I wouldn’t need it with you.His pulse leaped. He saw straight through her flimsy attempt to disguise her true meaning, and he wouldn’t let her get away with it. “We left room to renegotiate.” He combed his fingers slowly through her beautiful hair, continuing to draw the plaits loose.
“On the condition that you would seduce me. And no seduction has taken place.”
“I disagree.”
She turned toward him, dark eyebrows arched. “Oh?”
“You kissed me that day in the bath. It stands to reason that I must have seduced you somehow, even if I don’t quite understand how.”
“I see.” She met his gaze. “So because of one ill-considered kiss, you now believe you have earned the right to avail yourself of your husbandly privileges?”
He shook his head and removed his hands from her hair. “Not at all. I claim no rights over you. But I think there is room in our marriage to find some pleasure with each other. You were married before. You must remember the pleasures of the marriage bed.”
Her face twisted, and she barked a humorless laugh. “I know less than you might think of the marriage bed, but one thing I do know is there is no pleasure to be found there.”
He frowned. “What do you mean?”
She looked away, but he caught a trace of embarrassment in her face, a vulnerability he hadn’t expected. The pieces came together in his mind like repairing a shattered vase. “Was your husband cruel to you?”
She shook her head. “Never.” Her voice lowered, and she spoke so quietly he could barely hear her, as if each word was a struggle. “But he only came to me in the dark. It was quick. Unpleasant. I hardly even know what a man looks like.”
Anger tightened his chest at the thought of Crispina being treated as anything less than a goddess. “Not all cruelty is violent. Depriving one’s wife of affection and treating her only as a broodmare is cruel. Is that why you stipulated our marriage be chaste? You were afraid I would be like that with you?”
She shrugged. “What reason did I have to think otherwise?”
He knelt next to her chair. “If I could offer you something different…” He placed a tentative hand on her knee, ready to move it if he felt her tense. “Would you agree?”
She gazed down at him. He sensed her weighing things out in her astute mind. Would she trust him enough to explore this with him?
She shifted, and he thought she meant to move away from him, but instead she placed her hand on top of his. She spoke hesitantly. “I suppose…there are certain things I should like to learn. Purely from an educational perspective. There’s only so much books can teach, after all.”
His heart sped up, racing as it did after running laps at the gymnasium. “Such as?”
She glanced at him, then looked away, her brow wrinkling. “I…” She bit her lip. “I don’t think I can say it.”
“You’re going to have to.”
She chewed on her lip. He could sense her struggling between embarrassment and desire, the urge to retain her cool composure and the longing to let it melt.Trust me,he silently urged.
“I…” She cleared her throat and spoke in a small voice. “I would like to see you.”
His pulse spiked, his blood heating as molten desire unfurled inside him. “See me?”
“I told you, I hardly know what a man looks like.” She stared down at her knees, her cheeks reddening to that beautiful rosy hue. “I want to see…all of you.”
Her words cast his mind into chaos, but he managed to summon a careless grin. “You’re in luck, as I’m an excellent specimen.”
A hint of her usual haughtiness sparked in her gaze. “Perhaps I should be the judge of that.”
“Indeed.” He rose to his feet and tucked a hand into the neckline of his tunic. In one fluid motion, he stripped it off.
Chapter 15
Crispina stared as Aelius tossed his tunic to the ground. Her face burned, but she refused to allow herself to look away as she had when he was in the bath. She valued knowledge and learning, after all. This was just one more thing for her to learn about.
But it was impossible to maintain that academic mindset when confronted with Aelius’s lithe, golden-skinned body. Her mouth went dry as her eyes skimmed from his chest down his stomach to his hips…and lingered on his cock.
She had seen them before on statues, of course, but this one was much more intriguing. It was already swelling and she hadn’t even touched him yet. A wave of dizziness passed over her, and she realized she’d forgotten to breathe.
