Courted Page 2

  In response to her tightening grip and enthusiastic reception, Lucillus began kissing her more fiercely, with more heat. His hand fisted in her hair, dislodging her carefully arranged tresses. He tightened his grip hard enough to pull, but not to hurt. She discovered that the sensation was profoundly erotic. She moaned her pleasure and kissed him back even more passionately, finally nibbling the full bottom lip she had coveted for a year. By all the gods, the man could kiss. Even if he kissed her nowhere else on her body she was ready for him, her cunna hot and wet and aching with need.

  Using the hand buried in her curls, he tugged her head back, exposing her throat for his attention. He kissed and licked and nipped a path down to her collar bones and up to her ear. When his teeth lightly closed around her earlobe she bucked underneath him because the feeling was so intensely pleasurable.

  She could feel him fighting to get his other hand free of the heavy folds of his toga. Anthea knew that on the whole men thought the garment was a blasted nuisance to wear, and had never agreed with them more.

  “Why in the futuo did I wear a toga?” Lucillus muttered against her neck, making her giggle in spite of her arousal.

  Finally, his other hand slipped beneath her back, and crushed her to him even more tightly. His knee nudged her legs open, and his muscular thigh pressed against her pubis, pouring oil on the fire already raging through her.

  She ran her hands down his back, reveling in the way the hard muscles tensed and moved under her touch. His mouth moved back down her neck and onto the point of her shoulder where the fibulae of her stola were coming apart. From her shoulder his mouth moved down over the silk of her tunic, finding her erect nipples and biting them lightly through the cloth. She threaded her fingers into his strawberry blond curls and nearly sobbed from the physical thrill that jolted her to her heated core.

  Again his wonderfully agile lips were on her neck, her jaw, her mouth, creating sensations so delightful her cunna was almost hurting from need. When he pulled back she opened her eyes and looked at him with a glassy, lust-drunk gaze.

  “Why in the name of Ganymede’s balls are you stopping?”

  He flashed a satisfied smile of male pride at her state of obvious arousal. “We need to take this to the bedroom, sweetheart.”

  “Oh, right. Yes. Yes, that is certainly where we need to be.”

  Lucillus stood up and helped her to her feet, taking the time to kiss her breathless once more. Then, with a frown, he quickly shed his rumpled toga and dumped it by the triclinium. Now clad in only a simple tunic, he pulled her back into his arms.

  “Which way to your bed, mellita?” Lucillus purred into her ear. “Duc me ad paradisum.”

  He kept hold of Anthea’s hand as she lead him the short distance to her chamber, kissing her knuckles and slipping his tongue between the joining of her index and ring finger so suggestively her legs almost gave way.

  As soon as they were in the privacy of her room, he turned suddenly and pressed her against the wall next to her door. He lifted her hands over her head and pinned them, pushing his leg between hers until she was straddling his thighs on tip-toe. She was sure he would have let her go if she had struggled to get loose, or had even told him to free her, but she wasn’t foolish enough to do either of those things. His sexual captive was exactly what she wanted to be.

  Lucillus kissed her thoroughly and roughly while altering his grip so that her wrists were secured in one of his hands, leaving the other free to explore. Anthea trembled, anticipating his touch.

  She was not disappointed. His hand slid down her waist to her hip, then around to clutch her bottom in order to pull her forward and grind her against him. She was so electrified by his caresses that the friction of his hard thigh against her clitoris almost sent her over the edge to an orgasm. She had never been stimulated to such an extent by foreplay.

  His hand moved up until it was almost under her breast, and then he broke off the kiss to look at her. His pupils were dilated until they had almost consumed his iris, leaving only a rim of Aegean blue around the pool of black. Keeping his gaze locked with hers, he watched her as he slid his broad palm up to her breast.

  Anthea was overwhelmed and let her lids drift close as his thumb began to flick over her nipple. She bit her lower lip and whimpered as his hand rubbed across her other breast as well.

  She opened her eyes again when she felt him remove the first of the fibulae that held her stola together on her right shoulder. He was smiling that same naughty grin of intent that she had seen earlier. He flung the fibula to the side, heedless of where it went. Then, methodically, he removed the twin fibula from the left shoulder. Anthea tried to stop herself from panting as she felt her stola hanging by the last two pins. Lucillus leaned into her, using his body to keep her stola from falling when he removed the finale fibulae.

  His visage intent, he stepped back a few inches to allow her stola to slither into a silk puddle at her feet. She stood before him, naked except for her pearls. His breathing was labored as he looked at her body, the fervor of his scrutiny feeling almost like a touch on her breasts, belly, and thighs. Anthea had not thought it possible, but her cunna became even wetter than before as his face showed his hunger for her.

  “Pomona herself could not be so lovely.” His deep voice whispered around her like incense from an altar.

  Anthea shook her head. “You shouldn’t tempt the anger of the gods.”

  “Nothing is more tempting than you are, delicia.” As though to prove it his mouth devoured hers once more in a kiss that melted her bones and opened her heart.

  Never breaking his kiss, he slid his hand down to apex of her thighs. Pushing her legs apart again gently with his knee, he cupped her pudenda in his huge hands. He slid one long finger into the folds of her labia, avoiding the clitoris and stroking the tender flesh of her vulva instead.

  The tantalizing nature of his caress built up such pressure within Anthea that she broke away from his kiss because she was breathless. Nearly mewling, she rocked her hips hoping to bring his finger in contact with the one spot guaranteed to bring her release.

  Ignoring her silent pleas, he slowly thrust his finger into her depths. Her vagina tightened around him and even more moisture flooded the area. Moving his finger within her, he pressed upwards.

  What the hell is he doing? Anthea was nearly insane with the need to come. My landica is the other way, dammit.

  Anthea cried out as his finger pressed a place inside her she wasn’t even aware she had. She was close to begging when he withdrew from her, but thankfully he used the slick dew of her own body to glide over her clitoris. Repeatedly he penetrated her with two fingers all the way to the pressure point inside her that felt so good, and back out and over the small bulb of her sex. The tempo of his rhythm increased until she was squirming and jerking against him.

  The pleasure built up to the point it was nearly pain, and then exploded throughout her body. She cried out as the ecstasy throbbed in her sex, waves of bliss pouring through her and ripping her with velvet claws. Lucillus plunged his fingers deep inside her, letting her contract around them as her orgasm shook her.

  When the last pulse of delight ebbed, Anthea let her head fall back against the wall. She wasn’t sure she could bear her own weight, and was glad Lucillus’s strong body was keeping her from oozing boneless to the ground.

  She felt him kiss her temple tenderly, and nuzzle into her neck. “I want you so badly, carissima.” His lips grazed along her cheekbone. “I’ve wanted you from the moment I saw you walk into my office.”

  She languidly wrapped her arms around his neck and sighed. “If I had known you could make me feel this way, I would have hired another lawyer and immediately started an affair with you.”

  Lucillus laughed and pushed off from the wall, bringing her with him. With a susurration of pillow talk in her ear and his kisses along her jaw, he walked her the few steps backwards toward her bed. The edge of the mattress hit her behind knees and she tumb
led onto the pillows. Her lover leaned down over her and began kissing a path down her chest toward her breasts, but Anthea grabbed his face in her hands to stop him.

  “No,” she demanded, “I want you inside me right now. I can’t wait for you any longer, Lucillus. I need you.”

  Lucillus closed his eyes briefly. “Don’t say that or I am going to come the instant I breach the gate and I really, really don’t want to disappoint you.”

  “I swear to you,” she told him earnestly, “you haven’t.”

  She pulled his head down for another kiss. His kisses were the kind Jupiter must have used to lure maidens out of their father’s gardens. Lucillus could turn into a bull and she, like Europa, would allow him to abscond with her.

  Ending the kiss, Lucillus stood up and pulled his tunic over his head and threw it on the floor. Anthea finally saw the pectoral muscles she had felt beneath her hands, a vision that gladdened her heart and heated her vagina further. Her ogling continued down the ridges of his belly to his sex, and she gasped involuntarily.

  I wasn’t far off with the bull metaphor.

  Lucillus mistook her gasp for fear and hastened to assure her, “Don’t worry, mellita. I won’t hurt you. Tell me when it’s too much and I’ll stop.”

  Anthea swallowed and nodded. “I am going to give it a heroic effort, I can tell you that much.”

  “Good to know,” Lucillus chuckled as he got into the bed.

  Instead of lying down beside her, he sat back on his heels at her feet. “I do have a request of my own.”

  She felt a sizzle of curiosity. “Tell me.”

  “I’d like to be able to see you properly,” he confessed. “I’ve imagined it for so long I want to enjoy the real view.”

  Her brow cleared. “Oh, with me on top? That’s not anything so different you need to ask if I am willing.”

  “Not quite,” he said, and she felt a tingle in her spine. “It’s is easier to show you than explain.”

  He ran his hands up her legs to her calves and then pulled her down the bed toward him. He leaned down and put his forearms under her knees adjusted her hips onto his thighs, spreading her open and angled her upward. Anthea couldn’t tell if she felt more vulnerable or more inquisitive, but the look in his eyes certainly made her feel libidinous.

  Bending forward he pushed the head of his penis between her labia and only slightly penetrated her. When he drew back, he used his grasp on her hips to lift her further and then he thrust purposefully into her core.

  The invasion of his thick cock, the glorious stretch of her fragile tissues and sensation of fullness within her, made her moan. Her nipples were stiff and she could feel her breasts flushing.

  Unhurriedly, Lucillus continued to plunge in and out of her body. The tendons in his neck and chest were rigid, displaying how hard he was striving to bring her to orgasm once again before he gave into his own. She watched him watching her, and felt more desirable than she ever had in her life.

  “Touch yourself.” Lucillus voice was slurred with passion. “Touch yourself for me.”

  She shivered with pleasure at the intensity of his gaze as she smoothed her hand down her belly to her most private place. Not quite sure what would thrill him the most, she tentatively touched her vulva. Anthea could feel his cock sinking into her vagina between her fingers and was jolted by the eroticism of it.

  Lucillus groaned and sweat sheened his pale skin. “Now, touch your landica, my beautiful lady. Make yourself come again for me while I watch you.”

  Anthea had not realized before what an aphrodisiac a man’s desire for her could be. She began to rub her clitoris, the circular motion hastening the building pressure of her orgasm. Lucillus began to move faster, going deeper inside her with each thrust. He spread her legs father apart as he leaned forward, seemingly enthralled by the activity of her fingertips.

  “Tell me if this is good for you or not,” Lucillus commanded her between gritted teeth, his face reflecting the sweet agony of trying not to come. Then he tilted her hips up further and leaned in, allowing his cock to nudge against her cervix with his in-stroke.

  “Oh, gods that feels good,” Anthea gasped. She bit her bottom lip to keep from screaming too loudly as she felt the wave of her orgasm crest over her. Between one heartbeat and the next the swell of pleasure crashed down on her, pounding her into euphoria.

  With a final thrust Lucillus came as well, his head thrown back and his cock buried almost to the hilt inside her.

  ****

  Anthea lay curled under the covers, twisting her pearls around her fingers and waiting for Lucillus to come out of the en suite bathroom. A bowl of rose water had been keeping warm over a small brazier, so he could clean himself as well. Like the gentlemen he was, he had let her go first, and now she had time to think while he finished cleansing himself.

  What next? She had never had a lover, having gone from the husband she had married when she was fourteen to another husband within six months of her first divorce. Will he come back to bed? What do I say if he doesn’t? Oh Hades, I don’t want to act needy; that will scare him off for sure.

  Trying her best to look like a sophisticated middle-aged woman who knew how to conduct an affair, as opposed to a middle-aged woman who was dealing with the biggest crush Cupid had ever inflicted, she watched Lucillus reenter the bedroom.

  Her former lawyer and current lover remained as naked as Greek athlete, and was just as nice to look at. Lucillus had certainly put in his time in the gymnasium with the weights, and likely running on the track as well considering the firm beauty of his buttocks. The only thing that could improve a masculine ass so lovely was a set of crescent nail marks.

  Anthea also worked out in the women’s side of the local bath’s exercise area, but the attendants had been diligent in helping her to prevent the development any unsightly muscle. She may have been middle-aged with the beginnings of crow’s feet, but her body was still as soft and rounded as any Roman beauty’s. She sat up against her pillows, letting the coverlet fall to her waist. She wouldn’t beg, but if she could entice him back to bed instead of leaving, she would.

  She was relieved when he came back to the bed without hesitating. Lucillus scooted under the covers next to her and kiss her with more affection than lust.

  “Are you well, sweetheart?” Lucillus asked. He lay back on his pillow and pulled her down gently to lay against him with her head on his chest.

  “I am a little … tender,” Anthea confessed. “But in the best way possible.” She laid her hand on his chest, content to feel his heartbeat under her palm.

  Lucillus trailed his had along her arm and kissed her forehead. “I’ll be more careful next time,” he promised.

  Her heart sang to know he wanted there to be a next time. “Oh, please don’t,” she giggled, “a bit of soreness is a very small price to pay for what you did to me.”

  He smiled and held her just a tad tighter. “Believe me when I tell you it was my pleasure.” He hesitated. “So I am welcome to return then?”

  “Of course,” Anthea was surprised he had possibly thought otherwise. “I have no objection to wallowing in abject carnality as often as possible,” she teased. “You’re not a bad conversationalist either.”

  “I shall certainly endeavor to prove to you that I am a cunning linguist,” he deadpanned.

  She gave a completely unladylike snort of laughter. “Aren’t all lawyers quick with their tongues?”

  He rolled her over suddenly, making her squeak. “Our wit is sharp but our tongues are soft, darling. No need to worry.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Well at least something about you is soft.”

  Then he kissed her, and she discovered she was all out of pithy banter.

  ****

  “Anthea, amica mea,” she heard Lucillus say, bringing her out of the satiated slumber she had fallen into. “I need you to wake up, darling.”

  She opened her eyes. The lamp on the tripod by her bed had been lit, as wel
l as a small hand lamp, and together they cast a glow around Lucillus. The lighting was too dim for her to see the color of his eyes, but the soft expression in them and the affection is his smile caused warmth to spread through her chest.

  “I need to go now, pretty lady.” He picked her hand up and kissed the underside of her wrist. “It is nearly mid-night and I shouldn’t like what the neighbors would say about it if they saw me sneaking out of your side door at dawn.”

  “Of course,” Anthea said drowsily. “When can we see each other again?” Then she remembered sophisticated ladies didn’t ask that. Shit.

  It didn’t seem to put Lucillus off any, though. He lifted the hand he was still holding and kissed the back of it. “The next two days I have engagements with my patron and must attend a dinner I’ve already responded to at a friend’s house. Can I come to you again on the third day?”

  She smiled, “I would like that, very much. We can have dinner again. Shall we say the eighth hour?”

  He leaned down to kiss her on the mouth, but she turned her head just a little to press her cheek against his and kiss his temple; she was sure her breath could kill Cerberus and didn’t want to inflict it on her new lover.

  “I’ll see you at the eighth hour, then.” He caressed her arm a final time, and then rose from the bed. Picking up the hand lamp, he opened the door and slipped out into the main living room. She wondered if he would let his slave, the man who had carried his house shoes and cloak in a basket and had been waiting for him in the atrium, try to re-wrap his toga or just give up on it altogether.

  She frowned, trying to remember if she had told Chloris to feed the fellow and make him comfortable if Lucillus stayed longer. She thought she had, but couldn’t be sure.