her legs, her hips. She was slender but strong, her thighs parting to straddle his hips and hold him her willing prisoner beneath her.
She moaned as his avid touch skimmed over the soft skin of her inner thigh, the arc of her hip. She cried out, her mouth torn from his as she arched up, her back supple as a bow. Balthazar, too, lurched up from the bed, his hands on her hips as his mouth slid from hers, along the line of her throat.
His tongue touched the frantic pulse at the base of her neck, and he felt her very life flowing into him. After facing death, the raging sea, the dagger, her warmth and lust were intoxicating. He kissed her collarbone, the slope of her shoulder, as he pushed her chemise back to bare one breast.
Her bosom was small but soft, the nipple a dusky disk that lengthened and hardened as he blew a gentle breath over its pouting flesh. He drew it deep into his mouth, suckling it hard as she gasped.
Her fingers drove deep into his hair, holding his mouth to her breast, her legs tight on his hips. Through the thin fabric of his hose he felt the damp heat of her womanhood.
“Balthazar!” she cried hoarsely. “I…”
Suddenly, like a cold wave, she pushed him away. As he fell back to the pillows, she scrambled off his body, her feet landing with a thud on the wooden floor. The ache of his wound came flooding back upon him as she spun around, as he lost her taste and warmth, the passion that came upon him so suddenly, so irresistibly.
He pushed himself up on his elbows, panting as he watched her draw the chemise back over her shoulders, hiding her beautiful breasts. She, too, was breathing hard, her shoulders trembling. She wrapped her arms around herself, until finally she gave one last shuddering breath and peered back at him over her shoulder. Her profile was as pale and pure as an ancient relief in the moonlight.
“You know my name,” he said. “And you speak with a Venetian accent.”
A bitter smile touched the corner of her mouth, still swollen with his kisses. “Of course I know who you are, Balthazar Grattiano. You are famous from Seville to Peru. The captain of the Calypso, the master of the seas—and of ladies’ bedchambers.”
He watched in tense silence as she wrapped a shawl over her shoulders and walked towards the door. There was no haste to her movements, only the taut line of her back, the soft sound of her rushing breath.
Or maybe it was his breath. He felt as if he had been climbing the rigging in a stiff wind for hours.
“My name is Bianca,” she said quietly. Then she vanished, closing the door behind her.
Balthazar groaned, collapsing back to the tumbled bed amid the smell of her soap, the salty essence of their lust. His body was still hot and hard, aching with the need to drive itself into her welcoming womanhood. His blood pounded in his ears, his shoulder throbbed.
And yet—Bianca? Who the hell was Bianca? He knew no one called…
Then, as if in a flash of fire, he remembered all too well. Bianca.
“Bianca Simonetti,” he muttered, pounding his fists into the yielding mattress. Of course. Yet another avenging spirit from the past.
Chapter Four
Bianca leaned back against the closed door, her hand pressed hard to her aching stomach. She had just kissed Balthazar Grattiano! Had let him put her breast in his mouth, straddled his near-naked body like a dockside whore. And, what was even worse, she had liked it.
Nay, more than liked it! The pleasure had been so deep, so hotly overwhelming, that she had forgotten who she was, who he was, where they were, even the terrible past. She had forgotten everything but the sensation of his lips on her skin, the hard steel of his penis under her hips. The raw need that had bound them together, tighter and tighter, until she vowed she would explode like her gun.
Bianca moaned, covering her flushed face with trembling hands. A man she had not seen for years, a man who had betrayed her friendship in the worst way, appeared again in her life, and what did she do? Kill him, take her long-delayed revenge? Nay, she nearly had sex with him in her very own bed!
Behind the closed door, she heard the squeak of floorboards, a muttered curse, as if Balthazar tried to get out of bed. Bianca ran down the narrow staircase, heedless of her bare feet, not even sure where she was going. The tavern was deserted in the pre-dawn gloom; the hot air still smelled of spilled ale and rum, greasy leftover stew and the acrid tang of gunpowder. The broken furniture from the fight, good now for nothing but kindling, was pushed back against the wall.
Bianca turned towards the kitchen at the back of the building. It was hotter in there, the fireplace banked and smoldering for the day’s cooking, but Delores still slept in her pallet by the hearth. Bianca slipped past her and out the door into the night.
It was nearly morning. A greyish-pink light tinged the edge of the thick blackness, and soon flickering lights would appear in the windows of the shops and houses. The bells would ring out for Mass from the half-finished cathedral on the plaza. The governor’s palace fortress, high on its hill above the rest of the town, slumbered behind its impenetrable stone walls, its vigilant cannons. It was silent now, yet soon enough would come to life and tend to its business, the business of every inhabitant of Santo Domingo—tending to the flotas, the treasure fleets that wended their way to Spain a few times a year.
Bianca gazed out over the town, so deceptively peaceful in the dawn. Santo Domingo had been her home for a long while now, longer than most of the European inhabitants. They could not bear the heat, the strange food, the insects and storms. Could not bear to be so far from the culture and comforts of Spain. They came only to make their fortunes, to serve the king and thus win a place at court. Then they made a dash back to Seville and Madrid, putting the strange witchcraft of the islands behind them.
But Bianca had come to love it. Oh, indeed there were times when she longed for Venice, but after so many years of wandering, of hardship and struggle, she had found a home of sorts in this rough port town on the Rio Ozama. She had built a business, one that prospered and required of her only honest hard work, and not the degradation of her body. The loss of her soul.
She gave a wry laugh. It was not always grand to haul unconscious drunkards out her door at three in the morning, to scrub sticky floors and negotiate with hard-bitten merchants for her rum and sugar and ale. There were certainly times, many of them, when she wanted to bash an obnoxious customer over the head with a cauldron and be done with it! To run screaming into the jungle, never to be seen again.
But there were also times when she could leave the jostling tavern behind and walk along the banks of the river. Could smell the salt breeze from the not-so-distant sea, tinged with the sweetness of greenery and exotic flowers. Could see the sky overhead, the purest, clearest blue, lit by a blinding yellow-white sun. Could absorb the natural beauty and peace into herself and hold it close to her heart.
Santo Domingo was rough, true, especially compared to Venice. Despite the fortress, the cathedral on the plaza, the substantial houses where only thirty years before there were just grass huts, it had the air of a temporary holding place. Of a land where the bonds of civility were thin indeed, and the threat of violent raids and rebellion hung heavy. Yet Bianca had lived in worse places, and she had found a refuge of sorts here.
But now that refuge was torn asunder. Balthazar Grattiano was here, in her very home. Bianca frowned. What was he doing here, so far from Venice? From his jewels and silks, his expensively beautiful courtesans. He did seem to be a ship’s
