Sorry about the delay everyone! I hope you're enjoying the story so far and there will be a lot more adventure to follow. This chapter is a transition into far more danger and suspense! Anyway, if you know my stories then you know the drill: any similarities between real people, events, etc. is purely coincidental. There is graphic sexual content, so minors beware! With that, grab your coffee or your lube, and enjoy!
Gladiator: Chapter 2, Sweat and Dark Intent
"Aella, my love! I'm home! I'll only be a short while–the stink of wine is upon me, and I need to wash it off. Aella?" The voice of Darius approached closer, and if I did not remove both myself and the Phoenix from my master's sight, not just one but three lives would end on the passing of the night.
A soft curse flew swiftly from the lips of the Phoenix as my heart nearly ceased in fear. Glancing back to the entrance but once, the muscular man who had ignited passion I had never known until now was on the verge of being discovered. Such an event would mark his death on that very instant, and surely my own. We had mere moments to act.
For the briefest instant, the Phoenix held a finger up to his lips to ensure my silence, then his darkly tanned hand grabbed my own and pulled me from the water. Tears of fear blinded me as we slipped from the pool with barely a whisper to mark our passage across the room. Ornamented marble pillars framed the room, and with much haste, we darted behind one just as my master Darius stepped into the room.
Darius footsteps paused mid-stride. The suddenness of it could only mean that he was immobilized by suspicion. Had he heard us? Would he notice the small patter of water across the floor that led to our only hiding place? My pulse was an ocean's tide within my ears as dizziness kept me from moving. The Phoenix held me against him tightly, unwilling to breathe it seemed.
"Strange..." This word alone escaped Darius' lips before he continued into the room and began to undress. The Phoenix's eyes closed in relief as his muscles relaxed. Upon opening them, he looked down at me and permitted himself a small smile. Wiping the wet stains from beneath my eyes with his thumb, he made a sign which I took to mean that we were no longer in immediate danger. The tide within my ears receded, leaving only the quick but steady beat of my heart. I held onto him, feeling the hard smoothness of his naked skin upon my own and feeling warmed against the chill of our wet bodies by his heat. He was like the vision of a flame in a blizzard or safe harbor in the wake of a storm–hope to calm the soul.
Suddenly the fire in the blizzard was snuffed out. "Darius! I...I did not expect you to return so early. Have you been bathing long?" Aella's usually powerful, seductive voice was at a pitch of nervousness I had never heard. I leaned my head against the chest of the Phoenix and listened.
"Aella!" Darius was surprised. "I called for you, but you must have been resting, my love. I was just washing the stink of wine away before joining you. I...are you alright? You seem troubled."
Her tone now was cautious but softer. "Yes, of course. My spirits lifted as soon as I discovered you had come back. You know how I miss you..."
His voice smiled. "Ah, how I long to know how much you miss me. Before we retire however, I was curious to know whether you've had guests." My heart skipped a beat. A long pause followed before Aella responded to the inquiry.
"Guests? At this hour? What a silly idea!" I noted the slight shade of panic in her voice.
"Indeed. Yet, I find the scent in this room rather striking, don't you? It reminds me of..." his voice stopped, then continued, "...battle. That peculiar odor following a battle. Do you smell it?" The Phoenix grew more tense against me, his muscles tightening.
Aella played her innocence well. She had practiced this many times. "Smell of battle? My love, you say the strangest things, and now of all times? I come to accompany you to bed, and you speak to me of such things?"
Another long pause. Then Darius' voice came again, yet the deceptively sweet tone was enough to make me shiver. "You're right, my love. It was silly of me to think...I apologize. Terribly inappropriate." There was a splash of water and the soft thuds of feet. "Come, let us retire for the night."
Silence. The Phoenix held himself a moment, then glanced around the pillar–they had left the room. He turned back to me, his dark green eyes glimmering. His rough voice was held to a whisper as he lifted his shackled wrists and ran a hand through my golden locks. "If only the gods had stopped time at your eyes, young Calix. That would be freedom enough for any man. But I must leave. Darius knows more perhaps than Aella suspects, and nothing good can come from seeking the ire of the Emperor's favored servant. My escort surely valued his life enough to hide at the coming of your master, and I must go and find him."
"I know...I..." My tongue caught in my throat, and I forced myself to look up into those pools of calm. I wanted him, needed him. Suddenly and without a word, I dropped down to my knees in front of him and grasped his cock in my hand. The shaft was a dark tan that matched the rest of his body and the head was a light pink color. As I held it, it grew in my hand, engorging and filling with blood at my touch. Finally, it pointed straight at me, large veins mapping the underside of his cock as it pulsed softly in my hand. A gleam of some clear fluid sparkled at the opening.
"Is this a parting gift?" The deep voice of the Phoenix was a raspy whisper, like sandpaper along the nerves of my spine. "Your lips would grant me peace, but..."
I did not let him finish as my tongue licked along the pink head of his cock, coating it with a shiny layer of spit. I marveled both at the salty taste and his reaction to my soft, wet tongue–he shivered and emitted a soft, tortured moan. His voice was urgent now. "Again...take more of my cock into your mouth."
I wrapped my wet lips around the head of his cock and slid my mouth down its length, careful not to graze it with my teeth. I did not wish to hurt him. He began shaking as I slurped around its girth, tonguing the small hole at the tip and drenching his cock in my spit. I wanted more as I sucked at his cock faster, bobbing my head up and down on its length as the head hit the back of my throat. He ran his fingers through my golden locks, grabbing the back of my head for a moment to shove his cock down my throat. I couldn't breathe as he held his cock in my wet, warm mouth, spit running from my chin and pooling on the floor as he suffocated me with his massive member. I wiped the pool of spit off the ground and used it to stroke myself, feeling my own slick grip driving me wild. When he pulled it out, I gagged and coughed as I twisted my other hand tightly along the length of his cock like he had shown me in the pool. He was groaning under his breath, passion alight in his eyes, as he stole his cock from my grip and slapped my face with it. He bent down a moment to taste himself in my mouth, licking and sucking my wet lips before rising to shove his cock down my throat again.
His muscular hips bucked back and forth several times, gagging me again before he pulled out and exploded. White, creamy fluid spewed in ropes over my face and hair as he pulled back his head and groaned as if in pain. His beautiful darkly tanned body, muscles taut and gleaming in the soft light of the torches, drove me over the edge as my cock ejected the same white fluid over my legs. I shook in ecstacy as the Phoenix lifted from the floor, licked some of his salty white fluid off my face and kissed me deeply, his strong hands squeezing the sweaty cheeks of my ass as we grinded and slid on each other's sweaty bodies.
He pulled back from me then, shaking his head and smiling as he ran over and grabbed his loincloth from the corner of the room. The gods had averted my master's eyes from both our presence and now the monstrous aching pain I felt deep in my chest. As the Phoenix took one last long stare at me and then disappeared from the room, I was confronted with a feeling I had never experienced before. What was this pain? What dangerous longing had Venus placed inside me, a lust and need so powerful that I would stop at nothing to find it again? The risks were of a number too vast to ignore, but as I picked up my garments and left that room of sweat and dark intent, I confronted an emptiness so cold that a future without him would prove impossible to bear.