She gave a low chuckle. “I thought you were smarter than that, medicus.”
16
Atthemoment,Kalliasfelt anything but intelligent. The sight of Lea—gloriously naked—rendered him dazed and stupid, turning his mind to mush. He had been imagining what she looked like under those hideous tunics ever since he saw her breasts pop out of her bindings the day he met her. Somehow, the reality was far better than anything his mind could conjure. His gaze swept over her muscled legs, her lean abdomen, up to her full breasts, tipped with rosy nipples that begged for his touch.
She settled herself into his lap, and he bit back a groan at the feel of her warm weight pressing against his rapidly swelling arousal. His hands skimmed along her hips, up her sides. He felt as if he couldn’t touch her too firmly, as if that would dissolve the illusion like a puff of smoke.
“I want you,” she murmured, then leaned forward to kiss his neck.
His eyes fluttered shut. Pleasure threatened to overwhelm him, but what remained of his mind wouldn’t let him fully abandon himself.
Something wasn’t right. Lea had gone from being tense and anxious to baring her body for him in the span of three breaths. Had she been planning this all along? Was that why she was nervous?
“You said you’d only kissed one man before,” he managed. “I suppose that means you’ve only bedded one too?”
She lifted her head from his neck, her gaze dark, eyes heavy-lidded. “Right.”
Something else occurred to him: another explanation for her tension. “This one man, was he good to you?” He wasn’t sure what her past had held, but assuming she’d been enslaved before being sold to the ludus, his own experience allowed him to guess at the sort of darkness she might have faced.
“Verygood,” she replied with a coy smile.
“Very good?” He raised an eyebrow. “Now I’m jealous. Should I be worried about an angry rival breaking down the door?”
“Only if you fear ghosts,” she said. “He’s been dead for two years. He was a friend. His name was Hector.”
“I’m sorry you lost him.” This man must have been a gladiator, he realized, which was to be expected. But knowing that Lea’s only prior experience had been with a man in peak physical condition, able to crush skulls and break ribs with a single punch…that would make anyone feel rather inadequate.
Then again, Lea lived surrounded by gladiators. If she wanted a man like that, she could take her pick.
Instead, she seemed to wanthim.
She rose to her feet and pulled him to standing. Then, she reached for the hem of his tunic and tugged it over his head. Her bare skin brushed his, dizzying him with the pleasure of it. Instinct took over. He took a step toward the bed, and she moved with him. He needed to feel her beneath him, needed to see her dark hair spread over the bed linens.
They tumbled together onto the bed. In the back of his barely functioning mind, he half-expected her to end up on top, as she’d done that night when she was intoxicated by the dreamfish.
But she seemed happy to find herself beneath him. Her hands clasped his shoulders. Her right hand was callused, and the patches of roughened skin rasped against him, sparking shivers. A marked contrast to the rest of her, which was softer than he’d ever imagined.
He slid a hand over one of her breasts. The feeling of fullness, the soft weight in his palm, made him ache. His thumb found her nipple, and she made a little squeak as he swiped over it.
He liked that noise, so he did it again, and she arched into his touch. “You like that,” he murmured, lust roughening his voice. He enjoyed this part of every new coupling—careful experimentation to uncover what they liked, what made them shudder and twitch, what they would beg for. “What else?”
A flush crept over her cheeks, spreading down to her collarbone. The skin on her face and lower limbs had been tanned to a golden glow, while the rest of her was several shades lighter—but not light enough to hide the assortment of silvery scars that dotted her body.
He tried not to wince when he noticed them. What a hard life she’d had. Suddenly, he wanted to take her far away from here, somewhere she’d never have to fight, never have to be hurt again.
But while he served the emperor, that was impossible.
He turned his mind away from her scars and back to the tempting body that bore them. “What else do you like?” he repeated, as she hadn’t answered his question.
She turned her head away, pressing her cheek into the linen. The display of shyness was unexpected, and it aroused him as firmly as any touch. She was usually so bold, so fearless; this was a side of her he bet very few people glimpsed.
“I don’t know,” she said, her voice breathy. “The normal things?”
He chuckled and ran his hand down her heated cheek, gently turning her face back to him. “What’s normal to you? Do you like to be on top?” It was an educated guess, based on the way she’d mounted him that night in his bed.
She gave a noncommittal shrug. “If that’s what you want.” Then she stretched her hands over his shoulders, fingers tracing down his spine in a way that made him shudder. “You don’t need to ask me all these questions,” she whispered in his ear. “We can just get on with it.”
His cock was certainly tempted, as it gave a demanding throb at her words. But he shook his head. “That’s not how I do this. I like to know things about the people I bed.”
