The last evening, before Christus and I were to be taken to the holding area of the special arena that had been modified just for these games, Darius sat to the side of the training area with me. We were indulging in a rare lazy moment, training over for the day but the sun not yet set. We passed a cup of wine back and forth between us.
I had found that wine greatly helped to ease the anxiety that fought to take me over whenever I was sober.
In front of us, Christus sparred with one of the men who had been especially kind that week. Antonius was demonstrating his skill with the net, and Christus was soaking up the new knowledge eagerly.
“He is doing all of this for you, you know.” I turned to my friend sharply, but he had hidden his face in his cup.
“What are you speaking of?” I knew, of course, but I somehow needed to hear it from another.
“All of this training.” Darius gestured expansively with his large arm. I turned with him, watching the focus, the concentration on Christus’ face as he struggled to gain control over the net.
“He intends to keep you alive. He does not hold the same hope for himself.”
That night, after the evening meal that we both forced down, Christus and I found ourselves colliding with heat in the room that was no longer just mine.
His lips were on mine, the door to the room shut snugly behind us. These moments, where we were alone, together, were what had gotten me through the week.
His touch erased every worry, every thought, from my mind.
Tonight, I tangled my hands in his hair as though I might never touch it again. His mouth was hot and wet as it opened under mine, tasting sinfully of mulsum and man. Impatient now that I had what I had so desperately wanted all day held tightly in my arms, I rocked my pelvis against his and moaned as his hot, hard erection dug into the soft flesh of my naked stomach.
“Wait . . . wait. Slow down.” Christus’ words were muffled under the avid angles of my lips, and I paid not a bit of attention to their meaning. Instead I shimmied out of the confining fabric of my leathers.
I knew that he wanted to come together slowly—he wanted to make love to me, to savor what might very well be our last time together.
I could not wait. I needed the heat, needed it to burn away the fear.
I smiled, slow and wicked, when my breasts spilled free of my leather top and he stopped in his tracks, hands freezing at my waist. Taking advantage of his momentary distraction, and fancying myself in full control of the situation, I gasped out loud in surprise when he lunged, cupping my breasts in his rough palms and burying his face in the cleft between. His moan vibrated along my suddenly slick skin, and as my nipples contracted into hard, tight pegs, I was consumed with a need the likes of which I had never felt before.
“Aah!” I sank my teeth, hard, into the corded flesh of his neck even as my hands busied themselves at his waist. I fumbled, impatient, with the tight knot of his subligaculum and was rewarded with the rending sound of the leather as it ripped and fell unheeded to the floor.
When his fingers lowered to stroke softly through the silky hair at my lower lips, I almost screamed; the feel of the rough pads of his fingertips as they circled my clit and began to explore the cleft in between my moist lower lips was almost more than I could take. I squirmed, not sure if I was trying to get closer or to escape from the onslaught of sensations. It seemed that I had no choice, however, when every movement of my hips against his served only to bring our skin that much closer together.
When those fingers pinched hard, right over the screaming nub of my clit, I lost all control and flooded into his palm, the musk of my sex staining the skin of his fingers.
It was too much; I had never had an encounter so intense. And as good as it felt, panic began to claw at the back of my throat; I needed to lose myself again before reality set in and I lost my mind.
So when he reached behind me, stroked down over the round cups of my ass, and lifted a leg to encircle his waist, I moved like lightning, sliding my sweat-slicked skin away from his.
“Come to me.” Teasing, I ran my tongue slowly over my index finger, tasting the salt there. “I want you. Oh, I want you. But . . .” I rolled my hips suggestively and sauntered over to the small wooden table. Placing my slick palms flat on the grain, I raised my ass. Tossing my now loose golden hair over my right shoulder in a manner much more flirtatious than I would normally have used, I looked saucily back over my left side and licked my lips.
“I want you like this.”
I saw my lover gape at my new manner as I stared back at him from over my shoulder. I was trying to keep our encounter moving so fast that neither of us could catch our breath, and yet, if I had not known that the panic would seep in the second that I slowed down, I would have wanted to relax, the taste the skin of the cock that was rearing at the sight of me naked before him.