Maximus maintained eye contact. “You heard true, lady. They all fought bravely. And yet still I regret the loss of life. I wouldn’t wish to cause you pain intentionally.”
“I know.” How strange to say that to her enemy. Yet she knew he meant his words, just as she meant hers. “It was a battle. You won.” It would always hurt, forever leave a scar on her soul, but hating Maximus could never change the past.
Only the future.
The eerie whisper shivered through her mind and she froze. The thought wasn’t hers. Disbelief meshed with shock, momentarily paralyzing her. Sweet Cerridwen, was the goddess here with her now?
And what did Cerridwen mean? That Carys should hate her enemy—or that she should not?
“Had the Druids not driven the people wild with bloodlust, the carnage would have been greatly reduced.” Maximus’ grim voice rammed through her brain, shattering the tenuous connection with Cerridwen—yet there had been no connection after those cryptic words—forcing her back to the present.
“The Druids?” Her tongue could barely articulate the words as dread trembled through her soul. Her father had been one of the greatest Druids in Cymru. It was the reason her mother had allowed her favorite lover’s seed to grow within her womb.
Her father had led the revolt against the invading army. They’d received sporadic reports in the following weeks from spies and those who had escaped the slaughter. The bloodied accounts mirrored Aeron’s visions in spine-shuddering accuracy, adding to his already formidable authority.
When he’d told them the time was upon them to seek the sanctuary the gods had offered, there had been little dissent. The gods favored Aeron. They would show him how to defeat the enemy once they were safely within the sacred spiral.
And they were still waiting.
Maximus took the goblet from her, placed it on his desk and then enclosed her chilled hands, as if he wanted to protect her from whatever words he next uttered.
“We offered honorable surrender. The Druids refused to even contemplate our terms. They fought like creatures possessed.”
A heavy weight expanded within her chest, hurting her lungs. Hurting her heart.
“Is there such a thing as an honorable surrender?” Her father would never have surrendered. She may not have known him, but she knew of him. And her mother had chosen him because of his inspiring spiritual power, because of his incomparable beauty and because his courage, even as a boy, was legendary.
“Yes.” Maximus’ blue eyes didn’t waver. He sounded completely sincere.
She choked in a breath. “Would you have surrendered if the positions were reversed, Maximus?”
His eyes flickered the merest degree. But it was enough, as if she’d needed evidence. Of course her brave Roman centurion would never have surrendered because, as for Druids, surrender was never an option.
And then he honored her with the truth. “The Legion never surrenders, my lady.”
Chapter 14
Maximus waited for her response, knowing she saw the hypocrisy of his words although until this moment he’d failed to recognize them as such.
But she didn’t say anything. Simply stared at him with those bewitching bicolored eyes, and he had the sudden conviction she could see beyond a normal mortal’s vision; that her eyes could see into the hidden depths of his soul.
An eerie shiver snaked along his spine, in much the same way as it had when, as a child, he’d been forced to visit oracles back in Rome.
Spiritual connections unnerved him. He understood the strength of Mars and might of Jupiter but for him they were tangible concepts, intrinsically linked to victory and the Empire.
Lesser gods were honored, but since the age of eighteen he’d not had much use for them. And even less use for the heathen gods worshipped in the provinces in which he’d served.
But this Celt, with her golden hair, air of fragility and unwavering gaze, forcefully reminded him that he knew little of her culture. Her beliefs. Her purpose.
And then she blinked, and the illusion of being in the presence of something he couldn’t explain splintered, vanished, as if it had never been.
He dragged in a deep breath. Of course it had never been. It was simply relief she was unharmed combined with a failing attempt to dampen the sharp arousal that fired his blood.
Despite the simmering desire that demanded he pull this tantalizing woman into his arms and fuck some sense into her, his military brain snapped back in time. Nobles and peasants had fought side by side, all whipped into a frenzy by the savage, blue-daubed Druids.
They still hadn’t worked out the hierarchy. Were Druids socially superior to the chieftain classes? The few prisoners they’d captured had refused to talk, closing ranks and deliberately obfuscating.
And the peasants, what remained of them after that bloody battle, were too traumatized to make much sense at all, apart from the obvious fact they were equally terrified and deeply reverential of both sectors of their ruling classes.
“Thank you.” Her voice was soft, but cut into his recollections with the force of a blade.
He trailed his hands up her arms. Her skin was warm. Silky smooth. He ached to taste her, to reassure her she would never be harmed while under his protection.
She was certainly under his protection now. Even his brave Celt would have to admit to that.
“For what?”
Her fingers traced over his hair and her breath whispered across his skin. “Not lying to me.”
He cradled her delicate jaw. How easy it would be for a man to snap her neck. Something tightened deep in his gut at the image of this woman being in any man’s power but his. Of being at the mercy of any man but him.
His brain seethed with fragmented visions, and his stomach twisted with inexplicable spasms, but his fingers remained gentle.
“I would not dishonor your intellect with lies, lady.”
A smile touched her lips, as if his words were unexpected. “Am I no longer a barbarous Celt, Roman?”
He pulled one of her curls that framed her face, and then trailed the end across her cheek. “You were never a barbarian.”
Her eyes darkened and breath shortened. His cock hardened unbearably at her obvious arousal, but there was something he needed, something he wanted from her. Something that didn’t involve the searing delight he would find from plunging into her hot, welcoming body.
Again he cupped her face and found himself drowning in the magical depths of her eyes. “Tell me your name.”
She didn’t pull away. Didn’t break eye contact. Her fingers stilled on his head and he could almost hear her thinking. Turning over his demand in her mind, as if contemplating whether or not to satisfy his curiosity.
But it was more than mere curiosity. The need to know her name consumed him. Ate into his brain.
It would be easy enough to discover, now that she had been seen with him. But he didn’t want to find out her name from another.
Illogical, since the outcome would be the same. And yet it would be entirely different.
And so he waited.
Her breath puffed out as if she had reached a decision, and her hand dropped to his shoulder. “Carys.”
“Carys.” He savored the taste of her name on his tongue, and found it pleasing. Exotic. “My lady Carys.” Yes, the sound of it pleased him greatly.
The tips of her fingers scraped across his neck, and she might just as well have scraped her nails over his throbbing shaft for the way his body responded.
She leaned toward him until their noses almost brushed. “My lord Maximus.”
Lust speared through his groin, and gripped his balls with exquisite agony. “Finally you recognize your master.”
She nipped his bottom lip, a shocking sensation that seared the length of his swollen cock. Instinctively his hands tightened around her, and her delicate bones branded his palms.
“I have no master.” Her whisper was uneven. “But I have you.”
It was enoug
h. Because it was the same. “No more games, Carys.” She was where he wanted her now, and he had no intention of allowing her to leave. Let her brothers and uncles try to claim her.
They didn’t deserve the honor of protecting her, when it was blatantly obvious they were even unable to curtail where she wandered.
He ignored the flaws in his reasoning. Had her male relatives had complete control over Carys, then he would never have met her in the first place.
She gave him an odd smile, almost as if she found his words quaint. But before he could take issue with that ludicrous assumption, her lips captured his.
Gods, sweet torture. His heated brain imagined peeling her gown from her body, spreading her over his desk and displaying her luscious, rounded buttocks for his personal pleasure. He’d part those silken cheeks with probing fingers, discover her swollen folds and bury himself in her, up to the hilt, until his balls slapped against her tender flesh.
He was vaguely alarmed to hear a groan escape his throat, and pulled back from her clinging lips before he forgot who he was, where they were, and how high the risk of discovery was.
“I want you, Maximus.” Her whisper blazed through his blood, sending every nerve into volcanic meltdown. “I ache for you.”
It was impossible she ached for him as much as he ached for her. But every word she breathed stoked his fire higher, and if she continued to tell him how much she wanted him, how much she needed him, within moments he’d lose what little control he retained and take her here, on the chair, or the floor, or even up against the fucking wall.
He dragged his eyes from her heated gaze and focused briefly on the position of the large window. From this angle Carys was partially concealed by his desk. Although the window didn’t look out onto a thoroughfare and afforded a degree of privacy, a curious passerby looking in would still see him crouched before her, cupping her face, but from the waist down she was hidden.
Anyone could storm through the door. But nobody would dare.
He slid his hands over her shoulders, then briefly molded her full, tempting breasts. She sighed and pressed herself into his palms and, with an audible swallow, he forced his hands to her waist.
Hidden.
“Maximus.” She gripped his wrists in a surprisingly strong grasp and attempted to force him up. “I want you to cup my breasts. Stroke my nipples.”
“Be quiet.” He barely recognized his own voice. “If you speak, I’ll lose control.” And if he lost control, he risked compromising Carys’ reputation. One glance through the window from a passing legionary would be enough.
Her fingers speared through his hair as he inched her gown up her thighs. “I want you to lose control, Roman.”
It hurt to breathe, never mind talk. Why did she insist on talking?
“Put your hands on the chair.” It was a harsh command. The soft, warm heat from her thighs blazed from his fingertips straight to the engorged head of his throbbing cock.
“I don’t want to.” But her hands fell to her sides where she gripped the edges of the chair. Her thighs parted beneath his searching fingers and her breasts heaved erratically with each shuddering breath she took.
Higher. He grazed against her soft curls, felt the dampness slick her hot pussy. Her eyelids flickered and her teeth dug into her top lip and she leaned back in the chair, head lolling, raising her hips for his invasion.
“Look at me.” A guttural demand. One hand curled around her thigh, keeping her still, and with his other he spread her lips and imagined how she looked, with her body opened for him. Only him.
His heart thundered. Blood pounded. Brain teetered on the edge of insanity.
“You torture me.” Her words were slurred as she raised her head as if it pained her neck to support it.
“You kill me.”
“I’m glad.” She offered him a sultry smile and widened her thighs. “Torture me further, Maximus.”
If he didn’t die first. Gods, could he risk taking her into his adjoining room? And yet too many had seen them enter his quarters. He was on duty. He was the fucking Primus, by Mars. He couldn’t afford to disappear for a quick roll with his wood nymph.
With Carys.
At least here a cursory glance would confirm nothing untoward was happening. Because he would give no cause for any to question her virtue.
Or his integrity.
He cupped her sex and she ground into his palm, her eyes dark with passion, her breath gasping between parted lips. Her clitoris bloomed against the pressure of his thumb, like a precious bud opening, and wetness bathed the straining head of his cock.
Blood stained her cheeks a pale rose and her thigh muscles tensed beneath his steadying fingers. He circled her erect nub, teasing, stroking, never breaking eye contact, and the scent of her arousal, of her impending orgasm, drenched his senses.
“Maximus, stop.” Her hips bucked into his hand, denying her uneven whisper. “I don’t want to come like this—I want you to—”
“Come for me.” He would make her forget the terror and revulsion she’d experienced at the coarse hands of his countrymen. In time he would do more, but for now this was all he could offer.
Still she resisted. He could feel her resistance as her thighs trembled, fighting the rising waves of pleasure, and how she gripped the chair so tightly her knuckles whitened.
“No. I want—”
Stubborn. The word blazed through his mind. Didn’t she realize he was in imminent danger of unmanning himself before her? Couldn’t she simply accept what he wanted to give her?
He slid a finger into her wet channel and barely prevented groaning aloud. At least she stopped talking, but her gasp of shock and the way she clenched around him did nothing for his crumbling control.
Another finger. Another gasp. Another mind-shattering clench of her strong internal muscles.
She bucked against his hand, and he increased the pressure against her swollen clitoris. Gods, he wanted to see her, watch her as she came for him, but watching her face as her hot sheath contracted around his thrusting fingers was just as arousing. Her pupils obliterated her jade and amethyst irises, became unfocused, yet she maintained eye contact with him, as if he was her lifeline, her god, her master.
“Carys.” It was the only word he could articulate. The only word that pounded through his throbbing brain. “My Carys.”
Liquid heat flooded over his fingers as she convulsed around him, but she made no sound apart from a strangled gasp before digging her teeth into her lip.
He kept his thumb against her pulsing clitoris, milking every last exquisite shudder from her. And every shudder reverberated through his body, arrowing directly to his agonized cock, ratcheting up the tension until he knew his balls were on the cusp of exploding.
Slowly he pulled his fingers from her grasping warmth and stroked her damp curls. Wanted to see her. His iron will faltered. The chances were slender anyone would see them for the brief moment it took to raise her gown and satisfy his burning need.
And yet if they were seen, Carys would be considered a whore.
He reined in the ravening lust threatening to devour his sanity. He had plans for Carys, and tarnishing her reputation was not among them.
Later. He could look at her for as long as he desired and discover the true color of her sweet pussy in daylight and not lamplight—later.
Moments passed, and Carys’ erratic breathing finally slowed. She slid her fingers over his hands. “You didn’t let me wait for you.” Her voice was languid, sated, yet held an undercurrent of disapproval.
He dragged his fingers against the flesh of her thighs. She didn’t loosen her hold. “I will allow you to return the favor very soon.”
Awareness sparked in her eyes and she glanced at his crotch. She would see nothing—his armor hid all evidence—but the realization she knew exactly what he had in mind caused his loins to convulse with need so acute his entire body pulsed with agony.
She licked her lips and leaned forward.
“Is now soon enough?”
Mars, she would kill him. The image of Carys on her knees, taking him into her mouth, incinerated what little remained of his control.
The sharp rap on the door barely registered as his gaze locked with Carys’. Not until the flicker of alarm creased her forehead did reality rip through his fantasies, and recall his splintered senses.
With a strangled curse he pressed her knees together and straightened her gown. Rising to his feet had rarely engendered such discomfort. Thank the gods his armor concealed his arousal, although if he grew any harder, he feared he’d poke a hole through the silvered plates.
“Enter.” He sounded rabid. He was rabid. He also ensured he stood in front of Carys so the intruder would be unable to see her properly.
One of the clerks entered. “Sir.” His eye contact never left Maximus for a moment. “The Tribunus Laticlavius requests your presence in his quarters.”
Maximus attempted to modify his scowl but it was impossible when he required all his willpower to remain upright. “I’ll be with the Tribunus directly. I have a matter of import to finalize first.”
“Sir.” The clerk saluted and left, as if he couldn’t wait to leave Maximus’ presence.
With a muttered oath, Maximus turned back to Carys. She sat with ankles crossed, hands folded on her lap, looking like a chaste, golden-haired maiden of Venus, and he found it incredible to believe that mere moments earlier she had spilled her shattering orgasm over his exploring fingers.
It was the wrong thing to remember, when Faustus awaited him.
Fuck Faustus. He had Carys to deal with first.
He marched into the adjoining room, scrubbed his hands in the jug of water and contemplated tipping the lot over his head. Or crotch.
He doubted either action would manage to quench the fire raging through his veins and expelled a long breath. Carys would never realize the extent to which he was punishing himself for the behavior of his men toward her.
The Druid Chronicles: Four Book Collection Page 13
