There was nothing more dismal than an Egyptian sky at night. Bill pondered this, sitting by himself in the still, cool twilight. Once he had thought it a glorious sight, filled with wonder and promise, but that was when Bill had seen it through a Vela's eyes. To Fleur, the world had been a dazzling place, a wonderland of color and light. To Bill, the world had been made such a place by her sudden entrance into his life.

Fleur had never been one for subtle entrances, and now, she had gone again, sweeping grandly out of his life with a flash of bright eyes and a toss of bright hair. Now, the rain fell thickly outside the humble flat, streaking the windowpanes and clattering mercilessly against the roof. An image came to him in the darkness, and, as Bill did every night, he embraced it.

The girl came to him in lace, and under the lace, her skin was the glowing white of exquisite French chocolate, white and luxurious, a dichotomy of sinful virtue. The man cupped her breasts in his callused hands, watching entranced as the sheer garment slipped from her slender shoulders. It fell around her feet, a transparent black wave.

She leapt lightly onto the man's knees, her delicate hands coming to rest on his broad shoulders like twin doves finding their perches at last. His arms came around her as she helped him off with his robes. They joined her nightgown as he stood with her, where they would stay, blissfully forgotten until morning.

His sky became the crystal blue of her eyes, his rain, the curtain of her hair, falling forward over his face as they kissed. He laid a kiss to the corner of her mouth, working up to her temple. He kissed her eyes and they fell nearly shut beneath his lips. She looked up at him through a fringe of long lashes, a contented half-smile playing about her lips.

He ran his hands down along the voluptuous curves of her body, and her hands crept up to tangle in his long red hair. Carefully, he laid her on the bed, settling himself atop her as their bodies, familiar with each other, melded and merged. The silence surrounded them, and her lips were an open shiver under his.

He drove into her once, thrusting deep into the core of her. Her perfectly-sculpted thighs came up to rap around his back. He stopped then, kissing her forehead and whispering her name into the shell-like curve of her ear. Their gazes locked and fused, a magical link between them as she lifted her hips to send him still deeper. He rose and fell, rose and fell, riding the surf of her equally insatiable desire.

At last, he was complete, laying spent on the sandy Parisian beach of her flawless skin. He kissed her parted lips, lifting himself out of her safe warmth and rolling onto his side. "I adore you," he whispered. Cat- like, she curled against his chest, and he held her, kissing her once more as sleep overtook him.