Free Silk and Steel (Siren Publishing Classic) by Lindsay Townsend Page B

pain—the brutal pain of sex, of being torn into and rammed, the slow, bruising pain of being ignored and abandoned.
    'You were not treated well in the baths.' He kissed her again, lightly. 'That is past.'
    Corinna said nothing. He could do as he wanted, of course.
    'Yes, I can do as I please,' he said, in that uncanny divining of her thoughts. 'But I do not think you will complain. No woman has before.'
    I am not interested , Corinna fired at him in her mind and now he smiled and drew back, sitting on his heels like a boy.
    'Do you know what I was born to be?' he asked, plucking a pebble from the ground and tossing it from hand to hand. 'I am a farmer's child. One of ten, sold into slavery at twelve when my father died and mother could not feed us all. I was the biggest and greediest, so she sold me. Last year, I bought her farm and gave it to her outright.’ He tapped his chest with his fingers. ‘Yes, I am still a slave, but I was able to do this for her. Another year in the arena and I will have made enough to get my own freedom and my own place. A farm and a woman.' He flipped the pebble into the well and ran his thumb down her ear and teasingly beneath her chin. 'When I have dealt with Silvinus Cato, I will have the woman.'
    The slave buys me through killing , Corinna thought. The Christian in her was appalled at his lack of remorse, but she was horribly fascinated, too. Ashamed of her own interest, she said nothing.
    'Come, speak to me,' he said. 'You have a pretty voice.'
    She almost asked him who was his master, but still she made no reply. Where had this new stubbornness come from? Was she mad? This man was a hired killer. Did she want to provoke him?
    'Silence as a weapon, eh? Then I shall have to disarm you.'
    Moving with a deadly, fluid grace, Decimus scooped her away from the well and up, high, going higher, towards the moon. Even as she started and tried to react at the speed of his response—which she had had been trying to anticipate and evade—Corinna found herself tucked tightly into the crook of his arm, unable to kick or jab.
    'No biting,' he warned, as she strained against a sinewy arm that gripped her in a python-like vice. 'I despise fighters who do that.'
    He carried her to the middle of the large courtyard garden, where Silvinus Cato had placed a wooden bench beneath a gnarled olive tree. Sitting on the bench, his back resting against the olive and Corinna snug on his lap, he brought a pomegranate from the folds of his tunic. 'Here. Bite on this, instead.' He cracked the rough skin open on the bench and offered her a piece full of glistening, plump seeds. 'No? Do you think I am death himself, offering you this fruit to lure you to the underworld?'
    Corinna shook her head—she knew the pagan story—but to prove him wrong she took the piece, relishing the tangy taste of the sweet fruit, the first time she had enjoyed such a delicacy. He ate, too. They chewed in silence, a curious intimacy in the silent garden.
    'I think we two are the only ones awake,' Decimus remarked, wiping his mouth and breathing in deeply. 'What is that scent?'
    She almost answered, rosemary and lavender, but still said nothing.
    'There!' He kissed the tip of her sun-burnt nose. 'I nearly had you answering. Women love to show off what little knowledge they have.'
    Not so! Corinna shrugged to show that his comment did not trouble her. She was curious as to what he might do next: already she did not fear that he would beat her. But then, she could scarcely believe that this smiling angel was a gladiator. Was he indeed real? Was this a dream?
    'Should I tickle you into speech, make you laugh out loud?' His hands hovered close to her stomach, teased under her breasts, lingered under her arms. 'You are a very hot little wench. Is that excitement or fever?' He ducked his head to check her expression. 'Do you not want to ask me questions?'
    In answer—and it was a teasing answer—she traced a finger along a long white scar on his