"But I like you better wet," he teases while he gets his towel. He starts drying his hair while sitting on the edge of her chair to peek at her book. "So, is it any good?"

Reading a few lines already has him chuckling, so he starts reading aloud with lots of dramatics, deepening his voice for the guy's lines and trying a high pitch for the girl's.

"The tall, slender blond man in the suit of violet silk had attached himself to Bliss's side early in the evening. He plied her with glass after glass of sweet wine, flattered her outrageously, danced with her, and teased her until she giggled uncontrollably.

She pushed his hands away as he tried to tug at the ribbons of her mask. "No, you mustn't!" she chided, a giggle in her voice that was caused half by amusement and half by the wine she had consumed that evening.

"But it's nearly midnight," he protested, his pale blue eyes admiring her through the slits in his purple velvet mask. His hair of cornflower yellow tumbled to his shoulders and rolled over into great natural ringlets. "Let me see your face, my beauty," he coaxed.

"How do you know I am a beauty?" Bliss challenged. "You cannot see my face."

"I know by the curve of your delectable lips," he purred, his own lips brushing her ear. "How I long to kiss them!"

"You judge a woman's beauty by the shape of her lips, then?" Bliss asked.

"And by the sparkle of your beautiful eyes," he whispered. "How I long to see them glowing with desire!"

"So it is by her eyes and lips that you judge a woman?" Bliss prompted, a strange quivering in her stomach.

"And by her body." His fingertips brushed, as if by accident, over the creamy swells of Bliss's breasts above the lacy edge of her neckline. "How exquisite you are. I long to hold you, to caress you, to be your lover."

He turns to Midge as he snickers. "Are your swells creamy as well?"