He apologized to her, but she couldn’t focus on his words, not when she was so gloriously enraptured by the moment. Her flanks heaved with heavy intakes of breath as they continued to share touch like they both hungered like they had never eaten. She felt him expand within her and then release what her body begged for, causing one last peak of her own to slam into her. Olive was dazed by the time she felt his nip and then kiss. She stilled against him, making no move to climb away from him.

She pressed her temple to his shoulder opposite the one he sampled, heart slamming into her rib cage like timpani drums being played by skilled hands; she felt his own beating against her breast and closed her eyes for a moment while he promised to keep her inner demons safe. She tightened her arms around him, nuzzling her cheek against his collar.

Something profound had happened; she wasn’t angry at him for his intrusion as she thought she had been. “I am not angry, Paolo,” she said ever… so… softly… And she meant it! Her head lifted then, and her eyes, filled with a myriad of emotions, searched his gaze as if confused by the events that had just happened. She lifted a hand to his cheek, caressing along the almost sharp contour it presented using the back of her fingertips.

Her eyes dropped and so did her hand. She was clearly processing their mating dance, perhaps more than she out to. “No… you didn’t mean to…” she added, returning her face to where it had been before. “I just wasn’t expecting… well… I… don’t really know what just happened, to be honest. That wasn’t…” she broke off before she could say that it wasn’t just fucking. She didn’t know if that would have been wise or not.

Indeed, Olive was so very conflicted, for her heart ached with some emotion she wasn’t sure she wanted to name. Her fingers began to give a lover’s caress over the expanse of his back, seemingly of their own volition. Gil had made her feel lovely, wonderful even, but this… Oh god, this was a completely different feeling. Gil was safe for her; she knew he wouldn’t ever be anything more than just her best friend and lover. But Paolo? She would crave him when she couldn’t have him, and that posed a problem for her.

She did not know what would happen after their tryst, didn’t know that fate had just played a cruel trick on her, that this night and morning caused something to be that wasn’t supposed to that she would be ignorant of for a time. She wasn't even thinking of tomorrow or the next day. Instead, her grief started to take hold. Without even realizing it, she began to quietly let out her pain of not being what she was told she must be, for wanting her freedom when so many women would kill to live the lifestyle her parents tried to give her. Her body shuddered as she wept, and all she could do was cling to him helplessly as she let him in further than she let anyone in for a small window of time.

Her face eventually lifted and her mouth met his, eyes closing as she took one more kiss; just one more! She was calm by that point, spent of her sorrow for just that moment. Her cheeks reddened a little, but it was too late to be chagrined, right?

Oh, they'd shared a sweet but weighted instead of heated moment together and yet she didn't rush to escape his presence, Olivia instead curling against his flushed, raggedly breathing self. Their muscles trembled and they felt the chill of their sweat slowly creep along their skin, bodies desperately attempting to enjoy the afterglow of such an intensely necessary sharing of, well, of more than either of them obviously had planned to share with anyone, let alone each other. Perhaps Paolino should have felt a twinge of shame or self-loathing for such a personal indulgence, for allowing his carnal visitation to mingle with the emotional, especially when no money had been exchanged for his time, or, was it in spite of? When let off the tight leash of his Master, he tended to find himself in trouble, after all. This was no exception, but he couldn't bring himself to feel guilt when there was so much beauty to savor.

The blond courtesan sighed, cheek against dark hair and senses full of the scent of roses and sex. Quiet for a moment while their pulses slowed, he smiled almost involuntarily at her admission, meeting her gaze with a hint of almost skittish wariness, like an animal caught somewhere it shouldn't be seen. Blinking heavily at the brush of her fingers, Paolo bit his lower lip to keep from flinching at the sincerity, to keep from shying away from the raw sort of honesty that felt far more full of shame for him than any nakedness.

"It felt good to share ... more than expected with you, Olivia." He offered quietly, comfortable saying out loud what she was not despite the hints of hesitance in his whispered tone. He spoke to himself as much as he spoke to her, however, as if making sure she knew that he wasn't as calloused or aloof as he seemed. Someone needed to know that truth, and it may as well have been her—here, now. But he added almost too quickly, the ache of knowing what his life was meant to be without so long as it wasn't his own, "It wasn't wrong."

Paolino smiled with a revelatory sort of shyness, chuckling, content to hold her as the sky began to brighten and sparkling hints of morning scintillated off of the ballroom's fancy chandelier crystals. Returning his cheek to lean against her hair, his eyes fluttered closed at the brush of fingers over the pale landscape of his back, arms finding a comfortable embrace around the petite woman whose body he could now say he knew well—

And then she sobbed.

How the lithe musician longed to have considered the weeping of a beautiful creature to be novelty, but, unfortunately, it was not. He'd held tearful, broken women who'd borne a household of children but not once experienced the depths of pleasure for themselves at the hands of a man, their husbands ignorant to their needs. He'd held sobbing ladies finally free of the burden of silence after sharing not their bodies, but just their voices and their hearts with a stranger who had no other agenda but to listen to them. He'd even held a few men who wept at finally being who they truly were. His role as a courtesan wasn't just sexual in nature, after all, but not everyone truly understood what sort of service he'd surrendered to until consumed by the experience.

Should he ever marry—as was his duty, this much he knew—at least his wife would know no boundaries, at least within the privacy of his household, social expectations would be non-existent. But he wasn't his own, regardless of how his mother waited for her last surviving child to prove himself responsible for their family name. One day, yes. And on that day, the blond musician naively believed nothing in his life would change.

And so, for the Lady DuBois, Paolo's presence continued to be warm and gentle, for the blond knew when to be quiet and say nothing, he knew when to just be. He rode out her self expression with a supportive silence, ignoring the flutter of mixed emotions that beat wings fiercely within the cavity of his narrow chest, not giving even the most tenuous of holds to the depths of friendship he could share with the fierce but disciplined kind of woman Olivia had revealed herself to be.

He was an interloper, invited to share pleasures between two obvious lovers, and idle curiosity had brought him places he probably shouldn't have been and allowed him to touch secrets he'd have to keep. He would crawl home to the Gilded Lily, he would most likely be berated for his empty pockets, and while he had no doubt he'd see more of Gilberto's insatiable self again, the blond musician convinced himself that this brief, overly full moment with the woman who clung tightly to him while she was in the throes of a completely different kind of passion would be the last he'd see of her except perhaps in passing at some social gathering or elsewhere.

Turning over thoughts like tilling the spring fields in the countryside, Paolo felt Olivia grow quiet and still again, shifting in his arms to find his lips. Lifting a hand to cup a palm against her cheek, he returned the tempered kiss, lingering without shame in the selfish indulgence. He was nothing when the moment was over, when he disappeared again into the darkness, sure of how easily he could be forgotten.

Olivia blushed and he smiled, far too jaded to be chagrined, lithe fingers moving loose dark hair back into place, "Let me take you back to bed—before we are missed in our conspicuous but necessary absence."

She knew she had to let go of him, but she didn’t want to move. She gave a half smile and nodded without saying anything in reply to his offering. Her eyes closed for a minute, she let herself have just one more moment against him. She had to let go of him no matter what. Olivia nodded again as he spoke of going back to bed, and she reluctantly pulled away from the warmth his body gave to her.

The air was cool against her skin, she stooped to pick up the shift and pull it over her head. “I’ll… I’ll be along soon…” she said with a lump in her throat. The fabric of the shift hung off shoulder again, and she padded over to the window, folding her arms around herself and pressing her forehead to the cold glass.

She realized that she had wanted that connection she and Gil didn’t share. She would always love Gil, but he had stated that he didn’t love her like she had… wanted him to. Or, well… He left that stupid “but” hanging in the air. And now? Now there was a man she knew would never be hers for more than what had just happened, and it cut deeply. He was a lark, his job description didn’t include marriage and happily ever after. She hadn’t wanted to marry again, that part didn’t bother her so much. It was knowing that he would be mostly a memory, save for when he returned to claim the favor she owed him,

Olive thought about slipping a sum of money to him… Not for what they shared, but as a friend. Would he accept the money? But then she didn’t know if it was right to give him the money, she certainly didn’t want it interpreted as treating him like a Lark, for she most certainly hadn’t.

She sighed, her breath fogging the glass in front of her for a few moments before fading away. Her arms tightened about her as if to hug herself, and she pulled away from the window, suddenly feeling so very tired.