“I LOVE IT WHEN you laugh.”
I halted my chatter, and the heat of a blush spread across my face.
Marcus grinned. “I also love it when you blush.”
I hit him with my embroidery, though it was poor punishment. He laughed himself then grabbed at the cloth, crumpling it in his hand.
A month had passed since Aurelia and I had visited his rooms. In that time often he came, bringing the same small gifts for Aurelia as he always had. Sometimes though, every second visit or so, he also brought something for me.
I tried not to think on what this might mean.
Gossips still whispered, though none as furious as when first he came. We were too quiet in our visits, each conducted in plain view of slaves and servants and any who thought to wander past. Nothing untoward occurred and all could see we were merely friends engaged in conversation, as all friends did. Some may have possessed issue but most found it a bore, and so gossips moved on to other, more salacious scandals and we were left in peace.
Even my mother no longer commented.
This day, Aurelia visited with her friend Octavia, to undertake some adventure a mere mother was not to know. Marcus arrived as usual and, while surprised by Aurelia's absence, he did not appear disappointed. Indeed, he remained to visit with me. Only me.
The waters of the household pool gently lapped against my hand as we sat on its edge, my embroidery in my lap and his legs spread before him. Our friendship had grown, so that it was comfortable between us and I could tell him of small things, such as my amusement at a mix up at our laundress’s. The story had grown and I found myself embellishing just to hear his laughter, just to create my own.
Now he sobered, his regard warm upon me. I shifted beneath it, the ease that had characterised our visit gone. More and more he looked at me so, as if I were the answer to a question he had long asked.
Unnerved, disturbed, I looked away.
I heard him growl in frustration. “Why must you do that, Lucia? Why must you look away?”
“I do not know what you mean.” Refusing to look at him, I instead regarded the fountain, the gentle flow of the water preferable to the confusion I felt under his gaze.
“Why do you think I come here?”
Stark, abrupt, his words hung in the air between us, the question I did not allow myself to ask now demanding a response.
He waited. When I did not answer, he made a noise of disgust. “I will tell you. Lucia, I—”
“Do not!” I leapt to my feet, tried to rush past him.
Grabbing my arm, he refused to let me pass. “I will not let you deny this, Lucia. Not after all these years.”
“Deny what? Let me go, Marcus.”
Silence.
He closed his eyes, swallowed. “I was sure you had forgotten my name.”
Too late, too late I realised I had given myself away. I had been vigilant for so long, not even thinking his name and now, in a moment of weakness, I betrayed myself.
Distraught, I struggled against his grip. He would not release me. Instead, his hand tightened and somehow he made it a caress.
“Lucia. Lucia, listen to me.”
I struggled harder, my only thought to flee.
“Lucia. Please.”
The entreaty in his voice made me cease. Cautious, I looked to him. A curious mix of expressions set his features, hope and exasperation and…something else.
His thumb stroked my arm. “I need to declare myself.”
Miserably, I listened. Here was the end of our friendship. I could not allow this to continue once he spoke.
“I am yours. I have been, since soon after we met.”
This was shock, was it not? I felt shock. His gaze level and true, he did not flinch and thus I could not deny the truth of his words.
Something of what he said struck me as wrong. Soon after we met? “Your woman…your Niobe…”
“I loved her.” His gaze did not break with mine. “I did, though long before you left, I found my love had…changed.”
Mute, I stared. What could I say?
“Niobe and I grew too different, our…experiences dividing us.” His words were sour, as if they could be anything other. Slavery was common, and abuse was even more so.
Marcus took breath before he continued. “I found I cared for her, but no longer did I love her. She felt the same. We continued with our meets, with letting you arrange them because—” Ruddy colour lit his cheeks.
Fascinating. Whatever could make him blush?
“We let you arrange our meets because we gave each other comfort, reminded the other of home. And—” Greatly discomforted now, he avoided my gaze a moment before his muscles loosened and he looked direct at me, the corner of his mouth lifting. “I knew you watched.”
Shock bleached the fire from my cheeks. He had known. He had known, and he said nothing?
“I wanted to show you, to give you what you wanted. I wanted to touch you but I could not, so I took Niobe, pretended she was you. I touched her, and pretended it was your skin under my fingers. I caressed her, and pretended it was you I had made moan. I entered her, and it was you I was sliding into, you I was giving pleasure, you who gave me mine.”
A roaring sounded in my ears. He could not mean it. He could not.
A long breath shuddered through him and the glaze of lust shone in his eyes. He shook his head and the glaze dimmed somewhat, a different emotion burning behind it. “More, I wanted to hold you as you told me of your studies, soothe you when you cried. I wanted to make your mother leave you be, demand your father understand you better. Then, I could do nothing. What was I but a slave, afforded no rights and precious little privileges. I could not declare myself. I could not defile you.
“But I wanted you, Lucia.” He tucked my hair behind my ear and his hand rested warm against my cheek. “I would have given anything to take you away, to save you from hurt. I still would.”
Finally, I thought what to say. “It has been eight years. More. How can you… It has been eight years.”
“I have not wavered.” His eyes were steady on mine. His hand was so very warm.
As if in a dream, I reached up and cradled his hand in both of mine. Closing my eyes, I turned to kiss his palm. His other hand smoothed my hair, trailing over my shoulder, down my spine. Leaning into his touch, I shivered with emotion that finally, after all these years, he was touching me.
My hand slid up his forearm, tracing the muscles I found there. He turned my face to his, and I opened my eyes to find his gaze upon me, soft and warm and hard all at the same time. My hand moulded his shoulder as he cupped the back of my head.
We kissed.
His kiss was all I had ever imagined and nothing like it. His lips were warm, velvety, and surprisingly tentative. They shaped softly to mine, and I started when I felt the flick of his tongue against my mouth. I opened and he slid inside, his hand tightening on my back as he drew me to him.
We kissed and kissed.
His hand slid from my neck and over my breast. Of a sudden, I realised where we were. What we were doing. Who we were.
Wrenching my mouth from his, I backed away.
“Lucia?” He was beautiful in his confusion, still half-dazed with the same pleasure that coursed through me.
Wrapping my arms about myself, I shook my head. I did not know if I meant to say no.
Dazed pleasure faded from his features and a hardness took its place. “You do not regret this.”
I laughed, and the sound of it was hysterical. “You are so very arrogant still, gladiator. Tell me, is there anything that could rid you of this?”
Hardness still set his features. “I will not let you go, Lucia. Not again.” Conviction strengthened his voice, gave tension to his stance. He was intractable and his bearing demanded a response from me.
I had no reaction, or none that he would want. Confusion pulled at me, at all that had been revealed.
“I need time, Marcus,” I finally said. “This…I cannot believe this. All these years, I believed you hers. I believed it because you told me. Now, you say you care for me? That you—” I swallowed. “Wanted me?”
“I do not care for you. I lov—”
To cease his words, I held up a hand and it shook. “Please, Marcus. I need time.”
“Lucia—”
“Marcus.” My voice broke. “Please.” It was too much. Too much. Years I had gone without him, years married to an uncaring man. I could not…I could not think.
Reluctance drew his features, and yet he capitulated. His hands, his warm, strong hands, slid up my arms to rest on my shoulders and he leaned forward to brush a kiss against my brow.
I closed my eyes at the sweetness of his touch and I swayed toward him, wanting him, his touch, more than I had wanted anything.
Fighting my own desires, I pulled from him. I could not. I needed time.
He seemed to understand my struggle, and an almost cocky smile lit his face. “I will see you tomorrow.”
“Marcus—”
“Lucia,” he said in the same tone.
A reluctant smile pulled at my lips. Even now, when I was so confused, he could make me smile.
He smiled also. “I will see you tomorrow. Promise me.”
Nodding, I leant into him as he gave me another quick kiss and then he was gone.
I stared at the emptiness his leave-taking had brought and my legs buckled beneath me. I could not believe it, all he had told me. Marcus lov—cared for me? This was like something from a fantasy, one of the young girl I had once been. She would have given anything to believe her slave wanted her as she did him, that he yearned for her, pined for her.
The reality was so different.
It was not gentle. It was heat and lust and a carnal sort of romance. Images assaulted me, memories of him and his love—him and Niobe—as they demonstrated their affection. As they fucked.
Now, with his words, I imagined myself in Niobe’s place, imagined I lay beneath him, above him, against the wall, on a chair, on the floor. He kissed me, licked me, was inside me.
Struggling to my feet, I resolved to think of it on the morrow. On the morrow, all would be clear.