“It is your prerogative to know my thoughts, as I would know yours. But perhaps we can learn more gradually?”
“Good idea.” I got out of my chair and stood next to him, unsure why I was standing. The candles flickered unevenly in the wind from the open window. Gabriele looked up at me.
“Will you tell me your thoughts now, Beatrice?”
I considered his question. “My mind is blank.”
“Excellent,” Gabriele said, rising suddenly. In one swift movement he took my face in his hands and kissed me on the mouth. His lips were warm, and shockingly soft. He caressed the back of my neck with one hand, and his other traveled down my back.
“Gabriele, I have to tell you something.”
He looked at me indulgently. “I suspect that this will not be your last topic of the night.”
“I’m not a virgin. I hope you didn’t think you were marrying one.” I had an image of him walking out of the room without another word.
“Nor am I,” he said simply.
“I know you aren’t, obviously. But . . . you don’t care that I’m . . . sullied, or anything?”
He smiled. “Why should I? I hope to benefit from your experience.”
The implications of his answer made me flush. “You just think I’m amusing because I’m from a different century.”
“You have spoiled me, Beatrice. No woman from my own time could ever equal you.”
“But another modern transplant could do it?”
“There will never be any woman, from any century, to move me as you do.”
“You haven’t met anyone else from my century.”
“I do not need to,” he said. “Now I hope I have convinced you sufficiently of my devotion to allow another kiss.”
I stopped arguing. After a few minutes we both pulled back, breathless.
“Beatrice, please turn around.”
“Why?”
“If I try to remove your gown without unlacing it, I am likely to tear it to pieces. Do you have any further questions?”
“I might, later,” I said over my shoulder, hearing him chuckle.
The time and effort required to get a medieval bride undressed could drive anyone’s anticipation through the roof. By the time Gabriele got me out of the chemise, more than my hands were trembling. Behind me, I heard Gabriele’s intake of breath.
I started to turn to face him but he stopped me with one hand.
“Wait.” His breath was warm in my ear. “It is a great luxury to look at you this way.” His fingers followed his words, and my skin warmed under them. “The sweet arch of your neck, the curve in your back, just here.” He touched the base of my spine, briefly, and I shivered. “I must admit, Beatrice, that at this moment I am not thinking about painting you. Not at all.”
I held my breath, feeling his eyes on me.
At last he turned me gently to face him. “Beatrice, you are shaking again. Ought I to close the window?”
I wanted him so much it made my knees weak. “Gabriele, haven’t you ever taken a hungry woman to bed before?” I saw the answer in his face, the sudden shift in his expression.
“No, I have not. We are each virgins in our different ways, Beatrice—you to marriage, and me . . . to reciprocated desire.”
For a moment I was embarrassed for us both, but then my body won out over my mind. “Well, if I’m going to deflower you, you’ve got to undress too. Otherwise it’s not fair.”
“By all means we must be fair,” Gabriele replied hoarsely as I reached for his belt.
We stood in front of each other, surrounded by our piles of clothes. I was not prepared for the sight of his body. Nearly every inch of his skin had been hidden for the months I’d known him, under fabric from neck to ankles. But beyond the pure shock of seeing his beautiful, breathtaking nakedness, I’d never felt the marriage of emotion and desire as I did now.
“Come to me, Beatrice,” Gabriele said. I took a step to narrow the space between us, then matched my length to his—chest, belly, thigh—and buried my face in the heat of his neck. His pulse beat fast under my mouth, the incontrovertible evidence that this man, born more than six hundred years before me, was alive in my arms. My head spun, the world tilting. And it was more than desire that blurred my vision and filled my head with sound—my extra sense kicked in as the physical barriers between us came down at last. But unlike all the unsuspecting others whose minds I’d visited, Gabriele was aware of my arrival, and unlike the others, could resist it.
“May I?” I said, hoping he would know what I meant.
“You may,” he said, looking down at me gravely. “But beware, for I will reciprocate, in my own way.”
“What do you mean?”
“Beatrice, you must know what I mean.”
“I want to hear you say it.”
He kept his hands firmly on my arms. “I have waited as long as I can bear to have you. I may not be able to be gentle.”
“I don’t want you to be gentle.”
His eyes narrowed. “I am a great deal stronger than you.”
“Prove it, Gabriele.”
And then he let me in his head. And I learned, in that shocking moment, what it felt like to be a man—this man—my sweet, articulate, chivalrous Gabriele, driven by a need so sharp and hungry that it blinded him to everything else. I saw myself through his eyes, saw what he intended to do with me, felt the passion behind that intent. It was exhilarating and dangerous.
“You want that from me, Beatrice? Are you certain?”
I didn’t answer out loud. We stumbled across the stone floor to the edge of the huge canopied bed, which welcomed us with a loud creak of boards and the sharp smell of wool.
When Gabriele made space for his body between my legs, I learned just how strong he was, and he proved it without restraint. I had given him leave, and he took me at my word. After that, I lost the boundary between my mind and my body for a long time.
Gabriele woke me a few hours later, his fingers stroking my leg under the piled blankets. The candles had burned down, and a faint silvery moonlight came through the open shutters. For a moment I did not know where I was. Then the reality of my dislocation overwhelmed me, the expanse of centuries separating me from my own time. I grabbed onto Gabriele’s shoulder and he put his hand over mine.
“Beatrice, did I frighten you?”
“No, of course you didn’t. But wouldn’t you be frightened if you woke up in the middle of the night in a strange bed, more than six hundred years from everything you’ve ever known?”
“Do you regret your decision, Beatrice?”
“No.” It wasn’t regret, it was the truth laid bare in the dark. But my heart was slowing down as I listened to the sound of his voice. “It’s hard to believe I’m here.”