Courted (2 page)

Machaon reappeared beside the couch. “Excuse
me, milady. The first course is ready if you would like it
now.”

“That would be lovely, thank you.” She nodded
to the boy.

Machaon bowed and ducked back into the
kitchen, quickly returning with a slender rectangular tray covered
with a variety of small plates, platters, and bowls. Doccia
followed him bearing perfumed wet cloths so that Anthea and
Lucillus could wash their hands as customary. When their ablutions
were complete, Machaon laid the tray of finger foods and sauces on
the couch between them.

“It looks delicious, Anthea.” Her date
complimented her. “Olives stuffed with Nemausus cheese is one of my
favorite dishes.”

“That’s yet another thing we have in common.”
Anthea noted gaily.

****

After dessert was cleared away and Machaon
dismissed, Anthea and Lucillus lay together on the couch sipping
after dinner wine. Their talk had grown more personal, and more
thoughtful.

Lucillus put his goblet on the side table and
turned back to look at Anthea, his face serious.

“Can I ask you a question?” His ocean-colored
eyes looked at her earnestly.

“Of course,” she replied. She was a bit
worried; what could have made him so solemn?

“Why did you marry a culus like Titus?” He
seemed to genuinely want to know.

Anthea took a deep breath and let it out
slowly, composing her thoughts. “I’ve wondered that myself.”

“Is it too personal a question to ask?” His
voice was kind.

She shook her head. “No, just hard to put
into words that don’t make me seem like a complete ninny.” She
placed her own glass on a side table before continuing.

“I think it was probably because I was more
bothered than I would admit by my first husband’s remarriage.
Decimus and I never had feelings for each other beyond respect and
friendship, so his request for a divorce wasn’t heartbreaking or
anything, but it was still a shock. Seventeen years is a long time
to be someone’s wife, and it takes some time to get used to the
change.”

“Thankfully, the whole divorce was done
amicably. Decimus is a good man. Although he is the only one with
any legal rights to the children, he has always allowed me to see
our sons freely and has even allowed our daughter Annia to live
with me until she gets married next year. He turned over my dowry
without a peep and has always treated me with nothing but courtesy.
I have no criticisms of Decimus, but his decency didn’t make me
feel better when he married a woman only five years older than our
daughter.”

Anthea smiled wryly. “I let my brother talk
me into marrying Titus because I wanted to feel young again and
prove someone could still want
me
. Titus was very charming
during his courtship, you know. It wasn’t until we were married for
a few months that his bad temper started to show. When I realized I
was constantly dreading his hissy fits and screaming, I asked for a
divorce. I hadn’t the faintest idea it would be such a
nightmare.”

Lucillus nodded. “You never know someone
until you see them in the pressure of a law suit. That’s when the
worst comes out.”

“Do you not like being a lawyer, then?”
Anthea asked. “Is it too depressing seeing your fellow man at his
worst?”

He looked rueful. “Regrettably, no. I find
that I thrive on the moral carnage of the legal system. I can’t
even say that I am always seeking to find Lady Justice. When it
comes down to convincing jury, all I want is to win for my
client.”

“You are a lion of courts, hunting the
wounded gazelle that is the opposing counsel?” Anthea arched her
brow.

“I certainly like to think of myself as
deadly with my rhetoric,” Lucillus grinned, “but I think my pelt is
more like a tiger’s than a lion’s.”

Anthea made a face of exaggerated pity. “I am
sorry to tell you that your pelt is much more like a ginger tom cat
than that of a tiger.”

“Damn, I was hoping you would fall for the
tiger simile and tremble before me.” He sighed forlornly. “If I
look like a cat, do I at least get petted?”

“Most assuredly, but who will put the bell on
you? If Aesop’s fables taught me nothing else it is that no one
wishes to bell the cat.” Anthea reached over and ran her hand down
the side of his head, twisting her fingers slightly in his tawny
locks.

He took her wrist and turned her hand to his
lips, kissing her on the sensitive skin of her palm. Her libido
immediately caused her brain to soften and her nipples to
harden.

“No need to worry. I’ve come with bells
already on, to make sure you noticed me.”

She looked into his viridian eyes. “I promise
you, there is no need for bells to get my attention. You already
have it at your command.”

****

Lucillus released her hand and cupped her
cheek. In an unhurried manner he leaned forward and pressed his
perfect lips against hers. It was an undemanding kiss, almost
chaste. He laid feathery kisses on her mouth, waiting for her to
open to him on her own.

Anthea tipped her face up slightly, relishing
the sensation of his long fingers sliding into her hair, and parted
her lips in welcome.

He pulled her forward and deepened the kiss.
He tasted like the wine they had been drinking, and he was
affecting her the same way. Her head swam as Lucillus moved over
her, easing her back until she was lying down.

Once Anthea had both hands free she ran them
up along Lucillus’s hard chest. Her fingers dug into the breadth of
shoulders and she arched upwards to increase her contact with his
body. She had been waiting so long for this, and it was turning out
to be even better than she had hoped for. Just his kisses were more
exciting than anything either of her husbands had been able to do.
Anthea had enjoyed sex, and found obtaining orgasm not to be
particularly difficult, but she had never yearned for a man to be
inside her the way she wanted Lucillus at that moment.

In response to her tightening grip and
enthusiastic reception, Lucillus began kissing her more fiercely,
with more heat. His hand fisted in her hair, dislodging her
carefully arranged tresses. He tightened his grip hard enough to
pull, but not to hurt. She discovered that the sensation was
profoundly erotic. She moaned her pleasure and kissed him back even
more passionately, finally nibbling the full bottom lip she had
coveted for a year. By all the gods, the man could kiss. Even if he
kissed her nowhere else on her body she was ready for him, her
cunna hot and wet and aching with need.

Using the hand buried in her curls, he tugged
her head back, exposing her throat for his attention. He kissed and
licked and nipped a path down to her collar bones and up to her
ear. When his teeth lightly closed around her earlobe she bucked
underneath him because the feeling was so intensely
pleasurable.

She could feel him fighting to get his other
hand free of the heavy folds of his toga. Anthea knew that on the
whole men thought the garment was a blasted nuisance to wear, and
had never agreed with them more.

“Why in the futuo did I wear a toga?”
Lucillus muttered against her neck, making her giggle in spite of
her arousal.

Finally, his other hand slipped beneath her
back, and crushed her to him even more tightly. His knee nudged her
legs open, and his muscular thigh pressed against her pubis,
pouring oil on the fire already raging through her.

She ran her hands down his back, reveling in
the way the hard muscles tensed and moved under her touch. His
mouth moved back down her neck and onto the point of her shoulder
where the fibulae of her stola were coming apart. From her shoulder
his mouth moved down over the silk of her tunic, finding her erect
nipples and biting them lightly through the cloth. She threaded her
fingers into his strawberry blond curls and nearly sobbed from the
physical thrill that jolted her to her heated core.

Again his wonderfully agile lips were on her
neck, her jaw, her mouth, creating sensations so delightful her
cunna was almost hurting from need. When he pulled back she opened
her eyes and looked at him with a glassy, lust-drunk gaze.

“Why in the name of Ganymede’s balls are you
stopping
?”

He flashed a satisfied smile of male pride at
her state of obvious arousal. “We need to take this to the bedroom,
sweetheart.”

“Oh, right. Yes. Yes, that is certainly where
we need to be.”

Lucillus stood up and helped her to her feet,
taking the time to kiss her breathless once more. Then, with a
frown, he quickly shed his rumpled toga and dumped it by the
triclinium. Now clad in only a simple tunic, he pulled her back
into his arms.

“Which way to your bed, mellita?” Lucillus
purred into her ear. “
Duc me ad paradisum.
”

He kept hold of Anthea’s hand as she lead him
the short distance to her chamber, kissing her knuckles and
slipping his tongue between the joining of her index and ring
finger so suggestively her legs almost gave way.

As soon as they were in the privacy of her
room, he turned suddenly and pressed her against the wall next to
her door. He lifted her hands over her head and pinned them,
pushing his leg between hers until she was straddling his thighs on
tip-toe. She was sure he would have let her go if she had struggled
to get loose, or had even told him to free her, but she wasn’t
foolish enough to do either of those things. His sexual captive was
exactly what she wanted to be.

Lucillus kissed her thoroughly and roughly
while altering his grip so that her wrists were secured in one of
his hands, leaving the other free to explore. Anthea trembled,
anticipating his touch.

She was not disappointed. His hand slid down
her waist to her hip, then around to clutch her bottom in order to
pull her forward and grind her against him. She was so electrified
by his caresses that the friction of his hard thigh against her
clitoris almost sent her over the edge to an orgasm. She had never
been stimulated to such an extent by foreplay.

His hand moved up until it was almost under
her breast, and then he broke off the kiss to look at her. His
pupils were dilated until they had almost consumed his iris,
leaving only a rim of Aegean blue around the pool of black. Keeping
his gaze locked with hers, he watched her as he slid his broad palm
up to her breast.

Anthea was overwhelmed and let her lids drift
close as his thumb began to flick over her nipple. She bit her
lower lip and whimpered as his hand rubbed across her other breast
as well.

She opened her eyes again when she felt him
remove the first of the fibulae that held her stola together on her
right shoulder. He was smiling that same naughty grin of intent
that she had seen earlier. He flung the fibula to the side,
heedless of where it went. Then, methodically, he removed the twin
fibula from the left shoulder. Anthea tried to stop herself from
panting as she felt her stola hanging by the last two pins.
Lucillus leaned into her, using his body to keep her stola from
falling when he removed the finale fibulae.

His visage intent, he stepped back a few
inches to allow her stola to slither into a silk puddle at her
feet. She stood before him, naked except for her pearls. His
breathing was labored as he looked at her body, the fervor of his
scrutiny feeling almost like a touch on her breasts, belly, and
thighs. Anthea had not thought it possible, but her cunna became
even wetter than before as his face showed his hunger for her.

“Pomona herself could not be so lovely.” His
deep voice whispered around her like incense from an altar.

Anthea shook her head. “You shouldn’t tempt
the anger of the gods.”

“Nothing is more tempting than you are,
delicia.” As though to prove it his mouth devoured hers once more
in a kiss that melted her bones and opened her heart.

Never breaking his kiss, he slid his hand
down to apex of her thighs. Pushing her legs apart again gently
with his knee, he cupped her pudenda in his huge hands. He slid one
long finger into the folds of her labia, avoiding the clitoris and
stroking the tender flesh of her vulva instead.

The tantalizing nature of his caress built up
such pressure within Anthea that she broke away from his kiss
because she was breathless. Nearly mewling, she rocked her hips
hoping to bring his finger in contact with the one spot guaranteed
to bring her release.

Ignoring her silent pleas, he slowly thrust
his finger into her depths. Her vagina tightened around him and
even more moisture flooded the area. Moving his finger within her,
he pressed upwards.

What the hell is he doing?
Anthea was
nearly insane with the need to come.
My landica is the other
way, dammit.

Anthea cried out as his finger pressed a
place inside her she wasn’t even aware she had. She was close to
begging when he withdrew from her, but thankfully he used the slick
dew of her own body to glide over her clitoris. Repeatedly he
penetrated her with two fingers all the way to the pressure point
inside her that felt so good, and back out and over the small bulb
of her sex. The tempo of his rhythm increased until she was
squirming and jerking against him.

The pleasure built up to the point it was
nearly pain, and then exploded throughout her body. She cried out
as the ecstasy throbbed in her sex, waves of bliss pouring through
her and ripping her with velvet claws. Lucillus plunged his fingers
deep inside her, letting her contract around them as her orgasm
shook her.

When the last pulse of delight ebbed, Anthea
let her head fall back against the wall. She wasn’t sure she could
bear her own weight, and was glad Lucillus’s strong body was
keeping her from oozing boneless to the ground.