Tainted (16 page)

Gawain stared into Antonia’s ice-blue eyes, eyes that had
captivated him from the first moment they had met. He knew they would haunt him
until he continued his journey in the Otherworld, and perhaps their beauty
would haunt him even there.

Forget her? How he wished he could be certain that he could.
But every time that fucking Roman had fawned over her, pawed her and attempted
to denigrate Gawain in her eyes, the tarnished truth had clawed through his
chest.

She was more than a fleeting fuck. She always had been, but
until this night, he hadn’t realized just how much she meant to him.

They had no future. He knew that. But the thought of her
marrying the
praetor
, as she was sure to given her status and the
Roman’s obvious interest, curdled his guts.

Antonia was in his arms, smiling up at him and driving him
out of his senses with lust. It should be enough. With any other woman, it
would be enough. But with Antonia he wanted more. He did not want her to
blithely mention the short duration of their affair. A few weeks? Was that all
she was willing to give him?

Savagely he flung her hair pins onto the floor and tugged
her ringlets over her shoulders. Now she looked untamed, unregimented.
Un
-
Roman
.
But it didn’t matter how she looked. Because her blood was still the blood of
patricians and she belonged to the empire.

“Perhaps I will engrave your name on the inside of my
torque.” He offered her a sardonic grin. “Then I will never risk forgetting our
enjoyable encounters.”

For a moment, her lips trembled as though his words wounded.
But perhaps it was a trick of the lamp light. Perhaps he had merely imagined
it. Because her smile now was more blinding than ever.

“Do you engrave the names of all your conquests on your
torque?” She traced her finger over the images of Lugus but her gaze did not
waver from his. He almost told her yes, he did, but somehow he could not.

“The torque of my forefathers is sacred. I would never
desecrate it in such a manner.”

Her finger slipped to his bare throat. Her light touch
burned his flesh. “Have you ever been in love, Gawain?” Her voice was soft,
persuasive, but anger flared that she dared to ask him such a personal
question. Then he looked into her eyes and instead of idle curiosity, he saw
those elusive, haunting shadows, and his anger fell to ash.

“Once.” More than two turns of the wheel ago and yet it felt
like another lifetime.

“Was she of Cambria?”

He unclasped the brooch that held Antonia’s gown at the
shoulder. “She was a warrior.”

The tip of her tongue moistened her lips. “Of course.”

He studied the precious gems encrusted in the brooch as it
lay in the palm of his hand. He could not fathom why, but Antonia’s response
speared through his chest. And the pain was not for the loss of Morwyn.

Antonia’s gown pooled at her feet, leaving her clad in only
a knee-length tunic. She looked oddly vulnerable, alone, as if the slightest
harsh word from him would send her crumbling into dust.

Three things Morwyn had never looked in her life.

“She saved my life.” The words thudded in the air between
them, shocking him. He had never spoken them before. Not even to Carys, and she
and Morwyn had been the best of friends.

“Yes.” Antonia’s voice was faint and she was no longer
holding his gaze. Instead she stared at his chest as her fingers unlaced his
shirt.

He realized she did not understand. He tossed her brooch
onto the end of the bed and covered her hand, stilling her fingers.

“No.” He wasn’t sure why it was important she understood.
Only that it was. “The last time we saw each other she gave me a warning. That
treachery awaited in the land of the Brigantes. If she had not, if I had
ignored her words, I would’ve been cut down by those I considered my allies.”

Antonia swallowed. “Then I owe her a great debt of
gratitude. Because of her foresight you are here with me now.”

Whatever he had imagined she might say it hadn’t been that.
Incredibly, a laugh huffed from his throat and he cradled her face. She was so
fragile, not only physically but also in the way she had so little control over
her life. The knowledge seared him and a wave of raw protectiveness surged
through him. A sensation he had never once experienced while he had been with
Morwyn. “You are so different from her.”

Her smile seemed strained. “Alas, it was thought more
prudent for me to learn Greek than how to wield a dagger.”

“There you have me.” He began to slide her tunic off her
shoulders. “I do not know a word of Greek. Perhaps you should teach me.”

She shrugged free of her tunic and stood before him in all
her naked glory. His cock thickened with anticipation. She was the most
fuckable vision he had ever seen in his life.

“I cannot imagine why you would wish to learn Greek.” She
tugged ineffectively at his shirt and he obliged her by ripping it over his
head and dropping it to the floor. “How do you speak Latin so well?”

Other Romans had asked him that. He had always been aware of
the incredulity behind the question, as though they distrusted the fact he
spoke their language so fluently. But there was no such undercurrent in
Antonia’s words.

“There was a Gaul in our clan who spoke perfect Latin. He
taught us all.” No need to explain that the Gaul had also been a Druid with
Roman blood in his veins.

“Hmm.” She appeared distracted by his torso and he flexed
his muscles for her viewing pleasure. The breathy sigh she emitted stoked his
male pride to new heights. She was always so appreciative. “I could speak Greek
to you now, if you wish.”

He buried his fingers in her glorious hair as she began to
strip him with tantalizing concentration. “I would rather know what you say to
me in the throes of passion, Antonia.”

She gave a breathless laugh as she sank to her knees,
exposing him to her avid gaze. He gritted his teeth, forced his fingers to
relax against her head. His fantasy of Antonia sucking his cock into her wet
mouth would remain only that—a fantasy.

It didn’t stop the tortured groan from escaping, though.

Her hands slid along his thighs, down the back of his
calves. Her uneven breath teased his flesh and his erection throbbed with
unfulfilled need. She was so cursed close. He imagined the tip of her tongue
sliding across his wet slit, imagined her lips wrapping around his swollen
glans.

Involuntarily he tightened his grip on her head and battled
the primal urge to jerk her forward. To force his shaft between her parted lips
and take her as she knelt before him. Did she think he was made of stone? Did
she deliberately tantalize him with every ragged breath she took, every teasing
stroke of her fingers?

“Stand up.” His command was guttural and he emphasized the
urgency by tugging on her hair. She looked up at him, a vision of feminine
innocence and earthly desire. A combination that should be impossible, that
should never exist. Yet Antonia embodied it all without a trace of artifice or
manipulation.

Then she smiled. It wasn’t a smile of triumph that she could
drive him so easily to the edge of his endurance. It was a smile that speared
through his chest, paralyzed his lungs and hypnotized his enslaved gaze.

He had never seen such a smile before. It illuminated her
face in the glow of the lamps and in that moment, it would be easy to believe
she possessed immortal blood. Surely no mere human could look so bewitching?

“Your body enthralls me.” Her seductive whisper weaved
through the heated air as she slowly, sensuously rose from her knees. “I want
to worship every glorious inch of it.”

A tortured laugh escaped and he sculpted her shoulders, the
dip of her waist and irresistible flare of her hips. “Another night, my lady.”
In the back of his lust-fueled mind, the leering face of the
praetor
lurked, mocking him with the knowledge that, sooner or later, Antonia would
belong to him.

His banked rage once again surged through his veins, pounded
against his skull. Antonia was
his
. He would give her pleasure such as
she had never before imagined. Would give her a memory that seared her senses
forever; a memory that would never fade by the passage of time or become lost
in the demands of a new husband.

He cupped her delectable arse, felt a delicious tremor claim
her body. He leaned in close, her nipples hard against his chest, and breathed
against her ear. “Tonight, sweet Antonia, I will make good on my promise and
take your virginity.”

Gawain watched Antonia’s eyes darken with desire,
anticipation—apprehension. But not fear. She didn’t pull away but instead
mimicked his stance, her hands splayed over his arse, and seductively meshed
her body against his.

“I am ready.” Her whisper was breathless and stoked his
ravening need.

“No.” He molded her smooth, rounded buttocks and she
trembled in his embrace. “But you will be.”

She rose onto her toes and dusted her lips across his in a
barely there kiss. Yet the softness of her mouth, the fleeting probe of her
tongue, scorched an erotic tattoo through his chest and groin and wrapped
around his balls in a thunderous embrace.

Her tender touch would be the death of him.

He took her hand and led her toward the bed. While he had
waited for her to return home, Elpis had shown him Antonia’s vast selection of
scented oils. He’d picked one that reminded him of sunshine and spring and it
waited beside the bed for easy access.

“How do you want me?” She glanced at him and the blush on
her cheeks enchanted him. “I’m not familiar with…the right position.” Her blush
deepened but she did not break eye contact.

Despite the rock-hard agony of his cock, he couldn’t help a
twisted smile. He knew she was not familiar with what they were about to do. It
was the reason why she would always remember it.

Why she would always remember him.

“Lie flat on the bed on your stomach. First I am going to
seduce you until you can barely recall your own name.”

“I can barely recall it already.” She flashed him a smile
that constricted his chest, but obediently did as he’d commanded. With her head
cushioned on her folded arms she continued to gaze at him with a look on her
face he could not decipher.

She looked at him as though she looked at one of her heathen
gods. As if he were her world.

He expelled a jagged breath and straddled her hips. When had
he started to care how she looked at him? When had he ever cared how a woman
looked at him?

In the past he’d only cared about Morwyn. And she had never
looked at him in the way Antonia did.

He brushed her hair from her shoulder. A golden chain was
around her neck and she hadn’t removed any of her bracelets. The lamp light
gave her skin an ethereal, golden glow and for a moment he merely stared,
mesmerized, at the smooth perfection of her back. Gently he trailed one finger
along the length of her spine and a delicate shudder rippled over her. He
leaned over her and kissed her sleek shoulder, savoring the scented haven of
her skin and the way she quivered beneath his touch.

His cock throbbed in exquisite agony against the small of
her back and her constricted wriggles and uneven gasps were the most erotic
sensations of foreplay he’d ever experienced. He captured her earlobe between
his teeth and then nibbled kisses along the shell of her ear. “I imagined doing
this while you sat so sedately at the
praetor
’s table.”

“I’m thankful you had the willpower to restrain yourself.”
Her breathless response and the way her lush lips curved in a smile caused him
to almost lose what little restraint he retained. “Although I wondered if you
had even noticed me. You scarcely looked at me all night.”

He branded her flushed cheek and aristocratic jaw with hard,
possessive kisses, bracing his weight on one forearm so he wouldn’t crush her.
But gods, the silken warmth of her back and curve of her buttocks as their
bodies melded all but incinerated his reason.

Not noticed her? She had filled his vision the entire night.
“If I had looked at you, your father and the
praetor
would be in no
doubt as to exactly what my intentions were toward you.” He scraped his teeth
and the tip of his tongue along the fragrant flesh of her throat and a
delicious tremor claimed her. “Your reputation would be in tatters, and I would
be hanging from a tree.”

She stiffened. “Don’t say such things, Gawain. Even in
jest.”

He grinned against the curve of her shoulder and trailed his
finger along her finely defined biceps. “Do not fear, sweet Antonia. I would
never do anything to besmirch your good name.”

She twisted futilely beneath him and finally gave up, but
the glare she arrowed his way was still filled with dark alarm. “It’s not my
reputation that I fear losing.”

His grin faded and an odd pain filled his chest. “Then you
have nothing to worry about. I have no intention of ending my days in such a
manner.”

Her rigid muscles relaxed and she sighed as she once again
rested her head on her arms.

“I shall worry, regardless.” She whispered the words into
her pillow, as though they were not for his ears. Her concern touched him in a
way he couldn’t explain, didn’t fully understand, but again the overpowering,
primal urge to protect her surged through his blood.

He raked his fingers through her hair, pulling her curls
over her head and exposing the vulnerable nape of her neck. He kissed her there
and she gave a delicate shiver, and his fist tightened in her hair.

The knowledge pounded in his mind, no matter how he tried to
deny it. Even when their affair ended, he would retain this insane urge to
protect her. It wasn’t something superficial he could cast off at will. It was
bone-deep, insidious, and had permeated the fabric of his existence without him
even realizing.

He relinquished his grip on her hair and forced himself
upright. She lay before him, his virgin sacrifice, and the thought hammered
through his mind. Taking a virgin had never interested him before but when it
came to Antonia, the knowledge did something primitive to his reason.

With slow deliberation, he reached for the oil and saw
Antonia raise her head to watch him. He poured the oil onto his hands and the
delicate spring fragrance drifted in the heated air. It was not an exotic
concoction from the mystic East or a feted aphrodisiac from the dawn of
creation. But as he massaged Antonia’s shoulders, the innocent notes of the
scent enveloped them in a sensual cocoon.

He worked her tense muscles, the sensation of oil and silky
smooth skin an erotic combination. She sighed and melted, and he moved down her
body, lavishing the same concentrated care over her back.

“Your talents are many and wondrous.” Her voice was
languorous, her eyes closed and a blissful smile curved her lips.

He shifted position, moving farther down her body, so that
her luscious arse was displayed to view. He dripped oil from the bottle onto
her rounded buttocks and she smothered a giggle and wriggled her behind.
Fascinated, he watched the oil slowly trickle over her flesh and slide into her
exposed crack.

His mouth dried and cock jerked with desperate need. How
easy it would be to give in to the lust thudding through his blood. With
torturous effort, he tore his gaze away and began to massage her thighs. He had
promised her a night to remember. He would ensure it would be a night she would
remember with pleasure and nostalgia and without the faintest trace of regret
or unwarranted pain.

He would take her only when she was incoherent with lust,
boneless with need and mindless with primal desire. Gods give him strength to
survive that long.

“Gawain.” Her breathy voice lingered over his name,
stretching it out, making it sound unimaginably seductive. He gritted his teeth
and glided his fingers along the inside of her taut thigh. “You have forgotten
to tend to my bottom.” She wiggled her bottom as if she imagined he might need
reminding as to where it resided. All he could see was her delectable behind.
It was all he could think about. He dragged his hypnotized gaze from her
taunting arse and redoubled his efforts at sculpting her perfect calves.

“I have forgotten nothing.” His voice was raw. Still she
mocked his self-restraint by swaying her buttocks in his face. He palmed one
teasing cheek and forced her flat on the bed. “We’re doing this my way,
Antonia.”

She gave another of her seductive sighs and continued to
shift beneath his restraining hand.

“But I’m ready for you now, Gawain. You are teasing me
beyond endurance.”

Although fire consumed his groin and licked through his
veins, he laughed and squeezed her buttock in a possessive grip. She hitched in
a shocked breath and shot him a startled look over her shoulder.

“You can endure more, Antonia.” He rubbed her abused cheek
with the palm of his hand and caught tantalizing glimpses of the dark entrance
to her untouched tunnel. The thundering desire to
take
her
now
scorched his mind. Only the force of his Druidic will enabled him to unpeel his
fingers from her tempting arse.

His lust would not rule him this night.

Antonia squirmed in helpless delight as Gawain massaged
first one calf and then the other, his fingers sure and firm. The scented oil
heightened every magical touch and her skin tingled from his torturous
ministrations.

He grasped one ankle and lavished as much care and attention
on her heel and toes as if they were the most enticing part of her body. She
thrust her knuckles into her mouth to prevent her moans escaping, but they
escaped regardless. His body shook with silent laughter as he released her foot
and began on the other.

She pulled her knuckles from her mouth. “You’re killing me
with eroticism.” Her words were jerky, inelegant, and she could not stop her
fingers from flexing in a futile attempt at release.

“Not quite my intention.” His voice was gravelly and
insanely arousing. She groaned and wriggled her bottom again. Perhaps he would
grip her the way he had just now. It had been unexpected, but the look on his
face as he had gazed on her captured arse had been riveting.

Instead, he straightened and loomed over her. The lamps cast
shadows that defined the sculpted perfection of his biceps and shoulders, and
his earring and torque glinted with mystical allure.

Quivers spiraled between her thighs. Damp heat bloomed
inside her pussy. She forgot how to breathe as anticipation constricted her
chest and closed her throat.
Would he take her now?

“On your hands and knees.” It was a harsh demand and her pampered
limbs trembled as she attempted to comply. He wrapped one strong arm around her
waist and held her steady, his wide chest an erotic wall of living muscle
against her back.

“Don’t tremble.” His raw whisper against her ear caused
another delicious quiver to claim her body. “This night is for your pleasure,
sweet Antonia. I’ll take it as slow as you need.”

She wasn’t sure
slow
was what she wanted. “I’m not
afraid.”

Still holding her around her waist, his other hand cupped
her mound. She sighed and ground herself against him. Needing the pressure.
Needing him
inside
her
. His finger teased her sensitive bud and
liquid warmth trickled from her pussy.

Slowly he eased up from her, and his hand skimmed the
slippery curves of her waist and hips. Her head dropped and she gazed,
mesmerized, along the length of her body to where Gawain spread her intimate
folds and continued to tease her swollen clit.

Oil dripped onto her bottom and slid with sensuous intent
across her flesh. Gawain palmed her arse cheek and then rubbed in a circular
motion, the heat of his hand and slide of the oil warming her buttock with
delicious promise.

Each rotation brought him closer to her crease and when the
tip of his finger slid into the valley between her cheeks, she gasped and
jerked involuntarily.

“Relax.” Gawain didn’t sound relaxed but his finger
continued to stroke and the sensation was beyond anything she had ever
imagined. “Don’t think, Antonia. Just feel.”

She drew in a shuddering breath. How could she relax when
Gawain teased her pussy without mercy and lubricated her rear with his
oil-coated finger?

Surely she could not hold out much longer. “I need to come,”
she gasped.

“You will.” It sounded more like a threat than a promise and
as he dipped into her wet sheath, he worked one finger into her tight anus.

She bucked in shock and he instantly stopped his invasion.
“Antonia?” It was a rasp in the charged air and she sucked in a strangled
breath as her body accommodated his penetration.

He had fingered her there before. But this time he was
behind her. This time he was watching. And knowing that he watched as he pushed
his finger inside her body was unnerving. But although she tensed, cream
trickled from her core.
She
wanted
this
.

“I’m all right. Don’t stop.”

A second finger joined the first. “I have no intention of
stopping.” He tweaked her throbbing clit and pushed his oiled fingers into her.

She panted, fisting the bedcovers, her muscles rigid. The
burning sensation was not too bad. Through glazed eyes, she watched him
continue to tease her core, dipping into her cleft and coating her juices over
her pussy lips. A low moan vibrated through her body and it took a moment for
her to realize the moan did not originate from Gawain.

“That’s it. Let me hear you, sweet Antonia.” Gawain’s growl
stoked her passion and she backed into him, wanting more. He rotated his finger
and she shuddered, lost in sensation, and when he withdrew from her, she gasped
in protest.

“Wait.” He sounded rabid and with her head hanging down she
watched him, from between her parted thighs, lubricate his magnificent shaft.
“I’m going to fuck your tight virgin arse, Antonia. I’m going to make you
mine.”

“Yes.” She wanted him to fuck her. She wanted to belong to
him. Most of all she wanted to tell him but coherent words were beyond her. “
Yes
.”

Gawain gripped his cock and slid the swollen head into her
luscious valley. Her erratic gasps filled his mind and the shudder that claimed
her ricocheted along the length of his shaft in torturous delight. He nudged,
felt her stretch around his penetration and she went rigid.