Her retort was at the ready, but he obliterated it with his lips. She was going to say that this was not an exercise in circular logic, but his warm, wet tongue began making circles in her mouth instead.
She felt dizzy. In one moment, she had been strolling down the steps of Alexander’s tomb, conversing civilly; the next, she was sneaking up some empty alleyway like a grave robber.
And then this—mad, hot bliss.
He pulled her more firmly against him, stepping backwards until he crashed into a wall and she crashed against him. He guided her hand to touch the fullness of him. ‘Do you see, carissime?’ he said, switching to Latin. ‘There is nothing to fear. It is just me wanting you.’
She had some idea of what men did to women out of desire. The Roman man who had tried to harm her had flashed his desire before her like some terrible weapon.
Now, feeling Titus’s desire for her, that memory surfaced along with a creeping fear. Her head swam.
She pulled her hand out from beneath his and pulled away.
He let out a long disappointed breath. ‘As you wish.’
‘Apologies,’ she began. ‘I just—’
‘You just did not wish it,’ he finished for her. He stepped away from her, lifted his arms and pressed them against the wall. He looked like Atlas pushing back against the sky. ‘I do not wish to make you uncomfortable, Wen,’ he said, speaking to the ground. ‘Sometimes my desire for you becomes too strong, that is all. I will not try that again.’
But I want you to try that again, Wen thought, though it was too late. She knew that she had vexed him. ‘You must grow tired of my fears,’ she offered. ‘They come at odd times, I admit.’
‘I only grow frustrated, for life is short and love is shorter, and we are running out of time.’
‘Love?’
He shook his head and stepped before her. ‘I know why you are fearful.’
‘I fell off a roof.’
‘I know.’
‘You know?’
‘I overheard you speaking to the Queen that night on the dock. You did not fall. You jumped.’
‘You spied on our conversation?’
‘I have been trained to make myself into a ghost.’
Wen stood silent for a long while, thinking. ‘Titus, who are you really?’
His eyes darted around the shadowy space as if he could not find a place for them to rest. He touched his hands to his chest. ‘I am a Roman man. That is all. Do you fear me?’
‘Only a little.’
‘Well, that is one small step.’ He ran his hand through his crop of hair. ‘I can teach you, Wen, if you will let me.’
‘What can you teach me?’
‘How to...not be afraid.’
‘I would like that,’ she said.
‘Let us begin now. Give me your leg.’
‘What?’
He motioned to the leg around which her sheath was tied, and she lifted it into his grasp. ‘You still wear it,’ he breathed.
‘I never take it off.’
‘The knots have held.’
‘They were well tied.’
He removed the knife from the sheath and set her leg back upon the ground.
‘It must feel strange to walk around in a simple toga without any of your weapons,’ she remarked.
‘But I am armed,’ he said. ‘Because I have you.’
With her knife, he cut a strap from one of his sandals. ‘Now I am going to turn around and I want you to tie this strap around my wrists.’ He turned around and put his wrists together behind his back. ‘Go ahead,’ he said. ‘Wife.’
Obediently, she tied his wrists together, knotting the strap tightly. Titus turned to face her with his hands behind his back. He pulled against his restraint, his large arms flexing. ‘Do you witness my total restraint?’
‘I do.’
‘Good. Now I would like you to kiss me.’
‘Kiss you?’
‘Kiss me, Wen, or I shall surely lose whatever dignitas I have left.’
She stood on her toes. ‘I can barely reach you.’
Titus dropped to his knees. ‘Is that better?’
She could not conceal her surprise. She stood a head taller than Titus now and for several moments she marvelled in the peculiar delight of the reversal. She bent to study his lips, then traced them with her finger. They were wondrously large, ponderously soft.
‘Your lips are pleasing,’ she observed.
‘You may do what you like to them.’
Carefully, she set her lips down upon his. For a fleeting moment, she saw his arms strain against their tie, then go slack. He cannot touch me, she marvelled. She closed her eyes and focused on the taste of him—a delicious combination of beer and melon and some darker, muskier scent. She pushed her nose on to his neck and breathed him in deeply, taking her fill.
He let out a soft groan of pleasure. She wondered what she could do to inspire more such groans.
She stepped back and studied his face. Such a stern, heavy brow—no wonder she had feared him. How was it possible that such deep, soulful eyes lay nestled beneath it?
She ran her hands through his short, thick hair and was surprised by its silken texture. He watched her beneath heavy lids as she bent to kiss him once again, this time letting her tongue slide gently against his.
Her inexperience was vexing him, surely, because his breaths grew shorter with each sweep of her tongue and his body quaked with impatience. She was just running her tongue gently over his lower lip when he took a deep, heaving breath and plunged his own tongue deep into her mouth.
She pulled away in surprise.
‘That is called passion,’ he whispered. He sat back on his heels. ‘You awaken it in me. Sometimes it is difficult to control and I apologise for it. You may continue.’
He closed his eyes and his lips stretched into a grin. She could not help but smile herself. He was trying so hard to make her feel safe.
She kissed down his neck—small, soft kisses that seemed to delight him. With each kiss she breathed in just a little more of his maleness.
She kissed behind his ear. ‘What is that?’
‘What?’
‘That strange marking—it looks like hieroglyph, or a Latin letter.’
‘It is a tattoo. I, ah, I got it as a child. It is a representation of my familia.’
‘Of Tillius?’
‘Yes, but an ancient spelling.’
She sensed there was more to the story, but she did not press. ‘It is mysterious,’ she said. ‘Like you.’
She wondered what she might do next. She had always been curious about his chest. She dropped to her knees before him and reached out to touch it. His expression was sober—even strained—but he nodded with encouragement as she placed her hands on the twin flanks of his chest muscles.
‘You have done much labour, or piloted many boats,’ she said, for their size was remarkable.
‘Yes, but none such as you,’ he intoned.
She was not certain of his meaning, but the words had given her an odd feeling deep in her belly. He nodded with solemn approval as she traced her fingers down his stomach. Even through the thick linen of his toga, she could feel his rippling strength. He was a wall of contoured muscle, and she imagined kissing each sinew and seam of him.
She let her finger trace a leisurely course around his umbilicus and he drew a dangerous breath. ‘Careful,’ he growled, though he seemed to be speaking to himself. She recalled images of Egyptian gods, their large chests and slim waists, and of Greek gods with their bulging muscularity. Titus could have resembled any of them.
Wen was not naive. She was well aware that he was the kind of man sculptors wished to study and women wished to bed. His suitability as a mate had been vigorously avowed by both Iras and Charmion, and even the Queen seemed attracted by his divine proportions.
It was all the more reason to doubt that a man such as him could possibly desire a woman such as her. Yet that was what he claimed.
She placed both her hands on the tops of his legs and felt them flex. He said nothing, but looked more deeply in her eyes and flexed them again. It gave her a thrill, to contain such latent strength inside her hands. But it was the look in his eyes that made her bones turn to reeds.
She traced her finger along his lower lip, filling with the warmth that had so often disturbed her waking hours. It was not distress, she realised, but desire. She desired Titus. Beneath her panic and fear, beneath her uncertainty and confusion, it was there. Burning like a tiny fire deep in her belly.
He turned his head slightly and his lips closed around her finger. That fire flickered, filling her body with more heat than light, and a warm wetness between her legs.
She wanted to make him feel pleasure, but she did not know how. She had never spoken to another woman about such things. She had never had the chance. The men she served at the brew house often spoke of their pleasure with women, using the same words they used for violence. She had long ago ceased to listen.
She wondered if he wished to touch her breasts. Marni had suggested that they were appealing, and she had seen Titus glance at them many times. Her physical beauty was no match for his, but she wondered if the feel of the softest part of her might bring him pleasure.
She pulled her tunic up over her head and laid it carefully on his shoulder. She heard him gasp. She stepped backwards a few paces to gather her courage. She felt bolder already, however, knowing that he could not touch her. She was in control, and grateful for the power he had given her.
It seemed that Titus’s lesson was working.
* * *
His lesson was clearly not working. In a single motion, she had removed her tunic and placed it over his shoulder and her breasts splayed before him like two ripe melons. This was no subtle introduction to love. This was a torturous tease meant to break his will.
She took a step closer, and his hands involuntarily strained against the bond that held them.
She was so very beautiful in the simmering shadows—so exposed, yet so mysterious—like a shade-blooming flower unfolding in secret.
Her small linen loincloth enveloped her most womanly places, but all else was abloom in the sultry air. He wanted to touch her more than anything he had ever wanted before. He wanted to hold her in his arms and whisper to her that she was adored...and safe.
‘Do you wish to touch me?’ she asked, as if she were asking if he wanted honey with his grain. She looked down at her own nakedness. ‘I mean, my breasts,’ she clarified.
He could barely speak his reply. ‘I do.’
She took another step closer, and he wondered how exactly she was going to allow him to touch anything. Did she plan to untie him?
If that was her plan, then he knew he must try to stop her, for he would not be able to control himself in his current state.
She was studying his face again—the siren. She was trying to read his thoughts.
He wondered if she could see that his desire was an invisible monster stretching out of the shadows, begging her to come closer.
Slowly, he lifted himself off his heels so that he stood on his knees. His desire stiffened. His lips hovered in the air just a hair’s breadth from one of her nipples.
‘You may touch my breast if you wish,’ she offered. ‘With your mouth.’
He could see that this was no longer a lesson for her, but her lesson for him. The objective was to teach him control—how to keep from crying, from dying, from spending himself right there, in the darkest, hottest, most torturous corner of the universe.
He took the soft brown fruit into his mouth.
‘Oh,’ she sighed, as he gently began to suck. His heart hammered and his arms tugged against the strap that confined them. He felt his desire lift the fabric of his toga in a rush of yearning. He wanted to pull her on to his lap and let her feel what she did to him.
He sucked a little harder. ‘Mmm,’ he said. He moved his tongue in soft circles until he heard her moan with delight.
‘Now the other,’ she commanded and placed her other nipple between his lips. She ran her fingers through his hair and brushed her body against his as he kissed and sucked.
‘Wen?’ he whispered between kisses. ‘Wen, I want you so badly. Please.’
She rocked back. ‘I do not know what that means.’
‘Yes, you do.’
‘I do not want it, then.’
‘You are just afraid. Are you going to spend your whole life that way?’
‘I do not wish to, but—’
‘Touch me.’
Perhaps she meant to test herself. Perhaps she meant to test him. Perhaps she was only curious. Whatever the reason, she pulled her toga from his shoulder and placed it at her knees. Then she kneeled down upon it.
There they were, kneeling face to face in the shadows. They might have been two monks from some far-off land, kneeling to worship their invisible god. They might have been two statues, or two prisoners awaiting their deaths.
‘You are trembling,’ she said.
She wrapped her arms around him and pressed herself against him. She took a long, deep breath. He could feel the strong beat of her heart against his chest.
Then she reached down and touched him. There.
She wrapped her hand around his desire until he could feel himself pulsing against her grip through the layer of cloth.
‘Stroke me,’ he said. ‘Please, cara, I beg you.’ She paused, then moved her hand up the length of him. ‘Yes, that is it.’
The scent of floral unguents perfumed her hair. He buried his nose between her braided locks and took it in. ‘Squeeze harder. Please.’ She tightened her grip. He could do nothing to aid her. ‘Harder still, cara.’ She squeezed a little more. ‘Now move up and down. That is it.’
It was all he could do to keep his wits. Her naked breasts pressed against his chest and he imagined releasing himself from his bond and possessing them with his hands, his mouth. She continued to stroke him, but he could do nothing to close the space between them, for his hands remained bound.
‘Kiss me, Wen.’
Obligingly, she lifted her lips to his, and he caught them. It was the most sensuous, delicious kiss he had ever experienced. Her mouth, so warm and wet, her tongue entwined with his. Her desire and his, so perfectly aligned.
‘By the gods,’ he breathed. He was already so close. He could feel the tremors, the undulating waves, threatening to crest. ‘Do not cease your stroking. I beg you.’
His blood roared beneath his skin. He strained to contain his release, knowing that it was too late. He was beyond the point of control. As he thrust himself forward into the tightness of her grip, the bond around his wrist snapped and his arms burst free.
‘Stop,’ she cried.
He wrapped his arms around her body and rammed his desire into her stomach, pushing against her with too much force. His shaft throbbed with impossible need. He found her loincloth with his hands and fumbled to release the knot, desperate to find his home inside of her. Gods, how he wanted her. Needed her.
‘Please stop,’ she said, and he felt the warm wetness of tears upon her cheeks. ‘Just stop.’
But he could not stop. His need was too great. He hovered at the top of a giant wave, beyond the point of control. He found her hand and placed it around him. ‘Hold me tight,’ he said. His shaft throbbed with an unresolved pain. ‘Hold on,’ he commanded. The wave crested, then crashed, and he spilled himself on to the ground.
He released her hand and she snatched it away.
He was panting like a dog. ‘Forgive me,’ he breathed.
‘There is nothing to forgive.’ She pulled herself to her feet and reached for her tunic.
‘I embraced you with too much force.’
He had done much more than that. He had lost control. He had broken the promise that he had made to her. For a few dangerous moments she had felt his crushing strength and been unable to escape him.
‘I failed you, Wen.’
‘You did not fail me.’
‘I harmed you.’
‘No, you did not.’
Perhaps not her body, but he had harmed her trust. He buried his face in his hands and a howling sadness overcame him. ‘I am not a dangerous man,’ he muttered, as if trying to convince himself.
‘I know that,’ she said. She pulled her tunic over her body and dusted it off. ‘I do not know why I always become so afraid. I wish I could stop my fear, but I do not know how.’
He stood up, careful not to touch her, though his body longed for nothing more than to hold her close. ‘You must face the very root of your fear in order to overcome it.’
‘But how?’