Gawain leaned with studied nonchalance against a stone wall adjacent to the main market—the forum, the Romans called it—and glanced at his companion. The man was a close confident of the Iceni king but Gawain had learned nothing from him that he didn’t already know.
Although other Briton chieftains periodically rose up against their Roman invaders, the Iceni were content to be a client kingdom, a puppet of the foreign emperor. Before the Caratacus rebellion last summer, he would have railed against the Icenis stand, berating them for cowardice. But after the bloodied betrayal and his near escape from death from those who had pledged allegiance to Caratacus, the Iceni king’s oath of fealty to Rome barely stirred an ember of anger in his chest.
There would be no large-scale revolt in this corner of Britain, despite how poorly the town was fortified. At least, not yet. Who knew how allegiances might change in the future?
At least the Iceni king didn’t attempt to deceive anyone about where his loyalty lay.
“Life under Rome can be good,” the man said. “My liege sees no reason to jeopardize his relations with the emperor for no good reason.”
Gawain could name a dozen good reasons without even thinking about it, but there was no point. Unlike those who rebelled, the client kings retained their lands and an illusion of power. Not for the first time, he questioned his actions in coming to Camulodunon after the fall of Caratacus, instead of returning to Cymru and continuing the battle.
But he knew why. If Caratacus with his army of warriors and Druids and a magical enclave that had hidden their whereabouts from the enemy hadn’t been enough to defeat the Legions, how could small bands of untrained and poorly armed rebels hope to make a difference?
He’d hoped the Britons might be stirred to insurrection. Where better to hit the enemy than in this newly constructed capital? With their greater numbers, they might stand a chance against the Legions. But so far, the reality had fallen far short of his expectations.
And then, of course, he’d discovered Carys and her tribune were stationed here. How could he stir up a full-scale rebellion, even if such a feat was possible, when it would put her and Nia in danger?
His meeting with this man today was for no other reason than to gather information he might be able to use in the future.
A flash of a blue cloak in the milling crowd caught his attention and unthinking he turned. For a moment, the blue vanished but then reappeared and a jolt slammed through his chest.
Antonia.
Irritation spiked that such a fleeting glimpse of her recalled all the reasons why she haunted his nighttime fantasies. He didn’t want reminding. The last thing he needed was her beautiful face, ice-blue eyes and pale golden hair invading his dreams.
He barely registered the other man’s farewell. His attention was fixed on Antonia as she weaved her way through the crowd. In the three days since they’d met, he’d made no effort to contact her. He had attempted to convince his rampaging lust that he’d only found her so irresistible because it had been more than two moons since he’d last had a woman.
As he stared, riveted, at her elegant profile as she admired silken frivolities at a stall, he acknowledged the truth.
He still wanted her. And doubtless his desire-fueled nightly visions would continue until he’d sampled the real thing.
Without warning, she looked up from the ribbons in her hand and unerringly caught his gaze. She didn’t appear surprised or startled at either his presence or his direct stare. Had she been aware of him before she’d deigned to acknowledge him?
He pushed himself from the wall and sauntered toward her. She didn’t turn away, didn’t attempt to break eye contact or disappear into the bustling crowd. She merely stood there, waiting for him.
Anticipation thrummed through his veins. She might not have arranged for an illicit assignation as his other Roman conquests had. But her surrender smoldered in the air, enhanced by the foreign spices and exotic delicacies on offer at neighboring stalls.
“Lady Antonia.” He didn’t offer her his hand. He knew she would never accept his kiss of greeting. At least, not in public. Instead he gave a half bow, unable to keep the smile of satisfaction from his lips. “I trust the day finds you well.”
She inclined her head, a familiar gesture he recalled from their conversation at Carys’. “Thank you.” Her voice was as cool as he remembered and just as enchanting. For a moment he thought she intended to say more, but instead she dropped the ribbons she’d been holding back onto the stall.
He waited, but she appeared fascinated by a collection of glittering colored beads displayed in a woven basket. Was she waiting for him to make the next move? If she’d changed her mind then surely she wouldn’t still be standing here beside him, looking so remote and untouchable?
“Would you care for some company?” Gods, the stilted words all but choked him. If she were a Celt, he could come right out and say what he meant. But that hadn’t stopped him with the other Romans he’d laid. They’d been superficially shocked by his blunt, barbarous manner but also delighted. So why, with Antonia, did he feel this odd need to coat his base intentions with honeyed words?
He’d not felt so restricted the other day. But when they’d conversed before, they hadn’t been in the middle of a busy marketplace.
She gave him a lingering sideways glance. “Perhaps.” A delicate blush highlighted her cheeks, giving her an irresistible air of seductive innocence. It took him a moment to drag his mesmerized thoughts from such a laughable illusion. Antonia might be a seductress but she was no innocent. He wasn’t interested in innocence. And he couldn’t fathom why such a thought had drifted across his mind in the first place.
Antonia was playing a game. She might have played it countless times in the past with various lovers. He had no objection. Not when the outcome remained the same.
“Do you often visit the markets?” He glanced at Antonia’s companion, a young woman who, although doubtless a slave, didn’t instantly drop her gaze to the ground when he caught her eye. Instead, she appeared to be scrutinizing him in a way he couldn’t fathom.
He acknowledged her with a smile before returning his attention to Antonia who was now once again looking his way. If she made a habit of visiting the market it would be an easy matter to secure a room somewhere nearby for their mutual pleasure.
“Rarely,” she said, demolishing that idea. “My father is convinced danger lurks for me on every corner.”
“And what do you think? Does danger lurk for you at every corner?” Even as he spoke, he knew the answer. She was too fragile to defend herself against any form of attack. That was why she would never be allowed to wander the markets without her slave and, he was certain, a guarded litter to escort her through the streets.
But there were ways around such obstacles.
“Oh.” A smile tugged at her lips. “Not every corner.”
He laughed, surprising himself, but her response had been slightly deprecating and unexpectedly amusing. An intriguing combination for a Roman noblewoman.
“Do not fear. My sword is at your disposal.”
She didn’t simper or gasp in mock outrage at his words. Her smile deepened and with an odd sense of disbelief, he realized she read no sexual implication in his comment at all.
“I trust you’ll never need to use it on my account.”
Her words confirmed his suspicion. Unless this, also, was part of her seduction routine?
He leaned toward her, enough to give them an illusion of privacy but not close enough to cause heads to turn.
“I look forward to nothing more than using it on your account, my lady.”
A blush suffused her cheeks and he stared at her, transfixed. Anyone would imagine she was an untouched virgin, unused to such banter. Yet he knew that, despite their outward show of modesty, in private Roman matrons could be as earthy in matters of sex as his own countrywomen.
Unless Antonia truly was a virgin? Unease slid through his mind. He couldn’t imagine why any husband would leave a woman as desirable as Antonia a maiden. Or was this the reason for her divorce? Because her husband had no interest in women?
“In that case, I have no objection to encountering your…weapon.” Her whisper was so low he had to lean in closer to catch every word. Her elusive scent of woodland flowers teased his senses, stirred his blood and made a mockery of his vow to withdraw. Her eyes no longer reminded him of winter’s ice. They smoldered like a scorching summer sky. Virgin or not, he wanted her.
Relief seared through him. Antonia was good, he gave her that. For a moment he’d fallen for her façade of innocence.
“Then we should make haste with our introductions.” He couldn’t help but laugh aloud, both at his outrageous words and the look of bewitchment on Antonia’s face. He knew she likely practiced that enchanting expression a dozen times a day in order to snare her lovers. It didn’t matter. He had no intention of becoming ensnared but saw no reason not to enjoy her entertaining performance. “My weapon is primed to defend your honor.”
Her eyes widened seductively before she lowered her gaze, her long lashes several shades darker than her elaborately styled hair. Her lush pink lips parted and the tip of her tongue pressed against her teeth and he fought the urge to fling caution to the winds and capture her provocative mouth.
She played her part to perfection. But he was disciplined and had no intention of losing control because of a Roman woman.
He watched her glance at her companion and was aware of the imperceptible message that flashed between them. Then Antonia clasped the other woman’s hand.
“I’ll meet you outside the temple shortly.”
Satisfaction fueled his lust when her slave melted into the crowd, giving her mistress additional freedom.
Perhaps there would be no need to arrange another meeting. Perhaps Antonia intended to slake their mutual passion without further delay.
His cock thickened with renewed anticipation of possessing this Roman ice-maiden. And tonight the only dreams that plagued him would be of bloodied battlefields.
Antonia turned back to him. “I’ve been—” she began, but then a great bear of a man stumbled into her, pushing her forward. Without thinking, Gawain wrapped his arm around her shoulders to steady her and pulled her against the safety of his body. For a fleeting moment, the seductive sensation of finest linen and softest wool molding her curves distracted him. Then instinct took over and his other hand whipped out in an unyielding fist and punched the drunken bastard in his face, sending him toppling onto the ground.
Even as his body responded to Antonia’s erratic gasps against his throat and the erotic rise and fall of her breasts against his chest, he swiftly assessed the situation. It was more than one solitary ale-sodden Briton who’d tripped over his own feet. A fight had broken out and was growing by the moment. He knew it would soon be stamped out by the legionaries and punishment administered. Once, in another life, he’d been the one restoring order to chaos. But since leaving Cymru he had, more often than not, helped instigate such disturbances in Roman strongholds. Small, insignificant rebellions but the inconvenience to the enemy had offered him fleeting satisfaction.
Had he been alone, he would likely have joined in the fray but he couldn’t leave Antonia unprotected.
He swung about, still gripping her against his body, and pushed his way through the now jeering and chanting crowd. He glanced down at Antonia and saw the way she pressed her lips together, how she kept her arms wrapped around her waist and the trepidation in her eyes.
Instinctively, he tugged her even closer, even though they had now left the commotion behind and there was little chance of her being injured. How odd it felt to pull a woman to safety. Had he attempted to protect the woman he’d once loved in such a manner she would have laughed in his face, and then used her dagger to save them both.
As they hurried down a deserted alleyway, he waited for contempt to weave through him at Antonia’s inability to defend herself. But all he felt was an incomprehensible spike of heat deep in his chest, along with the strange compunction to keep on going until Camulodunon was far behind them both. Because only then could he truly keep Antonia safe from harm.
He halted and swung her around so her back was against the rough stone wall. His last thought pounded in his mind, unwanted but not easily dismissed.
Antonia was not in danger. She’d been in little enough danger back in the market, but he’d seen an opportunity to get her alone and had instantly taken it. Why then did the insistent voice in the back of his mind urge him that this Roman patrician deserved more from him than a fleeting fuck?
She looked up at him, her eyes dark with need, and tendrils of pale gold hair that had escaped its prison curled around her flushed face. Raw lust stabbed low in his groin and his hands tightened around her hips.
“Gawain.” Her voice was hushed, breathless, insanely arousing. Through the pounding in his head, he realized it was the first time she’d called him by his name. And his name on her lips sounded exotic, forbidden, even though she wasn’t the first Roman woman to whisper his name in a Latin accent.
Beneath her cloak, he molded the flare of her hips, the curve of her waist and her uneven breath caressed his jaw with seductive promise.
“It seems Fate is on our side.” His thumbs brushed the tantalizing swell of her breasts and he forced his knee between her legs, parting her thighs. Curse her Roman gown for impeding his access. “I didn’t imagine my sword would so swiftly be at your disposal.”
Her hands flattened against his chest, her eyes never left his. “But what of—”
He didn’t want to talk. Within moments, this interlude would shatter as the scuffle in the market was subdued and the onlookers dispersed. There wasn’t time to fuck. But there was plenty of time to taste, plenty of time to leave her as desperate for his cock as he was for her pussy.
His mouth claimed hers. But as their lips touched the need to plunder, to conquer, to silence her words evaporated. Her mouth was open but he didn’t instantly invade. The exquisite sensation of her lips against his, so soft, so deceptively trusting, momentarily entranced him.
The tip of his tongue traced the seam of her lips and she trembled, her nails digging into his chest. She tasted of Rome, but there was something else that teased his senses; an elusive hint of summer rain in a distant forest.
Since leaving Cymru, he’d drunk Roman wine, used exotic aphrodisiacs from the East and inhaled sacred incenses. But nothing compared to the intoxicating taste of Antonia. He cupped her breasts through her gown and she filled his palms with hedonistic promise. Her breath hitched and he captured her gasp in his mouth, a sensuous whisper that caressed his flesh like nothing he had imagined before.
He moved in closer, pressing his body against her thigh and belly, his rigid shaft branding her through their clothing. How simple it would be to pull up her gown and thrust inside her wet slit. Yet he didn’t invade with his tongue the way he imagined invading with his cock. Instead he explored the tantalizing secrets of her parted lips, her smooth, even teeth an erotic barrier.
Yet no barrier at all. Her mouth was open, willing, and her hands slid from his chest to tangle in his hair. A groan razed his throat and one hand wrapped around her nape, the silk of her hair brushing his knuckles in a featherlight touch. Blood pounded against his temples, obliterating everything but Antonia’s scent, her taste, her provocative touch. And then the tip of her tongue glided against his, an elusive caress he could scarcely feel. Yet white hot lightning seared his flesh and primal need arrowed through his chest.
He jerked back, panting. Her eyes were dark with lust, her breath as erratic as his. Her fingers still gripped his hair and her body meshed to his in excruciating abandonment.
If he’d taken her the moment they’d entered this alley by now they would both be sated. But because of one cursed, illogical thought, he’d not followed through on his initial plan of a quick, mindless fuck.
“Come with me.” His voice was ragged against her lips, and he wound his arm around her waist while his other hand slid around her exposed throat. Her pulse fluttered like a trapped butterfly against his fingers, magnifying her vulnerability.
She attempted to speak, but the simple act appeared beyond her. He offered her a grim smile, his arousal making it hard to think logically, never mind convey his hammering thoughts.
“I’ll find somewhere for us.” It wouldn’t be hard. There were plenty of rooms that were available for hire. For the right price. All Antonia needed to do was cover her face with her cloak. She would never be recognized.
Instead of complying, she remained rooted to the spot. “I cannot leave Elpis.”
Elpis? “What?” He frowned at her as her hands dropped to his shoulders. She didn’t try to pull away but she wasn’t making any move to go with him, either. Not that it would take any effort to simply sweep her up into his arms and march off with her. But he had no wish to draw unnecessary attention. Ruining her reputation was not something he craved.
“My slave, Elpis. I need to find her, to ensure she’s unharmed.” A thread of panic entered her voice and he stared at her in disbelief. Traces of arousal heated her face, her eyes were darker than usual and she clearly had trouble drawing breath into her lungs. And yet the first words out of her mouth were those of concern for her slave?
“You sent her to the temple.” It took more willpower than he cared to admit not to ignore her words and ravish her lips the way he should have ravished her moments ago. “She was no longer in the market, Antonia.”
Her hands slid from his shoulders and along his biceps in a slow caress. How could such a seemingly innocent touch cause his flesh to burn and balls to ache with tortured need? He’d been with plenty of women over the years. But one lingering caress from Antonia and his control threatened to shatter like that of a raw boy.
“I know.” Her voice was breathless, seductive, and her fingers curled over his forearms. “But I cannot just leave her, Gawain, without knowing. And I didn’t expect to… That you would wish to….” She didn’t finish, but gave him a tragic look with those beautiful eyes of hers, doubtless expecting him to fall at her feet and agree to her every whim. Was this how she treated all her lovers? Pushing them to the edge of their endurance, making them beg for her favors?
Once again, he swung her around and crushed her against the wall. This time he held her immobile with his body and cradled her face with his hands. She didn’t scream, didn’t try to escape. Just gazed up at him and for an eternal moment he forgot why he was mad at her.
Brutally he pulled his bewitched senses back together. “What didn’t you expect?” He grazed her delicate skin with the pads of his thumbs and battled the urge to spear his fingers through her hair. “That I’d want to fuck you at the first possible opportunity?”
Beneath his palms, he felt her face heat. And despite himself, the notion that his coarse words had made her blush entranced him. How was it possible for her to manufacture such a response?
“That isn’t what I meant.” Her voice was soft, but he detected no tremble. “I thought you would wish to make suitable arrangements for a—an assignation.”
He was suddenly aware that he had Antonia shoved up against a rough stone wall. That at any moment they might be discovered.
That he was behaving like the barbarian Rome accused his people of being.
He didn’t care if she thought he was a barbarian. It was likely for that very reason she wanted him in her arms in the first place. And yet the realization that he was acting in such a manner irked him on a fundamental level he couldn’t fathom.
Curse the gods, this woman was making him think too fucking much. All he wanted was to slake his lust. All she wanted was an illicit liaison before her father arranged another marriage for her. He was more than willing to oblige, but he had no intention of wasting his time playing an elaborate game of wooing and uttering meaningless, pretty words. If that’s what she enjoyed then she could find herself a sweet-tongued Roman with whom to pass her idle hours.
Even as the thought seared his brain, he knew the truth. He would likely give Antonia a measure of what she desired, if it ensured she would part her thighs. The knowledge infuriated him as much as it aroused him.
“Tell me something. Is it honeyed words you seek—or this?” He jammed his rigid length against her vulnerable pussy, fighting the need to rip her gown from her and take her where she stood. The image seared his mind and caused his blood to smolder with frustrated need. Why did he find it so hard to maintain his control with Antonia?
Her erratic breath fanned his face. It shouldn’t affect him at all and yet every heated gasp stoked his lust with fiery torment.
“I have no need of honeyed words.” Her uneven confession enflamed as much as if she’d grasped his cock in the palm of her hand. “Flattery means nothing to me. I only seek a—a momentary diversion with you.”
His grin felt feral, but he couldn’t prevent it as renewed desire pumped through his veins and gripped his vitals in a punishing embrace.
“Prove it.” His mouth brushed hers, a fleeting kiss that burned his lips. “Tell your father Carys invited you to visit with her later this day. Meet me at the villa at the ninth hour and show me how much of a diversion you wish me to be.”