was longer, more involved, and it left Viridia breathless.
    “Come,” she urged him. “I am eager for you.”
    “But not too eager to savor this time together,” he said as he lifted her into his arms and carried her toward the alcove.
    She held onto him, a little breathless in anticipation. “I wish you did not have to leave,” she said as she nuzzled his neck.
    “I would have had to, eventually,” he said softly, an expression in his eyes that was unlike anything she had ever seen before: longing and loneliness and compassion, and something more than all three—a kind of endurance that baffled her.
    “Will you miss me when you are gone?” She asked it lightly enough, but there was apprehension in her voice that her flirtatiousness could not disguise.
    He stopped still and looked down into her face. “Yes. I will.”
    She snuggled closer to him, taking comfort in his surprising strength. “Then I will not be too angry with you for leaving.”
    “Thank all the forgotten gods for that,” he said, and kissed her brow as he resumed walking. As he carried her beyond the curtain into the alcove, he felt her shiver. “Are you still cold?”
    “A little,” she admitted as he put her down on the heap of woollined silk blankets that were strewn across the raised platform which two banded chests supported. She reached out for him. “I will be warmer in a little while.”
    He sank down beside her pulling one of the blankets around her so that she was wrapped snugly in it. “Your cocoon,” he said. “You are about to emerge as a butterfly.” His smile was intriguing, and it roused her appetite.
    “All because of you,” she said, and drew his head near so that she could kiss him. “When you kiss me, that is all you do. The world might well vanish and be gone. You think of nothing but me, and the kiss,” she marveled as she released him, beaming with delectation.
    “What would be the point of kissing you if I did not pay attention?” he asked, almost playfully, as he began to explore her body, starting at her feet; he removed her felt shoes, tossing them away as he took one foot in his hand, stroking the arch with a firmly gentle touch. “You have such pretty feet.”
    “Do you really think so?” She stretched the other, flexing the arch. “They say if a woman’s feet are too big, she will always stray.”
    He laughed quietly. “It is not the feet that stray, it is the heart, and the soul.” There was no condemnation in his tone, only a kindly resignation that made her wonder briefly how he came to believe that. Then she stopped all contemplation and gave herself over to the enjoyment of all the sublime sensations he awakened in her, to the passion that she did not often experience with her other lovers. He moved gradually up her body, finding the secrets of her legs and thighs, and then the center of her flesh. He was elating and he was patient; nothing he did—no touch, no kiss, no caress—hurried her or seemed intended to force her response. His mouth was as inciting as his hands, and she succumbed to the luxury of his touch, from the stroke of his finger on her breast to the numberless kisses he bestowed all over her, now tantalizing, now tender.
    Her ardor consumed every part of her, thrilling her to her core. Everything that Sanct’ Germain did—every kiss, every caress—summoned her most intimate rapture, and as she felt herself carried to the culmination of her exultant