» Dance of the Seven Veils Excerpt

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An Excerpt From: Dance of the Seven Veils

Kat elbowed Lyssa, inclined her head to the archway leading to the foyer. “Like him. That gladiator. I’d like to be the one to turn him on.”

Lyssa’s heart skipped a beat, then thudded back to catch up. About six feet tall, dark hair curling around his ears and nape, a narrow black mask that accented the sharp cheekbones and square jaw, the gladiator leaned negligently against the jamb, arms crossed, one leg casually crossed over the other. A gold medallion glowed against a thatch of dark chest hair overlaying well-sculpted muscles. Sandals were laced up his calves, and his thighs under the short Roman tunic looked strong enough to hold him over her in a variety of positions for hours.

She blinked. Where had that thought come from?

The gladiator inclined his head slightly, raised an eyebrow. In invitation?

Lyssa swallowed hard. Her heartbeat accelerated. She realized she wanted to go to him. But her feet felt rooted to the parquet floor. Lingering doubts about her femininity choked her.

In the background the music shifted. The frenetic opening strains of Richard Strauss’ Dance of the Seven Veils wafted through the hidden speakers, tympani pounding, a haunting oboe solo connecting to her synapses. Her heart stuttered. It was as though fate had stepped in at this singular moment in time, sending her gaze to this particular stranger across this crowded room, the music reminding her of her costume of seven diaphanous veils tenuously held in place by a golden waist chain. In her eyes, the gladiator morphed into the lascivious, depraved Herod that the voluptuous Salome would entice into granting her deepest, darkest wish.

The gladiator moved languidly to a pile of plush cushions on the floor of a dimly lit alcove and reclined on his side, one knee upraised, leaning on an elbow. He swept his other arm out in a gesture of “The stage is yours” and waited, his mouth curled upward into a slight smile of anticipation.

You’re Salome, a voice said inside Lyssa’s head. Amoral, decadent, willful. Dance for him. Seduce him.

She thrust out her chin and posed like a dancer, the toes of one foot pointed out, one arm across her torso. She scribed a graceful arc up and over her head, then down to one hip, allowing her fingers to skim lightly up her thigh and between her breasts, as if calling his attention to the charms within the circle, ending with a graceful salaam gesture at face level.

Taking a deep, fortifying breath, she grabbed the edge of one veil, removed it from around her waist and dropped it to the floor at his feet. The sensuous music slowed to the leitmotif that was Salome’s signature, infusing her blood with fire. She locked gazes with him—with Herod—and tugged another veil free. Raising it high, she allowed it to float down over her hair, then dragged it down peekaboo fashion until her eyes showed, then her nose, her lips. He transferred his intent gaze to her pouting mouth, and licked his lower lip. Lyssa felt a shock of pure lust course through her. She wanted him to kiss her. Everywhere.

The music shifted to a faster tempo, compelling her to rotate her hips, to bend and sway to the music. Her hair sifted over her face in a golden curtain. She gripped the third veil and trailed it over her breast until the sensitive peak tightened and tingled, then flung the veil aside.

Faster still, the music urged Salome to tempt King Herod to his limits, to hypnotize him, to make him want to grant her most perverse wish. Another veil slipped from her body, baring both her breasts. She bent toward him, teasing him, offering her hard, pink nipples to his view but just out of reach. She spun around, undulating her arms and shoulders with her back to him, then removed the veil that covered her ass cheeks. The languid Salome leitmotif recurred, relentlessly ratcheting up the tension. She rolled her hips in a slow front-to-back motion, imitating the sex act, as she turned slowly, slowly to face him.

The lust in Herod’s eyes, the pupils so dilated they looked black, almost brought Salome to her knees. Absently she noted that his tunic tented up almost to his upraised knee. And she had done this to him. King though he may be, Salome knew she had spun a carnal web of obsession around him.

Frenzied now, the exotic music rushed to its climax as Salome divested herself of the penultimate veil across one restlessly moving hip, flinging it into the alcove, where it landed on Herod’s muscular shoulder and slid down unnoticed. The last long obbligato sounded, the oboe trill drawing out the tension to an almost unbearable level. Salome ripped off the veil covering her golden thatch and stood before her King, triumphant, panting, exquisitely naked but for the waist chain and golden sandals, the veil in her raised fist fluttering with her harsh, hot breaths.

The music ended with a turbulent cadenza punctuated by three furious chords. Salome fell to her knees and collapsed, legs on Herod’s lap, arms flung above her head, her naked skin sheened with perspiration, thighs spread apart without thought to modesty, open to her King’s lustful gaze.