by Monica Burns
“You’re playing with fire, mea dulce .”
“No.” She shook her head and closed the distance between them. She curled her hand around his neck then pulled his head down and brushed her lips against his. “I know what I want. And I want you.”
He kissed her hard before his mouth trailed a hot path over her jaw and down the side of her neck. Deus , the man’s touch was all she’d imagined. She trembled in his arms in anticipation. The desire building inside her forced her hips forward to brush against his hard length beneath his tunic. Heat pooled between her legs. She drank in the rough, male smell of him. If this was what love felt like, what heights would her desire for him take her to?
The thought sent a shudder through her. It was still possible to lose him. He desired her, but could she make him love her? What if she failed? She refused to consider the possibility. She would win. She would have this man’s heart. There was no other option for her.
His hands skimmed up her arms to tug at the fragile material that was her gown. It gave way beneath his rough fingers until the bodice fell to reveal a breast. Ever so slowly, his
mouth caressed its way from her shoulder to the taut nipple. He suckled her for a delicious moment then eased his lips back up to her throat.
“Please, Maximus.”
“There will be no going back, mea dulce .”
“I have decided. You have no choice,” she whispered.
She was floating and she realized he was carrying her to one of the couches. By the gods, he was going to make her his right now. Her heart tightened with love and joy. Now he might feel only desire, but love could not be far behind. The soft pillows of the couch pressed against her back. With a gentleness that was at odds with his soldier’s hands, he pulled her gown up to her hips.
Heat spread its way across her thigh as his fingers undid the cloth concealing her core. A guttural noise rolled out of him as he exposed her to his eyes. His throat bobbed violently as he swallowed. Against her skin, she felt his fingers tremble. Amazement swept through her as her gaze met his. There was something else besides passion glowing there. It reassured her that she’d made the right decision to force his hand. His touch parted her, and she arched up against his fingers …
ROME, ITALY
PRESENT DAY
The buzzer on the alarm clock shattered the dream, and Phaedra groaned with
disappointment as she slapped the snooze button to eliminate the annoying sound. She desperately wanted to go back to sleep. It had been such a deliciously wicked dream. The only problem was her body ached for the man in her dreams. Lysander.
Damn, it had been more than a year since he’d brutally rejected her that night in the Order’s Genova medical center. Why was the man still haunting her dreams? She winced. She knew why. Just because he’d crushed her heart, it hadn’t stopped her from loving him. She was as big a fool as they came. Why couldn’t she get the man out of her heart and her head? The thought tugged a groan out of her. And these dreams. They made no sense at all. Why would she be dreaming about the first Sicari Lord and his wife, Cassiopeia?
For that matter, why did Maximus look like Lysander before the Praetorians tortured him? She rubbed sleep out of one eye with the heel of her palm. Whatever the dream was trying to tell her—and dreams always meant something—all she wanted was the man she’d fallen in love with more than a year ago. A sigh of resignation whispered out of her. Whatever those Praetorian bastardi had done to him, they’d destroyed that man. The man in that hospital bed hadn’t been the same man who’d made love to her.
Her thoughts drifted back to that horrible morning. Pain forced her eyes closed. Hearing those cruel words from him had been the most humiliating moment of her life. But worse was the pain that had come with it. She’d left the hospital numbed to anything but her desire to strike back. To make him hurt as bad as he’d hurt her.
And she’d worked hard to do that from the moment he came back to Chicago. Every chance she had, she flung her barbs at him as if they were darts. But he never acted as if any of her sharp jabs had hit their mark. That is until the night of Julian’s Rogalis, his memorial service. The moment she’d blamed Lysander for her friend’s death she’d wanted to take the words back. Her words had finally found their mark, and the anguish on Lysander’s face had twisted her insides in a way that said she had gone too far. Out in the small sitting room, the sound of the apartment door opening and closing with a loud bang echoed into the bedroom.
“Phae, you awake?”
She groaned. Cleo. Didn’t the woman ever sleep? Her friend had picked her up at the Order’s private hangar at Rome’s International Airport when she’d arrived late last night, and now she was up before her. She adjusted the spaghetti strap of her camisole nightshirt and slid out of bed. Her friend wasn’t about to let her sleep any longer. Not that she’d be able to. She was going to be on tenterhooks until she talked to Lysander and asked him why he’d summoned her to Rome. Even more importantly, she was going to do something she never did. Apologize.
She grimaced at the thought. Apologies meant she’d screwed up. And even if the words had been said in the height of her own grief and remorse, he’d not deserved the blame she’d laid at his feet. Clearing the air between them would make the difference between this assignment being tolerable or unbearable. The room’s cool air made her shiver, and she reached for her robe as she headed toward the sitting room. The sight of Cleo seated on the couch, chewing on a bagel, tugged a smile to her lips.
“Did you bring anything for me to eat?” Her question made the Sicari fighter turn her head to look at her, a grin on her lovely features.
“Absolutely.” Cleo pointed to a small plate of fruit and cheese. “All I could find in the fridge was some Romano. It’s a tad salty, but the fruit should take the bite out of it.”
Beautiful enough to be a cover model, her friend was tangible proof of their Roman heritage. Mysterious dark eyes, midnight black hair, and a smile that could charm even a Praetorian. But then Cleo was more interested in killing the Sicari’s sworn enemy than charming them. An opinion Phaedra held with even more vehemence than her friend did. The bastardi had stolen her childhood and hurt the man she loved. As far as she was concerned, the only good Praetorian was a dead one.
Phaedra curled up at the opposite end of the couch and reached for an apple. After a couple of bites, she leaned forward to take some Romano off the plate. The hard cheese
had a kick to it and was a little salty like Cleo had said. Still, the Italian cheese was one of her favorites, specifically for its sharp bite.
“So, what do you think this is all about?” Cleo sent her an arched look.
“What kind of question is that? We’re in Rome because Atia thinks the Tyet of Isis is here.”
“Mother has always thought the Tyet of Isis was here in Rome, and you know damn well that’s not what I’m talking about.” Her friend snorted. “For the past year Lysander’s been emphatic about not having you on any of his teams then suddenly, whoosh, you’re on his team here in Rome.”
“You’ll have to ask him that question.” She shrugged and took another bite of her apple.
The last thing she intended to do was let Cleo know how confused she was by this change in him. But had he really changed? When she looked back over the past year without anger fueling her perceptions, she was coming to realize he’d always had her back.
On the three occasions they’d actually served on the same reconnaissance team, his sword, not her partner’s, had always been the one to save her at the last second. Then there was the night Ares had run the gauntlet. Running through a corrider of armed Sicari warriors wasn’t supposed to be painless. The brutal punishment for breaking one of the major laws of the Order had almost killed her brother. For a healer to touch a survivor during the first twenty-four hours was a punishable offense as well. But breaking the rules ran in the family. After healing Ares’s internal injuries, she’d been weak as a kitten.
L
ysander had been the one to see she got back to her room. The man had actually carried her there. A moment that had delivered her into the Elysium Fields only to be pulled back into Tartarus far too quickly when he’d left her alone. And he’d not betrayed her to Atia, the Prima Consul. He’d kept her secret when the Order’s leader questioned them about the whole incident.
If he didn’t care about her, why would he do all that? Was it because he was Ares’s friend, or was there something more to his behavior than she realized. Deus, she really was a fool to think that. She suddenly realized Cleo had asked a question and was watching her like a hawk. She frowned as she met her friend’s intense gaze.
“What?”
“I asked if you were okay with all of this?”
Without even trying, she could easily read Cleo’s concern. While her healing ability was the strongest of her Sicari skills, Phaedra also had the ability to sense emotions in others. It was like emotional radar. Sometimes it gave her only a sense of someone’s intentions, while at other times she could read emotions buried deep beneath the surface.
Cleo wasn’t probing, she was just worrying about her as any friend would, and they’d been friends a long time. It had been Cleo’s mother, Atia, who had taken her and Ares in after the Praetorians had massacred their parents. The memory of those terrifying moments flashed in front of her eyes.
The priest’s closet her mother had pushed Ares and her into as she kissed them good-bye. The sound of her mother’s screams as she was being butchered. The peephole she’d peered through to see her mother’s murderer. The face of the Praetorian that had haunted her all these years. His cruel laughter as he’d reached out with his mind, trying to read their thoughts and discover their hiding place.
From the age of six, she’d learned how to shield her thoughts from Praetorians, but her skills and Ares’s hadn’t been fully developed then. The man had known it. He’d known it was simply a matter of time before he found them. The only thing that had saved them was another Praetorian ordering the murderer to leave.
“This whole thing really does have you shaken up, doesn’t it?” Her friend frowned with concern.
“It’s a job, Cleo. Nothing more.”
“If that’s true, then why do you keep zoning out on me?” Cleo said with a snort of disbelief.
“I’ve just got a lot on my mind.”
“Right. So what are you going to do about it?”
“Do about it?” She knew exactly what Cleo was referring to but refused to go there.
“You need to talk to him about it.”
“About Julian’s Rogalis?” She grimaced and dodged the true intent of Cleo’s remark.
“I’m not talking about that, and you know it.” Her friend glared at her. “I’m talking about that night in the warehouse.”
The statement immediately threw Phaedra back into the past, the pain of it sweeping through her like a wildfire. The sight of Lysander lying on that metal slab, his entire body reflecting a man on the edge of death. When she’d reached him, she’d expected him to be unconscious, but to see him alert and in agony had been devastating. Then when he’d refused the Curavi—she swept the memories aside.
“There’s nothing left to say.”
She recognized the hollow note in her voice. It represented that piece of her that was missing. Cleo was right. There was a lot more she wanted to say. But Lysander didn’t want to hear it, because he just didn’t care. Her heart contracted as she remembered his cruelty that night in the hospital.
“Oh, puhleeze.” Cleo released a soft snort of disgust. “I know you better than that. Both of you. That man didn’t refuse the Curavi for the hell of it. He was protecting you that night.”
The apple crunched as Phaedra bit into it. The sound reminded her how bruised and battered she’d felt the morning she’d left Lysander’s hospital room. The pain had eased, but the numbness was still there after all these months. A painful sign that she was still in love with him.
“Even if what you’re saying is true, he’s not willing to discuss what happened, and neither am I,” she said with a glare at her friend.
“Oh, really?” Cleo snapped.
“Yes, really. I don’t know what makes you think there’s more to this than what I’m telling you.”
“Well, let me think … oh, right, the two of you have been at each other’s throats since … since that night in Englewood. No wait—you’ve constantly eviscerated the man, while the dumb son of a bitch has just taken it without blinking.”
“We’ve always argued. You know that.”
“But it’s different now.”
“Different how?” She tried to sound nonchalant, but her friend narrowed her beautiful eyes at her.
“There’s something under the surface of it all. It’s not something I can put into words.” Cleo’s perceptive observation made her cold with panic.
“The reason you can’t put it into words is that there is nothing different.”
“That’s bullshit,” Cleo snapped as she sent her a dark glare. “Ever since that night at Julian’s Rogalis, it’s been like watching two wildcats snarling their way through some sort of mating ritual.”
“You’ve got one hell of an imagination,” she bit out through clenched teeth. The analogy had only served to increase her anxiety level. If Cleo saw it, did Lysander? “Now if you don’t mind, I need to shower then check in with the Primus Pilus.”
“Va bene,” Cleo said with a stubborn grimace as she stood up. “But I’m right about all of this, and you know it.”
“I’ll just leave you to your delusions,” she lied as she glared upward at her friend.
“Christus, you’re as stubborn as Lysander. I’m betting the minute the two of you have it out with each other you’re going to be in bed together faster than someone can say fotte.” Speechless, Phaedra watched Cleo smile with satisfaction. “Interesting. Phaedra DeLuca doesn’t have a comeback for a change.
“I don’t have a comeback because you sound like a lunatic.”
“Not really. In case you haven’t noticed, whenever the man thinks no one’s watching him, he can’t take his eyes off of you.” Cleo arched her eyebrows and popped another grape into her mouth.
Phaedra froze at the other woman’s statement, her heart skipping a beat. Was it possible Cleo was right? But if he cared, why didn’t he do something about it? Why would he have shut her out the way he had? It didn’t make sense.
“Have you thought about seducing the man?” Cleo’s voice filtered through her thoughts.
“What?” She gaped at her friend’s mischievous expression. Appalled at the direction of the conversation, she shook her head vehemently. ” No. Absolutely not.”
“Not willing to risk failure, eh?”
Riled by the comment, she clamped her jaw shut before she said something else she’d regret. The notion of seducing Lysander was far too tempting a thought—not to mention a hopeless one. The fact was she wasn’t willing to risk failure. Failure would mean an even greater heartache than she was experiencing now. She shook her head.
“I’m not going to let you provoke me into doing something stupid. So drop the subject.”
Clearly disappointed, Cleo grimaced as the small desk clock chimed the hour, and she immediately sprang to her feet. “Crap, I’ve got to run. Ciao, bambola.”
With that final parting shot, her friend was gone, leaving her in a state of confusion. Left alone, Phaedra stared at her surroundings with a sense of fear. Could she do what Cassiopeia had done in her dreams? What would happen if she tried to seduce Lysander as Cleo had suggested. Did she have the courage to even try? She blew out an angry sigh of disgust.
She was crazy. No, Cleo was crazy. Falling into bed with Lysander was something she did only in her dreams now. Dreams where he was Maximus and he loved her. But that’s all they were, just dreams.