Volusia finished her last bite of bread and washed it down with a swig from the wineskin. She turned her head to meet his gaze, catching him in the act of scrutinizing her. He glanced away, embarrassed, but her finger caught his chin, turning his face back toward her.
She leaned over and brushed her lips against his. Desire sparked instantly at her touch. He slid a hand to cradle the back of her head, pressing their faces closer. Her mouth opened for him, and his tongue delved inside to meet hers.
He eased himself backward to lie on the hard ground, bringing her over him. He didn’t want her to be uncomfortable on the uneven ground. Indeed, a twig immediately dug into his back, but he didn’t care.
“You want me like this?” she whispered as she rubbed herself over his already aching cock.
He groaned. His hands closed around her hips, pressing her even tighter against him. “I want you every way I can have you.”
Their hands grasped at each other’s clothes, tugging and bunching and shifting, and a few gasping breaths later, she sank down onto him. He closed his eyes in bliss as her tight warmth enveloped him. His hips angled upward, finding a deeper seat inside her. She braced her hands on his chest and wiggled her hips to settle herself more fully onto him. The movement made him gasp. She grinned and did it again, then struck up a gentle, rolling motion of her hips.
Max reached up to caress her breasts. She was still wearing her dress, bunched around her thighs. He tugged it off her shoulders, needing to see the play of firelight over all of her. The dress slid down easily, as the tavern-keeper’s wife had been stockier than Volusia, and soon her breasts were bare. The dancing shadows from the fire made her look otherworldly, like a forest nymph taking her pleasure from an unsuspecting traveler.
He tried to keep his wits about him as his lust mounted. She wasn’t a forest nymph; she was Volusia, and she’d made it clear she didn’t want to risk any consequences from their coupling. He grasped her hips to slow her movements, and slid a hand between her legs, where their bodies joined. She arched her back, pressing into his hand, as he rubbed the spot that gave her pleasure.
Doing this while he was inside her was novel and thrilling. He could feel every twitch and stir of her body, the tiny shocks and quivers that grew stronger as her climax approached. When she finally gave herself over to the tide of pleasure, the clenches of her body around him almost undid him, but he rode it out with her. He drank in the sight of her body bowing and shuddering on top of him, the sound of her gasping cries in the empty forest.
When it finally left her, he gathered her to his chest, their bodies still connected. She was warm and limp and breathless.
“Don’t stop,” she whispered. She kissed his neck, drawing a groan from his lips.
He renewed his grip on her hips, his fingers digging into her plush bottom. He thrust upward into her in short, hard strokes. She moaned in his ear, her voice husky and rough.
When the pleasure became too great to withstand, he pulled her off of him, his hand replacing the clasp of her body. Exhilarating spasms wracked him, and he exploded over his stomach.
Volusia curled up against his side, heedless of the twigs and leaves that must be beneath her, and stroked his chest. He turned his head to kiss her, his mind fuzzy and reeling. He’d known pleasure with a woman before, and had picked up some useful tricks from past encounters that Volusia seemed to appreciate. But those encounters seemed the barest shadow compared to what he felt with Volusia. She was everything he could ever want, but he knew their time together was running out.
They made good time on the rest of their journey. Volusia enjoyed traveling with Max more than she had any right to, especially under their fraught circumstances. He was easygoing and confident, always ready with an amusing anecdote to take her mind off her worries.
As they proceeded south down the Italian coast, farms and villages appeared with more frequency, and they had a better chance of spending the night at an inn or in a kind farmer’s barn as opposed to camping by the road. Max asked anyone they encountered if a band of soldiers had passed through recently. At first, the answers indicated Glabrio and his men were four days ahead of them. As the days passed, the time decreased to three days, then two. Max and Volusia could make better time on their horses than the soldiers could, burdened with more supplies. Even so, there was no way they’d beat Glabrio to Rome.
“I think we’ll reach the city gates by midday tomorrow,” Max said as they sat in a hayloft. They’d paid a farmer for a meal and the use of his barn for the evening, and their horses were munching happily on hay in an empty stall below. It smelled of manure, but the shelter was welcome.
Anticipation swelled within Volusia, tempered by a guilty reluctance to part from Max. “That’s good.”
“I’ll take you to your parents’ house first. Then I’ll go to mine.” He toyed with a stray piece of hay. “What are you going to do about Petronax?”
Volusia had spent much of their journey strategizing how to approach the matter, and she had the rough outline of a plan. “I will convince my stepfather to take my evidence before the consuls. He has influence, as a former consul. They’ll have to take him seriously.” The outlandish accusations of a grief-stricken widow would be too easy to dismiss. She needed her stepfather’s voice, and she knew Rufus would be outraged at the danger she’d faced. “Your testimony will be useful as well.”
He nodded. “I’ll do whatever you need. And if you’re successful in bringing Petronax to justice? What then?”
“Of course I will do everything in my power to reinstate you in the army. You could get back everything you’ve lost.”
His gaze remained on the piece of hay he was twirling between his fingers. “And what of yourself?”
She swallowed hard. Talking of the future was more difficult than it should be. “I don’t know,” she said quietly. “I only know I’ll do whatever I must to secure Lucius’s future. Avitus wanted our son to follow in his footsteps. I’ll make sure he carries on his father’s legacy. I owe it to Avitus.”
At that, Max glanced up, his eyes narrowing. “You don’t owe anything to him.”
“Of course I do,” Volusia said, surprised at his gruff tone. “He was my husband, and the father of my child.”
“He wasn’t a good husband to you.” Max snapped the strand of hay, crushing it in his grip.
“He never mistreated me.”
“Just because he didn’t beat you doesn’t make him a good husband,” Max said. “He didn’t love you. You said as much yourself.”
“He was honest with me from the start.” Volusia’s chest tightened. She didn’t know where this argument had come from. There hadn’t been so much as a sharp word between them this whole time, and now they were arguing about her dead husband, of all things?
