Man Eater by Marilyn Todd Read Free Book Online Page B

ambition burns as fiercely as that inferno in the valley below. To pass through those ivory-inlaid doors of the Senate, my boy, you need a wife to your name.’
    Mother of Tarquin, he needed the reminder like he needed the hammering in his head, but one thing was certain. Never again would he make the mistake of letting his family contract a political alliance. Divorced, thankfully, from a profligate wife who ran off with a sea captain, he resolved that the next time he married, it would be for love.
    Orbilio rolled over on to his stomach. In a bid to circumvent the rules, he had cultivated the acquaintance of a crusty ex-tribune, ex-prefect, ex-consul. Sucking up to people was not Orbilio’s strong point, but if it meant smoothing a primrose path to the Senate House, so be it, and only last night the ex-tribune, ex-prefect, ex-consul had confirmed to him personally that, in his eyes, merit was paramount and Orbilio need have no further qualms.
    It was on the strength of those wheels being oiled that Orbilio had got so comprehensively oiled himself. No, sir. He would not be coerced into marriage again, not even by his own uncle, and especially not to the poor creature his uncle was pushing at him. The girl was fourteen years old, for gods’ sake! He rolled on to his back again. The appeal of pubescence was lost on Orbilio. He wanted a companion, a friend, a lover. A woman to laugh with, cry with, grow a wrinkled old rind with, not a mechanical producer of sons. With Gisco’s little redhead wife he’d enjoyed vigorous sex flavoured with the fun of conniving and the spice of forbidden fruit, but what he needed, what he desperately missed (and it sounded corny but there you are), what he needed was the love of a good woman.
    Or, in Orbilio’s case, the love of a bad woman.
    A woman, for instance, whose untamed locks had a shine you could shave in, whose spicy perfume sent shockwaves down a man’s spine, whose very image haunted him from sun-up to sun-down—after which, the pain increased tenfold.
    When he took a woman like that into his arms, there would be none of the hurried thrusts and quick gratification he’d sought with Attica. He would light lamps, thousands of them, on every level and every ledge, every surface and every sill and, in the flickering heat, he would kiss her eyelashes and drown in the dip of her collarbone. He would explore every inch of her skin until his tongue tingled with the taste of her sweat, then let his nose wallow in the scent of her curls—long damp tendrils that clung to her breasts, short damp tendrils that led down to heaven.
    The moon would rise and the moon would fall before he was through, and there would be no question of forgetting her name as he sometimes had with Attica.
    He would whisper it, over and over again. Claudia Seferius. Claudia Seferius. He would run his tongue gently round her ear, feel the flutter of her breasts. Claudia Seferius. Claudia Seferius. The featherlight touch of his fingertips would part her thighs, pulsing, pulsing, the drumbeat of their hearts setting the tempo. Claudia Seferius. Claudia Seferius. Faster and faster their bodies would sway until finally in unison…
    The knock made him jump. ‘Sorry to disturb you, sir. There is a messenger outside who says he cannot wait until morning.’
    Shit! ‘No matter, Tingi, I wasn’t asleep.’ Now wasn’t that the truth?
    Grateful to the darkness which hid the throbbing thickness between his legs, Orbilio opened the door to his Libyan steward.
    ‘The young man is also in rather a distressed state, sir.’
    He recognized him the second he set eyes on him. Standing in the shadows, that muscular form was unmistakable, despite the bandage round his head, and Orbilio felt his heart lurch.
    He was never sure of the relationship between them—
    Claudia called him a boy, but here stood a man, barely younger than himself, the slave whose eyes never wavered from his mistress and who hung closer than her own