Barbarian's Soul (15 page)

Bran devoured the sight of her breasts like a starving man. They were perfect, just as he’d imagined. Full, round, generous enough to fit with ease into his large hands. His mouth went dry when she raised her arms to smooth her hair from her face, the dusky-rose tips pebbled into tight buds from the brush of cool air. He ached to touch them. Closing his eyes he imagined suckling first one then the other while Adria writhed beneath him. His cock, hard as a stone already, strained for release. A sharp gasp cut through his reverie, snapping his eyes open to stare into a pair of wide, violet eyes.

***

Adria slapped her arms across her exposed chest and slipped beneath the water to her neck, her heart tripping in her chest.
It’s not Tiege come to slit your throat, it’s not Tiege, it’s not Tiege,
she mentally chanted. It was just her captor. She took a steadying breath then blinked. Her tall,
virile
captor. Her heart did not slow its pace.

Adria was aware that she was staring at Bran, held by the powerful sight of him standing like a statue, a scowl marking his handsome features. His battle stance sent a small thrill through her which she quickly tamped down. She could not allow her guard to slip. He was not her friend and could not be trusted.

Still there was something alluring about him even though his tunic was damp around the neck and sleeves, the lower portion soiled with black soot as if he’d wiped his hands upon it. Dragging her gaze upward, she noted matching smudges along his chin and nose.

The muted light from the wall lamps accentuated the angles of his features, angles made more striking by his shadow beard. He looked dangerous and deadly and fully capable of killing. She met his furious gaze, the forest-green depths full of anger and annoyance and she swallowed hard. “What are you doing here?” The question came out on a croak.

Bran narrowed his eyes. “You dare to ask me a question such as that?”

Did the man ever speak without growling?

“This is
my
house. I will come where I please!”

As any good barbarian would, she thought ruefully. “I asked your servant for a basin of water so that I might bathe. He directed me here.”

Bran tightened crossed arms across his chest. “Then I am directing you out.”

And how was she to accomplish that when he stood like a stone block in front of the only exit? She pressed her lips together in irritation. She’d been enjoying the hot bath, the first proper one she’d had in months. A visit to the public baths was costly and when Menw had shown her to the pool she’d felt as if she’d been granted a boon from Olympus. Now the barbarian was going to ruin it.

“I am not finished,” she said in the lightest tone she could muster. The look on his face was beyond price, but her amusement faded when those firm lips lifted in a mocking smile.

“It is no matter. I have no objections to sharing my bath.”

Gods.

His gaze locked on hers, filled with smug challenge.

He presumed to frighten her, cause her to run like a frightened hare. Adria tightened her jaw.

He quirked one brow and took a step.

Adria backed against the pool’s edge. She forced herself to take slow breaths to keep the knot of anxiety tightened in her gut from unraveling. She was not fainthearted. She knew how to keep her head, watch for openings to turn the situation to her advantage. Miriam called her fortunate but Adria knew better. Living in the streets honed such a skill to a sharp edge and if one did not learn to wield it one died. This man was no different than the venders she evaded every day in the marketplace.

Save you are his prisoner.

Adria frowned. A temporary inconvenience, she assured herself, one that she would use to her advantage. She only needed to wait for the right distraction.

Bran shifted his gaze away allowing Adria a breath of relief. But it was short lived. She watched open-mouthed as he bent over, muscles gliding beneath the bronzed skin of his arms and began to unlace his boots. The flickering light from the lamps fell across his hands, holding her attention. Blunt-tip fingers loosened the leather strips. Nimble, she thought vaguely, despite their size. He was no clumsy boy. Adria longed to know the touch of such strong, skillful hands.

Distraction? Oh, she was indeed distracted.

“Be still,” she commanded. “I will leave. Just step outside a moment while I clothe myself.”

He glanced up from removing one boot, that mocking half-smile curving into a sneer. “You give me orders?” He kicked off the other one, picked up both boots and flung them with more force than was necessary into the corner of the room. He turned back to her, the look in his eyes on the edge of deadly. “I stopped taking orders the day I stopped being a slave.”

Adria swallowed hard. A slave? Bran had been a gladiator so of course he’d have been a slave. How could this man have ever been subjugated? He was too proud, too fierce to have bent easily to a master’s will. Her eyes widened and her breath caught in her throat when he stripped his tunic off.

She felt the heat spread from her neck to her cheeks, but was unable to tear her gaze away from the magnificent sight of his hard body. Broad shouldered, his wide chest tapered down to a narrow waist where a linen loincloth hung precariously around lean hips. Beneath the light bronze of his skin, he was fairer than anyone she’d ever known, a perfect contrast to the black, silky hair that brushed past his shoulders. Surely a god could not be more handsome.

In contrast to the wild picture he presented, Bran folded his garment , twisting around to drape it on a low stool. Adria sucked in a breath at the ridged scars marring his back. A pang went through her as she realized he’d been scourged, and more than a few times. Her gaze drifted down, skimmed his arms and legs and noted other healed wounds scattered along his limbs.  Thin, white lines indicated multiple blade wounds while others she could not begin to imagine their origin.

“Most Roman women find the scars of a gladiator alluring.”

His cold remark snapped her attention back to his face. Anger and resentment simmered beneath his guarded expression. “Then they are perverse creatures to take pleasure in your pain.”

Bran gave no response, only watched her, his features blank save for those green eyes which glittered with dark emotion. What had this man endured? Her curiosity dissipated beneath his unwavering gaze, her instinct to flee flaring hot. Still holding her gaze, he lifted his left hand and pulled the string at his hip. The piece of linen dropped to the floor.

The panic in her stomach nearly cut her in two.

She had seen nude men before—one did not live in the streets of Rome without encountering a few, usually passed out in the gutter—but never so close nor in such proportions. Even the fuller’s son had kept his tunic on.

His sack hung heavy between his muscled thighs and his cock was huge, jutting out from a mass of black curls and seemed to be moving of its own accord. Her heart thudded against her ribs as he strode toward the bath.

Step by agonizingly slow step, he stepped over the rim and eased down into the water.

The basin was not large and his entry caused the water to lap against her breasts. Adria curled her legs up tight but he still managed to brush his foot against hers. The glare she sent him was met with another tight smile. The bastard was enjoying her discomfort.

The steam from the water enhanced his scent, a heady combination of smoke, sweat and musky spice that teased Adria’s nose. A most pleasant aroma, she thought and then gave herself a mental shake. She was losing her mind.

He leaned back and closed his eyes, stretching his long arms along the rim. “A bath can be so relaxing, can it not, thief?”

“A bath alone, perhaps,” she muttered, “I find this one to be a bit crowded.”

He had the audacity to chuckle though she could detect no humor. “You may leave at any time.”

Before her hopes could gain ground he added. “The bath. You may leave the bath but not the dwelling.”

For an instant she considered dashing for the front entry, clothed or not just to prove him wrong.

“You cannot run, thief. I would find you.”

Adria’s eyes narrowed. He had not moved nor looked at her to guess her intentions. “How do you...”

Bran raised his head and pinned her with a look. “I know the way a captive’s mind works. I would consider you a dullard were you not to plot an escape.”

She snorted. “When I decide to leave, you will not be able to stop me.”

“The children have need of you,” he answered mildly.

“Children? What do I know of children?” Nothing. Oh, she knew how to keep a watchful eye on Miriam’s babes and to bribe the older ones with bits of honeyed dates into behaving, but that had been for short spans of time. “I know nothing of children,” she repeated, folding her legs closer to her body. “And I’m not certain the ones in the atrium fit those qualifications. I believe the older boy to be a demon.”

Bran’s lips quirked. “You are a female. All females know the ways of children.”

“I am no nursemaid, you arrogant ass.”

He ignored her jibe. “They have need of a female’s influence.”

Why did she feel as if she were speaking to a stone wall? “Do you suppose that by being female I hold some magic touch to tame them?”

“It is what women do.” He motioned impatiently for her to hand him the sponge floating between them.

Adria obliged, scooped it up and tossed it at his head with all the force of her temper. He opened his eyes just in time to catch it with one hand against his chest. She opened her mouth but closed it when he raised a brow, his gaze falling to the swell of the breast she had exposed when she’d lifted her arm.

A flush of heat swept through her as she sank back down to her chin. If this continued, the temperature of the water would reach scalding soon. “Your man Menw manages them well enough. Be truthful. Why do you hold me?”

His jaw tightened. “Because you stole from me.”

Adria blew out an exasperated breath. “I did not steal from you but from the jeweler. If your head were not so hard you would understand this!”

His expression remained mulish. “Explain it as you will but it still impacted my purse.”

She narrowed her eyes. Greed was a vice she had vast experience with, one that she was adept at manipulating to her advantage. Merchants, distracted by the prospect of profit, were often less observant, which brought more bounty for her. “I may have a way to remedy that,” she replied smoothly. Her heart tripped as he began to scrub his chest with the sponge. Tiny beads of water clung to the crisp, black hair that covered that vast expanse and arrowed down his flat plane of his stomach to disappear beneath the water’s edge. Her stomach clenched at the thought of the sizable bounty beneath the water. She cleared her throat. “If you release me I will obtain the funds you lost...” She looked up at the ceiling as though considering before she swung her gaze back to his. “...plus an additional fifty
sestarces
.”

“By stealing,” he drawled.

Adria raised her hands in frustration. “I take only from those who can afford the loss.”

He snorted. “For your own gain.”

Gods, if that were true she wouldn’t be hungry as often as she was but she would waste no breath explaining this to him. “You are an arrogant bastard,” she hissed.

He leveled her with a look. “And you are a lying thief.”

Adria told herself it was the smoke from the lamps that caused the stinging behind her eyes, not the jab of his insult. That it touched closer to the truth than she’d willingly admit only added to her agitation. “You dare to cast stones at me? You know nothing of my life.” The struggles, the constant fear that one misstep and she would find herself arrested, dead, or worse— in a bath defending herself to a naked barbarian.

“You cast stones at me?” she repeated, taking a steadying breath. “Have you never had to make a choice in order to survive?”

Something shifted in his eyes. The stubborn mocking glint flashed away, replaced by an emotion so raw that Adria felt the searing ache of it like a blow.

He threw the sponge out of the tub. “Go,” he said, his quiet tone betraying no hint of what she’d seen in his eyes. “Clothe yourself.”

Adria stared as he shifted in the pool, giving her his back and the privacy she desired. She hesitated, confused at the sudden change in his demeanor and unable to shake the idea that she had somehow caused him pain.

“The night is coming to an end as is my patience,” he warned through clenched teeth.

Adria scrambled out of the bath, looked frantically for her own ragged tunic only to find it had been replaced with a soft woolen dress. She snatched the garment up and slipped it over her head, cursing when it clung to her wet skin. Behind her, she heard Bran suck in a deep breath. Without a glance back she dashed out of the room.

***

He needed more wine.

Bran draped an arm across his eyes and tried to concentrate on sleeping. He’d already consumed all that Menw had secreted away and still he lay fully awake, his thoughts tumbling round and round as they had all night and every one of them revolved around the beautiful thief. He blew a frustrated breath between his teeth. Wine would not purge her from his thoughts. Not when she lay a mere ten paces from his bed.

The sound of slow, even breathing told Bran she’d finally fallen asleep. He tamped down a stab of envy and took solace that her slumber had come only after much tossing and turning and fuming at the sleeping arrangements offered by Menw. Oh, she had argued. Bran snorted to himself. As if anyone could win an argument against Menw. The man should have been sound asleep himself but had been waiting in the hall outside the bath when Bran emerged, already placating an irate Adria. The children’s room was too crowded, Menw had countered when Bran had instructed him to see the girl bedded there. The only other choices, his clansman had pointed out, were the small atrium or the kitchen with their unguarded doors. In his calm, even manner he’d asked if his
master
would have her make a place there?