Tainted (17 page)

His breath came in harsh pants, his blood pounded in
primitive need. He slid his arm around her, held her close, found her silken,
swollen clit.

“Antonia.” It was all he could manage but she gave a jerk of
her head as though she understood.

“Yes.” Her voice was hoarse. It was the most erotic sound he
had ever heard. He teased her clit until she squirmed, her beautiful bottom
rubbing against his engorged length. He pushed in a little farther, and the
tight clamp of her muscles expanded, granting him entry.

A groan seared his throat. She held him in a mind-shattering
vise, her tunnel so tight and hot the urge to
thrust
and
possess
splintered his reason.

The gods only knew how he held back. How he remained motionless
while her body adjusted to his invasion, to his size. Her uneven breath stoked
his lust, and the vision of his cock embedded in her sweetly puckered arse
caused every fantasy he had ever harbored to crumble to dust.

He forced words to form. The hardest thing he had done in
his life. “Still with me?”

For answer, she slowly raised her hips, adjusting her
position, and his cock sank deeper into her tight embrace. “Fuck.” It slipped
from him, unintentional. “That feels so good, Antonia.”

“Take me.” Her words were jagged and she backed against him
a little more, forcing him farther inside her. “Make me yours, Gawain.”

Air hissed between his gritted teeth.
She was his
.
She would always be his. He pushed two fingers into her wet slit and teased her
clit with his thumb as he thrust into her, and his balls slammed against her
vulnerable pussy.

His other hand cradled her breast. She fit so perfectly into
the palm of his hand. He pinched her erect nipple and her ragged gasps and
seductive little moans licked across his senses like molten fire. His beautiful
Roman noblewoman, so reserved in public, was on her hands and knees. Impaled on
his shaft. Her body undulating with lust, her hair wild and abandoned.

Then she contracted around him and the sensation sent lightning
splintering along his cock, into his balls and deep into his groin. Primal
demand thudded through his veins, glazed his vision. All he could see, all he
could feel, was Antonia as she writhed beneath him; every movement an exquisite
lesson in uninhibited pleasure.

He abandoned her breast and gripped her hip. Still she
writhed, still she whimpered, her choked moans stoking him beyond endurance. He
fought to go slow. But his body rode her the way he needed to ride her, and her
tight tunnel gripped each possessive slide of his cock with eager submission.

Her back was arched. Her body slick with scented oil and
sweat. Her tangled hair tumbled over her shoulders and his grip on her hip
became brutal.

Crimson ribbons streaked his world as everything but Antonia
faded to black. He cupped her sex, pressed his finger against her clit and
tried and failed to avert the inevitable.

The pressure built. From the base of his spine, the dark pit
of his soul. Primal need thudded. He fucked her virgin arse and the feel of her
body constricting his cock pushed him over the edge.

A guttural roar tore his throat as he buried himself deep
inside and came with frenzied need. As he irrevocably made her his, her hot
cream spilled over his fingers as Antonia’s climax entwined with his, and they
became one.

For long moments, Gawain held Antonia close, his body
enveloping her back, his head against her shoulder. Her uneven breath and the
erratic thunder of her heart cocooned him in a false sense of serenity. A haven
of bliss, where nothing existed but the two of them.

Only when her legs began to shake with fatigue did he
finally, reluctantly, withdraw from her addictive embrace. She whimpered and he
nibbled kisses along her damp throat. He might have left her body but he had no
intention of leaving her.

Not just yet.

He draped a sheet around her and they lay on their sides,
facing each other. He brushed her tangled hair from her face, winding the stray
curls around his fingers. His gaze never left hers. “Was it how you imagined?”

Her smile was tired, but dazzled him all the same. “It was
beyond my wildest imaginings.”

With her hair enmeshed between his fingers, he stroked her
flushed face with his knuckles. “Something you would like to do again?”

She gave an exhausted laugh and flattened her hand against
his chest. “Very much.” She stroked him with the tips of her fingers, and it
was oddly comforting. “But I am not sure I could manage that again this night.”

He laughed and kissed the tip of her nose. He’d had no
intention of doing any such thing. “Another night, then.”

“I shall look forward to it.” She shifted, and a fleeting
frown marred her brow.

“Are you uncomfortable?” He propped himself up on his
forearm. He hadn’t intended to finish so brutally. But her ragged gasps, her
seductive writhing and the way she had clenched around him had all served to
shatter his self-control.

No excuse. She had been a virgin. He should have taken more
care.

She trailed her fingers along his jaw and across his mouth.
He resisted the urge to suck her finger inside.

“Why the glower?” She traced the outline of his lips and
then sighed, as if resigned that he had no intention of bypassing the question.
“I am not uncomfortable, Gawain. I feel pleasantly,” she hesitated for a moment
and then shot him a sultry glance from beneath her lashes, “fucked.” Her
blushed deepened but a smile teased her lips. Enthralled, he could not tear his
gaze away. She truly was an enchantress. “But I must confess. I am relieved I
don’t have to spend all day tomorrow in the saddle. I fear my bottom would
violently protest.”

“Next time I will not ride you so roughly.”

“Oh.” Her breath feathered across his hand as he cradled her
jaw. “I was hoping that next time you might lose control earlier.”

Speechless, he stared at her. Despite her enchanting blush,
she did not drop her gaze. She knew exactly what she meant and the knowledge
that she did not consider herself a fragile piece of spun glass caused his cock
to thicken in delicious anticipation.

His beautiful Roman might not be a warrior but she was far
from the pampered, spoiled patrician he had first imagined. Hadn’t she told
him, the first time they had made love, that she wasn’t made of spun glass? But
it wasn’t only her sensibilities that were tougher than he’d first assumed.

A satisfied smile curved his lips. “Beware of what you wish
for, Antonia. Are you sure you could handle me if I
lost
control
?”

She tugged him down beside her once again. “There is nothing
about you that I could not handle.”

He threaded his fingers through hers and pressed their hands
against her heart. Her words touched him but it was a bittersweet sensation.
Antonia might think she could handle anything that concerned him but what would
she do if she discovered he was a Druid?

Gods, what was he thinking? There were some things that
could never be shared.

They lay in companionable silence, content to merely look in
each other’s eyes. When was the last time he had done this?

Never. Not even with Morwyn. Yet he could not bring himself
to move, to bring this strange sense of harmony to an end. Instead he traced a
finger over the bracelets that adorned her wrist. They were of exquisite
quality, but he expected nothing less from a family as wealthy as hers.

The gold locket around her throat drew his attention.
Whenever they had met her earrings and bracelets had complemented her gowns but
her locket remained constant. Idly he picked it up in his free hand and
examined it as it lay on his palm. Antonia didn’t say anything but he felt her
tense, as though he had just crossed an invisible and incomprehensible barrier.

He met her eyes. She stared back; oddly defiant. Intrigued
by her attitude he didn’t allow the gold chain to slide through his fingers as
had been his original intention. “This is a beautiful piece of craftsmanship.”

For a moment, he thought she wasn’t going to answer. Then
she sighed and broke eye contact. “Yes. My father gave it to me on the day of
my birth.”

He knew there was a genuine bond between Antonia and her
father, but her reaction did not ring true to him. His thumb grazed the clasp
and once again she stiffened. Why was she so alarmed at the prospect that he
might open her locket and see what secrets she kept within?

Memory stirred. At the
praetor
’s insufferable feast,
Antonia’s calm façade had cracked when Maximus had defended his daughter’s
honor. Gawain knew Antonia had been pregnant in the past and from her reaction
earlier this night, he guessed she had at least one daughter. Was it her
children’s portrait she kept close to her heart? Had she been forced by her
despicable former husband to leave them in Rome?

He allowed the locket to slide from his fingers and once
again nestle between her breasts. Just days ago it hadn’t interested him one
way or the other whether Antonia had children, or how many. But now it
mattered. He wanted to know. Because whether they shared her life now or not,
they were still a part of her.

She stared at his chest, deliberately avoiding his gaze. He
lifted her chin with one finger and made her look at him. There might be
secrets they were forced to keep from each other, but this was not one of them.

“Would you allow me to look on the faces of your children,
Antonia?”

The blood drained from her face and she stared at him in
what looked abject horror. What had he said? Had he made a terrible mistake?

“
What
?” Her voice was barely audible and she clutched
at her locket as though she imagined he might snatch it from her. Unease snaked
through his gut. This was far from the reaction he had expected.

Why had he asked her? Why did he want to see her children?
It could mean nothing to him. And yet it did. They were hers, and he wanted to
know everything about her.

That realization did nothing to calm his rising unease.

“You do have children, don’t you, Antonia?” Why was she
being so evasive? Why didn’t she want him to know of them? Most of all why did
her reluctance to share something so important with him sting?

“I—” Her voice was husky. With a stab of shock, he realized
she was vibrating with fear. “I conceived five babies. I lost my two sons
during the sixth month of each pregnancy.”

Horror crawled along his spine at what she had suffered, and
the crass insensitivity of his invasive questioning. Words were inadequate but
he tried regardless. “Antonia. I’m sorry.”

She licked her lips and her fingers gripped his in a
punishing vise, yet she seemed unaware that they still held hands. “I lost my
daughters during the fifth and seventh months of pregnancy.”

Ice froze his veins. He had imagined her daughters had
survived. But she had lost them all. Not only lost them, but had been forced to
go through the hazard of childbirth each time knowing, in her heart, they had
no chance of survival.

Gods. No wonder shadows haunted her eyes. No wonder she
wrapped herself in a façade of aloof detachment.

He stared into her lovely face and saw grief etched into
every curve and shadow. How had he not seen it before?

He tugged her rigid hand up and kissed her knuckles. She
hadn’t mentioned her third daughter and he did not have the heart to ask. It
was clear what had happened. Her former husband had kept her in Rome.

“My last child was also a daughter.” Her voice was barely
audible but at least she no longer trembled. He tightened his grip on her hand,
trying to infuse her with his strength. Trying to let her know, without the
need for awkward words, that he was there for her. “I carried her to term.”

She was the child whose likeness Antonia carried against her
heart. He still wanted to see her, but knew he would never again ask. By his
thoughtless questioning, he had forced Antonia to relive the worst thing a
woman could imagine. Yet those tragic events, that he could not even begin to
comprehend, had shaped her into the woman she was today. The woman he could not
shift from his mind.

The gods, no matter who they were or which people worshipped
them, were cruel, callous and entirely self-serving. What harm had Antonia ever
done that she should be so brutally punished?

“She lives in Rome?” His voice was hushed and while he was certain
she did, there was always the chance Antonia had brought her to Britain.
Perhaps, after all, her daughter did live with her.

Antonia expelled a harsh breath and once again he felt her
body tense. “When my daughter was presented to her father he turned his back on
her and ordered her death.”

Something dark and ugly twisted deep inside Gawain’s chest.
There could be only one reason why Antonia’s daughter had been condemned to
die. It happened in his culture too. He didn’t have to like it to acknowledge
that it happened. Such decisions were never taken lightly. Who was he to judge
another in such a matter?

But for Antonia to have lost four children, only to have her
fifth born with such severe deformities that death was considered a kinder
option, sickened him to the bottom of his soul.

There was nothing he could say to make her feel better.
There was nothing he could do to wind back time and prevent him from asking the
question in the first place.

“The gods play vicious games with us at times.”

“The gods had nothing to do with it.”

Something in her tone pierced the fog of recrimination that
gripped him in a wraithlike vise.

“It was not your fault, Antonia.” Was that what her bastard
of a husband had told her? Blamed her for their child’s frail clasp on
mortality?

She stared at him. “My fault?” She sounded confused, as
though his words made no sense. He resisted the urge to wrap his arms around
her and seduce her into forgetting this excruciating conversation. He had
started it. He would not dishonor her pain by pretending it did not exist.

“That your daughter was…” The words lodged in his throat. In
the past, before the invasion of Cymru, he had counseled his people in times of
need. But that had been different. They had not been Antonia and their loss had
not clawed through his guts the way Antonia’s loss did now. But still she
stared at him and somehow he forced the word out. “Damaged.”

The silence after his words thundered between them and for a
moment, he thought he’d gone too far. That he had pushed her beyond her limits
and she would crumble before him. But even as the thought formed, it
disintegrated. Because she wasn’t looking at him as if she was about to fall
apart. She looked at him as though he spoke in the sacred language of the gods.

“My daughter,” she said, and there was a fierce and terrible
pride in her voice that unaccountably caused the spirits of his ancestors to
drift over his arms. “Was perfect in every way. Her only flaw was that she was
not a boy. My husband refused to acknowledge her existence to spite me, Gawain.
To punish me for the sons I had lost.” Disbelief seared him, yet he knew she
spoke the truth. She bared her teeth and for one eerie moment looked like a
Celtic warrior going into battle. “As if their deaths do not haunt me every
moment of every day.”

Disbelief surged into rage. It scarcely even registered that
the man was Roman. All that thundered through Gawain’s mind was her husband had
murdered his own child, simply to hurt his wife.

“It’s as well he is in Rome. If I ever came across him I’d
run him through with his own sword.”

“That notion crossed my mind more than once.” He felt the
tension seep from Antonia as her fingers relaxed their death grip around his.
“Had I possessed the strength that night I would have cut his throat with a
fibula
if nothing else had come to hand.”

Again the ethereal touch of his ancestors raised the hairs
on his arms. Something was infinitesimally out of balance, although he could
not fathom what. Antonia’s heated fury of just moments ago had cooled and while
he was relieved his thoughtlessness hadn’t caused her to tumble into hysteria,
her current state of calm was…unnerving.

She had just confided that her husband had killed their
newborn daughter. Admittedly, he had no idea how long ago it had happened
although it couldn’t be that long, given her age and the length of time she had
been married. But even so, her attitude baffled him. Was it because the only
way she could get through each day was to bury the pain so deeply that she
could pretend it had never happened?

It seemed logical. But he couldn’t shift the feeling that
something else had happened that night, something significant that she hadn’t
told him.

He could think of nothing to say that didn’t involve deadly
force against her former husband, and so he remained silent. But it was a
healing silence as the tension that had held Antonia in its merciless grip
faded and she hugged his hand against her breast.

“I vowed I would never conceive another child.” Her voice was
so low he scarcely caught her words. He wondered if she even meant for him to
hear. He buried his face in her silken hair and closed his eyes. There was
nothing he could do to ease the pain she had suffered. How he wished there was.

It was late. Every moment he stayed increased the chance of
him being caught. But the thought of leaving her bed held no appeal.

Just a little longer. There would be no harm in that.

“Gawain.” Her whisper penetrated his thoughts and he brushed
a kiss across her brow.

“What is it?”

Her sleepy gaze caught his. “I know it’s impossible for you
to stay all night but would you mind—could you stay with me for just a short
while? Until I go to sleep?”

“Yes.” His response appeared to both surprise and delight
her, if the look on her face was anything to go by. She bestowed a luminous
smile at him, sighed and then snuggled against him, as though that was the most
natural thing in the world for her to do.

Propped up on his elbow he watched as her breathing became
regular and her muscles fully relaxed. With her hair tangled over her shoulders
and spread across her pillows she looked untroubled; untouched by the harsh
realities of life.

How deceptive appearances could be.

No wonder she did not miss life in Rome, when so much
tragedy had befallen her there. Was it really her fate to return, as the wife
of the
praetor
?

She would never return to Rome if he had anything to do
with it.

The thought filled his mind, and it did not thunder with
heated fury, but chilled his blood with iced conviction. Antonia deserved more
than to become the chattel of another arrogant Roman, but what was the
alternative? What could he offer her? A life on the run with a displaced Druid,
a life filled with lies when he’d have to keep his true nature a secret from her?

What was he thinking?
Antonia would never—could
never—share his life, even if he lost his mind and asked her to.

No woman could share his life. There was no room for a woman
in his future. If Rhys remained adamant about not inciting the other Druids to
rebellion then when Carys left Camulodunon so would he.

He’d travel north, beyond the land of the treacherous
Brigantes, into the territories of the Picts. They, at least, still defied the
insidious spread of the cursed Eagle.

But instead of anticipation flooding his blood at the
prospect, an odd hollowness gnawed in his gut. It was the right thing to do.
The only way forward for a warrior who no longer lived in his homeland. Why
then did it feel so wrong?

Perhaps, in spite of his best intentions, he fell asleep
because from the depths of black he jerked awake, heart pounding. For a moment,
he had no idea where he was, until he realized it was Antonia in his arms.
Antonia whose breath came in uneven gasps, whose body trembled and whose
fingernails dug into his forearm in unnamed terror.

“Antonia.” He brushed her hair back from her sweaty face.
She was in the grip of a nightmare and unintelligible words spilled from her
lips. He leaned closer, brushed a kiss across her mouth. “Sweet Antonia, wake
up. You’re safe. I am with you.”

She went rigid and her eyelids sprung open. He began to
smile in reassurance until he realized that she was still asleep. An eerie
shudder inched along his spine as her fathomless eyes bored into him. And then
she spoke.

“Embrace your destiny. Bring them home to me.”

Her words were clear, commanding, directed at him. But it
was none of these things, or even the way she continued to stare, unseeing,
that caused his stomach to clench and chest contract.

It was because Antonia spoke in the sacred language of the
gods
that only Druids understood.