roman vocab (oh, dr c if you could see me now) domine: lord, master, a title meant for respect nuntia: messenger, female mea cara: my beloved Kalends of Iunius: first of June filia mercurii: daughter of mercury Augusti: plurual of Augustus, which was the title of emporers fututores: fuckers vir meus: my husband

It is far too hot to be traveling.

Although it is nearly evening, sweat runs down the bare column of your neck, stinging where the sun pressed for hours against your topmost vertebrae before falling down the length of your spine.

It does not matter. You know this plainly. It does not matter if the tender flesh between your toes rubs raw against dry leather, nor if your shoulders burn beneath Sol’s temper on this early spring day, his bright chariot riding closer than it should as it dragged the sun too near to the earth. Perhaps the God has taken offense to the season prior—winter was harsh, spring slow yet eager to bloom, fields finally thin with green, but mostly thick and swampy with mud and muck. Perhaps it is punishment for some forgotten slight. The gods have long memories, after all.

It makes little difference. As Sol shows no mercy to the road, the Augusti show none to the general who must ride it.

At last you see it in the distance.

At last.

You take in cream colored linen tents, risen from earth like ant hills, dirtied with mud and blood from many months of rain and storms and fighting. They stand raised by wooden poles as their horses graze nearby in half made paddocks where the grass has already been turned to mud by hooves and soldiers’ boots.

It takes some time to find him.

He is not seated within some grand pavilion at the heart of the encampment. There are no guards planted stiffly at any of the entrances, no noise of revelry spilling out into the early evening air. No drunken laughter rolling between the tents, no clatter of cups or men grown loud and foolish on too much wine.

Instead there is the quieter life about the camp.

You hear the light clatter of dishes somewhere within the rows of tents as soldiers settle down for evening rations. There is a slow rasp of iron on stone as one draws their blade along a whetstone. You see a few with wrapped linen and gauze around wounds. Some around an arm or a leg, one covering a bloodied eye. Here and there small cookfires burn low, men crouched beside them writing letters in the fading light of day, heads bent over wax tablets or scraps of parchment that you will carry back across the empire.

You draw your tote closer to your side as you pass and a few of them look up.

Curiosity follows you down the narrow lane between the tents. It is not often someone like you walks through a legionary camp. And the of a woman besides. You know it is more skin than most of them have seen in months, perhaps longer. You halfheartedly assess your own clothing, obscenely aware of how short your tunic is, how much skin you are showing, originally only to keep yourself cool but now seems egregiously unsafe. Your shoulders and arms, supple but reddened by the road, catch their eyes as you move. You quicken your pace.

A soldier’s encampment is not known for gentleness, nor patience, and certainly not for manners.

The tent you seek blends in with the others, set just behind the line of command tents where the officers take their counsel. Larger than the rest, though not ostentatious, its linen walls are marked with the same dust and weather as every other shelter in the camp. A vexillum has been driven into the earth beside it, a square Roman battle flag bearing the general’s insignia that stirs lazily in the warm breeze.

You step inside with little ceremony to see three men standing around a wooden table, the dim interior lit by oil lamps that flicker at your intrusion.

To his left—a soldier, hardened, wearing a cuirass across his chest and a hand resting near his hilt of his gladius. Habit, surely, would not allow it far from reach.

To his right, a young officer or clerk, ink-stained fingers clutching a wax tablet, a stylus poised in the air where he had been taking down orders.

And in the middle, the man you seek. Taller and broader than either of those beside him, dark curls fallen loose across a battle-worn brow. He fills the space entirely as your eyes find him before you can force them elsewhere.

All three of them look up the moment you enter.

“Domine,” you greet, bowing your head. “I bring word.”

The general, immense in his stillness, studies you in silence. You can't see it, but you can feel the slow weight of his gaze travel from your swollen feet to your sunburnt cheekbones and the frazzled crown of braids atop your head.

“Leave us,” he commands.

The men do not question him. They wouldn't dare. The faint stir of air from their passing brushes your skin as they slip past you and out of the tent into the evening.

You keep your head bent out of respect, avoiding his eye, and your hand is clenching the leather strap of your bag hard as you wait for his next command.

"The city sends nuntia into war now? In the state we are in?" he asks, though you're not entirely sure if you're meant to answer.

He exhales through his nose and drops the small stone marker he had been holding between his fingers. Several more lie scattered across the campaign map spread over the table, marking roads, river crossings, and the positions of men.

"Come." he commands, and you dare not disobey.

You move around the table and stop before him. Slowly you lift your chin, first to his chest, then to his face. You take in the unshaven line of his strong jaw, the aquiline nose carved hard against the last of the sunlight bathing the tent, oil lamps already lit around you. There are cuts on his face, and you count them while you wait for his next order. Some of them are earned over the long, grinding months of war, others fresh enough that the skin around them is angry red.

But you do not look in his eyes.

You see the movement before you feel him— a shift of his shoulder as you keep your gaze averted, and a quiet breath leaves him as he steps closer. Then the rough pads of his fingers find your face. He catches your chin between his thumb and forefinger and lifts, carefully forcing your gaze up to meet his.

The moment your eyes find his, you feel a thick lump rise in your throat. They are dark as honey left too long in the sun, warm and brown and far gentler than a man like him ought to possess as they look down upon you.

"You should not be here," he whispers.

Your shoulders fall, a deep lungful leaving your chest that you didn't realize you'd been holding. "Domine—"

“You should not be here,” he says again, firmer now, the voice of a formidable general growling out his demands, even when the words are meant only for you. His brows draw together as he looks down at you, the line of his jaw tightening. “We stand on the brink of another attack and I cannot—”

He stops himself, shaking his head once as if the rest of the thought is not meant to be spoken, and drops his hand from your face. Your skin still burns where his fingers had rested, the ghost of his touch seared there even as it disappears.

“I bring word, Domine,” you tell him again, steady despite the painful tightness gathering in your throat. “That is all.”

"That is all." he echoes in disbelief, a scoff forced from his lips. “If that is all, why not wait until I return to Roman soil? Why come here, where I am commanded to bring war to people who do not deserve it? Why must you come here, where I am unable to keep you safe?”

"It cannot wait, Domine—"

“Please,” he says, cutting you off. His voice softens, though the frustration still sits in it. “Do not call me that, mea cara.”

Your lips press tightly together, the muscles of your face drawing taut, and he turns away from you then, dragging a rough hand across his own face, thick fingers scarred and hardened from long years spent beside Mars himself.

You hesitate.

But at last you reach into your leather satchel, and even you cannot ignore how badly your hand trembles as you retrieve the scroll sealed shut with violent red wax.

“This order comes from the twin Augusti,” you say at last, though it is more of a croak, and you hold it out to him behind his back.

The general turns only slightly, glancing toward you over the breadth of his shoulder, and it is only then you realize he is still wearing portions of his armor. The plates gleam faintly in the dimming room, light warming the already golden cast of his skin.

"Read it to me."

You lick your dried lips. You're not sure you have such courage.

But in the end, you obey, and break the seal.

The wax cracks beneath your thumb, loud in the quiet of the tent, and you unroll the parchment with careful hands, forcing your voice steady as you begin to read.

“By command of the divine Augusti, guardians of Rome and fathers of the empire,” you begin, the formal language already turning bitter on your tongue, “let it be known that Marcus Acacius, General of Rome, who has long served the will of the empire with sword and discipline, is hereby ordered to secure the continuance of his bloodline for the strength and stability of the state.”

The words feel heavier the further you go.

“The Senate and the Augusti alike have deemed it necessary that the house of Acacius not fall barren. Therefore the general is commanded to take lawful wife before the Kalends of Iunius, and to produce an heir worthy of Rome.”

You swallow.

“The names of suitable brides of noble Roman houses have been prepared and await the general’s choosing upon his return to the capital.”

Your finger grow weak, your voice even weaker, shaky now, as the parchment shakes in your hands, and you barely can make out the last words.

“This decree is issued in the interest of Rome, whose strength rests not only upon conquest, but upon the endurance of those who carry her name forward.”

His head hangs heavy as he stares down at the campaign table before him. He has turned, and both of his hands come to rest upon it as though he must brace himself there, his gaze fixed upon the map spread beneath his palms, the small stones marking the positions of his men staring back at him with indifference.

“They send me across the empire to spill blood for them,” he mutters finally, the bitterness in his voice low and restrained. “And now they would have me breed for them as well.”

He lifts one of the stones between his fingers, turning it slowly before letting it fall back onto the board with a dull clatter.

“And they sent you to carry this message to me.”

“I was ordered to.”

“Yes,” he replies quietly, his eyes still fixed upon the map. “You always are.”

You shift your weight as you set down the letter on his table. The leather of your sandals creaks softly against the packed earth as you gather the last of your courage.

"One of the women picked for you is the daughter of Senator Gracchus and she…" you clear your throat, "I hear she is blessed by Venus in her looks. She would make a good wife."

Somewhere during your speaking he has crossed the space between you.

He stands before you now like a shadow fallen over the room, his broad shoulders and unruly hair cutting the light from the oil lamps until you feel swallowed by his presence.

His hands find your hips as if it had not been weeks since your last meeting, but as easily as though they had never forgotten the place they belong. And though there is a faint, infuriating grin upon his mouth, his touch is warm and welcome through the thin fabric of your tunic, resting against the leather cord at your waist as he draws you nearer by a fraction.

You were used to this: the rough country of his hands, wide and cracked and certain upon your waist. This, you see, was commonplace for the two of you. You would come to deliver his letters to his expansive villa—usually orders of the next country to march upon or plans for a day of leave—and he would shoo away his servants so he could take you into his hands and bend you over the nearest lectus to fuck you utterly spent. He would feed you Rome's best wine and cheese, take you a time or two more, and send you back on your way with his reply.

But this was nothing like those times. The memories only burn as you think of them now.

“Gracchus,” he repeats, the faintest curl of amusement pulling at the corner of his mouth. “That miserable old slug.”

Your hands come up at once against his chest, pushing lightly at the hard plates of armor.

“Domine, don't—”

“And this daughter of his,” he continues, paying no mind to your protest as his thumbs press idly against your hip bones, “she is very beautiful, you say?"

“Yes,” you answer stiffly, still trying to push him away. “That is what I hear.”

He studies you with dark eyes moving slowly over your face as though the answer to his riddle rests somewhere upon it.

“I see,” he murmurs, leaning down into you.

Your palms press harder against his armor.

“Stop this jest,” you insist, your voice tightening despite your effort to remain composed. “You must treat the matter with the gravity it demands. They require an answer.”

His smile widens enough to show his teeth.

“Why…” he asks quietly, his lips moving though his words are scarcely above a whisper, “should I trouble myself with the spoiled daughter of a Senator…”

His fingers tighten in your tunic, drawing you even nearer still until there is scarcely any space left between you. His hips press flush against yours, his warmth insistent through the fabric and plated steel keeping you apart.

“…when I already have the most beautiful woman standing in my tent?”

"Enough of this, do not be so insolent." you finally shove him away, and he lets you go. His hands fall, but his gaze does not.

"I have no need for one of their hand picked maidens, cara, for you are the only woman I desire." His voice is low again, "So take my hand, my name, take everything I am and be my wife."

Your hand flies up to strike him before you have time to think of his proposition. The smack of your palm meeting his face cracks in the stillness of the quiet.

And yet, he is unmoved by this.

His eyes do not widen, his body does not flinch. But you see the infinitesimal clench of his jaw, the line of his brow deepening like a crack in the earth as his smile vanishes.

You move to strike again, but he catches you, his large, meaty palm wrapping around your wrist. He has the grip of a man who has spent half his life with a sword in it, which now swallows the delicate bones of your joint instead of the metal of a handle.

You fight in his grip, but he does not let go. It flits across your mind that he could easily break your bones, if he wished. He would have the right to it, for the way you struck him.

"Unhand me, Domine—" you seethe.

"Say my name."

You wrench again at his grasp, but his hand holds fast, immovable as iron. The thick knot in your throat burns hotter with every passing second, swelling until it chokes the words before they can leave you.

"Say my name, cara—"

"Unhand me!" You hiss. "I cannot marry you and you know it well!"

Your resistance only brings you closer, his hand dragging you forward as if inviting you into some sort of silly dance, your breasts now pressed hard against the armor that is gilded across his torso. The metal is warm from the heat of his body beneath it, and he leans down over you then, baring his teeth slightly with each syllable he forces out.

"Cant or won't?"

There is an aching, seething silence that stretches. Your ire burns as hot as coals behind your eyes as they narrow up at him. You hate him, you must. You must tell yourself this again and again, because the truth would be unbearable when the day comes that he is to wed to another.

“Have you lost your damned mind, Domine?” you snap, anger flashing hotter than the tears threatening behind your eyes. “You dishonor yourself speaking such madness—raging like a rabid hound.”

His other hand slides to wrap around your waist and down onto your lower back, pressing gently into your tail bone so your hips flush against his, and you can only just feel his growing member beneath the thick cotton tunic he wears.

“Madness?” he repeats, his voice low and dangerous now.

When you refuse to answer, he simply looks at you as though you are the one who has lost sense.

"I am to take a wife of my choosing," he says, each word slow and carefully chosen, "to lay my seed so our Divine Emperors may sleep easily knowing my blood will carry on their vanities—"

His jaw shifts, and he drops your hand to pull a piece of your hair that has fallen from the braid, curling it around his thick finger, “—and yet when I offer my hand to the one woman who knows me better than my own soldiers, the one who has shared my bed and my counsels…she strikes me."

Your face, you realize suddenly, is damp. And he sees it at once.

Something in him softens then, and the look he gives you holds both tenderness and hunger, the two mingling together like honey stirred into warm tea.

He leans closer, brushing his lips once against the corner of your eye where the tear has gathered.

“Why do you weep, mea cara?” he murmurs, the words warm against your skin before his mouth touches your temple, then the edge of your cheek. “Why do you fight me so?”

“I—”

Your breath shudders as you try to gather the words that refuse to come.

“Marcus,” you sigh at last, the name slipping from you despite yourself as you close your eyes. “I am no one.”

His mouth stills against your cheek.

“You are everything," he answers quietly, and you can feel his breath against the shell of your ear.

You shake your head at once, desperate, your hands pressing against his chest again though the strength has gone from them.

“No,” you insist, the word breaking. “You are a general of Rome. Marrying me would gain you nothing. It would not strengthen your house, it would not please the Senate, it would not satisfy the Augusti—”

“I do not care for any of that.”

“But you must,” you whisper, the tears coming faster now despite your effort to stop them. “I will not allow you to throw away your destiny for the sake of someone like me.”

He draws back just enough to look at you, his brow knitting as though the thought itself offends him.

"Someone like you," he repeats softly, licking the pearl of a tear from the top of his lip.

Your voice shakes so badly you hardly believe he can understand you, "I carry orders for Rome, I am nothing but a messenger of the Gods will, they speak through The Twins and so you must take it seriously—"

"My patience is at an end with them."

“You must not speak so,” you whisper sharply, your glossy eyes darting toward the walls of the tent.

The general takes both of your hands in his then, lifting them beneath his chin like something precious, and presses a kiss to your knuckles.

“I know who you are, my love,” he murmurs. “You are blessed with Mercury’s favor. For years you have come to me with the will of Gods and Emperors alike. You bring me their messages… and you bring me yourself.”

His thumbs move slowly across the backs of your hands.

“And I would have that forever. I would have you forever, mea cara.”

“But Rome—your armies—you could never—”

“Then we shall leave it behind,” he says quietly. "I will gladly send my men back to their families where they belong, rather than ripping apart the ones we conquer."

You stare at him.

“You wish to leave?”

“Yes, mea cara,” he answers, his voice low but steady now, the idea clearly not new to him. “Let Rome keep her wars and their decrees. Let the Senate drown in its own blood. We will go where the hand of the Augusti does not reach.”

Your heart stutters painfully.

“Marcus…”

“There are lands yet untouched by them,” he continues, his gaze never leaving yours. “We could live quietly. A farm, perhaps. A stretch of earth and sky that belongs to no emperor.”

You shake your head even as the image threatens to take root inside you.

“You cannot mean that.”

“It is the only thing I have meant in years.”

“Marcus, if anyone heard you speak so—”

“Let them hear. I tire of the will of those fututores, swaddled in their perfume and silk—”

“Marcus!” you hiss, clapping both hands over his mouth before the words can grow more dangerous.

He only smiles against your palms, the warmth of it startling you, and presses a soft kiss to the heart of your palm, the wiry hair of his mustache tickling you.

“Is that a yes, my love?” he says, muffled.

“You truly have gone mad.” you whisper, leaning your forehead against the back of your hand where it still rests on his mouth.

And when he it away, you straighten, allowing him to guide both of your hands to his own will, placing them at the back of his neck while his fall once more to your hips, adjusting you until you are perfectly flush against him again, where you belong.

“An answer is all I desire, filia Mercurii.”

Your breath falters.

“Yes, Marcus.”

And suddenly he is kissing you, and it is as if heat sparks across your lips, Jupiter's lightning striking through you and pulling a gasp from your throat in his hold. He tastes of salt and musk and wine. Groaning deeply, the sound rough with want, his hands slide lower to the lush weight of your bum as he draws you closer still. Your back bends against the heavy press of him as he pushes into you, the strength of his body undeniable. There is no question of how fiercely this man wants you, how deeply he needs you, how long he has yearned for you. You can hear it in his moans, can feel it in the weight of his grasp.

He is turning the two of you quickly, the meat of his hands gripping you hard enough that you hope to find the crescent marks of his fingers there later. His tongue pushes past your lips, tasting at your mouth, licking behind your teeth before drawing your top lip between his in a slow, hungry pull. You think, for a moment, that you taste something else there beneath the heat of it— a loneliness that has left a hollow ache settled into him during these long months away from home. And you kiss him back with equal hunger, your tongue pressing into his mouth like a salve, as though you might soothe that wound with it.

But then, outside the tent you hear the roar of men laughing, voices carrying easily through the warm evening air, and suddenly you remember you are not alone in his villa this time.

“Oh, Marcus, not here, please, not—”

“I don’t give a damn,” he growls. “I will take you how I want, where I want, for the rest of my life.”

Something in the tone of his voice sends heat racing through your body, a flush blooming low in your belly that makes your breath catch. Your knees buckle at the ferocity of his need, wetness pooling between them for it.

He lifts you onto the table with startling ease, spreading your legs so he can step between them. Leaning over you, he sweeps the table clear in a single impatient motion, scattering the carved stone markers of battle across the tent floor as they clatter and slide into the shadows. He lays you back against the wood, grinning at the sight of you as his hand fists the tunic covering your body.

He pushes it roughly upward, baring you to himself, the fabric bunching under your neck haphazardly.

“There is nothing like this,” he murmurs, his voice lower now. “Nothing like seeing you as the Gods made you.”

His eyes move slowly over your figure, drinking you in.

“You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.”

“You speak such foolishness, Marcus,” you swoon, stretching your arms above your head as you watch him unburden the armor from his chest and let it clatter to the floor before folding himself over you.

“I would sooner have my tongue cut than ever speak a lie of you,” he says softly before his mouth closes over your breast, taking the nipple between his lips as a low groan escapes him at the heat of your skin.

"You are so warm, so soft—" he says between your gasps of pleasure—" I have not felt such things in so long, it is like a dream."

You take him in as his long, thick lashes flutter shut. Your hands thread delicately through his hair, nails scraping lightly against his scalp. He whimpers at your touch, mouth unlatching from one breast only to nuzzle the other, kissing and licking at your supple skin.

He is the fierce, violent commander of Rome’s legions—but that is only sometimes. For most of the moments you have spent with him, in his villa in the city, he is this: gentle, kind, passionate, and utterly confident in his want. As though this is the truest version of himself, the man beneath the armor, without the smoke and mirror of war that paints him as a brutal leader.

His tongue laves at your pert nipple, now pebbled and tender from his attention. His hands, thick and wide, span the narrowest part of your waist, his thumbs nearly touching over your navel he is so much larger than you. He draws you closer, shifting you to the edge of the table so his eager cock slots between the lips of your core.

You let out a soft whine at the barrier of his tunic between you.

“Patience,” he breathes, though it is not without the roughness of restraint. The heat of his mouth ghosts over your skin as he kisses your clavicle, then slowly up the column of your throat and along the line of your jaw. “Let me enjoy this. It has been too long.”

“And what if I say take me now and enjoy the smaller pleasures later?” you murmur, your fingers curling into the hair at the back of his head. “I wish to feel you inside me.”

A low sound escapes him at that, half laugh and half groan.

“My needy woman,” he says against your skin. “It is like music to my ears. But if I were to give you everything you wished the moment you asked for it, you would be as spoiled as those who grow pale behind palace walls.”

Your brow lifts faintly at that.

“Marcus Acacius,” you whisper, breath brushing his ear, “you speak as though you are not the one who has ruined me.”

A rough sound escapes him at that.

“That is because it is you who has ruined me, cara,” he groans, his teeth catching lightly at the line of your jaw before he presses a hard thrust of his hips against your swollen center, drawing an involuntary arch from your back. “If I were to take you as I wish, this would not last nearly as long as I would like.”

"Don't care," you murmured, your hands fisting into his hair harder now, making him wince and groan at once. His eyes flicker up to yours at that, dark and bright with something dangerously pleased.

"Promise me you'll stay the night, then? Let me eat your sweet cunt for dinner, and again for breakfast and midday."

You smile widely at that, "And you say it is me who is spoiled,"

"Promise it."

"I swear, Marcus." you say, planting a chaste kiss to his lips. "I will stay as long as you wish. Now please, for the love of Jupiter and all the gods—fuck me."

He leans back, and you are forced to drop your hands from his hair as he straightens, though you drag them slowly down his chest, your fingertips brushing the linen of his tunic. The fabric clings where your arousal has stained it, darkened over the tenting of his throbbing cock beneath. He lifts the hem and tucks it beneath his chin, and finally you see him fully—scars crossing the broad plane of his chest, the softness of his belly, the dark trail of hair that gathers beneath his navel and travels downward to frame his bobbing member, flushed deep red with want.

For a moment he simply looks, breathing deeply. He seems distracted by the sight of you, the way you glisten beneath the lanterlight of the tent. A heat of humilation blooms across your cheeks as his gaze lingers on the slick folds of you spread before him.

And then he is bending suddenly, forgetting himself and diving for you.

His mouth opens, greedy and unrestrained, as he kisses you there. His lips part wide against you, wet and hungry as he eats at you. You hear a rough groan spill from his throat as his hands close around the meat of your thighs, gripping hard to still the undulating roll of your hips.

It is obscene to watch.

Your wet cunt sliding against his wet tongue, the sounds he makes as he tastes you. Your soft sighs and breathless little cries only seem to make him more ravenous, his tongue cupping your sex as though it were a basin meant to hold the nectar gathering there. Up and down, then down and up again, he works at you with relentless hunger before his nose presses against your clit and the slick muscle of his tongue pushes inside you.

And then your back is bending, nearly lifting you from the table as he fucks you with his tongue. The pressure builds too quickly to bear, your body tightening before it breaks, and you gush over his face with a cry, trembling beneath his mouth as he purrs with pleasure.

When the tension finally leaves your limbs and your body goes soft and boneless, he is already moving you again. He handles you easily, turning and shifting you where he wants you, those big hands working with a single vision in mind.

"You will ride me." he demands.

You know that tone of voice. The sweet, sensual man who kissed you moments ago has stepped aside, and something harder has taken his place. The beast of him. The commander who draws blood from his enemies, who takes what he wants without hesitation, who fucks with the certainty of a man used to victory.

You barely have time to catch your breath before he lifts you from the table, one thick arm wrapping around your torso while the other hooks your thigh high around his hip. Your body drags against him as he moves, and you feel the heavy bob of his cock between your soaked folds. The sensation pulls a needy sound from your throat and you grind down instinctively, searching for more of him, pressing harder and harder. You feel his mouth on your neck just as his teeth close on your artery, biting you into submission. You cry out for him, but you only feel his cock twitching in response.

By the time he drops into the lounging chaise behind him, he is guiding you down with him, forcing your hips to widen to settle around the breadth of his lap.

“I want to watch you,” he says, voice thick, his eyes gone black with hunger. “Get this off.” His hands make quick work of your tunic, finally pulling it the rest of the way from your body.

The moment your arms come down again you are reaching for him in return, tugging impatiently at the linen still clinging to his shoulders. You push the fabric from him, eager to feel the heat of his skin beneath your palms. He groans when you lean forward, your arms slipping around his neck as your mouth finds his again. You taste yourself on his tongue, musk of sweat and sweet honey of arousal, and your hips move without thought. They slide against the thick length of him, wetting the shaft of his cock as you grind your clit against him. The heavy weight of his sac tightens in anticipation, brushing against your cunt as roll against him again and again. Your tongue slips deeper into his mouth as you pull at his with greedy little sucks.

He has quite enough of your teasing as his hand catches your face, pushing you upright with a deep growl of impatience. The other guides himself between your legs, angling his cock until the blunt head presses firmly at your entrance.

You both gasp at the first push—the stretch always too much at first. Always intoxicating. Like Cupid himself has driven some poisoned arrow through your heart, turning your thoughts to useless haze as your body opens for him.

“There she is,” Marcus breathes, his lips parted around a rough gasp. “What a good girl you are. That’s it… slow, cara. Nice and slow.”

You slide down onto him inch by inch, your eyes rolling back as a long, helpless moan spills from your throat. His hand comes quickly over your mouth—you know you are being far too loud—but how can you help it? He is thick and perfect inside you, your velvet walls drawing him in greedily until you are seated fully atop him, your wet cunt sealed around his cock, slicking the dark thicket of hair at his base.

"Oh—Domine—" you sigh, muffled behind his hand.

“Marcus,” he corrects softly, breath shuddering through him. “My love. Only Marcus to you.”

“But you are my everything,” you gasp, nimble fingers coming up to circle his wrist. His hand is so big it spreads over the entirety of the lower half of your face. “My lord, my master, my—my husband—”

“Yes,” he groans, his eyes burning into you. “Say it again.”

“Domin—”

“No.” His voice drops to a growl. The hand that covers your mouth slides down to grip your jaw, forcing you to look at him as he jostles you slightly.

“H-husband?”

He thrusts his hips upward sharply, the movement stealing the breath from your lungs.

“Say it again.”

“Vir meus,” you moan.

“Yes—yes, that’s it,” he groans, his head falling back against the chaise, mouth agape and his breath short. “That’s it, girl. Ride my cock. Tell me you are mine.”

Your head falls back as he thrusts higher into you, the motion forcing a broken cry from your throat as you chant it over and over. Vir meus, vir meus, vir meus. You can no longer hold yourself upright as his hand falls, and you brace yourself over him, planting your knees on either side of his hips as you begin to lift and drop over him, suddenly drunk on the poison of Cupid and your own rising pleasure. He does not seem to care about your volume anymore. The sounds leave you unbottled and wild, helpless. Like some creature in heat. His hands grip the flesh of your hips harder once again, guiding the rhythm, forcing your body to ride and fall at his pace.

“Shall I give the Augusti what they want?” he pants against your ear, licking the shell of it. “Breed my sweet little wife and fill her with my seed?”

The thought had never crossed your mind before. The two of you had always been careful in your previous meetings, always finishing elsewhere—your mouth, your breasts—but…now…

"Promise we will never go back to Rome again," you beg against his throat between moans, rocking your hips slower now. "Promise me we will have a home by the ocean, where we will watch the sun rise and set with no cares of the twins, only us—only our family—and I will bear your children, as many as you wish."

“I promise, mea cara,” he groans, his hands tightening on you. “Oh—fuck—to see you round with my child, I’m—I’m going to—”

“Give me your seed,” you breathe. “Vir meus.”

You feel his body seize beneath you, struck through with the crash of pleasure. His mouth falls open on a broken breath as you tighten around him, both of you gasping against one another while your body clenches down, drawing him deeper still. The feeling of his spend filling you in thick warmth pulls a cry from your throat, the sensation cresting through you like a breaking wave until you are both trembling breathlessly together.

You sag over him, sweaty chest against sweaty chest, and hands stay on you, but they change, sliding from the rough hold of your hips to settle at the small of your back, keeping you against him as the two of you come down slowly from the height of your orgasms. You feel his chest lift hard beneath yours as he drags in deep lungfuls, your breath matching in tandem, hearts beating together until they settle.

You and Marcus leave that night.

He gives his orders quietly to the only two men he trusts to carry them. The legion will return home. No more men will die at his command. Word will travel back to Rome, where senators continue their shouting and scheming without the spilling the blood of any more soldiers.

But by the time those messages arrive, you are already gone.