The man would see it soon, after all.
“Alba?” Again Lucius called, and the curtain twitched. I cast my eyes down, riveted their stare to the floor so that I did not have to see. Then I cleared my throat, trying to make room for the words to escape.
“I am ready.”
“Domina.” The shadow stretched, longer than the man could possibly be tall, on the floor where my eyes could see. It might have been childish, and I knew that he wore a mask, but I did not want to see him, not at all.
I nodded; I would have spoken, but what was there to say? I concentrated instead on the flicker of the light cast by the fat wax candles that had been set around the room. They were to offset the dark brought by the setting sun, but the manner in which they played off of the gold, the muted stones, and the heavily textured fabrics gave the area an entirely romantic feel.
The man cleared his throat, and I realized that possibly, just possibly, this was no easier for him than it was for me. Did he have a wife outside the ludus whom he remained loyal to? Not likely, but it was a possibility. Men in debt often signed their freedom over to a ludus for a period of five years, simply to earn money that they could use to pay their debts, or that they could choose to send home to their wife and children.
At least he had not mounted me the second that he had entered the room. For that I was thankful.
“Domina, how . . . how would you prefer this to be done?” I looked up then, startled by the uncertainty in the question.
Why did he care, so long as he rutted until his seed spilled? I was under no delusions that Lucius had instructed him to do more than not leave any marks.
But he stood across the room, and the shadow of a large urn fell over him. All I could see was skin, beautifully sculpted skin, and a face half covered by a mask sculpted in the visage of Mars, the god of war and male virility.
That skin gleamed like fresh honey in the low crimson-sunset light.
“I . . . I do not care.” I still did not have much hope of this encounter being anything that I would enjoy. The men below, the gladiators, were deprived of women for such long periods that it would be over quickly, and if the man got rough, then I would be only too glad for a brief encounter.
He stepped forward then, toward me, and even as my heart clenched in my chest, a wild hope sprang from my gut.
His hair was golden. I still could not see most of him, but his hair was the color of flax, just like Marcus, though in this light I could also see threads of copper and red.
I quashed the excitement as quickly as I could. What if it was not? We owned several fair-haired men. After my first encounter with Marcus, I had noticed them all, without making any effort to do so.
There was Marcus, and there was Caius, both considered potential champions. There was Animus, and there were two more whose names I did not know.
This man could be anyone.
The uncertainty of the entire situation made me sick to my stomach. Making a snap decision, I lowered myself from the chaise to the pile of cushions on the floor, and knelt on hands and knees.
“Take me from behind.” I moved so that he could see nothing of me but my ass. “I do not wish to see you.” Hard words, but I meant them. If I saw him, I would dream that he was Marcus and would be sick if he was not.
This way, I could at least pretend that he was, and while knowing all the time that it was not real, it might get me through the situation.
“As you wish.” I sensed the movement more than saw it, though I did catch a glimpse of undulating shadows out of the corner of my eye as he made his way across the room. He settled behind me, and I braced myself for a rude intrusion.
Instead I heard a soft intake of breath, as if the man was staring at something beautiful. Gentle fingers teased the hem of my tunic, testing the weight. I was so bewildered by the action that when the man moved to lift it up, above my waist and over my head, I let him, and in the blink of an eye I was bare to his stare.
I could have insisted that I put the tunic back on. But that slight touch had softened me. I was curious, curious about the warrior who would take the time to lightly remove such a delicate garment.
I shivered, slightly cold, as I waited to see what he would do next. Still half-expecting a brutally hard cock to be thrust between my unprepared legs, I felt a wave of goose pimples hump my skin when fingers brushed the tender skin behind my right knee.
“What are you doing?” The question sounded harsh, even to my ears, but I could not think through the wine and the confusion to temper the words.
“There is no need for this to be unpleasant for you.” My mouth fell open in surprise, then in pleasure as the hand trailed from behind my knee, tracing a seam up the back of my thigh and around to cup my hip.
I felt pleasure, just the slightest honey drip, begin to spill into my unease. Waiting for the next curiosity, I caught my breath, then huffed it out on the next touch of his fingers, dizzy from lack of oxygen.
He knelt behind me, but his skin did not press against mine. His left hand reached up to cover my naked hip, the one that was not being gently caressed, and a surge of something unidentifiable surged through me, mixing with the wine and causing me to become drunk.
It felt as when I had received my first kiss, from a young slave boy that had belonged to my family.
That boy had been brutally beaten for that very same kiss, and the memory had left a bitter taste that coated the memory still. But when that boy’s innocent lips had touched my own virgin ones, it had brought an intoxicating rush, one that faded a little bit with every kiss I had received thereafter.
This touch, this man’s hands on my hips, brought back the sensation. It also brought a feeling that this couldn’t possibly end well, but what say did I have in the matter?
I knelt, my joints stiff with tension, afraid and unsure. But the masked man did no more than knead the soft flesh at my hips, running his fingers gently back and forth, up and down.
It felt good. I could not deny that. It was arousing, arousing enough to chip away at my nerves. Those nerves left crevices that were slowly filled up with curiosity and, I think, desire. Soon I began to rock, just the tiniest bit, with the want of something more.
“Domina?” The word hung in the viscous air, melting away into the warmth of the summer evening. He was waiting for me to tell him what to do, what would be acceptable to me. What I wanted.
What I wanted was for him to just take control, but I was afraid to let go of the upper hand. What if the heat of passion turned him into the brute that I had been expecting?
So I told him to do the first thing that came into my mind.
“Use your fingers.” I thought that this might be a test of sorts. Perhaps I could judge how brutal he would be with his cock by how he played me with his fingers. Squeezing my eyes shut, I waited.
A gasp of delight slipped from my lips when one of his large, calloused hands migrated from my hip to splay, flat, over my belly. The tip of his smallest finger brushed through the shadowy curls between my legs, and suddenly my every muscle was tense, willing him to move his hand further downward.
The hard patches of his palm scraped my tender, perfumed skin as that hand slid slowly downward. I was so still, so tense that it hurt, and I could not understand how I had gone from apprehension to such anticipation with such a small touch.
Then those long, thick fingers began to comb through my newly damp curls, and I stopped wondering. Stopped thinking. A single finger moved further downward still, tracing the slit of my labia, gently massaging the fleshy petals there, and the tension in my flesh began to move, became a vibrating force.
“Is this what you want?” The words were whispered, low and deep, into the waves of shadowy hair that covered my neck. The individual strands waved gently with his breath, and caused the longer coils that hung over my breasts to tease the dark circles of
my nipples.
I did not answer, not with words, at least. It was exactly what I wanted, and yet it was not. I wanted more. But I only wanted it if I could be sure that he would not switch from this persona, a purveyor of sensual pleasure, to the heavy-handed brute that I feared.
I knew that Justinus was just on the other side of the curtain if that happened, but I was not entirely convinced that the man would come to my rescue, at least not right away.
But I was beginning to lose the capacity for rational thought. Though I did not answer his question with words, that single finger that teased my flesh pressed against the slit that divided my labia, gaining access to even more sensitive flesh. It swiped through the slickness that pooled there, moved back and forth, and then probed gently for that hard nub of my clitoris.
I exhaled when he found it. I knew that this was my last chance for rational thought. If I allowed him to touch me here, I would allow him to do as he wished with me. I would no longer have the presence of mind to stop things before they got ugly, if they did indeed get ugly.
It might have been stupid, it might have been irresponsible, but I wanted this. If my husband was going to force me to mate with a gladiator, then I wanted to enjoy what I could.
It seemed that this man had a respect for me, a respect for women, that I found highly arousing.
I wanted him.
With a low, guttural sound from the depths of my throat, I shifted myself backward and pressed into the figure that knelt behind me.
He let loose with a harsh noise of his own when the naked globes of my ass pressed into his lap. I had not been sure, since I had not laid eyes upon him, but he was as nude as I was, and I felt the hard length of a cock, the coarse brush of pubic hair against my skin.
I wriggled my hips, grinding down on his lap with feverish need. He tried to hold firm, but the finger that pressed against my clitoris shook, the rough edges of his nails scratching the bundle of nerves, and a small cry escaped my lips.
Before I could blink, impossibly large arms clasped me tightly around the waist and pulled until I was no longer on all fours but seated between thighs that could have been carved from marble by an artist. I wanted to protest the removal of those fingers from my clitoris, but they returned before I could even exhale.
I no longer remembered what my concerns had been. All I cared about was the hard body that held me tightly and, ridiculously, provided a sense of security, a safe place in which I could let go.
He was not as gentle as he had been with that first touch, beginning to touch me with the strong caresses that I expected from a gladiator. He did not circle around the perimeter of my clitoris, or trace it, or touch and tease. Instead he rubbed directly on the blood-filled area, rubbing rhythmically back and forth, creating a whirlpool of bliss that circled around, closing in on the epicenter.
I writhed in his lap, seeking a way to escape the insistent press of that finger. It was too much, too intense. I needed to retreat from it, but there was nowhere to go, not with the solid flesh that encircled me, and the impending orgasm that allowed me to focus on nothing else.
The whirlpool boiled over with a handful more of those hard, rhythmic rubs. I bit my lip, doing my best to stay quiet as I shook, but another small cry bit into the syrup of the air as a finger slid past my clitoris and right into my cunt before the tremors had ceased.
I pressed back against him, feeling the length of his cock move against my spine as I did. I still needed to escape—the sensation was too much to bear. But once again I was not permitted to go anywhere. I quivered through the overly sensitive, mind-numbing experience of yet more pleasure right after pleasure, and if Justinus had not been right outside the door, I might very well have screamed, as every nerve in my body was doing.
The lone finger in my cunt moved in and out, not slowly, not fast, but in a steady rhythm designed to again bring me to peak. I groaned, my voice thick, when he added another finger and crooked them several times in quick succession, deep inside of me.
Losing myself, I splayed my legs as far apart as they would go, urging him to drive his fingers deeper. His breath grew ragged, and the heat of it burned my cheek as he pumped his fist, the two fingers buried inside me, up and down, stretching them, crooking them, rubbing them against my tender inner walls.
The second quake was not a wave that drowned me like the first, but rather a slow melt that liquefied me from the inside out. My voice caught on one note, long and low, as I flooded into his hand, and I sprawled into his lap, a creature without bones, when the ebb ceased.
I could not speak. I had not experienced pleasure like this, ever. I had not been touched like this, ever, as if the only pleasure that mattered was my own. And yet it was not enough. Could not ever be enough.
It was impossible, but I wanted more. Just as soon as I could again move.
I lay for a long moment like that, boneless, softness melted overtop his hard heat. But soon his hands moved from my cunt to rub over the soft swells of my belly, up to play over my ribcage, and finally to cup the heavy globes that were my breasts.
“Domina?” I murmured a sleepy, very nearly contented sigh, even as I rocked my hips backward again, seeking friction.
“You know that we must . . . we must finish.” I stiffened a bit, for I had very nearly forgotten. The touch of this masked gladiator, this warrior, had wiped memory from mind, filling its empty spaces with ecstasy, but now that the orgasmic haze was receding, I could recall what had put this little scenario into play.
“Yes.” I lifted a shaking hand to brush the hair from my eyes. “Yes, I know.” I tried to sit up, but my spent limbs would not let me.
“Would you still prefer that I take you from behind?” I would have laughed at the absurdity of the question, but there was a note in his voice that stopped me. It was a note coated with . . . I didn’t know how to put it into words. But what it told me was that, given his way, we would remove our masks and make love face-to-face, eyes locked.
I could not allow that. No matter his gentleness as a lover, no matter that I was feeling warm toward him as well. This was still a forced fuck, ordered by my husband, and I still had feelings that confused me for another gladiator, for one of his brothers.
Why should we not enjoy ourselves, if we were to be forced into intimacy anyway? We were simply making the best of a difficult situation.
“Yes.” Untangling myself from his arms, though I had no illusion that I could do so if he did not permit it, I slid from my splayed leg position on his lap to my hands and knees on the floor, as I had presented myself to him earlier. “Yes. Take me from behind. And do not be gentle.”
As soon as the words were out of my mouth I regretted them. Though he had been considerate thus far, when his cock entered the equation he might not be, and I did not need to invite him to throw away any scruples that he might possess.
Again I was disconcerted by his movements. I felt him close the short distance between us, felt his heated skin press against my ass. But rather than grabbing his cock at the base and shoving it into my cunt—which, truth be told, I might have even enjoyed, for he had gotten me wetter than the Tiber—he took those delicious fingers and traced the crease that divided my behind.
When his fingers grazed over the pucker that lay between, I both tensed and shivered, but his fingers continued. When they again found my cleft, found me drenched and ready, he took his cock and pressed it against my opening.
I rocked impatiently. I had told him I did not want it gentle, had I not? Even if I had questioned myself moments afterward, he did not know that. And now I was being teased again, and I was beyond the point where I could enjoy it.
I wanted him to ride me, and I wanted it now.
And then I had the breath knocked out of me. In one hard thrust the head of his cock moved from the entrance of my cunt to the wall of my womb. I could not breathe, I was filled
so full, and I could then understand why he had been hesitant.
He was large enough that it hurt, just a bit, and my mind flashed to the same sensation, experienced with Marcus days earlier. But I shook it out of my brain, or had it shaken out for me, as one of those ridiculously muscled arms again clamped around my waist, the other digging fingers into my breast, and I was rocked back and forth on the hardness of his cock.
He did not pull all the way out before slamming in again, as I had been accustomed to in the past with my husband. Instead he moved only the smallest bit in and out, the girth of him stretching my insides, and the incredible friction caused pleasure to build again.
It was not rough. Nor was it gentle, though, the slow movements firm and forceful. My eyes rolled back in my head when the coarse thatch of hair that surrounded his cock brushed against my clitoris, again and again. Combined with his movements, deep inside of me, I again experienced that sweetest of quakes, short and hard and intense.
As my flesh spasmed around him, clutching and pulling at the silky skin of his cock, he groaned and thrust once, hard, into me. I gasped when he pulled me back as hard as he could against him, the jut of his hipbones digging into my flesh as he emptied himself inside of me.
And then we were still, both of us sweaty and spent.
The next moments were awkward. I felt the ridiculous urge to curl up into his side, to remove the masks and stare into his eyes. That was something I had never even done with my husband. Sex was for the purpose of begetting children, or release, and there was no point in remaining afterward.
I might have imagined it, but I thought that his hands lingered on my flesh when he pulled out of my body, leaving me empty. Again I felt the wild hope that he was Marcus, but combined with the hope was a desire for him to be no one but who he was.
And who he was, was a nameless, faceless gladiator who had possibly just made me pregnant.
The pleasure was quickly seeping away, and I was confused.
My Wicked Gladiators Page 5