The General's Virgin Slave (11 page)

He watched her bottom swaying back and
forth as she scrubbed hard. There was a small scratch on one of her
cheeks, he noted.

The woman was singing.

My baby don't care for
shows,

My baby don't care for
clothes

My baby just cares...for
me.

da-dah-da-dah, dah
da-dah

da-dah-da-dah, dah
da-da!

Liz Taylor is not his
style,

And even Lana Turner's
smile

Is somethin' he can't
see—

"Axa!"

She jumped and looked over her
shoulder. "What now?"

Apparently she still hadn't learned
how to address her master properly.

"Why do you make this
noise?"

Her brows arched high.
"I'm
singing
to
pass the time. Am I forbidden from singing?"

Marcus was not sure about that. He
didn't know how he felt about her singing that way. It felt as if
he ought to ban it. There was something sensual in the way she sang
those words and it was surely wrong that she sang them for herself
and a guard— not for her master's pleasure. He frowned at the
guilty-faced soldier and then at Axa. Her singing voice was not
tuneful; it rose and fell in an unusual, unsettling way so that he
didn't know where the next note would come from. But still, even if
he had not decided whether he liked the sound or not, she shouldn't
be sharing it with others, because he had not permitted it. She was
glaring up at him fiercely, cheeks flushed. He could just see a
little smudge of brown nipple through her thin toga. His pulse
quickened.

"I will bathe," he snapped. "And you
will tend me."

"But I haven't finished the
stones."

He put his hands on his hips. "Who is
your master, Axa?"

She dropped her rag back in the water
vessel and sighed. "You are. General Marcus Cassius."

"And whose orders do you
follow?"

So she got to her feet.

At least she understood that much, he
mused dourly, taking her chain from the guard's hand.
"Come."

They walked farther, through another
arch of budding roses, down a step and into the central courtyard.
Here a handful of other female slaves waited eagerly to soothe him
in the bath after a hard day of training. He was about to dismiss
them, when he saw Axa's dour expression, and then he decided to let
them stay.

He took the slide key from
a leather chord around his neck and unlocked her collar. The
woman's eyes widened. "You will observe closely how my
good
female slaves
behave toward their master. Perhaps I have been remiss in expecting
you to understand what is required without a
demonstration."

Two hot spots of color deepened on her
cheeks. "Oh, I know what you need. Apparently no one has ever given
you one."

"Excusa? I thought I heard you speak,
slave, when you should not."

She closed her lips in a tight
line.

"Step down into the water," he
commanded. "You need not remove the toga."

Slowly she moved down the steps and
joined the young women already waiting there, some with ointment,
another with a scrubbing loofah. Two sat on the edge of the bath
with towels to dry him later. They were all attractive women,
quiet, demure, respectful.

Yes, Axa could learn from these
slaves.

After stripping off, he followed her
down into the water and instantly the others surrounded him. Axa
kept herself apart, watching with more than a little wrath in her
green eyes. She didn't like to be told what to do, and being shown
would probably enrage her all the more.

He knew all this, yet he beckoned her
closer through the gently lapping water, teasing the lioness. "Pay
attention, Axa."

"Oh, I am."

He glared. She glared back with fiery
challenge. His cock reacted instantly, rising to the
occasion.

Marcus ducked down, immersing himself
fully, then coming up for air, wiping his hair back with both
hands. Now Axa looked at him with a strange expression. As if she
was hungry, but fasting. He turned to one of the other slaves and
beckoned. The obedient one slid under the water and put her mouth
on his erect penis.

* * * *

The water lapped around her hips,
making the short skirt of her toga lift and dance, tickling and
teasing her sex, stirring that need in her. She tried not to look
at him, tried to separate her mind from what the other slave girl
was doing under the surface, but it was impossible.

Over the past few days, since he'd
banished her to the slave quarters, she'd heard the other women
discussing Marcus, eagerly speculating which of them could be his
favorite one day. Although he'd never had a favorite and used all
his slaves equally, it didn't stop the women vying for his
"special" notice.

And the fool thought he was being
benevolent by sharing his attention among them, she mused
scornfully. He assumed that a woman should be thankful for a few
crumbs of his mightiness tossed her way. When every single one of
them wanted the whole loaf.

Marcus motioned now to one of the
other slaves to take over, while the first came up for air. A third
slave massaged his shoulders. A fourth came closer to him and
lowered her toga, offering two small but well-shaped breasts for
his sucking.

He glanced over at her, his dark eyes
narrowed, nostrils flared, and then he lowered his lips to the
slave girl's pointy nipple.

Fine. If that's the way he wanted
it....

Clearly she wasn't needed.

As she'd said to him already, she
didn't need a lesson. She knew what he wanted. A damn good kick up
the arse.

Amanda turned and stepped out of the
bath slowly, knowing that as she did so, the wet, thin material
would stick to her buttocks like tissue paper. It felt glorious to
be free of that leash at last and feel the air on her neck. In
fact, Amanda felt like a new woman.

"Axa. Come here! How dare you leave my
presence without permission?" he choked out somewhere behind
her.

She reached the top step and looked
over her shoulder. "You're busy, master. And I have other work to
do."

"Your work is here," he barked from
the water.

She feigned innocence, brows arched
high. "Where? What can I possibly do for you? There is no room for
me."

"Come back here, Axa. Last
warning."

"But you said you have too many
females in your life already, master. Now I see it is true." She
paused. "And I don't do second best. I come first or I don't come
at all."

The water churned as he started toward
the steps in a hurry, pushing his slaves aside. She
laughed.

And then she ran.

* * * *

Stark naked he chased after her. The
damn woman would not escape him. How could she? She didn't even
know the way out through his maze of rooms and every door was well
guarded. She must be mad to try running away.

Only when he caught her and she was
still laughing did it occur to Marcus that she made him chase her
deliberately.

He had never played games with a
woman. Never.

Her hair was falling loose, trickling
in waves down the side of her neck and over her shoulder. Grabbing
her by it, he pulled her down in the grass behind a marble statue
of the god Bacchus and covered her with his body.

"Now I must punish you, for the other
slaves have seen your defiance," he muttered, his pulse galloping,
his body raging with desire. She would be a bad, rebellious
influence on the others, if he wasn't careful.

"What else could I do?" she replied,
her eyes filled with warm gold sparkles. Looking into her eyes was
like looking up at the trees in summer, with sunlight flickering
through leaves. "I needed your sole attention."

If he were not already breathless from
chasing her, he would be now. "Why?"

"Because I have missed it these past
few nights."

How sweet that sounded in his ears!
But should he trust her to speak honestly? She could be up to
something.

"As you knew I would," she
added.

Oh, he had missed her too, but he was
not about to say those words aloud. None of it made sense. He had
felt an instant connection to this strange woman and even her
defiant behavior could not break the hold she had upon him. "What
is that mark, like a scratch on your bottom? I saw it earlier. I
left instructions that you were not to be marked."

She looked at him, her face
guarded.

"Axa! You will tell me."

"I don't like to tell tales on the
others. We're all in the same boat, aren't we? Poor slaves,
surviving the best way we know how." She blinked and looked away.
"In any case, I took the weapon away from her."

"Her? There is a woman in my house who
carries a weapon?" This was unthinkable, a brazen breach of his
rules.

Axa flushed. "She did. Not now. I
burned it. And I can handle her."

Somehow he didn't doubt she could
handle anything. He slyly studied her face. "I heard you were
fighting with the female overseer in the passage the other
day."

"It was hardly a fight." She groaned.
"Look, I don't want to talk of that. I didn't want your sole
attention to talk of another woman."

Marcus slid her toga down over her
shoulder, freeing her breasts for his enjoyment. "You will be my
obedient bed slave from now on?" he demanded. "No more questions.
No more defiance? Submission to me in all matters."

"I will be yours, Marcus, on one
condition."

He sat up, but she remained on her
back in the grass. "A good slave does not give her master
conditions, Axa."

She sighed heavily and her eyelashes
lowered so that most of the golden green was hidden.

"But just this once," he grumbled,
"tell me what you want and I will consider it." He'd chase her
again if he had to, damn her. Having her within the walls of his
villa, knowing she was there and yet not able to summon her to his
bed just because of his own decree, had been
excruciating.

She looked up at Marcus with hope,
bright and lusty, shining in her eyes. "I must be your only woman.
And I want my freedom."

His heart drummed unsteadily. "No! I
will not set you free." Sometimes he had walked through the atrium
and thought he could smell her scent. The possibility of that
fragrance fading one day was unimaginable.

How had she done this to
him?

"I do not mean to leave, Marcus. I
will stay, but as a free woman. Not as a slave."

Now his mind scrambled to keep peace
with that frantic heartbeat. "You ask to be my concubine? And yet
not my slave."

"If that is what you call it." She
licked her lips and his cock swelled again.

"I have never taken a
favorite."

"So I heard." She glanced down at his
rising organ. "There's a first time for everything."

As he would be her
first
. Yes, he heard
that reminder in her tone. The promise.

"If you are not a spy— as you
claim—why do you want this position?"

She pushed herself up onto her elbows.
More hair trickled loose in soft waves of rich red, startling
against her pale skin, coils of it tumbling down to lay among the
grass. "Is it impossible for you to comprehend the idea of a woman
who might want your company and will stay with you, not because she
has an evil motive, or because she is forced by slavery? Not every
woman has to be your slave or your enemy. There are other choices,
Marcus."

"Again, woman, you call me by my name
when I told you—"

"If we are to be lovers, I must call
you Marcus."

Lovers. The word rolled from her
tongue with a sensuous curl. It felt as if she'd licked his shaft
from root to head. His mind sought back over what she'd just
admitted. "You want my company?"

She smiled. "Is it so hard for you to
believe?"

Of course it was not impossible...but
he had never expected...

"I watched you riding yesterday," she
said softly.

He stared at her. "You
did?"

"Flavian sent me to carry water out to
the training field." Although she said no more, he got the sense
she wished to, and could not.

"Ah." Marcus looked at the grass by
her thigh and scratched the back of his neck. "I hope you were not
distracted from your duties by watching me, woman."

"How could I not be distracted?" She
rolled onto her side, resting on one elbow.

He knew what she meant, for she was a
powerful lure for him too, taking his mind and his heartbeat away
from its usual routine and rhythm.