The Gladiator's Touch Read Free Page B

overtook me came from.
    I had never been bold, not even as a
curious child. I had always been shy, acquiescent—qualities that my husband had
praised at our marriage.
    I also knew that, despite my own
feelings, he had not come to me. He had been summoned by my husband and had
happened upon me accidentally. I had not premeditated our encounter, but I was
still the one who had initiated it.
    He would not be able to refuse. A slave
could not refuse his mistress, and though their lives were different from those
of many who served, gladiators were still slaves.
    And still I proceeded.
    Remaining silent, I motioned Drusilla
back and dipped my head under the water to remove the residue of the scented
oils. When I surfaced, I refrained from looking across the room to where he
stood, instead turning and rising from the water.
    I knew what I looked like, naked, with
droplets of irresistibly chilled water running down my curves. My mirror, an
ornately edged sheet of polished metal that had been a wedding gift from my
husband, told me that my skin was fashionably pale, nearly as translucent as
the wet, and a stark contrast to the shadows of my hip length hair. My eyes
were bright, my features even, and my body free from disfigurations brought
about by disease.
    I knew that I was pleasing to most eyes,
and I exploited that now. After a long moment in which I simply stood, the bath
lapping at my ankles, the excess water running down my limbs I turned. My
nipples had peaked under what I knew was intense scrutiny, and I was not
disappointed when the gladiator again came into view.
    His cock had risen, hardened, and
pressed against the leather that covered him there. If it had not, if he had
remained unaffected, I might have been able to stop then, to send him away.
    But he wanted me, too, obviously so, and
so I shoved the nagging guilt away, buried it deep in my gut, and beckoned him
forward.
    “Remove your subligaculum and your
sandals.” His eyes widened, just a fraction, but he moved to comply. The
leather ties around his ankles were loosened first, and then the ones at his
waist. But instead of the gratifying sight of his skin, the leather stubbornly
remained in place, a barrier between me and what I wanted.
    In my life it seemed that there was
always such a barrier.
    “Remove your subligaculum.” Though I
tried to school my voice into sternness, I could hear the tremor that sounded
through it. I was certain that both Drusilla and the man could, as well.
    What would I do if he did not comply?
    When the clothing fell with a wet
sounding slap on the ground, I drew in a breath, one filled with both relief
and desire.
    I had not seen a cock besides my
husband’s for years, even though I was permitted to do so . . . so long as that
cock did not belong to a gladiator.
    Though I was permitted to fuck a male
slave, any slave but one of our warriors, the only one that we had was
Justinus, my husband’s boy, and I did not care for the man at all.
    As such, it had been so very long since
I had allowed arousal to whip through me. The thrill of the forbidden, added to
the chance that my husband might happen upon us, collided with desire and
drugged me. Swallowing thickly, I reached out a hand.
    “Come here.”
    “Domina?” He hesitated, but just for a
moment. I was, after all, just as much his mistress as my husband was his master.
Still, I could see the war between morals and desire swirling in his stare.
Guilt washed over my skin, and with it came anger.
    Why should I feel guilt over taking
something that I desired, finally taking something that I desired? Did
my husband not do the same every day of his life?
    Slowly, as if unsure that I could really
mean as I said, he stepped out of the pool of clothing at his feet, moving
toward me. His flesh gleamed in the dim, flickering light of the room, shining
with a faint sheen of sweat, one that I could all but smell—the heady aroma of
a man who used his body, and used it well.
    Though a small