When his hand skims down my stomach to the waistband of my jeans, I tense involuntarily.
“Okay?” he asks, pausing immediately.
“Yes,” I manage. “Just… it’s been a while since someone…”
Since someone cared about my permission or my pleasure, I don’t finish. But his expression tells me he understands.
“We have time.” He presses a soft kiss to my lips. “All the time you need.”
The gentle reassurance breaks down another wall I didn’t know I was clinging to. When he resumes his exploration, helping me out of my remaining clothes with careful attention to my comfort, I let myself sink into the sensation instead of worrying he’ll become impatient.
There is no impatience. Only focused attention that makes me feel like the center of his universe.
His responses to my touch are intoxicating—the way his breath catches when I find a sensitive spot, how his muscles tense under my exploring hands, the soft sounds he makes when I press kisses to his throat.
But when he settles between my thighs, positioning his face near my sex, I tense again.
“I don’t need—” I start, then stop.
“What don’t you need?” he asks gently.
“You don’t have to… Scott never…”
Understanding flashes in his eyes, followed by something that looks like anger—notatme, butforme. Of course, Scott didn’t. Selfish lovers focus on their own pleasure, treating their partners like convenient receptacles rather than people deserving worship.
“Iwantto,” Quintus tells me, meeting my eyes so I can see the truth. “Very much. Will you let me?”
The question hangs in the air between us, loaded with a possibility I’ve never allowed myself to imagine. Scott made it clear early in our marriage that such intimacies were unnecessary, messy, and not worth his time.
But Quintus looks at me like tasting me would be a privilege, not a chore.
“Yes,” I whisper.
The first touch of his tongue makes me cry out, back arching off the bed. I’ve never felt anything like this—the focused attention, the patient exploration, the building desire that has nowhere to go but up. He hums against me, and the vibration lights every nerve like a fuse.
He learns my responses with the same careful attention he gave to fixing my window, adjusting pressure and rhythm based on what makes me gasp, what makes me clutch the sheets, what makes me grind my hips. Every movement is deliberate, designed to drive me higher.
“Please,” I hear myself saying as my heels scrabble against the sheets. Though I’m begging, I’m not sure what I’m asking for.
He seems to know, maintaining steady pressure and rhythm, focused entirely on my need. My first climax takes me by surprise, my whole body going taut before I cry out, fingers tangled in his hair.
But he doesn’t stop. Perhaps he knows my body is capable of more, and he seems determined to show me what I cando when someone pays proper attention. The second orgasm builds more slowly, and he coaxes me through it with patient devotion until I’m sobbing his name, overwhelmed by sensation. I shake apart, pleasure rolling through me in waves until I’m boneless and breathless.
I’ve never felt anything remotely like this. My body is singing, every nerve ending alive and electric, and I can’t seem to stop the tears leaking from the corners of my eyes.
“I didn’t know,” I gasp when I can finally speak. “I didn’t know it could feel like that.”
He moves up my body slowly, pressing gentle kisses to my skin as he goes. When he settles beside me, gathering me against his chest, I feel cherished in a way that’s completely foreign.
“You deserve to feel good,” he says simply, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
The words hit me harder than they should. How many years did I spend believing I didn’t deserve to feel good, that my body existed for someone else’s convenience?
“I want you,” I tell him, surprising myself with the boldness. “All of you.”
“Then open for me,” he rasps, shifting his hips. “And feel what it’s like to be filled by a gladiator who has carried two thousand years to this moment.”
He settles over me carefully, supporting his weight on his forearms so he doesn’t overwhelm my smaller frame. The lamplight catches the silver in his hair and the intensity in his storm-gray eyes as he positions himself at my entrance.
