Courted (4 page)

Caught completely off guard by the remark,
Lucillus choked briefly on his wine, coughed, and then laughed
uproariously. Proud she had amused him so, Anthea preened to
herself as she watched him recover his calm.

“You are a very silly lady as well as a
pretty one,” he managed.

“That’s what the gladiators all said, too”
she nodded sagely.

This time Lucillus laughed so hard he spilled
his wine, and they had to move to the other triclinium.

As they were resituating themselves on the
other couch to drink the sweet after-dinner wine, Anthea was struck
was a thought. “Will it bother you that Annia will be here again
tomorrow? We’ll need to eat on different couches then, but she
would go to bed shortly after dinner so …” With her words hanging
in the air, she wondered how other mothers managed to get laid when
their marriages went kaput.

Lucillus was pensive. “Do you think it will
be a bad influence on her?”

She shook her head, “Honestly, I don’t.
Provided we are discreet and don’t start tearing one another’s
tunics off in front of her, it should be fine. She will probably
suspect but she won’t
know
. Even if she did,” Anthea sighed,
“I think she should know her life doesn’t have to end if a marriage
does. Her father is marrying her to one of his trading partners
from Aquitaine next June. The man is nice enough, but he is twice
her age with a daughter almost as old as she is. Who knows how it
will turn out? People who marry only once are rare nowadays.”

Her lover nodded, but added wistfully, “My
parents were married for more than 40 years before my father died.
She has never remarried. I had always hoped for something like that
myself.”

“So did I, once upon a time,” she admitted.
“Unfortunately I had to learn that both people must want that for
the marriage to last.”

“It isn’t an easy lesson, is it?” His eyes
were sad. “Even if the couple loves each other, sometimes it can
still go very wrong.”

“What happened?” There had been no gossip
about her having a lover, but there had been a rumor he had put his
wife aside for barrenness.

“Tullia left me.” He swallowed a little wine
to compose himself. “She said if she gave me a divorce, I could
remarry and have the chance to have a son. I told her that it
didn’t matter, that I still loved her, but she told me that she
loved me too much to stay, knowing what I was giving up for her. I
couldn’t change her mind, not with all my skills in rhetoric, not
with poetry, and not even with the threat of an ugly lawsuit to
keep her dowry.”

“She probably knew you were too honorable for
the lawsuit to be anything but a bluff,” Anthea needed to break the
silence when he had finished speaking.

Lucillus shrugged. “Perhaps. At any rate she
went back to her father’s house, and he arranged a new marriage for
her with a widower in Egypt who already had five children and
needed a good wife more than a fertile one. Before she left for
Alexandria, she wrote me to tell me that she knew that unless she
remarried and moved far away, I wouldn’t find a new wife out of
sheer stubbornness.”

“Your divorce was final at least half a year
before I came to you for legal representation. Why haven’t you
remarried?” Anthea wasn’t sure she wanted an answer if it featured
the fact he was still in love with his ex.

Lucillus was so quiet for so long she thought
she might have gone too far, and offended him. When he finally
spoke she felt like she could breathe once more.

“At first, it was because I hoped Tullia
would change her mind. Then after she left, it was because I didn’t
care enough about it to make inquiries for a potential bride. No
sooner had I resolved to begin a search in earnest, the Fates
intervened for their own amusement.”

Anthea was puzzled. “Did you hear from Tullia
again?”

“No.” Lucillus’ smile was slightly askew. “I
met a beautiful woman and knew I had to try to my best to woo her
before I could look for a wife.”

Jealousy that she knew she had no right to
punched Anthea in the stomach, making her feel sick. She kept her
face bland and asked with seeming nonchalance, “Was your suit
successful?”

Lucillus reached over to tuck a tendril of
hair back behind her ear, and trailed his finger along her jaw. “I
managed to charm my way into the lady’s bed, but I don’t know if
I’ve made any impression on her heart.”

When the meaning of what he said finally sunk
in, Anthea wasn’t certain she heard it correctly. “Any woman who
could deny you her heart must not have one.”

“Do you have a heart, Anthea?” He placed his
hand on her hip and stroked his way over its curve.

“I might.” She could hear her voice shaking
despite her resolve not to indulge in a grossly improper display of
emotion. “I am afraid for the poor thing though. I have never
trusted anyone to hold it for me. I have given only the shadow of
my heart to others and yet they managed to drop even that little
bit. What would a man do with my whole heart? Wouldn’t it be too
heavy not to break?”

“It depends on the man.” Lucillus told her,
his hand warm through her stola. “If it was given to me, I know I
would keep it safe.”

Anthea closed her eyes, unable to look at
him. “How can I give you what is already yours?” she whispered.

His reply was a kiss that lacked all of the
tentative finesse of before. This kiss was a devouring one,
something that burned through her defenses and laid her soul bare
before him. She buried her fingers into his hair and kissed him
back with everything she had, telling him without words how she
felt.

When the kiss ended she was shaking from the
adrenaline, fear and joy mixing inside her in equal parts. She was
not alone. She could feel Lucillus’ hand tremble against the small
of her back, even as his erection pressed against her
insistently.

“Come to the bedroom with me,” he coaxed. “I
want to show you how much I value my new treasure.”

****

Their clothes lay discarded on the floor as
they held each other on the bed, their kisses punctuated by
murmured endearments.

“I’ve loved you for months, how could you
have not known?” Lucillus asked, his voice muffled as he laid a
path of kisses down her throat and licked the hollow at the bottom
of her neck where her pulse fluttered wildly.

“You’re joking right?” Anthea gasped. “You
could have any woman in the province; I never suspected you would
fall in love with a woman my age, especially one going through an
ugly divorce.”

Lucillus answered only with a noise that
sounded suspiciously like a harrumph, his mouth being busy her
breasts. He captured one nipple with his teeth, hurting it just
enough to feel intensely agreeable. Then, as though contrite for
the actions of his teeth, his tongue laved over the peak of her
breast tenderly.

Alternating the use of tweaking teeth and
soothing tongue, his mouth made its way down her stomach to the top
of her pubis. Lucillus put his hands on the back of her and guided
them until they were spread with her knees bent, opening up her
most secret places for his ministrations.

He ran his tongue along the crease where her
thigh and hip joined, and felt her heels dig into the bed with
excitement and anticipation. He kissed the cusp of her supple labia
majora, just above her waiting clitoris. Again, he taunted her by
turning his attention to the inside of her thighs and her hairless
pudenda.

Lucillus kept up his sweet torment until
Anthea finally cried out, “Venus is going to strike you down if you
don’t do something other than tease me soon, you aggravating
man!”

He snickered, but acquiesced to her pleas. He
swirled his tongue around the small protrusion at the top of her
folds, delighting in the way she convulsed and seized the bedding
under her. He flicked the nodule of her clitoris with the tip of
his tongue over and over, until she was writhing under its erotic
lash. When she climaxed, he luxuriated in the primal smugness of a
man who had satisfied the woman he loved.

He made his way back up her body, kissing her
hipbone and along the side of her torso, until he was lying by her
once more. He attempted to kiss Anthea’s lips again, but she turned
her head.

“Don’t you dare.” She commanded him, her
voice thick with satiated lust. “If I wanted to know what a cunnus
tastes like there are prostitutes who specialize in that.”

Lucillus laughed, his shoulders shaking. He
nipped her earlobe and said, “Fair enough, but you don’t know what
you’re missing,” causing Anthea to burst out laughing as well.

“I have an idea, now that you have brought up
lupanaria.” He scraped his teeth lightly along her shoulder and
sucked on the spot where her neck met it, making her shudder with
pleasure. “Do you like to imitate wolves in other ways?”

Anthea rolled languidly onto her side facing
him. “I’m not sure, but I am willing listen to suggestions.”

Lucillus rose up and moved behind her,
flipping her onto her stomach. “Then I suggest you raise your hips
for me, lady wolf.”

“I may rethink this,” Anthea was dubious as
she positioned herself with her hips up and her head resting on her
forearms, “it feels a little too … undignified.”

“Ah, but you don’t have the view that I
have.” She felt Lucillus tug on her necklace so that the pearls
draped down her back. “I promise you that there is nothing so
beautiful.”

Anthea smiled at the compliment, but remained
unconvinced. “Somehow I fail to see the elegance.”

“If you don’t like it, I’ll stop as soon as
you say to,” Lucillus promised, easing the head of his penis into
her. The velvety walls of her cunna were climax-swollen, and he was
being careful not to hurt them accidentally as he penetrated
her.

“Alright, but I am … Oh Holy Venus!” Anthea
moaned as he pushed himself deeply inside her, bringing new
sensations of friction and heat. “Nevermind, I’m good here.”

“Good.” Gripping her hips tightly, Lucillus
pulled almost all the way out of her before plunging back in,
careful not to go too far since the position shifted a woman’s womb
and made it easier to reach. He knew she like some stimulation of
her cervix, but he was well aware too much could be very
painful.

Pumping in and out of her cunna, with its
slick grip clenching around him, Lucillus tried to concentrate on
matters of Roman law in a desperate attempt to stave off his own
orgasm. As it was when delivering an oratory before the court, he
had found timing was important in these matters. He managed to hang
on until he felt her tighten and throb around him, when he gave up
and joined his groans to hers as he filled her with his seed.

****

“I should go soon.” Regret was heavy in
Lucillus’ voice. “If I stay much longer I’m going to fall asleep
and Jove knows the slaves will gossip enough without everyone in
your insula seeing me creep out of here tomorrow.”

“The entire neighborhood can
ocsula
asnio
for all I care.” Anthea assured him sleepily. Feeling him
spooned behind her was just too fabulous a sensation for her to
relinquish willingly. She didn’t even have the willpower to lean up
and extinguish the small bedside lamp that was still burning.

Lucillus laughed quietly, stirring the hair
on the crown of her head briefly. “Nonsense. I don’t want people
talking about my wife that way before I can marry her.”

A group of Cybele’s priests, squalling and
crashing symbols, could not have awoken her faster. She nearly
vaulted into a sitting position. Clutching the blanket to her
breasts in totally unnecessary modesty, she exclaimed, “Your
what
?”

In turn, Lucillus looked startled and pushed
himself up as well. He didn’t cover his own chest, though. Anthea
thought this was distinctly unfair considering that expanse of firm
muscular pectorals was every bit as distracting to her as her
breasts would be to him. Considering the soft construction of the
only other men she’s slept with, perhaps more so.

“My wife. Of course I want to marry you. I
love you.” His voice became slightly peevish. “What kind of cad do
you think I am?”

Anthea blinked. “There are men all over this
Empire who have affairs with women they love but don’t ever intend
to marry, and they are not necessarily cads. Love and marriage
aren’t synonymous. Marriage brings two families into connection,
not just the people saying ‘Ubi ti Gaius, ego Gaia’, you know.”

Lucillus frowned at her pragmatism. “I know
that.” The deep hum of his voice definitely sounded peevish now.
“However, there is no reason why we couldn’t get married. You are
sui iuris
and need no permission from your family. I am now
the head of mine. I’m not seeing the problem here.”

Visibly bracing herself, Anthea said, “Has it
occurred to you that I am probably past my childbearing years? I
never even wondered if I might be pregnant with Titus. I am
thirty-five for Juno’s sake. I am more likely to be a new
grandmother than new mother at my age.”

Lucillus’s frown upgraded to a scowl.
Clearly, he didn’t like reality intruding on his afterglow. “I’m
thirty-seven, so I am not some sort of Lothario preying on an older
woman. Don’t make it sound like you are elderly. I don’t even think
you are old. You are mature. Like good wine.”

Anthea rolled her eyes; she couldn’t stop
herself. “Although I thank you for considering me mature rather
than elderly, that changes nothing. Men can father children when
they are older than Cesar’s ghost. Women cannot. The whole reason
your first wife fell on her own sword and divorced you was so that
you could have children. You would be a fool not to marry a young
woman with a better chance of bearing your sons.”