The Gladiator's Temptation (Champions of Rome)

by Jennifer D. Bokal

  ALSO BY JENNIFER D. BOKAL

  Champions of Rome Series

  The Gladiator’s Mistress

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2016 Jennifer D. Bokal

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Montlake Romance, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake Romance are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781503953970

  ISBN-10: 1503953971

  Cover design by Jason Blackburn

  To John, as always

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Chapter 1

  Rome

  Year of the consulship of Marius and Orestes

  654 years after the founding of Rome (100 BC)

  Fortunada

  The heavy curtains parted slightly at the bottom, and a shaft of light stretched lazily across the bed. Fortunada inhaled sharply, hardly believing that she was here. The salty scent of sweat and the tang of cardamom—like smoky mint—filled the air.

  Baro, the gladiatorial Champion of Rome, knelt beside her on the mattress. The late-morning sun bathed his gloriously naked form in golden light. As he looked down at Fortunada, his dark brown eyes filled with desire.

  She traced the side of his face. His flesh was warm, his skin smooth.

  “You are,” Baro breathed into the side of her neck, “a work of art.” He ran his palm gently over her body from shoulder to stomach, breast to thigh. His very touch was sacred, as if it were a moving prayer.

  Kissing her slowly, Baro drew his lips from her mouth to her neck, and Fortunada’s flesh tingled. He stopped to hover over her, then nuzzled into her ear.

  “My golden one,” he whispered. “My precious, golden Fortunada.”

  At his words, heat rushed through her and her pulse quickened. He desired her. How could that be? Fortunada was no dusky-complexioned Roman beauty. She was fair skinned, burning easily in the unforgiving Mediterranean sun. Her golden hair and blue eyes—from her mother’s side of the family—made her stand out as much as her height. She was nearly as tall as Baro, who would never be considered a short man. And her breasts? Well, those had grown larger after birthing and nursing two children. In a place where small, lithe women with dark hair and eyes were the epitome of beauty, Fortunada’s looks made her an oddity. At the same time, Baro did want her—his hardened cock, pressed into her stomach, was a testament to that. Still, she found it difficult to accept his longing as the truth.

  “Then you must be my god of bronze,” Fortunada said, placing a playful kiss on his collarbone.

  “Everyone calls me a god, but I am just a simple man with a single desire—you.”

  “Why?” she asked, knowing full well that her forthrightness was not a feminine trait.

  “Why do they think I am a god? It is because of my prowess in the arena, of course. Although I doubt anyone really thinks I am divine.” Lifting a single brow, he added, “Or not too many, at least.”

  Fortunada laughed. To be with Baro was to submerge herself in joy. It was more than the sex, which was exquisite. She found him—his fun-loving personality and confidence—irresistible. During the time they spent together, Fortunada set aside her concerns and responsibilities. “I never imagined that a god would come to Rome and lie with a humble mortal,” she said, teasing Baro in return.

  “If you want flattery,” he said, “I can comply.” He kissed her lightly, slowly, on the mouth. “There is much that recommends you. I love your full, round breasts.” He flicked his tongue over each nipple in turn. She gasped as liquid desire filled her veins. “I love your long, strong legs—especially when they are wrapped around my middle.” He gripped one of her thighs and brought it over his back.

  Although she never wanted to be the kind of woman who begged for false praise, flatter her he had. “Your words of seduction are alluring, to be sure. All the while, it is the truth that will ignite my lust.”

  Baro let out a long breath. It was the same exasperated sigh Fortunada had heard her entire life. Perhaps she had asked too much. What if he answered her blunt statement with a scathingly honest answer? Inhaling, she said a quick prayer to her goddess, Ceres, for the strength to hear whatever words he spoke next—even if he told her that she was just a temporary pleasure while he worked his way through all the patrician women of Rome.

  “What I said was true. You are a rare beauty, Fortunada. What draws me to you is more than your appearance. I love that knowledge does not frighten you.”

  She exhaled. “You flatter me even more.”

  “Never,” he said. “Let us make a bargain—it shall always be the truth between us.” He slid a finger inside her cunnus. Her muscles tightened around him, and she began to move with the rhythm he set. “Desire,” he whispered in her hair, “and truth.”

  Both words aroused Fortunada almost as much as his touch. Pulling him to her, she kissed him hungrily. Sex with Baro was an opiate, and Fortunada could not get enough. She needed his cock inside her with an ache that bordered on pain.

  “Tell me,” he said, his voice deep, and smoother than the finest silk, “that you desire me as well.”

  “I do,” she panted. Her climax was so near. She spread her legs and wrapped them around his waist. Withdrawing his finger, Baro situated himself at the opening of her sex. He entered her, and Fortunada moaned with pleasure.

  Lifting first one leg and then the other, Baro placed her ankles over his shoulders. To take him so deep was to die a little in an exquisite death. His thrusts became harder, more resolute, and Fortunada’s control slipped away.

  Sliding his hand between their bodies, Baro found the most sensitive spot at the top of her cunnus. He moved the pad of his thumb in a circle. Her innermost muscles clenched as her pleasure grew and crested. She cried out with her climax. With a low growl, Baro thrust hard twice m
ore and spilled his seed inside her.

  Baro kissed Fortunada again, then rolled onto his back. “You undo me,” he groaned.

  She rose and searched the tumble of clothes on the floor for the silk bag that she carried with her always. Sage green with golden greek key embroidery, it had been a gift from her favorite uncle, Sersa. Inside was a clay talisman of Ceres along with the seeds of wild carrot. The white flowers of summer had turned to downy tufts, and the bud was hard and brown. If ingested after intercourse, these seeds would prevent pregnancy. Over the four months Fortunada had been meeting with Baro, this had proven to be true. She took a bundle of seeds, placed them on her tongue, and swallowed them down with a gulp of weak wine.

  Aside from the bed and the table, which held the two goblets, there were no other furnishings. The room was clean, and the owner of the inn had a reputation for discretion. It was exactly the type of place that suited Fortunada for her secret tryst.

  Society allowed Fortunada, as a divorced woman, some sexual freedom so long as she conducted her affair with modesty. In the three years since her husband had left, Fortunada had taken no other lover, so she could hardly be accused of licentious behavior. All the same, an indiscretion such as this would cast a long shadow over her life—one that she would never be able to lose.

  So long as her affair with Baro remained a secret, Fortunada would never have to worry about recriminations. It was not that she was ashamed of their time together or was devoid of feelings for Baro, beyond the carnal. She cared for him deeply, in fact. But Fortunada knew it was best not to allow her emotions to run too deep. For Baro—a man all women adored—she must be one of many lovers. Their days together were finite, and soon he would find another.

  With a sigh both content and resolute, Fortunada lay back on the bed. Baro rolled to his side and pulled her to him so that her back rested against his chest. “You need not take those”—he paused—“things. I feel as though you do not really want to be my lover by refusing to let my seed take root in your womb.”

  “I am a woman with two children. My virginity, and therefore my chastity, has no value. But I am not married, and bearing a child with no father would ruin me. More important, it would ruin the future for the children I already have.”

  “This babe would have a father,” said Baro. “I would be the father.”

  Baro was a gladiator, true. Most men of the sword were rough and unlearned—either slaves or criminals. But he was different. Born into a noble equestrian family, Baro had been well educated. He had conscripted himself to the gladiator school after serving as an officer in the legions. In short, he understood the world beyond the arena.

  If Baro loved her as she loved him, then it would be different. A breath caught in Fortunada’s chest. Had she fallen in love with Baro? She had, had she not? It had not been her intention to develop feelings for the charming and handsome gladiator. When they began the affair, she had only wanted—no, needed—a physical diversion. Four months prior, she had known her heart to be safe. Yet she had become careless and had begun to care.

  A sickening feeling of worry twisted in her middle as she realized that her newly discovered emotional attachment would likely frighten, if not repulse, the ever-playful Baro. In the moment, she decided it was safest to view her feelings as lust amplified, if only to make their eventual parting more bearable.

  Baro sat up and wiped his hands over his face. The broad planes of his chest were crisscrossed with scars. Some were barely noticeable, only a silver line that whispered of his struggles in the arena. Others were angry and red, a yell that told the world of the brutality of his sport. She traced a deep scar that traveled from his collarbone to just above his nipple, as if her touch might change the story his body told.

  Baro regarded her. Fortunada felt the pull of his gaze. “What if we married?” he asked.

  “You have gone beyond false flattery, and now you jest.”

  “This is no jest. I want you to be my wife.”

  Fortunada sat up. Her vision dimmed around the corners, and the world beneath her shifted. “It is not just me whom you would bring into your life,” she said, her faculties returning. “I have two children. Are you prepared to be husband and father by taking one vow?”

  His gaze lifted, and their eyes met. “For you, I would bind myself to anyone,” he said.

  She became drunk on the idea that he loved her so completely. “You know how to woo me thoroughly—although you are a charming man, and I imagine you can talk anyone into doing almost anything.”

  “And yet, you still have not agreed to be my wife.”

  Why was it that she could not give in to his words of love and adoration? For her children, for herself, she should marry again. Her son, Genaro, an active six annums, required a father’s guidance as he navigated the path to adulthood. Cornelia, though only three annums, would eventually need a father to negotiate her marital contract. Was Baro the kind of man who would accept these responsibilities? She twined her fingers through his. “This proposal changes everything,” she said.

  “You know, I have fought gladiators with far fewer defensive moves and much less tenacity than you,” he said with a wink.

  “I doubt they were mothers,” she said.

  Baro drew in a deep breath and let it out in one long, sad sigh. “I doubt that they were. If you do not want to marry me, say so. Then we can be done with it.”

  “This is not just a simple marriage proposal between a man and woman. You are Rome’s champion. You live and train in a ludus. As much as I want you, I cannot allow my children to be raised there.”

  “I would never ask for such a thing. As a family, we will need a home of our own. Over the years I have saved a small fortune. If you will have me, I can move from the ludus and buy a villa for us all.”

  “And you will be a gladiator who does not live at the gladiator school.” Should she dare hope they could be together? “Would that be allowed?”

  “I have yet to talk to Paullus. I think it is time for me to retire, and though my contract has not been fulfilled, he can release me early.”

  She had been introduced to Paullus, Baro’s lanista, at the same party where she had met Baro four months prior. “For a lanista he came across as kind,” Fortunada said. After a moment, she added, “Maybe he is even compassionate. To be honest, I cannot imagine him, or any other lanista, allowing Rome’s champion to retire.”

  Baro said, “Paullus is a different sort. He has let other men go before their time in the ludus ended. He even let a champion who was a lifelong slave retire. You know of Valens Secundus? It was a highly publicized fight with me that set him free.”

  Although Rome was the center of the republic and boasted a population of nearly one million, in many ways it was little more than a small, remote village. Everyone was somehow connected to everyone else, and though Fortunada had exchanged only a few words with Valens Secundus, his life’s path had crossed hers many times.

  It was Valens’s sister who had complicated the life of Fortunada’s brother, Damian. She was the sole reason he now served with the legions in Germania. It was also because of Rome’s former champion that her best friend, the ever-kind Phaedra, had defied all sacredly held social conventions and elevated a former slave to a knight of the equestrian order, and only three months past had wed the man herself. Valens was also a highly esteemed friend of Baro’s. For some reason it was difficult for Fortunada to imagine Baro and Valens as comrades; Baro, ever quick with a smile and a laugh, was the exact opposite of the taciturn Valens.

  In fact, that brought up an interesting question. How much did Fortunada really know about Baro? After their initial meeting, she and Baro had planned a rendezvous for the next day. Fortunada had viewed their time together as a single morning of passion. Then he had asked if she would meet him again. And again. And again. Five weeks and four days later, Baro had stopped asking if she
would return and had begun to make plans for their mornings together. “I shall bring the wine you like,” he would say. Or, “The fruit seller promised a shipment of oranges next week. If they are sweet enough, I will buy a basket for you.”

  And as kind and attentive as Baro was, she anticipated the awful day when he would say to her, “I cannot meet with you on the morrow.” Or worse yet, when she would arrive at the inn and find herself utterly alone.

  And now, marriage? How had she gone from a temporary pleasure, certain to be cast off, to Baro’s choice for a wife?

  “Aside from the time you fought Valens Secundus at Phaedra’s wedding, when she married Marcus Servilia, I do not recall your ever facing each other,” she said, bringing her thoughts back to their conversation and the possibility of becoming Baro’s wife.

  “There was another fight, two years past,” Baro said. “It was billed as the titans of the arena meeting in battle. Paullus let Valens Secundus fight for his freedom. He and I battled in a fight the likes of which Rome has not seen since. In the end, Valens won, and he was given his freedom.”

  Did she recall? Two years ago, her daughter would have been a little over a year old and her son barely four annums. As an exhausted mother of two small children, still bereft at being abandoned by her former husband, Albinius, Fortunada would have paid little attention to the world beyond her own.

  But, yes, there was a flicker of memory. Baro had arrived in Rome four years prior. He had moved up through the ranks of gladiatorial combat before finally facing the Champion of Rome. Although Baro had been defeated, his career still rose to dazzling heights.

  “You are right, I do recall,” she said hesitantly. “Yet as you said, he won and you lost. How will this help us if your lanista pits you against a greater foe?”

  Baro lifted one eyebrow and regarded her for a moment too long. Fortunada bit her lip. Perhaps there should be a limit to their honesty.

  Before she could take back her question, Baro said, “I was asked to lose. My lanista wanted Valens to win. In exchange for my loss, Paullus named me champion—the best fighter at the ludus. It was a good first step on the way to becoming Rome’s champion.”