“Maybe I’m feeling dangerous tonight.”
Later, in the intimate darkness of her room, our lovemaking carries a new, aching intensity. The heat of her body closing around me is overwhelming—stretching, claiming, burning with a connection I never thought I’d feel. Her body yields to mine with a pleasure that feels like everything I’ve ever dreamed of.
Every gasp and arch of her spine unravels restraints I’ve carried for centuries. It isn’t release I seek—it’s recognition. Her body welcoming mine, her sighs answering my hunger, her trust loosening chains I thought permanent.
I trace the curves of her body with reverent hands, memorizing the way she sighs when I kiss the sensitive spot behind her ear. She arches beneath me, generous with her responses, offering trust I know she doesn’t give lightly.
“You’re incredible,” she whispers against my throat,her breath hot on my skin.
But it’s the way she touches me afterward that undoes my careful emotional control—gentle fingers tracing scars that tell stories of survival, her attention focused entirely on giving comfort instead of taking pleasure.
We should separate now, maintain the boundaries she’s established. Instead, I find myself gathering her against my chest, unable to resist the intimacy of shared warmth and synchronized breathing.
“This feels like more than casual,” she murmurs into the darkness. Her muscles tighten briefly as if she’s surprised by her own honesty.
The admission hangs between us, dangerous territory neither of us should navigate. But honesty feels inevitable after tonight’s vulnerability.
“For me, it stopped being casual the first time you laughed at something I said.” The confession escapes before I can stop it. “I should leave. Maintain your rules.”
Her arms tighten around me. “Stay. Just… for tonight.”
So I stay, holding her as she drifts into sleep, listening to her breathing even out and trying not to think about how right this feels. How complete. And though I tell myself it will be just tonight, when dawn comes I know I’ll return to her again. I won’t be able to stay away.
Alone in my quarters the next morning, I don’t bother pretending anymore. I’m falling for her. Harder with every hour. Every smile, every unguarded word, every way she fights for her own strength pulls me deeper.
It’s too soon. She’s still building walls as fast as she’s tearing them down, reminding me this is temporary. She’s protecting herself from the very connection I can’t seem to stop wanting.
I tell myself to be patient. To honor what she asked of me. A man without discipline wouldn’t have survived the arena, and I will not fail her by demanding more than she’s ready to give.
But restraint doesn’t quiet the truth. One night in her arms has made every empty year echo sharper. The hunger is no longer for her body alone—it’s for mornings, laughter, arguments, silences. For the thousand small intimacies she doesn’t yet trust me with.
She asked for casual. I agreed. Yet with each stolen moment, each conversation, each touch, I know casual is the one thing I cannot be.
Outside my window, the sanctuary wakes—gladiators moving through drills, staff preparing for another day, life continuing as though mine hasn’t shifted on its axis. Tonight I’ll sing again, alone under the Missouri stars. And maybe if fortune is kind, she’ll find her way to the music.
Maybe someday she’ll be ready to want more.
Until then, I’ll wait. Patience kept me alive in the arena—surely it can keep me whole now.
What I cannot imagine is letting her slip away.
Chapter Fourteen
Nicole
Something’s wrong with me.
With two weeks left in the four-week program, I’m more confused than ever.
I catch myself checking my phone during Professor Muransky’s virtual lecture, hoping for a text that won’t come. Quintus doesn’t text—he’s more likely to appear at my door with coffee or show up to fix something I didn’t even know was broken.
But I’m looking anyway, and that’s the problem.
My heart races every time I spot him across the dining hall, shoulders tightening the way they used to when Scott walked into a room—except now it isn’t dread, it’s something more dangerous: want. I find excuses to walk past the stables where he’s been working on irrigation repairs. When he’s not around, I miss him with an intensity that feels dangerous and completely contrary to everything I came here to accomplish.
This isn’t what I wanted. These feelings—this growing need for his presence, his voice, his steady competence—are exactly what I was trying to avoid.
I came here forme. To find myself, build confidence, discover who I am when I’m not shrinking to fit someone else’s expectations. Not to lose myself in another relationship before I’ve even figured out who the hell I am as an independent person.
