Marilyn Todd - Man Eater

She gave a short, hollow laugh. How can you get through to an over-rich, over-confident, overpowering sexual magnet like Supersnoop? You can tell him you’re frightened, he’d understand that, and sure, he’ll be happy to comfort you…for the night. But try telling him how deep it really goes. That with danger comes a fire in your belly you never want extinguished. That unless you feel the cold thrill of horror you don’t feel truly alive. How can you explain the passion, the craving, the hunger for this prodigal life force to Marcus Know-it-all Orbilio?

On the other hand, survival was high on Claudia’s agenda and extra security (no matter what tall, dark, handsome form it came packaged in) was not to be sniffed at. Sergius’ guards had done bugger all when she was nearly fed to the crocodiles-and, as for the army, Macer had laughed in her face. Fed up with house arrest, was she? Well, he had a nice warm lock-up available if she preferred,

And Marcus had a point. The attack could come from anywhere… Since there was no obvious suspect, the whole family fell under suspicion. Claudia parted her lips and hoped it resembled a suitably abject smile. ‘Let’s call a truce.’

It seemed to take a fair bit of adjustment on his part, but Orbilio caved in eventually. He lifted his gaming cup, still full of wine. ‘To you,’ he said.

‘To peace,’ she corrected. Why was it from this angle the moon lit exactly one half of his face and that one paltry little flame managed to light the other?

Orbilio kissed the lip of the dice cup to the lip of her glass. ‘What about to friendship?’

She felt her heart thumping against her ribcage, and when she nodded, albeit reluctantly, a curl fell over her eye. ‘To friendship.’ Dammit, where did that stupid little quiver in her voice come from?

‘What about to,’ his own pitch had dropped to a gruff rasp, ‘to more than friendship?’

A pulse was beating at the base of his throat, and Claudia watched the light of the lantern flicker in the shine of his unruly mop, saw it reflect dark hairs on the back of his hand.

So much from one little flame, how hard it has to work in the cloying blackness.

Too much.

‘Too soon,’ she said, and the faience pendant round her neck threatened to choke her.

‘Too bad.’ Orbilio’s face broke into a sad, lopsided grin and, taking Claudia’s nose between his thumb and his index finger, he gave it a gentle tweak. ‘That really is too bloody bad,’ he said quietly.

The party was in full swing by the time Marcus Cornelius Orbilio had composed himself. On the pretext of checking the security of the courtyard, the animal sheds, the barns and the outhouses, his feet had covered some considerable distance and it was only now, standing barefoot on the marble floor of the atrium, that he fully appreciated the benefits of his own handmade patrician boots. Making his inspection, Orbilio had been only too glad of the cheap woollen tunic which itched and the rough leather sandals which flipped and flopped and chafed and blistered. They took his mind off a woman with wild curls and wilder eyes who kindled a white-hot passion inside him.

For the past hour or more he had breathed nothing but the acid stench of animal ordure, yet he could taste only the heavy, heady spice of her perfume. Was he being fanciful in thinking, in that distinctive mix of rare aromatics, there was a faint hint of the Indus Valley, the subtle fragrance of Babylonian lilies? He had been to Babylonia, spent long, hot nights under her stars as longhaired men in embroidered robes played thin and haunting melodies for the dancing girls, and he still remembered how those same girls jangled as they swayed in time to the music and the graceful way they arched under his love-making.

He wanted to take Claudia to Babylon, to Nineveh, now, this minute. He wanted to show her the wide, open skies, the rich, fertile plains, feel the baking sun of the desert, the sluggish pull of the Euphrates. He wanted to sail with her down the Tigris, show her ancient sites and magical rites, mysteries and pyramids and strange symbols etched on the walls. But most of all, by the gods yes, most of all he’d wanted to pull her into his arms and claim her as his own.

There on her bed, which was soft and springy and smelled of nothing but her, he had wanted to kiss and caress her, slowly, tenderly, nibbling and nuzzling until the crowing of the cock when the first motes of dust danced in shafts of early-morning sunshine and then-and then Orbilio rammed his feet back into his penitent sandals and winced at the blisters with an emotion close to pleasure. He was so close, dammit, so close! Spearing his fingers through his hair, he remembered the rise and fall of her breasts in that slinky blue tunic, the one wayward curl which caught in her eyelashes, the way her tongue darted over her lips to cover the tremor in her voice.

He could have pursued it.

Then and there, she was ripe for the taking, he knew it, she knew it. One hair’s breadth, that’s how close he was. A hair’s breadth from heaven and, Orbilio swallowed, equally a hair’s breadth from hell. To seduce her then, while she was vulnerable, and he would have lost her for ever. Janus, though, how he had burned for her. Still burned for her He steadied one hand against a column and thought how a man should make love to Claudia Seferius. Of the hundred lamps on every windowsill, chest, table and chair. Of a night full of laughter and longing, passion and pain. He imagined the lingering build-up, the tantalizing and the teasing, the stopping and the starting. Mother of Tarquin, the knowledge that he’d have to wait weeks, maybe months, wrenched at his gut, but to put a halter on Claudia Seferius would, at this moment, be like trying to bottle moonlight. At the Pictor family shrine, Marcus Cornelius poured a libation.

I cannot promise celibacy, he offered silently, there will be women, I cannot live without them, but so you accept my libation, hear also my vow. Such liaisons will mean nothing to me, for in my own way I pledge, henceforth, fidelity to Claudia Seferius.

Through the heavy oak doors of the banqueting hall, he could hear the babble of pitilessly cheerful chatter, relentless shrieks of laughter, and among it all, the distinctive cadences of a tempestuous widow with wicked curls and sinful eyes who marched to the beat of her personal drum and woe betide the man who interferes with the tempo. Orbilio silently saluted her. Far from perfect, that vow was the best he could offer. He would continue to seek physical gratification from other women, but when he made love, when he truly gave of himself, it would be to one woman and one woman only.

The timing he would leave up to her.

Inching open the door, he was greeted by a scene that might well have come from a Bacchanalian orgy. Tables and couches had been pushed back to accommodate a race, now in full throttle, where the mounts were men and the riders the women, their skirts hitched high to gain adequate purchase. The subject of his pledge was clinging like a limpet to a red-faced Pallas, Alis rather daintily to Corbulo, Tulola to Barea and Euphemia’s lusty thighs were clamped round Sergius, whose recovery was (Claudia was right) more than adequate. In the van, however, and leading by a considerable margin, strong sturdy Timoleon barely tottered under the weight of the junior tribune, throwing himself wholeheartedly into the party spirit by pretending to whip his horse along the straights. Taranis, the only man without a partner (and that presumably down to Orbilio), acted as umpire and marked each lap of the columns with a pitcher of wine.

Unseen, Orbilio quietly closed the door and decided there was only one way he could possibly make his entrance at this late stage.