"In all honesty, I doubt I could have left you, Stefan," Lisaveta whispered. "But in the morning I must."

"I'll change your mind." He laughed then, buoyant as a young boy, plans already racing through his mind. "I'll show you my mountain retreat. You'll love it. It's secluded and high above the sultry heat. The pines reach clear to the sky. There's a stream running through the courtyard and-"

She kissed him then with tears in her eyes, because she couldn't stay and be drawn closer each day to a man she already was too much in love with. But she would love him tonight and stay with him one last time, as though she wouldn't relinquish paradise without that final lingering look back.

He intended to woo her with all the skill he'd acquired since first making love to his governess at thirteen. In the intervening years since Mademoiselle Dovrieu had come to instruct him in French art and literature and quickly lured him into her bed, he'd become accomplished at pleasing women. Perhaps Ursulina had much to do with his admirable competence. She'd taught him very young the valuable lesson of generosity. Sexual pleasure wasn't taking but giving, she'd benevolently declared. She'd proceeded in the ensuing two years, while he learned France's contributions to painting, architecture, drama and literature, to show him in a variety of ways the inescapable truth to that statement.

So he intended to give his darling Countess whatever she wished, however she wished, as often as she wished, and by the time morning came she'd have changed her mind about leaving.

He kissed her tears away first, with light brushing kisses, holding her gently in his arms and sighing in soft restraint when she reached up again to claim his mouth with hers. He was intensely aroused and had been from the moment she'd walked into the bedroom, but he only held her close, tasting the sweetness of her lips, gently stroking her back, waiting until she made the first tentative overture for more than kisses. He wouldn't rush her or force the pace; he wanted only to answer her need. Although, he thought with a confidence schooled by hundreds of satisfied women in his past, there were moments ahead when a sensuous form of aggression would be satisfying. But not yet.

Lisaveta was standing on tiptoe in order to reach Stefan's mouth, her arms raised high to twine around his neck. Stretched taut against the solid strength of his body, his arousal hard and explicit against her stomach, she felt like a human offering to some pagan god. He could have her, they both knew; she was clinging to him as though a worshiper at the altar of his sexuality, not indifferent or detached but alive with yearning. Stefan was right when he'd pressed her short moments ago to admit her need. She wanted him, she realized without pride. Her blood was pulsing through her veins in her readiness, her senses urgent in their submission. With a twinge of illogic and female conditioning, she wondered why he was content with kisses alone.

She moved her hips then with the merest of teasing pressure, and was pleased to feel Stefan's arousal swell in response. He was not, perhaps, content only with kisses. "You missed me today," she murmured, her smile the tempting one of Eve.

Looking down at her flushed and beautiful face, Stefan answered with his own captivating smile, "You noticed."

Beneath the casual restraint of his remark ran his habitual arrogance. "Mmm," Lisaveta replied, her soft voice coyly thoughtful and teasing, "I think so…"

"And reversed your decision on celibacy."

He was arrogant, she realized, about his physical attributes and prowess, although justifiably so. "I don't necessarily believe in celibacy," she sweetly said, intent on moderating his arrogance, "but I do believe in a variety of experiences." She was baiting him, her soft emphasis intentional.

"Really," Stefan quietly replied, compelling himself to suppress his sudden flare of anger. "In that case," he murmured, his eyes darkly seductive in a way Lisaveta didn't recognize because she'd never seen him celibate for an entire day, "I'll contrive not to bore you with redundance."

"Thank you," she said, her own surge of resentment impelled by his obviously nonredundant expertise. "This will be different tonight, then, won't it," Lisaveta breathed, "like a farewell performance." It angered her that she still meltingly wanted him, it angered her that she could no more walk away from him than she could stop breathing.

"Let's just call it mutual… intoxication," Stefan whispered. And not a farewell at all, he thought, but rather the beginning of-no caution was necessary in his silent contemplation; he could frankly call it what it was-a carnal adventure.

They were both, despite their anger and resentment, profoundly aroused, and as Stefan was deciding he wouldn't wait after all for Lisaveta's overtures, she reached her arms up and snaked them around his shoulders. Then, so quickly he didn't have time to protect himself, she stretched upward and sank her teeth into his bottom lip.

"So you don't forget me," she said as he stood rigidly silent, his lip bloody, his impulse to strike out curbed with only the most forceful restraint. Her arms were still on his shoulders, his loose at his sides, until suddenly, in an offensive response intrinsic to his nature and profession, his hands slid around her to the base of her spine, splayed out and crushed her to him so tightly she could feel the blood pulsing in his erection.

"You won't forget, either, darling," he said with a lazy drawl, "I promise." Lifting her into his arms in a flurry of silken skirts, he carried her over to the bed and dropped her onto the green brocade coverlet. "Do you want music?" he asked, not looking at her, pulling his shirt over his head, treating undressing and atmosphere as equally commonplace.

When Lisaveta gazed at him in astonishment from the crush of azure silk in which she lay, he added, glancing at her briefly as he tossed his shirt aside, "I could have the musicians come up." He paused a moment unfastening the first of his trouser buttons and grinned. "For the farewell performance."

"No!" she quickly retorted, realizing he was serious, realizing he probably wouldn't be embarrassed making love before an entire massed orchestra, aware his musicians were likely more familiar with this room than she was. "No music, please," she appended, wanting to make herself perfectly clear, suddenly struck with the awareness that-with or without music-Stefan Bariatinsky made her heart and quivering senses sing, made life a sweet melody of pleasure.

He shrugged, as though lack of music might be a stumbling block to his enjoyment but he'd defer to her wishes. His deepening smile was redolent with courtesy and charm. "Whatever you wish," he softly said, kicking off his boots while she watched, fascinated by his extraordinary beauty and its effect on her. And when he stripped off his trousers and underclothes with an ease that spoke of repetition, her breath caught for a moment in her throat.

He was massive-muscled, powerful, spectacularly aroused. Lisaveta shivered in anticipation. Despite all logical arguments to the contrary, he was a temptation she couldn't resist, a prize she coveted, a pleasure she must have… and she found herself reaching to undo the jeweled buttons on her gown.

"Let me do that," Stefan softly said, moving toward her, seating himself beside her, brushing her hands aside without waiting for her answer.

"I hate you, you know," Lisaveta whispered, the dampness between her thighs a contradiction to her words, her hand lifting to glide over Stefan's sharply defined pectorals, the dark hair on his chest rough to her touch, the feel of him beneath her hand the antithesis of hate.

"It doesn't matter," he answered, not about to argue the illogic of her declaration, his slender fingers deftly sliding her glittering buttons free. It doesn't matter what you call it, he thought-for her desire was evident and obvious, her face and neck and throat pinked with excitement, her hips moving languidly as if anticipating his entry-as long as you feel it. A moment later when his hand slid under her opened bodice and beneath the silk of her chemise, stroking the pliant softness of her breast, her eyes closed and she moaned softly. He smiled. Her hate, he reflected, as his other hand crumpled the blue silk of her skirt upward over her legs, had a tantalizing focus.

She had only to look at him, she contemplated, mortified and indefensible against his presence, to feel herself open in welcome, and when he touched her, her skin took on a heated glow. Tonight was all she dared stay, the terminus and final allowance of her submission to Stefan's dominating passion. Tonight, she told herself, even as she reached for him, just one last time tonight and then she'd walk away from this overwhelming compulsion.

She was wet before he touched her there, she was hot and damp and slick as cream when he slid his fingers in to rouse her and test her need and give her pleasure. She uttered a small cry, swallowed partly in her throat when his fingers reached the quivering limits and stroked, a trembling ecstasy shuddering through her senses. Before he could even undress her she climaxed, as if the long and celibate day had been frustrating and wearing on her restraint, as well.

He kissed her open mouth then, drawing in her small panting breaths, taking pleasure in her need for him, thinking with an unhurried tranquillity that he liked the feel of her silk gown next to his skin.

"And now it's my turn, greedy child," he murmured into the sweetness of her mouth. Drawing her into his arms, he rose with her to a comfortable position against the painted headboard, gilded with Venetian exuberance, rosy-skinned putti and garlanded borders. Without speaking and with a pertinent haste indicating his own ardent libido, Stefan lifted Lisaveta and balanced her above his rigid arousal. She helped him then because he needed one hand to draw up her ruffled skirt and petticoat, the practical design of her lacy drawers no impediment, and she guided him until they were in perfect conjunction. It was his turn to groan softly, his dark lashes drifting downward as she closed around him, and it seemed, he thought for a moment, sliding slowly upward as though paradise had taken corporeal form, as though physical and spiritual experience coalesced into one beautiful woman seated astride him. He understood in a single explosive revelation, strangely rose-hued and glowing, why so many religions had over the millennia worshiped female deities.

This intense pleasure searing his mind and body was centered on her hot female body, on the perfect melting fit of her around him, on the slippery gliding invasion, on his possession of her. Suddenly he was desperately rampant, like a volcano about to explode.

He resisted the impulse as long as he could because he understood the gratification in delay, but Lisaveta's voluptuous breasts were brushing his chest as she moved on him, her soft bottom enticing against his thighs, her kisses wet and warm and delicious, and even repressing his need, he knew it would soon be over.

The long hours of wanting her were taking their toll, her scent alone bewitching, and she languidly eased herself back down each time with exquisite slowness. She remembered what he liked, she was deliberately pleasing him. She didn't hate him, he knew, nor he her. A scant pulse beat later, his hands closed harshly on her waist, forcing her down as he thrust upward, and when she cried out he poured into her as though he hadn't climaxed in a hundred years.

He didn't move afterward for long minutes, incapable of action or even thought. Only feeling held reign, and he clasped Lisaveta in his arms while paradise receded in slow degrees.

She kissed him first then, in the quiet of the enormous room where he'd placed her for exactly this purpose, and wondered how she could still want him so, knowing that.

He kissed her back without profound contemplation of the unanswerable questions; he kissed her back because she gave him unique pleasure and an odd inexplicable happiness and he liked the feel of her breasts against his chest.

He undressed her much later when their bodies had cooled- or more appropriately, mildly cooled, since their passion was undiminished, only temporarily assuaged-and had her wash herself so he could watch.

"If you don't mind," he said.

"If you'll let me wash you next," she softly replied.

"And if I say no," he answered, his voice playful, for she could do what she wished with his blessings.

"Then," she said, with arched brows and a temptress's smile, "I suppose I'll have to tie you up first."