“Fine.” My anger had been awoken, and it burned away my fear. I was Lilia, the only female gladiator in Rome. I had survived among men far stronger than this bastard, and I had done more than survive—I had thrived.
“I will compete. I will win.” I smiled slowly, and was rewarded again with that tinge of fear. I saw that it was twined tightly with excitement—sexual excitement—and I felt sick.
“I will kill them all. I am very good at killing.” At that moment I would have given anything to feel the cool press of a sword in my hand. Yes, a sword, a knife, a blade of any kind.
If ever anyone deserved to die, it was this man who stood before me.
I watched as he tamped down his twisted excitement, schooling his features into a mask of sympathy.
“No, I cannot deprive the people of Rome of your charm, lovely Lilia.” I wanted to spit on the floor at the endearment. Then Gaius shifted his attention from me to the barely restrained gladiator that I held in my arms, and a sense of foreboding washed over me in a flash.
“But neither can I part a father from his babe, even one that is yet unborn.” I heard a sharp intake of breath from behind Gaius; even the dominus was unable to continue hiding his distaste.
I continued to glower at Gaius, but against Christus’ shoulders, I felt my palms grow slick with cold sweat. I knew what Gaius would say before the words had actually fallen from his lips.
“Every ludus will have two champions. The people of Rome will have their taste for gore satisfied when, even if it at the very end, one of them has to die.”
The next week passed in a blur. I had expected grumbling from the rest of the brothers in the ludus when it was announced that both Christus and I were to take part in the arena games, but except for expected anger from Bavarius and his friends, the men seemed almost to feel pity for the pair of us. We were offered extra porridge and army bread at meals, and some even used their coin from the arena to purchase us wine. They all offered advice and fighting techniques, and we took them with straight faces, though inside I was beyond irritated.
How did they think that I had managed to rise to the top of their ranks, if I did not already know these things? But they were being kind, so I held my tongue. Still, I could not help but feel that all of the offerings were, in the way, a last meal.
The men did not think that we would be coming back. Hell, they knew that one of us was not.
Darius was the sole man who did not treat either of us differently. His laughter may have been a little more forced, and I might have caught him shaking his head sadly at moments when he thought that I was not looking, but for the most part he tried to make our last week before the game as normal as possible.
The last evening, before Christus and I were to be taken to the holding area of the special arena that had been modified just for these games, Darius sat to the side of the training area with me. We were indulging in a rare lazy moment, training over for the day but the sun not yet set. We passed a cup of wine back and forth between us.
I had found that wine greatly helped to ease the anxiety that fought to take me over whenever I was sober.
In front of us, Christus sparred with one of the men who had been especially kind that week. Antonius was demonstrating his skill with the net, and Christus was soaking up the new knowledge eagerly.
“He is doing all of this for you, you know.” I turned to my friend sharply, but he had hidden his face in his cup.
“What are you speaking of?” I knew, of course, but I somehow needed to hear it from another.
“All of this training.” Darius gestured expansively with his large arm. I turned with him, watching the focus, the concentration on Christus’ face as he struggled to gain control over the net.
“He intends to keep you alive. He does not hold the same hope for himself.”
That night, after the evening meal that we both forced down, Christus and I found ourselves colliding with heat in the room that was no longer just mine.
His lips were on mine, the door to the room shut snugly behind us. These moments, where we were alone, together, were what had gotten me through the week.
His touch erased every worry, every thought, from my mind.
Tonight, I tangled my hands in his hair as though I might never touch it again. His mouth was hot and wet as it opened under mine, tasting sinfully of mulsum and man. Impatient now that I had what I had so desperately wanted all day held tightly in my arms, I rocked my pelvis against his and moaned as his hot, hard erection dug into the soft flesh of my naked stomach.
“Wait . . . wait. Slow down.” Christus’ words were muffled under the avid angles of my lips, and I paid not a bit of attention to their meaning. Instead I shimmied out of the confining fabric of my leathers.
I knew that he wanted to come together slowly—he wanted to make love to me, to savor what might very well be our last time together.
I could not wait. I needed the heat, needed it to burn away the fear.
I smiled, slow and wicked, when my breasts spilled free of my leather top and he stopped in his tracks, hands freezing at my waist. Taking advantage of his momentary distraction, and fancying myself in full control of the situation, I gasped out loud in surprise when he lunged, cupping my breasts in his rough palms and burying his face in the cleft between. His moan vibrated along my suddenly slick skin, and as my nipples contracted into hard, tight pegs, I was consumed with a need the likes of which I had never felt before.
“Aah!” I sank my teeth, hard, into the corded flesh of his neck even as my hands busied themselves at his waist. I fumbled, impatient, with the tight knot of his subligaculum and was rewarded with the rending sound of the leather as it ripped and fell unheeded to the floor.
When his fingers lowered to stroke softly through the silky hair at my lower lips, I almost screamed; the feel of the rough pads of his fingertips as they circled my clit and began to explore the cleft in between my moist lower lips was almost more than I could take. I squirmed, not sure if I was trying to get closer or to escape from the onslaught of sensations. It seemed that I had no choice, however, when every movement of my hips against his served only to bring our skin that much closer together.
When those fingers pinched hard, right over the screaming nub of my clit, I lost all control and flooded into his palm, the musk of my sex staining the skin of his fingers.
It was too much; I had never had an encounter so intense. And as good as it felt, panic began to claw at the back of my throat; I needed to lose myself again before reality set in and I lost my mind.
So when he reached behind me, stroked down over the round cups of my ass, and lifted a leg to encircle his waist, I moved like lightning, sliding my sweat-slicked skin away from his.
“Come to me.” Teasing, I ran my tongue slowly over my index finger, tasting the salt there. “I want you. Oh, I want you. But . . .” I rolled my hips suggestively and sauntered over to the small wooden table. Placing my slick palms flat on the grain, I raised my ass. Tossing my now loose golden hair over my right shoulder in a manner much more flirtatious than I would normally have used, I looked saucily back over my left side and licked my lips.
“I want you like this.”
I saw my lover gape at my new manner as I stared back at him from over my shoulder. I was trying to keep our encounter moving so fast that neither of us could catch our breath, and yet, if I had not known that the panic would seep in the second that I slowed down, I would have wanted to relax, the taste the skin of the cock that was rearing at the sight of me naked before him.
“Come.” I was on fire. He moved quickly, crossing the room to stand behind me, his own palms splayed over the pale round cheeks of my ass. Deep as my need was for him to drive himself inside of me, as hard as he could, I also wished to savor the sensation of his skin simply pressed against my own.
I could feel that he was eager; his cock jumped against the back of my thigh. I pushed back against him, rubbed the skin of my ass over his groin,
enjoying the feeling of the coarse hair that surrounded his cock against the soft skin of my ass.
I let out an impatient sigh when he bent, circling my ankles with his hands. But he slowly traced his fingers up, up over the insides of my calves, behind my knees, straight to my inner thighs. I trembled, then wriggled my hips from side to side when he took yet another moment to trace a path over my hips, then down between my cheeks. My breath shuddered out as those probing fingers again found the moist heat of my entrance; he dipped inside of me, groaned with satisfaction when he found me hot and wet.
Control then shattered as he clasped my breasts together in one hand, squeezing them tightly. With his free hand I felt him grab his cock, guiding it to my entrance. I lowered myself until I was pressed flat against the table, standing on the tips of my toes. I raised my ass as high as I could in the air, my thighs spread, granting him as much access to my cunt as I possibly could.
With one hard thrust of his hips, he seated himself inside of me, all the way inside of me, and I moaned deeply, my eyelids fluttering as I rode the sensation.
Holding perfectly still while the head of his cock nudged against my womb, Christus allowed me a moment to adjust to the fullness of his cock from this angle. When he moved experimentally inside of me, I bit my lip.
Bending over farther, covering my sweating body with his own, he brushed his lips over the lobe of my ear, then took the hand that had been caressing my breasts and slid it back around my waist. He drew a firm line down my spine with the tip of one finger, not stopping when he reached the crease that divided my buttocks.
I would have squirmed away at that moment had the wooden table allowed me even a breath of space in which to move, for the sensation was incredibly intense. But I had nowhere to go, and so I had to accept the strange yet pleasurable sensation that came when he pressed a finger against the pucker between my folds.
“Christus.” It was too much. My body could not possibly accept so much sensation. But instead of responding to my entreaty, he pressed harder against that pucker, murmuring in my ear.
“Push back against me.” Pulling his hips back, he thrust forward in my cunt at the same time that his finger worked its way past the tight ring of muscles. I cried out at the intrusion, and he stilled, allowing me yet another moment to become accustomed to the feeling of being so full.
“Oh.” Slowly he began to rotate the finger inside of me, swiveling his hips in the same manner. I found myself then pushing back against him, the better to absorb all of the little quivers of pleasure that were running through me.
With a soft grunt, he pulled both his cock from my cunt and his finger from between my buttocks. I whimpered at the sudden loss of sensation, then froze when he ran his cock, slick with my juices, up the cleft, then between.
“Christus?” I might have been unsure, but at the same time I knew that I wanted him in any manner in which he would take me.
“You wanted it fast.” His palms gripping my flesh, he pulled apart the cheeks of my ass, and let his cock slide up to press against that most hidden of pleasurable places. “You wanted it hard, and rough. And so I am going to give you a sensation that you have never before had.”
His cock pressing against me, he slid his hands teasingly to my waist. I writhed against them, then nearly screamed when he pushed, and the head of his cock worked its way through that tight ring and inside of me.
“When we are in these demented games, when you feel all alone”—I dug my fingers into the wood of the table, feeling the nails of my fingers splinter against the unforgiving surface—“you will remember this. No matter what happens, you will remember this. I am the only one who can do this to you. I am the only one who can make you feel this way.”
“Yes.” What could I do but agree? He continued to slide his way into me, moving in increments, with momentary pauses to let me adjust to the strange sensation of fullness where I had never felt it before.
“I am the only one who has been inside of you like this. I am the only one you want inside of you.” Finally, finally he had seated himself inside of me, the heavy weight of his balls rocking against the tender spot where my ass met my legs.
“Oh, Christus.” It was a strange sensation, to be sure, but once I became aware of the new places along my skin that were tingling with pleasure, when I realized how wet my cunt had become because the feeling of fullness here was just so damned good, I moaned and pushed back against him.
I wanted more.
“Greedy woman.” He pulled back, and I sucked in a breath. He slid back in, faster this time, but still not at the pounding rhythm that I desired.
“More.” I could barely hear my own voice over the pants of my breath. “More. I want more.”
A low sound, a dark one, emanated from the depths of his throat. Bending over me fully, his hands covering my own, he began to thrust, still not as hard or as fast as he would have done in my cunt, but enough to turn places in my body that I had not even known existed to flame.
And yet I could still think . . . even through all of that sensation, I could think. And so I panted out the word again, asking for more.
His return groan was more than a little wicked to my ears.
“Spread your legs.” I did, as best as I could, straining to stand on the tips of my toes. Grunting, he lifted me so that my weight was fully resting on my torso, which was pressed against the table.
My feet dangled inches off of the floor, and with nothing to gain purchase on, I was at his mercy. Instead of frightening me as it once would have done, I found that it thrilled me to my very core.
One of his hands splayed flat across my stomach, then moved down, and down more. His other hand followed. One began to work on the taut nub of my clit, circling around and around the engorged flesh, but never actually touching it. My mouth opened soundlessly as the sensation caused me to begin to shake.
His other hand dipped between my thighs, one finger sampling the wetness between my wide-open legs.
“Fuck.” There was no other word that I could utter at that moment. “Oh, fuck.”
“Yes.” His voice was low and guttural as a second finger filled me, stretched me. “Yes. Take everything that I give you.”
I rocked on the table, but could not otherwise move. I felt the table, cool against the puckered skin of my breasts. I felt the teasing touches on my clit, which kept taking me to the edge of that pleasurable wave before drawing back again.
I felt a third finger added to the tight heat that was my cunt, stretching me, forcing me to accept its girth.
And I felt the slow yet relentless slides of my lover’s cock in my ass, possessing me in a manner in which I had never been before.
In that moment, as all of the pleasure gathered, sparking brightly along my skin, I found that I could still think, but only one thought made its way to the forefront of my mind.
I belonged to this man. Heart, body, soul if I still had one, I was his.
I moaned, long and loud, when as if in response to my realization, he picked up his speed. His hips hit against the jut of my tailbone harder and more frequently. I lifted my ass higher in the air with each thrust, not wanting to miss a single whisper of our joining.
The hand inside of my cunt moved faster, too, fucking me relentlessly. The finger circling my clit began to apply pressure to the engorged flesh itself, bringing lights dancing before my eyes.
I could not have stopped the floodgates if I had been offered never-ending life, not when I had been so thoroughly possessed by Christus. I screamed, the sound reverberating off the dingy walls of the tiny room.
I cared not who heard.
Christus muttered words softly against my neck as every muscle in my body spasmed against him, around him. I heard the pace of his breath quicken, felt the rock-solid muscles of his thighs beneath my bottom tense and quiver.
“Come with me.” I squeezed the muscle inside of me and he shouted. Thrusting fully into me, both cock and fingers, he cried out yet a
gain as shudders of delight wracked his own body.
The heavy weight of his testicles bumped against my screaming clit as he thrust and thrust again, emptying himself inside of me. The light pressure on flesh that had been teased without mercy set me off again, a smaller but no less intense jolt of pleasure.
I moaned through it, succumbing to the sensation, the complete feeling of possession.
We stayed as we were for what felt like hours, though was in actuality probably only minutes. Our breath mingled in the air, rasping hard and heavy.
Slowly, Christus put his hands on my hips and pulled, sliding me back down until I could place my own feet on the floor. Planting a kiss in the dip between my shoulder blades, he brought the fingers that had fucked my cunt up to trace over my cheek. I turned my head, watching as he ran his tongue over the tips and tasted the essence that was me.
Tangling his fingers in my hair, he tugged, pulling my head back until I had no choice but to look at him. His cock was still inside of me, my muscles had turned to jelly, but what I saw in his eyes sent me flying.
“You, Lilia.” He tugged at my hair again, and I purred, low in my throat. I knew now that I loved this man, and while that feeling would cause me great pain in the days to come, right then I reveled in the feeling and in the moment.
I could not kill this man, not even if we were the final two in the Battle of Gaius. I would rather kill myself.
“You are mine.”
CHAPTER TEN
* * *
My happiness was fleeting, as I knew that it would be.
The next morning, before the sun had even begun to warm the air with a wash of pale gold, the screech of the gates to the ludus opening rent the silence in two.
In our room, Christus and I looked at each other with somber expressions.
This was it.
Threading our fingers together, we walked out of the room as one. Instead of the panic that I had expected, I found that I was strangely calm.
Seduced by the Gladiator Page 14
