Celtic Fire(87)
Lucius was envisioning the possibilities when Rhiannon swatted his arm. “I assure you, Lucius, I will care if someone watches.”
He toyed with her braid, plucking off the binding cord and separating the strands. “I want you, Rhiannon.” He drew back and met her gaze. “I need you. Now.”
He heard the soft hitch in her breathing, saw the light in her expression that quickly overlaid a flash of pain. Her hand drifted from his neck to his face, where her fingers scraped the stubble on his jaw. Her gaze darted to the courtyard, the tiles, the sky—anywhere but toward his eyes.
His urgency dimmed, but his determination increased. She had a right to fear him—he’d taken her in the forest like a green soldier pumping a whore. Perhaps she was afraid he’d do so again.
He swept her into his arms and strode toward the stairs. She clung to his neck. “My chamber lies in the opposite direction.”
“I know,” he said, taking the steps to the lower level two at a time.
When he halted before the door to the bathing rooms, Rhiannon looked up at him, confused. “Tribune Vetus—”
“Fled the house when Marcus fell ill,” Lucius informed her. “He’s ordered Brennus out of his private room in the barracks.”
A shadow flitted across Rhiannon’s face. “I doubt the quartermaster will take kindly to such an imposition.”
“He has little choice unless he wishes to share his bed with the man.” He snorted. “Vetus might enjoy that arrangement.”
“What do you mean?”
“The tribune prefers men to women.”
Rhiannon’s eyes went wide. “For coupling? I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
“It’s common enough in Rome.”
“Oh.” She frowned. “Have you ever—”
“By Pollux! No.”
He shouldered open the door to the baths. No slave boy slept in the antechamber, and Lucius was glad of it. He set Rhiannon on her feet. “Stay here. I’ll return in but a moment.”
Tepid water filled the bathing pool. In the furnace room, the fire that had heated Demetrius’s bath water burned low. Lucius stirred the coals and stoked the reborn fire with logs from the wood pile.
He returned to the antechamber, half afraid Rhiannon might have fled. She hadn’t. She’d taken a seat on a low stone bench in the changing alcove. He paced slowly toward her. She watched as he advanced, shifting her thighs on the bench in a way that made him wonder if she were already slick with wanting.
The thought pleased him immensely. By returning to the fort—even if concern for Marcus had been her first motive—she’d shown that she knew to whom she belonged. He resolved now to erase her last remnants of fear and bind her to him completely. From this moment forward, her loyalty to him would outweigh her sense of duty to her countrymen. She would lead him to Aulus’s murderers and his brother’s ghost would rest at last.
He dropped to his knees before her and loosened the leather ties on her shoes. He slid them from her feet and set them aside. He caressed one small foot, then the other, before his hand drifted to the hem of her tunic.
He slid his hands beneath the linen and stroked her calves with his palms. He kneaded the smooth skin, softening the taut muscles beneath. Her golden gaze heated as his hand moved higher. Her tunic bunched as he went, hiding his arms and hands. He teased the tender flesh at the back of her knees and the inside of her thighs. She let out a soft sigh and parted her legs.
When his fingers grazed the tight curls guarding her sex, she braced her hands on his shoulders and went very still. As he’d suspected, she was soft and wet. Her dew slicked his finger and he stroked deep, gathering it as if it were honey.
“You give me a king’s welcome,” he said. He stroked again, earning a gasp as he delved deeper. Her fingernails bit into his flesh.
He chuckled. “Do you like that, my love?”
“You mock me,” she whispered. “You know that I do.”
He lifted her tunic higher, baring her stomach, and swirled his tongue into the sweet indentation of her navel. Her hips arched. He seized the opportunity to glide the rear portion of her hem beneath her buttocks. “Raise your arms.”
She obeyed, and he slipped the garment over her head. It fell to the floor in a languid flutter. But when she reached for him, he stopped her with another order. “Keep your hands above your head, clasped.”
Once again, she obeyed without question. He sat back on his heels and drank in the sight of her. She sat before him, arms raised and legs parted, gloriously naked and more beautiful than Venus. Her unbound tresses were curls of flame that licked at one breast and covered the other. The taut peaks of those perfect mounds thrust forward invitingly. He imagined her budded nipples as ripe cherries, ready for the harvester’s hand. Or mouth. He dipped his head and tasted one, then the other.