My Spartan Hellion (7 page)

She could try to run again, but she quickly abandoned that thought. As tight as his hold was on her, she would only manage one step this time, at the most. Lamia resigned herself to her fate. She’d survived Atallus only to die out here by the hands of the man she’d thought had saved her—

Thanos ripped her
peplos
down the middle to throw the tattered remnants to the ground—her first clue that maybe he was not going to kill her as she’d assumed. By the time he’d secured her wrists and ankles with the rope, Lamia was too shocked to do anything but stare at him, mouth agape. She’d been expecting to die, but he didn’t seem intent upon using the rope to hang her at all. When he was satisfied her restraints were secure, he gently lowered her to the ground onto her knees, her hands behind her back.

Her face flushed with embarrassment as his gaze leisurely roamed over her nude body, now openly displayed before him. With her hands tied as they were, her breasts jutted forth, the large, brown nipples standing to attention.

His eyes fixated on her breasts and he began to stroke his cock through his leather
pteryges
. Had it been any other man, the entire display would have been perverse and lewd. That it wasn’t—that she experienced the hot press of desire and not revulsion—caused her cheeks to burn with heat. She lowered her gaze to the ground, mortified that, when it came to Thanos, she knew no shame.

“Look at me,” he commanded, his voice ragged.

Her gaze snapped to his face.

Hunger
. Hunger and longing scorched in his hooded gaze, and her heart stuttered in her chest at the intensity she glimpsed in those blue depths, along with the same desperate need clawing inside her own body.

“Do you want to know why I am not yet wed, Lamia?”

She shook her head. Truly, she did not want to know at all. She had a feeling that his revelation did not bode well for her. And yet she was curious…

He moved closer, his eyes never leaving her as he undid the laces of his
pteryges
, his fingers unhurried.

“I like a woman with spirit, a fire in her. A woman who is my equal in every way…
except
in our bedchamber.” His last words came out as little more than a hoarse whisper, but she’d heard them quite clearly, and her eyes grew wide when the meaning of them began to sink in.

“Do you understand what I am saying, Lamia?”

She nodded stiffly, wary of what he would say next, what other intimate details he would reveal.

Slowly he removed his long, thick cock from the confines of his
pteryges
, the mushroom head already glistening with a tiny pearl of liquid arousal.

“And do you know why I wish to wed you, Lamia?” he asked thickly as he began to stroke his hand up and down, pumping his ruddy flesh.

She fixated on his engorged length, the purplish head, the blue veins running along his swelling shaft. Her cunt began to throb with her need to seize his hard length within her channel and wring him of every last drop of seed he possessed.

He stepped closer to slip one finger beneath her chin, forcing her hungry gaze from his cock to his face. He smiled knowingly, and her face grew hotter at the look in his eyes. That was when she remembered he’d asked her a question, and she’d failed to answer. He knew. He knew she wanted him, desired him, longed for him as she’d longed for no other. No matter how much she tried to deny him with her lips, he knew her body ached for him.

A denial hovered on her lips but she was powerless to speak it, just as she was powerless to answer the question that still lingered between them as lust and desire hammered inside her, making every breath an arduous one. Yet, even if she physically could form a response, Lamia decided only Thanos was the one who could truly furnish such an answer. For only
he
knew why he wished to wed
her.

“I desire to wed you, Lamia, because I believe you to be that woman,” Thanos said gently.

That woman?
A woman who is my equal in every way…except in our bedchamber.
Submit to a man in bed when she’d never submitted to a man in anything before? She shook her head. Thanos was wrong about her.

“Thanos, I… I do not think—”

“Shhh,
agapetos
. Words are not necessary, for your body shall soon reveal the truth.”

With his finger still beneath her chin, he shifted his hips, bringing his cock closer until the very tip of him was poised at the entrance of her mouth.

“Suck it,” he commanded softly.

Her gaze climbed his body until their eyes met.

She battled against Thanos’ command, wanting a taste of him but afraid to give in to him, knowing he would think she enjoyed his dominance over her when she did not.

He repeated his command and this time she opened her mouth at the same instant Thanos slid his hard shaft between her lips. She told herself that just because she’d obeyed him did not mean she was of a submissive nature—she was simply driven by her desires, nothing more.

He groaned, the harsh, ragged sound vibrating through her as his hand gripped the back of her head, tangling in the coiled locks of her hair.

She wrapped her lips securely around him and sucked hard, taking him deep into her mouth, letting the tip graze against the back of her throat. Her gaze never left his face. Back and forth, she bobbed her head, working her mouth furiously at sucking him.

White hot lashes of pleasure whipped across her skin at the feel of his iron-hard length beneath silken flesh powering between her lips. She wanted to feel ashamed. She was naked and bound on her knees before a man she barely knew, allowing him to do things to her she’d never allowed a man to do before. Thanos’ words haunted her in that moment and she worried he’d spoken the truth. Was she a woman who enjoyed a man’s dominance? She’d never considered it before. But then she’d never met a man such as Thanos, who had the ability to bring her to the brink of arousal with just one look, a single caress, a softly spoken word against her heated skin.

She moaned around his thrusting length at the thought of Thanos coaxing carnal responses from her body, introducing her to the ways of lovemaking, then branding her, claiming her as his own.

Thanos. His…

Belonging to him and only him.

Her heart contracted, the very thought slicing her open and leaving her raw and vulnerable, but in its wake came a desperate longing to belong to someone, to have him belong to
her.
The ache, the need—it settled in her breast, and lent a passionate fervour to her wet strokes up and down his cock that had not been there before.

“Fuck, Lamia,” Thanos groaned as he cupped her head with both hands, his fingers digging into her scalp, to tunnel his cock deeper.

She swirled her tongue around the thick base of his length before she shifted back to run it across the slit in the centre of the head, lapping eagerly at the droplets of seed gathered there. The metallic taste of him exploded on her tongue—salt and desire—and she closed her eyes, wanting to savour his unique flavour. She wanted to experience all of him—his taste, his touch, his smell. Lamia inhaled deeply, trapping the scent of leather and sweat—the scent of Thanos—within her lungs.

Opening her eyes, she let his cock slip from her stretched mouth to flick her tongue around the crown before dipping under the sensitive fold of skin.

“Lamia,” he grunted her name, the feral sound slipping past clenched teeth, and she knew his release was imminent as he began to tremble. With his hands still desperately clutching her head, his eyelids drifted shut and his head rolled back on his shoulders, the pulsing blue veins in his neck bulging beneath sun-bronzed skin.

She hummed against his pounding, hot shaft, letting the vibrations slide over him, forcing a violent shudder to rock his entire body. Already treading thin, his control disappeared with a blinding rush as he pumped his hips and held her head firmly, feeding her more and more of his cock. She strained to take him deeper, struggling with the girth and length of him.

“Wider,
agapetos.
Open your mouth wider and take it deeper,” he begged. “Take me down your throat.”

The hoarse plea trembling out of him spurred her. Flicking her tongue back and forth over the head of his cock, she descended upon his shaft on a single swallow and sucked furiously, taking him further and further until her throat quivered along the tip of his shaft.

Thanos’ hips thrust back and forth, his cock surging inside her mouth and Lamia relaxed her jaw as his fingers stiffened in her hair and every muscle in his body tensed. A loud roar erupted from his lips at the same time that hot spurts of his seed shot into her mouth.

She swallowed his warm essence down her throat until Thanos wrenched his cock from her mouth and, with his hand curled tightly around his still spewing shaft, pumped hard and fast, spraying the last of his release across her breasts.

She gasped when hot droplets trickled down her chest to drip from the pebbled peaks of her nipples.

Thanos pumped his cock until it grew soft. Finally spent, he slipped to his knees, his breath coming in short pants. With shaky hands, he untied her restraints.

His hands trembled as he redid his clothing and, when he had finally regained himself fully, he stumbled to his feet and walked to his horse, returning with a small bundle. When he unrolled it she saw that it was a strip of cloth and a clean
chlamys
. With surprisingly gentle hands, he cleansed his seed from her body with the fresh cloth, and, when he was done, he draped her in the thin woollen
chlamys
, before securing it at her waist with the same twine of rope that had bound her only moments ago.

Tugging her to her feet, he helped her on to Zeus, but this time he did not ride with her.

A tense silence hung between them as he mounted the other horse. Lamia emitted a soft, short sigh as she settled against Zeus, staring out over the large expanse of land she now had to cover
again
.

Her gaze slipped to Thanos, who sat astride his mount with his jaw tight, his mouth set in a firm line. In that moment, he was Thanos, the disciplined Spartan soldier, and not Thanos, the man who’d just lost control and found pleasure within her mouth and across her breasts. A tiny smile tugged at the corners of her lips. She decided then that she liked Thanos the man better.

As they rode, she cast furtive glances in his direction, wondering what thoughts brewed in his head. But when she realised what she was doing, she shook her head sharply. It was foolish to care what he was thinking, because it would only lead her to care for him. And she didn’t want to care for Thanos. She only cared about plotting to escape him when the next opportunity presented itself. Despite her failed attempt, her plans had not changed—she would return to Athens to make Atallus pay for what he’d done.

Revenge—that was the only thing she seemed to care about these dawns and she could not—she
would
not—let anyone or anything distract her from her larger purpose, not even Thanos…
especially
not Thanos.

Chapter Six

Thanos clenched the reins in his hands so tightly that his knuckles turned white. Loosening his grip, he dragged in a long breath, struggling to ease the tension that invaded his body. He hadn’t intended to lose control. He’d set out to punish Lamia, but that had been his only intent. Yet, when he had stroked the full mounds of her rounded backside, lust had seized control of his mind and body, and he’d been powerless to stop what came after.

He felt her eyes burning holes into his back, and he longed to turn around and reassure her—to say
anything
—but he could not look at Lamia just yet. He definitely could not talk to her, for he was certain that, if he did, the last vestiges of his control would finally dissolve and in an instant he would be wrenching her from his horse, settling between her legs and burying himself deep in her hot wet channel until they both could not walk for many sun risings.

A groan yawned out of him and he closed his eyes, as if he could banish the image of his seed coating Lamia’s lovely breasts. Forcing out a long breath, he ran a hand through his wild mane in frustration. How was he going to make the long journey alone with her without fucking her at every turn? He’d sent his men ahead of them, not wanting to slow their progress. They needed to return to Sparta to deliver the news that the Roman army was once again gathering in the territory of Carthage, which was not good news for the city-states of Greece.

It would only be a matter of time before the Romans turned their greedy eyes towards Greece. The thought made him weary. He had more than enough to worry about, if war was in fact coming, but now he had a recalcitrant woman on his hands, who stubbornly fought against journeying to Sparta with him, who claimed she would never wed him even though her body craved him—and he had brought that problem upon himself.

He lifted his hand and shielded his eyes to scan the horizon. Her foolish plan of escape had cost them one full sun rising and he was fairly certain they were now almost two sun risings behind his men. It would be a miracle if he caught up to them before they reached Sparta. And, again, he only had himself to blame since he was the one who had offered to purchase her from Atallus in the first place.

Buried so deep in thought, he almost missed the familiar tingling along his skin when his instincts told him something was amiss. Immediately, Thanos brought his mount to a halt and listened. All thoughts of the war and Lamia instantly vanished as a sharp pang of unease settled in the pit of his stomach. The soft staccato of riders approaching on horseback was unmistakable. He glanced over his shoulder to meet Lamia’s concerned gaze, before he shoved his hand into his satchel and grasped his spare sword.

“Take this,” he shouted and flung it towards her.

She caught it easily with one hand, testing its weight in her palm.

The ground began to quake as several riders sped towards them, their horses galloping at a frenzied pace. Thanos squinted, straining to see into the distance. Clouds of dust gathered around the riders as they closed in on him and Lamia.