For a Roman's Heart by Denise A. Agnew Page B

out, drew her across the small space between them, and snuggled her into his lap. She gasped and looked up at him with wide eyes. His gaze turned from tenderness to a heat she knew must echo in her own eyes. As he stared down at her, his steely right arm bracketed across her back in support. His large left hand clasped her slender left thigh. Hunger vanished in a single searing moment of awareness. His nostrils flared. He shifted, and his erection nestled tight against that left thigh. If she turned away from him, if they’d positioned just right, that hardness would find its way between her legs. Her tears dried immediately.
    His lips parted. “Eat your broth before it gets cold, Adrenia. You’re weak from hunger.”
    “Yes,” she whispered, disconcerted, hungry and indeed tired.
    He kept her on his lap as she ate, aware all the while of his attentiveness, his masculine strength. She wanted to trust him, but caution held her back from total reliance, still cautioned her thoughts and feelings. Before long she’d consumed an entire bowl of stew, the meat, vegetables and bread filling the emptiness. As the fireplace crackled and the orange glow danced over the walls and floor, her eyelids drooped. Exhaustion threatened.
    His hand caressed her hair. “You are too thin.”
    “There is little food every day in our family.”
    “There are only three of you?”
    “Yes.”
    “Your mother and father don’t look thin.” His eyebrows knitted together. “They starve you, they deny you reasonable clothing. They butchered your hair. Did your parents treat your siblings the same way?”
    “Until they were married. Now Secunda, Quarta and Quinta do as their husbands say.”
    He grunted, but he didn’t explain where his thought process led.
    “My mother is…she does as she’s told. As any wife does,” she said.
    Terentius sniffed, the sound disdainful. “Is that what you think?”
    She straightened her spine. “It’s what I see every wife doing.”
    A hint of a smile played with his mouth. “Well, I can guarantee you haven’t met every wife.”
    “Perhaps not. But everyone has someone to obey. Slaves obey masters. Children obey their mother and father. Wives obey their husbands. Centurions obey a higher-ranking officer, I imagine?
    “We do.”
    “I’ve made my point.”
    This time his smile lightened his countenance and made him seem less soldierly and more approachable. “You have.”
    “You obeyed your father when you were young?”
    “Yes.” His hand caressed her thigh, and she gasped softly. He ignored or didn’t notice her reaction to his hand tantalizing her flesh. “My family was…”
    His gaze looked tortured as raw hurt flashed over his face. Surprised by the intensity she saw there, she pushed for an answer. “Yes?”
    “My family was very different from yours. We possessed wealth and many comforts.”
    He looked pensive, as if his memories led him down a heart-wrenching path. She didn’t know for certain, but she sensed he didn’t want to explore his heritage as much as she wanted to find out about him.
    “You have a bit of an accent,” she said.
    His eyebrows sprang upwards. “Everyone has a different accent depending on where they are from in Britannia.”
    “This is something more.”
    “My family came from Neapolis in Italia when I was barely sixteen.”
    “Why did you leave Italia?”
    “It’s complicated, but my father was connected to the Emperor. My father felt we weren’t safe in Neapolis because he’d made some powerful enemies who opposed the Emperor Antonius Pius. We took over a villa near Deva that was originally built for another man who died of illness and left no heirs. I decided to join the army when I was sixteen.”
    “You’ve been a soldier a very long time.”
    “Twelve years. I am twenty-eight.”
    His age surprised her. There was something older and wiser about him she didn’t normally encounter with a man of his age.
    “A week after I joined the army, the