…and none of them even compared to this.
She stilled and raised her knife when she heard male voices in the distance then a woman’s laughter. Her rabid curiosity to understand how she’d ended up in such a wondrous house outweighed her fear at waking up in a strange place with a large black hole in her memory.
She eased into the narrow opening in the wood paneled doors and peered cautiously into the room.
It was a salon, of sorts—large, but made intimate with a roaring fire and multiple seating areas furnished with rich, plush fabrics on the chairs and sofas. Closest to her she saw a man with a patrician, handsome face twisted into dissatisfaction as he looked at something outside of Isabel’s vision.
She started when she fully took in his aura.
It was…bizarre. Unlike anything she’d ever seen—more like an inverse of an aura, like a film negative. He wore a crisp white shirt and a wool scarf tied artfully around his neck. His straight-legged black pants were modern enough—actually quite chic—as were his highly polished black shoes. He spoke adamantly.
“Not that tint for her breast, you fool!”
“Now you are a master painter as well, Cane? Being a master of magic and architecture and alchemy and medicine isn’t enough for you, you are now the master of Lorenzo Titurino?” An Italian-accented voice boomed in fury from the part of the room Isabel couldn’t see.
A woman laughed. “Well, Aubrey is a Renaissance man, after all, Lorenzo.”
Isabel heard a sound of disgust. “Most of the Literati are Renaissance men, my pet, being born in the sixteen hundreds. I myself am considered to be the epitome of a Renaissance artist,” the man said pompously.
“Of course, Lorenzo. It’s just that in the modern meaning of the phrase, Aubrey is the ideal Renaissance man.” The woman’s voice went from patient to a purr. The man called Aubrey Cane, whom Isabel could see, smiled slowly, all evidence of pique gone from his face. Isabel had the impression he and the woman were flirting across the space that separated them. “He is talented and knowledgeable in so many areas, you know. He is an architect, a doctor, a poet, a warrior, an athlete.”
“A braggart—”
“A lover,” Aubrey interrupted Titurino lazily. Aubrey stood and started toward the other side of the room, his walk reminding Isabel of a panther on the prowl.
“Ah, the famous Renaissance man is hungry, I take it,” Titurino said with disgust. “Must you feast on my Venus?”
“I must,” Aubrey replied. She could not see him, but there was a smile in his voice. Isabel heard a loud sigh and a giggle.
“I suppose I could use a break—and a snack,” Titurino conceded after a pause.
The woman gave a loud sigh of pleasure.
Isabel couldn’t refrain from looking into the room a moment longer. Her father always did say she was as curious as a coon. She moved farther into the opening and peered around the door.
What she saw nearly made her drop the knife she clutched in her hands.
A nude woman reclined on a scarlet, velvet-draped elevated platform, her lush blonde hair a darker shade of her pale gold skin. She lay on her left hip, her upper body braced on her elbow, the other elbow bent over her head. Her breasts thrust forward, an emerald-green silk cloth swooshed behind her from hand to hand, an eye-catching contrast to the crimson velvet and her golden beauty. The pose should have looked awkward, but the woman managed to make the posture seem natural, supple…sensual.
Perhaps the last impression was due to the fact that Aubrey Cane stood behind her, his hands slowly caressing a curving hip and full breast, his mouth pressing kisses along the woman’s waist.
Venus sighed and shivered visibly.
Isabel trembled as well. The scene before her was shockingly erotic and palpably beautiful, but her reaction came from the sublime expression on Aubrey Cane’s face as he kissed the woman with lips that seemed so firm, so hungry…so appreciative. The only thing she could think of was that what she witnessed wasn’t even remotely similar to watching a scene of pornography. The woman was exquisite and Aubrey was equally so.
Titurino set down his paintbrush near a half-finished canvas and moved behind the woman. Isabel examined the painter fully for the first time. He, too, possessed a strange aura, though not quite as neon-bright as Aubrey’s. He was a large, robustly handsome man, so it surprised Isabel a little at how gentle he was as he gathered the woman’s hair into his large hands, pausing to caress her neck and jaw. Both men touched with a sensitivity that enraptured her. She, of all people, knew the power of touch more than most human beings.
Aubrey’s kisses and caresses were becoming hungrier now. Titurino’s Venus moaned, arching her back, and both men slid one hand along her lustrous skin, molding her breasts so that the nipples protruded between strong fingers. Isabel watched breathlessly as Cane’s head lowered and he meticulously detailed the beading crest with a dark red tongue.
Heat flashed between her thighs. Her death grip on the knife loosened. She told herself to step back. Nothing had changed. She still didn’t know where she was, and she certainly wasn’t accustomed to playing the voyeur. Something about the lush sensuality of the scene, though, the sheer wanton beauty of it, wouldn’t allow her to move.
Titurino gave a low grunt of appreciation as he watched Cane suckle and finesse a nipple, apparently all irritation with his companion now vanishing in the steam of arousal. Cane lifted his head a moment later, giving the woman an apologetic smile when she gave a whimper of protest.
“Never fear, lovely. I will not make you suffer long,” Aubrey murmured. With no further ado, he lifted one of her long legs and buried his face between her thighs. When the woman cried out in sharp ecstasy, Titurino used his fingertips to caress her spread lips.
“Shhhhh,” he growled, the sound rough and soothing at once. The woman captured his large, blunt forefinger and pursed her lips around it. She suckled it with her eyelids closed, her expression rapt. Isabel’s pussy ached in sympathy when she heard the woman’s low, profound purr of pleasure.
“I would hate to put such lovely vibrations to waste,” said Titurino. He drew his wet finger from the woman’s mouth, moved to the front of the velvet-draped table and unbuttoned his trousers. Isabel caught a glimpse of a ruddy, thick penis, but then Titurino stepped closer to the woman, his back to Isabel. She watched, spellbound, as Titurino placed his hands on the woman’s head and his trousers fell about his thighs, exposing smooth, olive-skinned, muscular buttocks. The large muscles began to flex as he thrust his cock into the woman’s mouth with small but deliberate movements.