Out Of The Lion's Mouth

But the bottom line was that he had saved her from death, even if it had been via the cardinal sin of lust, and that was a powerful force within her. When he came back and found her still standing there, naked as the day she was born, having not moved since he had left an hour previously, she had already decided that she would do whatever he told her. She had to make a choice, had to take a decision, and from what she knew, Love Thy Neighbour was the most important thing that the Lord Jesus had taught his flock.

"You are obedient now, young Lydia," he said as he found her remaining where he had left her. He smiled and drew close to her again. "You've made the right choice. There are rewards I can give you for obedience."

She looked up into his eyes, and tried not to show that she was enjoying his company. But she was. Her whole body cried out for him to touch her now.

He put his hands to her head, his fingers running through her silky hair, and he said: "you have nothing to fear from me, Lydia. I promise."

And she believed him, believed those trustworthy eyes, believed his good heart.

"What will happen to Flavia?" she asked, her voice shaky from nerves.

"I cannot save her," he said. "Sometimes I wish I could save all of the poor people who come through my gates. But I cannot afford to lose my wage."

"She will be killed?"

"Eventually. My men will have their fun with her first."

"Her soul will go to Heaven," Lydia said.

Marcus kissed her then, but she maintained her control, standing like a stone. She would give in to him, but she could not condone his treatment of the other girls. He kissed her and his lips were so tender and warm that she wanted him to do nothing but kiss her for the rest of her life. But still, she could not give in yet.

"You're well-spoken," he said, kissing her neck now, his hands moving over the smooth skin of her body, "where are you from?"

"Not far from here," she replied, not granting him the details.

"A local girl, though, correct? Your family must be well-off, you're an educated girl. They must've been shocked to find you dabbling in the blasphemous."

"My father is a doctor," she admitted. "And they were shocked. But I've said no blasphemy. Not against the true God."

"Hmm..." he said, his hands closing around her breasts - they felt so wonderful, so sensuous, so perfect on her skin. "So strong-willed. You know, I thought you would be. The moment I first laid eyes on you. You're different from other women we see in the Colosseum."

"Is that why you have brought me here?" she asked, her eyes penetrating him with a disapproving glare. Still, she could not afford to give in to him.

"Of course," he smiled, rubbing her stiff nipples between his fingers and thumbs, the sensations rippling throughout her body now, quickening her heart beat and deepening her breathing. She could not control that. "I don't bring many women home with me, you know."

"And that makes you a good man, I suppose?" she said acidly.

"No," he shrugged his shoulders, "I suppose not."

Oh but his touch was so wonderful. How could she keep up this act when she so desperately wanted to fall into his arms and make love to him? Her cares for his past were rapidly falling by the wayside, she just needed him to touch her, needed it so badly.

He stepped behind her now, and for a moment she could not feel him at all. Then his hands were around her again, tracing up her thighs, over her hips, her waist and up to cup her breasts again. She felt the soft hairs on his arms enclosing her, his chin nudging over her shoulder as he kissed her neck, his chest pressing against her back... his clothes were gone now, she was in his naked embrace now and his hardness was pressed against her behind.

One of his hands moved down past her navel now, while the other coaxed her nipple, it swept down slowly to skirt over her mound and slip into the warmth between her thighs. She couldn't help but let out a low moan, revealing her true feelings in a way she did not like to reveal, but was helpless to counter. His fingers gently caressed her slick labia, and she pressed herself back against his burning shaft, just wanting him to push her onto the bed now and fill her.

But for a while, he just kept her there in his arms, reaching round to kiss her cheek, reaching round to touch her breast, reaching round to explore her vagina with those flexible fingers slick with her emissions. While his fingers delved inside her, that thumb nudged up against her clitoris and she let out another, louder moan.

"You stick with me," he whispered into her ear, "and there will be plenty of rewards."

7

And the rewards had been plenty. At first, it had been slightly awkward between them, Lydia battling with her conscience, Marcus battling with her lack of trust in him. But it took only a few days, and it was as though there had never been a quarrel between them. Marcus would arrive back after a long shift and she would be there to comfort him.

He would draw her to him, kiss her so tenderly it felt as though her insides were melting, and touch her so gently yet so firmly that the most blissful sensations echoed and reverberated throughout her body.

He worshipped her like a goddess, he bathed her in kisses, he fed her orgasm after orgasm until she fell limp away from him, asleep in his arms. He put his face between her thighs and drank from her ever-flowing cup, addicted to her flavour as he dipped inside her vagina with that wonderful tongue, feasting on her juices while stoking her own flames through her labia and up to her engorged clitoris, drawing out the most powerful of climaxes.

He allowed her to have her wicked way with him, too, so that she might explore his taut body and place his sensational cock to her mouth, tasting his pre-come, licking his erect shaft and sucking the shiny end until he exploded inside her hot cheeks, splashing her throat with his creamy come.

Sometimes he would taste her while she tasted him, and each would be able to come together while tasting their lover's nectar, his head locked in her thighs, her head bobbing up and down over his.

And of course, best of all was when he sank his hardness inside her - sometimes from behind, sometimes from the front, sometimes standing up, sometimes lying down, but always he filled her tight vagina and always it felt like the most perfect thing in the world when he came and released his hot seed within her.

She was his slave, but he was hers too, and for that short period, life had never been better.

8

Now there was a knock at the door. Oh goodness, was Anthony going to check on her all night? True, her candle had still been alight, but still... She had almost drifted off to sleep, too.

Sitting up, she was slightly ashamed to find that she had been touching herself. One of her hands was wet and sticky from her juices - all from the memories.

"Hold on," she appealed to Anthony, or whoever it was, and reached for her gown.

It was strange how sexual she had suddenly turned in that one evening. For ten years, she'd blocked the past out of her head as best she could, and she hadn't even been near a man, not even thought about anything remotely sexual. Just laying her eyes upon him again, though, and the fire within her had been rekindled.

Quickly, she dipped her hand into the basin of water over on the table underneath the window, washing the slippery moisture from her fingers. She worried slightly that the room would smell of her arousal - she was certain it would - and that Anthony would realise what it was. But there was nothing much she could do about that.

"Miss, I, uh..." she opened the door to find that it was not Anthony. "I... uh... brought you an extra cushion..."

It was him.

"Marcus."

Just the word in her mouth seemed to set fire ablazing throughout her body. Oh God, but he had hardly changed a bit. Every inch of his body was irresistible to her gaze.

"I thought it was you," he said. "I just couldn't believe it."

There were questions aplenty in her head, about what he'd been doing since she seen him last, about whether he was married now, about whether he still loved her. But all those questions were answered and made irrelevant all at once when he moved inside the room and took her into his arms again. She was his, she'd always been his, since the very first time he'd laid eyes on her in that darkened room beneath the evil arena.

She was thirty years old now, he was probably close to fifty, but suddenly it seemed that the clock had turned back, and they were back in his little apartment next to the guardhouse, his strong hands pulling her gown aside before swarming all over her eager body, her hands desperate to pull his tunic off and open himself to her completely.

"What are you doing here?" he asked her, his voice a faltering whisper now, the tear forming at the corner of his eye revealing to her the immense pain he had felt while she had been gone, the pain that was the equal of the pain she had felt during the same time.

"I... I came to find you," she said, "I suppose I've always been looking for a way to find you again."

And now that she thought about it, it had been her that had driven their group to edge ever closer to Rome, the city she had escaped all those years ago, always subconsciously hoping to be reunited with the love that had burned so strong, yet so briefly.

He kissed her mouth, and as he held her in his arms, her hands moved behind his head, pulling him towards her, desperate to share her passion with him. This was the man who had made her feel the presence of God more than a hundred years of secret services in a hidden church. He had opened her eyes to the true meaning of love, making her feel so incredibly alive that when she had at last departed from his side, it had been as though she had died and was merely a ghost walking the earth in a desperate attempt to find him again.

And now the pain of leaving him was gone, the anguish she had been through from the very moment he had told her that there were rumours circulating the guardhouse about their relationship, rumours that would soon see her taken from him and fed to the lions without his consent, the torment she'd been through when he had said she would have to escape, fly from the city she'd spent her whole life in so that she might be saved. It was all gone. When he had said to her that he would rather lose her to the four winds than to the four lions that prowled the arena, she had not been so sure, craving the lions jaws as a way of escaping the pain of losing him. Now she was so glad she had done as he had insisted, run to the furthest edge of the Empire.

He moved her back now, and she did as he wanted and lay down on the bed. He climbed onto her and kissed her again, his hands moving to her breasts as his cock moved up against her wet groove between her thighs.

"I... I'm a Christian, now," he said, and she stopped briefly in her pursuit of his flesh to look at him in genuine surprise.

"You are?"

"The day you escaped, I lost my job," he said, "and when I was left without either my job or the love of my life, I knew there was only one thing I could turn to. I found an underground group and joined them."

She beamed the widest smile and then kissed him on the lips. "My Marcus," she whispered, and as his hot hardness slipped inside her, it was as though her life had started afresh.