My Spartan Hellion (9 page)

“Look at me,” he commanded in a harsh rasp.

She struggled to lift her head to train her gaze on him. But she did, then held his penetrating stare even as her legs began to tremble, forcing him to grasp her thighs tighter in order to steady her, driving her hard against his tongue. Back and forth he plunged in and out of her clenching hole, his searing gaze imprisoning her.

The rough, wet press of his tongue across her most intimate flesh awakened a feral response in Lamia. Her skin flushed with heat. A broken sob tore from her mouth and tiny tremors gathered at the centre of her womb until every part of her shuddered with pleasure. Throwing her hips at him, she rocked her cunt against his mouth as she grasped his head in her hands, digging her fingers into his scalp. His lids drifted shut and he moaned as he devoured her in earnest, a look of bliss crossing his face. That was her undoing. Her body trembled and quaked as she exploded against his lips.

She cried out his name, clenching her eyes shut as violent shudders racked her and she came, her sticky warm juices gushing forth.

He moaned again, licking up her liquid pleasure, his tongue flicking out rapidly to lap up every last drop of her essence.

“You taste like the sweetest ambrosia from the gods,” he groaned as he moved up the length of her body.

Bending down, Thanos pressed his lips to hers and she opened her mouth to accept his kiss, savouring the erotic flavour of her juices on his tongue. He kissed her deeply, drawing her bottom lip between his teeth to nip gently before plunging inside her mouth. She grasped the back of his head to crush her lips against his, delighting in the heady taste of his tongue sliding deeper inside the moist cave of her mouth as it had just slid into her hot tunnel only moments before.

He slowly dragged his lips from hers to place soft kisses against the column of her neck and she sighed, roaming her hands across the uneven flesh of his back before tangling in his soft, dark spill of hair.

With him nestled in her embrace, Lamia felt the brush of his rough knuckles against the inside of her thigh as he undid his
pteryges
before shrugging them down his powerful legs to toss them aside. Grasping her thighs with callused palms, he once again lifted her legs over his shoulders, opening her wide.

She was wide and spread before him, her knees resting against her shoulders and he hovered above her, the weight of his solid body pinning her to the ground. Thanos coiled his hand into her hair, twisting it in her mass of curls, while he used the other to grasp his pulsing shaft and guide it to her now dripping core.

With his hand still in her hair, he gently nudged her head to the side and buried his face against her neck. His breathing was stilted, warm puffs of air along her throat as his tongue licked the sweat-slicked skin while he pushed the thick, mushroom head of his cock against the entrance of her cunt, powering forward. She released a low hiss at the sweet invasion as he fed her his length slowly until just the crown of his cock rested inside her walls.

“Fuck, Lamia,” he gritted out in a hoarse whisper. His jaw was clenched tight, the muscles in his arms straining, and he drew back just enough to thrust deeper. “You’re tight,
agapetos
.”

Slowly he sank into her until the pressure welled up inside her. The feeling of fullness, of being stretched, overwhelmed her and she dug her nails into his back.

“Thanos!” she cried out, her body tightening around him.

“By the gods, you are so wet, so warm,” he groaned, already plunging hard into her. He ripped through the thin barrier within her passage, sinking his engorged length so deep that the heavy sac beneath his cock slapped her tender flesh.

Pain sliced through Lamia and she stiffened, a sharp cry erupting from her lips as she curled her nails into his back.

Thanos tensed above her, the air around them suddenly thick with an ominous chill.

“Why did you not tell me?” he demanded in a broken whisper, his voice shaking, the muscles in his neck and arms bulging into tight knots as he strained to remain still inside her.

She did not speak as she lowered her gaze.

Thanos’ eyes dipped shut, the jagged breath he drew in vibrating through her. “You should have told me you were a virgin,” he whispered. “I would have stop—”

Pressing her fingers to his mouth, she halted him. She’d protested and denied the insistent pull of attraction between them, but never had she resisted.

“I did not wish for you to stop,” she replied truthfully. “And I do not wish for you to stop now,” she insisted when he began to withdraw from her.

His body trembled above hers, his expression uncertain until she slowly rocked her hips against him, taking him deeper. A lewd curse whispered out of him as his gaze became hooded, and he began to move within her, setting a lazy, languid rhythm. He eased his shaft into her, gently stretching her until Lamia relaxed, the pain eventually giving way to the burgeoning flames of pleasure that now licked within her belly. Desire’s warm embrace curled around her, stoking the fire that now raged within. Her hips jerked and her nails pierced his weathered skin while the tender muscles of her sheath pulsed and tightened around him.

Desperation flashed in Thanos’ eyes. “Stop it, Lamia. I c–can barely—” He sucked in a sharp breath. “Fuck,” he groaned helplessly as if powerless against the need surging through him. His eyes clenched shut and he fell forward to nestle his face into the crook of her neck.

His thrusts quickened, his hips furiously pistoning back and forth, tunnelling the ruddy length of his cock in and out of her tender flesh at a frenzied pace.

“I am sorry,” he croaked out. “I cannot stop.” He drove his hardened shaft deep inside her, his ass clenching tight beneath her hands as he rode her hard. The pungent scent of sweat and desire tickled her nose as his naked flesh pounded hers, the erotic din of skin slapping skin echoing on the wind.

She dug her fingers into his back as he rammed his stiff flesh inside her, his cock brushing hard across her engorged nub with each brutal stroke. The pain mingled with pleasure as he held her open wide, making her a vessel for his seed.

Heat furled in her belly as he mounted her roughly, hurling her body to the brink of pleasure until spasms fluttered within her tight tunnel.

Her mouth fell open. Thanos thrust harder. A strangled cry escaped her lips as the muscles in her thighs tensed and the walls of her channel collapsed. She erupted—a raging, tumultuous inferno—her release coming so swift and hard that Thanos had to struggle to plough his cock through the tight vice of her spasming cunt. With her release thundering through her, her body convulsed uncontrollably as her hole gushed with sticky fluid to coat his thrusting length.

Thanos stroked his stiff erection faster and harder inside her, the heavy weight of his sac slapping against her skin as her slippery cunt made faint suctioning noises with each thrust. She released a tortured moan, her raw voice calling out his name as the last tremors of her climax ripped through her.

Clinging to her, his blunt nails dug into the flesh of her thighs as he pounded wildly into her—every trace of the disciplined Spartan soldier having vanished the moment he’d entered her cunt. Sweat dripped from him, and Lamia arched just high enough to swipe her tongue across his chest. The spicy taste of him exploded on her tongue. A moan of pleasure filtered through her lips mingling with his strangled moan. His shuddering release soon followed and he stiffened above her, releasing a harsh roar, as he drove into her one final time.

Burying his cock deep, her name rushed out of him on a stilted sigh as a pool of warmth settled against the back of her tunnel. She clenched and tightened around him, squeezing hard, milking him of several more hot spurts of his seed until he shuddered violently, collapsing atop her.

With a harsh grunt, Thanos settled atop her, nestling deeper into her embrace, and she held him tightly. Her limbs wrapped around his slick body, his back expanding with each laboured breath. When his breathing grew even, he rolled off her and dragged her against him so that her body rested at his side.

They lay there for a long while before he pulled away from her and stood. She stared up at him, her eyes feasting on his battle-honed physique, glowing beneath the moonlight like that of the war god Ares, who stood enshrined in marble within the stone columns of the Parthenon.

Dragging a cloth through the basin of warm water beside the fire, he twisted it in his hand, until it did not drip with excess liquid. Returning to her side, he stooped down before her to part her thighs. Heat gathered in her cheeks when he dipped the cloth between her legs to wipe away all traces of their lovemaking, the warmth of the rag soothing her tender flesh.

When he was done, he placed the cloth aside and drew a woollen blanket over her naked body to once again settle beside her, pulling her into the circle of his arms. Lamia did not resist the intimate gesture, not after what had already passed between them. Instead, she rested her head against his solid chest and closed her eyes, desperately trying to ignore the soft flutters of pleasure that danced inside her belly at the thought of Thanos’ tenderness towards her.

She hated that she was softening towards him, but it was hard not to. Despite his gruff manner, Thanos was a man of great gentleness and kindness. Of its own volition, her body snuggled deeper into his embrace, even as her mind fought against what it already knew. Thanos was steadily chipping away at the wall she’d erected between them, and, most importantly, the one that had long guarded her heart.

* * * *

Conditioned to function on little sleep, Thanos lay awake long after the sound of Lamia’s gentle snores echoed in the silent eve. He glanced down into her sleeping face, stroking a single finger across her cheek and along her chin. He lifted his lips into a contented smile when a heavy weight settled in his gut. Lamia had yet to realise it, but according to Spartan custom he’d just wed her. Marriage ceremonies were very simple to his people and by the act of simply taking her he’d made her his wife.

She would not be happy when she learned of this particular tradition, but that was not what kept him awake this eve. His growing need to protect and cherish this woman unsettled him greatly. Marriage in Sparta was not typically based upon love, at least not initially. It was seen as a contract a couple made with the state to produce children and future
hoplites
.

When he’d decided he wanted to take her to wife, his first thought had been that she would suit him well and bear him strong sons. Thanos had not considered that she would raise his most basic need as a man, his most primitive instinct—the one to protect. Nor had he imagined that he would grow to feel something for her that went beyond his duty to Sparta.

Lamia was revealing herself to be a woman of many surprises. He’d never have guessed she was a virgin by the way she’d pleasured him with her mouth. But that was Lamia—seemingly experienced in some ways, yet innocent in others. She was proving to be a far more complex woman than he’d first suspected. With each layer she revealed, he found himself fascinated by her and drawn to her even more, which made him wonder if maybe he’d found a woman who could be his wife in the truest sense. His heart stuttered at the thought. What if Lamia proved herself to be more than the woman in his dreams? What if she could not only ease the loneliness in his bed, but also the ache inside his heart?

Chapter Eight

Carthage, 176
BC

“What are you thinking?”

Lamia twisted in the arms of her young lover, Mythos, to stare down into his handsome face.

Darius would be gone for most of the dawn, out purchasing more materials to fulfil all of the orders they now had from the Roman army. Business was thriving, and Lamia was grateful, since it kept her and Darius from starving. Yet, she hated that they sold weapons to the marauding Roman army, weapons they would now use on some unsuspecting, vulnerable village, just as they’d done with her, killing everything in its path, leaving nothing in their bloodthirsty wake.

“What am I thinking?” she asked Mythos, struggling to chase away the dark thoughts that still haunted her.

“Yes, well, what were you thinking? For a moment you were wistful, but now you have that faraway look on your face that you get whenever you’re lost in the past.”

At nineteen annos, two annos older than herself, she thought Mythos was considerably astute, especially considering their courtship had only begun three moons ago. He had a way of reading her moods that spoke of the sort of familiarity between them she knew didn’t always happen until much later. She appreciated that about him, among many other things. Unfortunately she could not seem to muster up deeper feelings, beyond that of admiration and a fleeting attraction. But Mythos was a good man, one of the few who’d dared to court her.

“I was thinking of how I wish we could spend more time together, without having to sneak around.”

His handsome face twisted into a scowl as he slowly traced the lines of her jaw with his fingers.

“If you would tell Darius, we would not have—”

 She shook her head sternly, not letting him finish. She thought of her adopted father, Darius—the great general of the once unstoppable Persian army. He guarded her virtue quite closely, believing very few men were worthy of her, and most times she had to admit he was right. She knew the interests of the men who’d turned their attention to her as she’d grown into a woman were not genuine. Their thoughts were of how best she could warm their bed mats. They had no desire to court her, to make her their wife.

She knew Mythos was different. He was kind and attentive, generous with his affection, and not once had he pressed her to go beyond stolen kisses and gentle caresses. Even if she did not love him, she was at ease with him, but she had yet to tell Darius of Mythos, afraid he would forbid her from seeing him, as he’d done so many times before with other suitors, which was why their time together was always fleeting, relegated to the shadows so they would not be caught.