“Tell me,” he insisted.
She cleared her throat. “All yours, Kallias,” she breathed.
One hand stayed on her breast, teasing her nipple in a way that made her twitch and gasp. His other hand traveled lower, brushing the thatch of curls between her legs. She bit her lip.
“And this?” he murmured, just barely skimming his fingers over the place she throbbed and ached.
She pressed her hands even flatter against the wall, clinging to every thread of restraint to stop herself from grabbing his handand shoving it where she most needed his touch. “Definitely yours,” she managed.
He rewarded her with a luxurious stroke of her sex. “Soaked already,” he murmured with a dark chuckle in her ear. “And I’ve barely touched you.”
Her cheeks heated. She didn’t think this qualified as barely touching, but she kept her dissent to herself. She pressed her forehead against the wall, grateful she wasn’t facing him. It was embarrassing to have the evidence of her desire on full display, unable to hide her body’s primal need. From him, she could hide nothing, not even the most intimate functions of her body.
“Why are you so wet, Lea?” he asked.
Her nails dug into the whitewashed wall. “I’ve been wanting you all day,” she confessed, her voice high and needy.
This version of Kallias—greedy, covetous, wickedly imaginative—seemed to latch onto something within her. It drew her to him with the pull of sunlight to a spring blossom, coaxing her to open, to reveal all her secrets.
“I like the sound of that.” He stroked her again, his fingers becoming more purposeful. Her inner muscles clenched, and her hips flexed, offering more of herself to his touch. A moan slipped from her lips. He was going to make her come right here, wasn’t he? He’d just gotten here and she was already shuddering, gasping, on the brink.
He withdrew his hand, and the sudden loss of stimulation made her gasp. “Can I bind your wrists again?”
She nodded; at that moment, she likely would have granted him anything he wanted. He removed her hands from their position on the wall and bound them behind her.
“You came prepared,” she said, realizing he’d brought the same cord they’d used last time. “Some might say that was rather presumptuous.”
“I don’t think so,” he said as he wrapped the cord around her wrists in several passes, making it tight but not constricting. “I’m open to being proven wrong, but I don’t think there’s much you wouldn’t do for me, is there?”
His certainty of her near-complete surrender made her flush. He turned her around to face him and ran a finger over her heated cheek. “You look so beautiful when you’re blushing for me.”
That only made it worse, and now she couldn’t meet his eyes.
“Tell me what you want,” he said. “Do you want me to put you on your knees and make you come, like last time?”
The prospect of that shot a bolt of molten heat straight to her core. For a moment, she considered nodding. That would be very pleasurable indeed.
But this time, she wanted more. Of course, he’d make her say it. She debated trying to be coy, but she sensed he wouldn’t let her get away with that. She closed her eyes and steeled herself. “I want to take you inside me.” The words tumbled out in a rush.
She opened her eyes in time to catch the tense, hungry flicker of lust that moved across his face, darkening his eyes. But then he frowned, the desire replaced by pensive consideration. “Are you sure? The risks…”
“I have herbs. Jason gets them from a friend who works at a brothel.” In her prior liaisons with Hector, they’d been careful to take precautions. If she became pregnant, she’d be of no use to Lucullus, as a pregnant gladiator couldn’t train, couldn’t fight. He’d get rid of her, and she’d likely be thrust back into the same sort of slavery she’d grown up in, this time with a child to look after. She couldn’t afford to even consider the idea of becoming a mother until she secured her freedom.
“A friend,” Kallias said dubiously. “What’s in these herbs?”
She shrugged as well as she could manage with her wrists bound behind her back. “Don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” he repeated, scandalized. “You’re taking something and you don’t even know what it is?”
“They seem to work just fine,” she said defensively. “If anyone knows how to prevent pregnancy, I wager it’s a woman at a brothel.”
He scowled at her. “Let me see them.”
She sighed and gestured with her chin at her chest of drawers. “They’re in the top drawer, toward the back.” She hadn’t had occasion to use them since Hector’s death, but thankfully she hadn’t thrown them out.
He rummaged through her things, coming up with a small linen bag of dried and crushed herbs. He spilled some into his palm, examining the mixture and raising it to his nose to sniff.
“Well?” she asked. “Has it been poisonous this whole time?”
