Seduced by the Gladiator (16 page)

His fingers had slowed, fallen from my body as he spoke. The cloth had dropped to the floor, and he knelt with his hands in his lap.

“Finally I thought that he understood. He stopped coming to my home, stopped dogging my steps, stopped offering a new threat every day.” Christus’ voice softened, and I heard the guilt that laced his tone. “I was certain that he had moved on. But just as I thought that our lives had returned to normal, I came home from the market one day to find that my wife and son had been slain. I could not prove it, but I knew that it had been the work of Ovidius.” Hearing the pain in his voice, I sat up on the bed, reached out to caress his cheek. He lifted both hands to my own, holding on tightly.

“I found that I could not stay there, in that house. I left for a time, wandered, grieving. When I returned, Ovidius had seized my land. I was arrested for protesting, and for trying to reclaim it, as he always knew that I would be. I was taken to work in the pits.”

My mouth fell open as I recoiled. “The pits?” The pits were the underworld on earth, where slaves were worked quite literally to death, mining stone to build houses and amusements for the rich.

My own troubles shrank, dwindling away to nearly nothing in the face of Christus’ past.

He smiled then, wanly, his consciousness returning to him slowly. He looked up into my eyes, and I saw the affection that lay there.

“I was there for less than a fortnight when my former dominus visited the pits, as he often did, looking for new slaves to train as gladiators. I do not know what he saw in me, but he purchased me and took me home that very day.”

“Christus.” I could hardly bear the story that he had told me. “Surely . . . I mean to say . . . was life not better for you then? Even a small amount?”

His features sharpened, and I knew that a memory flitted through his mind. He did not expand, replying in few words. “In some ways, yes. But there are other methods of breaking a man.” We sat in silence for a long while, each of us lost in our thoughts.

A noise from the corridor inside the hallway made us both start, breaking us from our reveries. Rising, Christus placed a hand on either side of my cheek, and kissed me once on the lips, lightly.

“I did not mean to tell such a sad tale. I do not know why I did. It is not a story that I have ever shared.” His tone light, he picked up the jug of water and the cloth and returned them to the table.

“I must tell you a happier tale.” Cocking his head, he studied me intently. “One that will lull you to sleep.”

What he did not say but I already knew was that there were no happy tales in either of our lives.

We were slaves.

“Come to me.” Standing, I held out my arms for his embrace. “I want you.”

What I wanted was to burn away the sadness that he carried. Wanted to wash away the bitterness that tainted my tongue.

Wanted to prove that what was between us, the scalding heat of it, was real.

“I will not.” Though his cock had risen at my words and was pressing against the leather of his subligaculum, he seemed horrified by my words. “Not after what you have just been through.”

His words were like a sword carefully aimed at my heart.

“Do you . . . is it . . .” Had Gaius tainted this, too? “Do you not wish to have me now that
he
has looked at my flesh?”

I would kill the brother of the emperor for taking this from me.

Christus’ face darkened as he heard my words. “Do not dare.” Before my eyes he transformed into someone dangerous—a predator. “Do not dare to think such a thing.”

I did dare, for of course it was true. Yes, I would kill Gaius for this, but for now, I needed space in which to repair my shattered heart.

I whirled, making for the door that led into the depths of the gladiators’ quarters.

I did not make it more than five steps. I heard him approach, his tread thumping on the floor. Then he was behind me, wrapping his arms around me, turning me before I could process any kind of thought.

Then his lips were on mine, and the contractions around my heart disappeared, washed away in a fiery bath of heat. He kissed me until my mind began to fog, and for that I was thankful.

“Lilia?” Pulling back, Christus looked down into my face, the lines of his mouth etched with concern.

“Shh.” I resisted when he tried to pull me to him again, instead acting on instinct. In that moment, with the encounter with Gaius fresh in my mind, I needed to be the one to lead.

I pushed at his chest until he acquiesced to my unspoken demand and sat on the bed. I fell on top of him, straddling his thighs, his hands reaching around to trace down the length of my spine.

I did not want a slow seduction. I wanted something fast, and hard, and able to consume me in its fire.

I growled in protest when Christus again stood, sliding me down the length of his body. He nipped at my lower lip in warning, and I swallowed thickly, emotion swamping me.

“Let me help you forget.”

I found my mouth crushed as Christus dragged my head to his, tangling his fingers in my hair the second that he felt the resistance melt from my body. I muffled a cry as his tongue invaded my mouth, stroking gently even as his lips pressed roughly, making me squirm with anticipation. Just as I found myself relaxing into his kiss, he released my lips and began a series of sharp little bites on my neck that aroused even as they stung. Stunned, I whimpered, a little series of noises that had Christus looking into my face.

“Do not think.” His voice was breathless as he tugged at the knot of his subligaculum. He nipped at my ear at the same time. “Do not think. Just feel.”

“Wait, just wait.” In response I found myself lifted off of my feet and turned in midair. “I . . . I don’t want . . .”

In response, Christus slipped a finger between my naked legs and rubbed, making me gasp both with the sensation and with the brashness with which it was delivered.

“Yes, you do.” He delivered a sharp smack across the cheek of my right buttock, and I cried out loud.

I did not have an answer for him—he was right. I wanted whatever he would give me, and I wanted it hot and fast and now.

Then, finally, all thought was whisked away as Christus rammed me against the wall. He dragged my head back, feasted on my lips, and ground his hips against mine before taking my hand and lowering it to his crotch.

I sucked in my breath at the brashness of his gesture. This was not a Christus that I knew—my lover was gentle, and persuasive. He seduced me with body and mind.

This Christus demanded that I please him, and that I do it his way. Though I would never have imagined that it would, I found it incredibly arousing to have such demands made of me.

His erection jerked beneath my touch. I could feel the heat through the leather, and I squeezed the tip, imagining the skin pulled tight over the weeping flesh.

He was harder than he had ever been. I wanted him to use that hardness to fuck me.

Christus placed a hand over mine and made me measure his length and girth with my fingers. Then he groaned, “Now, Lilia,” exhaling hot breath in my ear.

His words were not a request, and they made a shiver roll over my skin.

As Christus continued his assault on my mouth, I vaguely heard the sound of tearing cloth. It was my sleep tunic being ripped in half. My breasts were then grasped in rough palms. Thumbs rubbed over my nipples through the shreds of cloth so that they became pebble hard, then clever fingers worked them until they jutted out from my skin in sharp peaks. I writhed against him, and his tongue slithered over the swells, making me inhale sharply.

Watching my eyes, Christus pulled his subligaculum down over his hips to reveal the jut of his massive erection, which stood forward proudly from its nest of dark curls. Brazenly staring his fill at my own naked skin, he pushed his leathers down his legs, then stepped out.

Dropping to his knees, he nuzzled at my abdomen. Wicked excitement raced through me as I realized what he was about to do.

He rained kisses over the quivering flesh of my belly. When my eyes blurred, Christus took the shreds of my tunic, which was already falling down my shoulders, and clamped it in his teeth. Tugging with his mouth, he nudged the fabric down until it slid from my arms and fell to the floor, pooling around my feet.

Lowering his head, he began to lap at me, rough little licks that had me hissing. Soon his tongue licked at the flesh around my most sensitive spot, and my body threatened to lose control. Around and around his tongue swirled, coming closer and closer, until finally it flicked over the nub of swollen flesh, causing something inside of me to swell, swell like a wave until it crested and left me boneless and sobbing.

Though the climax left me weak, it still was not enough. Knowing me as he did, I had hardly more than a moment to catch my breath when I was pulled from the wall and turned around. Christus leaned me over the edge of my bedroll, placing my palms flat on the woolen blanket.

“Do not move your hands from this place.” He covered me with warm male flesh from behind. I tensed as his fingers probed at the entrance to my ass, the sensation, as always, strange enough to make me squirm.

“Hold still.” A finger nudged into my anal canal, the foreign intrusion vaguely uncomfortable at first. As he worked his finger in and out that slightest bit, loosening me, removing the tension from my clenched muscles, I finally settled back against the pressure, the strangeness giving way to pleasure.

Christus insistently rotated that finger, going in no more than an inch before pulling it back out, again and again, as he took my left hand with his free one and guided it to his rearing cock. As I clasped my fingers around it eagerly, exploring the heated silk, I found that it was already beaded with drops of sticky liquid at its tip.

“Help me, Lilia,” Christus muttered as he increased the rhythm of his finger. I pushed back against him, taking him in deeper. I could not remember anything ever feeling so good, or ever wanting someone so badly.

“Stand on your toes and take me in.” I was enjoying the feeling of his finger too much to obey, and I stayed as I was, pushing back against him. In response, he laid a sharp smack to the side of my hip, and the sting forced my attention to his words.

“If you do not help me inside of you, then I will come on your ass. All over your ass.” The visual that his words brought to my mind was highly erotic, and made me moan.

“Much as I would love to paint my come on your skin, you do not want that, I think.” He murmured into my ear, his words warm and damp. “You want me to come when I am deep inside of you, when you are full to bursting with my cock.”

By now I wanted him so desperately that I would have agreed with anything he said. Whimpering, I rose to my toes, bending over fully with my ass in the air. Reaching behind me, I helped him guide the impossibly hard length of his cock inside of my cunt, which was slick with need for him.

I gasped as he shoved inside of me, hard. When he was in completely, his testicles tapping the tender flesh between my legs, I moaned with pleasure and with pain.

Bent over as I was, he hit deeper than he ever had before. It felt strange, and it also coaxed short, hard bursts of sensation from the very depths of my body.

He could have stopped, could have given me a moment to adjust myself.

He kept going.

When I was on the brink of pain, he finally stopped for a moment, giving me time to get accustomed to the impossible length inside my body. Still, his insistent finger kept rubbing, until I relaxed and began to move my hips, slowly at first, then quickening until my movements bordered on violent. He seemed to take that as a sign that I was ready, and I was—more than ready.

“Fuck.” Christus began to thrust, taking me quickly, even viciously. He balanced his weight on palms that were pressed on either side of my own, quickening his pace. Our flesh slapped together as he moved faster and faster.

I felt myself careening toward a peak that I knew I would fall from.

Christus shouted as he erupted inside of me. I quivered as I felt the force of his pleasure, and as the warmth of his release trickled down the insides of my thighs.

Breathing hard, he pressed his face against the back of my neck, murmuring words that I could not quite hear. I quivered beneath him still, straining for that release, ready to explode.

Slowly Christus took his hand and rubbed it over my cunt. At the same time he pulled his finger from my ass. The combination of sensations had me crying out before I flooded into his palm, collapsing back against him.

Our breaths mingled in the air, the sound harsh in the quiet. I froze when I heard footsteps outside the door, growing ever louder as they approached our room.

The door was locked with Christus’ leather ties, but even without seeing, it would be obvious to anyone on the other side what we had been doing. We had not been quiet.

I waited for the pounding on the wood, for someone to catch us in the act, to threaten to expose us to the dominus.

But the footsteps walked away. My heart began to beat a rapid tattoo as I wondered who had been checking on us.

“It does not matter.” Nuzzling my neck, Christus wrapped his arms around me. Then he lowered us to the bed, where he arranged my body on top of him. I was grateful, for I did not think that I could bear my own weight any longer.

Flooded with nerves and emotions, I was breathing hard and shaking slightly as Christus rubbed his hands briskly up and down my arms. Floating on exhaustion, my eyelids began to droop. I thought that I heard something off in his voice, something that I would have processed as suppressed fury, had I been awake.

I was not. Emotionally and now physically spent, my mind blank, I did as I was told.

I slept.

I
was coming to dread being summoned upstairs.

I had woken alone in my chamber. Not eager to be by myself, I had dressed and stumbled into the training yard, assuming that the day’s drills had begun.