#buckydex

Your father nearly wept from joy. His daughter was to be the Caesar’s wife! His bloodline would forever be tied to the imperial house. His name was secured in marble, law, prayer now! He agreed so quickly the ink had hardly dried before the whole city knew.

James, meanwhile, didn’t care about your father’s joy, or his bloodline, or the Senate’s approval. James cared that you looked at him with heart eyes during the betrothal feast, smiled behind the rim of your cup, and made the emperor of Rome feel like a trembling boy offering flowers at a goddess’ altar.

Years passed after James took you as his empress consort, and impossibly, over the years, James loved you more.

It should have gentled with time, but it did not. If anything, it grew worse. James loved you like conquest, like you were the only law Rome had ever written that he cared to obey. He would have waged war for you without blinking. He would have emptied the treasury if you asked nicely enough. He, in fact, fed every senator who insulted you to the lions and slept peacefully afterward with his face pressed to your stomach.

And gods, you loved him, too. Not because he was Caesar. Not because the city screamed his name or because provinces bent beneath his standards. You loved James when the laurel came off. You loved the man who crawled into your bed exhausted and kissed your hand like victory in the political chambers of Rome meant nothing until you touched him. You loved the man who could command armies and still looked at you before making any choice that mattered, as if your nod was worth more than every omen in Rome.

When he came home from war missing an arm, Rome held its breath.

James raged through fever and pain, half-mad with humiliation while physicians whispered of new medicine generals paced outside his chamber like war dogs without a master. The bronze-and-gold miracle that would become his new arm had not yet been forged. Rome only knew that its emperor had returned from campaign broken, and that was enough to make the Senate bare its teeth.

You had no heir yet. For whatever reason the gods had chosen to keep your womb empty, and every ambitious old man in the capital looked at your husband’s missing limb and your untouched nursery, and mistook them for weakness.

You thought it was laughable, really.

So you stepped into court in his place.

You wore imperial purple for three years. You sat beneath his eagle. You lifted your chin and reminded them, with a smile cynical enough to pass for mercy, that James was still Caesar, still beloved by the legions, still chosen by Rome, and still very much alive. How dare they look upon his suffering and see an opportunity to seize the throne? How dare they mistake recovery for surrender? How dare they question your husband’s rule?

After that, the Senate learned to approach you with caution.

You listened to senators and praetors attempt to test you. You answered them so coldly, that their little traps died in their mouths. By the time James could stand again, Rome had already learned to bow twice: once for Caesar, and once for the woman who guarded his throne. 

Some whispered you must have been Minerva's daughter. There was no other explanation to how you won the war your husband started. 

Others were wise enough to whisper nothing at all, because they feared you almost as much as they adored James.

Even the consuls, Sam and Steve, your husband’s oldest friends, who had seen James bloody, foolish, young, and half-starved in campaign tents, bowed their heads to you with the same loyalty they gave him. Not because James demanded it, but rather because you had earned it. Because while your husband learned to live with the automaton arm his engineers built for him, you kept Rome from eating itself alive.

James never forgot that.

The arm made him look more divine to the people. It was a beautiful bronze and gold fitted over what war had taken from him, plates shaped so elegantly to his shoulder and muscle that poets started calling it proof the gods still favoured Caesar. To Rome, it was a miracle of empire and invention. A gleaming symbol that James could not be diminished, not by blade, not by blood loss, not by any foreign king foolish enough to think removing one limb could make him less of an emperor.

But you knew the truth that the inner workings were vibranium.

It was gift from the Wakandan royal family, though gift was too simple a word for it. You had built that alliance during James’s absence from the throne. You saw the ink on treaties and felt the weight of foreign jewels in your palm. The Wakandans gave you the brilliance hidden beneath Roman gold because you had loved him so much, entire nations had to answer.

But you also knew where the straps bit into his skin. You knew the phantom pain. You knew the days he hated the weight of the arm, hated the shine, hated the way people looked at him like he had become myth when all he felt was wounded and less himself. You knew the nights he woke shaking, bronze fingers clenched hard enough to dent the bedframe, and you climbed into his lap, took his face between your hands, and held him there until Caesar disappeared and he was only James again.

The worst of it was that he could no longer train with his men.

Not because he was too weak, but rather because he was too strong.

The first time he returned to the camp, everyone cheered until he picked up a practice sword and nearly shattered the post clean through. The second time, Sam laughed at him, lifted his shield, and was promptly driven backward so hard the rim split beneath James’ bronze hand. Steve didn’t fare much better. His shield lasted longer, which only made James more annoyed when it finally cracked straight down the centre.

You had to write to Wakanda again for stronger shields, because the emperor’s consuls could no longer survive sparring with him, and your husband was becoming insufferable about it.

James had sulked for three days, though denied it, of course. He sat in your chambers with his jaw set and his arm gleaming in the lamplight, pretending to read reports while glaring at nothing. You had climbed into his lap without asking, plucked the scroll from his hand, and kissed him until his bad mood gave way under your mouth.

“You broke two shields, my love,” you murmured against his lips.

“They were poorly made.”

“You hit them like you were trying to punish the gods.”

James’ mouth twitched into half a smile, but he tried very hard to hide it, so you kissed him again, sweeter this time. His human hand settled at your waist first, then tightened as if he could not help himself.

“I miss it,” he admitted eventually, so quietly you almost did not hear him.

You smoothed your thumb over his cheek. “I know.”

He missed the clash of bodies and the bite of exertion. James had always loved bloodsport, but now that he could no longer trust himself in the training yard, watching the gladiators in the arena became much more than just a pastime.

It was to scratch an itch he could not reach.

At first, he made appearances for occasional big matches. Then, he did so more often. He would eventually watch with a focus you recognised too well, the same hunger he brought to battlefields.

So he started choosing champions, but they never seemed to last very long. 

He once chose a man who had power, but no discipline. Another had beauty, but no instinct. A third had the crowd eating from his palm until he started believing applause mattered more than survival. James favoured them briefly, dressed them well, sent royal physicians to make sure they survived longer, placed bets through Sam just to annoy the Senate.

And every single one disappointed him in the end.

“They never last,” James said one afternoon, grim and irritated, as he came to you smelling faintly of sun-warmed marble and arena dust. “My champion is dead. Again.”

You looked up from where you were reading scrolls by the window.

He was trying to sound merely inconvenienced, but you knew him better than that. He wanted someone worthy to look at. He wanted a gladiator to hold his attention. brutal enough to make him forget, for a little while, that his own hands had become too dangerous for friendly combat.

The fallen champion had been strong, James told you. He was strong enough to please the crowd for a season, strong enough to make the bookmakers nervous, strong enough that his death in the arena that morning had earned a proper roar.

But he clearly wasn’t strong enough to be remembered.

He looked less like a grieving patron and more like a man offended by mediocrity.

“I need a new one,” he said. “Someone worthy. Someone the people can love too.”

You glanced up from your scroll and smiled. “May I come with you and choose?”

James turned to you, and for one brief second, he looked every inch the emperor: A man who commanded legions and broke kings. Then you tilted your head and blinked up at him through your lashes.

His whole face softened into hopeless defeat. The same sweet love that had ruined him in a theatre years ago, with the absolute stupidity of a young emperor in love, that Rome could burn as long as he had you.

So he walked across the room, took your hand from the scroll, and pressed his mouth to your knuckles.

“Of course, darling,” he said, because he would have rearranged the empire just to see you smile.

—

The training grounds were less like a spectacle and more like an animal pit. From the upper gallery, the yard looked almost elegant: warriors moving through dust as trainers calling instructions like generals shifting pieces on a map. Up here, with James’ hand resting at the small of your back, it smelled of sweat, leather, old blood baked into sand, and ambition so desperate you could almost taste it. Every man in that yard knew the emperor was watching. Every man wanted the patronage.

You adored it, which meant James noticed immediately.

He stood beside you in purple, watching the men below with the stern dissatisfaction of a man who had been disappointed too many times. But even as he observed the fighters, you knew part of his attention remained on you. James liked to pretend he was above jealousy when he indulged you. He was not. He simply loved you more than he hated wanting to keep you all to himself.

One of the trainers hurried to meet you, bowing deeply to James and then to you. He began explaining the men on the field, naming strengths, records, bloodlines, schools, failures, promising bodies and disappointing minds. James listened, but you drifted past the words. 

And to be fair, you didn’t even know what you were looking for until you saw him. 

He was not the largest man on the grounds, though he was broad enough through the shoulders to make the others look unpolished. He didn’t posture for the trainers or laugh with the other fighters or glance up at the imperial gallery in desperate hope of being noticed. He stood still while his opponent circled him, a delicate knife in one hand, head slightly tilted.

“That one,” you said, tilting your chin, “What’s his name?”

The trainer followed your gaze. “Dex, domina.”

Dex. Short, almost abrupt. You liked the sound of it at once, liked the way it sat in the mouth.

“He has not bloodied the Colosseum yet,” the trainer continued, careful not to overpromise in front of Caesar. “But he is promising.”

Promising was a dull little word for what happened next.

The man opposite Dex rushed him with too much confidence and not enough patience, and Dex simply let him come. He didn’t meet force with force. He waited, watched, measured the distance with a lovely accuracy your James had once loved. When the man came too close, Dex moved aside and threw his knife without flourish. The blade struck his wrist and the sword dropped. A second knife from his belt hit the sand beside his throat as he fell, close enough to make every man in the yard freeze. Dex stood over him, breathing steady, blood on his face, one last blade still waiting in his hand.

Gods.

James glanced at you.

You were smiling.

Not the smile you gave senators when you wanted them afraid but unsure why. This was private, because you were delighted. James knew this expression too well, because it was the same one you had worn the first time you saw him return from battle with dried blood at his cheek and fury still in his eyes.

He exhaled through his nose. “I’m not blind.”

You looked up at him, innocent as a temple offering. “I did not say anything.”

“You did not need to.”

The trainer suddenly became extremely interested in adjusting the leather strap on his wrist. Wise man.

James’ mouth twitched, but there was recognition under the amusement. He knew you had a type, and unfortunately for his dignity, your type flattered him enormously. You liked men with soldier’s bodies and haunted eyes. Men who could kill without hesitation, but would go still beneath the right touch. Men who seemed dangerous to everyone else and obedient only when they decided you had earned it. Men who looked like they slept badly, loved violently, and needed a hand at the back of their neck more than they needed mercy.

James, tragically, fit the description perfectly.

And now this gladiator in the yard did, too.

Dex was called into another match. He wiped blood from his eye with the heel of his hand and left a red smear across his temple, making himself look worse and better at once. The second fighter was quicker than the first, cleverer too, and now even James gave him his full attention then. You felt it in the way his hand shifted against your back, fingers pressing more firmly through the fabric of your gown. Dex moved like he was learning the man in front of him piece by piece. Not just fighting. He was studying, letting his opponent reveal himself, then punishing every mistake with precision.

By the time Dex put the second man down, James was no longer merely indulging you.

He was watching.

Dex straightened in the sand, chest rising and falling, blood bright against the pale angles of his face. Someone spoke to him, but he didn’t answer immediately. His eyes lifted instead, drawn up to the imperial pair standing at the upper gallery. For one breath, he looked at you, and there was enough heat in it to amuse you, enough interest in your beauty to make your smile widen.

Then his eyes moved to James.

And stayed there.

Oh.

It was not a simple admiration. It was not the clumsy hunger of a man looking at power and wanting proximity to it. Dex looked at James like a starving man looking at a fixed point in the sky. Like the emperor was not simply a patron or ruler, but a direction he needed to survive.

The trainer cleared his throat delicately. “He needs refinement, domina. But the instinct is there. 

James turned his head slightly, finally looking down at you.

He was already yielding. He had been yielding from the second your attention caught and held. 

“You think he is the one?” James asked.

“I know he is.”

“You like him because he is covered in blood.”

“I like him because he looks good covered in blood.” James gave you a flat look, but the corner of his mouth betrayed him.

“And,” you added sweetly, he does not seem to care whether the other men like him. He wants to be useful more than admired.”

James’ gaze slid back to Dex, who was now standing alone while the trainers spoke around him. His shoulders were squared, not arrogant and simply waiting.

“Useful,” James repeated.

You touched James’ wrist, thumb sliding over the seam where living flesh met metal miracle. “Can we please have that one, my love?”

James closed his eyes for half a second, as if asking every god in Rome to grant him patience. After all, James would have choked on his own laurel before denying his empress anything.

“As you wish,” he said.

You beamed up at him.

The trainer bowed quickly, already prepared to run off and make the necessary arrangements, but you lifted one hand to stop him.

“And have him washed properly,” you said, watching Dex stand bloodied in the sand. “Then send him to dinner.”

James froze.

You kept your face serene, as though you had suggested nothing unusual at all, as though inviting an untested gladiator to dine with the emperor and empress was merely a practical extension of patronage and not an indulgence you had already begun to enjoy.

James turned his head slowly. 

“He should meet his patrons properly,” you nodded.

“His patrons,” James repeated. He stared at you for a moment longer, then sighed as he lifted your knuckles to his mouth and kissed them with all the resignation of a man who had already lost.

—

Dex arrived washed clean and dressed in a fresh tunic.

The blood was gone from his face, which you thought was a shame, but the bath had left him flushed in a different way. His hair was damp at the ends. His skin still held the warmth of steam. The clean linen made him look too soft. He stood at the entrance of your private dining chamber with his hands at his sides and his eyes moving over everything: servants, exits, lamps, table, knives, James, you.

He was careful about it, which only made it more obvious. Dex did not stare like the bored nobles at public feasts. He looked, stopped himself, then looked again when he thought no one noticed. His attention caught on the gold at your throat, the bare line of your shoulder, the way James’ gold hand rested against your waist with shameless familiarity, as if even the emperor’s miracle of an arm had been made to hold you.

James had been touching you since Dex entered the room. Nothing scandalous by your standards, even when his hand dropped to circle the inside of your thigh over the imperial robes. You and James had done far worse in rooms full of senators, so half the Senate probably thought the two of you were indecent. The clever half knew better than to say so.

So this, really, was nothing.

It was just marriage, by your measure.

Dex looked as if he didn’t know what to do with it.

That pleased you.

“Sit,” James said.

Dex obeyed at once.

Not meekly, but as if command gave him relief. He sat with his spine straight, eyes lowered just enough to be respectful, hands still and visible beside his plate. The servants brought wine, figs, roasted game, olives, and honeyed cheese. Dex didn’t touch his cup until James lifted his first, and when he did drink, it was careful, almost ceremonial, like he was learning the rules of the room by copying one gesture at a time.

You smiled.

James sighed, and his hand settled over yours between you, bracketing your fingers. He could pretend to scold you all he liked, but he loved this too. The imperial couple on one side, the chosen champion on the other. It was a hierarchy so clear it didn’t need to be spoken aloud.

Dex loved it even more. You could see it in the way his shoulders eased when James asked him about his weapons, in the way his eyes relaxed when the conversation turned to balance, weight, and accuracy. The way he seemed to settle into himself once he understood what was being asked of him. Dex didn’t want flattery. He didn’t want aimless attention. He wanted direction. He wanted to know where to stand, when to speak, what pleased the people holding his future in their hands.

James was good at that.

For all the war stories, your husband had always been a diplomat when he wanted to be, even if nowadays it was harder to come by. He listened, and yet he could turn a question into a leash even the other man thanked him for it.

“So,” James said, watching Dex over the rim of his cup. “The throwing knives.”

Dex’s expression steadied at once. “Yes, Caesar.”

“Why do you prefer them?”

Dex glanced at the dinner knives on the table, decorative and useless, then back to James. “A blade is only honest if the hand is honest first.”

James chuckled and nodded.

There he was. Your James. The soldier under the emperor. He understood Dex before, and that was precisely what made him curious.

You leaned into your husband’s side. “Like you, my love.”

James didn’t look at you, because he knew he’d fold if he did. “Don’t start.”

Dex looked between you both, but his attention was fixed on the ease, the teasing, the way you could prod at Caesar without fear, and the way James allowed it, even craved it. The way his hand tightened around yours when you called him my love, as if the title mattered more than emperor ever could.

Dex understood hierarchy.

And this hierarchy was intoxicating.

James belonged above the world. You belonged beside James. And somehow, you had both looked down into the sand and chosen him.

“My wife has a good eye,” James said.

Dex turned to you with restrained attraction, made more tempting by the effort he put into controlling it. He thought you were pretty. Obviously he did. Most men did, and far less gracefully. But Dex looked at you like it was only part of the problem. You were not merely aesthetically pleasing to him, but you were the hand that had pointed. The reason he was sitting at an imperial table instead of sleeping in a barracks with blood under his nails.

It was almost too easy to see the obsession beginning.

“Did you know I chose you?” you asked.

Dex swallowed. “No, domina.”

His eyes dropped to your mouth for half a breath, then to where your hand rested inside James’. He corrected himself quickly, eyes returning to the table, but James saw it and smiled, though not kindly.

“My wife is beautiful, don’t you think so, Dex?”

You tilted your head toward your husband, amused. “James.”

“What?” he asked, almost scowling. “It’s a simple question.”

It was not simple at all, and Dex knew it. There was no safe answer, only a correct one. Too eager, and he disrespected the emperor. Too restrained, and he insulted the empress who had chosen him. Silence, and he failed the test entirely.

Dex took one careful breath. “Yes, Caesar.”

James hummed. “Only yes?”

You bit back a smile.

“She is…” Dex stopped, and for the first time all evening, his composure faltered. Pretty was insulting. Even divine felt dangerous to say in front of the emperor, though looking at you made him understand why men built temples, why they dragged marble from mountains, why they carved women into goddesses and still failed to make stone look alive. His eyes dropped, as if staring too long might be its own kind of offence. “She is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.”

You arched a brow, amused by how hard he was trying not to make it sound like confession.

“But,” Dex looked down for half a second, then forced his face back up. “She is difficult to look at properly.”

James frowned. “Difficult?”

“Yes, Caesar.”

“Why?”

Dex swallowed once. His hands remained perfectly still beside his plate. “Because looking too long feels disrespectful. Looking away feels impossible.”

Huh.

James stared at him, jealousy and pleasure moving behind his face in such quick succession that anyone else might have missed it. James liked the answer. Hated that he liked it. 

“Good,” he said.

Dex’s attention snapped to him.

James leaned back, one arm draped behind you, bronze fingers resting near your shoulder like a visible claim. “Would you fight for her?”

Dex didn’t hesitate. “Yes, Caesar.”

James’ smile deepened. “Of course?”

Dex lowered his head in certainty, and echoed him. “Of course.”

You felt James’ hand tighten gently against you. “And if she asked you to bleed?”

Dex looked at you then. There was no performance, no arena bravado. There was no desperate attempt to charm you. 

“If she asked,” Dex said quietly, “I would try to make it worth her attention.”

Oh. Oh.

You leaned in and kissed your husband’s cheek before his pleasure could sour into jealousy. His hand rose automatically to your face, thumb brushing beneath your chin, touch possessive and tender all at once. Dex watched that too, like he was studying not only you, but the sacred rules by which you and James existed together.

James gave him structure.

You gave him purpose.

Together, you gave him a north star to follow.

And from that night onward, Dex didn’t merely want to win.

He wanted to be chosen again.

—

Dex’s first fight in the Colosseum was meant to be a test. A public measure of whether your chosen gladiator could survive when the sand was real, the blades were real, and the crowd was real.

Dex did more than survive.

He made the Colosseum go quiet.

There was a stunned pause after the first knife left Dex’s hand and struck true, after his opponent lost the use of his sword arm before he even got close enough to swing. The crowd had expected a strong man with a shield or a loud man with charm. 

Instead, they got Dex.

Cold, bloodied, silent Dex, moving across the sand like he already knew how the fight would end. He didn’t roar or preen. He didn’t waste himself trying to be loved. His knives flashed in the sun, and men twice his size fell around him.

By the time the last opponent hit the sand, the silence shattered and the Colosseum erupted.

Dex stood at the centre of it, blood streaking down one side of his face, one blade still loose between his fingers. The people screamed his name like they had known it for years.

Dex. Dex. Dex.

It rolled upward, shaking the imperial box beneath your feet.

You looked at James.

James was already looking at you.

His face was composed for Rome, of course. The emperor didn’t gape at his own gladiator. The emperor didn’t look openly pleased. The emperors certainly didn’t look at his wife with irritation, awe, and reluctant arousal all tangled together, as if he hated how right you had been and loved you far too much to resent it properly.

You laughed beside James, delighted, your hand tightening around his bronze fingers as Dex lifted his eyes to the box. Not to the roar of Rome offering him its first taste of worship, but to James first. Then to you.

The people screamed his name, but Dex looked only at the two of you, blood on his face and chest rising beneath battered leather, waiting for command more than praise.

“He is good,” he said simply.

You turned your head toward him.

“He was wonderful.”

James didn’t answer.

Gods, he knew that tone. You had used it for jewels you didn’t need, silks you wanted, and treaties you had already decided he would sign because your mind had reached the end of the game before his advisors knew they were playing. 

You wanted Dex.

And of course because James could not please you, and definitely not because anything was missing in your marriage. James knew exactly how to make you fall apart. He knew the sounds you made when no one else was permitted to hear them, knew the vicious sweetness of your mouth when you wanted to ruin his dignity.

You did not need Dex.

You wanted him.

And James, jealous as he was, could deny you nothing.

“What prize could possibly match that?” you asked innocently.

James’ bronze fingers flexed. The plates clicked once, quiet beneath the thunder of the crowd.

“Coins,” he said.

You hummed, unimpressed.

“Better quarters.”

Another hum, but sweeter this time. 

“New knives,” James added, already hating himself for negotiating with a woman who had conquered him years ago.

“All lovely,” you murmured, leaning closer until your lips nearly brushed his ear. “But not enough.”

James closed his eyes for half a second.

He didn’t need you to spell it out for him. He knew when you desired. He could feel it in the way you held his hand, in the pleased little smile you wore while Dex stood bloodied below.

“You want him,” James said.

You didn’t pretend otherwise, but you did dress up nicer. “No,” you shook your head, “after that showing, he deserves me.”

The honesty was worse than coyness would have.

James looked at you then: his wife, empress. His impossible problem. 

You were not a coin purse. Not a trinket. Not a feast favour to be tossed to a victor.

To James, you were the prize above all prizes.

That was what made this make sense.

If Dex had fought like that, then no gold in the treasury was enough. No better room was enough. No blade, no title, no public honour could match what James valued most in the world.

Only you.

Only a night in your presence.

Only the empress he adored so completely that even his jealousy was no match for her wants.

James’ jaw tightened. “He is my champion.”

You smiled, slow and devastating. “Yes, my love.”

His eyes darkened at the patience of it. You lifted his bronze hand and kissed the cold knuckles, gentle as worship, cruel as victory.

“You do not have to,” you said, and you meant it.

James almost laughed.

Because of course he had to. Not because you commanded him. Not because Rome expected it. Because you had asked, and you were looking at him like that, and James had never survived your requests with his pride intact.

Below, Dex bowed his head toward the imperial box.

James stared at him for a long moment, jealousy and interest twisting together until he could no longer tell which one was which. Dex wanted structure. You wanted Dex. And James, doomed with how much he loved you, found the decision already made inside him.

James signalled one of his soldiers closer.

The man approached at once, bowing low beside the imperial seats. “Take him from the arena,” James said.

The soldier waited.

James’ bronze hand tightened around yours once.

Then, with the grim authority of an emperor giving away the only prize worthy of such a victory, he said, “Feed him and have him sent to the empress’ private baths.”

—

Dex entered your private baths like he expected to be punished.

It was the first thing you noticed. Not the blood drying along his temple, though your eyes caught there immediately. Not the sand still on the edges of his hair, or the bruises beginning to bloom beneath the torn straps of his armour. Not even the way he looked, battered and too beautiful for a man who had just made the Colosseum forget how to breathe.

It was the careful way he crossed the threshold. It was the way his gaze found you as he stood at the edge of the baths with victory still hot in his blood and confusion written plainly beneath all that discipline.

You were waiting for him in silk that the steam had made damp against your skin, standing barefoot by the water like you belonged to the marble and the gold and the heat rising between you. Dex looked at you as if he had been handed a god’s favour and didn’t know what to do. 

“Domina,” he said, bowing a little. 

You smiled. “Come here.”

He obeyed.

That was already becoming your favourite thing about him, how command settled him, how it gave his hunger something to latch on to. He moved closer until he was standing in front of you, close enough that you could smell blood beneath the clean mineral steam. Close enough that you could see how hard he was trying not to stare at you.

You reached up and touched the cut at his brow.

Dex’s breath caught.

“You’re still bleeding,” you murmured.

“It’s nothing.”

“I didn’t ask if it hurt.”

His eyes lifted to yours, confused for one bare second before you leaned in and licked the blood from the sharp line of his cheekbone.

Oh, that ruined him.

His whole body locked, because the arena had never prepared him for this kind of your tongue over blood, your lips at his skin, your fingers curled at the torn leather near his shoulder, holding him in place while you cleaned the red from him like you had every right to taste what his opponents had put on him.

When you pulled back, his pupils were blown wide. Lust moved through him like a blade drawn from its sheath.

“Domina,” he said again, but this time it sounded less like respect and more like a warning to himself, a reminder of your rank within the imperial roman household.

You smiled against his jawline. “You did such a good job.”

His hands twitched at his sides.

The praise struck deeper than your mouth at his skin. You watched him absorb it, watched the arena drain from him in pieces.

“You were beautiful out there,” you continued, fingers moving to the fastenings of his armour. “You let them think they had a chance.”

Dex swallowed.

“You liked that?” He asked. 

“I loved it.”

His gaze dropped to your hands as you began to strip him of the leathers, buckles, and strap. The armour that had made him look brutal became clumsy beneath your fingers. Piece by piece, you took the Colosseum off him.

Dex let you.

He endured it like reward and torture were becoming the same thing. His breathing changed when your fingers brushed bare skin. His jaw tightened when you kissed the blood at his throat. He looked almost offended by how carefully you touched him, as if no one had ever taught him bedroom manners. 

“You don’t know why I’m doing this,” you realised.

His eyes flicked to yours. “N-no.”

So honest. 

You laughed.

“You won,” you said. “You pleased the crowd. You pleased the emperor.”

Dex’s whole focus sharpened at James’ title.

“And me,” you added.

That was worse.

His eyes dropped again, not submissive in the way men faked for favour, but overcome by the structure of it. His emperor had sent him here. His blood had bought him not just survival, not just applause, but your attention.

You slid your hand to the back of his neck and drew him down.

“You understand now?” you whispered against his mouth. “This is your prize.”

Dex’s breath broke.

For a heartbeat, he looked genuinely lost.

Then you kissed him.

He didn’t move at first, and not because he didn’t want to. Want was written all over him now, in the tension of his shoulders, the heat of his skin beneath your hands, the painful restraint.

So you gave it what he understood best: an order. 

“Touch me, Dex.”

His hands found your waist with startling care, large and callused and still faintly dirtied from the fight. He kissed like he fought, concentration and instinct, learning you with frightening attention. He didn’t rush until you told him he could. He didn’t take until you made it clear you wanted to be taken. Every sigh you gave him became instruction. Every pull of your fingers in his hair became permission. His hands tightened at your waist when your robe slipped loose in the steam, the silk drifting from your shoulders like it had never belonged there at all. 

You, now bare before him, made him hungry.

You made him good.

You backed him toward the edge of the bath, kissing him down each marble step until the warm water closed around both of you and the last of his uncertainty burned away beneath your mouth. His breath hitched when you praised him again, cruel against his lips. “You’re so good for me.”

That was when you knew you had him.

That was when he accepted his reward because he realised he had earned you.

Because he had fought well enough for James to send him here.

Because Rome could scream his name until the stone cracked, and still nothing would matter as much as your hands on him, your mouth on his, your voice telling him he had done well.

“Again,” he said before he could stop himself.

Your brows lifted, finding his courage of demanding anything from his empress endearing. “Again?”

His eyes dropped. “Say it again.”

Oh.

You touched his face, thumb dragging gently over the place your mouth had cleaned. “You did so good, Dex.”

He kissed you harder then, like gratitude had finally turned into need.

The bathwater stirred behind him as steam curled around both of you. The marble pressed cool beneath your bare feet while Dex held you as if he had been given a prize too precious and too dangerous to survive mishandling. He was careful until you made him bolder. He was quiet until you pulled sound from him. 

And when you let him have you, when you rewarded him with your body, Dex learned that he would burn the whole Colosseum down just to earn you again.

—

Nothing changed after Dex.

James had expected a crack in the holy marble that is your marriage. Maybe an ugly distance when you returned from the baths smelling of steam, oil, and another man’s hands. Maybe a punishment from the gods for giving his champion the one prize in Rome James valued above gold, glory, and his own pride.

Instead, you came back to him.

The first night, he was waiting in your chambers with a scroll open in his hand and not a single word of it read. He looked composed because the emperor had to look composed, even when jealousy had been chewing through him for hours. But the moment you stepped inside, damp-haired from the baths, that composure went thin.

You smiled at him.

James put the scroll down.

You climbed into his lap, and tucked yourself beneath his chin like you had only gone away to return sweeter. His bronze arm locked around your waist first, then his living one followed, holding you so tightly you laughed against his throat.

“There you are,” you whispered.

His mouth pressed to your temple. “Was he obedient?”

You smiled and nodded.

That was how it started, with James holding you in the dark, jealous beneath you, asking in that dangerous voice whether his champion had listened. Whether Dex had touched you only when told. Whether he had waited. Whether he had been good.

So you told him.

You told him how Dex looked at you when you praised him. How he held you with those careful hands, so precise it almost made you sigh. How he kissed like he was learning a battlefield. How he never rushed until you gave him permission. How every sound you made changed him and taught him exactly where to aim next.

James listened like it hurt.

And then his hands would move, and that became the ritual. 

Dex fought. Dex survived. Dex won. Rome screamed his name louder each time because, unlike James’ other favourites, he didn’t die quickly or disappoint. He lasted. He learned. He bled and endured and kept earning the reward James had been furious enough, insane enough to give.

By the third time, telling James of your affair felt like foreplay.

By the fifth, neither of you bothered pretending otherwise.

You would enter his chambers with your robe loose and your mouth still swollen from kisses James had not given you, and he would already be waiting. Sometimes he dragged you to him before you spoke. Sometimes he made himself sit still just to torment himself

Then he would ask.

“Tell me.”

So you did.

You told him where Dex had touched you. How his hands had searched, learned, and course corrected. Dex was the picture of pinpoint accuracy, touching you like every reaction was a target he intended to strike cleaner the next time. He was careful until you made him desperate, until your praise pulled noise out of him, obedient in a way that made James’ heart beat quicker every single time you described it.

James was different.

James was brute force.

He was never careless with you, but he was hungrier. After the arm, he was a war machine trying to imitate a knife throw. He could pin you with effortless strength and still kiss you like he was asking forgiveness for wanting so badly. He had years of knowing you, years of loving you, years of learning exactly how to make your voice break.

Sometimes James copied what you told him Dex had done and did it better.

He would place his hand exactly where you said Dex had held you, lower his mouth to the same place, and ask against your skin, “Here?”

You would try to answer. He would make that difficult.

Other times, he would try to copy him and be worse because jealousy made him clumsy, and you loved that too.

You’d whine and pout and say, “He was gentle there,” and James would go still for one terrible second before pulling you under him with a sound that was almost a growl. 

“With my wife?”

“Mmhmm,” you would whisper, because you were cruel.

Then he would lose the thread completely.

There were nights when the jealousy became filthier, though James never would have admitted in daylight. The palace physicians tracked your cycles with incredible precision, and on your request they would tell you exactly when an heir would be impossible to produce. 

On the days the physicians had marked safe, you let Dex finish inside you, feeling him convulse in your walls as you moaned loud enough for the guards to be suspicious of your… activities. 

Then, you would step through the threshold of your chambers in a loose robe, with warm, sticky, white liquid running down your thighs. 

For one breath, James would only look.

Then he’d catch you by the waist and drag you against him with a ruined noise.

His bronze hand would close at your hip, heavy and cold through silk, while his living hand pulled the robe open like he had run out of patience for knots, fabric, distance, all of it.

“You let him,” he would say, voice rough against your mouth.

“Would you rather I not?”

His jaw would tighten, because no. 

He wanted you like this. He wanted Dex to leave something for him. 

So James would drop to his knees because he had decided that no trace of another man’s victory would remain on you unless he had tasted it too. He grip your thighs, and press his mouth to your core with a hunger that made your hands fly into his hair, and made sure Dex’s seed ran down his throat, too.

He would never admit how much he loved it. But there, in the dark, James loved the filthy proof that you had wanted, taken, returned. He loved the salt-sweet ruin of you, the heat of your body, the intimate evidence of Dex’s reward folded into your own pleasure. He loved turning jealousy into devotion.

Afterward, he would hold you like he had won a war.

You would lie against his chest, satisfied and adored, while his metal fingers traced idle circles over your hip.

“You enjoy this too much,” you murmured once.

James’ mouth brushed your hair. “I hate it.”

“No, you don’t.”

You would earn a small pause before he sighed. “No. I don’t.”

Because James would be lying if he said it was only jealousy.

Yes, Dex had touched what James loved most in the world. But he also loved the filthy thrill of hearing your pleasure described in your own voice. It was the unbearable sweetness of you coming back to him every time. It was the way Dex’s hands gave James something to compete with, something to imitate, something to conquer and fold back into your marriage.

And you loved both.

Dex’s focus. James’ strength. Dex’s careful hands. James’ golden grip. Dex asking to be worthy. James proving he already was.

And James, jealous as he was, kept sending Dex back to you.

—

One day, after a particularly brutal bout, Dex left the arena bloody enough to make even James’ head tilt..

That was how you knew his performance had been exceptional.

Three men had fallen in the sand. One had crawled, one had begged, and the last had gone limp with Dex’s knife buried so close to his throat that the whole Colosseum gasped before it screamed. By the end, Dex stood alone in the middle of all that golden victory, hair slick with sweat, blood at his mouth, chest rising beneath battered leather while Rome howled his name like it had always belonged to them.

But Dex did not look at Rome.

He looked to James as if telling him, I will have my reward now, Caesar. 

Your husband’s bronze fingers tightened around the railing.

“He’s going to the baths,” James said, like routine.

You should have been satisfied with that. Usually, you were. Usually, you let James pretend he was merely rewarding his champion, and you let Dex pretend he was only accepting what his emperor gave him, and afterward you returned to your husband flushed, and smiling, ready to tell him every detail until jealousy turned him needy.

But this time, you didn’t move toward the corridor to change into your robes.

This time, you moved closer to your husband.

Your hand slid over the cool gold of his arm, then up to his shoulder, your body pressing into his side in a way that was far too intimate for the public eye, 

James didn’t stop you. He only looked down at you with those ocean-blue eyes, already bracing himself against whatever impossible task you were about to ask of him.

“My love,” you murmured.

His eyes narrowed, because he knew you too well, because he knew that tone too well. “No.”

You smiled. “I haven’t said anything.”

“You have.”

You bit your lip and giggled, and his teeth clenched because he loved that sound and hated what it did to him. Below, the crowd still screamed for Dex. Above, you tilted your face toward your husband and let your lips graze the edge of his chin, light enough to be deniable, warm enough to ruin him.

James’ hand caught your waist.

You looked down toward the arena again, at Dex being led out beneath the arches, bloodied and unaware that his fate was being changed in real time.

“You’ve seen what he can do alone,” you said, low and sultry. “You’ve watched him throw knives. Watched him bleed. You have witnessed him win.”

James said nothing.

You turned back to him, your fingers curling into the fabric at his chest. “Don’t you want to witness what he does when the prize is in front of him?”

His breath changed.

Even a small break in the emperor’s composure was a little victory, proof that he was imagining it despite himself. He was imagining Dex and you at the baths, the champion he had chosen try to be worthy of the empress James adored.

“You are asking for trouble,” he said through gritted teeth.

“I’m asking for you.”

James looked at you then, and for a moment he was not Caesar at all. He was only your husband, furious with himself for wanting what you wanted, already bending his limitations because he had been bending for you since the day he ever laid eyes on you.

You cradled his cheek.

“If I want you there,” you whispered, “will you deny me?”

His eyes closed for half a second.

And you could see his beautiful, familiar, inevitable defeat.

James could deny senators and kings and entire armies and sleep well afterward. But not you, especially when you asked like that. Not when your mouth was so close to his and your hand was on his face and your eyes the exact sort of desire he had spent your marriage failing to resist.

“If you want me there,” he said, voice rough, “then I’ll be there.”

—

Dex stopped dead at the threshold when he found not only you, but James, at the baths.

The emperor sat in the corner on a low chaise lounge, half-shadowed by steam, dressed in nothing but a loose dark robe belted carelessly at his waist. For the first time since Dex met him, he had no laurel on. It was just James, bare throat lit gold by the lamps, arm resting along his thigh, his eyes fixed on Dex with a calm so heavy it felt like a hand around his neck.

Dex went still in the doorway.

Was this a trap? He thought.

What were the other options?Of course the gods would let him believe he had been chosen, rewarded, wanted, only to place Caesar in the room and watch him hang himself on desire. He straightened his scarred spine, hands open at his sides as if surrendering weapons he did not even carry.

“Caesar,” he said, carefully.

You chuckled from the edge of the bath.

You were standing in loose silk robes, as usual, hair pinned badly enough that a few strands had slipped against your throat. Beautiful, and smiling like you knew exactly what his mind had done to itself the second he saw your husband in the corner.

“Come here, Dex.”

He obeyed, because he didn’t know what else to do. Because despite everything, he still believed he deserved you. 

You reached for him the moment he was close enough, fingers curling into the front of his tunic, pulling him down. His eyes flicked once to James, instinctive and panicked, but you only smiled against his mouth before kissing him.

“Don’t worry,” you murmured. “I invited him to watch.”

Dex didn’t believe you at first.

How could he? The emperor sat ten paces away, watching his champion stand half-ruined in the empress’ hands. Dex could feel James’ stare on him like a blade. 

Then James shifted.

Dex looked before he could stop himself.

The emperor’s face had not changed much. His posture was still almost lazy against the chaise. But his bronze hand had disappeared beneath the loose fall of his robe.

He was stroking slowly, Dex realised.

Dex’s thoughts stopped.

Oh.

James was not there to punish him.

James was watching.

More than that, James, who had scowled all the way here, saw him and instantly realised that he actually wanted to watch.

You smiled and kissed the corner of Dex’s mouth. “There you are.”

Dex swallowed, eyes still fixed on James for one helpless second before he forced them back to you.“He’s—”

“Yes,” you said, sweet and cruel. “He is.”

From the chaise, James’ voice came low through the steam. “Please her.”

Dex’s whole body went rigid, but not with fear this time.

With purpose.

You laughed as his grip tightened on you, as the command settled into him like a blade finding its sheath. Poor thing. He had walked in expecting a trap, and instead found his emperor watching, touching himself, giving him the only order that mattered.

So Dex, who loved structure, who loved command, who loved being chosen by the two of you more than he loved the roar of Rome, bent his head and obeyed.

At first, he was careful. His hands stayed at your waist, gripping silk instead of skin, as if the emperor’s order had given him purpose but not quite absolution. He kissed your mouth, then the corner of it, then your nose, learning each sound you made with the same terrible focus he brought to knives and open throats.

“Dex,” you breathed, tugging at the front of his tunic.

At this point, that whine was familiar to him: it meant you were impatient. It meant you were needy.

Just like that, his mouth turned hungrier. His hands rose, rough and reverent, sliding over your ribs until his thumbs brushed beneath the loosened silk at your chest. You arched into him, and Dex made a groan so deep it was almost wounded. Behind him, James’ breath changed.

You smiled against Dex’s mouth.

“Did you hear that?” you whispered. “The emperor likes watching you touch me.”

Dex froze for half a second, eyes flicking over his shoulder.

James’ robe wasn't fully open, but it was opem enough to ruin any pretence of dignity. His human hand moved lazily beneath the fabric, but there was nothing lazy about his face. He looked furious. He looked starving. He looked like he wanted to drag Dex away from you and crown him for the privilege.

“Don’t stop,” James said, though, voice rough.

That was all Dex needed to push you back against the marble wall.

It didn’t hurt, but it was firm enough that your breath left you, firm enough that the cool stone kissed your bare shoulders as Dex followed you in, his mouth finding yours again while your hands worked at his clothes. Buckles came loose and damp linen slipped. His tunic fell somewhere forgotten near the bath steps, and yours followed after it, silk pooling at your feet.

Dex looked at you then, and even now, he still nearly forgot how to breathe.

“Touch her,” James ordered from the chaise.

Dex obeyed beautifully.

His mouth dropped to your throat first, then lower, kissing over warm skin while his hands explored places that made your fingers tighten in his hair. He touched your breast, careful until you mewled, until you dragged him closer and made it clear you wanted less worship and more ruin.

“Good,” James murmured.

Dex shuddered at the praise like it had landed under his skin.

You caught his face and made him look at you. “You like when he tells you that?”

Dex swallowed. “Yes, domina.”

Oh, James liked that.

Dex’s head turned just as James’ bronze hand punched into the wall beside him, splintering a white fracture through the marble.

For one suspended second, no one moved.

James stared at the damage, teeth clenched, breathing hard, hand still half-buried in the broken stone.

Then you laughed delightedly.

“My love,” you said, voice sweet as poison, “jealous?”

James dragged his bronze hand free with a painful scrape. “Continue.”

Dex looked between you both as if he had walked into a temple and found the gods wanting him bloody on the altar.

You reached for him again. “You heard your emperor.”

Dex lifted you before you could take another breath, hands firm beneath your thighs, carrying you to the nearest marble table like your body weighed nothing. He set you down on the edge with shocking care, then stepped between your legs and kissed you until the room narrowed to your lover and your husband’s command still ringing in the room.

His fingers slid between your thighs.

You gasped, head tipping back, and Dex followed the sound like instinct. He watched your face as he touched you, learning where your breath caught, where your thighs trembled, where your body tried to close around his hand.

His grip tightened at your knee.

“Mmm,” Dex hummed, voice ruined with obedience borrowed from another man’s authority. “Keep your legs open for the emperor.”

James made a sound from the chaise that almost sounded like a curse.

Your eyes fluttered toward him.

He was watching everything now. His human hand was moving harder now, rougher, while his bronze fingers flexed against his thigh as if he was seconds from breaking something else just to keep from joining in.

Dex saw it too, and gods, the sight changed him.

He touched you with more confidence after that. He had been ordered to please you, and James was watching him succeed. Every sound you made became proof of it. Every desperate little movement of your hips made Dex’s mouth part like he could taste triumph in the kisses you gave him.

“There,” you breathed.

Dex’s eyes snapped to yours.

“Here?” he repeated, curling his digits in you. 

You nodded, lips parted, fingers digging into his shoulder. “There, Dex.”

He did it again.

James’ bronze hand closed around the arm of the chaise. The wood cracked beneath his grip.

Dex smiled for the first time in a flicker of understanding, because he finally knew that this must be his greatest prize: You trembling open beneath his hand. James watching with jealous, hungry eyes. 

“G-good boy,” you managed, the praise breaking on a gasp as the pleasure finally snapped through you, your thighs tightening around his wrist while you came undone around his fingers.

Dex nearly dropped to his knees.

He would have, if not for your hand catching beneath his chin.

It was just enough to guide him back up, thumb pressed lightly under, making him look at you while his breath came uneven and his hand still trembled between your thighs.

“Oh, sweet thing,” you murmured, smiling as his eyes searched yours. “You please my husband, you know.”

Dex went very still. “W-what?”

You hummed, standing up though your legs still felt flimsy from the orgasm, dragging your thumb along the line of his jaw. “You pleased my husband in the arena. Didn’t he, my love?”

You looked past Dex.

James had gone silent.

That was how you knew the question had struck home.

He sat half-undone like he was holding himself back by the strength of his own pride. His face was unreadable to anyone else, but not to you. You could see the heat there, the terrible fascination he had no hope of hiding now that Dex stood before you, so desperate to be told what to do.

“James,” you said sweetly. “Join us?”

For one second, he didn't move.

Then the emperor stood.

The steam curled around him as he walked by the baths, bare beneath the slightly loosened robe. Dex watched him approach as if watching the sun descend from the sky. His breath caught when James stopped behind you, close enough that the heat of him at your back.

You leaned into your husband with a pleased little sigh.

“Tell him,” you whispered. “Tell him how he pleases you.”

James’ shoulder muscles worked once.

“You’re… precise,” James said at last, voice low. “You don’t waste movement. You don’t beg for the crowd, and that makes them beg for you.” His blue dragged over Dex’s pretty face, possessive now, and not for you. “You obey well.”

Dex shuddered.

You smiled. “There,” you murmured. “See?”

James’ hand settled at your waist. You reached back, caught his wrist, and lifted his bronze knuckles to your mouth. “Now kiss him for me.”

Dex’s eyes widened.

James’ didn’t. He only looked at you, long enough to pretend there was still a decision to make.

You pouted up at him. “Please?”

That was the end of that discussion, of course.

James caught Dex by the back of the neck and kissed him.

It was not gentle. It was not sweet in the way James was sweet with you. It was command first, hunger second, jealousy beneath both, and Dex didn’t push him away. He kissed his emperor like he had been waiting for the order his entire life. His hands hovered uselessly for one breath, then clenched at his sides. You laughed softly. “Poor thing. He doesn’t know where to put his hands.”

James broke the kiss slowly, breathing rougher than before.

You looked at Dex. “Take his robe off.”

Dex obeyed.

His hands were careful as they found the dark fabric at James’ shoulders. Your husband hated how much he liked being handled with such frightened precision. The robe slid down one shoulder, then the other, falling open beneath Dex’s touch until your husband stood bared in the golden steam, all scarred muscle, living flesh, and divine metal.

Dex forgot how to breathe again.

You stepped closer behind him and took his wrist.

“Here,” you whispered against the gladiator’s ear, guiding his hand forward. “Not so nervous. He won’t break.”

James gave you a look.

You smiled sweetly. “Well. Not from that.”

Dex’s fingers touched James with almost unbearable hesitation.

James inhaled.

Oh.

There it was.

You felt the shock of recognition move through all three of you at once. Dex liked this. James liked this. And you, standing between them with your hand wrapped around Dex’s wrist, liked it so much you nearly laughed.

“You pleased my husband in the arena,” you whispered to Dex, your mouth brushing the shell of his ear. “Now let me show you how to please my husband in bed.”

You guided Dex slowly, teaching him the shape of your husband’s pleasure, the pressure, the rhythm, the little changes that made James’ breath catch despite himself. Dex learned with terrifying focus. Dex did everything like survival depended on getting it right, and now he had James in front of him, breathing harder each time Dex followed your murmured instruction.

“Like that,” you praised. “Good boy. Watch his face.”

Dex did.

James hated that. James loved that.

And he did not stop it.

He did not even want to.

Dex looked wrecked by the privilege of it, eyes flicking between James’ face and your hand over his. You could feel his pulse jumping beneath your fingers. You could feel the moment obedience became hunger, the moment he understood this was not punishment, not indulgence, not a trap.

It was an invitation. Especially when you gently pushed him on his knees for his next lesson.

James reached out and caught Dex’s chin, forcing his gaze back up.

“Well?” James said, voice rough enough to scrape. “If you’re going to please me, you should learn from the best.”

—

Well.

After that, it became less about teaching Dex and more about watching both of them realise they liked the lesson.

At some point, your hands fell away from Dex’s wrist because he no longer needed the guidance. James had kissed him harder, meaner, with the kind of lust that should have made the room hostile, except Dex only leaned into it, too. They moved together badly at first, James trying to keep his pride intact while Dex tried to obey and compete at the same time. It was almost funny, really, how quickly your careful little plan had turned into your husband and his champion touching each other with the same hunger they usually reserved for pleasing you.

So you took your rightful place on the chaise.

You sat back in, watching them fuck each other like wild lions in captivity, both in heat. James with his bronze hand braced against the marble, body tense and beautiful, mouth parted around Dex’s name like it annoyed him to say it. Dex on his knees, then standing, then dragged close again, learning your husband the way he learned you, chasing every moan as if he was addicted. They forgot, for a while, that you were anything but witness and goddess and judge.

And gods, you enjoyed watching.

You touched yourself lazily, smiling when Dex looked over and nearly lost himself at the sight of you. James noticed, and grabbed Dex by the cheeks and turned his face back with a possessive warning, and you laughed because neither of them understood yet that this was exactly what you wanted all along. By the end, the baths looked half-destroyed.

There were cracks in the marble where James had gripped too hard. The lamps had burned low. The steam had thinned. Dex was on the chaise now, with his face resting in your lap, loose-limbed and wrecked, his cheek pressed to your thigh while your fingers combed gently through his damp hair. James sat on the floor beside you, back against the chaise, one arm draped heavily over your legs as if he intended to keep both of you there by imperial decree.

Both men looked ruined in the prettiest way.

Your husband’s mouth was still wet from having Dex come undone in his mouth, his breathing still uneven, and when he finally managed to lift his eyes to you, there was accusation there beneath all that dazed satisfaction.

“You planned this,” he said.

You paused with your fingers in his hair. Then you shrugged.

“I don’t see either of you complaining.”

James huffed a laugh against your knee.

Dex shut his eyes, mortified and pleased all the same. 

Of course not.

Dex was still in your lap when James moved closer, bronze fingers brushing damp hair away from his temple before he leaned down and kissed him there.

It was almost nothing, barely a claim.

Dex still froze, though.

James lingered there, mouth close to his skin, voice low enough that it felt meant for the three of you and no one else in Rome.

“Next time,” he said, “I want him with us in our bedchamber.”

Dex’s breath caught.

He looked up too quickly, hopeful before he could hide it. “Next time?”

You tilted your head, almost amused.

Of course there would be a next time.

As if James could look at him now and decide he had no further use for him outside of the colosseum. As if you could watch your husband kiss his champion and not already be thinking about how pretty they would look together again.

James’ eyes narrowed. Dex realised the mistake at once.

His lashes lowered, voice softened into obedience.

“Yes, Caesar.”

—end. 

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