Free Seduced by the Gladiator by Lauren Hawkeye Page A

that had been forged between us, one initiated by him, and what I did not understand was why he had done so.
    I was difficult, I was stubborn, I was rude. I had mercurial changes of mood, and was haunted by ghosts that I did not wish to dwell on.
    I watched his finely hewn features as he tilted his head, studying me intently.
    “Do not tell me that you do not feel it, too.”
    I opened my mouth to do just that, and found that my words had dried up, for Christus had reached down into the water and gripped my injured ankle in gentle hands.
    “What are you doing?” My words were a hiss as I looked frantically around the room. We were alone for the moment, thank the gods, but someone could come in at any moment.
    Weak was the least of the things that I would appear to be if someone were to come upon this scene, me flushed from the steam, Christus’ sure fingers beginning to lightly massage the purpling skin of my ankle.
    Every touch of his fingers sent a lick of fire straight between my legs. Though I tried to swallow it down, a groan escaped my lips.
    His touch felt so incredibly good.
    “I cannot let myself be seen like this.” There was no point in denying that I found his touch pleasurable. Against my better judgment, I closed my eyes for a moment—just a moment—and let sensation wash over me.
    When I again opened my eyes, Christus’ fingers had trailed upward to my calf. His eyes burned brightly and were fixed on my own.
    “I told the men that anyone who bothered you while you bathed would find himself without a cock.” My mouth fell open at the words, and inexplicably a giggle bubbled up from my throat.
    I clapped a hand over my mouth as it escaped. I never giggled. I rarely even laughed.
    Sobering myself, I tried to tug my leg from Christus’ reach. “That does not mean that they will listen.”
    “I assure you they will.” Christus did not allow me to pull my flesh away, instead trailing his fingers ever higher. My breath caught in my throat as he stroked the tender skin behind my knee.
    “If it eases you, Darius is keeping watch. No one will disturb you. No one will disturb us.”
    I heard the double meaning in his words, and though I felt as though I should run, I found myself doing nothing of the sort. Instead I reached out, my hand shaking, and ran uncertain fingers over the stripe of cheekbone.
    I shuddered as my fingers made contact with his skin. It had been so long since I had been touched with anything but violence or desire that was twisted at its root. Darius touched me sometimes, but his caresses were friendly and reassuring.
    They did not affect me in nearly the same way that these small caresses were.
    “Christus. I cannot do this.” I wanted to. I could no longer lie to myself. I wanted this man, wanted the moments of pleasure that he could bring to me in this strange life that I called my own. “If the men found out that I took you as a lover, we would both be under attack.”
    My voice had a breathless quality to it, one that I had never heard before. I was feeling things that I had never felt before, too, as Christus lowered his head and laid his lips on my knee.
    When he again looked up, the expression on his face—the longing, the desire—was my undoing.
    “Why should anyone find out? It is no one’s business but our own.” The fingers that still softly stroked the skin behind my knee moved with excruciating slowness, tracing a stripe up, and up, until they met the edge where my leather wrap met my skin.
    “Christus.” What was happening to me? I was not weak—I made my own decisions. Yet I could no more have stopped this encounter than I could have stopped breathing.
    Slowly, giving me time to say no, Christus worked at the knot in my leather. When the fastening was loose, he worked the garment away from my body, hanging it on the edge of the tub.
    Leaving my skin bare from the waist down.
    I felt my lower lip tremble, but apart from that small movement I was still, tensed,