Portrait of a Love by Joan Wolf Page A

expression veiled in mystery. His hands went automatically to the buttons of his own shirt.
    Isabel watched him, almost unconscious of her own bare flesh. She had never seen him without his shirt before, and she gazed at the smoothly muscled expanse of chest, shoulders, and upper arms with an almost professional detachment. She might not be very sexually experienced, but Isabel had seen a great number of nude male bodies. Leo’s was perfection. She felt a sudden, sharp regret at the thought of not painting him exactly as he was now.
    Then his body bore her down onto the bed, and all thoughts of painting, or of anything else, fled from Isabel’s mind. Nothing else existed in the world except Leo’s hands touching her, his mouth caressing her.
    Isabel had never felt like this with Philip, Philip had been interested only in satisfying himself. He had never shown her such astonishingly erotic tenderness. As Leo’s hands slowly explored her body, Isabel felt passion rising in her like the spring tide until a small whimper formed deep in her throat and she arched up against him, her slender body pressing against the hard strength of his. Her long hair was streaming back against the pillow and he buried his face in it.
    “Isabel.” It was a love word, a caress, a promise.
    She kissed his shoulder as her fingers dug into his back. She had never wanted anything in life more than she wanted him at this minute.
    With Philip she had felt as if she were a spectator during their lovemaking. A part of her had always remained at a distance: detached, uninvolved, intact. With Leo she lost herself. Swept away on a tide of passion, hers as well as his, she rose to heights she had not known existed and gave to him a depth of surrender she had not dreamed possible.
    And then, after the raging tide had receded and they were left breathless, the oneness was still there. He held her in the crook of his arm and she nestled her cheek into the slightly damp hollow of his shoulder. He kissed the top of her head and she turned her lips to the smooth bare skin of his chest.
    “Who was he?” he asked. His voice was slow and soft and lazy.
    “His name was Philip,” she said after a minute. “I was seventeen when I met him.”
    “I’d like to meet him.” His voice was the same as before. “I’d like to beat the selfish swine into a bloody pulp!”
    “Leo!” She was so startled that she sat up. “How do you know he was a selfish swine?”
    His voice remained even, but the expression in his blue eyes was one she had never seen before. “I just made love to you, honey,” he said. “I can tell.”
    She could feel the color staining her cheeks. She sat there looking down at him, her long black hair streaming down her naked shoulders and over her small, perfect breasts.
    “He wasn’t like you,” she said.
    “I should damn well think not.” It was the first time she had ever heard him swear. “You were seventeen. How old was he?”
    “Thirty.”
    This time he really swore and Isabel’s eyes became utterly huge. He looked up at her and his face relaxed a little. “I’m sorry, Isabel. I shouldn’t have said that.”
    “I’ve said worse,” Isabel replied candidly. “It’s the source, not the language, that’s so shocking.”
    He picked up her hand and held it to his lips.
    “My mama always taught me to mind my language in the presence of ladies.”
    “You are the complete Southern gentleman, suh,” she said. Then she grinned, a mischievous urchin’s grin that illuminated her grave, dark face. Her brown eyes laughed at him. He had never seen her look like this and guessed that it had been years and years since anyone had seen her look like this. “It just occurs to me that we are in rather an odd position for me to be making that comment,” she said.
    He felt a quick and savage anger toward the men who had taken that look from her. He moved her hand to his cheek and wrapped his free hand around a thick strand of long black