The Barbarian's Mistress (31 page)

‘It’s not that I don’t like it. It just seemed odd… why would you do such a thing?’

He smiled crookedly at her and shrugged. ‘Because that’s what you do. It feels good. It’s like being inside you. Not as good, but like it.’

She nodded and scowled. ‘What if I stuck my tongue in your mouth? I bet you wouldn’t like that.’

‘Want to bet all our gold on that?’ His smile was wolfish and disarming. He seemed less drunk now.

She
frowned even deeper. He was teasing her. He couldn’t possibly want her to play the man and enter him. Well, there was one way to call his bluff. With more determination than she felt, she leaned in and kissed him again, and when his mouth opened under hers, she took the opportunity to thrust her tongue into his mouth.

The spark of arousal was like a flame catching in tinder. One moment, what she did was purely experimental, purely designed to test him out. The next, something in her core melted and wept. When he moaned softly, the feeling grew more pressing, more squirmy. Her hand wanted to drop to the juncture between her legs and hold herself there. She’d done that sometimes when this feeling came to her before. And it helped. But she couldn’t hold herself, here and now.

When his tongue began to stroke hers, she heard herself moan and jerked back away from him. That sound had come from her. It had definitely been her. But she hadn’t meant to make it.

‘Not so bad, huh?’ He leaned his head on his hand and stared at her with a silly grin on his lips. Lips that were red from kissing her. Gods, that feeling was getting stronger. She wanted to clamp her hand to her maidenhair and … what, she didn’t know what…

‘Tell me what you’re feeling, little Ninia? I can see a dozen emotions crossing your face.’

‘I’m feeling… it doesn’t matter. We need to go to sleep. We need to be out of here before everyone gets up in the morning. We have to be at the docks by dawn.’

‘We will be. Even with the kind of hangover I’m going to have in the morning, we will be. But you’re not going to distract me…’

‘All right. All right. I feel funny between my legs. I want to press against something. All right?’

His hand was clamped to her before she could finish her question and she moaned and squirmed against him. Then, shocked by her behaviour, she tried to draw away.

Braxus edged closer, so that their bodies lay aligned, and he could ground his palm against the place he knew well. Not hers… hers would be different, somehow. But he knew what it took to arouse, to pleasure a woman. He’d been taken for another’s pleasure alone too often to not want to do that to anyone. Not even a prostitute he paid to pleasure him. He made a point of giving pleasure as much as he took it.

Her dark brown eyes were as round as little balls as her full lips formed a wordless moue. Her skin, in the lamplight, was a dusky cream, and told him her ancestry was possibly Egyptian or part Nubian. Her black hair, formed into tight, cockscrew tendrils, fanned out around her head on the pillow. She was so small, even for a woman, and yet so perfectly rounded in all the right places. Her breasts were large and prominent, nipples perky and upthrust against the coarse fabric of her tunic. His hands craved the feel of them.

And his little Ninia liked what he did to her. She liked to kiss him. But he had to go slowly with her. There was so much fear, so much distrust. Yet the way she responded to him was pleasing. More than pleasing.

When she shifted her wide hips, trying to get more sensation from his hand, he obliged her.  Then he leaned over and found her nipple that was standing erect beneath the tunic. He’d buy her something finer than this tomorrow. Fine linen or wool. Something that would slip across her breasts and make her squirm.

He took the tiny point into his mouth and sucked on it gently through the cloth. Her hips came up off the bed so hard she was shocked.

‘What did that feel like, my Ninia?’ he growled.

‘What? I… I can’t explain… Like there was a line of fire that burned from your mouth to your hand.’

‘It feels good?’

She shrugged and looked away, blushing. The lamp flickered. The oil was almost gone. It was late, very late, although the carousing hadn’t stopped outside the door. He felt so very tired, and yet so aroused by what he was doing. Wanting her. Not just because he was the hero. But because she wanted him. Even if she didn’t know it fully yet.

‘If I slide my hand up your legs and cup you here, without anything between us, will you let me?’ He slowly released her and went to the hem of her long gown. He’d need her to lift up so he could ruck it up, or he would
n’t be able to reach her core.

She nodded nervously and let him ease her gown upward. Then his rough fingers grazed their way up the soft flesh of her inner thigh. Gods, she felt so good. When he put his cupped hand over her triangle of curls, she bucked against his hand again. He parted her lips and touched her smooth, slick petals. So hot. So wet. For him. Only for him.

When he pressed a finger into her, she froze. Too much. He was trying to get too much.

‘Don’t you like what I’m doing?’ he growled against her ear.

She shook her head, and tried to pull away from him. Immediately, he released her. Too much. Her fear had taken the place of pleasure. Too much.

He pulled down the hem of her gown and gently kissed her lips, one last time. Then he turned her over so her back face
d him. He curled his aching body around her. She held herself stiff for several moments, until she realized he was only settling in to sleep, even when his painful arousal was pressed hard against her soft, rounded bottom.

‘Go to sleep, little one. We have a long day ahead of us…’ He dropped a kiss behind her ear, and then let himself fall into the sleep his body desperately needed. The contest had been harder than he described to her. Either he was out of condition, sicker than he thought, or the gladiator was better than he should have been. Whatever, it had been gruelling. But he was never going to lose. She needed him to win. What would she do without him?

It was a new feeling to be needed. To be someone’s protector. It made him feel strong and vulnerable at the same time. So damaged… she was so damaged. How was someone like him going to help her heal, when he was worse off than she was?

But those thoughts were for another day. At dawn they would be away from this place, sailing north again. This time, there would be no deadly storm. This time, the gods had what they wanted. Now all they had to do was follow where they led.

19 September 79 CE,   Caralis SARDINIA

It was still dark when Ninia felt the soft lips move against her neck. For a moment, she relaxed into the delicious feeling of it. Then, as reality returned, she stiffened. The kisses stopped and the warm body behind her moved away.

‘Time to be up and about, little one, first light is not long away.’ The voice was hoarse with sleep and pain, but it was happy enough. How could he be happy after being refused his right as hero? She expected him to be sulky and angry with her
, now that his alcohol induced good mood had turned into a hangover.

She rolled off the pallet and began to make quiet preparations for their departure. There was no need to mention stealth. They both knew how important getting away undetected was for them. Their host might take their money or force Braxus to fight again today, given half the chance. Better to be gone before the temptation to do either or both took his fancy.

As they moved through the already stirring marketplace, Braxus bought food for their journey. Even though they now had plenty of money, he spent the extra time haggling down the price. Ninia smiled as she watched him. He did everything with enthusiasm, even shopping.

They found a merchant ship just about to set out for Gallicum Fretum in Corsica. It would hug the Sardinian east coast, all the way, an idea that reassured Ninia greatly after the nightmare storm they’d been through. Their only port of call would be Olbia on the north eastern tip of Sardinia. They’d sp
end tonight there before finishing their journey the next morning.

Settling on the deck of the small vessel, out of the way of the crew, brought back memories of her journey with her father. Fresh pain assailed her, and she gasped as if from a physical blow. Braxus, who sat on the deck at her side, his head bent in pain, glanced her way.

‘What’s wrong?’

She turned away from his concern. It seemed too proprietorial this morning, reminding her of what she’d let him do the night before.

‘Nothing. Just a memory.’

‘Of?’ He wouldn’t let it go. Why did he want to get inside her head all of a sudden? But then, hadn’t she been the one to start all this sharing? What had come over her that day when she challenged him to tell her about his childhood? Now he considered her every thought was his to know about.

‘Does it matter? Memories are memories. They have nothing to do with now.’

She shot him a challenging glance and saw that her holding back hurt him. Immediately, she was contrite. He was hung over from his enforced celebration after a gladiatorial contest. A contest he’d fought for her. He could have died for her. How mean spirited was it to withhold something as insignificant as her memory of her father?

‘I was remembering travelling like this with my father,’ she said grudgingly, curling up against the edge of the hatch.

He looked back at her and his eyes, bloodshot as they still were, seemed unnecessarily grateful. ‘What was he like?’

Before she could stop them, the words started pouring out, along with a trickle of tears. ‘He was from Numidia, sold into slavery as a child. He was not a tall man, nor a particularly handsome one, even in his youth, so my mother told me, but there was something solid about him. Like he would be loyal to those he loved to his dying breath. A rock. My mother was Epyrian, born and bred into slavery, and very beautiful. She was the Master’s bed slave before he married Saliva. Then she became the cook and married father.

‘She was a little taller than him, and substantially bigger, the older she got. But she never lost her looks. I suppose she could have had any of the male slaves of the household. But she chose father because he made her feel safe. I think it broke them both when Publius… hurt me. Father couldn’t keep me safe. If it had only meant his death, he’d have killed Publius, I have no doubt. But the laws are strict and harsh. We would all have died if he’d raised his hand to his master.’

She paused, trying to collect her emotions, which were in disarray. She had never really thought about what her dark place had caused her parents. Now she realised that by going there she had hurt them terribly, had probably put massive pressure on their marriage. All because she had allowed that bastard to turn her into a shadow. If she’d been strong, like Braxus had been strong, it would have been nothing more than another aspect of slavery. After all, she could have been made a bed slave, as her mother had. Making so much out of it had damaged more than her.

‘But he saved you in the storm. That would have meant everything to him.’

Ninia had almost forgotten Braxus was there. She considered what he said. It was true. Maybe, by giving his life to save her, it had been redemption for him. She’d never know for sure. All she did know was that she missed him so much. More than her mother.

When they arrived at Olbia mid-afternoon, Braxus took her to the Forum to buy her fresh clothes. The undergarments he bought were the finest fabric, and it embarrassed her to see how efficient he was with such matters. It also worried her that they spent good money on such extravagances. But he would hear none of her arguments, and he bought her clothes that were fit for a wealthy woman.

He chose less expensive tunics for himself, and when Ninia pointed that out, he claimed that his skin was tougher than hers. Braxus also spent more money than necessary on the best accommodation and food for the night. After a while, she had to give up arguing over every ass he spent. It was his money, he’d earned it. It was up to him how he chose to spend it.

It was a chilly night, when they finally settled in to their comfortable bed. They were bathed, fed and warm, a world away from their nights on the rocky beach to the south. For a long time after the lamp was snuffed out, they lay in silence, several inches apart.

‘How do you feel?’ she asked into the darkness.

‘Horn
y.’

She felt her face grow hot, and she edged away from him a little more.

‘Sorry. I said the first thing on my mind. That wasn’t what you wanted to hear was it?’

‘No… I was asking about your sickness, and your hangover, and the wounds from the fight.’

‘Oh, yeah. I’m fine. My body’s used to taking it. Don’t worry about me.’

‘You remind me of my father,’ she said softly. ‘I feel safe when you’re around.’

‘My feelings are not fatherly.’ He gave a little grunt of amusement.

‘You want to kiss me again.’ It was half question, half statement of fact.

‘I do. But I’m not drunk tonight, so you’re safe.’

‘I was safe last night, even when you were drunk. That meant a lot to me. Anyone else would have…’

‘I wanted to. It was a close call.’