She dragged her gaze from his magnificent rod and looked up at him, her breath ragged. He gritted his teeth in a semblance of a smile and without warning plunged his hands through her hair, gripping her head in a merciless vise as he jerked her forward.
Her open mouth smashed against the length of his erection and she attempted to rear back but Gawain’s hold on her was absolute. Panic flared and she loosened her grip on him, flattening her palms against his thighs as he inexorably shifted their positions to his masculine advantage.
She felt the familiar scream of denial lodge in her throat and a fetid wave of revulsion washed through her. Blindly she raked her nails along his thighs, her body rigid, her mind reeling.
No. No…
“No.” Her voice cracked and she sucked in a strangled gasp of air. She was no longer plastered against Gawain’s length, and although his hands held her head, he had forced her to look up at him.
She could not look at him. She squeezed her eyes shut and wrapped her hands around his wrists in a vain attempt to loosen his grip.
“Antonia.” His harsh voice whipped across her mind. She redoubled her efforts to escape before he forced her to—before he tarnished every memory they had made together.
“Release me.” Her jagged command sounded pathetic to her ears and inwardly she shriveled. “I refuse to do it. You cannot make me.” Except she knew only too well that he could make her. He might not have the right to force her to his will by virtue of a marriage contract. But he had the strength and he could overpower her in the blink of an eye.
Her stomach churned. Merciful Juno, please do not let me disgrace myself in front of him.
“Look at me.” His demand was absolute and against her will her eyes opened. He was kneeling in front of her, a savage gleam in his eyes, and to her infinite shame, she began to shake uncontrollably. His mouth tightened in obvious distaste and his grip on her relaxed, but not enough for her to escape. “Fuck the gods, Antonia. What’s wrong?”
She tried to regulate her erratic gasps, but failed. Gawain was not Scipio. Gawain had never raped her, and he was not forcing his shaft down her throat. He was asking her why she was behaving like a—
A useless, frigid encumbrance.
No. Her former husband had called her that whenever she had displeased him. But with Gawain, she was not frigid. With Gawain sex was everything she had always dreamed it could—should—be, and with this Cambrian warrior, she had nothing to prove by way of producing a live, healthy son.
Her galloping heart slowed, her breath became less torturous. And still Gawain held her head and looked at her with that wild, intense expression on his face.
He had no idea why she was so panicked. The last thing she wanted to talk about was why, but she owed him an explanation.
“I am sorry.” Sorry for making a fool of herself. Sorry that Gawain had seen this side of her. When their affair ended, would this be all he recalled of their time together? “I cannot—I won’t take you into my mouth.”
Gawain stared into Antonia’s panic-glazed eyes and forcibly relaxed his fingers. Sick disgust pounded through his gut at the knowledge he had frightened her with his demand. But gods, she had been on her knees before him. Her uneven breath had caressed his cock and he’d been certain that, within moments, she had intended to wrap her delectable mouth around him.
His fingers trailed along her face. She did not pull back with distaste, so he cradled her jaw.
“I would never make you do something against your will.” His pride was injured that she had even imagined such a thing and yet it dug deeper than mere pride. It speared to the elemental essence of who he was, and what Antonia thought he was. She had said he was no barbarian. But her reaction now proved otherwise. The question formed before he could prevent it. “Why would you think such a thing, Antonia?”
Her grip around his wrists relaxed, but she didn’t release him. Instead her thumbs gently caressed the back of his hands but he wasn’t certain whether she was even aware of her actions.
“I am sorry.” Her whisper tore into him. Why did she feel the need to keep apologizing? He was the one who was sorry. And he was the one who could not spit the words out. “In my heart I know you would never force me, Gawain. It wasn’t you. It was just the memory of-of other times when I had no choice.”
The disgust surged through him once again, but this time melded with impotent fury.
“You were forced to do this?” He enjoyed—more than enjoyed—a woman sucking his cock deep into her mouth. But the pleasure was mutual. The unsavory image of Antonia on her knees, being forced to accommodate a bastard Roman’s lust hammered through his mind. “Who forced you?”
Not that it made any difference. He would never be able to exact retribution. But the need to know clawed through his gut.
She looked at him, an odd expression on her face as though she found his reaction completely incomprehensible. “My former husband.”
The savage urge to hunt down her former husband, hack off his raping cock and shove it down his throat pounded through Gawain’s head. He fought against the rabid rage thundering through his veins yet could not rid himself of the insidious feeling that Antonia, a child of the empire, was as much a spoil of war as any of his enslaved countrymen.
And, as such, both deserved and demanded his protection.
He stared into her beautiful eyes and recalled the haunting shadows he’d glimpsed the first day they had met. Had he discovered the reason for her fleeting moments of melancholy?
“And you have never tried to purge the memory of his actions with one of your lovers?”
Inexplicably, she blushed. And while the sight entranced him, it still confused him. But at least she was no longer shaking in fear or trying to push him away.
“No.” Her voice was so hushed he could scarcely hear her. “I may have misled you in this matter, Gawain.” She broke eye contact and stared at his chest. “You are the first lover I have ever taken.”
Her words punched through him, a physical jolt. He was her first? Her only? Why hadn’t he realized?
But there had been many clues. He had chosen to disregard them. The way she had acted the first day they met. Her enchanting moments of innocence that he had imagined were simply part of her practiced seduction.
The only man beside himself that Antonia had known was her husband. An inconsiderate Roman bastard who had made her perform an act she hated. And he, Gawain, her first lover, had just attempted to make her do the very same thing.
He wasn’t often speechless but he could not think of a thing to say. Silence stretched between them and finally Antonia looked up at him, and the wary expression on her face speared through his chest.
He might not have a clue what to say to her, but he needed to say something. “I am honored.”
Her fingers twitched around his wrists, as though she wasn’t sure whether he mocked her or not. He clawed through his paralyzed brain to find something that would reassure her. And could think of only one question.
“Why did you choose me?”
“Oh.” Her hands slid from his wrists but before she could do anything else, he captured them and pressed them against his chest. She frowned as if she didn’t understand his action but that was no surprise. He didn’t understand this overwhelming need to comfort her either. He just knew that if he did not, he risked losing her.
Losing her? She was only a Roman noblewoman. He was only fucking her because she was willing and available. Except the thoughts were hollow and instead of reassuring him of the fleeting duration of this liaison, it left him feeling somehow… uneasy.
“Oh?” Gently he shook her captive hands. “Why, Antonia?”
She shifted on her knees and then sighed. “I wanted to experience sex with a man of my choosing. Until I met you, I had never found one who,” she hesitated for a moment, “appealed to me.”
Once again words failed him. Antonia knelt before him, naked and at his mercy in a squalid tavern room, h
er hair tumbling from its jeweled restraints around her shoulders. She was only a Roman noblewoman but in this moment, he knew her heritage meant nothing to him.
All that mattered was that Antonia was a woman and she had chosen him to be her first illicit lover.
He stood, tugging her to her feet. “Do I still appeal to you, my lady?” He injected a faint note of mockery, but only to disguise just how much her answer meant to him. He wasn’t ready to end their liaison yet. Somehow he would show Antonia she had no need to fear that he would ever force her to do anything she wasn’t more than willing to experience.
The actions of her fucking former husband would not dictate when or how this affair ended.
A smile illuminated her face, as though his question had, inexplicably, eased her mind. “You more than appeal to me, Gawain.” Her voice was breathless, and the knowledge that she had not said those words to countless other men in the past heightened the seductive web her whisper spun around him. “Do I still appeal to you?”
He pulled her against his body so that she could feel how much she still appealed to him. “What do you think?” He wound his arm around her waist, and her chilled flesh caused him to silently curse. “You’re cold.”
She wriggled, and her erect nipples teased his chest as she slid her arms around him and held him tight. “I am not cold where it matters.”
He laughed and stepped back to the bed. “I would not have you cold at all.”
“Then you had best warm me up, my Cambrian warrior.”
Her what? Her Cambrian warrior? He grinned down at her, even though she had called him by the hated Roman name.
“I’m your warrior, am I?” He lay on the bed and pulled her down on him. He would not have her silken skin touch a common tavern bed.
“Yes.” She flattened her hands against his shoulders as she straddled his hips and smiled down at him in triumph. “And I am about to conquer you.”
He molded her firm thighs and sculpted the curve of her arse and dip of her waist. Her eyes were dark with lust, her pink lips parted and her hair, half contained, half tumbling in disarray, gave her an air of irresistible ravishment. He battled the primitive urge to impale her and make her his. “Then conquer me, enchantress.”
Chapter Thirteen
Antonia gazed down at her wild Cambrian warrior. He had a half-smile on his face and his hands captured her waist in a touch so light it would take no effort to pull from his embrace. Yet his touch warmed her, not simply her chilled skin but sank into her blood, the very marrow of her bones.
She had no wish to pull from his embrace. As the tips of his fingers caressed the sensitive curve of hip and waist, a strange pain spiraled through the center of her breast. His reaction to her refusal to accommodate his desires, his obvious disgust with her former husband when she had gathered the nerve to confess, staggered her.
Her personal experience was limited but she knew, from feminine confidences, how dearly men enjoyed such practices. That Gawain had not insisted she continue or, almost as horrifying, ridiculed her, caused the odd constriction consuming her chest to weave deep into her heart.
Slowly she leaned toward him and brushed her lips across his. He trailed a seductive path along her back, across her shoulders and down her biceps. Tiny rivers of fire ignited beneath his touch, causing heated tremors across her sensitized skin.
With a breathy sigh, she speared her fingers through his hair, and combed the dark blond length across the rough bed cover. His bronzed skin, foreign looks and the untamed air that radiated from him all combined to give the impression of a savage barbarian of a conquered land. She had told him once he was no barbarian, but she had not fully realized the truth of her words.
Rome prided herself on being superior to all her provinces, the cultural center of all nations. But it had taken Gawain, a native of this far-flung corner of the empire, to show her the kind of respect she had never received from her own husband, a patrician who could trace his lineage back to the founding of that great city.
She wound his hair around her fingers, grazed her cheek against his jaw and flicked the tip of her tongue over his pierced earlobe. He tasted as divine as a mighty god of Olympus and the absurd thought made her smile.
“What amuses you, my lady?” His deep voice sent desire rippling through her breast to her core. She nibbled kisses across his shoulder and his arms wound around her, imprisoning her.
“You amuse me.” She shifted in his embrace, her nipples hard against his chest, her breasts aching for his touch. “You enthrall me.”
His body shook with silent laughter and she abandoned his shoulder to watch his face. He caught her glance and she thought she might drown in the dark depths of his amber-flecked eyes.
“Your honeyed words,” he said, as his hands stroked along her back, creating magical responses she had never dreamed might exist, “will get you far.”
Enchanted by the way he had twisted her own words back at her, she untangled her fingers from his hair and flattened her hands either side of his head on the prickly mattress.
“How far?” She breathed the sultry question against his lips as she provocatively glided her tender folds over his engorged shaft.
He gave an agonized groan and finally cupped her breasts, lifting them, pressing them together, rubbing his thumbs over their tortured peaks. She arched her back, filling his palms, delighting in the possessive way he held and stroked her body.
“As far as you desire.” The way he growled the words at her she wasn’t sure whether it was a threat or a promise. And when he pinched her nipples, sending sharp arrows of fire from her breasts to her pussy, she knew she did not care. Either way would be an unforgettable, ecstatic adventure.
She lifted her hips and eased onto him. Her wet sheath stretched as she slowly sank down his thick organ. She could feel every inch of him filling her, possessing her and she couldn’t tear her eyes away from his hypnotic gaze.
For seeming eternity, they remained utterly still, joined in the most primal of ways. Yet somehow, the connection was deeper, elemental. Foolish whispered across her passion soaked mind but she ignored the voice of reason. Now, here, Gawain was hers and he encompassed her world. She would not ruin the moment with logical reality.
He released one of her breasts and trailed downwards, across her belly. One finger slid between their bodies and caressed her sensitive clit. She gasped as shocking waves of pleasure vibrated through her cleft.
“Ride me, Antonia.” His smoky command wrapped around her senses like temple incense, exotic and irresistible. “Make me come inside your tight slit.”
A shudder ricocheted from the tip of her captive nipple to her swollen clitoris. Instinctively she tightened her internal muscles. He abandoned her breast and cupped her bottom, his hold both tender and possessive, and without conscious thought, her hips began to move.
“Gawain.” His name slipped from her lips, a heated caress. Her nails dug into the mattress as his finger continued to tease her silken peak. She quickened her pace, riding his length as he had commanded. She looked down at him, her captive warrior. His hair tangled around his face, his eyes were locked with hers. The rhythmic friction against her aroused clit and his rigid cock inside her pussy sent fiery sparks cascading through her blood.
His grip on her rear became harsh. The intensity of his expression held her spellbound. He bared his teeth, a primal growl echoing around the room and savagely slammed into her.
Her balance tilted and she fell forward, but still he rammed into her, pinning her in place with one heavy hand on her arse. He was beneath her, but still he mastered her, his hand and his shaft molding her to his will. His finger circled her throbbing clit, an addictive torture, and she squirmed helplessly. Beyond the frenzied pounding of her heart, she heard his guttural roar and felt his hot release flood her channel.
Raw feminine power thundered through her veins. Mesmerized by the glazed lust in his eyes, captivated by his all-encompassing penetration, her
sheath contracted around him. Her orgasm shattered through her, entrapping him, enslaving him and milking him of every last drop of his essence.
She collapsed onto him, mind reeling, body quivering. He pulled his arm from between their slick bodies and held her close, a strangely comforting gesture. Slowly her erratic breath evened, and the world swirled back into focus.
Gawain still held her impaled on his shaft. She had no desire or energy to move. Instead, she shifted into a more comfortable position and smiled as he stirred within her wet cleft.
“And still I amuse you.” He sounded sated, satisfied and infinitely seductive. “How easy you are to please, Antonia.”
She trailed her fingers across his shoulder, her head against his chest. “So you delight in telling me.”
His body shook in a silent laugh. She smiled again and idly traced her finger over his engraved torque. Then, for no discernible reason she could fathom, he suddenly stiffened and swore softly. She might not be fluent in the Cambrian language, but it was not so different in essence to the local dialect in Gallia that she had learned as a child.
She raised her head and looked at him. A forbidding frown darkened his brow but she could not believe it was aimed at her. “What is it?”
“It didn’t occur to me before, but now—knowing I am your first lover—” He hesitated and his frown grew even more ominous. She frowned back, bemused.
“What didn’t occur to you?”
His big hand cradled her face. “I did nothing to prevent the possibility of impregnating you.”
Juno. She stared at him in horror, and could feel her face flaming in shame. This was not a topic of conversation a woman had with a man. She attempted to respond, but words failed her.
Gawain’s arm tightened around her waist as if he imagined she were about to flee. Perhaps she might have, if she weren’t paralyzed with mortification.
“Antonia, the first time we came together I assumed you had taken the necessary precautions. But just now—there was no excuse. I should have taken more care.”
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