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“Black. It goes with everything.”
“How practical. I like that in a man. Where were you born?”
“Dallas. And please don’t ask me if I’ve met J. R. Ewing. I’ve never been to Southfork, and I don’t watch the TV show.” That was one constant about Europe. Everyone knew Dallas from either reruns of the old drama or the reboot version on cable. “What about you?”
“Toronto. My mom moved to Detroit when I was a baby and became a U.S. citizen. That’s where I grew up.”
So maybe their worlds weren’t as far apart as he’d assumed. “You’re American?”
The silence stretched long enough for Matthew to wonder if he’d said something to offend her. But she had to know her ragged voice didn’t carry a discernible accent and was unusual enough to warrant such a question.
“I’m nothing and everything,” she said with a laugh that wasn’t a laugh. “Usually I tell people I’m French Canadian. But I haven’t been to Toronto in years. Or Detroit for that matter.”
“Is your mom still in Detroit?”
“She lives in Minneapolis, for now, working on her fourth marriage. I have fam—other people in Detroit.”
Other people? He didn’t ask. The undercurrent of pain in her voice had been strong, and if she’d wanted him to know, she’d have said.
“Your home is in Europe then?”
“Or wherever the wind takes me.” She injected a note of levity, but he wasn’t fooled. Nowhere felt like home and it bothered her. “Do you still live in Dallas?”
“No.” Lack of a home was something they shared. He’d sold his house, his car, everything. The only possessions he had to his name were the clothes in the closet at the palazzo and a few childhood mementos stored in his parents’ extra bedroom. “I’m going where the wind takes me, too.”
At least until he found the way home.
She stopped dancing and collided with the next couple, earning a dirty look from them. Impatiently, she pushed Matthew off the dance floor toward the side wall and peered up through her mask, eyes liquid with sympathy. “I’m sorry.”
“For?”
“For whatever happened.”
She didn’t question him,, though she could obviously read between the lines as well as he could.
A wave of understanding rippled between them. Both of them were searching. Both of them carried secrets full of pain and misery and loneliness.
They weren’t different at all.
She whispered, “I’m glad the wind blew us to the same place.”
All pretense of speed dating evaporated. Something much more significant was happening.
“Me, too.”
Amber’s death had broken his heart, nearly broken him entirely, and he couldn’t fathom feeling that strongly about anyone else. For months and months, he’d despaired of ever feeling anything again, and like a foghorn echoing through the mist of his grief, this gravelly-voiced fantasy had appeared.
She was a gift, one he wasn’t ready to give back.
No, he didn’t want a one-night stand with some random woman, but he couldn’t resist exploring what two damaged souls might become to each other.
With his brain firmly in command, he drew her hand into his and smiled.
“Instead of directions upstairs, I have a better idea. Come home with me.”
* * *
Home. Evangeline liked the sound of it. She’d never had a home.
She’d had new stepfathers every few years. A half sister, Lisa, whom their father had obviously preferred since he’d married Lisa’s mother. Plenty of hotel rooms and airplanes—all of that, she’d had.
She wished she could indulge in something so simple, so achingly honest as home. But imagine if she took off her mask and Matt turned out to be a reporter. Or worse.
At Vincenzo’s, masks were part of the ambience, the anonymity. Masks kept things surface level. Masks kept a man at arm’s length and promised nothing more than one night, a brief, sizzling interruption of loneliness. Masks prevented rejection. And scars. She’d had enough of both, thanks.
And there was no doubt Matt had a couple of his own scars.
With a light laugh, she blinked at him coquettishly. “What are you proposing?”
“A continuation. No exes. No crowds. No rules. Just me and you and whatever feels right.”
Oh. That might be okay. “What if I wanted to keep our masks on? What would you say?”
“No rules. For anything.”
Her insides shuddered deliciously. “That’s a little open-ended. How do I know you aren’t into some very naughty things?”
“You don’t. We’re both taking a leap of faith.”
The wicked gleam in his eye didn’t reassure her, but it certainly piqued her interest. “I might be into naughty things.”
“I’m counting on it.” He tugged her hand as the music switched to another electronic number. The crowd went crazy, pressing in on them from all sides. “Come on.”
To her left, she glimpsed Sara Lear posing for a picture with two men in drag. Rory was nowhere in sight, but he might pop up again at any moment. That decided it. The last thing she wanted was to be at this party alone, constantly reminded of how she wasn’t Sara.
Matt was clearly lonely, too. She’d head in his direction and see where it led.
“Let’s go. Right now.”
He kept her hand in his and led her out of Vincenzo’s palazzo via a side entrance. They crossed a moonlit courtyard and climbed an ornate outer staircase to the second floor. Matt held the door for her to enter ahead of him. Lights flashed.
“Welcome to Palazzo D’Inverno,” he said.
Evangeline’s breath stalled in her throat. Relief frescos lined the walls and extended to the ceiling, where the colors exploded into Renaissance-style art of unparalleled beauty. Modern terrazzo floors studded with chips of marble and granite spread underneath her feet and met three sets of glassed French-doors leading to what appeared to be a marble balcony overlooking the Grand Canal.
Three long leather sofas in sea-foam green formed a U in the center of the living room, and all three afforded an amazing view of Venice, lit for Carnevale with breathtaking splendor.
“This is unbelievable.” There were no other words. Vincenzo’s palazzo had been in his family since the time of the Medici but it couldn’t hold a candle to this one. “I had no idea anything like this still existed in Venice.”
Matt’s mouth twisted into a semblance of a smile. “Keeps the rain out.”
“Whoever owns this place hit the jackpot. You’re lucky they agreed to rent it out. It’s amazing.”
He shot her a quizzical look. “I’ll be sure to pass on the compliment.”
“Do you have all three floors, or just the piano nobile?”
“Top two. The bottom floor isn’t restored. The bedrooms are upstairs. Would you like to see them?”
“Was that a line?” She grinned at his chagrined expression. He was endearing in a way that shouldn’t be possible in conjunction with his forceful, compelling personality. “If so, I must say it worked extraordinarily well. I not only want to see the rest of the house, purely for aesthetic reasons of course, but I want to get out of this dress in the worst way.”
She took a step toward the twisting staircase, but he tugged her back and pierced her with his beautiful crystalline eyes, capturing her gaze with his and refusing to let her go.
“Angie, I didn’t invite you here solely to get you naked. When I said no rules, I meant no expectations. If nothing happens, that’s all right. I don’t mind if we talk until dawn. Whatever feels right. Remember that.”
“Matt—” The rest froze in her throat.
He was nothing like the people in her world. He carried a hint of vulnerability, a depth that pulled at her. And his restraint—that she couldn’t fathom. All the men she knew took what they wanted, when they wanted it.
Not this one. He was very clearly telling her she still had choices, regardless of how brazenly she’d thrown herself at him all night. He didn’t just see her as an outlet to slake his thirst but as a valued companion. That was powerful. And seductive.
She whispered his name again. “I don’t mind if we talk, either.”
She never talked. Talking sucked, especially when the sound of her own voice made her cringe. But they both deserved to have choices.
“Is that what you want?”
She craved the attention of this man, who seemed to understand exactly what she needed, when she needed it. To understand the weight of loss and the pain of being adrift, desperate for an anchor.
Something momentous swelled in her chest. “I just want to be with you.”
“You’ve got me. For however long you’d like. I’m not going anywhere.” As if to prove it, he lowered the lights, creating a romantic ambience instantly. He sat on the couch and spread his hands. “Think of me as a smorgasbord.”
She laughed, and it blew away all the thick implications of the moment.
“Now that’s something I’ve never had before. By the way, I wasn’t kidding about getting out of this dress. I can hardly breathe, and it’s heavy.”
“Would you like a T-shirt?”
“Um, not really. What I’d really like is your help.” She stepped out of her heels, crossed the room and sat on the couch facing away from him. “The laces in the back are too hard to reach.”
“What would you have done if we hadn’t connected? Slept in it?”
Connected. That hit her in all the soft, warm places again. This was a connection, a greater one than she’d been looking for, or had expected, and far more precious—thanks to the custom of wearing masks for Carnevale. She’d never have let her guard down otherwise.
“I would have figured out something,” she murmured as he gently lifted her curls and swept them up over her shoulder. Her skin prickled as she felt his gaze on the bare expanse from her hairline to the strapless bodice.
His hands skimmed down her back on either side of the wings, stoking the fire he’d built on the balcony, which hadn’t extinguished at all. Those strong fingers pulled on the threads, unknotting them and drawing them through the grommets with deliberate, aching leisure.
She kept expecting to feel his lips on her shoulder, on the column of her neck, or at the place where fabric met her skin. But the longer he held back, and the longer her skin burned for his touch, the crazier it drove her.
Yes, he was a master at this anticipation game. Among other things. When she finally got him naked and under her, she’d show him a thing or two.
Except she still wasn’t sure they were headed for the bedroom. It was disorienting to have her temporary, surface-level liaison morph into something undefinable. Something so much more than a quick fix for loneliness.
So what was it?
Finally, after an eternity, the laces pulled free from the bodice, loosening the corset and spilling her breasts partially over the neckline of the dress, and he still hadn’t made a move.
“It, uh, has to come over my head,” she said without turning around. She raised her arms. “Can you...?”
He grasped the bodice but she was sitting on the skirt, so she wiggled and he pulled, until the yards and yards of lace tulle eased past her waist. The mask popped up onto her forehead, but she repositioned it before the skirt fully came off.
Then she was naked except for her thong. And the mask. What would he do first? The way he’d answered that question back on the balcony had been maddeningly vague.
He draped her dress over the back of the couch. She faced the canal, away from Matt, and he had yet to say a word. Screaming sexual tension whipped through all her nerves until she thought she’d pass out.
“So. What did you want to talk about?”
His soft laugh settled inside her. “I’m wondering about this.”
He traced the trail of eight notes tattooed in a string at the small of her back. The smooth touch unleashed a tremor she couldn’t control. “It’s a tattoo.”
“The notes are all the colors of the rainbow. I like it.”
No one had ever noticed that before. “Music is important to me.”
It was more than she’d meant to say and communicated none of the shock of pure grief the words had unearthed. She shoved the grief back, like she always did, shoved back the longing for a voice to express the pain. If she had a voice, she’d have no pain to express. It was a cruel, vicious circle she couldn’t escape.
Except this was one night she didn’t have to face the darkness alone. “Matt.”
“Angie.”
The smile in his voice warmed her. “Just making sure you’re still there. Are we going to talk some more or is there something you’d like to do instead?”
“Was that a line?”
“Yes. It was.” The ache at her core spread, and only the man behind her could ease it. She’d never wanted to be with someone more. What did she have to do to get him to make a move? “Obviously not a good one since you’re still sitting there like yo—”
“Stand up and turn around, Angie.”
She did slowly.
His hooded gaze swept her from head to toe, lingering along the way and unleashing a delicious tingle in all the places his eyes touched.
“You are the most beautiful woman alive. Come here.”
He grasped both her hands and stood to meet her. In one breath, he drew her into his arms and kissed her.
Flames exploded at their joined mouths, between their bodies, crackling down the length of her bare skin where the soft fabric of his suit brushed it. Oh, how wrong she’d been. He was a man who took what he wanted. And he wanted to consume her whole.
She wanted to let him.
They connected. On every level.
When he tilted her head back to access her throat with his firm, gorgeous mouth, their masks caught at the corners. Patiently, he disentangled them and glanced down into her eyes, suddenly still. “No expectations. Does this feel right?”
Without warning, he skated a hand down her spine and fanned it at the small of her back, cradling the tattooed music notes in his capable hand as if he knew he held her very center.
Her eyelids fell closed and she moaned. “More right than anything I’ve ever felt. Please don’t say you’re really in the mood to talk.”
He laughed against her throat, and she felt the caress of his lips clear to her toes. “I’m not. But I would be happy to talk, if that’s what you wanted.”
She shook her head almost imperceptibly, terrified she’d dislodge his mouth from her skin. “I want you.”
“Good. Because I’m about to make love to you.”
Yes, she wanted that, too. To be filled by this very different man, to the brim. To connect, bodies and minds. Souls.
He threaded a hand through the hair at her neck, his fingers solid and firm against it. “Angie,” he murmured, almost reverently.
“Stop.” Tears stung the corners of her eyes. Baffling, irrepressible tears because she wanted something else from him, something she’d resisted all evening. “Just stop.”
“Okay.” His hands withdrew and the sudden lack of support buckled her knees.
“No! Don’t stop touching me. Stop calling me Angie.” Before her subconscious could come up with one of the hundreds of reasons it was a dangerous idea, she reached up and yanked off her mask. “My name is Evangeline. Make love to me, not the mask.”
Four
“Evangeline.”
It flowed from Matthew’s mouth like a prayer. Yes. That fit this angelic, winged woman who had bared herself to him in more ways than one.
He drank in her face, and it jolted something inside, as if his soul had done a double take and said, There you are.
“Angie is a nickname. Evangeline is who I am.”
A nameless emotion tightened his throat. “I’m honored you trusted me with it.”
She’d done far more than simply remove her mask. The significance of it sent a flood of guilt through him. Guilt because he could shed his physical mask—but not his internal one.
And still he drew off his mask and dropped it to the floor. “Allow me to reciprocate.”
For a long while, she fixated on his face. His neck heated. Who would have thought taking off a mask could provoke such intensity?
“God, you’re gorgeous.”
“Most people call me by my given name, but if you want to address me as God, I won’t argue.”
She laughed, pushing her firm breasts into his chest. “Way to defuse the moment. That’s a rare talent.”
He’d intended to diffuse his own embarrassment at her frank admiration, which even Amber had expressed infrequently. But if Evangeline chose to believe he had superpowers, so much the better.
“Are we finished with the revelations?” he asked.
“Not even close. Now that I’ve seen what’s under that mask, I’m dying to peel away this suit—” she flicked his bow tie “—and get a look at the rest of the goods.”
“I hope it meets with your expectations.” His voice dropped. Nerves. Of all things.
Before fully internalizing the implications, he swept Evangeline into his arms and carried her up the stairs to the bedroom.
“Any man who can do that without having to catch his breath most definitely has a body that’ll meet my expectations,” she said as he laid her on the bed. “Oh, wow. That’s quite a fresco.”
Matthew glanced up at the ceiling, where stucco divided sixteen individual paintings last touched by a brush during the Renaissance. “It’s my favorite.”
“I like it, too. I’ll lie here and look at it while you fetch the condoms out of my clutch. Which is downstairs.” She flipped him a cheeky grin as he cursed.
He cursed some more as he tromped back down the narrow stairs in search of the errant bag. It was still attached to her dress, but instead of pulling out a couple of condoms—because who was he to question how many they’d need—he untied it and brought the whole thing.
The bulging sides of Evangeline’s clutch induced a healthy dose of reality. He was about to have sex with a virtual stranger, one whose face he’d seen for the first time less than ten minutes ago. Halfway up the stairs, he paused.
Was he really going to go through with this?
It was one night. One night in which he had an opportunity to turn the tide of his grief and rejoin the living by spending time with a beautiful woman who made him feel ten feet tall—feel being the operative word. One night when he could act recklessly with no one the wiser. He was in the most romantic city in the world, perhaps on purpose, and he wanted all that Venice had to offer.
Evangeline was draped across the cream-colored comforter when he strode through the bedroom door. She studied the ceiling with pursed lips, hair spread out underneath her and breasts freely on display. That lack of inhibition—it staggered him. Excited him.
His body hardened in anticipation, and his fingers tingled as he recalled the smoothness of her bare skin. This one night was a rare offer from the universe, and he was incredibly lucky to get it.
She glanced over with a sultry smile. “You. Come here.”
Only a fool would pass up what was clearly fate.
With one hand, he got rid of his shoes and socks as he crossed the room. He tossed her clutch on a pillow and stared at her gorgeous form, flawless in the lamplight. “Hold on a minute.”
He pulled a book of matches from his bedside drawer and lit the candles lining ornate sconces on each side of the bed, then clicked off the light.
“Nice. You could have gotten me here a lot faster if you’d said that was the first thing you’d do once I’m naked.” She sat up and grasped his lapels, drawing off his jacket with a quick yank. “And you have on too many clothes. I’m feeling self-conscious here.”
He let the jacket fall to the floor. “I can’t imagine why. You’re beautiful.”
Flames flickered over her skin and threw honey highlights into her curls.
Her hands, which had been busy with his tie, rested flat on his chest, and she rose up on her knees to meet his gaze. A hundred emotions poured from her expression, passing between them in silent communication.
“You know why,” she said.
He did. In her eyes, he saw the same things she no doubt saw in his. They had an understanding, nonverbal and mystifying, but very real. He’d felt it from the first moment in the hall. He felt it now.
She was self-conscious not because of her nakedness, but because she’d removed her mask and feared learning she’d made a mistake in trusting him.
This night was about two damaged people seeking a port in the storm. He was going through with it because he wanted to live up to her trust. Wanted to fall into a woman so different from any he’d ever met, one so wrong for a real estate broker from Dallas, but perfect for a man who didn’t know who he was or how to live his life anymore.
He wanted to see what happened if he let go of all the rules. It couldn’t be worse than the purgatory of the past eighteen months.
If he did it right, it would be spectacular. Meaningful. And Matthew did everything right.
“I’m not going to disappoint you,” he said hoarsely.
“I know. I wouldn’t be here otherwise.” Her voice had grown impossibly huskier as well, skating across his skin, burrowing its gravelly hooks into his center. “I’ve just never done anything like this before. Never wanted to.”
Well, that made two of them. Hopefully they could figure it out together. “No expectations. No rules.”
“I remember. Except I have this one rule.” She made short work of removing his bow tie and began slipping his shirt’s buttons free with deliberate care as she peeked up from under her lashes. “I get to explore first. You have to wait your turn.”
He went so hard, his spine curved. Had a woman ever undressed him so provocatively?
“That’s a pretty unfair rule. Why can’t we do it at the same time?”
“Because I said.”
The last button popped from its mooring, and she slid blazing fingertips across his bare chest on her way to his shoulders. His shirt came off in her hands and she yanked it halfway down his arms, trapping them against his side.
“Actually,” she added, “the rule states I get to explore twice, once with my eyes and another time with my mouth.”
Said eyes roamed over his exposed skin as she pulled him closer with the grip she had on his shirt. Without warning, she spun him and tied his hands behind his back with the fabric.
“Oh, now that’s really not fair.”
“All’s fair in love and war.” Still on her knees, she turned him back around to graze a fingertip down his chest and into the waistband of his pants. “I’ll let you go when I’m done exploring.”
She drew him closer and dropped his pants and briefs to the floor, ravishing his erection with her eyes, as promised.
He kicked his pants away. “I can easily break out of this you know.”
“You won’t.” Her light tone fooled him not in the least.
This was love and war. And holy cow, did that get his juices flowing in a way he’d never have guessed. He’d play along, but she better believe he’d be dishing it out when he got the chance.
With a soft sigh, she twirled her finger. “Turn around. I want to see it all.”
He faced the wall opposite the bed, slightly uncomfortable and enormously turned on by the notion of her eyes traveling up and down his naked body.
“When does the mouth exploration start?” he called over his shoulder.
Her answer came with a soft touch at the base of his spine. Hair brushed his skin as she nibbled upward and his long-neglected body erupted with heat.
By the time she reached his neck, her tongue had joined the party. He groaned at the wicked swipe of wet heat against his earlobe, and allowed her to spin him slowly as she followed the line of his jaw with her lips.
Then there was no more talking as she kissed him.
He wanted to drag her into his arms and respond in kind. But he couldn’t. His honor forced him to stay constrained as she did her best to drive him mad. He spiraled closer to the edge as she tilted his head in her palms to take the kiss deeper, teasing her nipples across his chest in a tantalizing back-and-forth dance.
Evangeline broke the kiss, arching her back sensuously. The silk of her thong brushed his length, and he nearly came apart right then and there.