The Republic of Thieves

“But if he—”

“I already told you he doesn’t exist.” She took his head in her hands and spread her fingers through his hair. “I’m tired of everyone else getting what they want except us. Coming and going as they please, sleeping where they please, while you and I live from interruption to interruption.” She brushed the faintest hint of a kiss against his lips, and then a longer one, and by the time she started on the third Locke was in serious danger of forgetting his own name.

“So you really did choose to be charmed at last, hmm?” he managed to whisper.

“No.” She jabbed him in the chest, playfully but firmly. “I’m not here because you finessed me, dunce. You were right, on the roof that night. We want what we want. We don’t need to justify it. And when we can take it, we should. I want you. And I am taking you.”

Her next kiss told him that she meant to be finished with talking for some time.

10

GLORIANO’S INN-ROOM wobbled around Gennaro Boulidazi as though mounted on an impossibly huge gimbal, and the lights and colors of the room had begun to run together like watercolors painted in the rain. The dull pressure in his skull meant he’d gone well past the horizon of smart indulgence, but how was that possible? Gloriano’s swill had snuck up on him. The thought gave him more vague amusement than alarm. Very little ever alarmed him.

Verena, now, she was at least causing him consternation. The alluring bitch! Plainly she wanted him, but if not for the fact that she was so bloody young he would have sworn she was deliberately leading him on for frustration’s sake. She had to be skittish, of course. Still a virgin. Well, he could fix that. Gods, could he fix that.

The very thought made images of his desire swim in his head, mingling with the already muddled scene around him. Seventeen at the oldest, body tight and firm as a dancer’s, with the blood of a Camorri family that went all the way back to the old empire. She was his to shape in every way. With his parents in their graves he was his own matchmaker, his own judge and counsel. If he couldn’t or wouldn’t seize a prize as sweet as Verena he ought to cut his balls off and let the house of Boulidazi fall! So she couldn’t go onstage in Camorr? Piss on Camorr. In Espara she could do as she pleased, at least until she started bearing children.

“M’lord.” It was one of his men, hatchet-faced Brego, whispering in his ear, too respectful or scared to touch him. “Can I fetch a carriage for you?”

“ ’M fine,” muttered the baron, scanning the room dazedly. “Th’ gods fucking love me. Preva loves me! Just look at what she’s sent me.”

Boulidazi concentrated, fighting back against the warm haze that was slowly gathering between his senses and the world around him. Drunk actors everywhere—his company. And there was the mouthy seamstress, the nightskin with the papers and the answer for everything. Oh, but she was tasty despite the airs she put on, no virgin and certainly no girl. Hair like curling black silk and breasts like heavy purses under that fraying bodice. Gods, yes, she’d know what to do once her legs were spread. A man could sink right in and feel at home.

That thought stirred him to arousal, a sudden exquisite pressure. He stumbled and had to push off a random inebriate to steady himself. The poor fellow toppled to the floor, dismissed from Boulidazi’s mind even before he landed.

The seamstress! He needed to spend himself a bit, drain the urge just enough to restore his self-control for a couple of days. Jenora would suit that use … would probably be flattered. Boulidazi watched her closely, noted her furtive whispers to the tubby Camorri, Jovanno. For some reason she’d taken the boy to her bed. Did she have any idea who Lucaza and Verena really were? Was she trying, in her own pathetic fashion, to sleep her way to better circumstances, fucking Lucaza’s man? Now, that was damned amusing.

Jenora left the inn-room just a moment later, her intended arrangements for the night obviously communicated to the boy. Jovanno, however, was dicing with Alondo and those twins. So he’d be busy for a few minutes at least. Polite Jovanno, sociable Jovanno—the boy would keep their company until the round was done. Well, tonight that would cost him first pass at some quim.

Verena would never have to know. Jenora, like all of her associates, was empty-pursed and painfully aware of it. It was the easiest thing in the world to keep a penniless woman shut up.

“I need some privacy. Jus’ a few minutes,” Boulidazi muttered to Brego. Then, summoning the dregs of his concentration, he put one unsteady foot in front of the other and moved toward the stairs Jenora had taken.

11

EACH KISS was longer and fiercer than the last.

Locke’s hands shook with the hot anxiety of impatience and inexperience. There were so many things to figure out so quickly between short, desperate breaths. It was one thing to throw a girl around in dreams, where the mind can discard the inconveniences of physical reality, but real girls have weight and mass and demands that dream girls lack. First passion is a complicated dance.

Strangely, it helped that Sabetha seemed just as impatient. She held him at bay a moment while she all but tore the ribbon out of her hair, spilling it across her shoulders. She was flushed, sweaty, as awkwardly excited as he was, and through that she’d shed the imposing grace that usually made Locke feel so small and stumbling around her. Neither of them could be graceful at such close quarters, and Locke found that an immense relief.

The heat grew in the tiny enclosure as they wound their arms and legs together, and the shock of actually being there with her gave way at last to the explosion of pent-up longing. Their tongues met, hesitantly at first, and they shared a nervous, muffled laugh. Then they explored the new sensation together, more and more boldly. Their hands, too, seemed to come unshackled from inhibition and roamed freely.

Order and planning were forgotten. Locke found himself having done things without any realization that he’d even started them. Their clothes were shed with reckless speed, as though torn off by ghosts. It was almost like being in a fight—the same fearful exhilaration, the same sense of time disjointed into bright, hot, all- consuming flashes. His hands on her breasts … her lips against the taut muscles of his stomach … their final scramble to arrange themselves for something that neither of them understood.

Toward that something they fought, and fought was an apt description. However passionate they were, however deep and pure the pleasure of their connection, there was something hesitant and incomplete about their lovemaking. They were like two pieces of an unfinished craftwork, not yet trimmed and polished to slide together properly. At last, they eased apart, exhausted but not content. It was obvious to Locke that Sabetha was straining to conceal disappointment, or discomfort, or even both.

Is that it? The thought came unbidden from whatever corner of his mind was responsible for unhelpful pessimism. Was that all? That was the act that turned the whole world on its ear, that made men and women crazy, that bedeviled his dreams, that made hounds of the Sanza twins?

“Look,” he muttered when he’d caught his breath. He pushed himself up on his elbows. “I, um, I’m sorry —”

Sabetha pulled him back down and held him tight, her breasts against his back. She spread her hands possessively across his chest and kissed his neck, an act that instantly disconnected him from whatever willpower he’d managed to summon.

“What are you apologizing for?” she whispered. “You think that’s it? You think we never get to try again?”

“Well, I just thought you’d—”

“What, banish you like a passing fancy?” Her kiss became a playful bite, and Locke yelped. “Preva help