Centurion's Honor (Imperial Desires, Book One) (4 page)

With the absence of the two men from her chambers, Anan was surprised to discover they’d left something behind—a deep, aching longing within her for something she was a fool to want, yet she was powerless to ignore, and certainly could not deny.

Chapter Four

The next morning, Anan strolled through the empty vestibules of her villa. The thud of sandaled feet striking the stones embedded in the ground, along with ragged, stilted breathing from its three owners, were the only sounds to be heard.

She’d learned from her father that in order to be a good master in a household full of slaves, one had to be generous. After such a long night of revelry she’d allowed her servants the day to themselves. Her home would not cease to function without them for just a day, but now she regretted her charitable gesture.

Burnished rays of sunlight filtered through the arched columns of her home, heating her skin, but the warmth it ignited along her flesh paled in comparison to the frissons of fire clawing its way through her belly as she pretended to ignore the presence of the two men who walked behind her.

Cassius had requested a tour of her estate so that he might position his men strategically throughout her villa and across her lands, but now that her home was all too silent and empty of any servants who were awake, she wished she’d feigned a passing infirmity to avoid being alone with the two men.

They walked in silence, interrupted ever so often when she pointed out something unique or they asked a question.

The silence was torture.

That they pretended as if the events that transpired the night before had not happened was even more so.

Anan acknowledged she’d had far too much wine, but what about Titus and Cassius? They’d had none. As inconceivable as it was, she was forced to accept they’d spoken truth.

They found her pleasing—the both of them.

They desired her—the both of them.

It had been so long since a man had touched her intimately, with longing in his eyes. It was foolish to invite these two Romans into her bed. But she did not think she had the power to resist them, not when they stared at her so openly with lust and desire brimming in their eyes. That was why she walked ahead of them, only addressing them briefly and barely meeting their gazes. She could not trust herself alone with them, she could not trust herself to resist them.

It was foolish to invite them into her bed.

A woman who had not experienced passion in so long, it was foolish
not
to.

She stepped from her villa onto the wide expanse of land spread out before her, the sun beating down upon her.

“And here is where we keep our sheep,” she said, gesturing toward the small wooden fence that corralled the sheep she raised for their wool. “Our pigs.” She pointed at a similar wooden pen across from where the sheep were housed. The pigs she raised for their meat.

“What do you harvest there?”

Anan glanced in the direction of where Titus pointed. “Apples, figs, grapes for the wine. A number of fruit. And beyond those trees there are more, full of olives.”

She noted the surprise on their faces with a measure of pride. The Romans may have taken her territory, but after her father’s death, she’d demanded a substantial parcel of land in exchange for her willing submission to the dictates of the Empire. This villa, this farm, was of her own making, and she’d done well by it in harvesting both livestock and vegetation.

“The stables over there. Do not tell me you raise horses as well?” She nodded, smiling at the awe in Cassius’ voice.

“That is the most impressive feat of this estate,” she said, making her way over to the stables with both men on her heels. “The horses I breed here can often be found in a number of your Roman chariot races.”

Anan entered the expansive stable, the smell of hay and manure tickling her nose. It was a familiar smell, a welcome one. Her father had been an expert in horse flesh and she’d spent a great deal of her childhood alongside him, examining the quality of the beasts they bred then sold.

“This
is
impressive,” Cassius said finally after a long silence.

“You seem surprised.”

He quirked a single brow. “But that should not surprise you. Most wealthy Roman women do not seem to have the temerity to purchase and run an estate on their own, without at least the assistance of a male relative. And yet you have built this place from nothing and it has thrived under your care.” His gaze sharpened on her. “I
am
surprised.”

His admiration was so unexpected that she was shocked at the heat suffusing her cheeks. “I imagine given the chance, along with a bit of education, women of Rome would be equally adept at such things,” she replied.

Cassius shrugged. “Perhaps.”

He did not seem convinced, but she disagreed with his assessment. She recalled her brief time spent in the city of Rome. The wealthy wives and matrons she’d encountered had all been intelligent, but she was astounded to find that they languished about most of their day with few duties to occupy their time.

“Perhaps you are simply adept at such things, where others, no matter their education, would simply fail.”

Her eyes twinkled at that even as she ignored the veiled insinuation that somehow other women could not do what she had done. “Careful there,
Decurio
.
That almost sounded like a compliment to me and my barbaric ways.”

She could have imagined it, but Anan would swear Cassius’ lips twitched with the beginnings of a smile.

Titus, she’d discovered, was less restrained, and when she glanced at him she was treated to a wickedly handsome grin.

The midday sun had grown warmer, and the stables were all of a sudden hot and musty. She turned to leave but stopped at the distinct sound coming from beside her. She did not need to glance over the wooden gate into the stable to know what she would find there, but she did anyway.

Anan had spent too many hours and days in stables to be shocked by what she saw—a powerful chestnut stallion on his hind legs, behind one of her mares powering inside the beast, rutting in the way of wild animals.

The act did not shock her, nor was it the source of any embarrassment.

Her shock and embarrassment only came when she spun around and slammed into the scorching gazes of the two men who’d drawn closer, too close.

Her breathing was suddenly shallow, her breasts suddenly heavier.

The sounds of the animals fucking behind her filled the silence that stretched between them.

Cassius and Titus looked between her and the horses rutting in the stable.

She knew what they saw.

She knew what they thought, because her thoughts were the same, but she fought to bury the desire flaring hot inside her, to ignore the pull of attraction pulsing between the three of them.

These Romans, they were her enemies, it would be foolish to take them to her bed, or entertain any thoughts of such. She started to leave the stable but was forced to halt when Titus blocked her way.

“What is fascinating about animals is that their needs are primal, instinctive.” She started at the touch of his hand against her cheek, his warm, sweet breath brushing across her face. A deep, sexual hunger stirred within her belly, inflaming her skin, tightening the buds of her breasts.

“It is mortals who seek to deny their baser urges.”

“You think I am denying my urges?”

“Are you?”

He must have glimpsed an answering flicker in her eyes because a small smile curled his lips.

“From the moment we arrived and stood before you, I saw desire in your eyes—”

When she started to protest, Titus shook his head. “Why deny it when it is shared? I know the truth, as does Cassius, and so do you.” His calloused hand was rough against her cheek, and she knew if she did not push him away he would not stop with a touch.

She didn’t.

“Animals do not deny their needs,” he whispered, his face drawing closer. Her heart hammered faster and she knew she should stop him. “When it comes to the desires of our bodies, why should we?”

Because it is foolish to be driven by the desires of one’s bodies was what she wished to say.

She didn’t.

Instead, she lifted her head and when his lips found their way to hers, he crushed his mouth against hers, his tongue driving inside.

He was right. She had long denied the demands of her body, but with Titus’ lips fused to hers, she decided she did not wish to do so any longer.

His kiss was desperate, urgent as he sealed their mouths and she yielded beneath his full, firm lips, drinking in all that was him.

She had not forgotten about Cassius, but neither was she fully aware of him, until a pair of hands cupped her breasts and a hard bulge pressed against the swells of her ass. She gasped then groaned into Titus’ mouth as Cassius groped the globes of her breasts, grinding his engorged cock into her backside.

Warm breath fanned across the sensitive skin of her neck, followed by the light teasing of lips against her flesh. Titus devoured her mouth with his, while his hands found their way to her ass, to massage her gently then firmly.

She was trapped between the both of them as they grinded against her. Hands and lips were everywhere as she found herself bombarded by the sensation of both men touching her, kissing her. Titus’ hands inched beneath her
stola
, pushing it up the length of her body. Cassius joined his cause, holding it in place so that it bunched at her waist. With her legs unencumbered, Titus nudged her thighs apart so that he could rub his hard groin against the lips of her dripping pussy. She gasped, her hands clinging to Titus’ broad shoulders as a bolt of heat shot through her.

She was panting and breathless, her legs unsteady as fierce, hot need consumed her and she would have fallen had they not held her trapped between their hard bodies.

Cassius pressed the mound of his cock deeper within the swells of her ass, grinding harder.

“One day soon, I shall take you here,” he breathed against the crook of her neck and a low moan escaped her when he pressed a finger against her lips until she opened her mouth fully, taking his digit inside. He groaned as she sucked on his finger, before he slowly removed it from her mouth to probe gently at the entrance to her anus with his wet digit.

She’d never had a man touch her there before, let alone take her there, and she shivered even as the forbidden pleasure warmed her.

Her sheath was hot and wet, dripping with the evidence of her arousal, and she knew when Titus finally pulled away from her, his tunic would be stained with her juices.

But like Cassius, he drew away from her only slightly to replace his burgeoning arousal with his searching finger.

He probed inside her, tentatively at first, the wetness of her tunnel making his journey slick, even as the unyielding flesh of her body clenched tight at his invasion.

He wrenched his lips from hers to rest his cheek against hers and she knew from the rigid lines of his body, his face was drawn and tense.

“By the gods,” he groaned, pushing his finger deeper inside her. “You are as tight as a virgin.”

She gasped at the intrusion even as the muscles of her cunt drew him inside. More wetness greeted his searching finger as she began to relax around him. Titus pumped and thrust his middle finger inside with a steady, unrelenting rhythm. By the time his thumb found its way to the nub at the apex of her pussy she was a mindless ball of raw sensations and nerve endings.

In the distance she heard a harsh belting, a bellowing sound, and knew the rutting stallion had found its release.

“And now it is your turn,” Titus breathed against her lips before claiming them once again.

He buried his finger inside her on deep, stabbing strokes, in tune to the deep, stabbing thrust of his tongue into her mouth.

When Cassius shoved his finger deep into her ass, as far as it would go, she splintered apart, powerless to stop the wave of pleasure and heat crashing upon her.

She came on a long, soul-stirring cry that Titus swallowed with his kiss. Her pussy clenched around his finger, causing her rectum to pulse around Cassius’ digit, which was still buried within.

The dual invasion, the dual pleasure left her body shuddering and satiated and she would have collapsed into a boneless heap at their feet had both men not held her.

Several minutes passed before she could breathe normally. Several more passed before she had the strength to stand on her own, and when she did, both Cassius and Titus pulled away from her long enough to help her right her garments.

It was while she was still trying to smooth the wrinkles from her
stola
that footsteps came upon them and she spun around.

Olivia, her maidservant, stood in the entrance of the stables, the sun against her back. The young woman was just months away from eighteen
annum
,
so Anan knew the three of them did not fool her maidservant even as they stood with rigid spines and faces devoid of the passion they’d experienced just moments ago.

“Yes, Olivia. I thought I told you to enjoy this day as your own.”

She nodded. “Yes,
domina
,
but there is a matter that requires your attention.”

Olivia looked nervously between her and the men at her back. Anan recognized the apprehension in her gaze as one not of embarrassment but of fear.