Bertrice Small - Beloved

"We would have to wed secretly, Marcus, and that I will not do as long as I am the reigning queen. You know it! We have spoken it before."

"As always, you put Palmyra before all else," he said, his voice a trifle bitter.

"And you!" she accused him. "Are you not putting your family before our love? You see your duty, and you do it. Why, then, is it so different when I do the same?" Suddenly she stood up from the table with its barely touched meal. "I will not quarrel with you, my darling. Not tonight; this is the last night we will have for so many months! Come!" She held out her hand to him. "Let us bathe, and then let us spend the hours we have left in making love to each other."

"I don't want to leave you," he said low. "Youknow it, beloved!"

"I know it, Marcus, but we are two people who have been trained to duty and loyalty. Return to Rome, and receive your father's final blessing. I will be waiting when you come home to Palmyra."

Together they walked across the room to remove their garments by the side of the pool. He stood watching as she descended the steps down into the tepid water, and felt himself grow warm with longing at the sight of her golden body moving languorously in the black marble pool. Her dark hair streamed out behind her, a feathery cloak. Turning, she swam back toward him, her gray eyes devouring his tall body. His long legs were to her like the marble columns that lined the portico of the ancient Temple of Baal, and she shivered in anticipation of feeling his hard thighs.

Already his shaft was straight and firm, thrusting from the dark forest of his groin. Their eyes locked, and he moved down into the pool, walking slowly toward her. Zenobia felt herself growing weak with desire as she floated, her limbs losing their will. His hands closed gently about her ankles, and he drew her forward, his sure grasp moving up her legs. She ached for him, a yearning clearly visible in her beautiful face, as he tenderly entered into her body, filling her with the fiery fullness she loved. He stood in the waist-deep water, his throbbing lance buried deep within her as she floated before him, her legs wrapped lighdy about his body, her marvelous hair billowing in the soft swell of the waters.

The fingers of both his hands began to rub the nipples of her breasts with delicate little touches. She shivered, and while he smiled a slow smile her eyes closed in rapture and small waves of pleasure began to lap over her. Her entire being was finely tuned to the pleasure of their lovemaking, and she almost screamed aloud her bliss as she felt him throbbing and growing within her. Yet he remained perfectly still but for his fingers, which continued to tease at her velvety nipples.

Finally she could bear no more of such exquisite torture, and her body began to shiver as the honied sweetness flowed from her, crowning the ruby head of his manhood. She heard his soft laughter. "Oh, beloved, you are as ever an impatient and greedy creature." Then he withdrew from her, gathered her up, and carried her from the pool.

"I hate it when you are so superior," she murmured as she stood on trembling legs that threatened to give way beneath her at any minute.

One strong arm locked about her slender waist, and with his other hand he carefully dried her off. "I am not superior, I am only delighted that I can give you such pleasure," he said as he toweled her long hair free of excess water.

"But I want you to be pleasured, too!" she protested.

"I am," he answered, "and even more so when I see the look on your face." He picked her up again, walked across the room, and gently deposited her upon the sleeping platform. Lying down next to her, he said, "In the lonely nights to come, beloved, I shall relive a thousand times each moment we have spent in this room; each night I have lain by your side and loved you. I have never loved anyone else, and I swear to you that I never shall." He took her into his arms then, and they kissed until they were breathless.

Now he was afire to possess her once again, but Zenobia squirmed away from his eager grasp. Turning her body, she moved downward, covering his flat and lightly furred torso with little kisses. Teasingly, she nipped at him with her sharp little teeth, and he groaned as the tip of his shaft tingled with her assault. A warm, soothing tongue followed, and then she took him in her mouth for a few moments while he fought to retain control of himself. Just when he thought he would lose the love battle between them, she moved again, mounting him and plunging downward to envelope him deep within her hot sheath.

Reaching up, he crushed her beautiful breasts within his big hands, aching with incredible pleasure. Through slitted sapphire eyes he watched her as she flung back her head in ecstasy, the delicate veins in her smooth throat standing out as the blood pumped visibly through them. She shuddered again in pure fulfillment, and it was then that he regained control, turning her over so that he now rode her.

Slowly he withdrew from her, chuckling at her soft cry of distress. Taking his shaft in his hand he softly rubbed it over her lower belly, and she moaned, seeking him with hot, eager little hands. "No, beloved," he murmured, bending to caress the inside of her ear with his tongue. "Do not be too eager, for there is time for us." His tongue followed the intricate path of her other ear, tickling it lightly for a moment.

Beneath him she writhed, her desire growing again with each touch, each caress. His hands moved with love over her trembling form as he committed to memory the line of her body; the feel of her satin skin; her wonderful breasts-those honeyed hills of softness that reminded him of the great mother goddess herself; her long, strong legs that could grip a man in passionate embrace as easily as the sides of the great gray stallion she rode; the marble smooth twin moons of her bottom. He adored her completely, worshiping at the shrine of her, his love, his very soul.

"Oh, my love," he murmured into the damp tangle of her hair, "I do not know if I can bear the separation from you!" His voice throbbed with emotion, and Zenobia could feel the unbidden tears begin to straggle down her cheeks.

"Make us one, my darling," she begged him. "I shall die if you do not," and she arched to receive him as he thrust vigorously into her aching body.

Over and over again he drove himself into her willing flesh; and Zenobia wept as much with the joy of his possession as she did from the knowledge that in the morning he would be gone. At last his passion peaked, and his seed rushed into the warm darkness of her womb as he collapsed upon her breasts. She wept silently as he shuddered with his own pleasure. How would she manage to exist without him? He was her very life. Oh, Mama, she thought, if this was how it was for you and my father then at last I can understand the love you bore each other.

For some minutes they lay locked in embrace, not speaking. He could hear her heart gradually growing quieter beneath his ear, and he knew that his own heartbeat was slowing. She was the most incredible woman, he thought, and he didn't intend spending any more time in Rome than he had to. If his father was truly ill to death-and his mother was not a woman to exaggerate-then he would have to accept his responsibilities as head of his family; but first he would return to Palmyra for Zenobia. Then it occurred to him that there was no reason he should have to remain in Rome. He didn't like Rome, and he never really had. His younger brother, Aulus, was settled in Britain; his two sisters, Lucia and Eusebia, lived with their husbands away from Rome-Lucia in the north outside of Ravenna, and Eusebia in the south at Naples. His mother would probably choose to return to Britain with Aulus. He would be free to live in Palmyra, to make it his home, their home. He shared his thought with her, and he could hear the joy in her voice when she answered him.