A Man's Sword (2 page)

“I understand,” Marius said, to save Gabriel embarrassment. If he hadn’t believed he was in a different time, this alone might have convinced him.

“This is the shower. There’s a knob for hot and cold water. I’ll get you soap and a towel.” Gabriel eyed him, then moved the door aside to reveal a closet.

Marius didn’t wait. A shower, where water poured over him without the use of a basin or bucket, sounded like a gift from the gods. Used to living with the other gladiators, he went to the shower and turned a knob. Water, gloriously hot, poured out. He gasped. Hot water on demand. If Gabriel was wrong and he wasn’t well past his time, then maybe he’d gone to the hall of the gods. Dropping his loincloth to the floor, he turned the other tap until he had the temperature perfect. But how to get it to come out of the top spigot? He pulled a lever and water cascaded like rain. “Wonderful.” He turned and found Gabriel staring at him.

“I’ll put your towel here. And here is a bar of soap. I thought it might be more familiar.” He handed over a bar of green soap and a small, finely woven cloth; then he hung the larger square of cloth over a metal bar outside the shower.

“Thank you.” Unwilling to waste the water—Gabriel must have had a large cistern—he stepped beneath the spray. He noticed Gabriel still standing there, though steam and water droplets made the glass hard to see through. Marius’s cock stood at half-mast from the pleasure of the water hitting his skin and Gabriel’s frank assessment of his body.

Marius dampened the soap and started to lather. This was far finer than anything he’d experienced and far more sensual. When he glanced out the glass door, Gabriel was still there. The next time he looked, he was gone.

W
HAT
was he doing standing there staring at the gladiator like a teenager ogling a dirty magazine? Gabriel adjusted his jeans and willed his cock to behave. The man had an excellent physique and seemed to be taking everything in stride. Maybe the shock would hit him later; Gabriel knew he hadn’t quite come to grips with the fact that he had a living, breathing gladiator in his basement. Maybe Audrey had put him up to this, but somehow Gabriel didn’t think so.

He went to the kitchen in an attempt to put some distance between himself and Marius. He had two nice New York strip steaks in his fridge and a fresh loaf of dark rye bread from a local bakery—probably not what Marius was used to. As he fired up the grill on his stove, Gabriel figured he’d feed them both anyway. Then he’d figure out what to do with the gladiator.

D
RY
, naked, his hair still damp from the towel, Marius emerged from the shower and found a pair of pants similar to the ones Gabriel wore waiting for him. He pulled them on, noticing they fit a bit more loosely than Gabriel’s had, though they’d appeared to be about the same build. He opened the bathroom door, not quite sure he wanted to wander this place alone.
He wouldn’t have left me alone if he thought I’d be a threat.
Used to guards at the doors watching his every moment, he found the sudden freedom a bit intoxicating, and he couldn’t resist opening the door and stepping into the hall.

Remembering how Gabriel brought him up here, he headed back to the stairs. Once back on the main level, he heard sizzling meat and smelled its lingering aroma. His mouth watering, he followed the smell and the sound to the kitchen. There, Gabriel stood at one of the silver boxes, two thick steaks cooking on it. A round loaf of bread—at least that looked familiar—sat on a wooden board along with a crock of butter and a big knife. He padded silently on his bare feet across warm wooden flooring and reached the board. He quickly cut off a slice of bread, slathered it with butter, and brought it to his lips.

Ambrosia! As was the man standing with his back to Marius. Gabriel still wore the blue pants, and this close, Marius could study the way the fabric lovingly cupped his ass. He admired the muscled back and broad shoulders narrowing to a tapered waist. Marius’s cock hardened.

He gave a soft moan, though from the vision standing before him or the fine-textured bread and butter melting in his mouth, he couldn’t tell.

Gabriel turned.

His eyes darkened. “You look good in my jeans,” he said with a wicked smile. He turned a dial on the silver box, then crossed the kitchen.

“Is that what these are called? Jeans?” He formed the unfamiliar word. “I like them.”

“So do I.” Gabriel’s attention never rose above Marius’s waist. “You hungry?” He stopped before him and met Marius’s gaze, then reached out and brushed a crumb away from the corner of his mouth. Blunt, slightly calloused fingers lingered, and Marius held his ground, though his breathing quickened.

He grabbed Gabriel’s wrist. “Yes.” His thumb brushed the pulse point. “And yes.”

It took Gabriel a moment to catch the meaning. “You….”

“Are a gladiator. We are used to dealing with anything that happens to us.” Deciding he had no reason to play coy like a foolish maiden, Marius took matters into his own hands. He grabbed Gabriel’s wrist and pulled the man closer to him. Cupping the back of his head, he kissed him, and the crush of masculine lips against his made his cock hard as stone. He nipped Gabriel’s lower lip, thinking the man timid, and demanded Gabriel open to him. Maybe men in this time were far more hesitant, far less likely to act on their desires. A pity, and if all men were like this, maybe he should find a way for Janus to send him back to his own time.

Maybe Marius’s words reassured Gabriel, for the man opened, then demanded, walking Marius backward to press him against the counter. Bracing one hand on the stone countertop, he hooked his fingers into the belt loops on Marius’s jeans with the other and pulled him close. Marius might have been startled by the movement, but now Gabriel wanted him with a fierceness that matched his own.

Joy burst in Marius’s chest. Gabriel still hadn’t put a shirt on, and his broad and hairless chest remained exposed to Marius’s explorations. Though it wasn’t his chest that interested Marius. Still, that smooth skin called to him, made him wonder how a man kept in such good shape in this time.

Gabriel pulled back and drew a harsh breath. “The steaks.”

Marius sniffed. They didn’t smell burned, just nicely well done.

Gabriel dashed over to the stove. A moment later the steaks and a green salad drizzled in dressing were placed before him. Marius’s stomach rumbled. He definitely needed food before he could feed the other hunger. He cut into the steak, noting the flavors and spices as the meat seemed to melt in his mouth. No cut of beef had been so tender, nor so flavorful.

The salad, with a cheesy, vinegar-type dressing, tasted far better than Marius was used to experiencing. By the time he’d eaten the entire meal, including a few more slices of bread, he was willing to turn his attention back to his other hunger. Apparently Gabriel had other ideas, because he put the dirty dishes in one of the metal boxes, then nodded to Marius. “Why don’t we go into the living room?”

“The living room?”

“Where we relax. Follow me.”

Marius allowed Gabriel to lead him to the living room, though Marius supposed that someone would live in every room of the house. Surely they didn’t have a room just for dying.

Gabriel gestured to a large dark leather couch. “Sit down if you like.” Gabriel sat down on one of the cushions and stretched out his arm along the back of the couch.

Marius sat, leaning back into the plush fabric. It cradled his body, and he thought everything in this time seemed so much more rich and sensuous. Maybe their lives were easier, and they didn’t have to reach out and seize the day because death didn’t linger around every corner. Another big metal black box sat across the room from the couch, and several other comfortable-looking pieces of furniture sat around it. More weaponry, highly polished, hung on the walls, and a bronze bust of a Roman warrior sat on a dark wood table placed against end of the couch.

Marius picked it up, marveling at its weight and likeness. Not to him, but to a Roman warrior with its straight nose, the helm, the patrician lips, and solid neck. The likeness could have been any number of men in the barracks. “This would have been a
Provocator
. My
lanista
trained several of them.”

“Were you one?”

Marius shook his head. “No. I was a
murmillo
. The
gladius
was my weapon of choice.”

“How did you…? Is it even proper to ask?”

Marius smiled and looked at the man sitting next to him. The brush of Gabriel’s fingers against the nape of his neck soothed and yet also aroused. “I might as well say. I am certainly not at home where my fall would bring shame. I had been a soldier. I liked games of chance. One day Janus turned the other face and I found myself deeply in debt. I was forced into the arena to try and pay back some of what I owed. I believe I had paid it back and then some, but my
lanista
’s patron enjoyed me too much. I doubt I would be free any other way.”

“Than coming here?” Gabriel turned his head.

“Yes,” Marius said. “I don’t wish to talk.”

“I don’t suppose you do.” This time Gabriel reached for him and smoothed a strand of his almost too long hair between his fingers. Questions lurked in his eyes. Marius saw and read them, so familiar. He had no trade in this time, did not even know if people still fought with swords, for all that Gabriel liked to display them. Something about the way they hung on the wall, polished to a shine, told him they were simply decoration.

When Gabriel’s fingers caressed his lips, Marius sighed. “I am a gladiator,” he said. “I prefer to conquer.”

“It will be nice not to pitch for a change,” Gabriel said. Then he covered Marius’s lips with his own. This was the kiss of a man who knew what he wanted, who demanded and gave little quarter. Marius’s cock hardened, the jeans too confining against his sensitive skin.

Marius pushed Gabriel back onto the couch, needing to have this man sprawled beneath him. The need to overpower Gabriel—to show he was still in control, despite being out of his time—rushed through him. He reached for Gabriel’s waistband. It took a moment, but he managed to fumble open the button. The metal fastening rolled down, revealing Gabriel’s cock. Marius palmed him, noting he was cut.

A moment’s hesitation—a gladiator’s sense of self-preservation—stopped him from sliding down and taking that marvelous piece of flesh into his mouth. “You have no disease?” He cursed his inelegant words but didn’t know how to ask what he needed in the language of this time.

“No. I’ve been tested.”

Marius had no idea what “tested” meant, but he had to take this man, who had given him clothing, food, and shelter, at his word. “It has been over a year, and I am healthy.” That was all the assurance he could give.

It must have been enough, because Gabriel grunted, “Good.”

Then Marius did exactly as he wished and slid down so that his lips were level with Gabriel’s cock. It’d been a long time, too long even without the change in time, since he’d sucked a man. Such niceties weren’t always available when he was working the pits or was bending a senator over his bed. It might not be manly, but he enjoyed the salty taste of a man, the way he could make a man moan with need with the swirl of his tongue or the caress of his finger. He had talents that had made him a good amount of coin one night in a brothel. But that had been long ago, and he’d been just a man and not yet a soldier.

A moment to pause and marvel at the masculine flesh before him, and then Marius lowered his mouth to the tip. A drop of fluid gathered, and he took it on his tongue. The salty flavor burst in his mouth, as succulent as the dinner he’d just eaten. And then, because he couldn’t help himself, he swiped his tongue across the tip.

Beneath him, Gabriel bucked. “It’s been a long time,” he said, his voice as taut as the cords in his neck.

“Then I shall go slowly.” He spoke with more bravado than he felt. The pounding of his own cock nearly threatened to unman him, and he hadn’t even undressed yet. Rising, he caressed the flat planes of Gabriel’s chest, tracing each ridge in his abdominal muscles. So perfect, so muscled, and yet clearly not a warrior in the traditional sense.
How could it be?
he wondered, and knew there was much about this time he didn’t understand.

He knew one thing, though, and that was that a man’s desires never changed. Women might be fickle and wavering like the phases of the moon, but men craved few things in great quantities. Power. Lust. Conquest. Even the senators in their togas, talking of their great republic, wanted these things; they simply acted in a different manner.

Marius tugged at Gabriel’s jeans to distract himself from thoughts that might cool his ardor. Gabriel lifted his hips, and with a quick pull, the garment slid down to his ankles. The long muscled legs looked like they belonged to a soldier or a runner, and were sprinkled with the same dark hair that matched the curls at his groin and on his head. Except for a thin strip of hair surrounding his cock, all else was bare.

“You shave yourself?” He traced the bare skin with his finger.

Gabriel shuddered. “Sometimes.”

“What for?” He leaned forward and nuzzled the bare flesh, answering his own question. “I see.” Turning his head, he pressed his lips to the side of Gabriel’s cock. The rod twitched, and Marius curled his fingers around it. He stroked once, twice, then slid from the couch long enough to get out of his confining jeans.

Naked, he stood.

“You’re like a statue,” Gabriel whispered.

“Touch me and know that I am a man.” His cock almost stood straight up, he was so erect. Drawing his palms down his body as he kneeled on the couch cushion, he smiled at the hunger in Gabriel’s gaze. “You’ll have me soon enough.”

“Not soon enough.” Gabriel cupped his balls. “Suck me or fuck me. I don’t care which.”

Ah, now that was a sentiment—a need to grab life and power by the balls and cuckold it until it bent to your will—that Marius understood all too well. Lady Fortuna was so fickle, but Jupiter brought armies to victory and granted Rome its power. “Then roll over.”