My Spartan Hellion (28 page)

He dipped his head to trace a path of tiny kisses along the column of her throat, against her chest, between the valley of her breasts. He teased her with his kisses, coming close to the aching nipples of her breasts but never taking them inside his mouth, instead taunting them to tighter peaks as his hot breath sent shivers of searing pleasure fanning out across her entire body. He continued his sweet torture as he gently kissed her belly, sweeping his tongue inside her navel.

She gasped, his wet tongue sending another series of tingles washing over her. She curled her toes into the bunched and twisted blankets, wondering if she would explode into tiny pieces, the pleasure was so intense. She thought she couldn’t take any more—couldn’t endure the teasing touch of his hands as they gently caressed her thighs, the warm kisses of his lips, or his sinfully skilled tongue—but found she was wrong when he moved just a few inches lower to slide his tongue through the dripping folds of her heated womanhood.

“Ulysseus!” she screamed, clutching the back of his head, holding him to her.

He chuckled, the deep rumble of his voice sending tiny vibrations across her sensitive flesh. He loved taunting her, knowing that when they were together like this she was powerless to the needs of her body and his masterful touch. She let her legs drift farther apart, and he braced himself against her parted thighs as he devoured her cunt, drinking in her essence as his tongue probed deep inside her glistening channel.

She was a mindless, writhing bundle of nerves beneath him, lost in the sensation of just feeling. She trembled against the bed, her climax slowly building inside her. Tears gathered in the corners of her eyes at the thought that, when Ulysseus left for war, she would be bereft of his touch, his kiss, the hard press of his cock inside her, stretching her, making her his.

His lips fastened around her engorged nub and everything seemed to stand still, as time froze and her entire body tensed. Her breath came out as gentle whooshes and the tremors that shook her were almost violent as they roiled through her. She moaned low in her throat, her climax just on the horizon, and Ulysseus must have sensed it.

“Ulysseus…” she cried out on a tortured rasp when abruptly he tore his lips from her wet folds and moved up the length of her body.

With his muscled frame draped over her, she clasped her legs behind his back, locking him to her. He pressed the tip of his hardened shaft to the opening of her cunt, and she spread her thighs wider, her body pounding with need, her channel flooding with wet warmth, every wanton gesture silently begging for the stroke of his cock deep inside her.

There was no more love play, no languorous frolicking—not this time. Their bodies were urgent, hungry for one another.

He nudged the head of his cock against her wet slit before thrusting inside her on one smooth stroke. They cried out in unison, and she clung to him, squeezing her eyes shut at the intensity of the pleasure roaring inside her. He filled her completely, stretching her, claiming her as his, and she shattered around him, a tiny climax gently rocking her.

He pumped his hips back and forth, riding her body through her subtle release, setting a steady rhythm, driving them both closer to the edge of fulfilment, building her back up for what she could feel would be a stronger, more violent climax than the one before.

“Fuck me, Basha,” he whispered against the hollow of her neck, his fingers digging deeper into the flesh of her hips as he pounded into her body. She lifted her hips in answer to his plea, sending him tunnelling deeper, so with every stroke he brushed the back of her sheath.

The balmy air from the open window streamed inside, heating their dripping flesh, as they writhed against each other in a tangled mass of limbs. The musk of lovemaking permeated the room, staining the blankets that draped the bed, reminding Basha that, when Ulysseus left, their room would carry his scent, and, no matter how hard she tried, she would never be able to escape the visions of that eve, their wild lovemaking as their bodies came together as one.

His strokes grew faster, more frenzied, and she clenched her legs tighter, causing him to rub harder against the tiny nub at the apex of her cunt.

 She could feel he was close, as she was too, and Basha simply closed her eyes, losing herself completely to the moment, when there were only the two of them in that special place where nothing else mattered but them.

She tightened her legs around him, drawing him deeper inside as his body slid against hers, dripping with sweat. He drove into her harder, faster, his brutal thrusts now urgent…desperate, even.

“You’re mine, Basha. You belong to no other man but me.”

Tiny butterflies fluttered in her belly as his possessive words slid over her, warming her from the inside out.

“I am yours—only yours,” she whispered in his ear, because it was true. No matter how much distance separated them, she was still his. She would always be his.

She belonged to him, and only him.

There was no other man who could ever rival Ulysseus in her eyes. And Basha knew, as long as she lived, that she would never love any other man but him. No matter what happened in this battle or the next, her heart would always belong to him, and only him.

How had she thought she could ever take another man between her thighs, allow him to spill his seed within her, bear his child, tarnish and ruin what she’d built with her husband? Even if she could never give Ulysseus the child she’d once so desperately wanted to give him, she would never—
could
never—give herself to another man, just as she would die before she allowed another woman to feel the weight of her husband pressing her deep into the bed they shared together. No other woman would feel her husband’s seed stir inside her belly when he found release, no other woman would ever know that type of pleasure but her.

That single thought caused something deep inside her to shatter and she splintered apart, finally giving herself completely to Ulysseus and the joys and pains of their mutual love.

She dug her nails into his back as her hips jerked uncontrollably, rocking in time to the pounding of his wild strokes. And, when her climax exploded, his release soon followed as he burst deep within her spasming sheath, filling her with his hot liquid.

A roar of completion tore past his lips, mingling with her ragged cry, just as the juices of their climaxes joined together.

He collapsed against her, and Basha held Ulysseus tight, caressing the hard, muscled planes of his sweat-drenched back, absorbing the essence of him as his heart hammered out the same beat as hers.

“I love you,” he said softly, his voice faint, but she heard every word.

She curled her lips into a tired smile as she drifted in and out of consciousness, lethargy creeping inside her, gently enticing her into the arms of sleep.

“As I love you,” she said, letting her eyelids flutter shut, her last thoughts of Ulysseus, and only Ulysseus.

* * * *

Thanos was in a foul mood by the time he entered his bedchamber. Adonis was lucky that he’d taken off as soon as he had because if he’d stayed just half a second longer, Thanos would have grabbed him by his
chamlys
and beaten him to a pulp.

He didn’t need to be reminded that other men coveted his wife and it shamed him to admit that he was certain other men could treat her far better than him. She had openly revealed her feelings for him earlier, shining bright in her gaze, and he’d run like a coward because he didn’t know how else to respond. He knew he didn’t deserve her, and he hated that every man, including Adonis, knew this as well.

He pushed open the door to his chambers, squinting against the brightness of the burning oil lamps as he stepped inside. Darkness crowded the space and shadows flickered off the walls as the glow from the flames danced about. Yet, despite the muted light, the sensual awareness coiling at the base of his spine revealed her presence immediately.

His breath caught in his throat when he saw her, his gaze instantly snared by her wondrous beauty on display in a delicate
peplos
that clung seductively to her generous curves, its amber hue shimmering against her skin. She was absolutely breathtaking and she was in
his
bedchamber. He remembered then that they hadn’t shared the same chambers since the eve of their fight.

“Adonis visited earlier. He told me you are planning to march to Athens soon. I thought, if you have such little time left here in Sparta, that it would be best if we were not separated by chambers,” she explained.

He dragged a hand down his face. He was going to flog Adonis. The boy had interfered once again. He’d had no business telling his wife news that should have rightfully come from him. Adonis was quickly becoming a thorn in his side with his meddling.

Obviously misreading the anger in his eyes, however, Lamia moved to step around him.

“But I see that you would prefer to keep separate chambers so I will go—”

Thanos shot his arm out, snaking it around her waist.

“My anger was not directed towards you, but Adonis. It was not his place to tell you of our march to Athens, but mine. Please, do not go,” he said quietly.

She nodded and, when he was certain she would not leave, he relaxed his arm.

“When do you depart?” she asked softly.

He and Cleomenes had invoked the Rite of Gorgo, an emergency directive implemented by Leonidas’ widow after the disaster at Thermopylae. It allowed the two kings to veto a vote of the
gerousia,
but
only if it concerned the Spartan military. He and Cleomenes would meet with the council at dawn to deliver the news, and then he would prepare his soldiers for their campaign to Athens.

“Within half a fortnight.”

“So soon?”

He nodded stiffly, the look of dismay he glimpsed in her eyes like a dull blade sawing in his gut. He ached to pull her into his arms and reassure her, but he held back. If she was to be a queen of Sparta then she needed to harden herself to the reality that he could go off to war at any time…and that he might never come back.

“How long do you plan to remain in Athens?”

“I truly do not know. But we must remain there until we are certain the Roman army will not wage an attack.”

“And what of Sparta? What if this is a trap to draw her soldiers away from the city?”

He smiled to himself, pride swelling in his chest. His wife’s mind was ever sharp, ever assessing as one trained in the art of battle. “We are leaving a sizeable contingent here. If this is a trap, the city will be well protected and, with Cleomenes in command, he will be able to lead our men should there be a need.”

“And what do you need of me, Thanos?”

He reached out a hand and dragged her flush against him. He’d just promised himself he would not do this, but he could not stand it any longer. He had to touch her. Right now he just needed to hold her in his arms and succumb to the warmth of her tender embrace.

“Truthfully, I need you to write to me and keep me abreast of what is going on here. I also need you to make sure the council does not try to go behind our backs on this. Cleomenes will be alert to this, but I want you to be present if they call a meeting.”

She nodded against his chest. “I can do that,” she whispered.

He let out a ragged breath when he felt her arms wrap around his waist. “Thank you,” he said quietly, dipping his head to capture her lips.

She returned his kiss as she clung to him, drawing him within the circle of her warmth. Not since their quarrel had they been like this—together without anger driving their passions.

He’d missed this. He’d missed her.

He stripped out of his garments then easily removed her
peplos.
She gasped as he took the weight of her breasts into his hands, cupping them gently, drawing her nipples inside his mouth.

She trembled in his arms, her hands in his hair. He backed her to the bed, covering her body as she spread out across it. Her skin was like spun silk against his, heating his body, inflaming his senses.

By the gods, he loved her, couldn’t imagine what his life would have been like had he not met her. He could feel the words on the tip of his tongue, but held back, the doubts that hovered in the shadowed corners of his mind paralysing him.

But he could show her. With everything inside himself, his body could utter the declaration that his lips could not. He cupped her face between his hands, claiming her lips in a deep, bone-melting kiss until she opened beneath him, the juices from her cunt wetting his thighs.

With their lips still locked together, he turned her onto her side to face him. Draping her leg over his hip, he held her to him so that her body was perfectly open, perfectly poised to accept his searching cock. With one hand on her hip he cradled her against him, while he tangled the other in her wild rush of hair. Tearing his lips from hers, he stared into her eyes, drowning in their dark depths as he pushed his way inside her dripping wet heat.

“By the gods,” he groaned, his body straining to drive deeper, to fill her completely.

Her cunt wrapped around him so tightly, her juices coating him, making the journey of his cock in her passage slick and slippery.

She clutched him, her arm twisting around his neck while her other hand was braced against his chest. In this position he couldn’t surge as deep as he wished to go, but he liked that he could see all of her. The light blush upon her cheeks, the tiny circle of her lips, her eyes dancing with pleasure.

“Thanos,” she gasped, her body moving sensually against his, her rocking hips sending him tunnelling deeper.

He couldn’t withhold his desires any longer. He needed to fuck her, mount her, spill his seed inside her until she overflowed with it.

He rolled her beneath him and drilled her into the bed with his driving thrusts. Grunts spilled from his lips as he took her hard and deep until she shattered beneath him, her tight channel clamping down hard upon his surging length.

She screamed his name, her head falling back, her eyes clenching shut as her nails dug into the flesh of his shoulders. Her release triggered his own and with one last powerful stroke he buried his shaft inside her and erupted, coating her walls with his essence until he had nothing left to give her. He shook and shuddered, his hoarse groans filling up the room. Completely spent, he collapsed atop Lamia then rolled to her side to cradle her in his arms.