Gladiator Read Free Page B

could see him do it. I nearly died. I’ve been imprisoned ever since.”
    “How old were you?”
    “Five.”
    “How old are you now?”
    “Twenty. Well… actually, I’ll be twenty-one tomorrow.”
    “Happy Birthday.” She laughed through her tears. He wiped them away. “You’re too young to know about death and pain. You should be in college getting drunk and partying and getting into trouble.”
    “I’ll never be like that. Veronica might have been. But not me. She’s the one whom men lust after. She’s the one whom women in the mob want to look like. I was always a homebody. At mom’s feet, helping her with something or another. I would be the girl everyone settled for after the beauty queen was taken.”
    “Don’t kid yourself. Any man would be lucky to have you. Those eyes…that hair…that face. You’re beautiful in your own right.”
    “Thanks. I hope if I live through the bout tomorrow I find someone to love me half as much as you loved your wife and children.”
    She was so vulnerable in that moment. So innocent, even in the face of all the evil she had witnessed and lived through. And yet, in the face of insurmountable odds, she hoped she would live to find love. That was heady stuff to a jaded person such as himself.
    He caressed her face. “You remind me so much of her.”
    Alex remained still. Yet her eyes, soft and yielding, spoke volumes. He brushed her hair over her shoulder and ran his thumb over her lips. She took a sharp breath. He smiled tenderly at her.
    “I haven’t ever had a woman like you in here.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “An honest one. A kind one. A selfless one. And all you really want to be is loved. I’m surprised they haven’t stamped it out of you.” He cupped her cheek and she leaned into his touch. “You deserve your first time to be something special with the man you love.”
    She pressed her lips to his palm and ran the tip of her tongue lightly against his skin. He groaned.
    “I may die tomorrow. I want to be with the man willing to be my Second and to know his touch. I may not be Veronica when it comes to seduction, but I know I was meant to heal you before I pass from this world to the next. I know that though you may not have feelings of love for me, you’ll take care of me.”
    “You are nothing like your sister,” he murmured into her ear, “and I am not going to let you die tomorrow. You are going to die happy and old, with a family to speak of.”
    His mouth was inches from hers. He struggled with himself; he’d never concerned himself with a woman’s virtue before, not even the first time with Hope. They had been young and headstrong, ready to take on the world. And hopelessly in love. This was different, again. She was no groupie. And she was right; he did not feel love toward her.
    “Tomorrow we go into battle together. Lucilla is one of the best female Gladiators. My father favors her like Veronica favors you. They both want me to die. I don’t want to die, but I’m not afraid of it. The only thing I fear is not fulfilling the one thing I was sent here to do.”
    He held her face with his hands and fought his conscience no longer. He wanted to kiss her. Parting her lips, he slid his tongue into her mouth and tasted her. His head began to spin as he ran his hand down her side and then up her back, under her clothes. She broke off the kiss with a cry of pain and he stopped. He pulled her shirt off and rolled her to her stomach. There were crisscrossed scars and half-healed wounds from a bullwhip. “Christ.” He exhaled. “What have you endured all of these years?”
    “Fury, jealousy, punishment. Please don’t stop.”
    “I’ll kill them for this,” he said hoarsely. “How can anyone do this to a child, let alone their own daughter?”
    “I stopped asking that question a long time ago.”
    He tossed the shirt to the ground and began to kiss her scars, one by one, slowly and delicately. And she began to weep. It tore at his heart