Secrets of New Pompeii (8 page)

No one could have missed the challenge in his
tone. She accepted the criticism and continued. “I was angry and
hurt that he hadn’t even attempted to find me a husband who would
appeal to me personally as well as benefiting his empire.”

“So you arranged for Max to ruin you?” Dario
easily anticipated where the story led. “Oldest trick in the book.
Well, one of them anyway.”

“I didn’t set out to sabotage the betrothal,
at least not consciously. I just wanted the first man I—”

“You were a virgin?”

“She’s a princess, asswipe,” Max snapped. “Of
course she was a virgin.”

“I wanted my first experience with sex to be
with a man of my choosing. I intended to fulfill my obligations to
Fedoros after that. I just needed a few nights for myself.”

“Why Max? What drew a genteel princess to a
vicious gladiator?”

She shrugged, pulling her legs up and
wrapping her arms around her knees. Just thinking about those
long-ago nights awakened her body, creating heat between her thighs
and hardening her nipples. “I’m not as genteel as you think.”

“Is that so?” Dario grabbed her ankle and
tugged her leg away from her chest. Spotting her pebble-hard
nipple, he grinned. “Have you always liked it rough?”

“Her sexual preferences are none of your
business.” Max smacked his hand away, allowing Naloni to bend her
leg.

Dario ignored him and shifted to his knees.
“I watched you watching the tableau. You were flushed and
fascinated. Which position made you hottest?”

The rebel in Naloni surged to the surface,
refusing to be cowed by his provocation. He expected her to blush
and simper. Well, simpering wasn’t in her nature and she wasn’t
ashamed of her desire. “I understood the crowd’s frustration. The
players had wonderful bodies, but none of them were very good
actors.” The ache between her thighs intensified. She’d been horny
ever since she entered the sexually charged atmosphere of the
festival, and being this close to Max, knowing he still wanted her,
only stoked the fires slowly building inside her. “Once they
started actually fucking, I couldn’t look away. I felt bad for
them. It was obvious they were in way over their heads, but no one
can watch genuine passion without being moved by it.”

“Sounds like an interesting challenge.”
Dario’s brow arched and his eyes gleamed. “Let Max go down on you
and let’s see who comes first, you or me.”

Lust rolled through Max with violent
intensity. He understood why Dario was provoking Naloni. Dario’s
resentment ran deep and he needed an outlet for his anger and
frustration. But why was Naloni adding fuel to the fire? Didn’t she
realize Dario wasn’t going to back down? The harder she pushed the
more aggressive Dario would become.

Their power struggle cast Max in the role of
referee, and he was doing his damndest not to act on his own carnal
impulses. “No one is going down on anyone,” he grumbled. It would
be so easy to pull her away from the wall and kiss her soft red
mouth while he worked her pants down along those endless legs.

“Fine.” Dario lowered his fists to the bed,
bringing himself closer without actually leaving his corner of the
mattress. “I’ll lick her pussy and you can watch.”

Her hazel eyes shot Max a look of
unmistakable panic. Possessive hunger launched Max into action. In
an instant he was behind Dario, his forearm banding his throat.

Dario laughed and held up his hands. “It was
only a suggestion. I’m not blind. She wants you, not me.”

“What she wants is to return to her father.”
Liquid heat and stark longing waited as he looked into her eyes.
“Isn’t that right, Princess? You were finished playing with me a
long time ago.”

“It wasn’t like that, Max. You left me.”

If she’d flung the words in anger, he could
have responded in kind, but her features softened and sadness
expanded within her gaze, eclipsing even her desire. He would not
comfort her! She had lied to him about everything. Their entire
relationship had been based on an illusion. “I left a charming,
spirited breeding slave who was determined to live life on her own
terms. I don’t know you.”

“I tried to tell you.” She lowered her face,
hiding behind her sleek black hair. He knew the strategy well. She
used it whenever her emotions became too strong to conceal.

Shoving Dario away, he knelt at her side and
tucked her hair behind her ear. She wouldn’t look at him but at
least he could see her features. “You never told me because there
was nothing worth saying. You would never be content in my world,
and I’m not welcome in yours.”

Miraculously Dario remained silent. He sat
back down and watched the exchange with obvious interest.

“We could have moved to one of the colonies
or left the star system,” she whispered. “We could have found a
way.”

“Now you’re being naive. We were allowed
those three weeks because your father believed you were relaxing
with one of your female friends. If we’d attempted to leave the
planet without his permission, he would have hunted us down.”

“Those three weeks?” Dario echoed. “You
smuggled him beyond the barrier?”

“I wanted him to see that life was more than
violence and pain.” She angled her head, freeing her hair.

“How did you find out who she was?” he asked
Max.

Her head came up. She was obviously
interested in his answer. Not interested enough to ask the question
herself. No, that wasn’t fair. He’d intentionally given her the
wrong impression, had thought it would make their inevitable
parting easier on both of them. “We were at a private resort. She
made sure we had a suite with no direct communication and no access
to the data stream. Unfortunately, the gift shop didn’t get the
memo. I walked in to purchase a pair of sunglasses while she was at
the pool and they had an imager running in the corner. The feature
was on the emperor’s upcoming birthday and one of the graphics
showed him with his children.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” She rested her head
against the wall and stared up at the ceiling. “I thought your
story was crap. You’re not afraid of anything. I couldn’t believe
you felt overwhelmed by the realities of Fedoros, but you wouldn’t
let up. You would accept no other option.”

“You spent three weeks on the outside and
chose to come back here?” Dario shook his head, eyes wide with
disbelief. “Are you insane?”

Many lonely nights Max had asked himself the
same question, but he didn’t want to be a part of the outside world
without Naloni and there was no way her family would let him be
with her. Rather than respond to Dario, he looked at her and said,
“You never tried to see me again.” It was a feeble argument, but it
was all he had left.

“You told me not to. You insisted that any
contact with you would only reopen your wounds and cause you more
pain.” Tears escaped the corners of her eyes and she furiously
batted them away.

“She loved you too much to hurt you anymore,”
Dario murmured. “Even I can see that.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Max insisted. “On either
side of the barrier the truth remains the same. She is literally a
princess and I’m basically a slave.”

Dario pushed to his feet with his first warm
smile. “Sounds like I need to take a walk. I’ve never seen a couple
more in need of makeup sex.”

Max just shook his head, but Naloni blushed,
the splashes of color against her pale skin making her even more
beautiful.

Pausing long enough to drag a flashlight out
of one of the trunks, Dario departed through the smaller door on
the opposite side of the chamber from where they’d entered.

“What happens now?” Naloni looked up at him,
no longer trying to hide the conflict raging within her. “Will
Dario let me go, or am I still your prisoner?”

“He’s not going to hurt you. I won’t let
him.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

He sighed. She was using this ill-fated
escape to push him away. He wanted to crush her to him and silence
her with long, deep kisses. But what would that accomplish? After
their passion was sated, nothing would have changed.

Frustrated as much by his helplessness as her
persistence, he pushed to his feet. As long as she remained in
reach, there was no hope of conversation. He wanted her too badly.
And she wanted him. It was there in her eyes and the trembling of
her lips. She’d always been delightfully open, abandoned to their
passion.

He had to stop thinking about the past! A
relationship had been impossible then and it was impossible
now.

“I don’t know what he has planned,” Max
admitted. “He challenged me to the wrestling match to make sure I’d
be there tonight, but the rest just sort of happened. He told me to
follow his lead. I had no idea you were his target.”

“This passage has obviously been here awhile.
I’m dying to know more about it.”

“As am I.” The conversation felt awkward and
cumbersome because neither of them wanted to talk. “Why did you
never marry?”

“You sound disappointed.” And she sounded
annoyed.

“Not in the way you mean. I obviously didn’t
want you to marry the lecherous old man, but it saddens me to think
of you alone for all these years.”

She stood as well, tossing back her hair as
spirit lit her gaze. “Why?”

“You know why.” He had no intention of
falling into her trap. If he touched her or let her touch him, they
would both go up in flames. “How did you get out of the
betrothal?”

“Vito tracked me down at the resort three
days after you returned to the
ludus
.”

“Tracked you down?”

“I was devastated, Max. I couldn’t think,
couldn’t eat. I didn’t check in with security and Vito was
worried.”

Guilt twisted his heart. He hadn’t meant to
hurt her. No, that wasn’t true either. At the time he’d been
furious and he’d wanted her to understand how deeply lies could
cut. Once he calmed down and was ready to talk, he’d had no way to
contact her. And she had never returned.

“So you told Vito about me?” He skimmed the
surface of the conflict, unwilling to dive into the murky
depths.

“Not exactly. It was obvious I’d been with a
lover and that I’d been dumped.”

“I didn’t dump you. I just returned to my
world and left you in yours.”

She ignored the justification. “When he
couldn’t talk me out of my depression, he became more aggressive
with his inquiries. He spotted us on the resort’s surveillance
vids. He recognized you immediately and couldn’t decide who he
wanted to kill first, you or me.”

“Then Vito told your father?

“Of course not.” Each of his conclusions
seemed to agitate her more. She slipped her hands into her pockets,
which left her breasts temptingly revealed beneath the thin
material of her shirt. “Vito managed the
ludus
. You were his
responsibility. If he’d told Father, it would have reflected badly
on him. He dragged me back to the palace and told me that I was
banned from Gladiator Games. I wasn’t even allowed to attend the
grand opening of New Pompeii and that was the social event of the
century.”

“And the betrothal?” He couldn’t help but
smile. That was all he’d really wanted to know. Had she endured a
scandal to be rid of the lecherous old man?

“Vito told Father I had an affair with one of
his men. He claimed I had sworn him to secrecy and he had no
intention of breaking his word. Vows are important to Father, so he
never pressured Vito for a name. All Father ever asked me was if I
had been pressured in any way. I told him I hadn’t and we never
spoke of it again. The betrothal was quietly dissolved and Father
never contracted another one.”

Unable to resist the cosmic pull of the only
woman he’d ever loved, Max touched her arm. Her skin was soft and
warm, addictive. “I can’t pretend I’m disappointed. It tortured me
to think of you as another man’s wife. I have missed you so much.”
The admission escaped with his sigh and she took a step toward
him.

“I’ve had seven proposals since you left, but
I couldn’t bear to think of myself with anyone but you.”

Had she sought comfort in another man’s arms?
He shouldn’t ask if he couldn’t accept her answer. “Did any of
them…” He couldn’t speak the words.

She smiled, understanding the unspoken
question. “You were my first and you’ll be my last. That’s all that
matters.”

“Agreed.” He raised his hand to her neck,
tracing her jaw with his thumb. “Dario fried your chip. We can go
anywhere we want. Are you really willing to leave your life behind?
There is no way I will ever be able to give you the sort of life to
which you’re accustomed.”

“I understand that.” She licked her lips and
lowered her lashes, shadowing her eyes. “I understood that way back
then. I would have—”

He pressed his thumb against her lips,
stopping her recrimination. “We cannot waste time on the past. We
can’t change the choices we made. We can only learn from them and
move on.”

Her lips parted beneath his thumb and she
lightly nipped him. “That’s almost exactly what Bertrom told me
yesterday.”

“Who is Bertrom?” Her tone lacked the sensual
purr that accompanied thoughts of a lover.

“He works at the palace and has some
unbelievable abilities.”

“A colonist?”

She nodded. “He told me you were about to
reenter my life. He didn’t say anything about you being naked or
that you’d kidnap me.”

He smiled and wrapped his arm around her
waist. “Technically Dario kidnapped you. I was his accomplice, and
I am not the only one who has been naked recently.”

“Well, if we’re going to blame all this on
Dario,” she smiled up at him, “he did leave so we could have makeup
sex.”

Max returned her smile, feeling relaxed and
unfettered for the first time in years. He wasn’t sure where life
was leading them, but they were finally headed in the right
direction. “I hadn’t realized there were different kinds of
sex.”