Seduced by the Gladiator (13 page)

But when I lowered the thick cup from my lips, I was pressed against the waist-high table with one smooth, sure movement. Strong arms leaned against the hard wood on either side of me, caging me in, and my body went liquid with such rapidity that I lost my grip on the cup. It fell to the floor and shattered, and the sweet liquid splattered over my neck and chest, gluing the thin leather to my skin.

My hand fumbled for a cloth, but Christus caught both of my slim wrists, encircled them with his fingers.

“Let me.” A startled gasp fell from my lips when I felt the rasp of his tongue on the cord of my neck.

This was my last moment to retreat.

I did not.

Christus licked a line up my neck, from my shoulder to the supple skin of my jaw, before moving his lips surely to my own. This time the kiss did not take me by surprise, and I responded with fervor that I had not known I possessed. My knees threatened to give out on me, and I wound my arms tentatively around his broad shoulders for support. He murmured with pleasure when I did, and it gave me the courage to open my mouth and drink in his kiss.

His mouth tasted like grapes and honey, rich and sweet.

His lips slanted over mine, his tongue nipping out to flick over my lips. I moaned when he sank his teeth into my full lower lip and suckled it into his mouth, and my nipples contracted to the point of pain with need.

Oh. Oh. I wanted . . . I wasn’t sure what I wanted. More of the pleasure from the night before, certainly. Something was building up inside of me, something that demanded more.

That something had me rocking my hips forward, and Christus moaned out loud when I pressed against him.

“Careful.” Catching me under my elbows, he lifted me easily until my ass was settled on the edge of the table. Sliding firm hands down the length of my slender legs, he tugged at my ankles until I wrapped the limbs around his waist.

“That’s it.” With my legs wrapped so tightly, I was forced to lean back, and he took advantage of the position to strip my wet leather top over my head and away.

I gasped with shock at the intimacy of our position. My fevered center was pressed against his cock, which was hard as stone—hard for me. The skin of my arms and belly prickled with both a chill and anticipation as they felt the biting kiss of the cool air, and then they were drenched with heat as Christus nuzzled his face between my breasts and bit once lightly.

“Oh. Oh!” I closed my eyes in reflex as his tongue began to move over my skin, lapping at the slickness that the spilled wine had left. I felt that I should be embarrassed, or shy, or
something
, but his hands were filling my mind with pleasure, with no room for anything else. One of his hands reached up to clasp my breast, his thumb strumming over my nipple, and I stopped trying to think altogether.

Sliding my hands up to his shoulders, I clenched tightly, holding on for support as I tipped my head back and was swallowed up by sensation.

His hands were hard and callused from incessant training, and they scraped as they moved over my upper body. It felt incredible, and I rocked my pelvis forward in response. My hands fell from his shoulders to his waist, and toyed with the edge of rough leather there.

With a harsh noise, he ripped at the leather knot that held his subligaculum closed at the waist. Taking his hands off of me for only as long as it took to unfasten the leather, he returned them quickly, and I felt naked skin press against me the moment after.

His fingers fumbled with the knot of my leather top. I began to shake. The fingers slowed their movements.

“Are you all right?”

I nodded frantically, anxious for him to resume his exploration of my body. “Yes. Yes. I just . . .” I let my voice trail away, far less interested in talking than in touching. I ran my hands over his back. I wanted to hurry, but was not sure how to initiate that.

“If you’re not sure, you’d better tell me now.” Christus growled as my fingers grew ever braver and found the swollen head of his cock, standing up from its nest of dark curls.

“Last chance.” His voice was rough. Unsure of what words to use, but more certain than I had been of anything, ever, I slowly and deliberately rubbed my fingers over the weeping tip of his erection.

Growling again, he moved his fingers down to join mine and helped me to fist his shaft. I bit my lip, then slowly slid my hand down, reveling in the masculine groan that rent the air.

“Hold on to me.” Christus urged my arms up to his shoulders, and I exhaled sharply in surprise when he hefted my weight off of the counter.

“Broken pottery. Your feet are bare.”

He carried me as if I weighed nothing at all, moving to the back of the room, where our bedrolls were. Before we made it all the way, he stopped, pressing me against the wall as he bit at my now hypersensitive neck. “Which one?”

“Yours.” I wanted to be surrounded by his scent. The cool stone was a sharp contrast to the heat of his body at my front. I laughed breathlessly and surprised myself with the joyful sound. It was so rare for me to feel lighthearted, and I felt as if I was floating.

I felt the answering curve of his lips against my neck. A chuckle escaped his throat as he pressed me back against the wall before sliding me slowly, so slowly, down the hard length of his body.

My nose was level with his chest when my feet again touched the floor. I leaned in and ran my cheek across the hard expanse of his pectorals, inhaling that mixture of musk and man that was so unique to Christus.

His knee found its way between my thighs. I did not think I had ever felt anything as good as the friction of his leg against my cleft. I found myself grinding down shamelessly, the thin leather of my subligaculum between my own legs growing wet with want.

Lowering his forehead to press against mine, Christus let our breaths intermingle as he slowly removed the remaining layers of leather that covered my skin. My top had already been hanging loose, so he simply lowered each strap slowly down my shoulders, one at a time. I felt it whisk against my leg on its way to the floor.

When he lowered a hot, wet mouth to my nipple, I saw flashes of color behind my eyes, fuchsia, tangerine, and bloodred. The colors swirled in a seductive dance as my nerves flew and my blood pumped hot and fast.

Suckling hard, he drew my nipple right into his mouth, then scraped the edge of his teeth gently over the incredibly sensitive nub. I cried out, shaking with need.

After a minute of that sucking, or maybe it had been an hour, I began to buck against him. My fingers again found the skin of his trim waist, and I traced fingers over his lean hips and down.

I exhaled sharply when I reached behind him to knead my hands into his ass and found nothing but smooth skin.

His ass was firm from physical labor, and my fingers danced over it delightedly. Taking a deep breath, I worked up the nerve to move those same fingers over his sculpted hipbones and to the taut expanse of his lower belly, which was right above the area that I really wanted to explore.

Muttering a curse, Christus slid one of his hands down to join mine. I thought that he might be taking my hand away, but instead he urged my eager hands down, slowly down, where he wrapped our intertwined fingers around the girth of his cock.

I hissed in a breath when I again touched the hot silk of his skin, tentatively at first. Then more eagerly as I grew bolder, I explored the length and width of his erection, memorizing the feel of the swollen veins, throbbing with need, and the way he quivered when I ran a finger over the fleshy tip.

I repeated my gesture, closing my hand over his shaft once more, moving it experimentally up and down. He moaned and untangled his fingers from mine. They moved to splay over my belly, nudging at the leather of my subligaculum, which had gotten caught between our bodies.

“Step out.” I shook first my right foot, then my left, kicking out of the confining leather. Christus hooked a finger in each side of my leather and slowly drew it down, letting it fall to the floor.

Then we were naked and pressed together, and I felt like I was flying.

“Open your legs.” There was no thought in my mind but to obey. I widened my stance, even though it meant that the stone of the wall pulled at the skin of my back painfully. Christus’ fingers found the slick entrance to my cleft, and the discomfort at my back was not even real anymore.

He stroked a single finger slowly between my lower lips, and I hissed in a breath. Apart from the night before, I had not been touched there in so very long, and never with such a sure and sweet caress. Need began to swirl through my every fiber, climbing, and I knew that I needed something to release or I would shatter into a million tiny fragments.

Christus’ finger parted my folds, then brushed against my clit. My knees threatened to give out. My whole being became centered on that touch, that single finger anchoring me.

The rough edge of his callused finger scraped and felt so good when he began to slowly trace a path around that tender, engorged nub. He circled slowly, around and around, again and again, until I felt like a wave was about to crash over me, that that same rush of pleasure from the night before would soon drown me.

Then he moved his finger away from my clit, and I nearly screamed at the loss of sensation. The impending storm receded yet hovered on the horizon, ready to attack again.

I hissed when Christus slid the finger that was still stroking through my curls leisurely to the entrance to my cleft. He curved his touch back and forth over my entrance, then slid the length into my tight heat.

The impending storm crashed. I tightened even further around his finger, which was sliding in and out of me at an almost lazy pace. I thought that I might have screamed. I knew that I clutched at Christus’ chest, his shoulders, wherever I could reach, my nails biting into his warm skin until he hissed with pleasure pain.

When the orgasm began to recede, I was limp, and I shuddered when Christus gathered my lax form into his arms. He carried me to his bedroll, where he laid me lightly on top of his coarsely woven sheets.

I moved my head back and forth on the cloth, my senses so heightened that even the rough weave of the wool felt amazing on my skin.

When Christus lay down beside me, I instinctively moved so that he could share the small space. Our faces came together for a kiss, and then another and another, and then I was feeling needy all over again.

I also wanted to give back some of the pleasure that I had received. Slowly, uncertain of exactly what to do, I moved my free hand from its place on his well-muscled upper arm, down the expanse of his lean hip, and over to brush against his cock.

Christus hissed in a breath and rocked his hips forward. The jut of his erection pressed into the taut flesh of my belly.

With a huge intake of breath and what seemed a great deal of effort, he moved himself back until the lengths of our bodies were no longer touching, and his fingers disentangled mine from their grip on his cock.

I froze, suddenly unsure. “What is wrong? What did I do?” Maybe I had hurt him. I had no idea. I had never touched another’s cock with the intention of bringing pleasure, after all.

Christus heaved another breath, his exhalations ragged, sounding as if he had come straight from the arena. When he spoke, his voice was pained.

“You didn’t do anything wrong. In fact, you’re doing everything exactly right.
Too
right.”

I was confused, and it must have shown on my face.

“You will still be sore from last night.” His voice was tight with regret. “I will not enter you only to cause you pain.”

“No.” I shook my head, shifting my hips, judging the tension in the muscles that were hidden inside of me. I ached, yes, but I did not regret. More, I craved even more sensation than I already had, for it meant that I had been marked by him. “It matters not. I wish for you to be inside of me.”

Christus inhaled deeply at the fierceness in my voice. “I will not hurt you.” He stroked a hand over my upper arm. “I will still bring you pleasure, and next time we are together, I will possess you with my cock.”

I both loved and hated the sound of “next time.” Loved that he wanted there to be one . . . and hated that it was not right now.

“But it’s not fair. I . . . well, you . . . to me . . . I . . .” I was too shy to vocalize the fact that he had made me come, but he hadn’t yet.

I wanted to make him come, too. I wanted to give him as much pleasure as he had given me.

If only I knew how.

He had seemed to like it when I had encircled his cock with my fingers. So I reached out and did it again, and he jerked backward with surprise and then groaned at the clumsy touch.

“Lilia.” Christus sounded out of breath. “You do not have to do this. It is enough for me to bring you pleasure.”

I did not respond, choosing instead to keep touching him. I noticed that when I tightened my fingers on his length, he took in air sharply and bucked his hips. Experimentally I ran my tightly cupped fist up and down, and he made a noise I had never heard a man make.

“Lilia . . .” He pulled me to him tightly and inhaled the scent of my hair. “Give me a minute.” I heard him swallow and loosened my grip on him, but did not let go.

I was fascinated by the fact that I could make him feel this way.

“Hang on.” With an ease due to the sculpted muscles that I could feel against me, Christus rolled until he was lying on his back on the bed, and I straddled him. I tensed, feeling exposed, but when he cupped both of my breasts in his hands, I melted into the sensation.

I could feel the roughness of the hair that surrounded his cock against my wet cleft. I wanted to move against it, and shifted restlessly at the thought.

“Only if you are sure.” His hands trailed slowly from my breasts to my waist, and he urged me to rock. “Move however you want.”

I was hesitant, feeling so exposed in the position, splayed atop him as I was. But he urged me back and forth, and my slick chasm glided up and down the hardness of his erection, which was pressed up flat against his belly. I soon realized that my movements felt good for him, too, because he rocked with me, and we both groaned when our flesh met.