Seduced by Her Rebel Warrior

by Greta Gilbert

  ‘You have already given me pleasure. You have kissed me and embraced me and done all the things I had hoped you would do. I simply do not understand why you do not wish to take the man’s right.’

  The man’s right? He almost cringed. What collection of selfish, lowborn, ignorant fools had been allowed to share this woman’s bed?

  ‘May I ask you who your husbands were?’

  ‘Who they were?’

  ‘Their vocations, I mean.’

  ‘They were Senators, of course. And one tax collector. Allies of my father.’

  Rab almost choked. His opinion of Roman patricians had just sunk to a new low—though he knew that to voice his disgust would only trigger her defences. ‘The man’s right is the woman’s right, too,’ he said carefully.

  ‘Apologies, I do not take your meaning.’

  ‘You do understand how a woman can take her pleasure?’

  Her eyes flew open. ‘Of course I understand! Am I not a woman myself?’

  ‘That you are,’ he averred. ‘So tell me.’

  It was an impertinent question, but he had challenged her pride enough to know that she would at least attempt to answer it.

  ‘There is pleasure for the woman in the act of coupling itself,’ she stated academically. He could see from her expression that she had not once experienced that particular sort of pleasure.

  ‘Is there any other way for a woman to take her pleasure?’ he asked.

  ‘Not that I am aware of,’ she said, looking away.

  ‘Why do you lie to me, Atia?’ he challenged. He stepped closer. ‘As you said, you are a woman yourself. Surely you know.’

  ‘I have heard that a man may kiss a woman in the...forbidden place,’ she whispered.

  ‘And did you not ever wish for a man to do that to you?’ he asked. He reached out his hand and touched her fingers.

  ‘My husbands said that the act was filthy and repugnant.’

  ‘Gods, those are big words.’ He linked his fingers with hers. ‘Your husbands must have been extremely educated men.’

  ‘They were quite educated, yes.’ She favoured his sarcasm with a sly grin.

  ‘But you did not answer my question.’ He bent close to her ear and whispered. ‘Have you not ever thought of feeling a man’s lips...down there?’

  He heard her catch her breath. She was shaking her head. No, no, she had not ever thought of it. That is what he knew she wanted to say. But she could not...because she was thinking of it right now. He could see it in her eyes.

  She opened her mouth as if to tell him no, but not a single sound emerged and she made no protest as he began to lead her gently towards the wide, flat boulder that had earlier served as her hiding place.

  ‘May I have the loincloth?’ he asked and he spread the large garment out over the rocks and motioned for her to sit.

  She took her seat and looked up at him. She had never looked more beautiful or more vulnerable.

  ‘I want to give you pleasure, Atia. Will you let me?’

  She nodded slightly and he bent to her lips and gave her a long, melting kiss.

  ‘I have been waiting for this for so long,’ he said. He sat beside her on the rock and eased her to her back.

  It seemed that her journey into unknown territory had taken yet another unexpected turn. She had been certain that he had rejected her. He had pulled her from her knees and all but told her he did not wish to perform the act. It was not the first time she had been rejected in such a way.

  But then it seemed that he had not rejected her at all. He had merely wished to prolong her pleasure, for apparently that is what paid lovers did. He had climbed on to the flat rock and lain down beside her and now he was showering kisses on her naked breasts. And she did not want him to stop. Ever. What a strange, wonderful world it was.

  He covered her nipple with his mouth and gently began to suck. Suddenly, she was compelled to revise her view. No, the world was not simply wonderful. It was spectacular. Sweet hot threads of lust stretched taut within her and she was compelled to grip his head and hold on tight.

  He transferred his attention to her other nipple and repeated his work. And what unnervingly fine work it was. So fine that she did not even notice when he deftly slid his finger into her womanly folds.

  She tensed, sucked the air, took his hair into her fists.

  ‘Relax, my darling,’ he whispered. But she could not relax, for she was so very exposed lying upon this naked rock, trusting herself to a man she had known for less than a month.

  A thousand questions crowded her mind, the loudest of which was what? What was he doing? And the second loudest—where? Where was he planning to take this? And finally—how? How did one respond to such a touch?

  She had wanted this so very badly for so very long, but now that she was getting it, she was terrified. ‘Rab, I...’ she said.

  He paused. ‘What is it, my sweet?’

  ‘I think that I am just a little nervous,’ she said.

  ‘I will not do anything that you do not wish,’ he assured her, and when she did not respond, he revised his promise. ‘I will not do anything you do not command.’

  He gazed up at her in all earnestness and she felt a rush of gratitude for this gentle, considerate man who seemed genuinely to wish to please her. ‘What is your first command?’ he asked.

  ‘Kiss me,’ she said. Obediently, he pressed his lips to hers, though she noticed that his finger remained just inside her folds, motionless. ‘Kiss me slowly,’ she clarified. And he gave a half-grin as he took her lower lip in his and began to suck.

  She closed her eyes and tried to focus on the feeling. As they kissed, his finger began drawing slow, sensuous circles around her folds. The sun felt so good on her chest and the water’s soft trickle was like a sweet song inside her mind.

  ‘Now on my neck,’ she ordered. He nuzzled his lips against her neck and began to kiss softly.

  ‘A little harder,’ she said and his kiss transformed into the gentlest of sucks. ‘Yes,’ she gasped. It was a sensation as sweet as it was painful.

  ‘I can feel how you like that,’ he whispered back, sliding his finger around her womanly entrance, which seemed to have grown wet with her arousal.

  ‘Soon you will be commanding me to push my finger deeper,’ he observed. And with that he resumed his work upon her neck.

  More shivers. More delicious yearning. Yes, yes, yes, she thought as his sucking became more intense and the core of her filled with heat.

  ‘Go deeper,’ she commanded, making his prediction come true. She felt as if she had little control over what she wanted now. Free will was an illusion of the philosophers. Her body wanted what it wanted. Him.

  ‘Kiss me again,’ she ordered, not because it was the only thing she knew to ask, but because it felt like the most delicious, self-indulgent thing she could possibly demand. As he kissed her, he moved his finger gently in and out of her and her hips began to move in the same rhythm. ‘Deeper.’

  He pushed his finger deeper, continuing to kiss her until the threads of lust that had been strewn so tautly inside her seemed to twist tighter still and she was overcome with yearning. ‘Yes,’ she breathed.

  She focused on the feeling of his finger’s soft plunging. It was like the relentless movement of a carriage over a bumpy road. There was somewhere it was taking her, some strange destination that seemed so important to reach.

  New territory.

  ‘Oh,’ she gasped. He held his finger still and suddenly the road ceased to exist and she was jumping off the edge of the canyon. Her body convulsed as waves of pleasure gripped her. ‘Yes!’ she cried as she careened through the air, moaning and sighing and feeling each of the taut threads of herself snap loose one by one.

  Her body quaked with pleasure, then gradually went still. Her eyes were closed, but she cou
ld feel him watching her. She wondered at this quiet sweetness between them. This strange, unexpected grace.

  ‘Gratitude,’ she said at last.

  He rolled beside her and put his arms around her shoulders, squeezing her head against the side of his chest. Such a small gesture, yet it threatened to undo her. ‘Do you not wish to take your own pleasure?’ she asked, pulling her head away. It was just too dangerous to lay her head there. She feared she would never be able to lift it again.

  ‘It was enough to watch you, Atia,’ he said.

  It was a strange thing for him to say. What man did not wish to take his pleasure with a woman, if given the opportunity? Unless, of course, he did not really desire her.

  She smiled at the revelation. It was as she had always suspected, then: he did not truly desire her. He was just like all her former husbands, only nobler, gentler, smarter, kinder, stronger, handsomer and far more affectionate.

  In the past she might have been devastated by such a realisation, but now she could only feel a strange sense of relief. It did not matter that he did not want her, for they had a deal.

  Now she needed only to complete the transaction. She lifted herself up from the boulder and walked to the river bank. She donned her tunic and retrieved her bag, seizing upon two golden aurei within it. She smiled, pleasure still echoing through her body. She would have given him a hundred gold aurei if she could have.

  She returned to the rock where he sat worrying his beard, his expression puzzled. ‘You have shown me what it is to feel pleasure and have placed me in your debt once again,’ she said. ‘Now I wish to pay it.’ She dropped the aurei into his palm.

  He stared at the coins in confusion. ‘If the payment is satisfactory to you,’ she added, ‘perhaps you would consider some kind of long-term arrangement.’ She thought of how happy her friend Lydia would be for her right now. ‘I wish for you to be my guide, you see,’ she told Rab, ‘in the territory of pleasure.’

  She took a breath, then congratulated herself on her businesslike comportment. She had even chosen a clever turn of phrase. He was the finest of guides in the territory of the desert, after all. Why not also the territory of pleasure?

  But he was staring at the aurei as if he did not know what to do with them. Perhaps she was not being clear. ‘I realise I am not attractive, but I believe we can come to some understanding.’

  He did not seem to hear her. ‘You wish to make me your luper, your male harlot?’

  ‘Not at all. I only wish for us to be lovers and I wish to ensure your comfort and enjoyment of the process.’

  He was shaking his head in disgust. ‘You wish to pay me for what happened between us just now?’

  ‘I thought you would be pleased,’ she said. Clearly he was not pleased. She could see it in how his body tensed, though she could not understand why. She was offering to compensate him for an act he had seemed to enjoy. Perhaps he had not desired her enough to take his own pleasure with her, but he had willingly shown her how to take her own.

  ‘You wish to take the love we shared today and turn it into trade?’ he asked.

  ‘Love?’

  ‘Do you think that just because I am a poor Nabataean camel trainer that I can be purchased? You insult me.’

  She felt as if she were sinking into the stream’s fine sand. ‘Everything is trade, is it not?’ she said meekly. ‘Give and take? I merely wish to compensate you for the pleasure you have given me.’

  He returned the coins to her hand and stood beside her. ‘You are not beautiful, you are ugly, and you wish to make me ugly, too.’

  ‘Rab—’ she began saying, but she could not finish. His words had been like the arrows of a bitter foe. They had sliced right through her.

  He stormed across the river and retrieved his tunic. ‘I thought you were a different kind of Roman. I realise now that I was wrong.’

  Chapter Twelve

  He had been a fool. An utter, inexcusable fool. To think that he had believed her a different kind of Roman—a Roman with a soul. But she was no different than all the rest. They stormed into Arabia with their gold coins and insatiable appetites and expected to do business. ‘Curse the Nabataeans!’ they declared in their damnable Latin. Curse anything of value or meaning. To the Romans, nothing mattered and everything was for sale.

  Including, it seemed, Rab himself.

  He could not sleep. He could not even rest. How had he misjudged her? When? Memories crowded his mind, visions of her: Atia fumbling with her scarf; Atia kneeling in her bronze gown; Atia collapsing on the hillside and falling into his arms.

  Atia placing two coins into his hand.

  It did not make sense.

  They had shared more than just lust, after all. They had shared laughter and quiet joy. They had endured each other’s anger and come to each other’s aid in desperate times. There was more between them than just the maddening attraction of their bodies. Or did their connection mean nothing to her?

  No, not nothing. It had meant exactly the worth of two gold coins.

  He stared at the stars without seeing them. Debased. That was how he felt. Drained of his humanity and stripped of his soul. It was as if she had taken their bond and smashed it upon the rocks. How could she do this to him?

  But he knew how. She was her father’s daughter. Had she not told him as much? She was obligated not to feel. She peered out from beneath her heavy lids and pushed away everything she saw. She had pushed him away many times, he had just chosen not to see it. She carried frost in her heart and ice in her veins. Indeed, it was why her hands were always so cold.

  But they were not always cold, he reminded himself. And her eyes were not always lidded and she was not always trying to keep her distance. In moments when she was not doubting, scolding, or pushing him away, she was the most wonderful woman he had ever met.

  The stars seemed to swirl above him now—a blur of cloudy light. He had known plenty of women in his time. Before the Romans came—back when his father had lived and life had still made sense—Rab had pursued many women and had been the subject of pursuit himself. Like all young men he had been fascinated by women—their soft, curvy bodies, their sweet, musical voices, their quiet, unassuming strength.

  But what he really wished for was what his father had had with his mother before she died on the birthing bed. He wanted that sweet, intangible thing that seemed to bind his parents together and soften them both.

  Finally, at age twenty-five, after many years of chasing and flirting and testing the waters of love, Rab had taken the plunge.

  Her name was Babatha. They had known one another since their school days, when they had spent hours in the odeon together listening to philosophers drone. He remembered her long black braid and how her graceful fingers pressed so diligently into her stylus. She was wildly intelligent and had an ability to explain things better than her tutors ever could.

  They had married in a ceremony outside his grandfather’s tomb and she had become his Princess. They had moved into her mother’s house, as was the custom, and begun construction of their own small palace. Its foundation had already been poured when the Romans had arrived and his father had taken his own life.

  After that, time had slowed, along with Rab’s own mind. Nothing made sense. Throughout their kingdom’s four-hundred-year history, the Nabataeans had fought off the Judeans and the Seleucids, and had for a long time kept even the Romans at bay. Yet when Roman General Palma had led his troops through Rekem’s sacred slot canyon to the steps of the Great Temple, there had not even been a fight.

  Babatha had tried to assuage him. Look at Rome’s military might, she had said. Look at the opportunities that being part of the Empire will bring: new roads, new temples, the expansion of trade. But they were not good reasons for how quickly and completely the Nabataeans had given up their glory. ‘Why?’ he had asked Babatha, over and over again.
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  Why did the Nabataeans do nothing as Palma’s legion set up a permanent camp at the heart of the city? Why did they say nothing when Palma began handing out the taxation contracts to Nabataeans, thus turning Nabataeans against themselves?

  Rab had looked around at the kingdom he had once held dear and felt nothing but anger. He listened closely to Babatha’s sensible explanations, but all he could hear were his father’s senseless last words: the elephants.

  ‘I divorce you,’ Babatha had told him one morning and Rab had made no protest. How could he love when his mind was so confused? How could he feel any joy when his heart was full of pain?

  The pain had not gone away. It had only got worse as the years passed. Why had his father given his kingdom to the Romans? No one could give Rab a satisfactory answer.

  And so he had thrown himself into his work—the only work that mattered. Resistance. He had grown out his hair and his beard and gone into hiding, maintaining his cover as a camel trainer and moving between the rebel enclaves like a ghost.

  If he needed sex, he paid for it, though he rarely needed it. All he needed was something useful to do and the only thing useful was to fight.

  Now the stars were perfectly clear—tiny points of light in a sea of endless black. They seemed to confirm his deepest certainty: that the world was an empty place.

  And now that Atia had shown her true light, it was emptier still.

  * * *

  The next morning, Plotius was howling. ‘I am not going.’

  Rab secured the saddle of their strongest donkey and pointed to it. ‘We must ascend Wadi Mujib,’ said Rab. ‘There is no other way out.’

  ‘Of course there is another way out—the wadi stream,’ said Plotius. ‘Why can we not just follow it downhill?’

  ‘The stream drains to the Bitumen Lake. As I told you before, rebels patrol its shores.’

  ‘I do not care,’ said Plotius. ‘I command this party and I say we follow the sea route from now on.’ Plotius gripped the hilt of his gladius. ‘No more of this canyon hopping.’