Free The Wind Dancer by Iris Johansen

you."
    She hesitated and then walked slowly toward him. She moved with grace, her shoulders
back, her spine straight. There was a militance about her stance reminiscent of a soldier
marching into battle, he thought suddenly.
    She stopped before him. "She's right, you know." Her voice was breathless. "I'm not
comely. I'm too skinny, and I don't have that lovely pale skin that Elizabet and Giulia
Marzo have. You won't be pleased with me."
    Lion leaned back in his chair. "You're wrong. As I told Giulia, I'm very pleased with
you." His gaze went again to the smooth flesh of her shoulders. "And I like the shade of
your skin. It reminds me of the gold of--" He stopped. He had been going to compare her
to the Wind Dancer, he realized with a sense of shock. It must have been Lorenzo's
remark that had brought the connection to mind. Possession. The Wind Dancer. Sanchia.
    He lifted his goblet to his lips. "You know why you're here?"
    "Yes." She moistened her lips with her tongue. "I knew when I saw you looking at me
when I was in the bath. It's the same way Giovanni looked at my mother. You want to use
my body."
    The comparison irritated him. "I'm not Ballano," Lion said harshly.
    "You had me bathed. You had me perfumed." She drew a quivering breath. "Do you want
me to take off this gown and kneel on the floor now?"
    "No!" The explosive rejection surprised him as much as it did her. "There are more
pleasurable ways of taking a woman than if she were a bitch in heat."
    "Yet the idea excited you," Sanchia said. "I saw that you were--"
    "You see too much." A sudden thought struck him. "Are you trying to change my mind
by comparing me to Ballano? Lorenzo said you use every weapon you possess."
    "But I have no weapons here," she said simply. "I gave you my promise that I'd obey
you."
    No weapons. Lorenzo had said that, too, Lion recalled with frustration. She belonged to
him. It was his right to use her body as he chose, with either tenderness or brutality. She
knew this and accepted it. Why, then, was he feeling as if he had to make excuses for
bedding her? "It doesn't have to be as it was with Ballano. I'll give you pleasure and--"
    "No." Her eyes widened with bewilderment. "Why do you lie to me? It's always the man
who has the pleasure. Women are merely vessels who accept them into their bodies and
take their seed. Never once did my mother have pleasure."
    "Because she was treated like an animal." Lion set the goblet down on the windowsill
with a force that splashed the remaining wine on the polished wood. "I'll show you
ways... " He stopped as he saw she was looking at him with complete disbelief.
    He smiled with sudden recklessness. "Ah, a challenge. Shall I make you a promise, my
doubting Sanchia? Suppose I tell you that I'll not use you as my 'vessel' until you beg me
to do it. Until you're willing to kneel and let me use you as Giovanni did your mother
because you yearn to have me inside you."
    She looked at him in wonder. "Why should you make me a promise? You need not
consider my feelings. I belong to you. It doesn't matter if I feel nothing when--"
    "It matters to me." His tone held exasperation as well as barely concealed violence. "God
knows why, but it does." He took her hand and pulled her to her knees before his chair.
"And I'll probably regret that promise a thousand times before this is over. Now lift your
head and look at me."
    She obediently tilted back her head and she caught her breath at what she saw in his face.
His eyes held dark, exotic mysteries and the curve of his lips was blatantly sensual.
    "What do you see?"
    "You want me."
    "Yes." His big hands fell heavily on her slender shoulders. "And whenever I look at you
from now on I'll be thinking of what I'd like to do to you." One callused hand released
her shoulder and began to stroke her throat. Her skin was as velvet-soft as it looked and
warm, so warm.... He felt hot lust tear through him, adding dimension to his manhood.
"I'm going to touch you whenever I