Ancient Ties (6 page)

Venus set her sights upon the godly chest of Mars, upon his full lips. He could lead men into battle with an order from those lips and turn her limbs weak with his kiss.
Great Jupiter in the
heavens, but I wish he would stop arguing and make love with me
.

Before Venus willingly succumbed to the wonderfully strong, talented fingers of her lord Mars, she whispered into Marek’s ear, “This beautiful Janney Forrester, she is what you have been craving all these years. Love her…”

I want her. She’s mine.

Messages from the Gods sometimes come down garbled, but as long as the outcome is as they desire, the road traveled could be open to interpretation. Marek knew how to plot strategy and then to change tactics, if necessary.

He stretched out on his bed.

She’s beautiful, different. Interesting. Oh, Hades, who cares about
interesting? Her body is ripe and inviting in that tight clothing. No
surprises there. A man can see every curve she possesses. This strange
woman has been thrown my way by the Gods. Would the Gods bring a
woman from the future here to Aquae Sulis for me? Could they?

He’d kissed her. He never kissed women. It was too intimate. He had needed to kiss her. To protect her. To have her. A need that was as mystifying, as it was welcome. She’d looked so forlorn and vulnerable, hugging her knees to her chest.

He wanted to pull her into his arms and touch her all over. With his lips and hands. All over. Frowning, Marek punched the cushion under his head and rolled to his side.

Great Ares and Artemis, Janney Forrester is a fine woman.

He congratulated himself that he’d released whatever had bound her breasts. They had spilled free into his palms. He’d been close. So close. She was willing—more than willing.

Marek shifted restlessly. He knew he could summon one of the servant girls to relieve his frustration, but none of them had curly, yellow hair and deep blue eyes. None had a tiny nose and a sweet pointed chin.

Hades! Sweet?! What has she turned me into? She is only a
woman.

The taste of her, the feel of her under his hands—well, it had just been too long since he’d had a woman.

Marek rolled again, repositioning his head cushion.

Tomorrow.
He’d take her tomorrow—before she disappeared back into the future. The woman wouldn’t be able to resist him.

She was alone, frightened. She needed him.

She wanted him. That much was obvious. Her nipples, hard as gemstones, poked through the layers of her clothing. For a brief moment, he’d held the nub between his fingertips until she pulled away from him as if burned.

Sweat broke out above his lips. His palms tingled with the phantom feel of hard nipples centered in soft breasts. She had been quivering with desire. Yes, she’d wanted him. Pushing him away, then closing the door in his face, could not change that.

He should be in her room this minute. He’d seduced her too slowly and given her time to think. That was a bad tactic. He wouldn’t make that mistake again.

Marek stared wide-eyed into the dark confidently planning Janney’s seduction. His hand slid down the flat plane of his belly and into the coarse, black hair surrounding his phallus.

Gods.
He grunted as he grasped his hard penis, curved his fingers around the hot flesh. Marek thought of Janney’s hands clenched tightly in the material of his tunic. He sucked in a breath of air on a sharp hiss with the picture of that small white hand closing around him. His head lolled back, lips parted, back arched, letting the fantasy overtake him. Her delicate hand stroking him, playing with his soft sac. He brushed his own thumb over the head, imagining it was her fingers—that was all it took. Marek rolled to his side and with a loud, prolonged groan, ejaculated into the bed linens. When he could think rationally again, he prayed to the Gods that the next time he would be buried deep within her body.

Hades!

“Good Lord, it’s breathtaking.” Janney gaped around the confines of the courtyard of the temple and baths, lingering on the stunning temple itself. The Temple of Sulis Minerva. The Gorgon’s head. She lifted her eyes to the gable atop the temple and gripped Augusta’s arm making the woman look up, too.

Janney knew she wasn’t the only person seeing the wild-looking Celtic face, but she was pretty darn sure she was the only person here from the Twenty-first Century.

“It’s in the museum. I saw it, Augusta. It survived all those centuries.” Her reverence was palpable. “Was it just two days ago?” Janney rattled on. “I can’t believe I’m seeing it. He’s beautiful,” she whispered, suddenly sniffling, her emotions near the surface. There was so much to take in and all of it was lovely—miraculous. If this was a dream, she didn’t want it to end. Janney knew Augusta was very likely laughing at her, but she knew it wasn’t malicious.

Back at the villa, the two women had talked all morning, getting to know each other. Hoping the portal would open, Janney had tried the front door again with no luck.

Augusta seemed relieved. “Dear, I’m happy you’re still with us.” Then Augusta bundled her off to a table set up in the garden.

“I thought you’d enjoy eating out here since it’s such a beautiful morning, and there’s just the two of us. We’ll meet Gaius and Marek later at the baths.”

At the mention of Marek’s name, Janney’s heart skipped a beat.
Leave it to me to be trapped in another century with a man that
most women would have wild romantic fantasies about, and still not be
sure what I really want to happen
.

She’d felt sick to her stomach when she reached for the door handle this morning, but an unexplained calm of acceptance came over her when she realized she wasn’t going back to the Twenty-first Century. At least not yet.

“If this is a dream, I’m amazed that it’s so detailed. How could I know so much about this time in history to make all this up?”

“I’m not dreaming and I’m talking to you, so I’d say you’re really here.” Augusta passed her a piece of bread layered with honey.

Janney was still torn. How could this actually be happening?

It was impossible. Nevertheless, there she’d been; sitting in a lovely courtyard in an ancient Roman villa, surrounded by all the conveniences of ancient life, talking to a woman who had never driven a car, never voted in an election. Never made a phone call, never sent a fax, didn’t have a microwave. As crazy as it seemed, Janney realized there was no way to return home except to go through that doorway. She’d tried that. At what point should she just accept this and go forward? She didn’t know, but didn’t think she was at that point yet.

“Augusta, I’m scared. What if I can’t get back? What am I going to do here? I can’t stand in the doorway all day and night waiting for the portal to open.”

Augusta reached across the table and patted her arm.

“You’ll just have to check the doorway when you can, and then go on with your life.”

“But the people at home. They’ll be worried. They’ll think I’m dead or kidnapped. Oh God, my mother warned me something could happen.” Her mother was always worrying and warning Janney about something.

“Dear, I’m sorry for your mother, but there’s nothing more you can do for her right now. The Gods brought you to us for a reason, and you should open your heart and your mind to the new experience. You might be pleased at what may happen.”

Obviously, Augusta believed the same as Marek. Believed the gods had done this.

What Janney had no way of knowing was that Augusta welcomed the young woman’s appearance. She loved Marek as a son and had prayed to her Gods that he would be relieved of his painful memories. He had alternately moped and raged ever

since the battle. This woman interested him, the first to break through the barrier he’d erected around himself. Augusta wanted to see Marek whole and happy again. She didn’t want Janney Forrester to be hurt, but she was here. The Gods must have sent her for a purpose, a purpose that could benefit both of them.

Dragging her thoughts back to the present, to the center of the Gorgon’s courtyard, Janney took a deep breath. Except for the fact that she was in another century, she felt real. She felt pleasure and anxiety. Excitement.

Sexual excitement. Oh boy, did she ever feel that.

Could she just forget what was supposed to be and go with what was? Could she allow herself to experience this as it happened and not expect to control everything as she did in her classroom? To experience the baths as they were in Roman times? Her intellect advised her to appreciate the opportunity to be here.

Yeah, sure, keep telling yourself that you’re fascinated by the
history.

Her heart was in the most danger. The kisses last night got way out of hand. Now she’d see him again. Wracking her brain, she tried to remember if the Romans bathed naked.

Oh God, I think they do
.

While she’d been crawling all over him, he’d been aroused.

She’d felt his thick, ridged penis at her hip when he pulled her over to his lap. Janney licked her lips and glanced at Augusta.

For now, she’d put herself in this woman’s hands. What else could she do?

Janney raised her gaze to the temple’s pediment. The Gorgon’s wildly flowing mane of hair and mustache, his wide, surprised, and sad looking eyes were familiar.

“He’s the most well-known symbol of the baths. Anyone who’s ever visited them recognizes this carving,” Janney marveled in fascination. “Don’t you think it’s amazing that it lasted two thousand years?”

“Yes, it is.” Augusta appeared thoughtful. “That’s the way I feel when I see the ancient stones out near Marek’s villa.”

“Stones? What kind?”

“Tall, in a circle. Some sort of Druid religious site.”

“Stonehenge. Marek has a villa nearby?” She had to see it.

Her heart thumped excitedly. A feeling of an almost sexual-like ecstasy heated her from the inside out.

Stonehenge.

Janney forced her attention back to where she was right now. The baths.

One miracle at a time.

Augusta gently tugged Janney away from the Corinthian columns of the temple and across the limestone walk to the main altar in the center of the courtyard. “This is where the priest sacrifices animals, so he can foretell the future. See, his name is carved in the base of the statue.”

“I know. I saw it.” Janney stared, suddenly serious. “Look at the carving on the altar’s corners. They’re so clear and clean now, not worn down by time like when I…”

Janney fought to control her emotion, a sudden homesickness hitting her.

“Augusta,” she tried to keep her voice steady. “I saw a lot of this.” Janney closed her eyes, shook her head slightly. “They’re in fragments, but there were enough to piece together and get the idea of what it looked like.”

Janney caught Augusta’s gaze. She needed the other woman to anchor her. She could handle all these new experiences, but she needed to know that someone else knew who she really was and where she came from.

“Janney, let’s go inside and bathe. I’m sure you’ll be delighted to see the baths as they were originally intended. And we’ll meet my husband and Marek,” Augusta added in encouragement.

Janney nodded, then stopped, her gaze following Augusta’s retreating back. Janney bit the inside of her cheek. Was he in

there now? Walking around naked? Exercising? She sucked in a quick breath.

Whew! Now that would be a sight.

“Janney,” Augusta called. “Come on.”

People jostled her, passing on either side. All this was so strange and yet not. She’d read about the baths and had studied their layout. Now, incredibly, here was her chance to see them in their original state, because at any moment she could wake from this glorious dream and it would all be gone. This just couldn’t be happening in her real life.

Huh, real life?
Every time she tried to tell herself it was the history that fascinated her, the truth slammed into her. He fascinated her.

Augusta had to come back and tug Janney along. “Let’s go.

I’m looking forward to a massage. I imagine you are, too.”

“Okay, I’m coming.” Janney closed her eyes a moment and took a deep breath. Whatever was going on here, Augusta was her lifeline.

Just follow her, do what she does, learn how to live here in the
Second Century. You don’t have any other choice at the moment.

Following Augusta, Janney surveyed the covered walk as they entered the baths near the sacred spring. Augusta’s voice took on the soft cadence of a tour guide as they approached the three archways overlooking the dim, misty, hot mineral water.

Many people were already standing there throwing things in the pool. Augusta told her how the ancient spring had been covered with the vaulted roof only in the last few years. Waiting their turn at the arches, Janney could only gawk at the statues rising out of the pool like eerie specters in the swirling mist.

“I don’t have anything to offer the gods,” Janney whispered.

“You know about this?” It was Augusta’s turn to gaze wide-eyed at her.

Janney laughed out loud, shocking the people crowding around her. “I’m sorry,” Janney giggled, delighted that Augusta was struck speechless. “Yes, I do. Would you believe that things were found in the bottom of the pool? Coins, jewelry, and little

pieces of pewter with curses carved in them. Some of them were pretty funny. Something about a girlfriend or a napkin being stolen.”

“Girlfriend or napkin?” Augusta looked skeptical. “How can that be?”

“I don’t know.” Janney chuckled again. “I’m not sure we really know how to translate the Latin now. I mean, then. Oh Lord.” She looked helplessly at Augusta. “I don’t know…” Her words drifted off.

A question popped into her head; she’d been so rocked by all that had happened that it hadn’t occurred to her to wonder before. “How do we understand each other? I can’t speak Latin, and you don’t speak English.”