“For me.” He shot her a loaded glower. “You saw the way they were looking at me.”
Velia rolled her eyes. “Please. You were probably the best-looking man they’ve seen all week. All month, even.”
His mouth twisted. “They wouldn’t have looked twice at me if I wasn’t a famous gladiator.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she scoffed.
He gave her an unconvinced grunt.
Was he really so dense he didn’t see his own appeal? Clearly, he needed her to enlighten him, so she embarked on a list of all his assets. “Gladiator or no, you’d turn any woman’s head. You have a jaw that could cut marble. You’ve got that dark, brooding lookabout you that women can’t resist. And your shoulders—gods, your shoulders are just the sort of thing a woman could imagine throwing her legs over as she’s getting—”
“Velia!” he spluttered, jerking to a halt. Now he really looked scandalized. “You shouldn’t say such things.”
Velia opened her mouth to issue a nonchalant reply, but someone bumped her shoulder from behind as they passed too close in the narrow street. Instinctively, her hand went to her coin pouch, which held the money left over from the transaction at the brothel.
But the stranger’s hand was heading there too, and she felt his fingers close around the leather pouch. Without thinking, she shoved the stranger as hard as she could. “Get off me!”
He didn’t relinquish his grip, but before she could do anything further, Ferox’s fist smashed into the man’s face. The thief dropped like a stone, limp fingers releasing the coin pouch.
Velia stumbled back, heart pounding. The handful of other people on the street stopped and stared.
Moving with the brusque efficiency she now recognized, Ferox seized the back of the unconscious thief’s tunic in one hand and hauled him out of the middle of the street, dumping him against the wall of the nearest building. He moved the man as easily as one might drag a stool.
Someone on the street lifted a hand and pointed at him, crying out his name. Murmurs of excitement ran through the onlookers.
“Piss off,” Ferox growled. He grabbed Velia by the arm, hustling her into the concealment of a nearby alley, away from interested eyes. No one dared follow them.
“Did he hurt you?” Ferox demanded. His hands moved up and down her arms as if checking for invisible injuries.
Velia shook her head. It had all happened so fast, but the thief had barely touched her before Ferox dispatched him. “Did you kill him?” Her voice trembled, though she strove to steady it.
“No.” His hands tightened on her shoulders. “You’re sure you’re all right?”
She nodded. Her pounding heart had slowed, resuming a more moderate rhythm. Now that the danger was past, she could appreciate the close way he was holding her. His frame filled nearly her entire field of vision, blocking out the dingy, shadowed alley.
His grip loosened, as if he was about to release her, but she wasn’t ready to relinquish his touch just yet. “I-I do feel a bit unsteady,” she said hastily.
He curled one arm around her waist, drawing her close enough that her breasts brushed his chest. “Are you going to faint?”
“No,” she breathed, leaning into his hold. “Just give me a moment.”To enjoy this while it lasts.
He gazed down at her, his dark eyes still assessing her warily, as if he expected an injury to blossom out of nowhere. “This was my fault.” His voice lowered to a reproachful rasp. “I’m sorry, Velia. I was distracted. I should have taken better care with your safety.”
“Nothing happened,” she murmured. “He didn’t harm me. He didn’t even take my money.”
“He should never have gotten within an arm’s length of you,” Ferox insisted. “He never should have touched you.”
Ferox’s protectiveness lit a strange, warm fire within her. Never before had anyone deemed her worthy of being protected. Evenher uncle, who respected her and made sure others did the same, treated her strictly as an associate, someone there to do a job.
But Ferox’s fierce defensiveness made her feel cherished. It was a heady, unsettling sensation. One she wanted to savor for as long as she could.
She shifted closer to him, and his arm around her waist tightened with the movement. His other arm slid over her back, fingers running up her spine.
“You did nothing wrong.” She pitched her voice low, so he had to bow his head closer to hear her.
Close enough that, with a slight rise onto her tiptoes, it was all too easy to stretch up and press her lips to his.
In the back of her mind, she expected him to rear back in surprise, to break the kiss. But he didn’t.
