Centurion's Honor (Imperial Desires, Book One) (2 page)

That statement earned Titus a sharp glare and in Cassius’ mind did not help
his
spirits in the least.

Lovely? He bit back a snort until Anan’s copper-hued skin and golden eyes shimmered before him, forcing Cassius to also bite back a groan. Lovely somehow did not pay homage to the exotic beauty of the matriarch. That Anan was comely, he could not deny, nor could his body seem to. That she was a barbarian bitch he could not deny either. His body had no reaction to that either way.

Cassius shrugged. “She is passable.” He ignored Titus’ chuckle.

“You may not like her, but you cannot deny such things.”

Cassius could not, but neither would he nurture Titus’ longings for the woman. He could hear the appreciation in his voice, and he frowned at that. A woman such as Anan was forbidden to them for so many reasons—the most important being that if they were to do their duty, they could not be distracted.

The other reason was far more obvious—that Anan would simply not want them. If the rumors were true she’d barely suffered the touch of her Roman husband.

“You’re a fool if you think she will have you,” Cassius said to Titus as he made his way out of the dining room toward the quarters Anan had furnished for him and his second-in-command. She had actually provided quarters to house his entire unit in a separate wing of her villa. It was a gracious gesture. He did not get the impression Anan was a gracious woman.

“Then I am a fool, because she is the most pleasing thing I’ve seen since leaving the countryside.”

Cassius speared him with his gaze.

“Besides you, of course,” added Titus with a wickedly handsome smirk. “And if rumor holds, she hasn’t had anyone in quite some time.” Titus wriggled his brows.

“I assure you she is not so desperate to lie with a Roman, and a common soldier at that,” Cassius said with a snort before flashing Titus a crooked grin.

The moment alone afforded them a measure of privacy they’d not had in a while and he touched Titus gently along his forearm, a fleeting gesture of intimacy.

His fingertips grazed tanned, golden skin, igniting a small, burgeoning fire in his belly that traced a path to his groin. In an instant, Cassius went from being the rigid
Decurio,
the commander of the small Roman unit, to a simple lover who sought pleasure in the arms of his second-in-command.

Titus’ pupils darkened and Cassius knew his must have done the same when Titus whispered, “Later.”

He nodded in agreement. Their journey from Tivoli to Anan’s estate had been long and arduous. The pace had been grueling. His men were tired. They had barely rested, let alone indulged in carnal pleasures.

He was weary. Cassius had no doubt his men were of the same mind. Before his duty began, he required rest—his men did too, including Titus.

“Later,” Cassius said to Titus, echoing the thoughts in his head.

Chapter Two

Later did not come for Cassius. Instead he barely managed to unpack his meager belongings and bathe before he collapsed in exhaustion upon his pallet beside Titus, in chambers that were situated next to Anan’s.

The next morning Cassius arose just before dawn to learn that he was not to enjoy either the peace of rest or the satisfaction of his lover’s body on this night.

The slave girl barely announced his entrance before he burst into the chambers where Anan now bathed, his body corded with fury.

Roman women were not known for their modesty.

Apparently, barbarian women weren’t either.

Anan’s arms were stretched out on either side of her, and she’d been resting her head along the back of the pool.

She lifted her head, her gaze slamming into him, but he barely noticed.

The full weight of her breasts bobbing gently in the water captivated him.

Cassius found it quite difficult to lift his gaze, and when he did, he was annoyed to find his mouth was dry and his cock hard.

Anan stared at him, her golden eyes flickered with longing, desire, before filling with surprise.

Had he been alone he would have frowned. Had he been truly bold he would have questioned her.

Why was she surprised that he found her naked body pleasing? Why was she surprised that he seemed to desire her?

The questions should have been unnecessary. The answers just the same.

“Yes?” she demanded, the question haughty, her arched eyebrow lifting in arrogance.

This time he did frown. Yes, she was comely. Yes, his long-neglected body found her pleasing, but she was still the arrogant barbarian queen who hated him because he was Roman, and who he equally resented because she was not.

“Why did you not tell me you had a dinner feast planned for this evening?”

If it was possible, her eyebrow lifted higher. “What? In between calling me a bitter, frigid, childless bitch I did not get the chance.”

“I did not call you frigid.”

Anan’s eyes widened at Cassius’ whispered retort, more shocked by what he’d just implied than what he’d actually said.

He’d not called her frigid. Did that mean he thought her a woman of passion?

She bore down upon her lip and forced back a gasp of surprise, of pleasure.

Her husband had thought her passionless. Maximinius had stopped coming to her bed within months after their marriage.

A familiar bitterness rose in her throat that always accompanied thoughts of her dead husband. She’d thought he’d not wanted women, she’d learned he’d simply not wanted
her
.

The Roman before her held her attention, unwavering in its intensity. His eyes said he found her comely. The hard, protruding length of his cock against his tunic suggested he wanted her.

If such a thing could be believed.

To society, she was a Roman matron, a widow past the first blush of youth. She could still bear children, but a man would have to desire her long enough to touch her.

She looked away because she could not bear the weight of his stare, filled with equal measures of censure and lust.

He desired her. He hated that he did.

She understood him perfectly.

He was a Roman, the enemy of her people. He was a man, a virile, handsome man who inspired her lusts—lusts that had not died with the passing of her husband.

“I must implore you to reconsider this feast,” Cassius spoke, breaking through her thoughts. “My men have only just arrived and we are weary from the journey. I fear we cannot protect you properly in such a state.”

“It is too late. I have already made preparations for the feast of Maikatat and it cannot be delayed. As I told General Sextus, I do not need Roman protection, but if you insist, then I suggest you take advantage of my hospitality and rest your unit because tonight promises to be a long one.”

Cassius wanted to argue, but Anan appeared resolute.

“This feast of Maikatat—what is this for? There are many barbarian celebrations and I am not familiar with them all.”

She blinked at him, her long lashes fluttering over eyes full of shock.

His stance grew rigid in response.

“Forgive my surprise,” she said softly, taking in his tense form. “It is simply that no Roman has ever asked of the ways of my people, not even my husband.”

Cassius relaxed even as his brow furrowed. “Did he not join you at such festivities as your escort?”

She looked away. “My husband did not do many things.”

A sadness slipped into her eyes, hidden within their depths, but he glimpsed it. Cassius remained impassive, his expression blank. He could outwardly pretend himself to be unaffected, but the clenching in his belly he could not ignore, just as he could not ignore the meaning of it.

This proud, haughty woman stirred him. The vulnerability he glimpsed in her eyes even more so.

He did not wish to be affected by her, could not explain how it was that she did it, but neither could he deny that she had.

“Maikatat is our goddess of fertility, of the harvest,” Anan spoke softly. “We honor her so we may have abundance in all things. I cannot delay the festival. My people would perceive it as a slight to the goddess and any sign of a poor harvest would be blamed upon my disrespect for Maikatat.”

Cassius nodded in understanding. Growing up, his family had always honored the gods and he still remained a faithful devotee. He could not ask her to do any less.

“I assure you,
Decurio
, I will be safe this evening. The guests for tonight will be wealthy farmers and a handful of dancers. Your men may stand guard as my guests arrive but once the festivities begin, I encourage you to retire.”

Cassius thought of his men, the twenty-four soldiers in his unit. They were tired, weary. He would have them ensure order as the guests arrived, and then he would do as she suggested and have them retire.

“Very well.” Cassius nodded. “But my second and I shall remain on guard.”

“I do not require personal guards.” She did not
want
personal guards was what he knew she wished to say, although she didn’t.

“I have my orders,” was Cassius’ reply and she seemed to accept that.

Anan may believe Romans were without honor, but he had no doubt she understood how seriously Romans took their duty.

“Very well,” she said, repeating his earlier words. She moved to leave the pool, but as if remembering he was still there, she stopped and called for her servant.

A young girl rushed into the room, and Cassius noted that he’d just been dismissed. He prepared to take his leave, but he took his time in doing so.

As he turned, he was treated to a glimpse of bare flesh dripping with crystal droplets of water as she climbed from the pool. Heat, raw and carnal, raked him before he could prepare himself and he groaned, drawing her attention.

Her gaze snapped to him, searing him straight to the heart. Her cheeks darkened a deep rose, her eyes rounded, but she didn’t look away, she didn’t flinch, nor did she attempt to cover herself.

She simply held his gaze as he let his own trail the length of her naked and wet body, drinking her in. He expected anger when his eyes found hers again, he expected outrage.

Instead he found eyes that were once again full of surprise, and something else, something that called to him, something that heated him to the core.

It was longing, yearning, a desperate need to be desired, to be fulfilled.

As he twisted on his heel and made his way out of the room, he cursed her husband for his selfishness, for his neglect.

And then he cursed himself for wanting a woman who despised him, whom he told himself he despised in return. He cursed his body for desiring a woman he could not have, should not want, and would not take.

* * * * *

Cassius vowed he would never touch her, never look upon her ever again—she was a barbarian, an insolent bitch.

His body did not seem to care.

His body did not seem to care that just yesterday she’d called him a Roman dog, just yesterday she had not even risen from her couch to greet him and Titus.

Because she thought he was beneath her, inferior to her, even as he believed her barbarian ways beneath him in turn.

Had he not declared just yesterday that he hated her—her and her backward homeland?

His body did not seem to care about any of his mind’s protests.

It only seemed to care that when he gazed upon her, she stared back at him with need, with desires long denied.

That he would want this woman—a woman he could not have and should not want, was a puzzle to him, but not to his body, it would seem.

And it was because of the recklessness of his wanton body that he was naked and stretched out upon his pallet stroking his heavy cock, just meters away from her room where even now he could hear the sounds of her dressing for the festival.

And that was how Titus found him just minutes later—pumping his rigid flesh, his eyes shut.

The wooden door closed behind him with an almost silent thud. Cassius’ lids opened, shadowing his clear blue eyes. Titus stilled because he immediately recognized the look upon Cassius’ face.

“She has gotten to you already?” Titus queried, striding across the room toward Cassius as he removed his red tunic.

Cassius sighed, his hand stilling on his engorged flesh.

“Do not stop on my account,” Titus teased as he dropped down within the arc of Cassius’ spread legs and captured his lover’s hard shaft in his palm. He stroked him slowly at first, working his hand harder and faster until a groan slipped past Cassius’ lips.

“I do not want her,” Cassius moaned. “But neither can I force her naked visage from my mind.”

Her naked visage?
Titus would question him later as to how he’d been treated to such a sight.

“Should I be envious?” Titus’ eyes twinkled with amusement, mirroring the look in Cassius’.

With an amused grin still upon his face, Cassius reached up and captured the back of Titus’ head to pull him down until their lips touched.

Titus pushed inside Cassius’ mouth, his tongue dueling with the other man’s, savoring the taste of him, probing the hot depths of his mouth until Titus was trembling against him.

The kiss was answer enough, but then, the question had been a simple jest. Cassius had been his lover for more than five years, since Titus joined Cassius’
century
as a young soldier.

Their relationship had weathered war and at times open censure. The depth of their love for one another was without question, it had never been, but something had changed between them. Something haunted Cassius and shadowed his eyes whenever he gazed upon Titus.

Cassius refused to tell him why they’d been dispatched to Siga, although Titus sensed it had everything to do with what happened in Varianna, when Titus had been injured. The long, pale scar that ran along his rib cage seemed to ache then as it had done in the days while he’d hovered between this world and the next fighting to live.

Cassius had been different since then, quiet, withdrawn. Titus thought it had to do with Cassius coming to terms with almost losing him, and maybe that was part of it, but then they’d been ordered to Siga, and Cassius had grown ever more sullen.

Titus drew back, ending the kiss, a thought forming in his head, one that had been there since he’d first gazed upon Anan.

Just like Cassius, Titus desired women as well. Cassius had his heart, but there were times when he sought a woman’s touch. They were both drawn to Anan, and a woman’s touch had always softened Cassius…

“No.” Cassius was tense beneath him. “I see it in your eyes, but I will not agree to such a thing.”

Titus grinned. “No woman has ever stood a chance against the both of us.”

“Because none before her have been royalty. She is all but Roman nobility. Anan would never have us.”

Titus disagreed. He’d not mistaken her gaze, full of passion, openly appraising them as they’d stood in her dining room. She found them attractive, and if the subtle catch in her breath was telling, she was equally drawn to them.

He glanced down at Cassius and cupped his cheek, then dipped his head, to brush his lips back and forth until Cassius opened beneath him and Titus plundered his lover’s mouth with his tongue.

He wanted Anan.

Cassius wanted Anan.

And Titus disagreed entirely with Cassius—Anan desired them as well, and if the rumors were true, and the look in her eyes yesterday suggested that they were, then she would have them if they touched her.

The last time they’d taken a woman to their bed it had not ended well and he sensed that was the reason for Cassius’ reservations. But Anan was different, her desires were genuine, earnest. She sought intimacy not for sport, but out of the need to be desired, wanted. Titus was convinced Anan would be good for them both, and in turn, they would be good for her.