Seduced by the Gladiator (28 page)

Still, with a look that an opponent in the arena would have trembled at and the sly exchange of extra denarii, Christus managed to secure two rooms that were next to each other, and to ensure that we would be left alone once jugs of water and a simple meal had been delivered. I had thought that Viola would not wish to be alone after the trials that she had been through that day, but she had cast a look that was far too knowing for her age at the way Christus’ hand lingered on my own. She had insisted that she would prefer a separate chamber, if we had the coin for it.

“I wish simply to sleep.” Her voice was quiet and apologetic, and her hand rubbed over her belly fretfully as she spoke. I would not have been able to deny the poor girl anything at that moment, and had made certain that she was comfortable in her room, with food and water nearby.

“You will be right through that wall, that one there.” Gesturing, Viola motioned for me to leave, after I had washed the youthful curves of her face with a damp rag. “Now go to your lover. It is where you want to be.”

She was not wrong. However, the girl brought out such tenderness in me that I felt I must ensure that she was safe and comfortable, before tending to myself.

Only after she looked as though she might fall asleep did I close and lock her door behind me. I rolled tension from my shoulders and my neck as I opened the door to the room that Christus and I shared. After the day’s events, I wanted nothing more than to wash, perhaps to eat, and to fall into a dreamless sleep in my lover’s arms.

“She sleeps?” Christus turned from the window at which he stood as I entered the room. His entire attention focused on me the moment that he saw me, and I found myself responding, my world narrowing until it included nothing but him.

“She rests, even if she does not sleep.” My eyes drank him in as I stepped forward slowly. It was strange for me to see him dressed in such finery. I did not like it.

I wanted to rip off the expensive wool, to find the skin and sinew that were so familiar to my eyes, to my touch.

I could tell that he was having similar thoughts as his eyes roamed over me. After all that had happened that day, I had thought that pleasures of the flesh would be far from my mind.

“Christus.” I was wrong. He was there, right next to me, and I wanted him as much as I ever had.

“My love.” Striding across the floor, he caught me up in his arms and rained kisses over my lips, my cheeks, my neck. My skin began to hum under his attention, and I rubbed against him.

“I am here.” Christus buried his face in my hair as he spoke, and for a long moment we simply clung to one another, each of us thinking of how the gods had favored us, to be in each other’s arms after all that had happened.

We had survived Gaius. We did not know our future, but for the moment, we were together.

“I love you.” Fisting his hands in my hair, Christus tugged until I looked up into his face. There I saw everything that I felt, reflected back at me. Reaching up, I trailed my hand over his cheek, over the cuts and bruises that he had sustained while trying to save my life, even at the expense of his own.

“I love you, too.” Standing on my toes, I pressed my lips to his. One kiss became two, and then more, and soon our bodies were straining together, feverish with the need to join.

I felt his cock, the hard length jutting into my stomach. I rubbed against him, savoring his moan.

We were alive. We could feel.

“Lilia.” Cupping my bottom in his hands, Christus lifted me, placing me on the rickety wooden table that sat against the wall. Clasping the skirts of my toga at the ankles, he pulled them up, up until the expensive fabric was wrapped around my waist. Slowly he knelt, his hands smoothing in slow circles up the tops of my thighs.

I shivered as the cool air hit the heat between my legs, and then he was on his knees in front of me, nibbling at my incredibly tender flesh.

I felt like a ripe fruit, the way that he lapped at my skin. First, wide circles around the outer perimeter, big fat sweeps with his tongue, the warmth feeling wonderful on my bare skin. The circle got smaller, then even smaller, until his tongue was teasing my clit. He flicked back and forth, faster and faster, and my breath began to hitch as I felt the familiar wave begin to crest.

He stopped—
the bastard
—and I sat there, quivering, my entire being focused on that tiny inch of flesh between my legs.

When I was calm, well, calmer, he began again. But instead of the rhythmic flicking, he made shapes, irregular little licks, so that I wasn’t sure where the next sensation was coming from. It was as if he was drawing pictures with his tongue, pictures intended to drive me wild.

They worked.

Impatient, I arched my hips, pressing my flesh into his mouth. He laughed, his lips vibrating against me.

“Christus.” My words begged him, my tone taut with need. “Now. Please. I need you.” I would have had him take me hard and fast, the heat of our joining burning away the taint of the day.

“No.” I felt the pressure building again as he continued to lavish attention on my clit, his tongue darting inside of my heat. I moaned as he made the pressure inside of me build. “No. For once I have time to savor you. Nothing will stop me from doing so.”

Afraid that he would make me wait again, I tried to keep quiet and still, hiding my impending climax. The trembling in my thighs must have given me away, because as soon as I had gotten a taste—just the slightest taste of that intense pleasure—he withdrew his tongue again.

And started. Again.

This time, as soon as his tongue entered me, my world went bright and I cried out with the intense feeling that I was finally granted. I bit my tongue as I climaxed, trying to swallow my cries of pleasure, aware of Viola, sleeping in the next room.

Unable to move as the shudders ceased, I leaned back against the wall. Every inch of my body was on fire. When I found myself capable of moving again, I opened my eyes cautiously, wincing slightly at even the soft glow of the candle that Christus had lit while I was tending to Viola. Still on his knees before me, he was watching me with an expression like that of a hungry animal. My gaze traveled lower, seeking the hardness of his erection, which tented the front of his toga.

“I want to see you.” I slid forward until my feet again touched the floor. Before the skirt of my own toga could fall, I clasped it in fingers that were suddenly clammy, pulling it up and over my head.

It was liberating to be free of the garment that held the taint of Gaius. I stood before Christus, naked, and basked in the reverence that his face showed as he knelt before me.

He pressed a soft kiss to my belly before pulling me down to the floor with him. Taking his hands off of me only long enough to tear his own toga from his body, he pressed me down to the floor, arranging himself on top of me.

“I have not had my fill of you yet.” I shivered as I realized his intentions. When he was done arranging me, I was lying on my back, with his cock hovering above my mouth, the satiny head damp with his own desire. His weight was braced on his arms, and the muscles of his biceps stood out in sharp relief.

Then he again placed his mouth on my cunt, and my world became bright again. He wasn’t licking delicately this time, and as I writhed beneath him, I reached up, clasped the base of his cock in my hand, and swallowed down as much of his length as I could.

I could not pay as much attention to his cock as I would have liked, for every time his teeth bit down on my clit, I felt a flicker of pain that soothed quickly into pleasure. Pain, then pleasure, pain, then pleasure—over and over again, until I wanted to scream.

I could not scream, because my mouth was full of his hard, salty cock. Spit gathered in my mouth, running down my cheeks, as I tried to bring him as much pleasure as he was giving to me. Finally forgoing finesse, I was simply sucking—sucking away at the thick length in my mouth. I was squeezing the membranes of my cheeks together, my tongue flicking at the underside of his shaft. From the grunts he made when I sucked extra hard, he seemed to be enjoying the sensations.

A short, hard climax rocked through me, and through the brightness of it I kept sucking, trying to pull his essence into my body. Though his thighs tensed above me, a sign that I had learned meant he was close to his own release, he pulled out instead, and swiveled so that our faces were once again aligned.

Then he kissed me. Softly at first, as if we had never kissed before—just the meeting of lips, pressing them together. Knowing that I had found a man who enjoyed the simple act of pressing his lips against my own, I began to relax into the kiss, instead of seeing it as just a prelude to other activities. When his tongue tentatively sought mine, I answered eagerly, nipping at his lower lip.

I felt . . . special. Cherished.

If I had not known before, I would have understood in that moment that he truly did love me.

His long, beautiful hands kneaded at my neck, softly at first, then more firmly. He found little knots of tension I had not even been aware of, working them out. Each time those clever, probing fingers found a new, hard little lump, they pressed hard, and it hurt, before the tension flowed away and the new softness in the muscles warmed and spread outward, like melted butter.

It was as if he was working away the tension from the games, from every time that I had been in the arena. In Christus’ hands, I was not a fierce gladiator—I was simply Lilia, the woman.

He began to work his way down, paying attention to every single bit of my body. My shoulders were kissed and teased lightly with delicate scrapings of pearly teeth. My breasts were rubbed, licked, and admired; the pink-hued nipples were sampled as if they were sweet as ripe fruit.

As he rained kisses over my inner thighs, I fisted my hands into his hair.

“Please,” I begged. “I cannot.” I could not imagine what I would do if he placed his mouth on me again. I needed more.

He was close enough to the juncture of my thighs that he must have been able to smell the scent of my arousal. I lifted my hips, urging him to slide up my body and slide into me—to thrust, to enjoy. Slide up he did, but instead of sheathing himself in my waiting cunt, he looked into my eyes again, and I could not help but smile up at him.

Bending, Christus nipped at my ear and whispered, “You are beautiful, my love.”

My lips curved in the start of a laugh—with bruises and cuts over my cheeks, my forehead, I suspected that I was anything but. But just as his own wounds did not detract from his appearance for me, I knew that he did not see my marks as a part of me.

He saw the real me, the one underneath. I had never before been so exposed to someone.

I loved it.

His hands slipped down to cover my breasts, and I arched into the touch. His fingers continued their journey down, tracing the stripes of my ribs, then clasped me around the waist. He lifted me as he stood, and even I, who had trained every bit as hard as he had for years, wondered at his strength. Moving the few steps to the small bed provided by the inn, he placed me down on it gently, making certain that my head was cushioned with a pillow.

I could feel the weave of the woolen blanket against my back. As he kneeled on either side of my hips and leaned over me, the bed dipped beneath his weight. I pressed a kiss to his rib cage.

Then he had my arms above my head, my wrists braceleted in his hands. His full weight was laid evenly out on top of me, and I loved the sensation of being pressed against his skin.

The flame of the candle flickered then and almost died before bursting back into life. It sent shadows flickering over the walls, and as I turned my head, I saw the shadows of our bodies as they moved slowly, back and forth. It was fascinating, seeing us—yet not us—as we moved. I watched his hand reach up to stroke the curve of my breast then I saw my knee bend. My leg lifted to wrap around his waist. I liked the look of that, as it was shown in shades of gray, so I wrapped my other one around him, too. He groaned as I tightened my grip and rocked my pelvis against his stomach.

He kissed me, his tongue probing mine in a momentary distraction, but I turned my head back to the wall immediately to see. His gaze followed mine, and saw what I saw.

We laughed together, breathlessly, and it did interesting things to the places where we were pressed together.

Christus drew me to my knees, and we knelt on the bed, struggling a bit to find our balance on the soft surface. We were perpendicular to our image on the wall, so the profile of our bodies was clearly visible. I liked how I looked there, my breasts exaggerated, my hair flowing loose. If I leaned forward, I could see the shaded outline of his cock. I could imagine from the visual that he was entering me from behind. My figure looked better than it ever had, reflected like that, and I was entranced by the image.

He let me look, encouraged it even, as he placed his hands over mine and guided them down over my breasts. He stopped for a moment to pluck at the peaks of the nipples hard enough that I could see their twin points in the shadow, before moving down farther to span my waist. He grasped my hips and moved a hand to the juncture of my thighs, using exaggerated movements so we could watch.

He pinched my clit hard between his thumb and forefinger, and I saw my chest move with the sharp breath I exhaled as the sensation hit me like a slap in the face. I moved back against him roughly, and the shadows were forgotten as I ground my ass back against his cock, feeling his coarse, curled hairs tickle at my cheeks.

I lowered myself onto all fours and wiggled my ass at him invitingly. I wanted him to fuck me hard from behind, right then. I could not wait any longer—I needed his heat.

Instead, he slapped my right cheek with the flat of his palm so hard it stung. I reared up backward against him, but he was stronger than I was. Using one hand flat against my back to hold me down, he continued to deliver hard, measured blows to the jiggling flesh of my bottom, over and over. My skin became more sensitive with each ruthless smack.