I wondered at how he could still stir excitement in me, even when I was preparing to die the next day. But then the warmth of the candles’ glow glanced across the mirror-smooth, seemingly solid surface that was a small pool of water.
It was beautiful. So beautiful. Even in the dim light, I could see a blue as dark as the night sky, a small pond carved out of gray granite and shot through with threads of pale rose and leaf green. Huge spears of rock surrounded the pool, great jagged teeth protecting it, giving the impression of something ancient and magical.
Ancient, magical, and given the humidity and temperature of the air, warm.
“What is this place?” I could hear the wonder in my own voice.
Christus let go of my hand long enough to wedge the last candle into a crevice in the wall. A shard of mirrored glass hung above it, and the glow of light bounced off of the glass, casting light around the room, enough that it made it a bit easier on the eyes.
He smiled then, and the sight nearly brought me to my knees.
“I do not know.” He shifted his weight from foot to foot, and gave every impression of someone feeling awkward and even a little bit bashful. “I cannot read the inscriptions.” Here he looked up, looked right at me. “But it seems as if it was created by the gods themselves.”
I looked around the cavern—I had never seen such a place in my life. It was as if the world had swallowed us, as if we were in some sort of space that was caught between the earth, the underworld, and the heavens.
Someplace all our own.
When he closed his eyes and took a minute to just breathe, I followed his example, and felt some of the resentment and emotional turmoil that I had been storing up, hoarding away, begin to melt, to evaporate into the already thick, silent air. The silence should have been oppressive, it was so still; instead, it seemed friendly. Welcoming, warm, like an embrace.
I took another moment and savored that warmth, drawing as much comfort as I could out of it.
When I opened my eyes, Christus was peeling his subligaculum down over his hips. A noise of desire caught in my throat as the easy comfort evaporated in one primal beat and he turned, hands resting on the waistband of his leathers.
I felt heat wash over me in a great wave. The light from the candles cast the sculpture of his lean frame into sharp relief, accentuating the body that was so strong, yet treated me with such care.
My mouth watered. Women all over Rome surely felt desire when they saw this man in the arena, and yet here he was, in front of me.
I watched his expression darken as he saw me drinking him in.
A terrible arousal began to tighten in my gut. It was stronger, far stronger, than anything I had ever felt before, and I did not know what to do with it.
That arousal loomed in the dim light of the cave, absorbing the shadows thrown by the candles, growing and mutating until it became a tangible thing.
I closed my eyes, squeezed them tightly shut. Though I did not hear anything, when I opened them again, Christus was in the water, fully submerged. He looked up at me through the liquid, and though I should not have been able to see him so clearly, he seemed to glow, to radiate a soft white light. That light let me see more clearly than I had ever been able to in my life, and I had nearly perfect vision. I could see the separation between his black strands of hair, and every slight dilation and contraction of the black pupils in the cerulean circles of his eyes. Through the looking glass of the heated pool, his skin, tanned that delicious golden brown, beckoned to me.
I wanted. Gods, but I wanted.
My fingers strayed to the hem of my leather top. Crossing my arms, I gripped tightly at the dry leather with sweaty palms, then lifted. I felt the wet air kiss first an inch of my skin, and then another. I heard Christus break through the water just as the leather blocked my vision, and then the top was over my head and on the floor, and he could see my naked breasts, the nipples tight with need.
The look on his face caused a great shudder to run through me. I reminded myself that I had seen all of him before, and that he had seen all of me.
It did not seem to matter. My belly quivered as I worked at the knot of my subligaculum.
No matter how many times I had him, I knew that I would want him all the same.
When my subligaculum, too, was on the damp rock at my feet, I tentatively stepped forward and slipped a foot into the water. It closed around me like an embrace, warm and seductive, licking the remains of the perspiration from my skin. Eyes latched on to Christus’, I slid farther into the water. The weight of the wetness clung to my skin, sucking it down, pulling me in. I took another step, then another, wondering how it was that I felt so drugged when I had not touched opium or wine that evening.
When the water reached my shoulders, I curled my bare toes against the slippery rock at my feet, and again closed my eyes. Only the slightest noise made by flesh breaking through the water told me that Christus had again ducked under the water. I had not heard him resurface, so when I opened my eyes, I was startled to find him above the surface, maybe a foot away, submerged to the shoulders like I was.