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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’s 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 that 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’s. 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’s 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.
When he returned to her, she was no longer sitting demurely on the chair. Instead she was examining one of the maps of the local area that was nailed to the wall.
She swung round on hearing his approach, and for a brief heartbeat looked oddly guilty.
He brushed the thought aside, irrationally annoyed she should feel guilty for the pleasure he’d given her. There would, after all, be plenty of time later for her to pleasure him. They would have all night.
Another wrong thought. Gods, his loins
hurt
.
“Carys.” He mentally winced at the harshness of his tone. Somehow he couldn’t help the clawing frustration shredding his voice.
She didn’t appear cowed by his growl, as she came toward him, as if she was about to embrace him.
Hastily he stepped back. His control stretched only so far and was already dangerously frayed.
“I will make arrangements for your immediate accommodation.” He sounded as if he were issuing a punishment. When he attempted to smile to soften his words, he could manage only a glower.
“My accommodation?” A wary expression clouded her face, as if she misunderstood him. Gods, he needed relief. He sucked in a deep breath and attempted to focus on something other than his throbbing cock.
“I am—distracted,” he managed to grind out between gritted teeth. “Let me clarify. You’re here now, and I have no intention of allowing you to leave.”
She wrapped her fingers around his clenched fist. “I’m sorry.” She sounded troubled. “I know you’re hard with desire and unable to think clearly, Maximus.”
He broke into a sweat. No woman had ever uttered such words to him. Jupiter, he’d doubted until this moment a woman could even
comprehend
such a thing.
It was unnerving. And yet, because the woman was Carys, also shockingly arousing.
“I’m perfectly capable of thinking clearly.” He’d sooner rip out his own tongue than admit anything less to anyone, never mind to Carys. Of their own volition his fingers tangled with hers. “Once we’re formally together, your safety will be assured.”
Her thumb stroked his. A sign of surrender.
At last
.
Chapter Fifteen
“Maximus.” She drew his hand to her face and gently rubbed his knuckles over her cheek. Her surrender was sweet, and it was sheer torture he didn’t have the leisure to enjoy it.
But later he would indulge every blessed moment of her surrender. And reassure her that, in reality, she surrendered nothing.
“These rooms are only temporary.” In that moment he knew he could never be satisfied with Carys living in the settlement. She belonged with him. “We’ll have larger quarters before the week ends.”
Her fingers tightened. “I want to stay with you.” Her words were barely above a whisper, and yet she looked in torment as if she had just admitted treason.
“Then all is well.” He resisted dragging her into his arms to comfort her. He wasn’t sure why she required comforting, but he was sure that if he held her, he would be unable to stop himself from taking her.
“But I can’t.”
He heard her words. But they made no sense. Perhaps she had misunderstood him. “I’m not giving you the choice, Carys.”
She let out a ragged sigh, and brushed her lips over his captured thumb. He remained rigid before her, not trusting himself to move a muscle.
“My kin—”
“Your
kin
should take better care of you.” He didn’t try to hide the rage simmering through his blood. He could scarcely believe she still dared argue with him over this matter. How could she even contemplate leaving him?
Did she truly imagine he would allow her to go?
Instead of shrinking before his wrath—which would, he acknowledged grimly, have infuriated him further—she clasped his fisted hand to her breast.
“Would you truly wish me to cause my great-grandmother’s sister such pain?”
He glared at her, uncomprehending. Her great-grandmother’s sister? Surely such an ancestor couldn’t still be alive. “By Mars, woman, what are you talking about?”
Far from flinching at his tone, as virtually everyone else he could think of would have done, her face softened.
“She is strong of spirit, Maximus, but this is her ninetieth summer. If I don’t return, I fear what my absence might do to her.”
Her ninetieth summer
. Despite the heat pumping through his veins, an awed chill snaked along his spine. He’d not believed attaining such an age possible.
“Then you’ll send her a message, assuring her all is well.” With his back to the window, blocking her from sight, he dared to cradle her face with his free hand. “She must have other descendants, closer in kin than you.”
Carys leaned into his palm. Her eyes never left his. “Her daughters are all continuing their journey. And they had no children of their own.” Their journey? Did she mean they were all traveling? “My grandmother is her closest kin, but she is frailer than her mother’s sister.”
The chill from his spine wormed into the pit of his stomach, and curled into an icy knot. “What of your brothers, Carys? Your uncles?” And yet he knew what her answer would be, and the knot tightened.
“I have no brothers.” Regret flickered in her eyes. “No sister either. I dearly wanted a sister, Maximus, but my mother wanted no other children.”
Her mother wanted no other children. Had her father no say in the matter?
Yet he couldn’t mention her father. Not when the knowledge that his Legion was responsible for her father’s death weighed heavily on his conscience.
“Your mother is there also?” Dread seeped from his twisted guts, chilling his blood, tormenting his brain. Yet still he resisted allowing the thought to push through his mind and gain substance.
For a moment he thought she wasn’t going to answer. “No.” Her voice was oddly hollow. “She left before the invasion to visit distant kin.” She sucked in a quick breath. “But my cousin and her son are.” She paused, and a soft smile tilted her lips. “He is but three years old.”
Maximus stared into her lovely face in horrified disbelief. The only male relative she had was
three years old.
She lived somewhere out in the wilds with three other women—one of whom was frail and the other surely hovering close to Erebus—and a small child.
He’d assumed when Carys and her kin had fled the invasion that her male relatives were behind it, and damned them for their cowardice.
But instead Carys had escaped with the female members of her family. Had all the men perished alongside her father? Was that what she wasn’t telling him?
His hand fisted against her soft flesh. “You know eventually you’ll have to leave your haven.” His knuckles traced the line of her proud jaw. “You can’t hide forever, Carys.”
Her fingers tightened around his hand,which she pressed against her tempting breasts, and pain filled her eyes. “I know.”
He wanted to crush her in an embrace or shake her until her brains rattled, or find the words to convince her that her duty
did not
lie with her vulnerable female relatives.
Words he would never utter, even if such words existed. Her loyalty earned his respect, even as it drove him insane.
“You know?” He gave a brief, hollow laugh. “And yet still you insist on hiding like common criminals.”
She sighed heavily, and shook her head. “You’re right, Maximus. We can’t hide forever. And we won’t. I know, in my heart, this can’t go on for much longer.”
“Then end it now.”
A frown creased her brow. “It’s not yet time. I can’t explain. I wish I could. I only know the end is approaching and—there’s nothing I can do to change that.”
Shudders crawled over his flesh, as if the wings of Mors brushed death across him. He braced his muscles against the unnatural reaction and rationalized her words.
She wasn’t speaking of the end as gods would have it. She merely knew that, sooner or later, her hiding place would be found by
him
.
“Who accompanied you here?” His question was harsh. A command. He couldn’t help himself. Frustrated desire mated with impotent fury at the knowledge that yet again he would have to allow Carys to leave.
Intolerable
. And yet there was no choice. He knew she was a healer, although her youth precluded that she could know much of any use. But if the health of her elderly relatives relied on her skills, such as they were, how could he refuse to let her go?
“Why do you want to know?” For the first time she sounded wary, and he gripped her shoulder, unreasonably stung she should think he intended harm to any of her blood.
“You didn’t venture here on your own.”
She didn’t immediately respond, and for one eternal heartbeat he thought she was going to remain silent.
Did she not trust him?
“No.”
“Carys.” Her name was a growl in his throat. She knew he would never harm her kin. He’d sworn such to her on more than one occasion. How dare she doubt his word?
“With two companions.”
He sucked in a long breath, attempted to smother the leaping rage consuming his chest. She had been answering his question, not his thought. Was this woman turning his mind? Could he no longer think clearly?

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